Fact or Fiction?

Fact: My breakfast this morning reminded me of the American flag. 

Fiction: That these pomegranate seeds would be good until January 31st like the label said.  Last I checked today is the 28th and they were already tasting slightly tangy/gone bad. 

Fact: I still ate them though.  And plan to finish off the container today to prevent them from going…more bad.

Fiction: I ate only fruit and yogurt this morning. 

Obviously I added some cereal.  Quaker corn bran crunch to be more precise.

Fact: My boss was making sunflower seed butter cookies at 8:30 this morning.

Fiction: I completely stayed away from all said cookies and didn’t enjoy one crumb.

Fact: I ate one two.

Fact: I went for a walk with the babes today downtown to Starbucks and back (2.5 miles roundtrip).

Fiction: I took a picture of my Grande iced SF hazelnut coffee light ice.  With a splash of half & half. 

Fact: I love how I not only get a free dinner when I work, but I also sometimes get leftovers if I have enough food.

(Vegetable quinoa with grilled chicken.  Added some tomato-basil feta).

Fact: I’ve been pretty good about taking my calcium vitamin with lunch lately.

Fiction: Yummy orange carbonated drinks tend to help in absorption of calcium pills.  Especially when out of a stolen borrowed pint glass from the local pizza joint.

Fact: My old roommate snuck so many of these pint glasses in her purse that she had enough to give me my own set of 8 glasses.  Cool.

Fact: I went on a 1 hr 45 minute hike today.  Which probably wasn’t the smartest idea for my calf/ankle.

Fiction: I remembered to take a picture of my post-hike snack while chatting with the roommate.  Let’s say it was a small portion of plain yogurt with the rest of the pomegranate seeds.  (That part would in fact be a fact).

Fact: I froze in my tracks when I saw peanut butter cream cheese at Trader Joe’s today.  Yes.  Peanut. Butter. Cream Cheese. 

Fiction: Obviously I could resist.  And didn’t have any taster once I got home.

Deadly deadly stuff.

Fact: I waited to eat at babysitting tonight because I figured they’d have delicious yummy food, since they have in the past.

Fiction: I never use mixing bowls for salads.  Ever.

(Salad with tomatoes, goat cheese, and a sprinkling of walnuts.  With pear vinaigrette.  And a few veggie chips on the side.  Which ended up in my salad).

Fact: This dinner was enough to hold me over for oh…2 hours.  And then I had froyo.  Yummmm.

 

Tell me one fact and one fiction from your day!  Kind of like 2 truth and a lie, right??

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Marshmallow Dreams

Last night I came home from my 10 hour workday exhausted, poured myself a glass of wine (who am I??) and just plopped on the couch.

So yes – that is my excuse for not posting.

The morning started of with a usual breakfast of mine.

• Plain yogurt
• Kashi honey sunshine
• Nature’s Path pecan crunch
• Blueberries
• Peanut butter
• Strawberry jam

It looks so patriotic! Red white & blue!

My plain yogurt didn’t do the bowl justice. I must strain this stuff make Greek yogurt A-stat.

Lunch was one of my favorite frozen meals. Healthy Choice pumpkin & squash lasagna.

The sauce and veggies aren’t very good, but the ravioli filling!! Mmm mmm mmm.

Pretty hungry and snacky all afternoon.

+ Grapes
Snap peas
Turkey slices
2 mugs coffee & creamer

Dinner was something I made the other day. I love me some leftovers.

• Quinoa
• Stir-fry veggies
• Ground turkey meat
• Butternut squash sauce
• Lots o’ garlic

I also discovered that marshmallows and peanut butter are superb together. They have my blessing to make sweet sweet pb-marshmallow babies.

Visions of marshmallows must’ve been in the air last night because I came home to my rooommate making rice krispy treats!

Not even a huge fan of these, yet they’re still addicting.

Other snacks of the night?

Apple + PB & the last of my caramel dessert hummus 😦 I loved this flavor
Hot chocolate
2 glasses of wine – duh. Twas glorious.

And you can bet that I had a small piece upon awakening this morning!

Followed by a real breakfast 😉

• 2 Nature’s Path waffles topped with cream cheese & PB
• 3 egg whites topped with ketchup

Yummmmmmmmmm.

I’ve been overwhelming you all with WAY too many pictures, I know. So I’ll keep Junior year a bit shorter, promise!!

I moved into a small house with 3 completely new and random roommates! I felt I needed a change this year. While we mostly got along, we never completely “clicked” and therefore I don’t have nearly as many pictures with them!

I did find a great friend in one of them, however, and we still stay in touch 🙂

Our Christmas card pic

My room my roommates side.

Okay, let me rephrase that. My side:

No comment.

Old roommate reunions 🙂

For the first few months, I was also training for my marathon!

I also continued to run crazy long distances and underfuel my body all year long and I was always exhausted. I would rarely go out on the weekends because I wanted to get up and run the next morning. And I would always go to bed before everyone else because I couldn’t stay awake.

It was during this year that I got down to my absolute lowest weight. When I stepped on the scale and saw I was in the 120’s (128 to be exact), I was almost sickened. That was WAY too low for my body. I didn’t do it on purpose, but I was running 8-10 miles most days of the week, and extremely busy spring quarter. So busy I didn’t bring enough food with me on campus. I began to realize that I wasn’t eating enough and that I needed to gain a couple pounds, and this was when I started to introduce real foods (read: ice cream and cheese) back into my life.

I don’t have many pictures at all from that time of year, but I have a few. You can really see it in my arms and shoulders in other pics

On a lighter note, I’m off to run a few errands today and get ready for this weekend!!

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Knee Update

I’ve had a few questions regarding how massage therapy is going on my knee.  (You can read about my first knee pain description here, the first MRI results, and the second MRI and second PT diagnosis)

Just to qive a quick background, the physical therapist I saw in December recommended massage therapy to get rid of the scar tissue right below and around my knee. Once I got down here to school, I had a hard time with this. The physical therapist I began to see here at school wasn’t exactly focusing on massage so I began to look for professional deep massage therapists (and more expensive – eep).

As of a couple weeks ago, I had gotten 4 deep massages – all from different therapists. Each one was different, so I kept switching around trying to find one I liked.

#1 – was deep all over my leg, but literally focused 30 seconds on my actual painful spot. All over leg work is quite beneficial for my problem, but I also need significant massage work done on the actual scar tissue to work that out.

#2 – was not nearly as deep as the first. But she focused a bit more on my specific painful spot.

#3 – a shorter massage, so she focused more directly on my painful spot. However she wasn’t deep or strong enough at all.

#4 – this guy was more specifically trained for all-over sports massage for general health. I could see the techniques he used being quite beneficial to work out my kinks and tight muscles if I was currently running a lot.

As you can see, each one had their pros and cons.

The pain definitely began to get a bit better. It no longer throbbed while I was lying or sitting. It would sometimes still bother me if I sat with my legs crossed (in Indian style position), but not all the time.

The question was – Was my pain getting better from the massage? Or was it just not as apparent because I literally had taken off from all activity for 2 months?

Well last Thursday I attempted my first treadmill activity since the beginning of January. Monday I went again (1.5 miles run 2 minutes/walk 1 minute), and Tuesday I did the stairmaster for 20 minutes. (I still have been doing some hip exercises 2-4 times per week)

There was no pain during activity- good sign! But my knee definitely felt stiff and not nearly 100% okay. And there has been slight pain the past couple days.

So what am I trying to say? My knee feels exactly the same as it did before the massage therapy.

So there it is – the progres (or un-progress) that has been going on in my knee’s world. I haven’t been updating on it that often – didn’t want to constantly whine and complain over it!

Moving on…

This morning I warmed up a peach sprinkled with cinnamon in the microwave (to make it gooey and delicious) and topped that over my yogurt mix.

• Plain yogurt
• Kashi Golean cereal
• Micro’d cinnamon peach
• Scoop of Justin’s honey peanut butter

Delicious.

Then I set off for another doctor’s appointment, this time for my ear.

I’ve had a progressive ear infection starting 2 weeks ago. It started out just a bit itchy, which I thought was from swimming. Then the earlobe itself started to itch, and it just got worse and worse. This past weekend, my earlobe was swollen to about half the size of my whole ear! (Sorry if the picture is a bit gross)

Infected ear:

Normal ear:

It was excrutiatingly itchy all around it and inflamed – even behind the ear looked disgusting (I’ll spare you that picture 😉 )

It started to get a bit better on Sunday, and by today it hardly bothers me at all, but is still a bit swollen and dry so I kept my appointment. The nurse just diagnosed my ear with eczema. I’m pretty sure I had an actual infection, but oh well. It’s pretty much gone now, I just wanted to make sure it doesn’t come back in the future if it was from swimming. I just proceeded on my way to class since I was already a bit late.

Mid-day fuel was an iced coffee with soy millk & creamer.

And PB&J on a whole wheat bagel thin (eaten in the middle of class presentations, so no picture).

And snackage at work was a combo of things that in essence became a meal.

Homemade soup with chicken, celery and carrots.

A small bit of salad with Newman’s Own sesame dressing.

And carrots with dip (unpictured. I eat carrots & dip almost everyday, yet for some reason never remember to capture them on film memory card. I’ll have to do that someday before I die).

Din-din was quick and easy stir-fry. I cooked up some frozen veggie medley and asparagus with black bean sauce and soy sauce. Then tossed it with some raisins, slivered almonds, and quinoa I cooked up earlier in the week.

And 2 muggies of lurrrrve throughout the night.

PS: Thank you for all your tips regarding my pan! It’s about halfway clean after the dishwasher detergent soaking, so I’ll definitley try some other tips. I just feel kind of bad soaking it in front of the roommate after she’s already scrubbed it. Don’t want to come off rude

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Back for Leftovers

Yes, I made it back to school alive, thank you for asking 🙂 Sorry for my random and non-existent posts back home, but when I’m off my normal schedule, my routine just goes out the window. With blogging and eating. I can’t even tell you how much I ate last week, and I’m not talking about Thanksgiving food. When I come home to a FULL cupboard and foods I’m not normally around, I go crazy munching. Add that to the 3+ servings of ice cream, cake, and pies each night…and you get a wee bit bloated Tay-Tay.

So now I’m focusing on getting back into my normal routine and will hopefully feel back to normal by the end of this week!

I will also return to normal blog reading and commenting, I promise 🙂

Breakfast was the last of my frozen pumpkin pancakes topped with plain yogurt, pumpkin butter & syrup.

I was starving by the time I got home for lunch.

Black bean burger topped with leftover cranberry sauce & guacamole. Leftover turkey with BBQ sauce for dipping. And mushrooms mixed with cranberry sauce (sounds random, but was quite delicious).

*Please bear with the camera pictures.  Update on new camera coming soon*

I mixed up some leftovers for dinner as well. I stir-fryed up some onions with some turkey, tofu, and pumpkin seeds. Towards the end, I added some Annie’s Raspberry vinaigrette for marinating and cranberry sauce.

Served with black beans, quinoa, cauliflower, and more cranberry sauce.

The black beans with the sweet flavor of the stir-fry was delicious!

Dessert was a nibble of this fair trade dark chocolate I received during a presentation in class. However I think it was spiced with curry and I wasn’t a fan.

Since I left my memory card at school last week, a few past eats went unblogged about, I wanted to show off some yummies 😉

Last week I stopped at Einstein’s to restock on pumpkin cream cheese, and I had to try the pumpkin cream cheese muffin.

I’m not even a fan of muffins, but this was a-mazing.

Dessert I forgot about on Thanksgiving – pumpkin caramel turtle.

Salted peanuts, caramel, & pumpkin fudge all drizzled with chocolate.

Yummm.

And an itsy bitsy ice cream cone (guess what flavor! 😉 ) at the local Avila Valley Barn.

Perfect portion 🙂

And best burrito ever on the drive back yesterday.

Brown rice, chicken breast, lettuce, pico de gallo, sour cream, and the star of the show – mango vinaigrette (which they cook the chicken in).

It’s also Monday, which means my weekly “Ripples” email (a ripple of quotes). I’ll leave you with the one from this week:

May today there be peace within.
May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others.
May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content with yourself just the way you are.
Let this knowledge settle into your bones and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.

What I got from this was to live in the present. Not the past, not the future. Don’t dwell. Don’t regret. Don’t wait for the day when your life is going to magically become “perfect.” Sure, you can learn from the past, learn from things you’ve regretted, and look forward to the future. But you will never get these current moments back. So live and love!

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Veganized

How was everyone’s Thursday?

My vegan morning started out with my usual oats with a few substitutions and additions.

I omitted the egg, but added a scoop of flaxseed and chia seeds. Both can be used as egg replacers if prepared correctly, but I just added them right into the cooking oats on the stove. I always use almond milk in my oats and coffee anyways, so that was simple enough!

Topped with sunbutter, granola, crumbled vegan muffin I had in the freezer, and Quaker oatmeal squares.

Then my larabar tricked me again! I thought I grabbed a PB&J this morning, but it turned out to be cherry pie. I ate 1/2 pre-gym and 1/2 post-gym.

Run total: 3.5 miles TM

10 minutes whittle my middle. I completed a 3 minute plank today (on my elbows – I find elbow planks harder than staright arms). That’s the longest I’ve ever gone 😀 I’ve been doing 90 second planks, but today decided to go for 2 minutes. By the time I looked at my timer it was 2:20, so I thought “go for it!”

Decaf Americano + 1 pump peppermint syrup with soymilk while waiting for a meeting on campus. (I almost put half & half in, but caught myself just in time!)

Vegan lunch was kind of random. Unfortunately, I didn’t have too much to work with today since I’m trying to dwindle my food stash down in preparation of leaving town next week.

Cocoa chia pudding topped with agave, sunbutter & bananas.

And french fries (just sliced potato tossed with olive oil, garlic salt & pepper then baked at 400 degrees for 20 minutes).

However it didn’t hold me long at all, and I was starving for dinner around 5:00. I had an apple to hold me over while I ran to the store to pick up a butternut squash (on sale this week!!). And I couldn’t resist the day-old Vegan berry strusel muffin. It was a sign! Although delicious sounding, it was actually very dry and bland tasting.

(I guess my camera liked the muffin because she ate the pictures)

Dinner was another stuffed butternut squash. This time stuffed with a quinoa mix of:

• Quinoa
• Sauteed cinnamon apples & onions with brown sugar
• Applesauce
• Cinnamon

I also topped it off more sunbutter (I think I’ve had 5 servings of sunbutter today).

All followed up by a mug of hot cocoa. Made with almond milk, real cocoa powder(vegan!), and stevia.

I also had random handfuls of these chips all day.

I’ve been crazy munchy lately.

Thoughts on Vegan for a Day:

While I completely understand and respect everyone who follows a vegan lifestyle, I highly doubt I will ever decide to follow one myself. I’m sure it would be much easier if I actually converted to the lifestyle, and it was my permanent diet everyday, rather than trying to pay attention to it just for one day. Since I’m not used to eating this way, I had to check every label, and even thought of the fact that my gum might not be vegan!

Anyone else who particiated have any thoughts or opinions?

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Be you. Be happy.

Sorry for no post last night. Life gets busy, but I need to find someway to keep my blog friends in my life 🙂

I receive a weekly email from a speaker who once spoke at my school with a weekly quote or life lesson. This week’s quote stuck with me.

“Think of what you are and
all the fantastic potential of you.”

Next time you have “fat talk” or think down upon yourself, think of your positives. Think of those in your life that appreciate you for who you are on the inside. Think of all the good that you do on a daily basis, and the amount of lives that you touch.

Along those same lines, Amanda Beard, the U.S. Olympian swimmer, came to speak at my school tonight. Having been a big swimmer in the past, I was extremely excited to hear her speak. Especially since she was speaking on the issue of eating disorders. It was extremely moving and insightful. A couple points she made that really stuck out to me included:

• “I’m 20 pounds more than I was at my competitive weight. And that’s okay with me. That’s what’s great – is that I’m happy how I am now. I may have a little tummy, or a bigger butt, but I hold my son and none of that matters. I say ‘Look at my son! Look at what I made!'”
• She also mentioned how she looks back on her eating disorder days with such regret – that she spent so much time worrying about how skinny she was and how focused she was with her appearance, that she let her competitive swimming slip to the side. She didn’t enjoy her life. And what’s the point of life, if not to be enjoyed?

I’m glad I got the opportunity to see her speak 🙂

Instead of boring you to tears with a play-by-play of my Monday and Tuesday, I’ll just leave you with a photos of the meals.

Breakfasts have consisted of

Pumpkin oats

and Banana bomb muffin with sunbutter, along side yogurt with pomegranates and banana slices.

I made Angela’s banana bomb muffins the other night again. They are truly one of my favorites. My roommates seem to love them also since 3 were missing in the morning! 😉

Both lunches have been delicious pumpkin soup found at Cost Plus. It made a huge batch on Sunday night, so I’ve enjoyed it 3 days in a row now 🙂

Topped with avocado slices, parmesan cheese, & Mary’s Crackers.

The original recipe called for heavy whipping cream but I subbed in plain yogurt. I also added a can of pumpkin for good measure 😉 And it came out delicious.

To go alongside my soup, I made something that Meghann seemed to popularize around blogworld.

Pumpkin cornbread!

They turned out a little to dry for my taste, but I might have over cooked them since I made individual sized ones in a muffin tin. Either way, my roommates also enjoyed these as well 😉

For today’s lunch, I enjoyed the other half to my butternut squash as a side to my soup.

Mmmmm so so so good.

Dinners have been –

BBQ sunshine burger + carmelized onions + avocado + pear salad (crappy phone picture)

And a quinoa dish with a mix of nuts & craisins. Topped with a pumpkin sauce I whipped up the other night. Sidenote: I originally cooked up 2 servings of quinoa, thinking I could save some for later. But quinoa portions are teensy! I can’t believe the small amount that is 2 servings! Needless to say, I ate it all tonight 😉

I originally made the sauce to go along with pumpkin pasta  this weekend.  I started to follow a recipe, and then kind of just winged it. I combined on the stove:

• ~1/2 cup FF sour cream
• ~1/2 cup pumpkin
• Cinnamon, nutmeg, & salt
• Chicken broth
• Garlic

Actually pretty tasty!

In exercise news, I gave my knee a rest yesterday (after the hike) to do 30 minutes upper body strength + 10 minutes of whittle my middle challenge.
Today, I got in a 4 mile TM run + 5 minute whittle my middle moves consiting of:

• 1 minute scissors
• 2 x 1 minute side planks with under body arm twist (1 on each side)
• 2 minute front plank

Well it’s late, I’m tired, and I have to be up in a little over 6 hours. So good night all!

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Whittle while you work

So I got a couple interesting responses to my yogurt converation the other day. A reader Kristen commented that:

Hey, just read the thing about straining out the whey…whey is actually straight protein pretty much, it’s what they use to make protein powders. I’m a nutrition major too and we’re studying cheese making in my micro class right now and just went over what to do with the whey they strain out 😀

Very interesting!

Jenn also commented that she found this on another site:

“I called Dannon company and got the following information on the nutritional properties of the whey from yogurt: In 4 oz, the whey contains: approximately 30 cal., no fat, 1 gram protein 7 grams carbohydrates, 130 mg calcium”

When I looked up the information on whey, it showed pretty much the same nutritional components as above. And also, my clinical nutrition professor also reinfored the information today in our diabetes carbohydrate lecture – that the whey is mostly carbohydrates.

Thanks for all your input and opinions on the topic!

Speaking of yogurt…

Breakfast to go!

Kashi Golean, Heart 2 Heart, Quaker oatmeal squares, Sunbutter & yogurt.

And pomegranate seeds buried in there!

However once I got to school, I met my friend at the hot oatmeal bar (aka the salad bar at lunch time), where the oatmeal was also super cheap this week. I couldn’t reisist.

My bowl consisted of:

• Oats
• Raisins
• Sliced bananas
• Walnuts
• Almonds

Delicious.

I saved my yogurt mess for lunch post-gym, where I did

• 2.5 miles on the treadmill (3.15 total with walking segments)
• 15 minutes upper body dumbells
• 15 minute of whittle my middle ab work!

I know many bloggies are joining in on the Whittle my Middle challenge that Angela started. Who’s with it? I definitely am! I try and always incorporate at least 5 minutes of ab work every gym sesh, but hopefully with this challenge I’ll fit in 6-10 minutes of ab work even on days I don’t make it to the gym. You can do it any time. Right when you wake up, during commercials, or even when dinner is cooking! Let’s do it! Today’s Whittle my Middle ab work included:

• Front plank (90 seconds)
• Side plank (60 seconds on each side)
• 60 bicycle crunches
• Flutter kicks (30 seconds)
• Stability ball roll out (12 reps)
• Stability ball plank (20 seconds)
• Cross over crunches on stability ball (2 sets of 20 reps)
• Sitting Russian twist (2 sets 20 reps with 25 lb weight)
• Crunches with 20 lb weight held overhead (15 reps)
• Standing russian twist (2 sets 30 reps with 25 lb weight)
• Dumbell side bends (2 sets 20 with 20 lb weight)
• Crossover arm swing (2 sets 15 reps with 20 lb weight)

Phew! I was definitely hungry for my yogurt mess 🙂 And an unpictured small bowl of soup – sorry I slurped that baby right up!

Afternoon snack wasn’t big at all so I was hangry tonight!

Whipped up my dinner in less than 10 minutes and wolfed it down even quicker.

Stir-fry veggies, Buffalo chicken meaballs & one chicken potsticker over leftover Maple Pumpkin Seed quinoa.

Mmm obsessed with these meatballs. I’m so glad I “splurged”. Although I have so many to use up now. You know Costco and their double packs.

However I was never fully satisfied, and waited a bit for the hunger in my brain to catch up with my stomach. But it never really did. So not long after I had a Vitalicious brownie, a small bit of strained yogurt, and sunbutter.

Unfortunately no picture, but looked identical to this previous picture of mine:

Followed by some banana whip while studying clinical nutrition terms laughing with my roommate. With a crumbed Nutridel flaxseed cookie on top.

(sorry for the poor lighting)

Really wasn’t such a fan of the flaxseed flavor. It honestly didn’t have much flavor at all. I definitely loved the pecan flavor much more.

And hot chocolate…doh 😉

**cough cough** I thought my sore throat/cough was a 1-2 day dealio and wasn’t getting any worse.  But the tickle cough as definitely returned full force today!  I’m off to get my beauty sleep.  🙂 Night y’all!

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Peep peep!

I feel like it’s Sunday. But that’s probably because the roommates and I partied it up last night at Tuesday’s Pint Night, and lounged around the house today. Thank you Veterans 🙂 But seriously, thank you to all of you out there that do what you do. And to their families, loved ones, and friends. Much appreciated.

Yay for the CMAs!! Anyone else enjoying it?

Crunchy yogurt.

Combo of cereals (Kashi Golean, Heart2Heart, Quaker Oatmeal squares), banana, and crumbed pumpkin scone.

Light lunch/heavy snack. Whatever you prefer.

Mmmmm. Veggies Ketchup.

I then proceeded to the blood bank to…well…give blood obviously. Where I snacked on some unpictured chex mix.

I then rushed home, wolfed down an english muffin pizza, and got ready for the roommates first time out all together!

Awesome night out.

4/5 of us

All together now 🙂

Uh oh…bad sign? It was 2 for 1 night! 😉

It was a good and fun night 🙂 Except for the fact that the cranberry drink ended up all down my shirt. Fail. It’s soaking right now. Anyone have good stain removing tips from a white shirt?

I really didn’t feel too hot today, and therefore didn’t eat much. I sure made up for it at night though.

Dinner of leftover maple quinoa with chicken meatballs.

Served over lettuce.

Immediately after dinner I went straight for the ice cream. I normally don’t eat dessert at 6:00 pm, but whatever. It works!

And then immediately headed back to polish off the container.

Along with a couple of these lovelies.

And now I am enjoying a date night with my country music awards show. We’re pretty exclusive 😉

Oh and a nice big bowl of air-popped popcorn + olive oil + garlic salt.

How did this little guy sneak in there? x2

But honestly the combo was killer.

Wow, I’ve had quite the sweets tonight. Mehh. Oh well.

Okay, back to oogling over Keith blasting his vocals 🙂

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#notinSF Baking

First off, I recently won both Danica and Paige’s awesome giveaways! I must have been wearing my luck underwear socks (??) those days. Dang – should’ve been paying closer attention. Thanks ladies 🙂

In other news, since I was #notinSF on Twitter all day yesterday, I decided to take advantage and use the kitchen! Lately, I’ve felt that all my meals have consisted of easy-peasy boring schmorning throw-it-together from the freezer ingredients.

First, baking is expensive! I was trying to follow the November Challenge of $100 spent on food this month – but just yesterday alone, I spent over $50!! That is beyond a lot for me (my weekly grocery bills are usually $15-$25). I’m a huge frugal & sales shopper and usually only buy what I need or what’s on sale that week. However, it must have been luck that I ran out of tons of staples this month (flour, cocoa, cornstarch, oil…and needed to purchase molasses).

Dang baking goods!

And I couldn’t turn down these roadshow meatballs from Costco. “Limited time” really sucks me in.

So for dinner, I combined my new meatballs with my new butternut squash for a Maple Quinoa Stuffed Butternut Squash.

First, roasted both halves (one with salt/pepper & one with cinnamon – for later). Next, I stuffed the salt/pepper side with a quinoa mxture:

The stuffed segment consisted of:

• Quinoa
• Buffalo meatballs
• Onions
• Pistachios
• Pumpkin seeds
• Light rice vinegar
• Lemon juice
• Salt, pepper, garlic salt
• Maple syrup

The maple syrup was a completely last mintue addition to make it a sweet & savory concept. It worked quite nicely!

My tummy hated me after this.

I forgot how much I miss & love butternut squash! And how easy it is to make. Definitely need to take advantage of the season.

I’ve also been wanting to bake recently, so I decided to try out an adapted recipe of the vegan pumpkin scones Megan recently cooked up. I halved the recipe, and did a few substiutions (such as oil instead of margarine – I had none), then popped them in the oven this morning.

I know oil and margarine are completely different, and my scones probably turned out much more “doughy” because of it, but they were still delicious!

My roommates loved them and said they were more “cakey” than “crumby”.  I never eat scones (see T-vlog below), so I have nothing to compare, but I loved them! I helped myself to half of one straight from the oven.

Eventually I got hungry for an actual breakfast.

• Kashi Go-lean
• Nature’s Path maple pecan crunch
• 1/2 sliced banana
• Other half of my WW pumpkin scone
• Strained yogurt

Fueled my gym sesh quite nicely where I did another 4.5 mile dreadmill interval workout. I’m obsessed with the intervals lately. But man, I notice how much more intervals rev the metab – I’m way more starving doing intervals than I was just going slow and steady.

Sorry for no more pics throughout the day but unpictured highlight eats include:

• Other half of my butternut squash (Holy moly I need to go buy another A-stat. Forgot how much I love them!!)
• Chocolate Heart Thrive warmed up with chocolate almond butter (mmmm yes please. Loved the gooey chocolate chips in the bar)
• Banana whip with 1 scoop pumpkin ice cream & sunbutter.

Hey hey hey…check it out! Another V-log? Or T-Vlog? Enjoy 🙂 And sorry I seem super spacey in it – when I go back and watch it now, I seem to “umm” and stumble quite a bit…

Edited to add: I looked up types of pastries, and wowzers – I had no idea it included so much!  I definitely love cinnamon buns, baklava, and PIES.  I love pies.  Especially dutch apple (with the crumbly top), pumpkin & pecan.  Okay – so I definitely do like pastries!!

Pssst…and how was everyone’s weekend?!

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You Tricky Lara

I haven’t been as hungry as I was today in….well a while.

Breakfast was the last of my frozen oatmeal pumpkin pancakes.

With Greek yogurt & sunbutter layered between each. And all topped with syup.

Nommmmmm. Guys – sooo good. These are the best pancakes I’ve ever made. And the yogurt in each layer just adds so much.

With a bowl of fruit + yogurt. Honeydew, 1/2 a peach, 1/2 a banana.

Although I was crazy late for the bus, so after a few bites, stuck this baby in the fridge for later.

Clinical Nutrition lab midterm was ehh. We had 2 patients to evaluate and interpret their blood lab values. Then had to determine the type of anemia and write up SOAP notes (page long subjectie, objective, assessments, and plans). I knew 1 patient well enough, but got stuck on the other diagnosis. We shall see.

I was starving halfway through the test, so I kind of just wanted to be done with it so I could eat. This:

What I thought was a PB&J lara.

Bite.

“Man, this PB&J has cherry overload.”

Bite.

“Dang, weird how different bars of the same flavor can taste so different.”

Bite.

“Okay, this is one tart baby.”

Oh. Surprise!

So that’s why there was so much cherry flavor.  You tricky Lara, you.  Being in such similar wrappers.

Didn’t sweat nearly as much at the gym today. Must’ve been that ridiculous stairmaster yesterday. Evil machine.

• 2 mile run (broken into 5 min. run/2 min walk segments)
• 20 minute upper body strength
• 10 minute abs

Off to work (on the way ate my fruit/yogurt from the morning) where I had lunch. Leftover asparagus quinoa.

Obsessed with the flavors in this dish.

Still pretty hangry after this, but I tried waiting for my brain to catch up. I finally had some carrots & multiple cups of coffee, which seemed to do the trick. But not for long. Less than 3 hours later I was beyond shaky with hunger (I swear quinoa never keeps me full!). I went crazy trying to satisfy it.

Apple.

Handfuls of cereal.

Trail mix.

and 1/2 a banana.

Yesterday, I realized my free Starbucks ice cream coupon expired today, so I knew I had to use that now or never! No way was I letting that sucker go to waste 😉

I’ve tried the Caramel Macchiato flavor (love) before, so this time I decided to try out Mocha Frappucino.

Check out those swirls!

Tasted remarkably identical to a mocha frappucino (really?  Never would’ve guessed that from the description). But I still like the caramel macchiato better. Probably because I don’t like chocolate ice cream much. And I’m in love with caramel.

I also found (drumrolls please)…Pumpkin Pie yogurt!! No not Stoneyfield, but Vons/Safeway has their own brand of it (Lucerine brand). I’m a huge fan of their light gingerbread flavor. Unfortunately the pumpkin pie is low-fat and not light (so 28 g. of sugar!!), but splurged 😉 I’m sure it’s delicious! And $1 raspberries 😀

8:00 pm and a starving Tay both lead to an easy and quick dinner. (Repeat alert!)

English muffin pizzas.

Half savory: pizza sauce + ricotta + cheese + turkey pepperoni

Half sweet: pumpkin cream cheese + pumpkin & ricotta mixture + cinnamon

Small dinner, but my snacks from the afternoon finally caught up to me.

Small dinner also = snacking later. Oh who am I kidding, I always have a nightime snack, big dinner or not.

Raspberries drizzled with agave.

And hot cocoa (x2)

All right, I’m out. Finish packing is a must.

What is everyone’s night time snack of choice?
Mine is definitely ice cream. Or dates with PB/AB. And I have hot chocolate every. Single. Night.  Yummm.

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