Computer is Dead

Something horrible is going on with my computer. I have no clue what, but it's going from bad to worse each time I restart. I will blog when I can!

The culinary festival was an utter disaster. I totally pigged out. Ate at least 4 cookies, tons of samples, 3 mini chocolate tarts, a mini peanut butter cheesecake, more samples of pork, shrimp, etc., etc. I totally have a food hangover today. I have photos of 75% of what I ate, as well as some photos of Alton Brown, who was a big disappointment - he only lectured and didn't even COOK!!! WTF!? We did get to see him up close though, which was exciting.

Despite the food hangover, today has been really good (except for the computer problems)

Had a banana, then went for a 5.3 mile run!

Breakfast was oatmeal with baked apples, a date, and maple syrup.

Late lunch was a salad with veggies, cottage cheese and cantaloupe and a hummus and veggie sandwich.

Dinner is the same as last week - b(a different kind) and b. I have tons of healthy stuff planned for the week too! I'll get back on the wagon, but my stomach sure looks and feels fat today!

Kath

Late Lunch

I love having late lunches on the weekends :) I finished my nutrition project (on the effects of almonds on health and weight) and did some cleaning. The house is perfect!

I rarely have canned soup, but I'm always looking for new kinds to keep on hand when I need them. I decided to try Amy's Light in Sodium Lentil. It was good!! One of the best canned soups I've had, mostly because it didn't have that horrible tomato-onion flavor that most do. I bulked it up with frozen green beans, okra (a natural soup thickener), and sugar snap peas. Yum!!

Also had a slice of homemade blue cornbread the husband made for his mom. It was quite delicious (not sweet but perfectly buttery) but as you can see, 100 calories is NOT very much at all!! I had another half portion of this.



Lastly, I had some plain yogurt with pomegranate seeds. I probably didn't need all of this food, but I like a little variety in lunch and prepared it before I could change my mind.



All together:



What's not pictured? About 75 calories worth (which is NOT much!!) of Halloween M&M's. The husband brought them home from his mother's house and they are hard to resist. I had 75 calories before I knew it - seemed more like it should be 25. Oh well!

Lunch calories: ~550

That brings me up to about 1,000 for the day, which leaves a good amount for the culinary festival. I'm hoping lunch keeps me full pretty long. There will be wine, food samples, and desserts at the festival. It's really a dieter's worst nightmare!! My goal is to take photos of everything I eat, which will keep me from putting everything handed to me in my mouth. I promise a report later on, but I don't know if it'll be good or bad!

The Most Perfect Fall Saturday

Slept with the windows open last night and we were FREEZING early this morning. Around 6:30 I went and got the down comforter from the linen closet, and boy did that feel good. The weight and warmth resulted in sleeping until 8:00!! (That's late for me on Saturday).

Decided to get up and workout promptly today rather than pitter around for a few hours. Had a banana and PB before I left:



Workout was 30 minutes on the Stairmaster, 10 minutes elliptical, and 10 minutes free weight lifting, for about 400 calories burned.

On the way home, we stopped and got coffee. I got cinnamon-flavor with 4 oz of steamed skim milk (he measured exactly). I skipped the sugar-free syrups because I'm trying to cut back. It was still good, but not as good as it coulda been!



Continuing the Fall theme, I made another batch of cooked apples. I wasn't really hungry (thanks to lots of sleep, a big pre-workout breakfast, and the coffee) so I had a half portion of oatmeal. I topped it all with a chopped date and some toasted almonds that I browned in a pan. The almonds added the perfect touch!





Now on to lunch...

Fall Friday

So as I said before, dinner had a leftover theme and a Fall theme, well really just baked apples. I was having a major craving for them after seeing them in another food blog! What I came up with was quite strange, and probably not my best recipe, but I do have to note that the baked apples were DEE-licious!

Upon arriving home from work, I settled on the couch with a half glass of wine, followed by a few oz more, to watch "Good Eats" with the husband. Total wine about 5 oz?



Here are my apples cooking. About 4 oz of apple (it was a smallish one) with just enough water to cover and a generous sprinkle of cinnamon. I simmered this on medium heat for about 12-15 minutes until all the water was gone. I also added some dried tart cherries about mid-way through. Yum!



In the meantime, I sauteed 1/2 a zucchini with 2.6 oz of leftover turkey in a dirty (fatty) pan the husband used to cook a slice of bacon. I de-glazed the pan with a splash of our red wine!

Also cooked on the stovetop: 2 oz of rotini and a cup of frozen green beans.

Once the apples were done, I tossed them all together in a bowl:



It was quite delicious!



Total dinner calories: ~420
Wine calories: ~120

After we cleaned the kitchen (and watched more "Good Eats"!) we set out on a 26-minute walk. Another 100 calories burned!

Diner brings my day up to about 1635 calories.

-540 for exercise.

= net of 1100. Geez! I can't believe I wasn't hungry, but I guess that's what protein and veggies do to you! Perhaps I do need to go read the new "Calories In/Out" book on carbs. He might be on to something...

Smoothie Snack

Had the rest of my smoothie at 3:30. I wasn't terribly hungry and felt bad for snacking "just because it was there" but at least it was healthy! It totally filled me up. As a matter of fact, today was MUCH better hunger-wise than yesterday. I really wasn't hungry all day today. Maybe because I got 8 hours of sleep? Or maaaaybe because of my egg/protein breakfast???!

Dinner Suggestions

Anyone here today?

I've got leftover sliced turkey and apples. I'd like to combine them, perhaps by simmering the apples until they're soft and incorporating the turkey somehow? A pasta dish? A sandwich? A soup?

Also available to create a dish:

• Avocado
• Wheat bread
• Pasta
• Rice
• Frozen green beans
• Frozen peas
• Frozen sugar snap peas
• Carrot soup in a box

Help!

(You can post comments by clicking on comments, if you didn't know : ) )

9 A Day

Lunch was full of fruit and veggies! I'm sure I've met my daily requirements already.

I'll definitely be having the "complete breakfast" again because it held me all the way to lunch. I wasn't even that hungry on my way there at noon, but of course I ate anyways : )

Got a huge vegetable salad:

• 1/2 c of tofu
• 1/4 c edamame bean salad
• marinated mushrooms
• spinach
• mixed greens
• romaine
• broccoli and cauliflower
• lots of shredded carrots
• sprouts
  
• a tiny bit of sesame goddess dressing

The tofu was sooooooo good!!!!!! I just love the way they do it. Slightly sweet and in a very mild soy-base marinade (no oil). I thought about getting salmon to put on top, but I passed. Also considered hummus, but I skipped that to avoid asking for it. I avoided the hummus/pita chip samples with gum on my way in. And I decided that I wouldn't miss the nuts/raisins that always tempt me at the end of the salad bar. I was right!

Then I figured my lunch was too small (only about 250 calories) so I needed either a grain, dairy or fruit to round it out. Grains weren't available single-serving, fruit seemed boring. So I got a Fage yogurt, but I didn't even end up eating it!!! I decided when I was done with my salad that I was full and would save it for a snack. I also got an unsweet tea.



So this is the grocery store famous for its lunch-time samples. I decided before lunch that I would have a single oatmeal cookie sample afterwards and be on my way, which is exactly what I did:



Counted it as 40 calories, or "half a large oatmeal cookie" in Calorie King.

So then I walked around the shopping center some and decided to check out Carolina Smoothies. We had this place in Davidson my freshman year that eventually closed, but it had the best Triple Berry Smoothie. Well this place was very similar, so I decided fruit would be a good way to round out my smallish-lunch since I never ate the Fage (and had no spoon). So I got the Berry Blast, which is just pureed fruit and a little apple juice, for 211 calories. I drank half of it and the other half is waiting in the work fridge for snacktime!



So total lunch calories came to about 475. And I have a snack included in that!

Sweet....

Just gotta get through four more hours of work and let the Fall weekend begin! We're going to a culinary festival tomorrow that could be VERY dangerous, so I'll need to be careful. Otherwise I intend to eat 100% healthy!

Part of This Complete Breakfast

Woke up before my alarm again. So crazy! I would assume that means I'm getting enough sleep, but I still feel like I need to catch up a little this weekend.

Pre-workout I had cantaloupe and Life cereal:



Workout was a hard 60-minute spin class. Roughly ~426 calories burned, based on previous classes.

I spent the ENTIRE spin class debating what to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner only to come down this morning to the husband making himself the most wonderful smelling omelet. So I asked if I could have one too so he combined his to make two. It was wonderful!



Also had a few grapes and a large kiwi:



A slice of homemade bread with a bit of Smart Balance:



And a glass of milk, which I never would have had before, but really enjoyed!



All together:



Does that look yummy or what!?!

Total calories for the morning: ~560. That's OK. And this breakfast BETTER hold me until lunch. I'm going to my favorite salad bar (in Talley's Grocery) for a tofu and veggie salad (and this week I'm going to try to keep it lower in calorie than last week's 600+ lunch!).

Dinner tonight will involve leftover turkey and baked apple (because I'm in the mood!), but I'm not sure how. I have lots of flexibility for the day, so it should be a healthy one!

Dining Hall Part III

Aced my nutrition test!! There were 50 multiple choice questions and I know I got at least 48 of them right, plus 5 extra credits that I think I got most of. Sweet!

Dinner was not very good last night. The entree option was pot roast (eww) and the vegetarian option was pasta (calories) so I made a half sandwich and had a salad with both cooked and raw veggies. Felt a little deprived, but it still added up to 550 calories thanks to cheese, and a splurge on a little apple cobbler.

Rye bread with turkey, mustard, tomato and pepperjack:



Salad with cooked carrots, brussel sprouts, and "Italian vegetables" along with lettuce, broccoli, shrooms and sunflower seeds, topped with 1/2 tbsp honey mustard fat.



Cobbler splurge. Split this with the husband. I only had a small piece of crust and mostly baked apple (with sugar, that is):



All together:



Total ~550 calories, making daily total close to 1900. -425ish through exercise. So a little higher today, but I'll recover : )

Cookies + Milk

I intended to have ONE of the husband's cookies and 1 cup of skim milk. Well I ended up having THREE cookies because they were soooo buttery and delicious. I also had a small bite of banana nut bread too. Whoops! He did the recipe calculations and came up with 70 calories per cookie. I'm just going to assume they were closer to 50 and clock in at 260 calories for snack. That's probably a low estimate, but who's counting ; )





Leftovers after about 15 employees munched:



I guess I've had my fill of dessert for the day. Nothing for me after dinner tonight! I've got roughly 500 calories to burn at the dining hall. I'm not sure what's on the menu, but I'm thinking about having a huge salad with a veggie burger on top. We'll see.....

Good Calories, Bad Calories

Read this excerpt on the Good Morning America website about the new book "Good Calories, Bad Calories." I'm dying to read it.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3654291&page=1

My 2 cents:

I agree with what he says. Mostly the evolutionary part. I do not think our bodies thrive on meat, cheese and saturated fat, but I do think we should be eating a diet that comes from the earth, is not refined, and avoids sugar and processed foods (including refined carbs):

Basis of diet (at every meal): Plants, grains, and fruits

Supplemented with (a few times per day): Animal products (milk, yogurt, eggs)

Occasionally (like once per day): Animals themselves

And only rarely (a few times a week): Things that are made in a factory.

So I think his claims and research are great, but this author needs to be REALLY careful he does not promote his book like Atkins did, because tons of dumb Americans are going to go eat steak topped with cheese all day. Just based on this excerpt, he does not emphasize vegetables enough, and it's the "promotion" of saturated fat that is making the headlines. His message should be that saturated fats aren’t necessarily as bad as people say they are, but that doesn’t make them good enough for you that they should be the basis of a diet (which is how Atkins was interpreted).

So basically I agree that refined and processed foods could very well be the main cause of obesity (because they not only do funky things to insulin and hormones, but they make you want to eat MORE, which ultimately affects calories/in/calories/out). But minimizing refined foods does NOT mean eating tons of saturated fat and protein. It should mean eating more fresh fruits and veggies and grains in their ancient and whole forms.

Breakfast #4

As I said before, today was breakfast for lunch day! It was actually really filling, so we'll see how long I stay full compared to sandwiches, crackers and yogurt.

On the menu:

Oatmeal prepared with water with 1/4 cup of dried fruit and nuts trail mix and 1/2 of an apple:



(This was actually a HUGE bowl)



The other half of the apple, sliced with cinnamon. This was the biggest honey-crisp apple EVER. I logged it as 150 calories, or 10 oz, since I had half of one on Sunday and it was about 5 oz.



And lastly a cottage cheese for some protein (or my attempt to make this meal more balanced)



Also had hot tea.



Total lunch calories: ~525. (It's pretty high due to the huge apple and the 120-per-1/4-cup trail mix).

No walking today due to leaving work early.

I've been hungry all day today. From the moment I woke up. I've noticed that towards the end of the week when I'm getting less sleep from being so busy I'm much hungrier. I think I need to work on this and see if Thursdays and Fridays improve. But perhaps I'm just bored of work by the end of the week and need a break so Im more likely to boredom eat? Nah, I swear it has to do with sleep. I'd try to get 8.5 hours tonight, but my class goes until 9 and I have spinning tomorrow at 5:45! Bah!

Snack

Booooo for cereal. I was starving at 10:30 this morning. Stomach growling, so it was real hunger. I tried to delay the hunger with water, but it didn't work. No more cereal for breakfast for me!

I had half a Kashi Peanut Butter Chewy Bar. I wanted to save the other half for my class, but I ended up eating the other half 40 minutes later when I realized there was still 40 more minutes until lunch! Oh well.

Breakfast

Today was the second day in a row I woke up 2 minutes before my alarm. How strange! I'm fighting a mild cold, so I'm a little achy, but doing OK. Tonight is nutrition class, so it'll be a long one. But it also means I get to eat dinner at the dining hall!

I volunteered to bring in some baked goods for a party at work today, so husband made chocolate chip cookies and banana nut bread yesterday (since he's currently jobless it made more sense for him to make it than me after work). He did a wonderful job!!

Started with some leftover cantaloupe and a small piece of husband's banana nut bread. Decided to try it for breakfast so I won't have any for snack:



Workout today was the first day in over a year without my heart rate monitor, which is getting a new battery. Scary!! But I've been doing my workouts so long I have the calories pretty much figured out.

• 40 minutes elliptical
• 10 minutes running
• 5 minutes abs

= ~420 calories burned

Needed a quick breakfast today so I just had cereal. During my calorie-counting prime two things I never ate were cereal and sandwiches in restaurants, as I thought both were too many calories for the volume. But I've found that as long as I get one that's under 100 calories per 3/4-1 cup, then I get enough chew :) But this was a rather high-calorie breakfast for the amount of time it took me to prepare and consume it!

Trader Joe's Fruit and Fiber Cereal, a sprinkle of Life Honey Graham cereal, 3.5 oz banana, 9 oz milk:



Breakfast calories: ~485


I didn't have time to make a lunch last night so I thought it would be fun to have oatmeal for lunch! I'm bringing a HUUUGE apple, cottage cheese, and oatmeal to have. Should be a fun change! I just hope I'm in the mood for breakfast at lunch and not something savory. I need to try to have some protein/meat at dinner, but that all depends on what Queens cooks up. It's not exactly the most varied dining hall.

See you at snacktime!

Dinner

I did great tonight, mostly because there were only a few different appetizer-type things. Had too much wine (about 1.5 glasses) but it was a fun event!

• 2 ham biscuits with cheese
• 2 fried green tomatoes (2 days in a row!)
• 1 cup raw veggies with 1 tsp ranch
• 3 fried oysters
• 8 oz or so of wine
• 1 tbsp mixed nuts

Here are 2 fried green tomatoes, 1 biscuit and some veggies:



Totol calories: Around 700, which means I lost again today with a net of 1350. Sweet! Tomorrow might be more dangers with our work party at 3pm, but at least the husband made the sweets so I know the calories!

Snack

De ja vu!!

Just had some oatmeal for snack. A half portion. It was rather bland and not a nice consistancy because I made it with too little water, but I'm hoping the oats and cinnamon will hold me over until dinner tonight.



We're dining at a welcome reception for Davidson's new president at Charlotte Country Club. It's hors d'oeuvres and cocktails, so I'll be in major danger zone. Wish me luck!!

In other news, I totally just slipped in my heels and fell on my knees outside of my office. I don't think anyone saw, but my knee is throbbing and my back might be slightly pulled! I completely bit it. How embarrassing! I need to be more careful when walking. Luckily my oatmeal survived.

Life + Lunch

Went to the DMV this morning to get my license renewed. What a headache!!! I had to go to THREE different DMV locations plus an ATM at a gas station. The DMV near my house (and the only one in south Charlotte ) had a line 50 people deep out the door at 8am. So I had the husband navigate me by cell phone to the Express location (across town in a sketchy neighborhood) only to find out their camera was broken and I'd have to come back another day!! The woman there was very nice and directed me to the third location, even further outside of town. Luckily I did not have to wait long, however, I got to the counter and was told they don't take credit cards. The man was very nice though and told me to run to the gas station across the street to the ATM there, so I got in my car again (would have walked but he said not to in the sketchy neighborhood), only to find out the ATM was BROKEN!!! Luckily the gas station manager let me do cash back, and I now have a license that doesn't expire until 2015. Whew!!! Although the experience was horrendous, the DMV employees were all very nice and helpful.

***********

So the husband and I have an observation/debate (although there's really no contention) about our breakfasts. He always has eggs, meat, fruit and bread and I always have oatmeal/cereal with fruit and dairy. I used to have eggs a lot, but since I switched to a more filling breakfast, I think that eggs dont' hold me over very long.

Last week I made him oatmeal made with milk, fruit and nuts and he said he was hungry an hour later (it lasted me about 4 hours). Well as you saw earlier, the husband made me an egg breakfast this morning and you know what? It held me all the way until noon! Now I did have a stressful morning, so that could have delayed hunger, but I guess he wins the debate.

***********

On to lunch.........



On the menu:

• Sandwich
• Turkey
• 1/2 oz avocado
• Cucumber
• Mustard
• 1/2 serving of Kashi crackers
• Raw jicama and zucchini with 1 tbsp peanut butter
• Stonyfield plain yogurt
• 1/2 a kiwi with grapes
• A date for dessert
• Hot tea

It was a rather large lunch. I had wanted to save the veggies and PB for snack, but I decided to have them for lunch since breakfast was small. Perhaps not the brightest decision because I'm stuffed now, but oh well!

Sandwich:



Veggies with PB:



Crackers:



Fruit (before it was mixed):



Yogurt with fruit mixed in:



Date for dessert:




Lunch calories: ~600