Too Many Vegetables!!!

Wow, I sure love Fall vegetables! A little too much I think. Last night I could barely finish the squash and today I came home with 4 kinds of squash and at least 10 different vegetables from the grocery store!! (Keep reading......)

Pre-breakfast and Run:

Started the day with a banana and PB before my morning run (after leisurely reading in bed and hanging out with the husband). Did a quick 4 miles before heading to an 11 a.m. brunch with an old friend. 340 calories burned.



Brunch:

Brunch was fabulous!!!!!!! We ate a new place called The Flying Biscuit (I think it's famous from Atlanta? www.flyingbiscuit.com). I planned my morning so that I could combine breakfast and lunch and get to indulge in whatever I wanted. Turns out I still made relatively healthy choices!

I ordered the veggie scramble (3 eggs, veggies and cheese) but without cheese because I knew it would be hard to log and I probably wouldn't miss it. It didn't even notice it was missing until the end of the meal when I tallied up my calories. SO glad I didn't "waste" 150-200 calories on cheese! I decided to only eat 2/3 of the eggs so I'd be eating 2 of the 3. I also asked for them to be cooked with no fat and honestly didn't taste any. So I think it's safe to log as 2 eggs plus sauteed peppers and mushrooms.



The dish came with a side salad (just lettuce with dressing on side) and a WHOLE WHEAT biscuit that was heavenly. It was rather doughy - and honestly didn't look as good as the white fluffy ones that I saw on other tables - but it was good. I usually prefer whole wheat, but this had a fat-free dairy taste or something like it. Not sure what was up with it, but I'd still give it an A-. (And I didn't get to taste the other kind to compare). But it's still amazing that a restaurant makes whole wheat products. I ate THE WHOLE THING and then some of my friend's too! Luckily, though, this resturant publishes some of its recipes online so I was able to find the recipe ones and calculate the calories. It says the recipe makes 10-12 biscuits, depending on size, so I settled on 11 for 250 calories each. Seems a little low to me, but it's probably right since I saw the recipe with the same ingredients lots of places.



My plate:



My friend and I also split..............an OATMEAL pancake!! It wasn't as good as mine, but it was REALLY good. It came with a peach compote on top. I ate half of the pancake (which I didn't need but ate anyway!) plus the peaches on top. Hard to log, but I just guessed as peaches in syrup. Again, I found the recipe and this time they logged in at 90 calories each! I think that's too low, so I settled on a 16 pancake batch (vs. 20) but that only raised them to 110 each. Now mine are much bigger in diameter, but these have butter and buttermilk in them (nonfat). So maybe it's right. I'll just have to hope I'm right!



So that was brunch!

Appx calories: ~642. Not bad for two meals in one!!

Afternoon:

I told the husband to "trim a bush" to clear the window view and came home to NO BUSH!! He decided it would be a good place for a tulip garden (which I requested and he bought bulbs for) so he just cleared the whole thing. I'm excited, as I wasn't really fond of the bush and love tulips, but it was quite a surprise. Here he is eating the rest of a biscuit in the new "garden."



After a quick trip to the grocery store, I spent the afternoon prepping for the week. I made my favorite: roasted vegetables!! Mushroom, taro root, butternut squash, parsnip, carrot. I can't wait to have these in my lunch tomorrow!!!! (And I have the most amazing sandwich, but you'll have to wait and see what it is!!)



And spaghetti squash.




I warned you we have too many veggies in this house right now!

I also made a new batch of my cranberry sauce with the expensive Williams-Sonoma vanilla extract - it is SOOOOO worth $20!! The whole sauce was just wafting vanilla bean through the kitchen.

Despite daylight savings time coming to a close, the afternoon got away from me! I didn't get in a walk, but I was on my feet a lot and got an assignment done for my nutrition class.

Snacks:

I ate about 4 oz of the vegetables as they cooked (~100 calories), licked the cranberry pot, and had 1/4 a cup of spaghetti squash right from the skin. Yum!!

Dinner:

Lentil-Walnut Patties with Melted Pepperjack,
Roasted Brussel Sprouts and Mashed Nutmeg Cauliflower

Here's the mushrooms, walnuts and garlic before sauteeing:



Things cooking:





Total dinner calories:~500

Dessert:

Despite being full, I was craving chocolate so I had a chocolate pudding cup with a weetabix. This is one bad things about counting calories. I knew I had some "leftover" so I could "afford" dessert. If I'd just been eating for health, I should have skipped it because I was not hungry. Or just had 1 or 2 dark chocolates to satisfy the palate but not affect the stomach. Lesson learned!



And dark chocolates - with stitches!



Total Sunday calories: 1565.

-340 thru run (plus more from shopping and moving, but I'm not counting those today, as they weren't that significant). I wish I'd gotten in a short walk, but husband wasn't up to it.

= net of 1225!

I'm actually really excited to get the week started because we have tons of healthy meals planned and lots of fun exercise to be enjoyed!

G'night!