Food policy

Breakfast was the same as yesterday but somehow held me through the morning better. The other half of yesterday’s smoothie and another piece of bread with peanut butter.

For lunch I had last night’s leftovers but remembered to toss on some ground ginger. I don’t know how much it really enhanced the flavors, but I’m not complaining!

Also had a cookie for lunch-dessert. I was going to skip the second until a co-worker brought in iced molasses cookies full of HFCS. I had a nibble and then ate my second oatmeal cookie to keep from more nibbles.

My husband didn’t get out of his lab job until 6. To hold me over until I could eat with him I had the last of the Red Lobster cheddar biscuits. Rather stale, but still tasty!

I need to go grocery shopping so for dinner we finished off the tater tots and I had a black bean Gardenburger. Come to think of it we could have had eggs for dinner. Oh well!

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I’m only about 70 pages into The Omnivore’s Dilemma but it’s reinforced my interest in attempting to eat only whole, natural food. I also listened to one of Yale’s Rudd Center iTunes U lectures about food policy and how it could affect nutrition and the environment. My goal for the next month is to eat as many un-chemically processed foods as possible. Nothing with unpronounceable words or possibly based in corn (except maybe actual corn). Ideally I’d like to stick to things with a very short ingredient list. Expect salads, frozen veggies, smoothies, whole grains and legumes. And my baked goods. The only fake things I’m going to expect are my Rieces Pieces. Om nom nom. While one person changing they way they eat may not make a huge difference, the local food movement will send a message. I can’t afford to eat completely local but I plan to do the best I can on a very limited budget.

Through this I also hope to feel better: better rested, more energetic, and maybe even feel better about my body too. I’m going to get back to running (I’ve let myself take several days off to rest up from Saturday) and hopefully make it back to pilates as well. That’s my goal, help me stick to it!

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Off to watch the Vampire Diaries!

Higgeldy piggeldy

I don’t know why rotated pictures are too big when right side up. All I can do is apologize!

I had spinach that was about to be on its last leg so I made a small but thick smoothie last night before bed. I drank half this morning and will drink the other half tomorrow. No measurements but it contained spinach, nectarine, vanilla whey protein powder, vanilla soy milk, banana, and some water.

Today I tried a new peanut butter! Jif has a new natural style peanut butter. I didn’t examine the ingredient list before buying though, it contains peanuts and sugar with less than 2% of salt and molasses. It was pretty good, not too salty, thankfully. And no stir!

For lunch I had some chili that I bought at the snack bar in the library. It was pretty tasty but having celery in the chili kind of threw me off! Sorry about no picture :/

I got home rather hungry so I had an oatmeal cookie

And maybe a serving of Greenwise wheat crackers. I just know I finished off the box, it seemed like right about a serving.

At Target last night I grabbed a bag of steam-in-the-bag veggies (Archer Farms), a harvest blend which is basically mushroom, carrots, brocc, sugar snap peas, water chestnuts, and onion. I made some brown rice and tossed it with teryaki sauce and some of the veggies. Hubby had some too and I have the leftovers packaged up for lunch tomorrow!

I think I’ve reset my camera to take smaller pictures, we’ll find out tomorrow! I’m going to shower and make my way through another disk of Gossip Girl before Glee!

Please sir, may I have another?

Sorry about missing last night, it just means you get an extra long post tonight!

Breakfast yesterday was a very green monster and bread with peanut butter

The green monster had a very ripe banana and a handful of frozen rhubarb, water and a ton of spinach. It was really thick and it was nice to have one fresh that didn’t have to be shaken!

The farmer’s market was small but pretty cool. It was hard not to buy everything I wanted, but I reminded myself that the winter squash season is just beginning. I came away with a big bag of basil

Okra!

I also bought a bag of granola. I had this granola at a coffee shop about a month ago and really liked it

And I brought home a raspberry muffin and a blueberry muffin to split with Hubby for (second) breakfast

The raspberries were pretty tart but the blueberry muffin seemed to have a bit of cinnamon in it!

Since we had the muffins at about 11:30 we didn’t eat lunch until about 1:00. Hubby and I just split a blue box of macaroni to which a hot dog was added after the picture was taken

Everyone was pretty hungry after sitting out in the sun during the football game so after a brief stop at Kroger we came home for some mozzarella sticks

Dinner was burgers, finally! My craving for burgers had actually faded, but I won’t say no! With pepperjack cheese, red onion, and ketchup

We watched Watchment before, during, and after dinner (it’s long!). Something I could have lived without. It’s long and slightly complicated and I was tired. I know it was supposed to be big, but I don’t get it.

Breakfast today was fast and easy. Yogurt and Kashi Go Lean Crunch. The sweetness of the cereal helped a lot with the plain yogurt.

I ate on the back deck with the dogs while mystery roommate and his buddy slowly woke up in the living room. I already forgot about my new granola! It was nice to eat outside though.

My parents and one of my brothers came out today for the annual Atlanta area Shop Hop. Atlanta knitting stores host a week where if you buy something from each participating store you’re entered to win big prizes. One of the stores is all the way out in Watkinsville, about 15 minutes from our apartment. Mom organizes her trip to see our new apartment around the shop hop every year and dad and my brother decided to join. We had hoped to go back to Last Resort for lunch but there was a line out the door so after trying a couple of other places we ended up at Mellow Mushroom for lunch.

I got a Greek salad

I also had a slice of veggie pizza. I know many bloggers who ask for no butter or parmesian on the crust, but I adore MM pizza crust. My favorite ever. Butter it up, my friends!

Unfortunately the crust seemed really thin and a little too toasted. I stole some of Hubby’s crust from his ground beef and mushroom slice and that was much better. The boys stuck to the meat while my mom and I had veggie. And I got to bring some home for dinner tomorrow! Yum yum yum. I also drank about half of my mom’s Bass.

After lunch we dropped the Jasons at the apartment to watch football and picked up Alex to go to Mainstreet Yarn and Fibers. It is such a cute shop. I need to finish the projects I’ve got going now so I can find something new to knit! Soon after the family left and I took a nap. Waking up it was kind of disappointing to realize that all the things I was looking forward to this weekend are over. I sat outside and finished reading 26.2 Marathon Stories. Until it started raining.

Dinner ended up being some brown rice and beans that have been in the fridge since Friday.

And I couldn’t resist having a few pieces of okra, microwaved with olive oil and salt

Yum yum yum.

Now I get to look forward to seeing my cousin, running my first race, and exploring the Ellijay Apple Festival next weekend!

Yoga I missed you

Breakfast was a smoothie! This is the other half of Saturday’s smoothie. I froze it after drinking the first half to keep it for this week and forgot about it. Yay nutrients!

I also had a lick of peanut butter while giving Rose her pills.

I didn’t have my usual slice of bread with peanut butter since that’s essentially what I had for lunch… So exciting, right? Good thing I still love peanut butter after all these years. I also had some Sunmaid berry medley dried fruit on the side (in lieu of jelly)

I ate lunch at 11 and worked through my normal lunch break because I left early to go to the doctor. Just a check up, I’ll call in 2 weeks to make sure everything’s healthy. They were refusing to keep refilling my birth control without seeing me in person though. Before leaving the office at 1:30 I also had this:

Sugar! But it has live cultures so I’ll roll with it.

Since I was driving by the store on the way home anyway I stopped in to buy more spinach and some plain yogurt for breakfasts the rest of the week. After I got home it was time to run!

Exercise: I started in on the sprint workouts on Monday and even though I couldn’t hold out for the instructed duration it still left me with sore quads and a strained right calf. Thankfully the calf was feeling better this afternoon so I thought I’d try today’s long run anyway: Run 40 minutes; for the next 8 minutes run one, walk one. I covered 3.69 miles in the first 40 and finished over all with 4.3. It’s so cool to think that each run is a new PR for me at this point! I was pretty excited.

Dinner: I didn’t follow Brendan Brazier’s recovery plan very well and just sort of ate as I got hungry, about 45 minutes after getting home. I’m sure this looks rather familiar, but I had Husband’s leftover mac’n'cheese from last night, a dab of potato salad, and some almost thawed veggies.

That’s a lot of macaroni. I’m not stuffed though so no complaints here.

After a shower and bathing Rose I just did Yoga Download’s 20 minute Lunar flow (#1) and feel all nice and relaxed. I’m now leaning towards and episode of Gossip Girl before watching Glee at 9!

The unhealthier side of me

Well I didn’t get up at 8:00 to run, but I did get one in later! It was tough, slow, and I was running with a cramped diaphragm the whole frickin time. I strongly considered waiting and just doing tomorrow’s scheduled run but chose to run today, skip tomorrow, and run again on Monday.

I had a couple of unpictured pieces of bread with peanut butter, one at 11:30 when I got up and one after my run. After my shower I had a green monster! It included the last of my spinach, banana, protein powder, some rhubarb.

We had football games on all afternoon which of course requires football snacks. The gang decided to wait to grill burgers and dogs until after the game so lunch/first dinner was Totinos pizza rolls.

I’m annoyed to say that I ate my weight in these things. But I’ve been thinking I need to experiment with eating more to lose more weight (as explained in this post) so I’m not beating myself up too much (though it should be healthier food I’m eating more of, not junk like this). After a walk to get the mail and a nap I’m no longer uncomfortably full.

Dan’s friends brought okra from their garden! Love love love okra. I’ve been meaning to buy some and Hubs now agrees that it needs to be on the grocery list. I had a few pieces which were just microwaved with a little evoo and some salt. Loves it.

There will be more food later but until then I have the apartment to myself (and three dogs). I plan on reading more of the Thrive Diet (since I have to turn it in on Thursday) and watching some Gossip Girl!

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Don’t scroll down unless you want nightmares… Our neighbors (we live in a duplex) unfortunately hunt deer and occasionally (okay at least once a week for the past month) clean them from something they have rigged between our decks. I thankfully haven’t seen them at it yet, but they left a nice skull hanging from it Wednesday night. I’m not a fan of hunting. Or catch and release fishing, for that matter.

Briefly…

Breakfast Today I had a much healthier green monster! Two big handfuls of spinach, some rhubarb, protein powder, water, a banana and I have breakfast for two days in a row:

With a peanut butter sandwich to round things out

Lunch was eaten in two stages again today. Salad at 11 to stop my tummy from rumbling

And tuna and a serving of these crackers at noon:

This basically taste like Wheat Thins, but they also taste slightly buttered. Tasty, but maybe not as healthy as I was hoping.

Dinner was microwaved egg, some black beans, peppers, rice, cheese, and Mrs Dash chipotle seasoning. A little on the dry side, eaten with some tortilla chips.

I didn’t sleep well last night so the plan is to watch perhaps a little more Gossip Girl, do some much needed yoga (didn’t stretch very well after the gym yesterday and my quads are feeling it today), and if I manage to perk up I might put together a special post before bed. We’ll see how much work getting pictures off my backup drive ends up being.

Successful food experiment!

Breakfast: I’m back to my green monsters! It may only last about a day though… I’m off tomorrow for some doctor’s appointments. Nothing interesting, just the annual stuff, dentist, dermatologist, etc. I have some Kashi cereal I look forward to tasting tomorrow morning.

This smoothie was a whole banana, a huge handful of spinach, handful of frozen rhubarb, and three frozen strawberries. With a scoop of whey protein and a cup of water. I think I need to take advantage of my blender’s puree setting more often. Half the time my smoothies end up with a kind of curdled texture I don’t appreciate, even though I shake them up before drinking. Anybody have any idea why this might happen?

And a piece of whole wheat bread with peanut butter. Gotta cover all my nutritional bases: vegetable, fruit, protein, whole grain, healthy fats… A perfect breakfast!

Lunch I’ve been rather repetitive with my lunches this week, haven’t I? I’m a simple girl, what can I say. It was all eaten at my desk again, salad, the last of the tuna packet, and Kashis.

Dinner But I tried something new for dinner! I bought some Nasoya cubed tofu at the store last week and have been trying to figure out how to use it. Well I also picked up some frozen stir fry veggies at Walmart on Sunday.

I started out pressing some of the water out and then “dry frying” it by heating it on medium low heat and putting pressure on it with a spatula, squeezing out more water. I read that the more water you can get out, the more marinade that the tofu will absorb. I had some brown rice cooking, dry fried the tofu and put it in some of this while the rice finished up:

I then heated up some of the veggies (skipped the sauce that it came with tonight) and then dumped the tofu and marinade in with the veggies to warm it all back up.

When the rice finished I scooped some up and tossed everything (tofu, veggies, marinade and all). It was really good! But the tofu was really, really salty from the teriyaki. I wonder if letting it soak for less time would help?

Either way I’m feeling very balanced and pleasantly full (but not overly stuffed). This is my first time really cooking something off the cuff, I’m so proud of myself! Dan and I are settling in to watch the Tech game and I need some aqua! Go Jackets!!!

I run so I can drink!

Well that makes me sound like I get shit-faced most nights of the week. I don’t. But I feel less guilty about having a beer if I can look at my Garmin and see that I burned about 460 calories earlier in the day. And cake. I run so I can eat cake!

I was completely exhausted all day, moving nice and slow. I almost let myself talk me out of running this afternoon but I knew I’d regret not going tomorrow when I had to get up to go run instead of sleeping in which is what my body really needs. All morning it was just begging me to find somewhere to curl up and sleep for another couple of hours. So tomorrow I will indulge since I got my run out of the way today.

Breakfast: Today I had a leftover smoothie from yesterday (spinach, water, whey protein, strawberries, rhubarb, frozen banana) and a piece of whole wheat bread with peanut butter. So tasty and so filling!

Snackage: Since I couldn’t make it all the way until lunch yesterday without a snack and was too lazy to make granola bars last night (but realized tonight I still have one in the freezer!!) I took the last of my dried fruit with quite a bit of Kashi Go Lean mixed in. So scrumptuous! I ate part in the morning, part in the afternoon:

Lunch: Lunch was also leftovers, imagine that. Yesterday the Husb invited me down to the student center for lunch so I got another veggie burrito in a wheat tortilla with black beans, cheese, lettuce, salsa and onions. I neglected to specify “just a little cheese” so it was quite cheesy at points. Here’s today’s portion:

Exercise: Like I said I almost talked myself out of exercising today, thinking I would just stretch this training week out over two weeks since we’re going out of town next weekend. But my legs weren’t feeling too tired so I thought I’d give it a try. I made it all the way through! Today’s plan called for: Run 32 minutes; for the next 8 minutes run two and walk two. I ran faster today than I did with Alex on Wednesday. It was more my normal pace but the last half was tough! I think zoning out to a MotionTraxx podcast really helped get me through. My average pace while running was a 10:51 mile, which is actually a tad slow. But I made it through and I can sleep in tomorrow I’ve got my priorities straight.

Tomorrow is the first home game of the season and I actually got to run past the drumline who was out practicing! I paused my podcast to listen to them while in hearing range. They’re quite good! That was a fun treat. As I got closer to home and the highway again I started to see the RVs rolling into town for all those high-rolling alumni (or wannabe alumni) to enjoy the game from the “comfort of home.” I’d occasionally walk past those things parked last year and they have huge flat screen tvs loaded in those things!

I might root for the hometown team’s rival from my hometown but it was pretty cool to start to see the town really come alive. (I’m a GA Tech girl, what can I say? My dad’s an alumni as are many of my friends’ dads and I went to Agnes Scott, Tech’s “sister school”) Seeing the big ol’ football players riding around on their little free scooters makes it a bit more personal too. Traffic was terrible after work, but I’ve heard that Athens doubles its population on game days. I hadn’t realized before just how many people come into town the night before but I’m sure downtown will be packed tonight with all the bar hoppers.

Alright, enough football musings, it’s time for dessert and more Gossip Girl! Last episode of disc two so that I can send it back tomorrow. Mystery roommate Z has actually shown up tonight (first time I’ve seen him since we met him and agreed to let him move in. He moved his stuff in while I was at the beach) and brought a friend so I quietly surrendered the living room and I’m going to watch the preps on my laptop instead.

Here’s a shot of dessert:

It looks exactly the same as last night! How strange…

Trial and error, away we go!

And we’re up and running! I have to admit that I have yet to figure out how to move my old blog to this one without potentially opening my computer up to hackers in the process… So we’ll just be without them for a bit. Please feel free to check out my WordPress blog if you are interested!

I did at least fix my computer issues today. It seems that I just had so many pictures on the memory chip that it overwhelmed my computer. The gentleman at Canon suggested I try a different chip and see if that would work. It did, so I cleaned out the original (much larger) memory chip picture by picture and voila! I can upload pictures again! In the process I realized that I haven’t had frozen pizza or Arby’s in months. Go me! Okay, so maybe it’s more like a month, but every little bit counts!

And now let me tell you about today’s chow!

Breakfast was incredibly basic… a smoothie (Green Monster!) with a very large handful of spinach, one cup of water, one scoop of whey protein powder, 4 frozen strawberries, and a handful of frozen rhubarb. Followed by a piece of Private Selection wheat bread with Simply Jiff peanut butter. Following my fruits and veggies with whole grains and healthy fats really helps with the staying full power. Take a look:

And now we move straight to dessert! I’m afraid I still don’t have all of these kinks worked out. I need to find someway to resize pictures before I can upload a lot of them! What fun this adventure is. Dessert was a sliver of pound cake that my mom sent home with us Monday night and a cookie that my step mother-in-law sent us when she couldn’t join us for dinner Saturday.

I’m sorry this is such a trial folks. I’m working on it. I’m making progress! Just have to take it a day (and a solution!) at a time.