Yesterday, Ari and I had a quick breakfast at the diner before I left for the airport.  I got my usual eggwhite omelet with spinach, tomato, mushroom and feta (and about half a bottle of ketchup):

Toast with HFCS-rich grape jelly (sorry for the blurry photo… too bad you can’t see how prettily the slices were arranged! Seems like they’re experimenting with presentation…).  I had half:

The airport food was ridiculously expensive (would you pay $3.49 for a Kashy GoLean bar?!), but I needed fuel.  I was craving OJ for some reason, so I got a bottle of that, a small salad with roasted red peppers, green peppers, chickpeas and kidney beans, and a banana:

The flight was fine… I think I slept for a few minutes, and finally finished a book I’ve been reading for almost a month.  When I landed in Dayton, the sun was shining and the weather was beautiful! I celebrated seeing my friend Jenny with a couple medjools.

Check out those clouds!

After making a quick stop to feed Jenny’s puppers (she has three of the cutest dachsunds around), we hit the road to drive to Indianapolis.

Jenny thinks I’m so silly for photographing the highway, but I’m so used to the industrial wasteland of my city (which I am completely enamored with, don’t get me wrong) that I think it’s just beautiful.

We stopped for dinner at… hold your breath… Taco Bell.  Yes, that’s right.  I’ve had experience with their fresca menu from previous moments of road trip desperation… everything has less than 9g of fat, and, more importantly, there are vegetarian options.

I ordered two fresca bean burritos, which are just wraps stuffed with beans and tomatoes.  I peeled about 1/3 of the bread off of the first one, and ate it with guacamole and salsa:

I unwrapped the second one, covered the bean mixture with salsa and guac, and just ate the mush.  Not great, but not terrible, either.

When we got to Indianapolis, we made a pit-stop at TCBY on the way to visit some friends.  I got a small cup with 1/2 PB and 1/2 white chocolate mousse froyo (both 96% fat-free), topped with Reese’s Pieces.  It had sort of a weird taste, but I ate it all anyway.

We tried to watch The Dead Girl, but ended up falling asleep on the couch.  Some Tostitos were also consumed… the Hint of Lime flavor is so good but so addicting! (True story: I bought a big bag of those for myself to celebrate getting into college when I was 17.  I also baked chocolate chip cookies and ignored my homework for the night.  It’s the little things!)

This morning I slept in, and it was glorious.  After we were both showered and ready, we grabbed a yogurt snack (I missed these Archer Farms guys!) and went out to visit some more people.

When we got back, Jenny’s mom, Susan, had a lovely breakfast ready for us.

She made wonderful Meyer lemon poppyseed muffins (I ate the top):

And, even better: homemade peanut butter and cherry granola! (We brought some of this goodness with us )

Homemade breakfasts are so enjoyable, especially while sitting outside and enjoying a little nature.

We hit the road around 1, stopping at Starbucks to wake me up a little.   I got a grande skim latte:

Hoping to avoid another fast food disaster, I picked up a Farmer’s Market Salad for lunch.

The nutrition stats are pretty good on this guy…

It filled me up, and tasted great.  Thumbs up to the ‘bucks!

Health aside, we munched on some Gushers-style Sour Patch kids.  Weird.

And finally, after three hours of driving through cold, gray raindrops… MICHIGAN!

So, I celebrated with a date.  Hopefully that won’t be the last healthy thing to enter my body in the next week… I’m determined not to let it be.

Well, it has now taken almost 24 hours to type up this post.  Hope you’ve had a fantastic  4th of July!

Happy belated birthday, K!!!

Saturday’s breakfast was strange: sweet, sour & nutty oats.

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup waters
• 1 banana
• 1 plum
• 1 scoop PB
• cinnamon

Somehow, the sweetness of the banana and the tart, fleshiness of the plum worked really well.  I didn’t even remember that I hadn’t put any brown sugar or honey in to sweeten it!

After I ate breakfast and Ari had lunch (I’ve been getting up a lot earlier than he has and had breakfast so I can keep myself on a remotely normal schedule), we headed into the city to see The Hangover.  It was a lot funnier than I expected it to be,  but very foul, so if you get offended by college potty humor, I’d think twice before seeing it.

At the theater, we split a bag of Haribo gummies that I brought back from the Duty Free Shop at the airport in Berlin for precisely this reason.  Yeah, that’s a lot of gummies.  I also had a sip of Ari’s Coke Zero, but mostly stuck to slamming gummies

We had a late lunch at a make-your-own salad place nearby. Unfortunately, despite the many promising ingredients, it was one of the worst salads I’ve ever had.

In the bowl, went:

• mixed greens
• grilled shrimp (about 20)
• blue cheese (“a little” ended up looking more like 1/2 cup)
• walnuts (another 1/2 cup)
• roasted red peppers
• corn
• fat free honey mustard dressing

I ended up picking out a lot of the nuts and cheese, and a couple shrimp.  I was so upset I didn’t ask for the dressing on the side, because there was an inch-deep pool of it at the bottom and everything was dripping. Yuck!

But, Tasty D Lite (sorry, The Lite Choice) made it all better.

I got a small cup of hazelnut fudge topped with chocolate chips.  (I knocked a lot of the chips into the trash… there were so many that I couldn’t taste the ice cream!)

After satisfying our sweet teeth, we went home to make a nice dinner for my mom. While shopping for groceries, we saw some copy cats:

I was really excited about this dinner.  Ever since I saw Jenna‘s take on grouper, I knew I had to try it!  The seafood department at my grocery store didn’t have grouper, so I got some halibut (“This is a fancy fish,” my mom said) instead.

I followed Jenna‘s instructions and marinated four filets in a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and fresh rosemary and oregano.

Instead of traditional basil pesto, I went with Cibo Naturals‘ Cilantro Lime Pesto.  I’ve used this brand before… they have a lot of interesting pestos and spreads. I smeared a dollop of this onto each filet:

Then I topped each piece with chopped sundried tomatoes, mixed olives, and a smidgen of feta.  (For Ari, who doesn’t like things that are “white and creamy,” I used mozzarella, as per his request.  His filet is the white monster second from the top.)

I baked the fish at 375 for about 15 minutes, or until a knife can be easily inserted into the center. What a pretty fish!

I also sautéed some mushrooms up for Ari (cooking spray, salt & pepper) and made a simple romaine/tomato salad with a dressing of white garlic basil vinegar, lemon-infused olive oil, grey poupon mustard, Newman’s Own limeade, and a pinch of ginger powder.

A nice dinner is not complete without nice bread; I had a hunk of toasted baguette and dipped it in a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

To drink, we had some Kauri Bay Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc that my friend Howard gave me.  It was very light and fresh, but a little spicy at the same time. It complemented the meal perfectly!

My mom picked up a delicious chocolate cake from Citarella’s for dessert.

We almost didn’t cut it in time…

It was made with three kinds of chocolate. Nomnomnom.

After dinner, I fell asleep while we all watched O Brother, Where Art Thou?. The concert that emerged from this movie was one of the first ones I ever saw!  We stayed the night with my mommy, too, which was very nice.

And then Sunday started. I woke up 45 minutes late, fifteen minutes before I was supposed to leave to work the brunch shift at work.  I still managed to make myself look halfway- decent, and whip up a good breakfast before racing out the door.

I’d made some rhubarb the night before, which I’d planned to use as a side dish but decided at the last minute to use it for breakfast instead.  I used a 12-oz bag of frozen ‘barb and cooked it in 2/3 cup water, juice of 1/2 lemon, 1 garlic clove, and 1 tsp of sugar.   The garlic was quite a kick at 8:30 in the morning!

Into the breakfast bowl went:

• 1 container Fage 0%
• blueberries
• rhubarb
• pecans
• honey

At work, I had one of my snack baggies I prepared, thanks to your suggestions. Each has a handful of Puffins, diced dried apricots, prunes and figs, raisins and almonds.

I also had a small slice of of French toast made with baguette (not pictured), and an egg white omelet with veggies.  I had a couple potatoes, but ended up having to stay an hour later than normal so the rest of them got cold.

As I said, work was not so great… it happens.  I’m just lucky the restaurant is only a couple blocks away from my gym, because I really, really needed to burn off steam, and if it had been any further away I would have just gone home and stewed instead.

My workout was great, and was just what the doctor ordered.  I warmed up with 20 minutes on the stairs, then did some arm work, 35 minutes on the bike, and one ab machine afterwards.

Total time: 1 hour 13 minutes

Maximum heart rate: 185

Average heart rate: 149

Calories burned: 647

My body was still really sore from “HPF” on Friday, and this pushed me over the edge. But, I get to be very demanding in terms of getting back massages!

When I went home, I made the most comforting meal I know: Gliding Calm tofu, a sweet potato with honey and cinnamon, and brown rice.  For some reason, the tofu was a little dryer than usual, so I dipped it in Annie’s Lite Gingerly Vinaigrette. Perfect! (And if you’re wondering what’s on that little cracker, you’ll have to read on…)

I also snacked on a red bell pepper while getting dinner ready…

…and making some of Gena‘s favorite guacamole!

Lunch is going to be pretty damn fine!

Last night ended up making up for a not-so-great day.  Ari and I had some wine and watched The Wrestler, which we both liked a lot.

I’m a big believer that starting the morning right will help shape your day into a great one.  Last night, I stuck this guy into the fridge in hopes of besting yesterday’s ickiness.

Jim was made up of:

• 1/3 cup oats
• 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder
• 1/2 banana
• 2 T skim milk
• 1.5 t peanut butter
• cinnamon
• apricot eyes, pecan nose, blueberry smile

The forecast looks good: today is going to be a good day.  I have to do some reading for my internship, but I like doing that.

Have a great day!