Good afternoon!  I hope your day is off to a great start… I woke up thinking it was Saturday!  I slept in this morning, which was glorious.  Not too much on the agenda for today, which [...]]]> I asked Ari what this post should be titled, and this is what he deemed to be appropriate.

Good afternoon!  I hope your day is off to a great start… I woke up thinking it was Saturday!  I slept in this morning, which was glorious.  Not too much on the agenda for today, which is A-OK with me

Yesterday was slated to be a long run day, so I woke up, guzzled some coffee, and fueled up with half a Dulce de Leche Luna Bar.

I stuffed some gummies into the little pocket of my shorts (which left me a tad sticky)…

I finally made a new playlist… the No Doubt song has been in my head for the better part of this week.

The run was fine… again, I just felt sleepy.  I think, for me, running distances is going to end up being more of a psychological challenge.  Obviously the physical aspects are also great, and every time I go out for a run I hope so hard that it won’t be the day that something goes wrong again.   The only thing that went “wrong” today was that my heart rate monitor didn’t register my actual heart rate…

Total distance: 6.4 miles

Total time: 1:07:55

I’m not sure if I should be concerned that I haven’t been increasing my speed for these long runs… and it’ll probably be time for me to increase my distance again soon, too.   I just signed up for my first 10K a couple minutes ago- it’s next WEEK- so I’m going to have to start working on this!

My “training schedule” is a little weak, since I only have 8 days, but here’s what it looks like, which I made on the Runner’s World website:

When I got back from my run, I made another excellent fall smoothie: Cherry Pumpkin Pie.

I made this using frozen cherries, canned pumpkin pie mix, homemade almond milk, cinnamon and nutmeg, and topped it with a little GoLean & granola.  After breakfast and a bunch of puttering around, I packed up my portable lunch.  I wanted to use up all the leftovers, which, combined, made for an… interesting salad:

The bottom layer was covered with sprouts, topped with corn & edamame salad and beets; the small compartment had leftover fish and a few noodles.  Some things, shall we say, do not taste great the morning after.

On the subway, I snacked on some TJ’s dried fruit. Balls to the wall, as my lady would say.

My dad had told me about a DMV that expedites all of their services, so luckily I was in and out (with a new picture!) in 20 minutes.  Must be some kind of record.  It was starting to rain, so I went into Starbucks and bought a Tall Skim Chai so that I could eat my lunch without getting drenched.

After taking a few minutes to read and decompress, I skedaddled along to an informational interview, then picked up a few books.  The first was a beautiful collection of poems by my friend and former professor, Kristin Naca.

The second was A Race Like No Other, to motivate and inspire.

Then, in the spirit of racing, I rushed home to see my traveling musician, who has spent the last three weeks on his own kind of race, driving back and forth across the country with Blink 182 and the All American Rejects.

We grabbed some friends and went for dinner at a nearby Thai restaurant.  I was still pretty full from lunch, so I only ate a little of my Massaman Curry with shrimp (with unpictured rice) and took the rest home.

A little while after we got home, however, I was hungry again, and dug right back into the take-out container   Ari and I went separate ways for dessert; I had a Double Chocolate Dream Vitamuffin with frozen cherries, Greek yogurt, and homemade almond milk.

Ari had Saltines with Nutella & peanut butter.

Nutella is made with skim milk, hazelnuts (healthy fat), and chocolate (antioxidants), so it’s practically a health food!

We had a little Domaine Lalande Pinot Noir (a gift from Howard on my last day of work), and watched Grey Gardens, which Caitlin had recommended.

It was a great night… I’m so happy he’s back!

I’m off to go cross-train, as my training schedule recommends.  What are your plans for the weekend? Enjoy it!

The night before last, I’d planned a really unique breakfast as I was lying [...]]]> Good morning and happy Wednesday! I can’t believe the week has flown by so fast… and I’m that much closer to being 22.  I think I’ve turned a little anti-birthday, but maybe not.  How do you feel about your birthday?

The night before last, I’d planned a really unique breakfast as I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep.  When I woke up, though, I was doubting my creative abilities and sent a frantic Tweet asking for some breakfast suggestions.  A few minutes later, though, I went with my gut, and am I glad I did! I present you with: The Fall Smoothie.

This is made with:

• homemade raw almond milk
• 1 banana
• 1/3- 1/2 cup puréed butternut squash
• nutmeg
• cinnamon
• granola for garnish

Uh-MA-zing! If you make this and don’t have almond milk you’ve made yourself, I suggest throwing in a few whole almonds for thickness and added flavor.

As usual, I puttered around for a few hours before I was ready to go for a run.  To hold myself over, I snacked on the last piece of butternut squash banana bread with a smear of peanut butter:

The run itself was uneventful, but I did have some lovely new music to keep me going.

Total distance: 4.5 miles

Total time: 43:46

Maximum heart rate: 186 (93%)

Average heart rate: 172 (86%)

Calories burned: 494

Lunch was exactly the same as dinner (hence the re-used photo). Blegh. Soup is finally all eaten up, though!

I made a pineapple spritzer using the juice that was left in the can and a little seltzer.

Both the run and lunch were starting to put me to sleep, so I brewed up some “Magic Feeling” tea that I got in Berlin (only in Germany, eh?).

I felt a little too magical, because I conked out for the next two hours.  Whoops!  When I woke up, I was ready to get cookin’.  I snacked on three chunks of energy to get me moving again…

I’ve had the ingredients to make Veganomicon‘s Corn and Edamame-Sesame Salad for a while now, and at the very last minute I decided to add some diced grape tomatoes to the mix as well.

I also whipped up SELF‘s White Bean Consommé with Almond Milk, and halved the recipe so I wouldn’t have another soup sitch like last week!

It was lacking a little something, so I “remixed” it with alfalfa sprouts, chili flakes and Bragg‘s.  Much better!

For dessert, I tried out my last new flavor of Vitamuffin, Deep Chocolate.

I crumbled it on top of a container of Trader Joe’s nonfat Organic Vanilla Greek Yogurt, and topped the whole thing with homemade almond milk. I don’t know if I’ve expressed how much I enjoy this yogurt before, but it’s amazing!  You can actually see the specs of vanilla bean.

Well I’ve literally got to run out the door so I’m not late for my internship.  Have a great Wednesday!

Yesterday, I started my morning with [...]]]> Good morning and happy humpday! The week goes so fast when you’ve had a long weekend.  I can’t believe Boston is in two days!  I still don’t know who all is going to be there, so if you’re reading this and are going, please drop me a line!

Yesterday, I started my morning with another awesome parfait.

• plain nonfat yogurt
• 1 white peach
• 1 plum
• 2 cherries
• cinnamon

Yum!

This didn’t hold me too well, sadly, and I had to break into one of my snacks on the way to my internship.   I’m running dangerously low on fig bars; a trip to TJ’s is greatly needed!

I went to Starbucks on my lunch break.  Even though I brought lunch with me, I wanted a place to sit and get out of the sun.  It was almost 100 yesterday! I ordered a tall iced coffee (and added skim and sugar in the raw) to grant me a chair.

I brought 1/2 serving of my leftover spinach fettucine con vongole:

I still had some leftover dressing from my raw “peanut” noodles, so I brought that and dipped leftover steamed kale and romaine in it. Deliciously messy.

With an apple, it made a pretty good for a lunch on the go!

After a few more hours of work at the office, I headed across town to go to the restaurant.  I’d been craving a smoothie all day, so I stopped at Elixir.  Every day they have $5 specials, so I went with that and got the Smart Start: banana, apple cider, orange juice, strawberries, melon, gingko, and protein powder.

A pretty hefty “snack”, but I thought I was going to have to power through another 8-hour shift.

Thinking I would have to wait until 11 to eat dinner, I split a Ginger Snap Larabar with my friend Cornelius around 7.

Unfortunately, by 7:45 I’d only had one table (whose grand total came to $11.92), so I went home with a wrinkly dollar in my pocket. I should have only made $.65 after tip-out (we have to give back 35%), but the busboys, bartender and manager didn’t want the $.10.

I took a salad to go; new policy says that wait-staff can only have plain lettuce or plain pasta, so I took my dinner home and beefed it up.

I added tomatoes, goat cheese, a chik’n patty, hummus, red pepper flakes and lemon vinaigrette.

I was craving chemicals for dessert and had a Skinny Cow vanilla-flavored Skinny Dipper.

While watching Almost Famous for the 23rd time, I did some therapeutic laundry-folding and felt a little better.

Sorry for that little rant. Today will be better! Ho ho ho.

This morning [...]]]> Good evening and happy belated Monday! I’m still having so much trouble with both WordPress and Firefox… I don’t know if it’s those programs, my connection, or my computer (which it better not be). Anyway, I’ve got a full day of foodstuffs and a product review, so I’m going to get a-crackin’!

This morning I made a big POM/orange/berry/ginger smoothie.

• 1/4 block silken tofu
• 1/4 cup skim milk
• 1/4 cup POM juice
• 1/4 cup frozen berries
• 1 orange
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger powder

I love this combination. I think it’s my third time making it in a week! I also had two big cups of coffee. 

Lunch was a-MA-zing. I made a crack wrap with manchego and American… holy moly. 

I finished up the last of Happy Herbivore‘s Inca or Aztec Corn Soup:

Had an apple:

And enjoyed it all with Cholula. (Hummus + hot sauce = mmm.)

My French professor brought organic oatmeal raisin cookies (I remembered my camera this time!). It’s funny that I used to think that any cookie without chocolate wasn’t worth having… I guess you could say that my palate is maturing!

I had a quick workout at the gym: 25-ish minutes on the elliptical and abs.

Total time: 38:55 minutes

Maximum heart rate: 176 (88%)

Average heart rate: 143 (72%)

Calories burned: 310

The post title refers to the gorgeous day we had.  I didn’t have to haul too much to campus today so I got to walk, and it was so warm! I love sundress weather. 

I try to save my frozen dinners  for nights when I have class at 7, so I whipped out Healthy Choice‘s Lemon Pepper Fish Complete Meal. 

Have you noticed that almost every frozen dinner company makes a version of this? And yet, when it comes to the “vegetarian option,” with the exception of Kashi,they all seem to think this means “pasta.”  This is often a problem at restaurants and catered events, too. Grr.

I forgot to take a pre-microwave picture, but here it after cooking.

I always plate my frozen dinners to make them a little less depressing.

Breaded fish and rice pilaf:

Broccoli: 

Caramel Apple Crisp:

Those weren’t enough veggies for my hungry tummy, so I steamed up some rebel carrots (and drank the water). 

A few weeks ago I blogged about Healthy Choice’s reinvention of its products. Although I’m skeptical of any packaged food that claims to be a full meal, I decided to give this one a try.  I’ll review each of the four components of the dinner:

Fish (pollock): very fishy, as cheap fish often is. It was mush and overcooked, and the breading fell off as soon as I cut into it. 

Rice: mushy and overcooked, but not chewy and tender at all. 

Broccoli: definitely the best part.  It was crisp and perfectly cooked, although it was sitting in a LOT of water.

Caramel apple crisp:  Completely inedible.  It was sweet and gelatinous, and the oat topping was mushy.  There was nothing “crisp” about this dessert whatsoever, and I threw it out after one bite. 

Would I buy this again? Not a chance. Healthy Choice struck out big time with this one, and did not succeed in changing my perception of their product from the microwaved dinner my grandfather used to stockpile in his freezer  to a healthy, quick and tasty option that I would ever want to consume.  I know I’m being harsh, but I’ve come to expect a lot from these frozen meals.  I know it’s possible to make cost-effective food that tastes good; you should be able to feel happy and satisfied with your meal even if it came out of a box in the freezer.  This is 2009, people. 

Whew! Excuse that little rant.

My dinner fiasco left me feeling unsatisfied, so I had a grapefruit during class. 

I was really hungry when I got home from class (sayonara, science requirement!) so I made a big bowl of GoLean! Crunch Honey Almond Flax / Fiber One Honey Almond Clusters with an apple and skim. 

I’m still feeling snacky so there might be some cookie-eating going on shortly (to fuel my studies, of course).  I have to be up pretty early for my last independent study meeting; we’re going to a coffee shop near the house I lived in last year which should be fun.

Hope you had a great day! Night

Edited to add: I just had some more cereal.  It was what I wanted, so why deny myself, right?

You’re all going to think I’m completely gross and crazy, but I had some of this last night.

The day after Passover, [...]]]> Good morning! Another night of wrestling with WordPress (has anyone else been having issues with it recently?) has caused this to be a dinner/breakfast post.  Oh well, I’m just glad it’s working now!

You’re all going to think I’m completely gross and crazy, but I had some of this last night.

The day after Passover, when my friends would all complain about having to eat the gefilte fish, I would heartily  agree but secretly really like it.  My grandmother sent me home with a jar that she “forgot” to serve at our seder (I’m the only one who wanted it) so I decided to have it last night.

The smell was really off-putting and a lot stronger than I remembered.  I tried to remedy this by serving a piece on a bed of romaine with red bell pepper, drowning the fish in rice wine vinegar, and serving the whole thing in a vinegar/sesame oil/sesame seed/chili flake dressing.  Oh, and LOTS of German mustard. Seriously, I probably used half of the bottle .

I also had some leftover Inca or Aztec Corn Soup, which I served cold but with a lot of hot sauce.

My grandmother introduced me to Gelati-Da gelato a few weeks ago, and I snatched it up when I saw it at Target yesterday.

The cioccolata flavor is incredibly rich and creamy, considering it only has 2.5 g of fat.  I had a bowl with warmed frozen berries and dark chocolate hot fudge.

I was still feeling snacky, so I had a Super-Charge Me cookie.

Yes, that made two cookies, one piece of banana bread, and fudge-covered ice cream in one day.  But that’s okay! Today is a brand new day.

I started off with a small date shake:

• 1/4 block silken tofu
• 1/3 cup skim milk
• 2 dried dates, chopped
• 2 ice cubes
• pinch nutmeg
• squirt honey

Za-zing! (For some reason all my photos have a bluish hue this morning.)

I also had a slice of banana bread with peanut butter and blackberry preserves.

And some java! The newspaper is so good this morning… I love Sundays.

Well, time to work.  In a little over a week I won’t have to end every post like that…

Have a great Sunday!

I made a true Green Monster for breakfast this morning… I don’t think I’ve had one in months.

This morning I resumed my [...]]]> Hi there! Sorry about the late post… I wanted to wait until tonight to maximize my work efficiency.  It was a stay-in-PJs-until-5 PM-reading kind of a day… in two weeks I’ll be done with all my work, but until then it’s going to be pretty unpleasant.  Anyway, enough whining!

This morning I resumed my smoothie experimentation.

• 1 orange
• 1/4 cup POM juice
• 1/3 cup frozen berries
• 1/4 cup skim milk
• 1/2 tsp ginger powder

This was one of the best ones yet!  I didn’t need any kind of sweetener, either.  Just look at that color!

I also microwaved some Egg Beaters with tomatoes and mushrooms:

I plopped the eggs on top of half of a honey wheat English muffin, and topped that with a slice of fat free American cheese that’s been in the fridge since, oh, OCTOBER, when Ari visited for my birthday. Dontcha just love chemicals?

Lunch was a seriously massive salad.  This was almost another “What was she thinking?” moment, but luckily my tum was okay.  In here was romaine, spinach, 1/2 diced tomato, 2/3 diced green bell pepper, one whole zucchini, and a Morningstar Farms Grillers Vegan patty.

Talk about volume!

I whipped up a tasty dressing: soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, ginger powder, chili flakes, and about 1 tsp chunky PB.

For dessert, I had the rest of my Holiday Chia Pudding.

I will definitely be making this again soon.  The flavors stewed together wonderfully overnight, and the chia seeds got nice and goopy.  Next time, I think I’ll divide this into 3 portions instead of 2… I was just a little too full both last night and today after eating it.

Around five I decided to go to the gym (day 8 in a row… but really, it’s for my sanity and it was the only thing that got me out of the house today). I had half of a banana with almond butter before I went. It’s really difficult to spread nut butter on a banana… it’s so slippery!

My workout wasn’t too serious today: 20 minutes on the stairs, 10-12 minutes on the elliptical, and abs.

Total time: 47:53 minutes

Maximum heart rate: 171 (86%)

Average heart rate: 137 (69%)

Calories burned: 338

I’d been thinking about it all day, but by the time dinner rolled around I could not, for the life of me, figure out what I wanted to eat.  I was starting to get pretty cranky so I munched on a rebel carrot while I perused the contents of the fridge.

I went on the Flatout website and looked at some of their recipe suggestions.  They had a shrimp pizza recipe, so I made my own version. I never buy bagged cheese, but I picked some up on a whim on Thursday and it was the star of the pizza.

On an Italian Herb Flatout, I added the sauce from a can of tomatoes (which may or may not have gone funk… I’ll find out tomorrow if I’m sick!), 1/4 cup Sargento 6 Cheese Italian blend, spinach, onions, tomato, and frozen shrimp (cooked in the microwave beforehand).

As per the Flatout directions, I baked the bread at 350 for about 7 minutes beforehand, added the toppings, and baked it again until the cheese melted.

I should have carmelized the onions beforehand, but it was still really good and ended up hitting the spot!

For dessert, I had crumbled a TJ’s 100 calorie Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies into some plain yogurt with cinnamon.

BF was sitting like this for about 10 minutes.  Suspended animation, kitty?

Okay, playtime is over and it’s back to work I go.  Hope you had a great weekend!

Last night, when it got to the point when I knew no more work would be done, I popped in Clockwatchers. It’s sort of like Office Space, but darker and with women.  And of course, I’ll watch anything with Toni Collette or Parker Posery (and Jamie Kennedy…?).

This morning I [...]]]>

Last night, when it got to the point when I knew no more work would be done, I popped in Clockwatchers. It’s sort of like Office Space, but darker and with women.  And of course, I’ll watch anything with Toni Collette or Parker Posery (and Jamie Kennedy…?).

This morning I made (surprise!) another smoothie.  Maybe I should just make this my “Smoothie Challenge” week. Today’s concoction was Green Orange Berry Ginger.

• 1/4 block silken tofu (which I am now out of)
• 1 navel orange (I bought an 8-lb bag… unfortunately they’re pretty awful on their own- no juice!)
• 1 handful spinach
• 1/4 cup frozen berries
• 1/4 cup skim milk
• agave nectar

The pulp from the orange made it a lot thicker than usual; I probably could have eaten it with a spoon. Very good, though!

A repeat from yesterday: 1/2 English muffin with peanut butter, pumpkin and cinnamon.  I’m a creature of habit, what can I say.

Late on the news, yet again…

It’s nice and sunny out, so I’m going to try to do some work outside today.  Happy Friday!

GAH I don’t even have a nice greeting for this morning… I’ve had forty minutes of WordPress technical difficulties that I’m about to rip out my freshly-straightened hair. But I won’t, because then I would [...]]]> For some reason this was saved as a draft instead of getting published three hours ago… sorry about that!

GAH I don’t even have a nice greeting for this morning… I’ve had forty minutes of WordPress technical difficulties that I’m about to rip out my freshly-straightened hair. But I won’t, because then I would have wasted even more time!

Last night I ended up eating the last 2/3 of my Brownie Z bar. I get hungry when I stay up late!

This morning I made another winning smoothie. I got a little excited and started blending before the photo was taken, but stopped it in time.

• 1/4 block silken tofu
• 1/3 cup skim milk
• 1/3 cup POM juice
• 1/3 cup mixed frozen berries
• handful of spinach
• squirt of agave nectar
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger powder

The ginger gave it such a great kick!

I also had half of a cinnamon raisin English muffin with peanut butter, pumpkin and cinnamon.

I read yesterday’s Arts section because I didn’t get around to it yesterday… living in the past, I am!

Have a great day!