Today’s About the Food

Today has been REALLY boring which is just fine by me. It’s nice to not have to rush, rush, rush for once. Because there’s really not a whole lot to say, I’ll stick with the food and call it a day.

• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup BRM 7 grain cereal
• cinnamon
• almond butter/cinnamon plum tea jam
• dorset cereal

Pre gym snack;

Gym stats:

• Time: 40 minutes
• Avg Hr: 153
• Max Hr: 169
• Calories Torched: 382
• Distance: 4.3 elliptical miles

Lunch was Moroccan Chickpea Stew;

Afternoon pick me up was a bowl of fresh cantaloupe, honey dew, pineapple and pomegranate seeds;

The fam baked up Delisso Pizza’s so I made myself a little pilaf. I browned some tofu then took it out of the pan and added frozen peas, water and some Memories of Damascus sauce. While that was cooking I cubed up the tofu then added it back to the pan with 2 tbsp of WW couscous. Some jalapeno jack got sprinkled on top and then it sat for 5 minutes to get all melty-like;

This turned out superb! YUM!

We’ll be leaving the house shortly to go take in a hockey game. Can’t wait! I promise to be back tomorrow with a more substantial post! Until then, have a GREAT Friday night!!!

Bye for now!!

A Bit of This and A Bit of That

**EDITED TO ADD....I had this post ready to go at 7pm but had trouble uploading my photos again. I seem to have fixed the problem now....at 10pm!!**

DD was not feeling well today so I ended up with unexpected time on my hands. Not a bad thing at all! The first thing I did when I got out of bed was bake up a batch of mini muffins. I’m calling them Strawberry Pumpkin Coconut Bites.

• 1 cup WW flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling!)
• 1/4 cup agave
• 1 egg white
• 1/3 cup strawberry yogurt
• 1/3 cup unsweetened coconut

1. Combine dry ingredients
2. Combine wet ingredients (except coconut)
3. Combine wet into dry
4. Stir in coconut
5. Divide batter into a 24 cup mini muffin tin
6. Bake for 15 mins at 350*

Each bite has 38 calories, .5 g; fat, .8 fibre and 1.1g protein

Once those were in the oven I turned my attention to breakfast for the kids. I was excited to surprise them with something I’ve been seeing on some blogs that brought me way back to my own childhood…..eggs in a basket. Or as my Mom called them, toads in the hole.

I can’t believe I’ve been a Mom for over 10 years and have never made this meal for my kids. They were both a little confused at first…LOL…but quickly clued in to what was on their plates. Boy, did the compliments ever pour in! DS in particular was most impressed.

DD was too busy inhaling hers to say much…hehe…

I must admit that their enthusiasm was a treat. Next up was my turn to eat.

• 1 cup USAB
• 1/3 cup kamut flakes
• cinnamon
• dried blueberries
• almond butter
• unsweetened coconut

The boys went out to the farm without us so DD didn’t infect anybody. She started late yesterday with fever, chills, cough & sore throat. You can be sure that I’ve been keeping a close eye on her today. She seems to be responding well to Advil but it becomes obvious when that starts to wear off. Hopefully she’ll be back up to snuff after another good sleep tonight.

I spent the morning finishing up the laundry, vacuuming the house and raking the front lawn of the never ending leaves. It was sure a nice day for it. I wasn’t back in the house long before the guys came home and it was time for lunch. I made a small stir fry with a yellow and red bella pepper, some tofu and a few tablespoons of Memories of Damascus sauce. That was then wrapped up into a flat out wrap with some goat’s milk mozz;

I was still feeling peckish so I ate a small bowl of dry Nature’s Path Flax Maple Crunch cereal;

I spent most of the afternoon watching Mystery Diagnosis and playing on the net. DS and I did wander out to take KC for a nice walk. The fresh air felt nice for sure.

For dinner I roasted up a turkey breast, a butternut squash, sweet potato and steamed some green beans;

Dessert was a piece of strawberry rhubarb peach pie that the boys picked up from Knapps this morning.

There’s a good line up of TV tonight. The Amazing Race AND the season finale of SYTYCD Canada. This means I’m choosing to stay up until 11pm when I need to get up extra early tomorrow for DS’s hockey practice. Not smart, I know, but I’ve never been one to listen to reason! :D

Bye for now!!

No Bills in the Mail Today!

WOW-EEE, I woke up feeling great again today!! I did have to get up a bit earlier because DD’s class went on their field trip to Medieval Times in Toronto today and she had to be at the school by 8:10am. While at the health food store Monday night (that’s where I found the $1.99 Almond Breeze) I stocked up on kamut flakes so that’s what went into my bowl this morning.
-1 cup water
-1/3 cup kamut flakes
-cinnamon
-blueberries
-banana
-unsweetened almond breeze
-slivered almonds to garnish
I really like the kamut flakes for their chew. They really hold their shape and texture. You can read all about kamut right here. I’m sure these can be used other ways, but I’ve never tried. I think I will Google some different recipe ideas. Anyone out there use kamut for anything other than breakfast???

The morning at work was spent doing some heavy auditing before we ran our payrolls. Checking everything back is not my favourite part of the job!! I get bored easily with it and then my body thinks it’s hungry when I know it’s not! Hence the following photo of some Swedish berries;
The afternoon was busier in a different, better way!! Before making my way to the gym I ate my usual Parnoosh dates….
I knew I had to give my ankles a break after yesterday’s jog so I opted for 30 minutes on the bike and 20 minutes of strength exercises….AKA, catching up on the BBBC! Here’s what I did;

*2 sets of 10 step lunges with 5lb weights
*3 set of 10 BOSU squats
*3-30 sec reverse planks
*2 sets 30 reverse crunches
*1 set 30 crunches
*3 sets 10 (girly) push ups
*3 sets 10 tricep dips

I am loving the BOSU squats! They are so challenging and fun to do.

Time: 50 minutes
Avg Hr: 133
Max Hr: 166
Calories Burned: 321

Lunch was nothing special at all. I ate the other half of the Amy’s lentil soup from yesterday with 2 more kamut bread sticks.
You can see that only half of one bread stick made it into the picture! I was hungry!! :) My lunch dessert today was ½ of a banana dried fruit loaf…
So. Good. And best of all….nobody even noticed that I used baby food prunes in them! Tricky, tricky! Before leaving work I ate pretty much what was the last bit of fresh fruit in the house…an apple and an orange…
Before I left the house this morning I put a pork roast in the crock pot so that we could enjoy pulled pork sandwiches for dinner. Half way through the day I realized that we had no buns so I stopped by the grocery store on my way home to buy some. While there I picked up some fruit for tomorrow and some wraps for my supper sammie. These are the kind that I buy...
I mixed 3oz of pork with a 1/4 cup of Memories of Damascus BBQ sauce and served it up in a wrap with a LC cheese wedge. Fiddle heads completed the meal!
My sweet end was these 2 Lindor chocolate....YUM!
As the title of this post alludes to, I had happy mail today!!!
First up was a package from Full Bar which contained 2 bars and 2 packets of water flavouring. You can learn more about Full Bars here and I will be sure to do a review as soon as I try them out. That chocolate one looks awesome!
The second parcel was from Flanigan Farms and had 3 packs of their nut mixes to try out. They were also kind enough to send me quite a bit of information about their product. Here is a link to their site.
DS loves nuts and wanted to try the almonds so I opened that pack and had 2 almonds. I was lucky to get those because the little bugger snuck off and ate the whole pack!!! Guess that means they were pretty darn good almonds, eh?! Again, I will be trying these mixes out over the next few days and will let you know what I think about them then.

Tonight is swimming lesson night so I'm off to the pool for an hour to read, I mean watch the kids swim. There's not too much planned after that. Tomorrow is only a half day for me as I booked the afternoon and Friday off work to get things ready for DD's birthday celebrations this weekend. Enjoy your evening!

Bye for now!!

Wonder Drugs

The weather outside was positively gorgeous today!!! I am SO glad we are done with winter! I’m feeling better today, too which goes a long way towards my cheery manor. It’s amazing how fast medication starts to work once you take it. Here’s my breakfast;

-1 cup water
-1/3 cup Old Wessex 5 Grain cereal
-cinnamon
-banana
-big scoop homemade PB
Mmm! I stirred the PB in after I took the photo and it made the oats so incredibly creamy. This meal kept me satisfied until 1:30!!! I did partake of my usual dates mid morning, but I eat those more to please my sweet tooth than anything else.
The way I look at it, these are better for me than a handful of synthetic sugar!

I felt well enough to go to the gym today for a bit of a workout and I got the OK from my therapist, we’ll call him “A” from now on, to use the elliptical. He gave me a few stretches to do before and after I workout which I made sure to do today!! I ended up doing 30 minutes on the elliptical with the resistance at level3, then I caught myself up on all the BBBC exercises that I haven’t done since May 1. Here’s what I did;

*2 set calf raises (50 each)
*2 set lunges with 5lb weights (25 each)
*1 set of 10 “girly” push ups (I’ll get there one day!)
*2 sets tricep dips (20 each)
*100 bicycle crunches
*side planks, 30 seconds each, both sides

I need to get DD to help me with today's exercise as you need a partner to do it!

Time: 50 minutes
Avg Hr: 156
Max Hr: 177
Calories Burned: 413
Distance (on elliptical) 3.4 miles

I know that my HR was higher than usual today because of the bronchitis. I was pleased that I was able to do what I did, but I won’t lie….I was pooped out afterwards.

Back to my physio, “A” also gave me acupuncture on my feet and lower legs which didn’t seem to do much, but I’ll take a wait and see approach! He set me up with a “foot” doctor so I can get started on some orthotics for my high arches. I go to that appointment May 14 and back to physio next Monday.

I packed leftovers for lunch today and let me tell you, I was NOT feeling it today! Here it is….
I ate it, but it wasn’t at all what I wanted. I don’t really even know what I wanted. I just know it was not this! Thankfully, this doesn’t happen to me very often! I did appease my mouth some with a piece of blueberry almond cornbread which served as my lunch dessert;
Afternoon snack-a-roo was a fan-taste-ic bowl of fruit!
Yumalicious!

As soon as I got home from work I changed into more comfy clothes and relaxed on the deck in the sunshine until it was time to start dinner. I may have even dozed off a little! I pulled chicken breasts out for dinner tonight and my Hubby grilled it up on the BBQ. I let it marinate for a few minutes first with PC Memories of Damascus sauce. I served my 3oz of chicken on top of a HUGE bed of spinach, tomato, cucumber, peppers and asparagus. A wee drizzle of Cranberry Walnut Gorgonzola dressing finished off this massive salad.
Doesn't that look AWESOME?! My belly was pretty full after this, but I managed to make a bit of space for a small chunk of halvah....
Plans for tonight? I'm going back on the deck with a magazine while the sun is still out and then I'll be watching The Biggest Loser. I'm eager to see how they did at home for the past "30 days". Have a wonderful evening, all!!

Bye for now!!

Level Two

Ahhh, here we are, back to the first day of the work week. For me, anyways!!! I’d been lying if I said that getting up this morning was a breeze! I stayed in bed until the last possible minute and still groaned when I got up! Nothing a shower can’t take care of though! I was lazy last night and left lunches for this morning to be made so I only had enough time for a quickie breakfast!

-1 cup water
-1/2 cup Quaker oats
-cinnamon
-mashed banana
-1 tbsp PB2
-Enjoy Life Foods trail mix
It may not have been fancy, but it was good none the less! I also tried a new tea this morning...
This was very very good. It was light in flavour and had a really nice aroma!

The morning went by very quickly as there’s lots of catch up to do from the long weekend. My breakfast must’ve been heartier then usual because I wasn’t hungry for a morning snack at all! I decided I’d better eat something before going to the gym so I pulled out my strawberries and a few prunes about 45 minutes before I left my desk.

I played around on the treadmill today varying speeds and inclines for 45 minutes. My speed went between 6-6.5 mph and the incline form 0.5%-3%. This really made the time fly and got a good sweat going to boot! I also did 3 sets of tricep dips.

Time: 50 minutes
Avg Hr: 170
Max Hr: 180
Calories Burned: 473
Distance: 4.6 miles (7.37km)

I noticed right away that my average HR was high than usual today. I credit the incline with that!

Lunch today was veggies and a Clover Leaf Fresh Thai Herb tuna steak.

I totally love these tuna steaks for last minute lunches!!! This one has a nice kick to it that leaves a party in my mouth long after my plate is clean!!!

I spent the afternoon like a drone keypunching away. Blah! At least it’s mindless work so I can think about other, more important things….like what dinner might be! Just before leaving for the day I ate a pear that I chopped into bite size pieces.
I also ate literally 3 bites of this Clif Bar.
I had originally cut in in half and put one piece in DS's lunch. The rest was suppose to be my pre gym snack, but I wasn't hungry for it. I saved the rest for tomorrow. Overall, I really enjoyed this flavour! This and the pear fueled me through my very first day of level 2 on the 30 Day Shred.

So, level two kicked my ass! It was certainly much harder than level one!!! Walking push ups? Pretty hard to complete when I can't even do a proper push up!!! I tried and almost landed on my face! I'm determined to get strong enough to do this by the time I'm done the 30 days!! All in all, I really liked this level. It seemed to go by faster then the first....probably because I was half dead when it was over!! I'm eager to compare my measurements at the end, too! Don't worry, I'll share them with you, too....good or bad!!

Before I popped the DVD in, I got a pork tenderloin ready to go in the oven. I just gave it a few good shakes of salt and pepper and let it got for 20 minutes. Once I was done the workout, I pulled the pork out and coated it with this sauce...
It called Memories of Damascus...tangy pomegranate sauce. Here's the description that's on the side of the bottle. I hope you can see it okay!
It had a nice tang to it and the kids liked it , too which is always a good thing!! I cooked the meat another 15 minutes or so, then let it rest for 5 before slicing it up. I prepared some steamed asparagus and WW couscous as my sides.
Don't be shocked to see the exact same meal for my lunch tomorrow!!! There was lots leftover for my hubby's dinner at work tomorrow, too. I found myself eating a piece of crispy chocolate bunny, but I managed to get away from eating it all on my poor child by grabbing this Cadbury Almond Thin instead....
There was also a handful of carob chips, but I'm done that nonsense now!! After I get the kids lunches ready, I plan on making a honking mug of tea and sitting down to enjoy The Biggest Loser. Ahhh, relaxation! Don't forget to email your BSI: LEMON recipes to kristaskravings@gmail.com!!

Bye for now!!