Out of the Dumps

It dawned on me this morning when I woke up in a fabulous mood that I have been down in the dumps a bit this week. Funny thing is, I didn’t even realize it! Upon getting out of bed this morning I felt energetic and ready to take on the day. Wonder if it being FRIDAY has anything to do with it?!

I had a bit of pumpkin that needed to be used so into my breakfast it went!
-1 cup water
-1/3 cup Red River cereal
-goji berries
-pumpkin puree
-cinnamon & pumpkin pie spice
-carob chips (wink, wink Veggie Girl!)
-sweet cinnamon sprinkles
A-MAZING! This was one of those bowls that I was sad to see the end of! And this was the last of my carob chips. Note to self……go buy more this weekend!!

The morning passed quite uneventfully. I snacked on the last 3 prunes. I took a picture of the bag today to avoid photo boredom! :)
With my prunes I enjoyed a latte from the office machine;
And later on I munched on a ½ cup of “granola” that I made last night. I got the recipe from the new Hungry Girl cookbook.
I think the options are endless on this recipe!!!

I hit up the gym today and did 30 minutes on the stationary bike (my ankles were OK with this movement), 10 minutes of ab work, 3 set of 15 tricep dips as per the BBBC and a 5 minute walk on the ‘mill. It felt so nice to just MOVE my body! I even got some magazine reading in while on the bike!

Lunch was a good 2 cups of mixed veggies with this tuna steak on top;
All together now!
I snacked on an orange and some strawberries over the course of the afternoon…
There may have also been a few chocolate eggs consumed. DOH! Just before I left work I drank a chai tea. This is the brand that I used;
I like the idea of the aluminum vs a bag for easy use, but I don’t like that it promotes waste. At least a bag is bio-degradable.

My MIL bought me a cute little mini rose plant for my birthday and it didn’t like any of the spots I put it in at my house so I brought it into work to see if I could keep it alive until planting time. Not only does it LOVE it’s place on my desk, its got a bloom!!!
Too cute, eh?

I had very limited time between leaving work and going to Pilates. I picked up Subway for the kids, then picked up the kids and took them to my parents so they could eat. I had no time for dinner myself so a Z-bar came to the rescue! I knew just the one I wanted to try, too....Honey Graham.

This was every bit as good as I imagined it would be and held me over until I got home at 7pm.

Dinner ended up being a toasted bagel with a LC wedge, ham and egg whites. I had some steamed asparagus on the side.
I ate this so fast I almost didn't taste it. Tsk, tsk! Seven is a bit late for me to be eating dinner. Growing up, we always ate at 4:30...my parents still do. As a rule, we usually eat dinner around 5:30 now. What is a "normal" dinner time for you? My sweet end was a SF creme brulee pudding.
I don't know that this really tasted like creme brulee, but it was still tasty so no complaints out of me!

My hubby came home from work early tonight, so I'm gonna go spent some time with the fam as a whole. He's back on day's next week....YIPEE!! Life should be back to normal and I can't wait! I hope everyone enjoys their Friday night!

Bye for now!!

Taming the Hunger Beast

The sun finally made an appearance today! WAHOO!! Nice to meet you, sunshine! It wasn’t exactly what I would call warm, but that’s OK, I’ll take it! My breakfast this morning was reminiscent of a childhood favourite….PB&J!
-1 cup water
1/3 cup Quaker oats
-2 tbsp PB2
-1 tbsp Cinnamon Plum Tea jam
-cinnamon
-pecans
Ohhh….so good!!! The oats turned out to be really creamy which was a HUGE plus for me! Unfortunately, this bowl didn’t hold my hunger at bay for too long. I found myself itching to eat again by 9:30! I broke into my stash of prunes earlier than normal…
An hour later, I was hungry again! I held off another ½ hour before I finally ate my muffin.
This was consumed a good hour before I would normally eat it! A minty piece of gum helped tie me over until I could get to my lunch, but just barely.

I had a few errands to run over the lunch hour, one of which involved the grocery store. Not good to go to one of those hungry! I did well, though. I only left with what I went in for. Every time I found myself gazing at something naughty, I told myself to walk away, it only looked good because I wanted to eat.

There was some quesadilla “stuffing” left from last night so I brought that for lunch today with my very last Flatout wrap to bundle it in. I left out the cheese today but added some sliced cucumber for some crunch.
Horrible picture, I know, but I just could not make this look pretty! I did eat some pretty strawberries for my lunch dessert, though! :)
I got lost in paperwork this aft so it went by nice and fast. DD had an eye doctor appointment right after work so I ate this chopped up mango about 10 minutes before calling it a (work) day;

I love mango's, but most times can’t be bothered preparing one to eat. Lazy, I know! I’m glad I took the time this morning because this one was juicy and sweet.
The eye appointment went just peachy....especially since they were able to fix my glasses!!! YAY! My contacts didn't fail me at work today which was a relief. I usually have a headache by noon, but my eyes didn't start getting uncomfortable until the last hour of the day. When I go for my eye exam I'm going to look into a different kind of contact so that I can wear them more often.

Dinner tonight was a Sol veggie burger on a toasted English muffin. My toppings were lettuce, hot peppers, honey mustard, a LC wedge and ketchup. A side of steamed broccoli with walnut cranberry Gorgonzola dressing rounded out the plate.
I really enjoyed this burger pattie!! I bet I could pass it off as meat with my hubby which is saying a lot! :) They were a little pricey, but a decent size so I'm certain that I would buy them again. My sweet end was a Cravings macaroon;
Heaven. 'nuf said.

I let my dinner digest a bit and then got right into shredding. I traded off the cardio parts for ab work again. Until I find out what's up with my ankles (which are now very swollen as well as painful) I'll be staying away from any high impact activity. This is already driving me nuts and it's only been 2 days, but I do not want to do any further damage. **Sniff, sniff** Anybody have any ideas on some heart pumping cardio that doesn't include feet??? Besides swimming that is. I abhor swimming.

On tonight's agenda? Helping with homework, dishes, lunches and then some down time watching CSI, which I hope is much better than last week! :) Tomorrow's Friday!!! Enjoy the evening!!

Bye for now!!

Magic Bullet Wonders

All day today I had to keep reminding myself that it was Tuesday, not Wednesday! ARGH!!! Don’t you hate when that happens?? If you haven’t noticed yet, please check out my sidebar when you have some time. I’ve re done my profile and finally figured out how to link my recipes so that they show in an alphabetical column as opposed to a list. They should be much easier to see now!

Here’s breakfast!
-1 cup water
-1/2 cup cream of wheat
-cinnamon
-banana
-PB2
-carob chips & almond slivers
Ahhh, back to my favourite combination of flavours!

Back tracking a bit to last night...I was feeling some hot chocolate to take the rainy chill out of my bones so I decided to get a little fancy with it. I combined 1/2 cup soy with 1/2 cup water in the Magic Bullet then added the HC packet. I let that whip around for a good minute to get all frothy then popped it in the microwave to heat up....
OMG! So. Good!!!

Work went by a little faster today which is a plus. I snacked on some of nature’s candy mid morning…
This was the last of my figs which is sad because it was a good batch! I also snacked on half a piece of Banana Bread before the gym;
Keeping my aching ankles in mind at the gym today, I did a 25 minute fast walk on the treadmill while I waited for the elliptical to open up. Once it did, I hopped on for 30 minutes. I really pushed the envelope time wise today, but lucky for me, nobody seemed to notice that I got back to my desk a little late!

Time: 55 minutes
Avg Hr: 148
Max Hr: 174
Calories Burned: 446
Distance: 5 miles (elliptical/treadmill combined)

I made the world’s fastest soup last night for my lunch today!!! Here’s what I did (please note that I didn’t measure anything so the amounts are not 100%)

Cauliflower Spinach Soup

-1 cup cauliflower
-2 big handfuls of baby spinach
-1/4 cup onion
-1/2 cup vegetable broth/water
-1 Laughing Cow cheese wedge
-salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, coriander

*add all ingredients to Magic Bullet (or blender/food processor)
*whirl until smooth
*bring to a boil, then let simmer for a few minutes
*serve

The flavour of this soup was fantastic. And look how green it is!!! I ran it through Spark People and came up with 99 calories, 3.2g fat, 7.3g fibre for the whole shebang! I ate a serving of Mary’s Organic Crackers with it.
I also ate the rest of my banana bread as my lunch dessert. A juicy orange was my “just before” going home snack!
I decided to just veg out for a bit when I got home tonight instead of jumping right into the Shred DVD. I was feeling a little overwhelmed for some reason and just couldn't face any sort of activity. I made myself a cup of coffee and watched TV for 1/2 an hour before getting supper started. That did the trick!!!

Speaking of supper, I made/ate something tonight that I haven't had in ages....Manwich! I found the lonely can at the back of my pantry and decided to put it to use. No, you all know me well enough to know that I didn't cook it up with regular old ground beef! I had to healthify it a bit! I used ground white turkey meat instead. The kids had theirs on cheese buns, I had mine on an English muffin with a side of spinach salad drizzled with TJ's Cranberry Walnut Gorganzola dressing.
What a fun meal!! My sweet end was this bar that I got in my package from Coco....
Tasty little treat, it was!! It was like an Italian cookie filled with some dark chocolate yummy stuff!
Some chocolate covered edamame may have also fell victim to my mouth!

Now that my dinner has had a chance to digest some, I'll be doing my shredding. I think that due to my ankles I will skip the cardio part tonight. I'll work on abs while they're jumping around! I really, really want my ankles to stop hurting!!!! After that will be Biggest Loser time. Don't forget all the kid related stuff that I'll be squeezing in there, too!! :) Hope you all enjoy the night!!!

Bye for now!!

Fabulous Start to the Weekend!

It’s beautiful, it’s warm AND it’s Friday!!! What more could a girl ask for? Well, a lot, actually, but I’ll definitely take this!!! Thanks to my fab package from Coco, I brought Old Wessex back into my life this morning!

-1 cup water
-1/2 cup Old Wessex 5 Grain cereal
-cinnamon
-2 tbsp PB2
-mashed naner
-carob chips
I absolutely LOVE this combo in my oats! DELISH! And I hid the chocolate covered edamame so none made it to my mouth as I was going out the door! :)

Work was pretty slow today. It always is on payday Friday! I got a lot of little picky things off my desk, though, which is great! I snacked on some prunes and a freezer muffin throughout the morning…
Seeing as today was gorgeous out and my legs were WAY too tired for a run, I decided to take a walk to Subway over the lunch hour and get me some grub. I had brought a Lean Cuisine Panini for lunch, but a fresh sammie just sounded SO much more appealing! I mapped out the route over at Google Pedometer and it totaled 2.4ish miles round trip. I wore my HRM for shits and giggles (and for the watch part!) Here are some walking stats for ya!

Time: 47 minutes
Avg Hr: 129
Max Hr: 197 (don’t think so!!)
Calories Burned: 287
Distance: approx 2.4 miles

Not bad for a walk! It was just glorious out! I took a few pictures of the river as I went by it. Along the right hand side of the first one, you can see a path which is part of the trail I always talk about.

These were just growing in random spots along the boulevard! How pretty are they?
So what kind of sub did I get???
A 6” veggie with the works (no onion) and sweet onion sauce. Another fave of mine!!! This sure beat a frozen sandwich! In the course of the afternoon I also ate an orange and a pear;

The orange was really quite sour! :0

Dinner had to be a little earlier tonight because I had to leave the house for Pilates at 5:15 and didn't want to eat dinner at 7pm as that's a little late for me. That being said, I didn't want go to class with a full belly so I made some egg whites and a huge spinach and strawberry salad which was topped with TJ’s Cranberry Walnut Gorgonzola dressing (also care of Coco) and chopped walnuts.
How yummy does that look? Oh, yeah!!!For my sweet end I ate the very last coconut lime oat bar! I should mention that we enjoyed our dinner out on the deck!!!
I'll be leaving the house again in a few minutes to go pick DS up. I'm positive that I'll be having a snack a little later on, but I'm not sure what that will be yet. Probably a green monster! I hope everyone is enjoying that fabulous start to their weekend!!

Bye for now!!

Totally Wiped Out

I woke up to another gloriously sunny morning, but boy was I ever stiff!! These new moves of Jillian’s are working me!!! :) Before I hit the hay last night I pulled out a serving of Pumpkin Pie Oats from the freezer so breakie was a no brainer this morning!!

Before tossing it in the microwave, I added a splash of water to help plump it up. When it was nice and hot, I added some unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze and some Mocha Hazelnut sprinkles for some pizzazz!
Creamy, tasty and filling. The best! Before walking out the door to work I have to admit to grabbing a mitt full of chocolate covered edamame for the road! This is one treat that I have to put out of sight or they’ll all be gone before I know it!!!

By 10 this morning I was really hungry!! I’m still not sure why because breakfast usually holds me over much longer than 2.5 hrs!! I managed to avoid the office candy jar by eating some sweet prunes…
I also stuck a piece of gum in my mouth. I wonder if adding the Shred DVD to my daily workout routine has put an edge on my hunger? I’ve been feeling hungrier in the evenings, too, but have been pretty good about snacking. For instance, last night I ate a handful of Mary’s Organic crackers. I really wanted a green monster but I’m out of everything I need to make one!!

I did eat my freezer muffin before going to the gym. I’ve been trying to eat fruit before the gym which has been working well but I knew that I needed a bit more heft before working out today.
My lower body is pretty stiff today so I ran at a slower speed. This felt more like how fast (or slow!) I run outside. The first half mile was killer and I so wanted to give up and just walk but after mile one I was all warmed up and feeling good! All in all, it ended up being a great run! I also did 3 planks….each side and front….for one minute each.

Time: 50 minutes
Avg Hr: 157
Max Hr: 171
Calories Burned: 445
Distance: 4.25 miles

I brought one of the turkey burgers for lunch today, but I brought some fixings for it which I didn’t have last night! I sandwiched the patty between a toasted English muffin which had been coated with some fig preserves and lettuce.

My afternoon snacks included a blood orange and some more sliced strawberries;

Once again I did the 30 Day Shred as soon as I got home from work. I'm quite enjoying getting this done by 5:15!! I found myself totally wiped out after completing the exercises today. My legs feel like lead right now and once I settle down for the night I'll be soaking my poor feet! My Pilates class starts up again tomorrow at 5:30 so I don't know when I'll have time to do the DVD, but I think it may be a good idea to take a day off from it. I don't want to over extend myself and end up hurt!

Dinner ended up being leftovers again. I apologize for being so repetitious, but grocery day is tomorrow and I really don't like to have prepared foods in the fridge when I have food to find a home for! The kids ended up with burritos and leftover noodles and I ate some more pork tenderloin, asparagus and couscous. The little blob on the side a Memories of Damascus sauce for dipping;
After dinner was done and dishes were put away, we went to the store to buy a birthday present for a party DS is attending tomorrow night. I grabbed these 2 cookies to eat on the drive over.
The grocery store is right beside where we were so I caved and ran in to buy some spinach for green monsters! :) On my way past the reduced produce stand I saw a bag of half price bananas...
SCORE!!! Looks like I'll be doing some more baking this weekend!

I have another Canadian freebie for all us Canucks! Click here to get a sample pack of craisins! And please remember to submit you BSI: Lemon recipe to kristaskravings@gmail.com!!! I haven't gotten many recipes and I'm starting to think I picked a dud ingredient!!! :o

Well, my friends, I am done for. It's time for this ole gal to drag her sorry (yet almost firm) butt downstairs to the couch to relax! Hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather!!

Bye for now!!