Time For Some Changes

The first thing I have to say (this is for all you Biggest Loser fans out there) I am SO thrilled with the outcome of last night's show!!! If you'd seen my reaction last night you'd still be rolling on the floor laughing at me. I looked like a football fanatic when their team gets the winning touch down! Seriously, I almost dislocated my shoulder "air pumping"!! I am SUCH a loser! :)

Breakfast today was a nice warm bowl of oat bran...



-1 cup water
-1/3 cup oat bran
-1/2 mashed banana
-2 Tbsp trail mix
-cinnamon



I love oat bran as a change every now and again. It doesn’t keep me full as long as oats, though! I think I might really stray tomorrow and try a totally different type of breakfast!!

I ended up with a case of heartburn last night just after I posted. I think my system is just rebelling against my off the wall meals lately. Time to get back on track! I suffered terrible GERD after DD was born and spent over a year on medication...I don’t want that nonsense returning!! Once I felt better, I ate a handful of dry cereal to avoid gut rot and had a nice soothing tea.

By 11am this morning I was hungry so I dug into some Bare Fruit banana chips and 1/2 a cup strained pineapple-green tea yogurt. Hit the spot! :)




I've decided I'm going to try laying off the running for a few days. My knee and back have been bothering me and I think it’s from the repetitive treadmill use. During the summer I was at least bike riding and walking more. Now that the weather is cooler, I’m inside pretty much all the time. (I know, my own fault!) Also, before our gym at the office closed for renovations back in June, I had access to an elliptical, stair master, rowing machine, bikes and lots of weights, bands and steps so I was switching up my routine ALL the time. I can’t wait to get back in there. The power’s that be say it should be reopening the first week of December. That can’t come soon enough for me!

So...today I did a nice 40 minutes, 2.5 mile walk at lunch. I kept a steady pace, bumped up the incline, and buckled down with my Prevention magazine. Even though I didn’t run, I still feel like I got a workout and it’s definitely better than sitting on my butt!

Lunch was this pack of tuna;



With a side of couscous;




I love this stuff! It comes with a bay leaf and chili pepper on top. I take these off before eating it, but I’m sure you don’t have to if you enjoy REALLY spicy food! It makes for a quick and easy meal. I’ve tried all 3 flavors, but this one is my favorite. It really packs a punch in the heat department! I also prepared a fruit salad to eat as my afternoon snack. This is made up of pineapple, green grapes, strawberries and kiwi. Mmm...good!



I came across a wicked looking product in my Prevention magazine over lunch. Pumpkin pesto by Stonewall Kitchen! Has anyone out there tried this stuff?? It sounds incredible. Actually they look to have a ton of yummy looking food and food stuff.

Dinner tonight was my Apple & Pepper Pork Chops, only I used chicken thighs this time!



I served it with polenta and it still turned out marvelous! My sweet end was a strawberry Curves bar and 3 chocolate covered almonds (no picture of those because I didn't really mean to eat them!).



Then I hauled ass out of the kitchen before anything else suddenly found the opening in my face. :)

I have always wanted to try Pilate's, but something has always stopped me...probably me! I've decided to look into a studio here in town that a few of my friends have been to and like. I reason that the kids have dance, hockey & swimming between the 2 of them and my hubby plays hockey 2 times a week, so it's high time I do something fun, too! Anybody want to share their Pilate's stories, good or bad? I'd love to hear about it!

Bye for now!!

The Party Continues...

I woke up with a stiff back again today. I think I’m sleeping so soundly that I’m not moving through the night. I took an extra hot shower and stretched a bit while washing and felt much better when I got out! Here’s what went into my bowl this morning!



-1 cup water
-1/2 cup Flax Seed Porridge
-1/2 a mashed banana
-dried cherries from Bare Fruit pack
-cinnamon & cinnamon sprinkles



I enjoyed a granola bar with my Holiday Chai last night. I was so relaxed on the couch that I almost fell asleep! That hasn’t happened to me in a LONG time!




This tea picture was taken at work today...looks the same as the one I had last night so I decided not to bore y’all with doubles!

We had another “party” at work today. This one was labeled as a “coffee break”. What an amazing spread this particular department put on! My strategy for not going over board on the goodies at these events is to fill my plate pretty much full with fruit before anything else. That way, there’s not much room for the sweets….I’m one of these people who doesn’t like the different food groups touching on the plate. Here’s today’s selection...



Fruit, fruit, fruit, 2 crackers, one with brie one with a bit of a cheese ball spread, 3 thin slices of cheese, a small square and a cookie. One cookie and some grapes didn’t make it into the shot! I ate the goodies pretty much right away. Once they were enjoyed, I stuck a piece of gum in my mouth! If history repeats itself, there will be a few more of these get togethers before Christmas is here!

The stars just were not in alignment today when it came to my run. First, I had to take a detour home due to a road closure. That put me 5 minutes behind. I knew that would also mean that I had to leave 5 minutes sooner. That cut me down to 30 mins max of treadmill time. Then, at the 25 min mark, the school calls to tell me that DD bumped her head doing handstands against the wall. She was fine…they gave her an ice pack, they just wanted me to know. ARGH! I plan to watch part of The Biggest Loser on the treadmill tonight!

With the bounty of fruit that I collected this morning, as well as the treats, I decided to save today’s lunch for tomorrow and just eat the fruit with a yogurt. I mixed this...



With some blackberries, pineapple and agave...



Then picked at the rest of the fruit as the afternoon wore on. And, my hand kinda wandered into the cookie jar at about 3pm. I ate 3 (OK, 4) more cookies like you saw on my plate. Damn leftovers!

Tuesday is usually crockpot night but because I’m off work at 4pm this week, I had time to go home and cook dinner before swimming. Well, my hubby did most of the work! He BBQ'd some chicken breasts. I made some noodles for the family plus steamed veggies for everyone. There's also some salsa on the side of my plate for dipping.



I was still pretty full from my afternoon of grazing and did not end up eating too much supper. I hope that doesn't come back to kick me in the butt later on tonight! It's time to head on down to the pool! Hope everyone has a fantastic evening...

Bye for now!

I Need Fruit!

When I woke up and saw this outside my window...



I decided to put a bit of a tropical spin on my oats!



-1 cup water
-1/2 cup Old Wessex 5 Grain cereal
-1/2 mashed banana
-dash of coconut extract
-cinnamon
-1 tsp each coconut and chopped walnuts



Yum, yum, yum! All I was missing was the pineapple!

I had some serious munchies last night so I ate a bowl of dry YogActive cereal. This bowl holds about a third of a cup.



I went back for a second bowl. I didn’t need it but I figured it was better than digging into the big ass bag of chocolate covered almonds the hubby bought at Costco Saturday!

One of the girls in the office is expecting her first baby within the month so we had a baby shower for her this morning. She got some really neat stuff! I can’t believe how cool baby things have gotten since I had DS almost 7 years ago! Of course there were treats set up. I didn’t snap any pictures of the table, but here’s what I put on my plate...



Grapes, pineapple, a small piece of a choco/PB square and a biscotto. I also ate a macaroon that didn’t make it into the shot! There was plenty of variety and I’m happy with my choices and the fact that I didn’t go over board. I was glad to see a big fruit platter!

Getting changed at home today for my run was a very “fresh” experience! Man, was it cold! My knee was bothering me again (I think it’s the change in temp) so I kept a slower pace on the treadmill. I hit the 3 mile marker at 33:32...much slower than last week, but I’m glad I finished up. There were a few moments where I just wanted to walk. I feel nice and stretched out which is a good thing….especially when I have a job that requires sitting all day!

I really missed out on my fruits and veggies this past weekend and my body let me know it late last night. I was craving fruit like a mad woman right before bed. So, for today’s lunch I cut up a mango, 2 kiwis and some fresh raspberries for lunch. I also brought a yogurt.




And my afternoon snack was a pumpkin raspberry muffin. I think there’s only one of these guys left.



Monday = dance night. My hubby and I had started doing a “fend for yourself” type dinner back in September. I got sick of that real fast and started leaving stuff for him to prepare while I drove DD to dance for 5pm. Tonight I decided that with all the leftover food in the fridge, we would just pick what we wanted to re-heat. My dinner was exactly the same as last night!



A haddock fillet and eggplant ravioli. Delish! DD took a thermos full of ravioli for her lunch today and my hubby had some in his lunch as, well. I’d say they were a hit!

Before I picked DD up at dance I stopped in to the health food store to browse around. Look what I found!



Stash has their holiday flavors out! Yippee! I'll be snuggling in with a huge mug of Holiday Chai tonight! I also found some Sahale snack mix in almond and a little package of dried bananas and cherries. I plan to top my oats with them tomorrow!



I'm off to burrow under a warm blanket for the evening. How very lazy of me! Oh, well...I'm still going to indulge! :)

Bye for now!!

BSI: Eggplant and a Meme

My son was on the ice at 6:30am this morning. You can bet that I wasn’t at the rink today! I was up earlier than usual for at Sunday, though. My hubby brought me home an extra large pumpkin spice tea so I sipped on that while browsing the net.



We were leaving at 9ish to go out to the farm, but I still wasn’t very hungry with all that tea sloshing around in my belly so I made a smaller than usual bowl of oats for breakfast at around 8:30am.



-2/3 cup water
-1/3 cup Quaker oats
-1/2 mashed banana
-cinnamon
-sprinkle of chopped walnuts



Everything about it was great except for that fact that I wasn’t really hungry for it yet. I didn’t want a repeat of yesterday’s random eating so I was trying to focus on a more “scheduled” day of eating so that my system doesn’t get all confused and skid to a halt! Meh. On a brighter side, my MIL put out some homemade banana bread that I was able to leave alone because I was still full. Normally, I’d of been all over it! Sitting here now though, I kinda wish I had a piece. It looked really good!!

Meg over at Megan’s Munchies tagged me with a meme! How fun! Here are the rules;

1) Link back to the blog that originally tagged you
2) Post the rules on your blog
3) Tell your readers 6 random things about you
4) Tag 6 other blogs and link back to their sites
5) Leave a comment on your chosen blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged
6) Let your tagger know when you’ve posted your entry


So, here are 6 random things about me!

1)I HATE walking barefoot on wet tile. Be it on a pool deck or my own bathroom...YUCK!
2)I’ve been a payroll clerk for 7 years now. No big deal except that I failed math twice in high school!
3)I am absolutely PETRIFIED of spiders!!!!
4)Until 4 years ago, I never ate breakfast…..unless you can count a cup coffee...
5)I’ve always wanted to be a surgical nurse
6)From the ages of 12-15, I was a candy striper and loved every minute of it. I logged well over 1000 hrs!

There you have it! Now you all know me a little better. :) Here are the 6 blogs I’ve chosen to tag;

Itzys kitchen
What I ate yesterday
Whole foods whole me
Lighter Portions
The Fitnessista
Bacon’s Blog

Hope you all have fun with it!! I think this is traveling through blogland like wild fire, so I apologize if you've already been tagged!

Believe it or not, I still wasn’t very hungry by lunch. My stomach was just starting to let me know that food would be required in the near future. I ended up making a salad with some corn, mushrooms, shredded carrot’s, some swiss cheese all drizzled with Tuscon salad dressing. I heated a raspberry Pumpkin muffin for a side...



This is just what I needed. After I took the picture, I topped the muffin off with a blob of Cool Whip free. Yum! Through the course of the afternoon, I randomly munched down 2 Halloween chocolate bars. The candy stash is almost gone...thank God!

Oh! I almost forgot! I ate a small snack last night while watching Law & Order. It was about a third of a cup of dry YogActive cereal. This stuff rocks...no joke.



The weather was not doing very nice things today! It pretty much rained slush all afternoon which made it a very good day to just chill out and get started on my BSI entry. Now, I have a confession to make. Although I love my veggies, eggplant is not one of them. In fact, I really don’t like eggplant at all which is sad because it’s a beautiful vegetable! It has a pleasing shape, it’s my favorite color…I’ve always been determined that someday I would enjoy this poor vegetable. So, this challenge was perfect for me! Here’s what I came up with!

Eggplant Ravioli

-1 Tbsp olive oil
-1 onion, chopped
-2 cloves garlic, crushed
-1 Tbsp fresh basil
-2 baby eggplants, peeled
-1/2 cup ricotta
-1/4 cup Egg Beaters (or 1 egg, beaten)
-1/4 cup parmesan
-1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
-1 cup WW flour
-1 cup hot water
-2 cups prepared marinara sauce

*heat oil in pan and add onion, eggplant & garlic. Cook over low heat for 10 mins
*set mixture aside to cool
*in a large bowl, mix both flours and water, stirring with a wooden spoon until a ball forms. Cover and let sit for 10 mins.
*put eggplant mixture in food processor (or magic bullet) and blend together leaving some chunks. Combine in a bowl with basil, ricotta, egg & parmesan cheese. Mix well.
*Divide dough into 4 pieces and roll into a fairly thin rectangle on a lightly floured surface.
*using a tbsp at a time, drop filling in a row about 2"apart down the rectangle. Fold dough over top and using a round cookie cutter (or glass) cut cirlce out to form ravioli.
*drop ravioli about 7 at a time into a pot of boiling water. When they float to the top, they're done.
*heat 2 cups marinara in a large pan while the ravioli are boiling. Place ravioli in sauce as they come out of the water.
*heat through and serve!

The filling....



Ready to jump in the pot:



Steaming away. Notice how some have floated to the top....they're done! :)



All sauced up!



The Spark People recipe calculator puts these pockets of love at;

61 calories
1.3g fat
1.0g fiber
2.5g protein

I have tried eggplant grilled, roasted, as a dip, marinated, fried and I have NEVER liked it....until this recipe that is! These guys were terrific and filling. My whole family loved them and even went back for seconds. When I told my hubby the the BSI was eggplant, he told me that I wouldn't be able to make a good recipe with it. I proved him wrong tonight!! Nobody even knew that I had used eggplant and I didn't say a word until dinner was over and the pot was empty! Yipee!

I also made haddock fillets. I sprayed some butter on them, sprinkled salt and pepper and salmon spice on them and popped them in the oven for 15 minutes. They came out just perfect! What a great dinner we had tonight!



Well, I must hit publish as I'm running out of time to submit the recipe to Meghann!

Bye for now!

No Routine

Today has been a real wacky day for eating. My meals seem to have been scattered all over the place, if I can even call them meals! I'll get on with breakfast because it was really the only "normal" meal I ate today!



-1 cup water
-1/3 cup Quaker Oats
-1/4 cup ricotta cheese
-1/4 of a mashed banana
-1 Tbsp almond butter
-cinnamon & a sprinkle of chopped walnuts



Although this bowl tasted excellent, it was a bit watery for my liking. Next time, I'll have to cut down on the liquid. I did stick to my ribs for a good long time, though!

The hockey game was fun last night! Our team won 4-2 which made it even better! Here are some picture's of the kids at the game...

My son, world's greatest hockey fan(atic)!



My daughter (on the left) and her best bud....



I was a little hungry when we got home from the game so i snacked on this Kashi Honey Almond bar...



I went to a cool organic store in the next town over today on the recommendation of Kristie over at Lighter Portions. She found PB and coconut cream pie Lara Bars there! No, joke! This whole time these seemingly out of reach flavors have only been a 30 minute drive away! Thanks for this fabulous discovery! I bought 2 of each kind plus a chocolate hazelnut Jocolat bar.



By the time we arrived home we were a bit short on time as DS had to be on the ice at 1pm. I quickly ate a bowl of pineapple yogurt with some granola and we hit the road.



At the rink, I pulled out a PB Lara Bar. SO. GOOD! They have a nice subtle PB flavor which is just fine with me. As with all the Lara Bars I've tried, the texture was right up my alley. Not much of a lunch, but what can you do?

After hockey we went to my parents place to celebrate my niece's birthday. She'll be 2 on Tuesday. While there, I ate a piece of cake and a rice crispy square.




I also munched on some veggies with a touch of dip but didn't take a photo because I was really just picking at them.

After the afternoon treats, my dinner appetite was kinda ruined. I hummed and hawed over what to eat and decided on a muesli bagel with Peanut Butter & Co. cinnamon swirl PB and a sliced up apple.



This looked more like lunch #2 than dinner. Oh, how I miss my weekday routine!!

My hubby has a friend over to watch the hockey game, so I think I'm gonna snuggle in with a good book tonight...after I catch up on my blog reading, of course!!

Bye for now!!

Go Storm Go!!

I woke up feeling like the Pillsbury Dough Boy today. I guess the Halloween junk finally caught up with me. Oh, well...what’s done is done. No where to go but forward, right?

Has anyone out there tried this oatmeal yet?? I can’t buy it in Canada and was wondering if it was worth the effort to source it out. I’ve seen it mentioned on the Hungry Girl site a few times.

I wanted something different in my bowl today so I decided to make an oat “recipe” of mine that I haven’t had since the summer. Green Tea Latte Oats.




Looking at the color of this stuff, I was thinking that I should’ve made it Halloween morning! I’ll have to keep St. Patrick ’s Day in mind!

This morning went by really fast! Some days just seem to slip away from me more than others! Around 11am I ate a muffin because I was starting to get a grumble in my belly and I don’t like to get on the treadmill with an empty stomach. I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of it! Ooops!

I hammered out such a fantastic run today! I felt SO energized. Here’s what I did:

-1 min jumping jacks (to warm up)
-mile 1 in 9:27
-mile 2 in 18:31
-mile 3 in 27:44 (Go me!!!!)-2 min cool down walk

TOTAL=3.17 miles in 30 minutes

That is by far my fastest 3 mile run and was I HOT! Like, sweaty, tomato face hot. I think steam was rising off my face. But I. FELT. GREAT!!!

Lunch was a cup of last night’s soup and a sammie made with Weight Watcher’s WW bread and a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese. I like to eat the sandwich open face so it lasts longer! Sorry about the crappy picture! The overhead florescent don’t make for very good lighting.



I also ate grapes.



Are you guy’s sick of seeing grapes, yet? If so, you’ll be relieved to hear that they’re all gone!

I mentioned a few posts back that my daughter and I are involved in a study with the U of G. It’s a study on child injury risk in children in between the ages of 6-10 and will be done over the course of 8 weeks. All it really involves is some note taking. DD has to fill out a short form each night about her day and if she hurt herself or not and if so, was she alone and do her parents know, things like that. The injury can be a minor is a scrape up to something more serious. I have to fill out a form once a week that basically covers our day and what DD was doing at certain times (like watching TV, playing outside) and if I was with her or in a different room. At the mid point we’ll go to the university for some on site stuff that will involve some fun activities for DD. At the end of the study, we will receive a gift certificate for a store of our choice (they have a list of what places we can choose from). Should be interesting to see how it all unfolds!

I really, really wanted to go out for dinner tonight but my hubby didn't want to. I was not in a cooking mood, which is rare for me, so he threw chicken fingers and fries in the oven for them. For myself, I toasted an Ezekiel 4:9 English muffin and topped half with the last of the tofu and some salsa and the other half with a 1/4 cup of eggbeaters and Frank's Redhot sauce. I had some roasted root veggies on the side but didn't end up eating most of them. I was just in a blah mood.



I ate half of this Honest Foods Trail Mix bar for my sweet end. I think this is my fave so far! It had a nice sweet, nutty, almost crispy texture to it yet it was still chewy. Mmm...delish!



We are on our way out to buy my niece a birthday present. She'll be 2 on Tuesday and we're having a party for her tomorrow. After that we're heading out to an OHL hockey game to see our local team play. Go Storm Go!! Have a great Friday night!

Bye for now!!