Pure Heaven in a Box

Hey everyone!   

Thanks for all your well wishes!  I am feeling 100% better.            

I’m about to head out of town for the weekend because my grandparents are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary tomorrow by renewing their vows at church.  How adorable is that?   Since my best friend lives out toward my grandparents, I’m going to spend the night there this evening.   Should be a fun weekend!     

I wanted to share an amazing food delivery service called Pure Market Express with you.   I had seen positive reviews of Pure Market Express on Choosing Raw and Kristen’s Raw, and after seeing how affordable the foods were, I decided to place an order.  Having pneumonia put me in a bit of a lazy funk and the thought of having heathy, fresh, prepared foods on hand was very appealing to me.  

My food arrived via Fed Ex two days after placing my order.  Pure Market Express does one day shipping, but I went with the more affordable option.  Everything was packed beautifully and it all arrived still cold with the ice packets.

Maestro enjoyed playing in the boxes.        

I’ve tried a few of the meals so far and have been very impressed!    I’ll post a more complete review of the food when I finish eating all of it.   Until then, I’ll show you what has been my favorite item so far – Cocogurt.  

From the Pure Market Express website:

	Our raw variation of plain yogurt is beautiful with fresh fruit or served as an alternative to sour cream.  Ingredients: cashews, raw coconut meat, coconut water, lemon juice

After my gym session this morning, I enjoyed a serving of cocogurt topped with a sliced banana and cinnamon apple granola.  

Look how creamy this stuff is!   Even my mother, who is generally not a fan of vegan substitutes, couldn’t believe how closely this resembled real yogurt.    I have had coconut yogurt before and wasn’t really impressed by it.  I’m glad that didn’t stop me from trying Pure Market’s version because it is AMAZING!   I will absolutely be ordering this again!    

I’ll be back soon with more reviews!

Have a great weekend!    

I have pneumonia.

Hi!  

As you can see from this post’s title, I’ve been sick with pneumonia for nearly a week now.   It’s the craziest thing.  I haven’t had a cold or anything recently, and I generally have a very strong immune system.  It all started last Friday at work when I could not sit comfortably at all!  My upper right back was super sore and I just didn’t feel right.  I even went online to see if any local spas had late massage appointments available.   They didn’t, so I just went home and had a pity party for one.   Saturday morning, the pain had shifted from my back to the right side of my chest.  Every time I inhaled, I felt like I was going to bust my right lung.  Not a good thing.  I decided it would probably be best to go to the urgent care place to see if I was going to live or not.   As I was getting ready to leave, I nearly passed out in the shower.  I started getting dizzy and seeing black dots, so I hauled ass out of there before I had the chance to bite it in the hard bath tub.  Something was already obviously wrong with my lung, I didn’t need a head injury on top of that!  Long story short, the urgent care doc sent me to the hospital for chest x-rays but didn’t seem to think I had anything more than muscular soreness.  He told me to take it easy and come back on Sunday if I didn’t feel any better.  Don’t we all love that response from doctors?

I had plans to go visit my friend Melissa out in the country on Saturday with my other friend Kelly.  Since we left much later than planned, we just stayed in and played Monopoly instead going anywhere.  We are such old farts.  Melissa and Kelly drank cocktails made with vodka…

and I stuck to red wine because I wasn’t really feeling the hard liquor.  My glass was labeled “gimp” because of my sickness.  My lung was still hurting and my breathing was becoming more and more labored.  Good times!

As usual, the greatest source of entertainment at Melissa’s house was her two little girls.  Here’s Tatum singing in her voice changing helmet.  Hilarious!   

When I woke up on Sunday morning, I could barely move without extreme pain in my chest.      I attempted walking to the bathroom when I first got up, and I had to take a break and sit on the couch for a few minutes.   How pathetic is that?   Since I was obviously not any better, I went back to the urgent care place and paid yet another $20 copay to be told I seemed okay, but to go to the ER if my pain got worse or my breathing became more labored.  Thanks doc!

Since I was feeling like crap, I baked myself an awesome cheese and spinach lasagna.

Late Sunday night, I told my mom that I wanted to go to the ER.  ”Wanted” may not be the best word because who wants to go to the ER?  I knew something was wrong with me and I wanted to find out exactly what it was before I was supposed to work on Monday morning.   Thankfully, I was seen pretty quickly in the ER.  Probably didn’t hurt that I put “chest pain, shortness of breath, and dizziness” as my symptoms.      After an EKG, 6 vials of blood, and a CT scan, it was determined that I didn’t have a blood clot (yay!), but I did have pneumonia.  They sent me home with prescriptions for antibiotics and percocet, along with a huge nasty bruise on my right arm.  I followed up with my regular doctor on Wednesday and she told me I was out of work until at least Monday.  So, I’ve been spending the past week sleeping, playing Mafia Wars on Facebook, and eating.  Most of my time has been spent sleeping.  I don’t take prescription pain pills often, but when I do, I love the way they make me drift in and out of sleep all day!  I can totally see how people get addicted.  

So, what have I been eating?   Lots and lots of oatmeal.  I always make oatmeal on the stove with water, cinnamon, vanilla, and banana.

I’ve had a bowl with tons of fresh berries and raw almond butter.

And a less exciting bowl with fewer berries and natural peanut butter.  Sadly, I have no more berries or raw almond butter.     

I finally tried eating my oatmeal out of the empty almond butter jar.  I’m not sure which blogger did this first, otherwise I’d give them credit!

I think this idea is awesome, but mine would have been better if I left more almond butter in the jar.        As you can see, I’ve been drinking a lot of orange juice lately too.  I rarely drink OJ, but love it when I’m sick!

Since I’ve had nothing but time on my hands, I channeled my inner Erin and made some fake ice cream.  In the blender went a frozen banana, frozen young coconut meat, a few frozen strawberries, lots of frozen blueberries, cinnamon, and agave.

And topped with a sprinkling of bee pollen.   Yum!   I loved this.

I’ve also been eating a lot of fresh pineapple.  For once, I stopped being lazy and spending $5 on the pre-cut stuff, and bought two to cut up myself.

After my doctor appointment on Wednesday, I went to Global Food for another one of my sick food staples – chicken pho.

I’m not a big fan of spicy, but actually used a decent amount of hot sauce this time around.  I was thinking the spiciness might help the healing process.

Now that you’ve seen my favorite meals over the past few days, I’ll show you what I’ve had so far today.

My mom brought home donut holes from her office last night, so I had two of them along with some coffee first thing this morning.

Then I had yet another bowl of banana oatmeal!  We are pretty low on groceries right now, so I just had a big spoonful of almond butter in my oats.  This is the Whole Foods brand of roasted almond butter, and I while it’s good, I prefer raw almond butter so much more!   I miss the gritty, natural taste of the raw stuff.  Along with my oatmeal, I had a big glass of OJ and my antibiotic.

I’m about to go shower and maybe head out to rent a few movies and buy some groceries.  Poor Rocky is even low on food!   

I hope this post made some kind of sense!  My last percocet may not have worn off yet.      The biggest thing I want you all to remember is LISTEN TO YOUR BODY!  Two different doctors told me I was fine, even after listening to my lungs and reading my chest xray,which they even said wasn’t very good because I couldn’t take a deep enough breath.  I knew something was wrong and kept going back until someone could tell me what it was.  Had I listened to the first doctor, my pneumonia would have gone untreated for who knows how long, and I could have ended up very sick.   Sometimes you may know more than the doctors. They can only see so much through the tests they run, but YOU know when something isn’t right in your own body.    These are the times I am SO grateful to have health insurance.  

See ya’ll later!

Weekend Warrior

Hello bloggers!   

I realize I’ve been a total slacker when it comes to blogging.      So, in keeping with my irregular posting, here’s a re-cap of my long weekend.

Saturday morning after my leg training session at the gym, I had two slices of Ezekiel toast topped with Light Smart Balance and two farm fresh local eggs.  To drink, I had hazelnut teeccino brewed with plain coffee.  This has become one of my favorite morning beverages.  I love the flavor of teeccino, but I also love the caffeine boost from coffee.  

After breakfast, I met my friend Ruth at a local park to go hiking.  While waiting for her to arrive, I had a coconut water to help hydrate myself.

Ruth’s husband gave her one of his hats to wear to help keep ticks away.  We kept joking about what a dork she looked like, so she tucked the map into her pants to complete the look.   What can I say, we’re easily amused.      

We set out to hike approximately three miles.  We drove her car to the beginning of the trail, and left mine at the end to pick up when we were finished.   It was an absolutely gorgeous day – perfect sunshine and temps in the low 80s.

Since we didn’t plan on doing a very long hike, I only brought water to keep me going.  Ruth was kind and shared her baggie of pepper slices with me.  

For some reason, we decided to hike back to her car instead of going to mine.  She was parked at a campground, so we looked at the map and figured the best way back to the campground.  Somehow neither one of us caught that we were headed back to the WRONG campground!   When we realized our mistake, we turned down another trail to continue on to my car.  About a half hour before we reached our destination, I remembered that  I had left my keys in Ruth’s car!   At this point, we had hiked over 4 hours and probably close to 10 miles.    So much for an easy morning hike!           

We were lucky and my car was parked near the visitor center.  I explained what had happened to the nice girl at the desk and she said she could call the ranger to drive us to the other side of the park.   Thankfully, he was very nice and we all laughed about what airheads we both were.   The ranger loaded us into the back of his truck like two criminals and drove us safely back to Ruth’s car.  Clearly, treadmills were invented for girls like us.     

Obviously, my breakfast of eggs and toast wasn’t sufficient fuel for an hour long leg workout combined with 4.5 hours of hiking.    When I got home, I was so hungry!   I grabbed the quickest thing I could find as soon as I walked in the door, a whole wheat bagel with light honey walnut cream cheese and a big glass of OJ.  

Later on that night, my mom and I went to a little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant where I ordered shrimp fajitas and a margarita on the rocks.                

Since I was exhausted Saturday night, I went to bed early and slept like a log.   I was up earlier than usual on Sunday and made the same breakfast I had on Saturday.  

Since I had breakfast so early, I essentially made a second breakfast later on.  I was hungry!   Breakfast #2 was 1/2 cup oats cooked in water.  While the oats were cooking, I stirred in cinnamon, vanilla, and a banana a la Kath.  I topped my oatmeal with fresh blueberries and raw almond butter.  To drink, a yummy glass of OJ.

Since the summer is almost over, I decided to hit up the pool while I still can.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’m living with my mom right now while waiting to purchase my own house.  She lives in one of those 55 year old and over “active adult communities” and I’ve officially become a resident as well.        

After hanging out at the pool, I came home and had 1/2 whole wheat bagel with light honey walnut cream cheese, dried tropical fruit, coconut cashews, and raw goat cheese.  

My friend Kelly came over Sunday night to cookout with my mom and me.  While I was prepping the food, I enjoyed a glass of Riesling.   

My mom put me in charge of the vegetables.  I seasoned zucchini and asparagus with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  

And I made a salad with mixed lettuces, cucumber, red pepper, pecans, and dried cranberries.

I didn’t take any more pictures, but we also had organic beef steaks and whole grain pilaf.   We also shared a bottle of champagne Kelly brought over, and I made frozen drinks with frozen mango, pineapple, coconut, vodka, rum, and cointreau.   Then I showed my mom the modern technology of On Demand and we watched I Love You, Man.   It was one of those perfect, laid back summer days.      

I had planned on going back to the park again today since the pass I bought on Saturday is good for a week, but my friend’s children are sick right now with the “flute” as her daughter says.  It ended up raining off and on, so staying in was probably a much better idea in the end.

I started the day with hazelnut teeccino and coffee brewed together.  

For breakfast, I cooked 1/2 cup oats in water, then stirred in 1/2 banana, vanilla, and cinnamon.  I topped the oatmeal with the other 1/2 of banana, two medjool dates, and raw almond butter.  

I’d like to say that I went and did all kinds of productive things after breakfast.  But that would be a lie.      It’s a holiday!   

For lunch, I had an Amy’s California burger, French Onion Laughing Cow, spinach, sprouts, ketchup, and mustard on a wheat sandwich thin.  On the side, I had leftover veggies and pilaf from last night, and some raw goat cheese. 

After doing a bunch of nothing all afternoon, I finally took a break to start on dinner.   While standing in the kitchen contemplating my choices, I finished off the last little bit of coconut milk ice cream.  

In the end, I turned to my girl Amy for the second time today.  This cheeseless pizza is one of my favorite pre-made meals of all time!

I love being able to recognize all of the ingredients in a frozen meal.

While I was waiting for the pizza to cook, I had the leftover salad from last night with some sprouts added in.  The dressing is some kind of honey mustard yogurt dressing that my mom buys.  It’s good, but has quite a kick from the mustard!

I had half of the pizza, and my mom had the other half.  

Along with dinner, I had a glass of one of my favorite red wines.  I’m about to pour myself another before I turn on Bravo for my nightly dose of guilty pleasure reality tv viewing.

I’ve got some laundry to finish up, then I’m ready for the new work week to begin!  I’m super excited for the cooler weather in the forecast this week.  Fall is my favorite time of year!                 

G’night!

Weekend in the Country

Hi!

Have you had a good weekend so far?  I have!     I can’t say I’ve done anything special this weekend, but I’ve enjoyed having some to to unwind at home and take care of some of the small tasks I’ve been putting off.  

Before I get to my current meals, let me backtrack to my activities last weekend.  My best friend, Melissa, recently moved back to Virginia after living in California, and then New Orleans for the past several years.  Her husband left the Marine Corps a few months ago and returned to work in DC, where good paying jobs for former military personnel are fortunately pretty easy to find.   Melissa had been wanting me to come see the new house they bought out in Front Royal, which for those of you who are unfamiliar, is a country town out in the VA mountains.  I drove straight to her house after work last Friday to stay for the weekend.  When I pulled off the exit on I-66 to get some gas, I saw an unfamiliar Whole Foods and decided to make a quick stop to look around.   

$110 and 30 minutes later, I was ready to get back on the road!     That store is danger!     

I arrived in Front Royal around 8:00 that night, and after a quick tour of the house, we headed out for Chinese food.  I had my usual fried tofu and vegetables, plus some crab rangoon that we all shared.  Melissa has two little girls and they always love having me around.      

This is her other daughter after eating pizza on Saturday.  Like the Blondie shirt?          

Since we were out in the country and nightlife is nonexistent, we decided to make some drinks and watch Twilight.  I hadn’t seen the movie, and I’ve never read any of the books, so I wasn’t sure how I would like it.  It was good!  I’ll probably read the books before the next movie comes out so I’ll know what’s going on when I go see it.  For our drinks, we made cocktails with champagne I bought at Whole Foods, peach nectar, and Cointreau.  Melissa labeled our glasses according to our 12 year old sense of humor.  In case you’re wondering, I was Bitch, and she was Hoe, with an e.     

We also had our fortune cookies from the night before, and laughed again like we were 12 by adding “in bed!” to the end of each one.  How fitting.

A little later in the evening, we had the other treat I bought at Whole Foods.  Toasted baguette with goat brie and fig spread.   AMAZING!

We finished off the night by playing Beyonce and dancing around the living room.  Good times!

 

Before leaving the country on Sunday morning, I told Melissa that these potatoes were not okay.  Have you ever seen such a thing?   

Because her food selection at home was a little sketchy, we had lunch at a little place in town.  I don’t remember the name of it, and I don’t have a picture of my meal, but I had a veggie burger with fries.    

After lunch, we went to the general store for some clothes shopping.      I thought this beauty was a shirt at first, but when I moved it down on the rack, I realized the bottom was pinned up and it was actually one of the most awesome dresses I’ve ever seen.  Check out the fringe and shoulder pads!  To my surprise, I actually did buy something in this store!  My one year old niece LOVES shoes so I got her an adorable pair of pink cowboy boots.  

I had a great weekend out in the boonies.      

The rest of the week was busy, but pretty uneventful, so I’ll skip over the work week and show you what I had to eat yesterday.

For breakfast, I had a super dark green juice made with romaine, kale, parsley, spinach, celery, apple, lemon, and cucumber.  I made four jars of this concoction earlier in the week and froze it in jars to have on hand later on.  

My morning snack was another juice that I made in my Blentec blender.  It contained fresh pineapple, organic apple juice, fresh mint, and a granny smith apple.  I love that this blender is so powerful that it can blend whole fruit into juice.  I forgot to take a picture, but trust me, it was delicious!     

For lunch, I made a big salad with baby spinach, romaine, carrot, cucumber, tomato, raw goat cheese, an Amy’s California burger, and yogurt dressing.  

I was feeling a little snacky in the afternoon, so I had a few Toasted Coconut Yumnuts.    

When dinner time rolled around, I wasn’t really sure what I was in the mood for.  After opening the fridge and pantry several times and staring blankly, I decided to cook a block of tempeh that was about to expire with canola oil and Bragg’s in a skillet.  After I cooked the tempeh, I still wasn’t sure how I wanted to eat it.  I contemplated another salad, or cooking some spinach. But in the end, I made a sandwich with tempeh, lowfat provolone, and baby spinach.  For a meal that I threw together randomly, it turned out pretty good!

While the tempeh was cooking, I tried a few of these Terra chips my mom bought.  They were really good, but I showed restraint (that’s a new one for me!), and put the bag back down after tasting them.

I held back on the chip eating so I could have what I really wanted, a glass of organic red wine!       

After a wonderful night’s sleep, I got up and prepared a big bowl of pineapple, banana, strawberries, and blueberries for breakfast.

The pineapple was all on the bottom, but here’s a little piece trying to peek out.

In honor of lazy Sunday mornings, I also made Wild Blueberry Scones with a mix I bought for my mom at Whole Foods last weekend.

Nutritionals aren’t bad for a packaged food.

I baked them in my mom’s cute little scone pan and had two of them along with my coffee.   

I have the usual Sunday chores to take care of today – laundry, cardio, cleaning, etc.  But for now, I’m going to catch up on the DVR and relax with Layli girl.    

I got to say it was a good day.

Anyone else old enough to remember that Ice Cube song?  ”She didn’t hesitate to call Ice Cube the top gun.”     I love it, and bring it up because today was a good day for me.   And, tomorrow is Friday!   

Thanks for the encouragement after my last post.  I don’t want to give the wrong idea.  There will always be a place for a delicious chicken cheesesteak in my life.  What bothered me that day was that I had a perfectly healthy, delicious lunch in the work fridge that I completely ignored.  I went to buy a drink and almost went on auto pilot to the sandwich guy.  I am really trying to put a stop to that kind of mindless impulse eating.  I’ll get there.  I know it.         

Before I get to today’s food, I wanted to show you the fabulous meal I bought at Wegmans over the weekend.  I was doing my shopping on Sunday and saw that for $6 you can get a complete meal with two sides.  I have yet to be disappointed by Wegmans food, so I ordered almond and coconut encrusted tilapia with red potatoes and a mixture of asparagus, jicama, corn, and red pepper.  My mom got the same thing, but sweet potatoes instead of red potatoes.  We were both very pleased with our selection.  For those of you with a Wegmans nearby, I encourage you to take care of this deal!  I don’t even know if I could get fast food for this price!

In addition to what I had Sunday night (pictured above), I had enough leftover for another meal.  All for $6!  

While I was in Wegmans, I also picked up a box of mason jars so that I could freeze large batches of juice.  My first make-ahead batch of juice contained: lots of kale, cucumber, green pepper, lemon, granny smith apple, grapes, kiwi, carrots, and romaine.

I lucked out and had the perfect amount to fill three jars.  I put one in the fridge to drink the next day, and froze the other two jars.  So easy!  I’m going to try to make a weekend habit out of this.

This morning, I had an early training session at the gym, where we did chest, shoulders, and triceps.  I’m glad my trainer is funny because I was so tired today!  To wake myself up a little, I stopped at Starbucks on the way home and ordered a triple grande sugar-free hazelnut skim latte.      I rarely drink Starbucks anymore (working there in college kind of made me sick of it), but I know that shit is strong!  My cup was a little leaky, so I transferred to a real mug when I got home.

One of the good things about working out early is I have time to eat  breakfast at home.  Today, I had two slices of Ezekiel toast with light Smart Balance, plus two eggs and one egg white scrambled with 1/2 slice lowfat cheddar.

For my morning snack, I had 1/4 cup rolled oats, 1/2 cup water, 1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder, and 1 T almond butter mixed together and eaten cold.  

Lunch was leftover quorn fake ground beef cooked with marinara, yellow squash, zucchini, green pepper, basil, and oregeno. Hidden underneath this mound is a side of  wild rice that I bought from the work cafe.

After lunch, I walked a few blocks to Au Bon Pain and ordered a small hazelnut coffee.  It always feels so good to get out of the office and into the sun!

Throughout the afternoon, I snacked on half of this dark chocolate bar.  It was good!       

Since traffic was horrible this evening, thanks to all the travelers on 95 slowing down the flow by blocking the left lane, I figured I’d stop at the gym for some cardio until it lightened up.  I did 40 minutes on the treadmill at various speeds and inclines.  As always, I’m glad I went!  I never regret a workout. 

After cursing out several people with out of state tags (I swear, I’m not a violent person), I finally made it home and started on dinner.   I quickly cooked an Amy’s California burger in olive oil, then served it on a sandwich thin with 2% cheddar, spinach, tomato, dijon, and ketchup.  

Crappy lamp lit picture:

Crappy flash lit picture:

Along with my burger, I had a big bowl of popcorn topped with nutritional yeast.

I also had an unpictured glass of shiraz with dinner.

Overall, I’m very pleased with my eating today.  I let myself have what I wanted – chocolate, cheese, coffee, etc. – but I did so in a thoughtful way.   I also made an effort to get in several servings of vegetables.   Yes, I can eat cheese and chocolate.  But, I really shouldn’t eat JUST cheese and chocolate, no matter how much I might want to.      Progress is made one step at a time.   Even with the minor setbacks I experience, I’m still so far beyond where I was 5 years and 50 pounds ago.  

On another note, any NYC bloggers/readers who want to possibly meet up next month, let me know!  I plan on spending a weekend, probably the 19th and 20th, there while my friend is on a business trip and I have access to a free hotel room.       

Thanks again for all of your support!  

Love ya!

Laura

uh oh…

Hey guys,

Today, my eating was less than stellar. I’m okay with occasional splurges, but today was not an example of this. I’m not going to beat myself up about my nutritionally devoid dietary choices, but it is important that I’m aware of them, and that I find out why I choose crap when I have good, healthy foods available to me. My issue isn’t necessarily the foods I ate, it’s WHY I ate them when I know better. I need therapy, ya’ll. I have been through countless ups and downs since my all time high weight of 250 pounds. Lately, I’ve been in a down slump, which is fine and perfectly normal, as long as I don’t stay here too long.   

Here is my day of craptastic eats.

Breakfast: two slices of blueberry bread with smart balance, eaten in the car with coffee on my way to work

Snack: donut peach and banana

Lunch: chicken cheesesteak and fries

Snack: passion fruit coconut water

Dinner: leftover salsa chicken, black beans, colby jack, avocado, and light sour cream with a glass of chardonnay

I have my meals planned for tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll report back feeling better about my choices tomorrow night. I am meeting my trainer early in the morning to at least get a good start on my day!

G’night!

Slow Cookin’ Love

So, yesterday I completely forgot to bring my camera to work with me.       My meals were pretty simple – almond butter on Ezekiel bread, larabar, and two meals of leftovers.  I did stick to my eating plan for the day though, and that made me happy.   I’ve been doing way too much snacking lately and I know I need to snap out of it.  I’ve come too far in my weight loss to let mindless snacking take over now.  It is hard living with someone who can have junk food in the house and not be tempted!  Living with my mom is great while I’m waiting for a house to buy, but I have not done well resisting all the extra food in the house.      

I had an early training appointment this morning.  We did triceps, chest, and shoulders, plus a little time on the treadmill.   While I love getting my workout out of the way, I truly hate getting up before the sun to exercise.  That’s just the way it is.  In the past, I’ve had the most success when working out in the morning, so I guess there’s something to it.  

After I cleaned myself up for work, I made a sandwich with sprouted grain toast, 2 farmers market eggs, and 2% cheddar.  I also had a small glass of OJ.  I rarely drink store bought fruit juice, but sometimes it’s just too good to resist.        

My morning snack was a strawberry goat milk yogurt

topped with a handful of raw almonds.   I like this yogurt, but I don’t know if I can get used to the tangy taste it has….  It really does remind me of goat cheese, which I love.  But maybe not as a yogurt.  I may, or may not, be purchasing this again.

For lunch, I had the last serving of my mom’s chicken and broccoli casserole with brown rice.

My afternoon snack was a Muscle Milk Light and Key Lime Pie Larabar.  Why didn’t I try this Larabar flavor earlier?  I LOVED it!     

After work, I had my dinner almost ready for me.   This morning, I threw chicken breast and a jar of salsa in the slow cooker on low.  When I got home, I shredded one of the pieces of chicken, added it to some canned black beans in a bowl, then topped the whole thing with colby jack and light sour cream.   Yum!   It really couldn’t be any easier.

Along with dinner I had a nice glass of chardonnay

And a bowl of mint chip coconut ice cream for dessert.

Now, my belly is happy, and I am happy.       

Before I go, I wanted to ask ya’ll to send me some good vibes!  I have an interview on Friday for a job in an office where I worked briefly a few years ago, back in my contracting days.  Wish me luck!   It’s with the department I work for now, so it’s not a huge deal if I don’t get it, but I would LOVE to have a permanent position over there.  If not, my job now isn’t such a bad gig either.  

Pretty does not equal good.

Hey hey!

I hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend!      

I was pretty lazy for most the day.  I went out for dinner and drinks with a good friend Friday night after work, then spent nearly all of Saturday with another friend in the mountains.  Not surprisingly, I just wanted to chill today.  I really love having some down time before starting the next work week.  

I didn’t enter the kitchen until close to 10:00 this morning.  I was craving some juice, so  I gathered some of my favorite ingredients and went to town.  

The result was a pretty dark pink juice that tasted absolutely horrible!  I’m not sure what happened… I tried sipping my glass of juice, but it was just too bitter and I ended up pouring it down the drain.      Bummer.

Since my juice was a total failure, I made a breakfast that I knew I would love.  Two slices of Ezekiel toast with light Smart Balance, which I’ve noticed doesn’t really melt, plus two farmer’s market eggs with a little colby jack.   

Much better.  After eating this, all was right in my world.  There’s something so satisfying to me about eggs and toast.

A few hours later, I went to the clubhouse and did a 50 minute treadmill workout I found in Oxygen magazine.  At the end, I was a sweaty beast.     Those high inclines are killer!   After my workout, I met my mom out at the pool to cool down.  It was HOT here in VA today.  The pool was the perfect place to spend the afternoon.

After chillin’ at the pool, I showered and made myself a quick lunch of seitan and cabbage served over brown rice.  After cooking the seitan and cabbage, I stirred in a little chili oil and Bragg’s to season.  I’m not usually a fan of drinking my calories, but the pomegranate lemonade in my mom’s fridge looked so good for a hot day!  

I spent the rest of my afternoon shopping for work clothes.  Let me tell you, girls, nothing is more fun than shopping for government/legal office appropriate suits.   yawn.   I guess it’s all part of being a grown up.         

When I got home from spending more money than I’d like on office attire, my mom had dinner ready for me.  Love that!   She made her favorite chicken broccoli casserole from Cooking Light.

I had my serving with some brown rice and a glass of World Market boxed sangria.

I’m now lounging on the couch with a glass of Chardonnay waiting for Kendra to come on.  You all know I love my trashy reality shows!        

Have a great night!  Hopefully I’ll have time this week to resume normal blogging.  I miss you guys!    

Protein Loaded Day

Hi guys!

How’s it going? All is well with me! I was busy house hunting all weekend and put an offer on a townhouse! I actually found one that has everything I wanted, besides a fenced yard. I figure I can easily fence two sides of a small townhouse yard in the future. At least it has a garage and backs up to trees! Plus, my good friends live the next street over. The house needs a little cosmetic work – carpet, paint, maybe a new door, but I think it’s great for a first home. Wish me luck!   

Here are my eats for today.

Breakfast: Juice made with 2 big collard leaves, 1/2 a beet, apple, 1/2 cucumber

Plus two eggs and colby jack on Ezekiel toast, eaten in the car on the way to work. I also had hazelnut coffee with skim milk.

Snack: Pure Protein shake. These are just ok. I saw them at Target and thought I’d try them out.

And 1 T almond butter on Ezekiel bread

Lunch: Salad made with mixed greens, carrot, sprouts, tomato, and steak. I added honey mustard dressing at work.

I also tried goat milk yogurt for the first time today. It was good, but a little tangy for my taste.

Snack: Pure Protein bar. Think I had enough Pure Protein products today?

Along with the bar, I had another new product – Cashew Fruit! I was looking for coconut water at Wegmans and saw these. Never being one to turn down an impulse buy, I threw two of them into the cart. I liked it, but not sure if I’d buy it again.

Dinner: Leftover Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore (recipe found on The Fitnessista blog)

Now I’m drinking a glass of World Market boxed sangria while I channel surf and catch up on blogs.

My friend, Ruth, and I are always talking about how we generally can’t stay motivated when it comes to exercise. We’ll both go full force, then slowly fizzle out. She suggested that we become walking partners, even though we live 45 minutes away from each other. The plan is for us to take our cell phones and talk to each other during our walks, or at least for the first few minutes since walking out the door is usually the hardest part. Hopefully this will give me the extra little push I need to get my butt out the door on days I don’t meet my trainer!

See ya tomorrow!

G’night!

Pay it Forward

Hello all.

I am writing this post to encourage you to please keep fellow blogger Jen, a priorfatgirl, in your thoughts and prayers.  Jen has been a consistent source of support and inspiration for me and countless other readers of her blog.  If you read her most recent post, you’ll see that Jen just lost her mother, and her father lost his best friend of 32 years.  She finishes her posts with “When you receive motivation & inspiration from me, pay it forward.”   Now is the time to pay it forward to Jen.