Much better long run today!

Today was another dreary and rainy day.  I felt sleepy all day partially due to the weather and partially due to the fact that I stayed up WAY too late researching vacation plans and talking about them with the hubbie when he got home from work.  I’m not going to say where we’re going just yet, because it’s not actually booked yet… but we should get it all figured out in the next week or so if all goes according to plan (which is SO exciting!).  Since I was already getting to bed so late, I didn’t feel like prepping a complicated b-fast or lunch so here’s what they involved:

Breakfast was cinnamon/splenda sprinkled toast, a microwaved egg white, a Morning Star Breakfast Sausage, berries (consumed at school), and a cup of Diet V8 Splash Tropical Blend.

The lunch bag included the recently popular chocolate almond biscotti for a morning snack, a Fuji Apple + Greek Yogurt + Kashi Puffed/GoLean Crunch Cereals and some FoodShouldTasteGood The Works chips for lunch.

I love the combo of apples and greek yogurt !  It always takes me back to the cruise ship we were on in Greece last summer where I first discovered the wonderful-ness that is Greek yogurt!!  After school I came home and did a little more trip research before fueling up:

just some cinnamon oats with Frozen Wild Blueberries and 1/2 a mashed nanner.  Then I took a nice 45 minute power nap while that digested.  After much dread (and a little fear after how rough last week’s long run was), I hit the treadmill for an 11 miler.  I usually do my long runs on Saturdays, but tomorrow I’ll be leaving the house in the early afternoon to head out to a wedding shower and a retirement party… so since I’ll be missing out on prime running time, I took care of it today.  I’m happy to report that the long run went well.  I had some delicious fuel during my run:

My only complaint was that my right hip was still aching me a bit.  It’s not so bad that I can’t run, but it irks me a bit.  I guess I’ll keep and eye on it and try and do some extra stretching to help it out.  When I got done with my run, it was dinnertime, but tonight (since I knew I’d be forever finishing my run) the hubbie took care of it:

 

 

 

 

 

$5 Foot Long!!  I got a Turkey on wheat with all the veg except olives and jalapenos.  I skipped the honey mustard this time and decided to add something from our own fridge.  For whatever reason I was craving BBQ, so I topped it with a little Walden Farms Calorie Free Honey BBQ sauce.  I also had an orange on the side/for dessert.  It was a great dinner made even better by the fact that I didn’t have to make it!!  After dinner I settled in to check email, do a little vacation research, and a little blog reading.  While I was glued to the computer I had some snacks:

A bowl o berries and a package of cookies.  Those little creme filled cookies have been hitting the spot for me lately.  Now I’m finishing up this:

I decided to go plain vanilla tonight.  Now I’m heading to bed with the last few chapters of my DietGirl book.  I’m hoping to get up in time tomorrow morning to check out the yoga class at my gym.  I’ve done a few yoga sessions at my house using free downloads/FitTV shows, but I’ve never been to an actual class and I’m interested in finding out what it’s like.  Plus, I need to run a few errands afterwards.  That means I need to be scooting off to bed ASAP so I can get up in time, so goodnight!

Long afternoon of surfing…

surfing the web that is!  I spent the better part of my afternoon and evening searching the internet for deals for a vacation for me and the hubbie this summer.  We still don’t have anything solidified.  Ugh.  It’s late already, so excuse me for the rather bare bones post, but I’m SO internet-ed out right now!!  Breakfast was simple, but good:

WW toast- one with No Sugar Strawberry one with No Sugar Orange Marmalade, a Morning Star Breakfast Sausage Link and some strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries which were consumed at school.  Lunch was something I hadn’t had in a while:

Cottage cheese and Mandarin Oranges (I thought I grabbed peaches… but I didn’t!!), string cheese, pretzel sticks (saved for afterschool Halftime Hottie Practice), and jell-o.   The biscotti cookie was the morning snack with some tea as usual!!  I got home later than I expected and was starving, so I grabbed something that I knew would fill me up:

Chocolate oatmeal with a spoonful of homemade AB.  It was SO yummy and filling.  Since I was working so hard on planning our vacation, dinner was pre-made from the freezer:

Stouffer’s Express Basil Chicken Rigatoni, with side salad and garlic toast.  As I continued my internet time after dinner, I had a nice dessert snack plate:

An HG Funky Monkey Square, some cookies, a spoonful of Mighty Maple, and a medjool date stuffed with homemade AB.  I think I met my nutbutter quota for the day!    And of course, about an hour later, there was this:

Well, I had grand plans of laundry, reading, and yoga and instead I’ve wasted my night away in front of the computer.  Time for me to get to bed!  Maybe I’ll squeeze in just a few stretches before I hit the sack.  G’night!

Half Hump Day

We had a half day at school today and that meant a food day in our department.  Ugh!  Food days are such a challenge for me.  Very few healthy choices and lots of high-calorie ones!  I tried to keep breakfast light in anticipation of the early, crap-filled lunch:

 

Another greek yogurt (topped with cinnamon)/cereal/fruit bowl.  The two cereals I used were the traditional Kashi Puffed Cereal along with the new Jumbo Rice Krispies Cereal (with a touch of honey).  I’m loving these guys.  Sure they’re a little sugar-heavy… but when balanced out with the Kashi Puffed, it adds a nice sweetness to things.  The fruits were the last of my fresh pineapple (note to self: need more pineapple!) and blueberries. 

My contribution to the food day was a Hungry Girl recipe for Coconut Glazed Fruit Salad.  It turned out really well and everyone really enjoyed it.  You can see a pic of it in yesterday’s post.  I brought a piece of bread, a tomato, and a slice of cheese for a cheesy-tomato melt so I could avoid the main dish of white castle slider hamburgers. I also brought some jell-o in an attempt to keep me from hitting the desserts to hard…

 

Unfortunately, that’s the only pic of lunch you’ll get as I didn’t bring my camera to school to photograph the crap-fest that was my lunch.  Ugh!  I ate SO much.  Besides having at LEAST a 1.5 c. of fruit salad and my cheesy tomato melt, I bet I had 2 servings of Tostitos Hint of Lime chips (OMG… I LOVE this flavor) with some seven layer dip.  I also had several handfuls of pretzels, a brazilian cheese roll (a co-worker of mine has a wife from brazil… don’t know what was in this, but it was magic!), a slice of some other sort of cheese-filled bread, 2 or 3 bites of texas sheet cake, several bites of something called kool-aid pie (sweetened condensed milk mixed with cool whip and kool-aid mix in a pie crust… so much tastier than it sounds… so much less healthy than most things that exist on Earth), some Pasta House Salad… oh the list is endless.  I came home from work and after folding a load of laundry, fell into a sugar-crash induced nap.  I decided to go light on the pre-run snack… I just had an unphotographed cup of Kashi Puffed Cereal with some Unsweetened Original Almond Breeze.  I had a 5 mile run scheduled for today which I completed on the treadmill as it looked rather cloudy outside and I was afraid it would rain.  My right hip has been bothering me a bit (I think it’s my IT Band) so I’m going to look up some stretches online after I finish this post.  I also think I’m going to take tomorrow off from exercise (except for the intensity that is my Halftime Hotties Dance Practice afterschool  ).  Hopefully between stretching and a day off I won’t have any problems and Friday’s run will be business as usual.  Since I went calorie-crazy at lunch I wanted a filling, veggie-filled, but low calorie dinner:

 

Leftover Mexi-meal fit the bill nicely.  I also had a salad, garlic toast, and a small cup of leftover minestrone soup from the freezer.  This dinner actually ended up being even lower in calorie than first thought, so I had a nice snack plate soon after:

That’s right… I became a cookie monster!  I had a HG Chunky and Nutty Frozen PB Cup from last night (they taste nothing like PB cups in my opinion, but are still a delicious frozen treat!), a small package of vanilla creme cookies, 2 chocolate almond biscotti cookies (and some tea to dip them in… man has this combo been hitting the spot for me!), and finally, I decided to forgo the bread tonight and just eat the good stuff straight… a spoonful of Mighty Maple straight from the jar!  Now I’m getting ready to get my shower, but not before I have the usual:

Nothing like cookies and ice cream to complete and evening!  G’night!

Where did my night go??

My night has absolutely flown by… I’ve gotten so little done!  More on that in a bit… first, the eats for the day:

Breakfast was overnight chocolate oatmeal with strawberries.  I’m going to be eating this a TON over the summer.  It’s SO cool and creamy!

It was a full lunch bag today! 

 

 

 

 

 

Biscotti cookie for mid-morning snack.  Lunch was a WW tortilla with Laughing cow cheese, spinach, tomato, bell peppers and onions, some leftover broccoli mixed with more laughing cow cheese, and a jell-o.  The apple and homemade AB were my ‘staying after school to work’ snack.  Right after school I ran to the grocery store and picked up a couple of tilapia fillets (they were on sale!) and some fresh asparagus with plans of playing with a new steamer contraption I’d bought myself over the weekend.  When I got home I had a pre-workout snack:

Blueberry yogurt, Kashi Puffed and GoLean Cereal, and fresh pineapple.  I then flopped onto the couch to catch up on emails and blogs and actually fell asleep slumped in front of the computer.  I woke up about a 1/2 hour later and realized I needed to get started on my workout right away if I was going to squeeze it in before dinner.  I did Shred Level 1… Level 2 had been kicking my butt so I stepped back to level 1, but I did the ‘Natalie’ version of everything (that counts for something, right?).  Then I used my new double decker steamer to prep dinner:

Salad, Tilapia, asparagus, green beans, leftover BBQ lentils, garlic toast, and a glass of wine leftover from Friday night.  This was an excellent dinner with a nice sweet snack plate for dessert:

A fun size hershey bar, some Lesser Evil Black and White Kettle Corn, and a HG Funky Monkey Square.  While I was snacking I tried another HG recipe from her new book: Chunky and Nutty Frozen PB Cups.  While they were in the freezer, I finished catching up on emails and blogs that I missed out on earlier in the afternoon due to my unscheduled snooze.  Then it was snack time!

The HG PB cups hadn’t quite frozen all the way, but I ate one anyway (what can I say… I’m impatient).  It was pretty good, though I’d like to know what it’s like when it’s actually frozen.  I also had my latest staple nighttime snack: bread smeared with PB&Co. Mighty Maple. 

Before getting my shower, I had to get ready for tomorrow.  We have a 1/2 day tomorrow with professional development in the afternoon, so our department is having a food day… which means, I had a dish to prepare.  I made another new HG recipe: Coconut Glazed Fruit Salad.  I plan to sample it tomorrow morning once the flavors have melded… but here’s what it looked like:

I hope it turns out well!  I need it as a healthy option to all the crap that will surely be tempting me at the food day tomorrow.  I save my crap eating for my evenings:

I knew you were worried I hadn’t had my ice cream fix… I managed to squeeze it in!  Now I’m off to shower and hit the hay!

Dreary Monday

After a gorgeous (though slightly too warm) weekend, rain finally came to STL today.  It was such a grey day.  All the kids were worn out and tired from prom this weekend and the weather just dragged everyone down further.  At least my breakfast was bright and sunny!

 

A microwaved egg with and a yogurt/cereal/fruit bowl with some lovely citrus-y pineapple and kiwi fruit!  Lunch wasn’t bad either:

 

The biscotti cookie was my morning snack with some tea (at least the rain made it a better tea day!).  Lunch was some leftover Mexi-meal (totally hooked on this by the way… warm and spicy… yummy!), some The Works flavored Food Should Taste Good Chips, jell-o, and a plum (though I ate the plum when I got home in the afternoon).  I was pretty tired after work today, so I spent the better part of the afternoon bumming around, checking email, reading blogs, etc.  Finally I got around to fueling up:

Chocolate strawberry oats with a spoonful of homemade AB.  Then I did my scheduled 3.5 mile run on the treadmill.  I used this run as an opportunity to catch up on my American Idol from last week.  For whatever reason I’m just not as into it this year… I don’t really have a favorite person that I’m over the moon about and I’m just not excited with what these contestants have been singing.  Oh well.  That’s why I have TiVo and a fast forward button!    After my run, it was dinner time:

Salad, open-faced BBQ chicken sandwich (from freezer), broccoli mixed with a Laughing Cow Cheese wedge, sweet potato ‘chips’, and leftover BBQ Lentils.  It was yummy.  But not yummy enough to keep the night time snack monster away:

My typical apple with AB had to make room for a piece of bread topped with crack  PB&Co. Mighty Maple peanut butter.  And of course, where would my night be without a frozen treat?

Same as last night… the Blue Bunny Fat Free Brownie Sundae Frozen Yogurt.  Well, the hubbie is off tonight, so I’m going to go spend some time with him before the night gets away from me!