Eat, Read, Run

Lagging in L.A.

Posted on December 3, 2009 | 7 comments

Good morning from L.A.! It’s Thursday and this week has flown by (in some ways literally – with a flight to Cali!). We have been going non-stop since we got here yesterday and it doesn’t look like things are going to slow down anytime soon.

I was up at 4:00 am yesterday, in the car by 4:45 and on the plane by 7:30. Before I left the house I had some walnuts and raisins and then at the airport I drank a big cup of coffee before our flight left. I was afraid to really fall asleep on the plane because I knew we had meetings to go to once we got to L.A. and I didn’t want to look groggy and gross. Here’s my large java:

I was able to use the free Wi-Fi for a lot of the flight, but then the computer started making my head hurt, so I signed off. Virgin America is a REALLY nice airline. My only complaint was that I was soo hot throughout the flight. I was thrilled to get off and breathe fresh air.

We arrived around 11 am Cali time and headed for lunch to meet up with a potential web designer for our company. Navigating in L.A. was a little tricky. We were driving a truck that my co-worker borrowed from her friend who lives in L.A. and we were armed with some maps, but it wasn’t easy. I’m used to NYC where it’s a grid and generally the numbers go up and down and East and West. Not as straightforward in L.A. We got to the lunch site, only to find that it no longer serves lunch! So then we had to make our way to a new location.

We finally made it and it was well worth it. We met up with the designer at a really cute outdoor mall and farmers market. It’s soo funny to see Christmas decorations in Cali when it’s 70 degrees out and sunny.

We ate at The Farm and I had a delicious blackened chicken wrap. It had grilled chicken, bacon, roasted tomatoes, avocado, etc. It was delicious – a tad on the spicy side – but I was so hungry at that point that anything was bound to taste good.

I did pretty well on my wrap and then the three of us also had some late-afternoon coffee.

After lunch we headed to the training place for a quick informal meeting. The real training begins today.

By the time we left the training place yesterday Tiffany (co-worker) and I were both pooped. We were even a little delirious from our long day. But we still needed dinner and we thought nothing would perk us up like a little Mexican and margaritas!

They were huge margaritas! We had salsa, chips and guacamole and then I had a chicken quesadilla (I know lots of meat). Here are a few pics (the first is the view from our hotel room):

This last pic is funny because we look sooo exhausted – we had been up for almost 22 hours – we were definitely lagging! Also, look at the size of the margarita compared to our heads. This is my co-worker Tiffany btw – now you have a face to go with the name. 🙂

Ok off to training ALL day. Have a great day all!

7 Comments

Posted in Restaurants, Travel, Uncategorized

West Coast Bound

Posted on December 2, 2009 | 5 comments

I’m going going, out to Cali, Cali. It’s Wednesday morning and I’m heading out West! To Los Angeles, California to be exact. I’m headed there for training for work, so nothing too exciting – but a trip to Cali just the same.

Right now I’m on the plane and am pumped because we’re flying Virgin America and it has a free Google-sponsored Wi-Fi deal for passengers until January 15, 2010! Nice. Our flight left at 7:30 a.m. (EST) and I am pretty darn tired. I had a giant coffee this morning before the flight because I really don’t want to sleep much on the place since we’ve got a busy day ahead of us. I’m hoping I will be able to post at least once or twice while I’m there.

Let me do a quick recap of yesterday’s eats. For breakfast I went a little crazy and threw some chocolate into my oatmeal. This looks disgusting, but it was good. 1/2 cup of oats, tsp of peanut butter, 1 banana and a few semi-sweet all natural chocolate chips. Once mixed, it looks G-ross.

Next time I’ll take a pre-mixed pic.

For lunch I was boring and had leftovers from Monday night’s dinner, minus the pasta. It tasted pretty decent on day two though. I also had some strawberry Greek yogurt with granola and oats.

Later in the afternoon, as I wrapped up all my work in preparation for the trip, I snacked on two clementines. Still rocking the vitamin c, although I feel pretty much 100% better and think I was just suffering from allergies on Sunday night.

After work I headed home to finish up packing and prepping and spend some time with the hubby. I seriously feel like lately we are just ships passing in the night- we only ever seem to have a day or two together before one of us is off to somewhere else. And last night wasn’t very much quality time since I was packing and wrapping things up and then I went to bed early. Sorry Bill – we’ll get to spend some QT together soon!

How do you stay connected with your significant other when schedules gets hectic and time is tight?

For dinner I wanted something really quick and nothing is quicker than rice and beans. Wild rice, black beans and a few grape tomatoes.

But I also needed some chocolate to ease my traveling nerves – of course!

And now I’m headed across the country to see what Cali has in store. We are staying in Beverly Hills (how posh right?), but we won’t have too much time to explore. We’ll be in training from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm on Thursday and Friday and then I am taking the red-eye back to NY on Friday night. It’s going to be exhausting.

I think we’re headed to a pretty nice lunch this afternoon, so I will be sure to take some pics and hopefully post a daily recap tomorrow at some point. Added bonus, the weather report for the next few days in Cali says between 65-70 degrees – I will certainly take it!!

In the News:
I think this college is taking things a bit too far, What do you think? It’s great to “encourage” living healthy, but you can’t mandate it. People have the right to eat and live as they please.

College’s too-fat-to-graduate rule under fire

I’m signing off and either attacking my new book or watching some free movies. Yup – you read right – I FINISHED David Copperfield finally!! The next book on my list, and with me on the plane, is Ahab’s Wife. Anyone read it? I’ll do a Copperfield review in the near future, but I warn you, it may not be too exciting.

P.S. – Check out this give-away on Meg’s Be Fit Be Full blog. I love the pumpkin granola!

5 Comments

Posted in Books, Travel, Uncategorized

An Official New York Road Runner

Posted on December 1, 2009 | 9 comments

Good morning blog world! It’s Tuesday – we made it through Monday – yipee! I was pretty darn tired yesterday and was still wondering if I was actually going to get sick. I woke up yesterday feeling a little bit better and hoped it was just a nasty allergy attack.

For breakfast I had 1/2 cup of oats, tsp of pumpkin butter, handful of raisins and a splash of milk.

It was really tough to get moving and get out the door on time. I had to stop and grab a coffee to help keep me sane and awake. Monday mornings at work are typically pretty busy for me, so I knew the coffee would help.

I was surprised that the day actually moved along pretty quickly. I ate my morning granola bar at 11:00 and then the one or two new projects I started to work on kept me occupied and before I realized it, it was 1:45 and I hadn’t had lunch yet!

I trudged out in the rain and got a salad from across the street. The usual stuff: romaine lettuce, peas, carrots, cheddar cheese, walnuts and craisins.

My camera was a little off, so pics are looking blurry.

After lunch, I went onto the New York Road Runners site and browsed some races. I decided I wanted to sign up for two in January. And then I just bit the bullet and became a member. It’s about time I started running races in NYC and not just upstate. I typically try to run all my races with my running buddy Lauren, but as my hubby said yesterday, “she’s not always going to be able to run with you.” Sadness. So I signed up for these two races:

NYRR Fred Lebow Classic (5M)
NYRR Half-Marathon Grand Prix: Manhattan

Lauren WILL be able to run the Half Marathon with me!! YAY!! I will tackle the Fred Lebow 5 miler on my own – just call me Miss Independent. Unless my hubby surprises me and decides to run it as well. 😉

Any other NYC bloggers planning on running either of these?

I am generally NOT a winter runner, but this will be my attempt to keep running strong throughout the winter. If you’re a runner, do you still race in the cold weather?

My co-worker tells me that she actually runs better in the cold. Not me.

Later on in the afternoon yesterday I had some Greek Yogurt with granola and oats and two clemetines (gotta get that vitamin C to stay healthy!).

BTW – today at noon you can sign-up for the NYC Half Marathon Lottery . Can you tell that I have racing on the brain after my Turkey Trot? It’s an addiction.

I didn’t work out last night after work for a few reasons: 1) I was tired, 2) I’m going away on Wednesday morning for a business trip and needed to run some preparatory errands, 3) I haven’t actually hung out with Bill in a while, 4) I was tired.

So I left work, picked up some traveling necessities and headed home. I made this quick and easy dinner:

Here is my made-up recipe for it.

Asparagus Chicken with Roasted Red Peppers

Ingredients

3/4 cup chicken broth
2 chicken breasts
1/3 cup of diced onion
salt and pepper to taste
6-8 stems of fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 (7 ounce) jar roasted red peppers, drained and chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped grape tomatoes
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar, or to taste
1/3 cup shredded parmesean cheese

Directions

Heat the broth in a large skillet over medium-high heat with the garlic and onion. Season the chicken with salt and pepper, and place in the skillet. Cook 15 minutes, until chicken is almost done.
Place asparagus and red peppers in skillet. Continue cooking 10 minutes until asparagus is tender. Place tomatoes in skillet during last 2 minutes of cook time. Sprinkle with vinegar. Top with parmesean cheese and serve.

It was yummy and the husband rated it as “pretty good.”

After dinner I had a small piece of the white cake with white frosting that Bill’s sister Christine made for his birthday and brought to Thanksgiving dinner. I was shocked that Bill was willing to share his cake. But then he told me that Christine made him promise to share with me – figures! It was great.

The rest of my night was quiet and I went to bed pretty early. However, Murphy decided to try to wake me up pretty much every two hours during the night, so I’m a bit tired again today.

I’m starting to get a little nervous about traveling tomorrow. I’m one of those people who is always afraid of missing a flight or forgetting something important or losing my luggage. Generally – just not a very relaxed traveler. Hence, I start prepping 2-3 days in advance.

Are you a good traveler – what are some of your helpful tips or tricks?

I AM excited about the possibility of running while we’re training in L.A. The weather there is looking nice and warm. I could certainly use a nice West-coast run. 🙂

Last note – I want to say congrats to my friend Becky for starting her new blog: Write On!! I’m so happy she is proactively seeking new creative outlets and will be able to share her passion and wonderful insights with others. Becky is one of the people in my life that I always “talk books” with. We typically like the same books and are ALWAYS asking each what the other is reading and for recommendations. Now I can just check out her blog and see that, as well as her feedback and reviews. I’m so excited – so be sure to check it out. She’s also on my Blogroll! 🙂 Love ya Becks!

9 Comments

Posted in Bloggers, Dessert, NYRR, Races, Recipes, Running, Uncategorized

Is it Really Monday?

Posted on November 30, 2009 | 4 comments

Good morning. It’s Monday – ugh! Back to the grind again. I promised a race recap yesterday, but I didn’t end up having a chance to post at all. So here it goes:

2009 Troy Turkey Trot
Since high school, my friend Lauren and I have run the Troy Turkey Trot together every Thanksgiving. From 2006 through 2008, I took a little break and didn’t run it. This year was my triumphant return!

Lauren picked me up on Thursday morning around 8:30 and brought my race packet with her. We headed into Troy in search of parking. This year, the race course was changed a bit and the starting place was different. We found a spot and started jogging in the direction of the old start. After jogging for about 5 minutes, we realized everyone else was running in the opposite direction. So we turned around and followed the masses to the new start. Oops! 🙂

After finding the start, we hung out for a bit and ran into a bunch of people from high school. We also met up with our friend Kelly, who was running the race unofficially, or as a “bandit.” We headed to the starting line to find her dad and a few other of her family members. Miraculously, we found them standing at about the 9:30 minute mile pace area.

We started chatting and then before we knew it the race started. It was PACKED!! Apparently, this was the largest ever Troy Turkey Trot. We were all crammed in trying to move, but it was a slow start. I had a slight goal in the back of my mind – to beat 24 minutes, so I started getting a little annoyed with the slow start.

Lauren and I tried to stick together and manuever through people, but it just wasn’t happening. So after about 5 minutes, we got split up.

In general, I will say this was a frustrating race. It might have been less so if we had started closer to the actual starting line and I didn’t have to spend the majority of the beginning of the race trying to weave my way through runners.

I was concentrating so much on not running over people, that I was shocked to find myself at the halfway turn-around point! I had already been running for a little longer than 12 minutes. That’s when I realized that I needed to pick it up a bit.

I started increasing my speed and then all of a sudden I saw a HUGE hill in front of me. Everyone around me starting groaning and some even cursed in anger. This was certainly a new addition to the course.

I made it up the hill and was finally almost done. My watch time was very different from the clock time, so I tried to pay attention only to my watch. It was getting close to 24 minutes, so I knew we were almost done. I spotted the finish line and starting kicking it in and sprinting to the finish. I knew it was going to be very close… and it was. I finished the race in 24:03. Sooo close to breaking 24 minutes!

I felt great after the race and was shocked at how quickly it went by. I can’t wait to run another 5k soon and try to break 24 minutes again.

Has your 5k time improved since running longer races, like 10k, half marathon, marathons?

Here’s a photo from the finish of myself, Lauren, Stephen and Stephanie. I look like a midget next to these tall peeps!

So that was my race recap – now I’ll try to give a consolidated recap of Saturday night and Sunday.

Saturday night I hung out with Becky and Josh and Chrissie and Dan. Becky, Chrissie and I went to high school together. We tried a new restaurant in Saratoga called The Irish Times. We started off with some appetizers, including nachos, spring rolls and wings. Here are the nachos and spring rolls:

My dinner was a burger (boring) and the picture I took came out terrible, so I’m leaving it out. After dinner, we headed to The Parting Glass for a few drinks. Ok – maybe more than a few:

And then we marvelled at how mini my hands look compared to Josh’s.

It was a fun night in Saratoga!

Sunday morning I was up fairly early, so I headed to the mall to finish up some shopping crowd-free.

Did you shop during the long weekend? Or will you be partaking in Cyber Monday deals?

When I came home I had a multi-grain English muffin with peanut butter and banana. Lauren and I had planned to go running in the early afternoon, so this was also my running fuel.

Around 1:00 Lauren came to my parent’s house and we headed out for a nice run. The weather upstate was gorgeous! A little brisk, but not freezing. We probably ran about 5.5 miles. I haven’t used mapmyrun.com to calculate the route we took yet, but we finished at around 52 minutes. We also challenged ourselves by taking on two big hills during the run. It felt great to finish.

After our run, I had this for lunch and then again for dinner! So only one picture:

My mom made this soup and it was FANTASTIC!! I will definitely be making it. She got the recipe from the Food Network, here it is:

Tortellini Tomato Spinach Soup

1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup minced onion
1 clove garlic, minced
4 to 6 cups chicken broth (can also use vegetable broth)
1 14 oz. can whole tomatoes, crushed through your fingers (I used a little more)
1 9 oz. package fresh tortellini or dried tortellini
1/4 cup of red wine
Salt and Pepper to taste
Dash of Parsley and Basil
6 oz. package fresh baby spinach – tear into pieces
Parmesan Cheese

In a 3 quart soup pot, heat olive oil over med. high heat and saute onion for several minutes then add garlic stirring for few minutes then add broth, wine and tomatoes, parsley, basil, salt and pepper; turn heat up to high and bring to a boil – add tortellini and cook according to package instructions. When tortellini is almost done, add spinach. Cook for a few minutes until spinach is wilted. Once you dish soup into bowls, shave parmesan cheese over the top and serve.

It takes about 10 minutes to prep. and approx. 20 to 30 minutes to cook.

It was soo yummy. Bill had some of it when he came to pick me up to head back to NYC and he said it was very good as well. Then we set off for home. Along the way, I don’t know if my allergies were acting up or what, but I started to feel a cold coming on. EEEKS! I hate being sick.

When we got home, I took some Severe Cold Sudafed, a vitamin c tablet and ate a clementine. Then I went straight to bed! This morning, I am feeling much better (knock on wood). Hopefully, if it was a cold, I kept it at bay. But I have a feeling it was just my allergies.

What are your “secret'” tips for killing a cold quick?

Happy Monday blog world!

4 Comments

Posted in Recipes, Restaurants, Running, Uncategorized

The Thanksgiving Aftermath

Posted on November 28, 2009 | 4 comments

Let me start with an apology – I have been a bad blogger. I’m not even going to offer up any lame excuses. I’ve been bad and I fully admit it. You’re not going to like my Thanksgiving recap because I didn’t take ANY food pics.

I know – the shame!! The guilt!! My hubby’s family doesn’t really know too much about my whole blogging “thing” yet, and I didn’t feel like Thanksgiving was the best time to spring it on them, so I felt totally weird snapping away like I normally would.

Have you encountered situations where you’ve kept the camera hidden away – if so, when?

My apologies in advance for this lame-o post. I PROMISE to do better at Christmas. I can tell you that I tried every dish at Thanksgiving dinner and several of the desserts. My homemade apple sauce went over well too!

So here are a few pics from the day, but please don’t be expecting to see any food. Sorry!!

Bill holding his nephew’s (yes, nephew) new baby – Kevin III. Three weeks old. What a little peanut!

Me and Bill’s nephew, Freddy. I mean technically, all of Bill’s nieces and nephews are mine now too!! I always forget that and refer to them as “his.” I’m an only child, so the idea of nieces and nephews is new to me.

And then just so this post isn’t totally foodless – I’ll put in a Saturday morning breakfast recap. I know – I’m such a bad blogger! No food recap for Thursday or Friday – I totally went off the grid. 😉

Here is the morning’s breakfast of oatmeal, a little milk, raisins, 1 tsp. of maple syrup and some kashi cereal:

Then before my mom and I headed out to do something Christmas shopping, I spotted some leftover banana pudding in the fridge. I seriously don’t know how there were leftovers of this. I had a small helping to fuel my shopping.

Shopping was a success! I managed to handle the crowds and get a bunch of presents checked off my list. Now I’m going to eat a light lunch and relax for a bit before I head up to Saratoga for dinner and drinks with some good friends.

Tomorrow will be a better post – I promise! I’ll have more food photos AND I’ll give a full recap of the Turkey Trot – it was CRAZY!

So please don’t hate me blog world for delivering a sub-par Thanksgiving recap. I promise I’ll make it up to you!

4 Comments

Posted in Holidays, Running, Uncategorized

Happy Thanksgiving and Some News!

Posted on November 26, 2009 | 5 comments

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I can’t believe it’s already here. I’m writing this post bright and early before my race (the Turkey Trot) at 9:30 a.m. I’m actually a little nervous. I haven’t run a 5k race in a long time. I’m hoping I can work up enough speed – I’m so used to longer runs now. Wish me luck!

I’ll get into my eats from yesterday in a minute, but first I just want to share some fun news. I recently started writing for Examiner.com as the NY Health and Happiness Examiner! I’m pretty pumped about this new prospect.

Those of you who know me, know that in my former life I was an aspiring journalist and freelance writer. But sadly, journalism wasn’t exactly paying the bills, if you know what I mean. Seriously, it’s the most difficult profession to get into and the most underpaid.

Anyway – I learned about Examiner.com and liked that I could write about what I wanted and do so within my timeframe. As of right now, I have two articles posted, but am sure I’ll be churning out some more soon. Feel free to check out my page and articles:

Finding holiday balance
Happiness: on a budget

I’m very excited about this opportunity to write creatively and I really welcome your feedback and ideas! You can subscribe to get notifications about my latest articles (subscription is free).

So now back to the blog. My eats yesterday began with a breakfast of oatmeal, 1 tsp. of pumpkin butter, 1 tsp. of peanut butter and a handful of raisins.

Lunch was eaten early because I was soo hunnggry! I usually wait till about 1:00, but 12:30 hit and I lunged for my food. Reduced fat triscuits, Laughing Cow Original Flavor Light Swiss Cheese, and some carrots.

Our office closed yesterday at 3:00 for the holiday, so I ate my afternoon snack right before I left. I had Greek yogurt with Flax Plus Granola and oats mixed in.

After our “early dismissal” I headed to Penn Station (the bain of my existence – hate it soo much) and waited eagerly for my train. As I expected, it was PACKED with holiday travellers and worse – an HOUR late! I found a seat, settled in and proceeded to read David Copperfield for a while. I am happy to say I really and truly am almost done!!

What are you currently reading?!

I was raveous after my trip and was thrilled to see that Momma B (that’s my mom’s nickname) had a nice little dinner all ready for me.

I am getting this recipe – it was delicious. Pasta, chicken, grape tomatoes, chicken broth, artichoke, roasted red peppers. I gobbled (giggle) it up and then had some banana pudding that my mom “had made too much of.” Yeah right. I ended up only eating about 2/3 of this.

Then I set to work making some homemade apple sauce for today! YUM.

I drank water throughout the night in preparation for the race today. Although it’s a very short race, I’m a big believer in proper hydration! Then I went to bed super early because I was exhausted. 🙂

Oh and here’s a picture of my big bully kitty attacking one of my parent’s cats. Murphy is the mean looking tabby about to attack. They look vicious, but they never actually hurt each other. It’s apparently how they “play.”

And now it’s almost race time and then lots of good eating with the Callahans! Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

What was your favorite dish of T-Day?!

My final, final note: I came across this article yesterday about The Biggest Loser and it got me thinking. Take a look:

On ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Health Can Take Back Seat

Then I saw part of the Biggest Loser special and decided that I think the show does more good than harm. What do you think?

5 Comments

Posted in Books, Running, Uncategorized

Why Blogging is the Best!

Posted on November 25, 2009 | 9 comments

The reasons to blog and read blogs seem unending. As a fairly new blogger, I’m still discovering all the new and exciting things blogging has to offer. Undoubtedly, for me, one of the best things about blogging is that it makes me accountable for living a healthy and balanced life. I’ve become more aware of what I’m putting in my body and working harder to keep it healthy and active.

But I digress! That’s not what I wanted this post to be about at all. I encountered another reason yesterday that showed me why blogging is the best. Connections – it’s all about connections! Yesterday through the blog world, I came across another blogger living in NYC from my hometown area (Melissa), sent a fellow blogger a job link (which she applied to), discussed a potential fun run (with Dori), and felt much relieved to read that so many other runners worry about running in the dark (it’s not just me) and take necessary precautions (Caitlin – comments section).

It felt great to be so connected!

What are some interesting and inspiring ways you’ve connected with other bloggers?

Now on to my day…

Breakfast yesterday was a multi-grain English muffin with peanut butter on one side and jelly on the other with a splash of light cranberry juice.

Lunch was… can you guess? Leftovers!! I actually think this was better the second time around.

Snacks for the afternoon were Greek yogurt with oats and granola, and an afternoon apple (no pic of the apple) before the gym.

I hit the gym after work because I wanted to get in a quick speed workout before the Turkey Trot on Thursday morning. Here was my workout:

3.1 miles in 25:20
.9 mile – for a total of 4 miles in 34 minutes
85 crunches
30 alternating leg crunches

I did notice that my left foot is hurting a little bit. It’s not unbearable, just a weird pain underneath the ball of my foot. I’m hoping it’s nothing serious and that it feels better by Thursday.

Once I got home from the gym, I flew into action. I ate, showered, vacuumed, packed and tidied up. I was too exhausted to go to any great lengths with my dinner. This is what I managed to scrape together:

Amy’s Organic Lentil and Vegetable Soup, some cheddar cheese and two dill pickles – from varying jars. But then my body also told me it was craving peanut butter, so I had this for dessert:

And then it was basically time for bed. Seriously – my days are disappearing! I was able to squeeze in a few more pages of Copperfield before I passed out. I have a feeling I may be able to finish it this weekend!

I’m switching up my schedule a bit and trying to post a daily recap of the full day on the following morning. We’ll see if this works better with my schedule.

If you’re a blogger, what’s your blogging schedule (if you have one)? Do you post several times a day, once a day, once a week? What time(s) of day work best for you?

And a general question: when (time of day) do you most frequently “browse” other blogs?

I get out of work today (Wednesday) at 3:00 and am then hopping on a train upstate. I’ll be cooking with my momma tonight and running the Turkey Trot in the morning, so I’m not sure if I’ll get another post in before then. Then it’s off to Utica for Thanksgiving with the Callahans! 🙂

P.S. – I cried twice while watching The Biggest Loser last night. I just can’t help it! I also want Amanda to come back at the end and look as hot as Rebecca did. I think she can do it.

9 Comments

Posted in Bloggers, Uncategorized

Happy Birthday Hubby!

Posted on November 23, 2009 | 8 comments

Good evening. It’s Monday night and I’ve finally found some time for a Monday recap. First, Happy Birthday Hubby!! I miss you and hope you’re having fun upstate. Can’t wait to see you on Thursday.

Second, I have to admit that I am still exhausted from my busy, busy weekend and I did NOT make it to the gym this morning. I don’t know why I keep trying for these early-morning workouts, it really doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen. And then I lose an hour of sleep when I keep hitting snooze over and over for an hour.

Do you prefer to work out in the morning or at night?

Breakfast this morning, after I didn’t work out, was oatmeal with Flax Plus Pumpkin Granola and pumpkin butter.

In retrospect, I probably should have grabbed a coffee on my way in today. I was dragging all day. And I was ravenous all day. I ate my mid-morning snack (granola bar – no pic) at 9:30 a.m.! Way too early for me. I think because I ate way too SO much food this weekend, my body was in devour mode and was ready to keep on eating at my weekend pace. I ended up eating my afternoon snack before noon as well! Walnuts and raisins – and I didn’t snap a pic until almost halfway through the gobble:

I didn’t plan anything for lunch and the cupboards in our apartment are nearly bare! I’ll be gone from Wednesday through Sunday, so I don’t really want to stock up much. That means that lunch ended up being a salad today with Romain lettuce, carrots, cheddar cheese, dried cranberries, peas and chick peas.

A little while later I was still hungry – so I had some greek yogurt with oats.

And then about an hour after that some chips.

As you can see, I was on a rampage. I left work and really wanted to go to the gym for a quick run, but I had a bunch of errands I needed to run and I wanted to throw in a load of laundry. I love holidays, but it also means I have to squeeze some of my weekend cleaning and organizing into the week. My hope was to get enough done tonight, so that I can hit the gym for a bit tomorrow night.

I came home after running a few errands and threw together dinner with the remainder of last week’s Sweet Potato.

I made a nice little Sweet Potato Veggie Mix-Up that consisted of the following:

Ingredients

1/2 large sweet potato
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup carrots – chopped
half of a green pepper – chopped
1 cup of chicken or vegetable stock
4 veggie sausages
tablespoon of soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Soften the sweet potato in the microwave for 7-8 minutes – place in a bowl with the chicken stock. Meanwhile, saute the carrots, onion and pepper in olive oil. Remove the sweet potato from the microwave and place the veggie sausage in the microwave for 45 seconds. Remove the sausages and cut them up. Place the sweet potato with stock and veggie sausages in the pan with the other veggies. Add a tablespoon of soy sauce and cook together for approximately 7 minutes.

After dinner I was still a little hungry. I intended to only eat half of this Pecan Pie Larabar…but I ate the whole thing. It was just a hungry, hungry day.

Interesting in the News:

Eat and Drink Your Way to a Healthy Colon?

I have to travel for work next week, so this was interesting: America’s Healthiest Airports. Sadly, neither of the airports I’ll be visiting were listed in the top 10 – oh well, I’ve survive.

Good night blog world!

8 Comments

Posted in Recipes, Uncategorized

Whirlwind Weekend

Posted on November 22, 2009 | 8 comments

It’s Sunday afternoon and I finally have nothing to do. Well, that’s not true – I could be doing laundry, cleaning, unpacking, etc. – but instead I chose to upload photos from this weekend and blog. It was such a crazy weekend, I really don’t know where to begin.

Friday afternoon I left work around 3:30 and headed up to Albany on the train with my friend Rachael. Our friend Stephanie picked us up from the station and we headed to Beff’s for dinner. Before we even got there, I knew I HAD to have the nachos. I was ravenous. The nachos at Beff’s are amazing. So we all decided to share a huge thing of nachos and then have side salads as well. Here is Rach getting ready for the nachos.

What is your biggest “can’t say no” food? I love nachos so much, I can’t deny myself.

And here are our nachos and small salads (not so small – nothing at Beff’s is small really).

Needless to say we were totally FULL by the end of our meal. We called it an early night and headed back to my parents.

Our friend Kelly’s bridal shower was Saturday at noon, so I had a lighter breakfast to tide me over: some cranberry bread my mom made and some apple cider.

It was a good thing I didn’t eat a heavy breakfast because this was my lunch at the shower:

Deliciousness – salad, pasta salad, beef medallions, fruit salad, penne with vodka, steamed veggies and roasted potatoes. I think I got almost everything available at the buffet. And this was my plate afterwards:

A job well done – I think! But then of course there was some dessert to be had. Amazing, amazing desserts:

I ate almost all of the desserts on my plate. No after picture was taken.

The shower was so beautiful and a ton of fun. We left the shower, ran a few errands, relaxed for a bit and then Rachael and I headed back out to Buca Di Beppo to meet some of the girls for “pre New Moon” drinks. We had some calamari there, as well as some wine, but I forgot to take food pics. So here is a group pic instead!

Kim, Becky, Lauren, Rachael and me!

We left Buca and headed over to the mall to wait in line for New Moon. My New Moon reaction: I definitely liked it better than the first movie, I think Bella and Edward can still be a little too cheesy, but overall it was pretty decent. I also heard they already finished shooting Eclipse. Maybe we won’t have to wait a year for the next one. Update: Just read that Eclipse is coming out June 2010. Not a full year – good!

If you saw New Moon – what is your reaction? Thumbs up, thumbs down?

I also have to be honest and say that the Sour Patch Watermelon candies were calling my name at the theater, and I gave in:

We left the movie and by this point, it had been a pretty long day. We met up with a few other friends for one more drink. I sipped on some water and a diet coke (I needed some caffeine). I think we got back to my parent’s house around 1:00 a.m. So tired!

And finally we get to Sunday. I woke up and had some more of the cranberry bread (I’ll post the recipe tomorrow) for breakfast. Then we headed over to Lauren’s house to meet her new kitty cat and see Tera’s son Jackson. It was such a cutefest – I have to post a few pics. This is Miss Scotia!

And this is Jackson – growing up so fast!

Then Lauren’s sister came over with her little boy: Riley!

The cuteness factor was off the chart! They are both growing like little weeds. Pretty soon it was time for Rach and I to head back to NYC on the train. We got to the station and I was famished. I ended up getting a pre-made Turkey sandwich on Rye bread and a piece of chocolate for the trip.

And my gosh – that was just the longest, most all-over-the-place post ever! Sorry. What a busy, crazy and fun weekend. Now I wish I had a rest and recovery day before heading back to work on Monday.

How do you “recover” after a busy weekend? Any tips or tricks to feel more rested on Monday morning?

Now I’m off to unpack and probably head to bed early tonight. I MAY try to hit the gym in the a.m. We’ll see how that works out…

Have a great Sunday!

8 Comments

Posted in Restaurants, Uncategorized

Poor Planning, Poor Me

Posted on November 20, 2009 | 5 comments

Happy Friday – Finally!! To be honest, this week went by pretty fast for me. Except now today is dragging. But first, my Thursday night recap.

When I left you in my Thursday afternoon post, I was getting pumped up to go running with my co-worker after work. Alas, it did not happen – sadness. The skies were threatening rain and she didn’t seem too eager about the idea in general, so we postponed.

That can mean only one thing – a date with the dreaded treadmill. Boo. But I survived. On Wednesday night I actually forgot my iPod and had to run sans music. Thank goodness for TVs with closed captioning. Last night I remembered my iPod – so I was golden. My workout:

4 miles on the treadmill in 35:05
1/2 mile cool down
85 crunches
15 leg lowers
stretching

Then I headed home and threw in a load of wash and made some dinner – by which I mean I reheated my leftovers from the night before. I LOVE leftovers! And I added a pinch more curry to the dish – yum.

Do you plan ahead and make extra food so you’ll have leftovers or are you not a leftovers fan?

I promise I took a new pic, it’s not just a repost from the previous night.

And then I needed some dessert. I threw together a glob of plain Chobani Greek yogurt, dollop of peanut butter, a little granola and crumbled up the remaining two pieces of chocolate from the night before to make this mess:

It was yummy!

Then I packed for my trip upstate this weekend and watched Grey’s Anatomy. Was anyone else thrown by the jump from Thanksgiving to Christmas in a span of 5 minutes?! All of a sudden Mark’s daughter had been living there a month and there’s a Christmas tree? What?

Again, I got to bed later than I wanted, but made some progress on David Copperfield – I’ve surpassed page 600! My “To Read” List is soo long, I really need Copperfield to end soon. But I will admit, the story has gotten a little more captivating.

I woke up this morning in a flurry to gather all my odds and ends for my trip and made a lazy breakfast of Kashi Cereal with blueberries and skim milk.

I got to work, realized I forgot my ID card to get in, and decided that I was going to need some coffee. So my morning snack was coffee and a granola bar.

At my office, it’s kind of a hassle to enter the building if you don’t have your ID card. You pretty much feel like a criminal. You have to wait to be “escorted” up by another employee. I didn’t really bring much food with me today because of all the other junk I had with me, so lunch became a desperate situation. And I didn’t want to leave the building and have to go through the whole “escorting” thing all over again.

This is what I managed for lunch (forgive me). Some Progresso’s Chicken and Wild Rice soup that was in my food drawer (yes, holy MSG, but desperate times people…), Chobani peach yogurt with oats, and a few Rice chippers.

So the soup is really the only less-than-good food on my lunch list, but it was just such a disappointment. I used to eat these cans of soup for lunch ALL THE TIME, but since trying to eat “cleaner” and cut out unnecessary chemicals, I’ve been avoiding them. Oh well.

And lord help me, but my only snack for the afternoon is a banana (no pic).

I’m a little scared to see how ravenous I’ll be by the time I get to Albany at 7pm. Or to see if I can hold off buying something terrible at the train station. I’m out of here at 3:30!!

Dinner tonight will be with my good friends Stephanie and Rachael at my uncle and cousin’s restaurant Beff’s. They have the best nachos in the world… my restraint will be tested – I make no promises.

Some interesting headlines:

Phys Ed: Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious

U.S. Food Safety Likely to Get Overhaul in 2010

Have a great weekend all! I’ll try to post as much as I can – I am pretty sure some delicious food will be had this weekend. 🙂

5 Comments

Posted in Books, Running, Uncategorized