Almost there!

Well the week is almost over (do you have Good Friday off too?) and I couldn't be happier! Not only is the weather supposed to be gorgeous (EIGHTY?!? Could it be true?!?) this weekend, but my family is also coming for the holiday and I am super psyched to spend some time with them.

EATS!

Breakfast was a good old combination of instant oatmeal and honey peanut butter.
Not exciting, but delicious nonetheless! Love that honey pb...but secretly wanting to use it up so I can make OIAJ!!

Lunch was tuna with "fayo" as Bryan calls it (fake mayo), or fat free mayo.
This was a BIG step for me because I love love love real mayonnaise. The tuna was...eh. The difference was very noticeable. I think I'll keep looking for other mayo substitutes. I also had broccoli with some honey mustard, and Kay's jalapeno honey mustard pretzels. The pretzels were good but it would have been more accurate if the flavor was called wasabi honey mustard. That's the spicy flavor I tasted at least. Tasty overall, but I would have preferred less spice and more honey mustard. 6.5/10

While I was at work, Bryan was cooking this up for me...
Tomato and basil chicken sausage with peppers and onions. YUM!

My portion:
I had some FSTG sweet potato chips on the side. GREAT meal. The peppers and onions hid the flavor of the sausage a bit, but no complaints here. I would eat this again in a heartbeat.

For dessert I had my first ever Jazz apple, with some almond butter on the side.
The apple was delicious- juicy and crisp- but it reminded me of a Macintosh which wasn't really what I was hoping for. Oh well, ate it all up anyway :) My plan was to dip the apple in the almond butter but I thought the consistencies of the two foods weren't meshing well so I just ate the ab with a spoon! Tastyyy.

One more day of work and a presentation for grad school to get through. I think I can, I think I can...

Not enough hours in the day!

To go to work, go to class, eat, do homework, work out AND blog! Hence why there was no post last night. Sorry!

To recap...

Monday's breakfast:
Frozen green grapes and a Kashi blackberry graham bar. Man those bars are tasty!

I had a lunch date with Bryan and he got us...
PITAS! From Pita Pit. My fav!! I had a whole-wheat pita loaded with lettuce, tomato, onions, banana peppers, black olives, tzatziki sauce and FETA! His pita was awesome as well -- steak, green peppers, spinach, pineapples, mushrooms, and barbecue sauce. Yummmm.

Dinner was a tad on the dull side as it's that time of the month again...
AKA I'm low on groceries and trying to hold out as long as I can!!! I had a Morningstar Farms chik'n patty with some bruschetta on a thin, cucumbers with light dressing, and cinnamon toast pretzels. Love those Kay's pretzels!

Now I'll skip right to lunch because I forgot to take a pic of today's breakfast! (White chocolate raspberry yogurt and Kay's honey almond cereal)I had the rest of my spinach and artichoke cream cheese with seedlander snackers for dipping, barbecue popchips, green grapes and another Kashi bar. Loved the variety!!

Dinner was a Green Giant garden vegetable medley...which is good on its own, but heavenly with some spices and parmesan cheese!
I also had more green grapes, 100 calorie golden Oreo cakesters, and Kay's chili nacho cheese chips. This chips were even better the second time around, they have so much flavor and totally live up to their name.

See you tomorrow for more eats :)

P.S...Great giveaway 1! Great giveaway 2!

I like to eat, eat, eat...

Apples & bananas. And all this other stuff...

Breakfast.
Some strawberries and a thin with good old fashioned strawberry jam. Plus a few chunks of dark chocolate. I popped this in the microwave to make the chocolate a little melty. Fabulous idea.

Lunch was a leftover homemade black bean burger.
On the side I had cucumbers and Kay's chili nacho cheese chips. The flavor of the chips were a perfect match for the burger. Spicy and cheesy! 8/10. Great lunch!

After lunch Bryan and I did some errands and picked ourselves up a shiny new toaster oven!
We decided to get a cheap one to hold us over for now and to register for a nicer one. Looking forward to using it.


One of my afternoon snacks was some Dr. Kracker seeded spelt crackers
With a little almond butter and a little honey peanut butter. So yummy.

I had dinner with my little at Wegmans.
I put together a salad with iceberg lettuce, grape tomatoes, chickpea salad, onions, feta cheese, cucumbers, and fat free dijon honey mustard dressing. This salad was AWESOME. I am absolutely buying all the ingredients and recreating it at home. YUMMM. I also had some broccoli and shang hai shrimp from the Asian wokery bar. So very pleased with this meal :)

My lovely little with some lemon squares.
Love her!

There were a bunch of other unpictured eats today, but after all it is snacking Sunday!

So, exercising took a backseat to everything else that was going on in my life this weekend, aka errands, school work, blogging, etc. I'm a little bummed but I know I'll get back on track tomorrow with some serious cardio!! In other fitness news, I've decided that instead of giving you little snippets about my workouts during the week, I'm going to do one fitness recap at the end of each week to show you what my schedule was like.

Bye bye weekend :(

Eats.

Creative title, eh?

Today's eats...

OIAJ!
Apple butter style. I mixed maple and brown sugar oats with some dried cranberries, white chocolate chips, and the rest of my apple butter. Very tasty, but the white chocolate flavor kind of got lost.

Lunch was my favorite burger.
Homemade black bean burgers! Made by my future hubby :) I topped my burger with blobs of sriracha and ketchup and I had some FSTG jalapeno chips on the side. Hot stufffff!

I also had strawberries and dark chocolate dreams for dipping.
Yum!!!

Some lovely pre-dinner snacks at my friend Erin's...
Cheese, pepperoni, crackers, chips and dip. I could eat apps all day long!

We ordered in and I got a tasty buffalo chicken wrap. (Dipped it in blue cheese, of course!)
AND...

This monster!
A sugar cookie bigger than my hand! And I ate it all. It was phenomenal. Clearly, I did not count calories today :)

Unpictured eats: Vanilla Special K bar, Ritz munchables (half cracker half pretzel) dipped in dark chocolate dreams, and NOO espresso chocolate chip cookies.

Friday...

• Is a day you should have off from work.
• Is a day you should sleep in late.
  
• Is a day that should be spent with your DVR.
• Is a day you should do no work for school.
  

None of that holds true for me today which is why I'm not a fan of this Friday!! But, I'm trying to be more positive, so on the bright side, I thoroughly enjoyed today's eats!

For breakfast I had a strawberry banana yogurt- my favorite light&fit flavor so far.
I also had some honey almond cereal...which was a part of this awesome sampler package that Kay's Naturals sent me!
I really enjoyed the cereal- it was similar to Cheerios but with more flavor and much airier. I am super excited to try out the other products!

Lunch was a mini buffet of snacks.
I had some cucumbers, garlic hummus, Naturally More on-the-go pb (which is much better out of the jar), strawberries, Dr. Kracker hummus maximus crackers, and Kay's cinnamon toast pretzel sticks. The pretzels made the meal! So good!!!

For dinner I had sauteed spinach with shrimp and loaded it with parmesan cheese. DELICIOUS...I wish the portion was bigger!
I also had some reduced fat cheddar on seedlander snackers topped with strawberries. I have been seeing this cheese and berry combo all over the blog world and am so happy I got to try it for myself. It is awesome!

Dessert was a honey wheat thin topped with almond butter.
I also sprinkled a little Ovaltine. I know chocolate protein powder would be a better choice but I've been putting off buying it because it's 'spensive!

My Friday night is looking pretty blah: some cardio and then group projects. What have you got planned?

Life is Too Short

To be anything but happy. Wouldn't it be great if I could actually actually live my life according to that motto? I'm going to start trying harder. For example, I could begin this post with a rant about the terrible morning commute yesterday...

But instead I'll show you the beautiful sunrise I enjoyed during my drive this morning.I wish this picture actually captured what I saw. It was gorgeous.

Should we talk eats?

Boo me, I forgot to take a picture of breakfast (again!) on Wednesday. I had a Light & Fit strawberry cheesecake yogurt with some grapes mixed in. I know the blog world hates these yogurts, but they were on sale last week! But now that I have some Chobani coupons from the awesome Melissa at Crunches for Cupcakes I can finally get some of the good stuff!

Wednesday's lunch was the world's best combination: cracked pepper turkey and spinach and artichoke cream cheese.
I ate this on a thin with some fresh baby spinach to top it off. I also had some sweet potato chips with apple butter for dipping...as was recommended on the FSTG bag. It was a good mix but didn't compare to the almond butter combo! And of course I had more grapes.

Dinner was a Morningstar Farms black bean burger on a whole-wheat wrap topped with pickles, red onion, ketchup and sriracha.
On the side I had some jalapeno FSTG chips. Between the sriracha and chips my mouth was on FIRE! I also enjoyed a large diet coke (fountain of course) so I was feeling pretty full after.

But, I managed to make room for my last VitaBrownie!
Sad faceee! To it being the last one, of course, not to the brownie. It was yummmmy!

This morning's breakfast...
Maple and brown sugar oats featuring honey peanut butter. Oatmeal is just so much better with pb.

Lunch was some spinach and artichoke cream cheese with seedlander snackers and peas spiced up with pepper and garlic.
Lunch was on the light side so I could save room for...

Yogen Früz!!!
I had been looking forward to this for weeks! I met up with Bryan on my break and we headed to mall to get some froyo. Mine was chocolate topped with kiwis, strawberries, and chocolate shavings. Party in my mouth!!

Bryan got vanilla with pineapples, kiwis, strawberries, and white chocolate.
I really loved the pineapples in his.

Tonight's dinner featured my favorite sweet sammy...
Peanut butter and apple butter. Bye bye apple butter :( But I saved the jar for some OIAJ! I also had cucumbers and light dressing, barbecue popchips (the besttt) and strawberries. Yay for lots of fresh fruit today!

It's always tough to workout on Thursdays because by now I am totally drained but I WILL do turbosculpt at 8:30!!

Blogger break.

After the morning commute from hell, followed by work, four hours of tutoring and class, and now homework, I'm simply ran out of time and was faced with the decision: to workout or to blog? As much as I wanted to choose the latter, I decided to take the night off so I can get some exercise in, and pick up with blogging tomorrow. See you then!

TOO MUCH Tuesday.

I'm addicted to alliteration.

Too much= too much EATING. All was well until my after dinner sweet tooth hit. Then I was out of control. But first...

Breakfast was oatmeal with dark chocolate dreams.
Surprisingly, I think I would have liked this more without the chocolateyness. Never thought I'd say that. I think I'll put honey pb in my oats later this week.

Lunch was a collection of goodies, as always.
I had some cracked pepper turkey on a pumpkin seed cheddar flatbread, a thin with Asia jam and cheddar, and broccoli and garlic hummus. All was delicious. However, my cheddar is just not sharp enough and gets lost when it's on a sammy so I took it off and ate it separately. I think my cheddar is on it's way out :(

Dinner was a frozen broccoli and cheese sauce mix.
I added some shrimp and Dinosaur bbq cajun seasoning and turned it into a fantastic meal. I will definitely be making this again!

Dessert...
Half of an Arnold thin with some almond butter and a sprinkle of Ovaltine for a touch of chocolate. I took that bite to put an artsy spin on the pic...not because I couldn't wait until after the picture to eat it, ha :)

And a Kashi blackberry graham bar.


Why couldn't I have just stopped there? All of a sudden I started craving every sweet thing in my kitchen. I took the "if you're hungry, eat" theory and ran with it. No pictures, but some highlights were caramel popcorn, honey peanut butter, Newman's Own Organics espresso chocolate chip cookies, dark chocolate, and the list goes on and on. I didn't stop until my stomach hurt. Not proud of this. I'm trying to chalk it up to a moment of weakness, and get over it, but that's easier said than done!

Back to the Grind

Spring break is officially over and it's back to 12 hour days. Not a fan. Also not a fan of professors keeping us past 7:30. Rar.

Anywho.

This morning I had a golden corn Vitatop and some blueberries that were on their last days. The muffin was good but a little on the dry side. And...I forgot to take a picture. Fail.

There is a lovely picture of my lunch though!
Thanks Bryan :) I had leftover kung pao veggies on a thin topped with cheddar cheese, a gala apple and barbecue popchips on the side. Ah, a great lunch. These veggies are to die for. It was a different mix than I usually use and there was no broccoli, but there were lots and lots of snap peas. So, a pretty fair trade in my opinion.

Dinner was a salad with baby spinach, red onion, grape tomatoes, a Morningstar Farms Italian herb chik'n patty and some light parmesan peppercorn dressing.
There was nothing wrong with it, but sometimes a salad just doesn't cut it. Especially when you're craving a sub and the girl sitting right next to you is eating one. Boo her. On the plus side, I had some delicious grapes and golden Oreos on the side. The Oreos were amazing..they tasted like cupcakes! I just wish there were about 30 in the pack instead of only three.

I was hungry by the time I got home from class and ate the rest of the kung pao veggies. Gonna catch up on some emails and blogs and then it's time for turbosculpt. Woooo. Too bad all I wanna do is collapse on my bed. Ahhh, Mondays.

Success?

I'm going to consider this a successful Sunday. No, I didn't get the school work done that I wanted to, but...
a) I worked out, despite the fact that I felt sick to my stomach all day
and
b) I didn't snack all day long! Okay, my lack of snacking can probably be attributed to the fact that I haven't been feeling well but nonetheless, I didn't overeat. Go me.

Alright on to eats...

Breakfast was one of my favorites!
Maple & brown sugar oatmeal with apple butter and Naturally more peanut butter. SO so good.

Lunch was similar to yesterday's...
I had some cracked pepper turkey on Dr. Kracker's seedlander snackers (first time trying these, oh my!...9/10!), frozen grapes, grape tomatoes, and barbecue popchips.

For dinner I had Asian veggies in kung pao sauce on a whole-wheat wrap.
The wrap helped to stifle the spiciness a bit but I needed some sweet potato chips and LOTS of water to really cool my mouth down.

For dessert I finally tried a Yoplait parfait.
It was the chocolate raspberry flavor and it was delicious! It reminded me of this chocolate and berry trifle from Wegmans, except in a much smaller, pudding-like version. I would have liked it to be a little bit heavier on the chocolate taste, but overall I was very satisfied.

And to finish off this post...
Last night Bryan and I played Beatles Rock Band (one of his birthday gifts from me) and I guess Ellie got jealous and wanted to give the drums a try :)

Pizza and Wings

Today was an odd Saturday. My lovely cold woke me up at 6:30 am and wouldn't let me get back to sleep!! I've felt out of whack all day.

Breakfast was a honey wheat thin
With a heaping mess of almond butter for dipping, and some blueberries on the side. It tasted delicious but I had the worst stomachache for hours after.

Even though my tummy was really bothering me, I still had an appetite. I swear, there is really not much that can stop me from eating! So, a few hours later I made lunch.
I had cracked pepper turkey and reduced fat cheddar on some Dr. Kracker seeded spelt crackers. I also had broccoli and garlic hummus, frozen grapes, and a few barbecue popchips. I love meals that have a lot of different foods to choose from. I get bored eating just one thing so this was perfect!

I spent most of the day being stressed out by school work, so a splurge meal was in order. We ordered from Mama Mia's - GREAT pizza!

Bryan's pizza...
Pepperoni and mushrooms, and then he added bacon bits and sriracha at home.

When I opened my pizza, which was supposed to be buffalo chicken, I oddly got a whiff of barbecue. Sure enough, they gave me barbecue chicken pizza. AHHH! Good thing I had ordered a slice in addition to my pie :)
It had pepperoni, onions, and sweet peppers. Plus, Bryan was nice enough to call Mia's for me and they said they would send over the correct pizza. Phew!

While I waited I also had a chicken wing...
AND
Some caramel popcorn with melted dark chocolate dreams. HOLY YUM.

And then....
My pizza came! SO GOOD! Especially when I slather it in blue cheese. This was one of my favorite things to eat in college. Especially at 1am. Probably explains why I was a little plumper than I am now :) I ate a few bites and then stuck it in the fridge to let it cool down because I prefer cold pizza over hot. Anyone with me? Or am I alone on this one...

My splurge meal definitely helped keep my mind off school. What really cheered me up though was a fabulous surprise package from my dad. When I was younger, The Big Chill soundtrack was constantly on in my house. I listened to that thing over and over again. Never saw the movie, but loved the music. I had forgotten all about it until I heard "Whiter Shade of Pale" on an episode of House which really made me reminisce. I emailed my dad to tell him I was thinking about how great the CD was and so he sent me a copy! It's seriously amazing. Great hits like "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night, "It's the Same Old Song" by the Four Tops, and "Good Lovin" by The Rascals. The music gives me such great memories and it put me in a much better mood :)

My cold is still really awful so I'm thinking I'll call today a rest day and pick up with my workouts tomorrow.

I also see some dessert in my future...