A Day of Disappearing Photos

Hey All! I'm sorry. I really pushed myself today with my HIIT and I'm now exhausted! So this will be brief. Also, today was the day of disappearing photos. There are a lot of meals missing.

The rest of Wednesday:

I had a salad that I made half of into a wrap again and a handful of potato chips. In the tupperware full of salad:

lettuce

leftover roasted veggies (cauliflower, potatoes and beets)

carrots

tomatoes

banana peppers

blue cheese

balsamic vinegar (on the salad)

blue cheese herb mustard (on the wrap)

This was the ridiculously large and heavy grocery bag that carried my lunch in! I apparently need a lot of food!

Prior to going to the gym I had a plain greek yogurt mixed with kiwi and honey.

At the gym I performed the rest of my strength training routine:

squats with 15lb dumbbells 4 sets of 8

walking lunges with 10lb dumbbells 3 sets of 8

standing shoulder press with 20lb dumbbells 3 sets of 8

front arm raises with 8lb dumbbells 3 sets of 8

tricep dips with 52lbs of assistance 3 sets of 8

tricep rope pull downs with 20lbs 3 sets of 8

captains chair crunches 3 sets of 20

plank 3 sets at 30 seconds

After the gym I was starving! I quickly gulped down my chocolate milk and decided I also needed a pear in my belly!

After the gym Matt and I went to the Natick Collection (a fancy term for "mall"). We did a little shopping and then went to Sel de la Terre for dinner. This is when some of my pictures disappeared. I started with a "Long day in the Gaarden", Hoegaarden with a splash of Framboise Lambic. It was refreshing! Matt took a better picture of my drink but he had issues with his phone today and lost the pictures.

For dinner we shared an order of their roasted garlic and shallot confit with bread, an Apple Street Farm salad and then we both had an order of the buttermilk 5-spice chicken wings. Everything was delicious but I think the wings were my favorite! They came with hot peppers and blue cheese crumbles! Unfortunately we lost all of those photos.

Thursday:

Breakfast this morning was a bowl of oatmeal that was mixed with ground flax seed, half of a banana and half of a container of vanilla greek yogurt. I also finished the remaining yogurt and the banana separately. It was the best breakfast of the week! And yes, that's Bailey on my coffee mug!

For lunch today I had the same salad as yesterday, except that I didn't make a wrap. I, of course, also had a handful of potato chips. Photo missing.

My afternoon snack was an organic tangerine that was part of this week's BO box!

I went to the gym at the end of the day and really pushed myself with the HIIT. I completed my normal routine of 5 minute jogging and 9 minute sprinting but I made myself sprint for a longer duration all six times that I ran. It was a good session! I was exhausted but I felt good! I've perfected the art of long strides at fast paces!

After the gym I sucked down a chocolate milk before heading home.

When I got home I made the southwestern stuffed acorn squashes that we had at my friend's house a couple weeks ago. You might remember the post. Again, no picture. It came out really good. The squash was cooked perfectly! I'll add the recipe next week when I make the leftovers into something delicious!

Now that I'm caught up I'm going to go crash in my bed! Matt and I are heading down to New York City to spend the weekend with some great friends! I'll catch up when I get back. Have a great weekend!

"Good Morning, Good Morning to you!"

I am typically not a morning person. I hate getting out of bed. I never feel like I sleep very well. I'm usually a grumpy person in general in the morning. My husband avoids me.

Well this morning I'm in a great mood!

I had to share, earlier than I do. On my way to work this morning I took some time and really observed my commute through busy Cambridge. I realized that I love my little commute. I love the scenery, I love the crazy traffic and I love sharing it with my husband (when he's not yelling at other cars)! I love giving him a quick little kiss before we go our own separate ways to work, our offices or meetings. I also love my job and my coworkers! I'm lucky!

This morning walking from the parking garage to my office I saw a man in a business suit with a bike helmet on a scooter. A scooter?! Yup, I saw it right, a scooter that kids like to play on. Silly Cambridge residents.
Then when I got into my warm office the sun was shining through my window! It's almost gone now but I realized the earlier I get here the more sun shine I get to enjoy. Maybe I'll come in earlier from now on.... maybe.... but not likely!

After soaking in all of the sun I made myself breakfast, oatmeal with smashed up kiwi and a little honey. It was ok but I probably won't make it again. I also had my morning coffee and my vitamins (multivitamin, calcium and iron).

Anyway, through this all I was singing a song in my head. I don't know when or why I've seen or heard this before but I have to share the song!

Hope everyone has a great day today!

Back on Track

Today was the first day in over a week that all my meals have been home cooked and I was able to get back into my gym routine! Hooray for routine!

It was another lazy morning which started with a bowl of Kashi Cinnamon Harvest with half skim milk and half 1/2 & 1/2. Another problem with not being home, running out of milk.

For lunch I brought a salad. Half of my salad went into a Joseph's tortilla to make a sandwich. I also had some potato chips, double what you see here I snacked on some chips while I made my lunch. My salad was a lot of scraps that are left in my fridge:

lettuce

2 oz chicken breast

pear

sweet & spicy pecans from Trader Joe's

blue cheese

carrots

leftover roasted sweet potatoes and tomatoes from last night's dinner

balsamic vinegar

It was edible and some bites tasted good but I wouldn't recommend this particular combination.

The half of the salad that went into the wrap was accompanied by a delicious blue cheese herb mustard from Stonewall Kitchen. It was a great addition to the sandwich.

I finally got back into my workout routine today!! Hooray! This afternoon I completed an upper body workout:

bench chest press with 30lbs per side, 4 sets of 6

declined bench chest press with 20lb dumbbells, 4 sets of 6

assisted pull-ups, 4 sets of 6

bent over rows with a curved bar and 12.5lbs per side, 4 sets of 6

bicep curls with 12lb dumbbells, 3 sets of 8

21's with 8lb dumbbells, 3 sets

After the workout I had a Horizon chocolate milk and half of an organic plout (the other half was over ripe).

The snack was good but it didn't keep my hunger at bay for long! By the time I got home my body was exhausted and I just didn't have the energy to make the dinner I had originally planned. I decided that Matt and I were going to have veggie burgers for dinner. They're easy and quick! My burger was two veggie patties on an Arnold whole wheat deli thin with one slice of american cheese with a squirt of ketchup, mustard and some hot sauce. The total calorie count for my burger was about 400 calories with 29g of protein and 11g of fiber. It was delicious, nutritious and totally filling.

As a side to the burger we had roasted vegetables:

1 head of cauliflower

2 small beets

2 small potatoes

Cut into small cubes then drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with pepper, grey salt and garlic powder. Roasted at 375 for about 25 minutes.

I probably could have used less salt but they still tasted great and it looked so pretty!

Tonight was the pilot episode for V and my husband was so excited! We watched it as soon as it was recorded on our TiVo. While we watched the episode we slowly savored and enjoyed a bowl of the pumpkin ice cream.

I apparently love all things pumpkin!

As I write this blog post I am catching up on Top Chef and enjoying a glass of Curious Beagle Cabernet Sauvignon. It's a great wine that our downstairs City Convenience carries. It's full of jammy flavors and is a medium bodied wine. I'm so glad our selection downstairs is pretty good. It's so convenient when I am craving one glass of wine!

Back to trying to catch up with Top Chef. Did anyone else watch the pilot episode of V? If so, what did you think? I thought it was much better than I expected!

Nasoya Giveaway

Good Morning!

Elina from Healthy and Sane is having a giveaway for coupons for free Nasoya products. Check out her post by clicking on the hyperlink and enter!

I had to share real quick. Now it's back to work. Good luck and have a great day!

Hyperlinks

A quick guide to where a hyperlink in my blog posts may take you:

A restaurant will take you to their Yelp review site. I'm going to make an effort to review all of the restaurants that I visit on yelp. This way you can read more on the restaurants that I visit.

A person's name will take you to their blog or website.

A book will probably take you to their Amazon page.

A recipe name will take you to where I got the original recipe from.

I'll add more as I discover them!

An Oldie but a Goodie

I ended up waking up late so I only had time for a bowl of cereal before I left the house. I had my favorite old standby Kashi Cinnamon Harvest. It's a better healthier version of frosted shredded wheat. I love the little bursts of crunchy cinnamon sugar that you get. Yum!

I was in a hurry to leave the house this morning because I had an almost all day software training for work. After a couple hours of training they let us break for lunch. I grabbed a half of a tuna sandwich and a half of a veggie sandwich. Then I removed the veggies (spinach, roasted peppers, roasted zucchini and roasted eggplant) from one wrap and added it to my tuna sandwich. It was a great way to get rid of some of the carbs from the wrap and get the boost from the veggies. It was pretty good for a cafeteria sandwich. I also had a bag of the baked Lays which I dip into yellow mustard. I love mustard!! It's my favorite condiment!

Betsy brought in pumpkin cupcakes to work today! I was lucky enough to grab one for a snack. It tasted so good and fresh! The picture does not do the cupcake justice. It was delicious!

Tonight I surveyed what I had in the house for dinner. I realized I had a couple of sweet potatoes and chicken. I knew just what to make! I stopped at Whole Foods on the way home and picked up feta cheese and a pint of grape tomatoes. I used to make this dish all the time last year. It was better than I remembered tonight! I served the chicken over brown rice. The feta melted into the rice so that it almost tasted like a risotto! We also had a salad with pears, carrots, pecans and balsamic. It was very satisfying!

Chicken with Baked Tomatoes and Sweet Potatoes

2 sweet potatoes cut into 3/4" chunks

1/2 pint of grape tomatoes cut in half

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

2 Tablespoons water

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Preheat the oven at 400 degrees. Spray an 8x8 pan with nonstick cooking spray. In a small bowl mix together the lemon juice, water, salt, pepper and oregano. Arrange the sweet potatoes and tomatoes in the baking dish and drizzle with half of the lemon mixture. Place the chicken on top of the veggies and drizzle with the remaining lemon mixture. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 35 minutes. Occasionally spooning juices over the chicken and veggies. Uncover and bake for 10 minutes. Crumble feta over the top of the chicken and veggies and bake for 5 minutes longer.

To accompany dinner Matt picked up a bottle of Joseph Carr's 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon. I liked the back of the bottle. It says "Share." I decided to rate the wine too. It's a good bottle of wine but it was a little young. It needed to open up a bit. It's a full body wine with a beautiful garnet color. If you happen to find this bottle you should pick it up. My husband thinks it will be perfect in a year or two.

Last but not least for the night, I had two scoops of Edy's Slow Churned Pumpkin Ice Cream. I have been reading about this ice cream on a couple of the blogs that I follow in the past couple of weeks and NEEDED to try it! It was amazing! It has the perfect balance of flavors, pumpkin, cream, cloves, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. All with half the fat and only 100 calories per half cup compared to the full fat Edy's!

Have you had a chance to try this ice cream yet?! What do you think?

Rest of the Week Recap

Wow! Before I knew it the week was over! In an attempt to catch up I'm just going to summarize the remainder of my week.

Wednesday:

I left Kalamazoo at 7AM to get to Ann Arbor in time for a 9AM breakfast with my cool cousins! Before heading on the road I picked up a granola bar and a coffee from the concierge lounge. I needed something to hold me over for the almost two hour drive.

I met up with my cool cousins (the hyperlink is to their cool jewelry company's website) at Cafe Zola in Ann Arbor for breakfast. I had the frittata with sweet potatoes, caramelized onions, goat cheese and challah croutons. I removed the croutons to cut back on the carbs and ate about 2/3 of the frittata before having to give up.

After lunch I sped to the Detroit airport. Right before I got on my plane back to Boston I realized that I wasn't going to be able to eat for about 4 hours. I decided to quickly eat a slice of pizza before getting on the plane.

After I landed in Boston Matt and I headed up to Ogunquit, Maine for a memorial service for a dear old friend. Five-O, the restaurant that he worked in for years held his memorial service. It was a beautiful night of remembering and celebrating a wonderful life. I obviously didn't bring my phone to the service. So there are no pictures of the appetizers from Five-O or our flatbread and salad dinner from the Front Porch.

Thursday:

Matt and I worked from my in-laws Bed and Breakfast (and home) Thursday. I started my morning with a bowl of oatmeal with bananas and almonds. For an early afternoon snack we had cheese and crackers, apple slices, grapes and a smoothie that my father-in-law made. I of course didn't remember to take pictures until after our early snack. For a late afternoon snack we decided to go to MC Perkins Cove for a drink and an appetizer. I enjoyed a Guinness (or two), a small plate of calamari and three oysters. The oysters ranged in size, getting bigger and bigger until the GIANT OYSTER! Let's just say the last oyster, the largest, was a little tough to swallow but I did it! Surprising my husband and the restaurant staff!

Aside from the giant oysters, MC Perkins Cove holds a lot of memories for Matt and me. Before it was MC Perkins Cove it was the Hurricane (now only located in Kennebunkport). This was the view from the restaurant that we saw Thursday and the same view that we saw before Matt proposed to me on July 3, 2003. tee-hee-hee! I can't believe how time flies!!

After our snacks we went to the Front Porch again for their Cloud 9 weekly special. Special entrees for $9. Can't beat that! Matt and I started our dinner by splitting the chopped salad. For dinner I ordered the spaghetti and meatballs. Matt ordered the chicken spanakopita. We split the entrees so we could try a little of both.

Later that night, when we were finally home in Boston, Matt made a smoothie to enjoy while we watched a TV show. I only had a little because I was still stuffed from all the food we had that day.

Friday:

I hadn't been in the office all week so I was in a hurry Friday morning. Breakfast was a quick one egg with one egg white with a coffee to go.

For lunch I had to run to our cafeteria and make a salad. Luckily I still had a tortilla to make one little wrap. My salad had a little of everything:

spinach

tuna

dried cranberries

feta

garbanzo beans

banana peppers

carrots

red peppers

olives

balsamic vinegar

After I finished my salad I had a mini Kit Kat bar (in true Halloween spirit) and a big cup of green tea.

For an afternoon snack I had the other granola bar that I had picked up Wednesday morning.

Friday night we went to our friend's house in Quincy for a Halloween party. I, again, forgot to take pictures which is a shame because they did a great job! Their house was covered in spider webs and their dinner spread was delicious! They had homemade mac and cheese, apple glazed ham, mini hot dogs, hot dogs wrapped in biscuits, homemade queso dip, pumpkin pie, sugar cookies and homemade caramel corn. I had the tiniest bit of everything homemade. Yum!

This weekend Matt and I purged our house of all things that we haven't used in over a year. We went through all of our drawers, closets and clothes from the kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom. It was a project that took all weekend but it's almost complete!! We made sure that we had plenty of time to eat even with all of the work!

Saturday:

I was in a hurry to start our project so I had the worst breakfast ever. Half of a Dunkin' Donuts pumpkin muffin and half a bowl of Life cereal.

For lunch we had some leftover ham from the party on top of a salad. We also had wheat crackers with some garlic hummus.

For dinner we met our friends at Shabu-Zen for hot pot. There was pork, chicken, a seafood platter and sake bombs. So good!

After dinner we walked through Beacon Hill checking out the trick-or-treaters. Then we went to Mooo... so the boys could have a nightcap. By the time we got home I was starving again so I made mini whole wheat english muffin pepperoni pizzas.

Sunday:

In a hurry to try to finish our project... I added the bottom of my half of a pumpkin muffin and some ground flax seed to a half serving of oatmeal. I ate the top half, the best part, all by itself first. I also had a small serving of chocolate milk. I guess I had a sweet tooth this morning!

Matt and I had some errands including a trip to the Cambridgeside Galleria so that Matt could have have his iMac looked at the Genius Bar. While we were there I was starving so we decided on a quick lunch. I haven't had Taco Bell in years and decided it was the healthiest food court option. Taco Bell is not as good as I remember! I had one soft and one hard chicken taco with a diet pepsi. Yuk!

My in-laws came down to Boston for dinner. They're going to watch Bailey for us this week because we just decided that we're going to go to NYC next weekend. To say thank you we took them out to dinner at the Capital Grille, our favorite steakhouse in Boston. Matt and I share everything when we come here because the portions are so large! Sorry the pictures aren't that great!

The chopped salad with blue cheese and the bottle of wine we got for the table:

Kona encrusted dry aged sirloin with caramelized onions with a side of mashed potatoes and asparagus:

A cup of green tea which is supposed to aid in digestion, increase your metabolism and has a lot of antioxidants (I definitely needed all the help I could get):

Then finally we all split a double chocolate cookie ice cream sandwich (heaven!):

Looking back at this week my meals were disastrous! I didn't have a home cooked dinner once! I think I did the best I could with my crazy schedule and all of the traveling. I'm very excited to get back in my routine, gym every day and home cooked meals!!!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween! We're now on to November!