Jicamaless Purgatory

Thanks to everyone who checked out and commented about my new jewelry page!! It means so much to me to have people appreciate my craft. I was telling Brandi that it was really hard for me to put myself out there like that even though I talk about my food and disordered eating so easily. I guess it comes from a different place in the heart.

I woke up feeling almost normal yesterday, yay me. I think the cold portion of my sickness is gone and only a little of the sinus infection lingers! For breakfast, I had a new cereal that I originally picked up for the dear husband. It was All Bran Strawberry Fields that I topped off with ground flax seed and milk. Oh, it is so good! It really reminds me of the red berries in Captain Crunch

The Pro had an off site meeting so lunch was really late. To hold me over, I had what is normally my afternoon snack. Greek Yogurt with peach slices and a sunflower seed butter spoon. I have only seen the nut butter/greek yogurt a couple of times in blogland and maybe I know why now, it isn’t that great. I think it was a texture thing.

The Pro arrived with lunch shortly after 1, he picked up Firebird’s so I got my usual grilled salmon on salad with roasted pecans. There was no jicama this time and that made me very sad The jicama is usually my favorite part. 

Once I got home from work, I felt well enough to give the treadmill a shot. I hadn’t done any exercise since being sick so I decided to do a walk/run interval program that is mainly just walking. It felt good, the only sign of sickness I had was a runny nose and I could tell it had been a while because I struggled with some of the incline segments. The important thing is that I made it through and that I got back at it. I have a tendency to let exercise slide and before I got sick, I was really doing well with being consistent. So, it was nice to feel “back on track”.

After my jaunt on the treadmill and a quick shower, I made dinner. Once again, I used Brandi’s Blogas  inspiration. I’m actually starting to wonder what I ate before she started blogging?? I made eggs in purgatory which is eggs poached in marinara sauce.

this is the pan straight out of the oven

I ended up cooking the eggs too long as the yolks were fully cooked so I don’t think I got the full effect. I served it over brown rice and think next time, I will serve it over polenta and let it cook a little less time. After dinner, I had a bite of leftover brownies to satisfy my sweet tooth.

Not my day for snacking

I woke up yesterday really wishing it was Friday, or better yet, Saturday! I started the day with a bowl of rolled oats, I had been craving them for a couple of days. I cooked them in soy milk and stirred in some white chocolate dreams PB while it was cooking. After it cooked, I stirred in some ground flax seed and topped it with a banana. It was really good and was exactly what I was craving.

just what I wanted

My work day started out hectic, I was busy with lots of IT problems immediately and had a number of unresolved issued still lingering. After lots of emails and contact with the IT dude, I got started on my “normal” work. I’m not sure why I call it that still since this new IT thing is my normal work now but it still feels really new to me. I actually kind of enjoy it, most days, anyway.

Around 11, I headed downstairs and checked out staff lunch. It was pork tenderloin stir fry with rice. I loaded my plate with lots of veggies, some of the pork and a little of the rice. One day, I WILL remember to bring in my brown rice cups. I ate most of the lunch but left some of it behind because it was kind of salty and it really got to me by the end.

staff lunch

A few hours after lunch, I was ready for a snack. I decided to give the soy yogurt a try, I was skeptical as I had heard some pretty bad things about it. After one bite, I knew why. It was awful, I might even venture to say that it was the worst food I had ever tasted. It was grey and tasted like fat free mayonnaise. I didn’t even go for a second bite. I took it downstairs to the trash and the chef wanted to taste it “just to see”. He agreed but even went so far as to spit his bite into the trash. Needless to day, the other two containers I have of this stuff will not be making it into my belly.

yuck

Of course, I was still hungry so I dug around in my cabinet and purse to see what I had that was dairy free. I came up with a roasted almond crunch kashi bar. I bit into it and knew right away that it was rancid. Yikes, I pulled the wrapper out of the trash only to discover that it had expired more than a year ago. I guess I need to clean out my secret food loot a little more often.

bad bar!

I dug further into the depths of my stash and found a cherry chocolate kashi bar. To my delight, the chocolate was dark and didn’t have any milk in it.Yay! I checked the expiration date and I was golden. Double Yay!

good bar!

I ended up staying at work really late and was starving by the time I got into my car. Once again, my dear husband came to the rescue. While I drove the 40 minutes home, he made a green salad with spinach, cukes and green grapes. He also popped in an Amy’s Organic No Cheese Roasted Veggie pizza. By the time I walked in the door, all I had to do was dress the salads with a little oil and vinegar and then sit down to eat. The pizza was out of this world good, it had mushrooms, onions and peppers on it with a sweet balsamic glaze. So tasty, this will definitely make it back into the rotation even if I do eat dairy again.

cheeseless pizza

After dinner, I caught up on blog land and then settled in for more of my book. This week, I am supposed to take 3 walks, at my own pace, stock my pantry with healthy food (check) and practice focusing on my breath for five minutes each day.  Since I am starting this thing mid week, I am going to stretch out my first week by a few days so I can start each week on Mondays. So, check back to see how I am doing!

After some reading and some TV, I was off to bed. Finally Friday!!

QOTD: Do you meditate? Maybe not in the traditional sense but is there something that you do that totally gets your find focused on th present moment each day?

Goodbye Callie

I tell you, sometimes I wonder why life throws so many curve balls all at one time. Yesterday was a really hard day emotionally. I started out with a heavy heart about how work would feel. I didn’t want to get out of bed and I wondered how many days in row I could call in sick without being fired. I did finally get up and get ready to go. For breakfast I had my typical, hot grain cereal with wheatberries, oats and bulgur topped with almond butter and a banana. One the side I had a glass of milk.

breakfast

Once at work, the emotions really started flying. The Pro and I had a really long talk about Paul’s death and the unfortunate circumstances behind it. Though the club was closed, a few employees rambled in throughout the day to find out any updates about the arrangements for him. Once T got to work, the mood lightenend a bit as she is a laugher and her laugh is infectous. It was a nice change from the somber mood of the early morning.

Around 10:30, The Pro said he would go out to Firebird’s and pick up some lunch. Since I knew that meant it would be late before lunch arrived, I had a stoneyfield farms low fat strawberry yogurt. It really hit the spot and held me over until the lunch came.

this should hold me over

I ordered the same thing I always order from Firebird’s, a grilled salmon salad. The salad has roasted pecans, tomatoes and jicama and it comes with a cilantro lime vinaigrette. It is so tasty and even without any whole grains, it is really filling. The Pro also “surprised” us with lattes so right after lunch I had most of a grande soy latte from Starbucks. I had a raging headache and that really helped ease it up some.

lunch

latte

 

The afternoon flew by and before I knew it, it was time to go. By the time I left, I had an outrageous headache again and was really ready to be home. When I got home, I made spinach salads and whole wheat mini shells with turkey tomato sauce. I had the sauce in the freezer so this meal went together in less than 15 minutes.

quick dinner

After dinner, we went out to run some errands and came home to some disappointing news. There were signs all over the neighborhood indicating someone had lost a pregnant calico cat with a distinctive stripe down her nose. We knew right away that the missing cat was our Callie. We had adopted her just a week prior and at the time felt sure she was a stray. She did not have a collar and she hung around for months. Once we decided that she was a stray, we started feeding her and she, of course, started to hang around more. She was in our yard constantly and we didn’t want her to be homeless anymore. So, we took her to the vet and brought her in to join our other two precious kitties.

We called the number on the flyer and got a voicemail and left a message letting them know we had her. The whole evening was so sad. I made some popcorn hoping to find some comfort, I know food wasn’t the answer but I was so tired of crying.

comfort food?

Around 9:30, we went to bed only to be woken at 10:30 by the ringing phone. Dear husband answered, it was Callie’s “owner”. Within a few minutes, the doorbell rang. I answered the door because I wanted answers. I wanted to know why she was always so hungry and if they intended to give her an actual home. Sadly, the man was very confrontational and he had two dirty crying children with him. He approached me as if he wanted to fight a couple of times, I threatened to call the police but he wasn’t backing down. He and I clearly have different positions on proper animal care. He was aware that she was pregnant and that she didn’t have a collar. He also admitted that “everyone” in the neighborhood feeds her. They had gone on vacation and when they returned she was missing. In the end, I gave him the cat as he was threatening me and I was very scared, he was only feet from my face and I didn’t know what else to do.

Once Callie left, I was angry and sad. I am so worried about the fate of her and her little babies. I don’t know if I have any rights at all. Though I did tell him if she comes back, I do plan to take her in again. I cried alot and finally fell asleep around 2 am. I didn’t see her this morning, I hope she is OK.

Thursday aka Almost Friday

I seem to really be getting into the routine of getting up earlier and I really like it. It makes the mornings go by so much easier. But an ironic thing did happen yesterday. Though I had blogged about the fact that I needed to get some grain cereal out of the freezerer, I still forgot! So, yesterday I ate some of dear husband’s live active cereal. It was pretty good, it had flakes, clusters dried blueberries and dried cranberries. I topped it with milk and some almonds.

quick breakfast

The drive to work was pretty uneventful but once I got to work, everything began to unravel. The Pro and I were working on a big meeting notice when the copier decided to break. Yeah, at 7:30 in the morning, not a good sign. Then we realized we didn’t have enough envelopes so I had to run out to Staples to get some, otherwise known as an emergency staples run. When I was leaving, T came in and said that the emergency staples run warranted and emergency Starbucks run. So, while I was out, I picked up everyone’s favorite. I wasn’t in the mood for a latte so I got one of the new smoothies, mango banana or something like that. It was really good and so filling, they add some sort of protein/fiber powder to it. I was only able to drink about two thirds.

smoothie

A couple hours after the smoothie, Chef asked me to have some of the soup of the day, he was worried it would be too spicy to serve. It had choirzo, chicken and lots of veggies, I had it with a yogurt and a peach. It was really good, just not that spicy like I had expected.

soup

 

a great way to round out lunch

The afternoon unfolded the same way the morning did. We loaded up the printer with the new envelopes and low and behold we had to manually feed each one in, yep, all 425 of them. T and I took turns with this exciting task. Once all of the notices and envelopes were printed, we each took a stack and got to stuffing. We were on a good roll when T started putting postage on them and guess what happened? The postage meter ran out of ink. Seriously, what else would happen with this thing? I told T that I felt like this meeting is surrounded by bad karma! The project ended up taking up my whole day and I had only planned on it taking up the morning. So, I was able to leave right after finishing. By this time I was hungry already, I guess the soup just wasn’t very filling so I had a banana.

perfectly ripe

On the way home, I felt exhausted but I had to stop for my hair appointment. After the cut, I went home and made some dinner. I made salmon with orange chili glaze. It was a spicy sweet combo of soy sauce, orange juice, honey, thai sweet chili sauce and cilantro. The Chef at work had made this for T and I a couple weeks ago and I decided to replicate it at home. It was fantastic. I’m thinking that combo would make a good stir fry sauce as well. I served the salmon with BIG HUGE slices of hanover tomato and some broccoli that I sauteed in olive oil, garlic and salt and pepper. I usually add crushed red pepper too but I didn’t want to overwhelm our palates with spice. It was all mighty tasty.

dinner

After dinner, I started to read and I fell asleep. Yes, at 7 pm at night, I fell asleep. I guess I really was exhausted from the day at work. I woke up on the couch around 8 and went directly to bed. Well, you know what they say, early to bed early to rise.

Hump Day!

Finally, I had a no rush morning. Everything seemed to go smoothly even though I had to prepare breakfast from scratch. I forgot to pull more oats out of our deep freezer that lives in the outdoor storage. So instead of the usual mixed grain hot cereal, I made a bowl of old rashioned rolled oats with milk instead of water. I mixed in some ground flax seed and topped it with a banana and some almond butter. It was so good! I love making rolled oats with milk, they are so creamy that way.

banana overboard

When I got to work, I was pleasantly surprised at my low level inbox. I was able to work at a nice tolerable pace and not feel stressed and over worked. Though I was working at a slower pace, the morning still flew by. I had my hummus and cukes since I am so stuck on that lately. I really love hummus. Anyway, about an hour after the snack I was ready for lunch and I had the same as yesterday. An egg salad sandwich on 100% whole wheat bread with lettuce and tomato and a stoneyfield farms low fat strawberry yogurt. When I decided to use the olive oil mayo in the egg salad, I was nervous but it is pleasantly almost the same!

um...how much can I cram is my lunch bag?

After lunch, I had a homemade latte with espresso, milk and cinnamon and today it really hit the spot. The afternoon went by just as quickly as the morning had; before I knew it, it was go time. I had an appointment after work so dear husband was in charge of dinner. When dear husband is in charge, frozen pizza it is. We buy the archers farm brand from target, they have extra thin crust so the calories aren’t as high as a regular frozen pizza and they are yummy. They have a few varities and tonight we had pepperoni along with a green salad with oil and vinegar. I was pretty hungry so I ate two slices. So good and just the right amount of fun food.

fun food

After dinner, we went for a nice walk around the neighborhood. We only did one loop plus a couple extra laps around two of the cul-de-sacs. Dear husband did not wear his GPS but I think it should be almost 2 miles. Once we finished our walk, we setttled in for a little television and then to bed we went. Another day awaits.

Tired Tuesday

I decided after the rushed morning I had on Monday to get up even earlier yesterday. What is it with getting up earlier that makes the morning routine longer?  By getting up 30 minutes earlier, I made it to work right on time rather than a few minutes past 7:30. Breakfast was the same ole same ole. Can you tell yet that I am big into batch cooking? Anyway, it was half a serving of hot grain cereal (wheatberries, oats, bulgur) topped with an almost perfectly ripe banana, flax seed and some almond butter. I also had a cold glass of milk and a tall drink of ice water. I guess the reason I stick with this breakfast is because it really holds me over, sometimes even for six hours! 

hot grain cereal…again

Today, Golf World was a madhouse. My phone rang at least 100 times before 10 am. I have multiple projects going on all at once and it makes for a pretty hectic day. But, I stay focused and keep in mind that in November things will settle down. Today both my snack and my lunch were eaten out of “I  need a break” instead of actual hunger. Well, I take that back, the snack was eaten in as an avoidance tactic against garlic bread. The staff lunch is held in The Pro’s office which is right next to mine and the smell of garlic and butter was really getting to me. So, I noshed on some cukes and hummus, my favorite go to snack.

 

 

I will not eat the garlic bread

Lunch came about an hour and a half after the snack and I really was in “I need a break” mode then. I had just finished the work I had anticipated being done with my 10 am, it was almost 1. I had and egg salad sandwich on 100% whole wheat bread with lettuce and tomato. I made the egg salad on Sunday with olive oil mayo, yellow mustard, salt and pepper. Is there a different way to make it in the south? I also had a stoneyfield farm low fat strawberry yogurt. I had plan to have the peach you see pictured but I was full and didn’t want it.

have lunch, will travel

For my afternoon snack..er..pick me up..I had a cinnamon latte I made at home with espresso, milk and a couple sprinkles of cinnamon. 

wake me up

This is my favorite way to have a flavored latte without all the added sweeteners (fake or not) of the syrups. I do like to have those every now and then but I really try to keep the sugar monster at bay.

     The rest of the afternoon was busy, as per usual, but T and I did get a fun little lesson about pin sheets from PVV. I think it is so funny to work in an industry that I know absolutely nothing about. Did you know that they move the hole…EVERY DAY… in golf? Every day. Seriously, who knew. Anyway, it was nice to get out onto the nice soft grass and get some sunshine. By the time the lesson was finished it was time to go. I was wiped out.

     The drive home was spent in a trance of “I want pizza, I want to go to sleep, do I really have to make dinner, will I work out, will I just bail on working out”. Luckily, when I got home I already had a plan for dinner so I could do it without really thinking or giving myself time to give in to the thoughts of cheesy gooey italian food. The plan was pork tenderloin stir fry, I know stir fry twice in just a couple days but it comes together so quickly and it makes such a nice balanced meal I make it alot. Today, it was sliced pork tenderloin, broccoli, snow peas, peppers, zucchini and carrots stir fried in sesame oil/olive oil and then mixed with a sweet and sour stir fry sauce and a dash of rooster sauce. I added some sesame seeds on top to make it pretty and served it over brown rice.

yumma

After dinner, the decision was made to bail on a workout. I had got in about 4 hours of exercise in the previous three days and a rest seemed like a great idea. It was almost time for Monica’s teleclass when I decided to have an after dinner snack. After dinner I was feeling like I wasn’t quite full but by 7:45 I was sure. I had a deep chocolate vitatop with a squirt of low fat whipped cream and a dark chocolate covered walnut.

dessert

Now that was a satisfying treat! After the snack, I dialed into the call with Monica, my holistic health counselor friend. There were about 6 participants total, myself included. Monica told us about the 8 reasons why the body will start to crave thing, the number one being dehydration. She also talked about the yin and yang balance and primary foods and secondary foods. Primary foods being things that fufill ours souls, like family life, work and social activities. We deconstructed one of the cravings that I have often, greasy pizza after a stressfull day, and determined this was probably a mix of a yin/yang craving and a primary foods/secondary foods balance. It was all very interesting and now I am armed with a list of things I can do when those types of cravings arise.

After the call, it was off to bed I went. It had been a long day and another one was right around the corner.

A busy Sunday?

Sundays are sacred to me. Not for religious reasons, not for any reasons really, they just are. If it were up to me, I would just stay at home every Sunday for the rest of my life and read, cook, watch the food network and piddle around the house. Oh and nap. Well, yesterday just wasn’t like that. Sure, I stayed home all day but boy was I busy!

I woke up late, around 7:15, and since Sunday’s are special breakfast days at our house, I delved into making some cranberry orange muffins. I found some recipes online and kinda tweaked them because I wanted them to be low sugar/low fat and I wanted to use oat flour instead of white flour. They turned out pretty good though alot of them stuck to the pan. Maybe I should have let them cool longer?

sunday morning muffins

I ate two of the muffins along with a glass of milk, it was a tasty breakfast though I was worried it wouldn’t last me very long. A little while after breakfast we went for a long walk around our neighborhood and the “HIlls of Death” neighborhood across the street for a total of 4.5 very hilly miles. I love long walks with the dear husband.

Soon it was lunch time and neither of us knew what we wanted. I looked around the fridge and freezer and came up with turkey burgers. I broiled them in the toaster oven, topped them with soy jalapeno cheddar cheese, ketchup, mustard, pickles, lettuce and hanover tomato. I served them on 100% whole wheat bread along side a fresh Virgnia peach.

lunch!

The burgers were tasty and pretty filling. I got started on my 4000 loads of laundry, lunch prep for the week and I started working on the nights dinner of chicken and brown rice. Through all of that I got hungry and decided that since dinner was a 3 hour process, I better have a snack. I had a stoneyfield farm low fat strawberry yogurt topped with blueberries. It was so tasty! I normally eat plain greek yogurt with fruit on top but for some reason, the stoneyfield farms yogurts looked really appealing this week.

a summertime treat

The snack was followed by more laundry and more prepping for the week. We moved all of my workout clothes to our guest bedroom closet because the gym is upstairs and it is just easier if I can get dressed where I workout. Now we just have to wait and see if that encourages me to workout. After about load 3097 was done, it was time for dinner.

I talked to my mom on Saturday morning and she really got my craving up for chicken and rice. The last time I made that was in my fat days, loads of butter and white rice. Instead, I made it with brown rice and no butter. I poached the chicken, the cooked the rice in my rice cooker with some of the broth and water. Then I combined it all together with a little more water for a creamy texture and WALA we had a healthier version of chicken and rice. I served it with a salad with tomatoes, rice vinegar and olive oil. It was mighty tasty and really satisfied my craving.

comfort food

Dinner was followed by more laundry. Does the laundry ever end? By 8:00 I was wiped out and off to bed I went. Maybe next Sunday I will just do some reading.