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Happy Monday!

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Yesterday, I was down right restless.  Today, I’m excited to have started!  I woke up dark bright and early to find it pouring out.  It was looking like it was going to be a dreary day.  I checked the weather at it was 50 Degrees Fahrenheit!!  Right now it’s 51F!  Crazy!  Two days ago we had a high of 30F!

This morning for some reason I was super nervous about classes.  I’m not entirely sure why but I think it had to do with the fact that the lecture class I’m TAing for is at the same time as one of my core classes.  Luckily, it’s okay.  I talked to the professor of the class I’m TAing for and he said it’s not a problem if I don’t go to his lectures.  I’m leading a conversational Spanish language discussion section so people can talk about the subject in Spanish, so not really that big a deal.  So I went there to make a quick announcement about my section.

Then I headed to my first class, Introduction to Method of Planning Analysis.  Sound fun right?  Eh it might be.  It’s required.  I’ll suck it up and who knows I may love it!  I sure do love me a good economic forecast!

After that I dodged umbrellas and puddles all the way home.  It was 11:30 and I was starving!  I tried hard to hold on til at least 12pm by putting in some laundry but I couldn’t wait til 12:00pm. I decided to counteract that gross weather with a fun, fresh meal.

Wet and Puddly all around!

I made a FANTASTIC sandwich!  Hummus. Cheese.  Cucumbers. Tomatoes.  Need I say more?

So fresh tasting!

Finish that off with some kiwi, skin and all.

Eat Kiwi, It’s good for you!  1 fruit provides 95% of your daily Vitamin C! Do you eat the skin on kiwi fruit?

Heaven in a lunch!  (For nutrition info on lunch, see my sparkpage)

Lunch was sealed with a kiss cup of tea!  I’ve realized that ending a meal with a cup of tea helps keep my sweet tooth at bay and I guess helps my brain signal that it’s done eating.

I found this tea on sale at Wegman’s last week and since I love peppermint tea I had to try it.

I had never heard of Gypsy Tea but I loooved this one!  The peppermint flavor is very mild but there’s something else in there that is simply fantastic!  I can’t put my finger on what it is, but it’s oh so good!

I’m going to go get my laundry, start reading for class, then go to my next class!  Hope you’re having a wonderful Monday!!

Finally Ready For Classes To Start

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I’ve had enough.

I’m getting tired of sitting around and doing nothing.

I’m officially ready for classes to start again.

I know I’ll regret this tomorrow night when I start reading for my first classes but as of now, I’m over it.  I think I’ve been a little anxious all day because I’ve been very snacky, but I think I’ve kept it to an okay level.

One of my many snacks today was this:

What is that?

No, Stonyfield hasn’t started making Pumpkin Flavored Greek Yogurt (although they probably should).   Actually, it’s my version of Caitlin‘s Pumpkin Yogurt (her version uses equal parts yogurt and pumpkin).

Stonyfield sent me some coupons for yogurt samples so they were perfect to give pumpkin yogurt a try. Thanks Stonyfield!

I used a small 5.3oz container of Oikos non-fat greek yogurt mixed with 1/4 cup of canned pumpkin (not easy to come by these days as there as been a pumpkin shortage in upstate NY!) and 1 tablespoon of Agave nectar.  All that goodness for only 160 calories (80 for the yogurt + 20 for the pumpkin + 60 for the agave nectar!  Wonderful sweet treat!

Delish!  Give it a try!

What’s your favorite way to enjoy greek yogurt?

I’ve literally done nothing all day, and I’m starting to get restless so I think I’m going to go to the gym (even though I didn’t plan on exercising today) to get my mind off upcoming classes and basically just get my blood flowing.

Hope you had a great weekend!

First Run in the Cold + The Giving Tree

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I’m not a runner, but I am occasionally known to go on a jog.  I usually prefer to do so with someone else, a running buddy if you will.  This morning, Rhoda told me she was going for a run, so I tagged along!

I was a little concerned because the last time I ran outside it was 65 degrees (few weeks ago in California).  This morning when I went for a run, it was 17 degrees… kind of cold.  Rhoda is a pro.  She trained for a marathon in Michigan in the winter so she gave me some pointers.

1.  Dress in layers.  I wore a shirt and a jacket with slightly below the knee running pants (I really should invest in full length pants for this weather!).

2. Wear gloves and something to cover your ears.  Forever I had no idea what those big headbands were for.  Guess what?? They cover your ears!

Do you have any tips for running in the cold?

So I headed out and met up with Rhoda.  Honestly, it wasn’t bad at all.  I didn’t feel cold throughout the entire run.  At one point I even pushed my ear warmers back to let my ears breathe a bit and removed my gloves (though only for a few minutes because the back of my hand started to get REALLY cold).

I didn’t really get cold until I was walking home after having cooled down.  Then I was sweaty/wet and in below freezing temperatures.  See the problem?

It was great though!  We did 4 miles and chatted the whole time!  It was also beautiful!  I forget how picturesque it is here, especially in the winter.  I wish I had brought my camera to take pictures!  Oh well, next time!  Thanks for letting me slow you down, Rhoda!

After lunch, I came home and showered then met up with some people for lunch at a new cafe in Ithaca called The Giving Tree.  The cafe is a local, vegetarian place.  Very cozy and cute with mismatched chairs and such!

At this point (around 1:30pm), I hadn’t eaten since breakfast at about 7:30am; I was ready to chew my arm off.   I had a really hard time choosing what to order, because the entire menu was vegetarian so there were a ton of options to choose from!  I got some coffee and a plate of eggs, home fries and toast, which is probably my favorite food on the planet! A bit boring, I know, but I had to go with an old favorite.

Coffee was served in local Syracuse China.

Only made better with Rhoda there to pour the cream in the coffee

As you can see, I hated it.

My friend Celia got a delicious tofu scramble with vegetables!  I had a bite.  I would definitely get that next time!

Delish!  I can’t wait to go back!

Today has been a great day!  Thanks friends for making me smile today!

The rest of the day, normal eating will resume, and I will enjoy my time watching movies (I have two from Netflix that I’ve been putting off).

Hope you all have had a fantastic Saturday so far!

Protein Pancakes My Way

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I usually eat the same thing everyday for breakfast: oats with banana and some sort of nut butter.

This morning, I woke up at 6:00am with nothing to do.  I decided to spice up my life.

Not like that…

Rather, I decided to stray from my usual breakfast into something fun and amazing!  So I did the usual blog perusing and remembered Jessica‘s Vegan Strawberry Cream Pancakes that look divine.  Then I remembered I don’t have fresh strawberries and thawing frozen ones would take too long.  So those will be made at another time.

As a kid I hated pancakes because my mom used to make them from Bisquick, which is just disgusting and salty and not delicious.  Then I grew up and tried real pancakes.  I realized how beautiful life could be and how good legit pancakes are.  So pancakes it would be for breakfast!

Then I kept coming across Heather‘s Protein Pancakes on my pancake search.  The dilemma here is that I don’t buy protein powder.  So I moved on to search through old recipes I had made on SparkRecipes and found an old recipe I had added for Cottage Cheese Protein Pancakes, so I figured why not?

I honestly can’t remember where I got this recipe from, maybe somewhere on SparkRecipes?

Now that I’ve taken you through my thought process (haha sorry about that), here’s the recipe I used:

Cottage Cheese Protein Pancakes

1/2 cup 1% cottage cheese
2 egg whites
2 tbsp whole wheat flour
dash of cinnamon

I combined all the ingredients.

Then threw them in the blender.  This is where my Magic Bullet that I left at home would come in handy, since it splattered all over, basically half the ingredients didn’t make it into the pan, but oh well.

I made one mondo beast of a pancake and topped it with some Hungry Jack Lite Syrup (1 tablespoon to be exact). This puppy has about 26g of protein!  Crazy!

I enjoyed this with a tasty Green Monster (kale, spinach, 1 banana, 5 frozen strawberries, ice and water).

The first bite wasn’t that great, but the subsequent bites got better and better.  I think I may have undercooked this a bit or maybe it’s just the nature of the beast.

Did it taste like a pancake?  A little bit, syrup helped.

Was it the texture of a pancake?  No.

Was it tasty?  Sure!

Would you make it again?  Why not!  Easy enough!

My protein packed breakfast was pretty good overall (31g of protein in one meal!  Woah!  That’s half a day’s worth!)

In other news…

This weekend is my last relaxing weekend!  Classes start on Monday 😦 Not excited, but it’ll happen.

Have a great Saturday!

Any exciting weekend plans?

January Recipe Challenge: South America

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I go through travel bug stages.  Last year, I was itching to go to India, then I went.  This year I’m itching to go to China and Peru, I’ve yet to go.  Not entirely sure why I want to go to those places but they seem awesome!  I really would love to do the Inca trail.

So tonight for the January recipe challenge, I made Peruvian Chickpea Stew.  Sorry for all the soups/stews, I’m a huge fan of soup/stew, and when I look for recipes I look for things that I would like.   Peruvian cuisine is such an interesting mix of many different cultures.  I find it really intriguing.

I first tried Peruvian Chickpeas at Super Pollo.  If you live in the Washington DC metropolitan area, please please please go to Super Pollo in Arlington, VA for some wonderful pollo a la brasa (yes I’m promoting meat eating because this stuff is amazing).

Tonight I put my chef planning kit to work!  I decided I needed some company for dinner, so I had a mini dinner party.  I only invited a few people so we could all fit at my tiny table (plus sadly I can’t afford to feed the 20 people I wanted to invite).

Peruvian Chickpea Stew

inspired by Recipezaar’s Peruvian Chickpea Stew

1lb dry garbanzo beans/chickpeas
2 tbsp olive oil
2 large onions or 3 small onions, diced
3 garlic gloves, minced
1 can whole canned tomatoes, roughly chopped
3 tsp coriander powder
3 tsp cumin powder
3 tsp allspice
2 small yellow squashes
8oz (approx) of vegetable broth
salt and pepper to taste

First,  cook your chickpeas until tender, a little under cooked is fine as they will simmer for a while later. You can probably use canned garbanzo beans too, but honestly I don’t think those taste as good.  You’d be amazed at how much better cooked dried beans taste over canned beans.

Then sautee the onions and garlic in the olive oil on pretty high heat until slightly browned and translucent.

Then add the chickpeas, tomatoes, spices, squash, and broth.  Stir and simmer on low heat for 30 minutes.

Serve with quinoa for a high protein very healthy meal!

I really liked this recipe.  It’s very healthy but hearty and tasty!  The spices are an interesting flavor combination.  I definitely recommend this! It wasn’t the same as the ones I had at Super Pollo but still delicious and probably a million times healthier!

To round out my mini dinner party, I made an Arugula and Pear salad using this recipe from Eating Well.  Honestly this salad was ridiculously good.  I tweeked the dressing a bit adding a bit more dijon mustard and a little less olive oil.  I also only used arugula, no other lettuce.  It was delicious!  I highly recommend this salad if you’re looking for a wonderful side dish!

For dessert, I made Fitnessista‘s Almond Butter Chocolate Chip cookies!  They were a hit!  No one knew they were vegan!    I made a few tweeks as well.  Instead of maple syrup, I used agave nectar and omitted the molasses since I didn’t have any and didn’t want to spend all that money for a teaspoon of molasses.

I just realized, actually this whole meal was vegan!  Very tasty and very balanced. Here’s my plate:

Salad side above and chickpea/quinoa side below.

A note about calories:

I decided to not count my calories for this meal.  I enjoyed it and made sure not to over eat too much, I filled half my plate with salad, 1/4 with chickpea stew and the other 1/4 with quinoa.  I also had 2 cookies, no big deal.  I splurged a bit, but I’m okay with that.  By the end of the meal, I wasn’t stuffed I was good and satisfied.  Yes, I probably could have eaten more but I didn’t feel the need to.  Life is about balance.  I want my weight loss to be manageable and sustainable, not painful.  One meal is not going to derail my efforts, I tracked the rest of the day (see my sparkpage) and tomorrow will be a normal day again and all will be well in the world.

I like to live by the 80/20 rule: Eat well 80 percent of the time and indulge 20 percent of the time.  Good rule in my opinion. What do you think?

Anyway, I’m off to watch more Mad Men!  Have a great night!

Barney Butter

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Do you ever see things on blogs then really want to try them?

I’m a huge fan of nut butters, okay I’m slightly obsessed even though I’ve only tried Peanut Butter, Almond Butter and Soy Nut Butter.  They’re delicious and keep you full for a long time!

Seeing nut butters of all sorts on random blogs got me perusing websites one day to see what products I could buy around here.  I wandered to the Barney Butter website to find they are giving free samples!  Check it out!

Barney Butter is Almond Butter.  Recently I’ve been enjoying consuming Trader Joe’s Raw Almond Butter, which while good is not nearly as good as the roasted almond kind.  But mostly I’ve been avoiding almond butter and sticking to PB.  I’m a firm believer in the idea that if you don’t love it, don’t eat it, especially when it comes to calorie dense foods.

This morning, I decided to put my PB to rest and squeeze my Barney Butter sample onto my oatmeal.

They came in convenient little 90 calorie packages, which would be perfect for travel.  Apparently it also comes in large jars, but I’ve yet to see it in stores.

This stuff is nothing short of fantastic.  Of course, this makes sense as almond butter is delicious, and this one has added sugar (evaporated cane juice), which makes everything even more tasty.  I would choose it over the raw Almond Butter any day.

But don’t take my word for it!  Order your free sample on their website!

In other news, while thrifting with the roommate yesterday she came across a fabulous vintage coat that sadly didn’t fit her but fit me perfect!  These are the perks of being short I guess!

Locally made too!

I found a salad spinner!  Only $2!

And a cheap copy of The Poisonwood Bible which I’ve heard is really good.

Now I’m off to the gym for what I hope will be a great workout!  Have a great day!  Don’t forget to smile!

Knock Knock

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Today as I was unpacking my suitcase (yes it’s taken me this long and still not done), piled among my clothes was a prize I won from Carrots N Cake‘s 12 day of giveaways!  Pretty exciting!  I had never won a giveaway!

My prize was to choose anything I wanted from Knock Knock.  Naturally, I chose the most food related thing on there… The Chef Planning Kit!

I can’t wait to put it to use for a gathering! I especially love the pin:

They have a bunch of my funny things.  I’ve seen Knock Knock products in gift shops and card stores a lot.  They’re always entertaining.  Some of my favorites: the Shit List and the Fashion Citation Nifty Note.

In other news, I’ve been a bit of a Debbie Downer the past few days.  However, I’m changing that now!  Today, I’ve been trying to smile more.

When you smile, you feel better!  Smile! Click Here for some reasons to smile!

But really there’s no reason not to smile!

Fabulous Lunch for a Boring Day

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This morning I was up at 6:30am, because I want to try to get back on a schedule.  Despite waking up so early, I had no where to be, no one to see and nothing to do.  I e-mailed the professor I am working with this semester to see if she wanted to meet to talk about my research position, and she wants to meet on Friday.  This is a little upsetting as I could have been home right now.  Instead, I’m bored in Ithaca.

So instead of productiveness, I sat around all morning watching Mad Men and reading blogs.  Finally around 12:00 I started to get hungry so I made lunch.  Kind of sad that lunch (and something I got in the mail… more on that later) has been the most exciting part of my day!

After talking to my cousin about her Cesar salad for lunch, I decided I needed a salad too!  Mine was not a Cesar salad but bright colorful and delicious nonetheless!  In my salad: Romaine, Carrot Ribbons and One Hard Boiled Egg.

I had half as a salad and the other half I put in a Flatout Sun dried Tomato Wrap with a Morningstart patty.  Delish!

These wraps are pretty good.  I found them at Wegman’s and decided to get them since they were pretty low cal (90 calories per wrap) and the ingredients weren’t horrendous (still has preservatives but I sucked it up).

I rounded out my meal with a delicious organic honeycrisp apple!

Soo good! (For nutrition info, see my sparkpage)

I was enjoying a cup of this tea (apparently I don’t want to let go of the holidays):

when my roommate came in with the mail.  I got something!

My friend Celia’s Save the Date postcard!  Very cute!  I love the design!  Congratulations Celia and Chris!

Now I’m off to Target to get some floss then to the gym.  Hopefully a good work out will make me less of a Negative Nancy today!

Have a great day!

Stocking up + New Thing!

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Yesterday was all about getting settled back into my apartment.  I was so exhausted when I got back on Friday that I fell asleep at 8:00pm.  Needless to say I saw up early on Sunday (6:30am, I slept a ton!).  I lounged around for a bit (aka watched Ugly Betty and Mad Men), cleaned the apartment then finally got around to going to the grocery store.

I love grocery shopping, but I always get a little flustered when the grocery store is crowded.  I like shopping on a weekday better, but oh well!

Anyway, so I loaded up on a ton of stuff.  Somehow it managed to all fit in my handy DSW bag!

Do you use reusable bags? They were very common in Berkeley and to some extent here as well.  In Berkeley, I kind of felt like I was getting a glare if I didn’t have one and the cashiers were all smiles when you had a reusable bag!

I loaded up on tons of healthy things.

I also bought a few new things to try out.  The first is almond milk (almond non-dairy beverage?).  Ordinarily I buy lactaid to use in coffee and cereal.  I’ve realized that since I have to take lactaid I probably shouldn’t be drinking milk… It also kind of scares me that lactaid lasts for so long and doesn’t go bad as regular milk does.  So I decided to try out something new.

This morning I had almond milk in my coffee and I’ll say it was pretty good.  I could definitely get used to it.  It doesn’t have the same amount of protein as milk/lactaid but the amount of milk/lactaid that I drank was so small that I feel like it’s not really significant.

While I was visiting the lovely fella in the Bay Area last week, we went to Whole Foods one day.  In the bulk food section, I came across Chia seeds, which I had been seeing on about 8394002779 million blogs. Yes this kind…

I got a very small amount ($0.35 worth) and have been waiting to try it ever since.

I added some to my oats this morning.  Honestly, it didn’t really change the flavor but made the texture slightly different, a little more gel-like.

I’m going to look around for these in Ithaca.  I liked the texture and the health benefits sound great!

  • 15g (2 tbsp) has about 75 calories.  (I added 5g to my oatmeal)
  • Chia is richer in omega-3 fatty acids than flax (source)
  • Chia is rich in antioxidants and vitamins (source)

Are you a chia fan?

New Leaf Update:

In case you missed it, I’m turning over a new leaf.

Day 1 went well!  Starting on the right foot is always a good sign!  I stocked up so I’m ready to go!  I went to the gym for a short work out since I’m sick I took it easy.    If you’re curious about what I ate all day, check out my sparkpage and click “Shared Food & Fitness Trackers” on the right to see it all!

Anyway, the rest of today will be spent unpacking and cleaning up… probably watching a few episodes of Mad Men too because apparently I’m obsessed!

Happy MLK Day!

Just curious… Anyone doing a day of service?

Turning Over a New Leaf

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The past few weeks have been very indulgent for me.  Between the holidays and visiting the lovely fella, I’ve eaten out a lot, had a ton of sweets, and over all eaten a lot of calories, fat, salt, etc.  Now that I’m back in Ithaca waiting for the semester to start, and I’m ready to be done with overindulgence.  I’m getting tired of always feeling a little bit uncomfortable in my skin, and I’d also like to keep up with my goals for 2010.

Starting now, I’m reevaluating my approach to food and eating.  This means a little bit of revamping of this blog and concentrating more on the health aspect.

One of my goals for the year was to stop talking about the parts of my body I don’t like.  So instead of complaining, I am going to be proactive.  Since writing my thesis in the Spring of 2009, applying to grad school, graduating, moving across the country and starting grad school, I’ve put on a few more pounds than I would like.

That being said… for the next few months, I am going to count calories.  I know this is quite unpopular in the food/health blogging world, but I’ve come to find that it’s what works for me.  I like having schedules and plans to follow, and I don’t find calorie counting to be as tedious as people make it out to be.

I don’t really want to call this a diet, because it’s not.  I’m trying to change the way I eat permanently.  Ordinarily, I don’t eat too unhealthily; however, there is always room for improvements.

So here’s the plan (subject to change), at least for the next few months:

  • Count calories for the next few months. I will use SparkPeople.  If you are interested, you can see my food and exercise log on my SparkPeople page. (Note: I’ve used SparkPeople before and I really like it.  It’s an online community and food log/journal, plus it’s free!  If you’re curious check it out!  or feel free to ask me questions).  I still haven’t decided if I want this blog to be my food journal.
  • Try to eat more natural foods and cut back on processed things (i.e. tofu and veggie patties).
  • Do some sort of cardio exercise 4-6 days a week.  This can mean any number of things.  The point is to get my body moving.  I’ve never lived in a cold climate so I’m very concerned that the cold will make me want to stay indoors.  I need to make a conscious effort to get moving.
  • Strength training 2-3 days a week. This was also one of my goals for 2010.  I tend to concentrate on cardio but strength training is also important.
  • I will give myself one day to eat something I really, really want.  I’ve lost weight many times in my life (I should probably do a post on this but at one point I lost about 50lbs.  I’ve kept off about 30lbs but always fluctuate about 20lbs… I’d love to keep those 20lbs off permanently).  The times I’ve been successful is when I give myself a day to eat whatever.  If I know I can’t have it then I’ll want it more; If I know I can have it on Sunday then all is well.  I love food.  I can’t give it up!

On to the weight… Ideally, I would like to lose 20lbs or fit comfortably in a size 4/6. 

This isn’t unrealistic, as I have healthily weighed 20lbs less in the past.

Roughly 20lbs lighter... Summer 2008... Those pants are a loose fitting size 6

There really isn’t a deadline for this but for the sake of goal setting, I would like to lose this by end of the semester (middle of May).  SparkPeople recommends I consume 1,200-1,550 calories per day (this includes burning 1500 calories per week from exercise, which is not very much and therefore may change).  I’m going to try to stick to this 6 days a week (I won’t count one day per week).  Obviously, some days I will consume at the lower end and other days on the high end of that range.  I’m going to try my best to listen to my body and ask myself whether or not I’m actually hungry before I eat something.

Having read many blogs, I know many people will take issue with my revamped approach to eating.  I’m going to give it a try anyway.  I would love to be one of those people who simply says “I’m going to cut back on the sweets,” then magically loses 5 lbs, but that’s not me.

I need a change.  I need to commit.  I need to do what works for me.

If you’d like to join me in turning over a new leaf (no matter what way works best for you), I would love to do this with others!