Uneventful Day

Yesterday was pretty uneventful for me, life is usually a bit on the quieter side when the bf travels, I tend to use that time to veg a little bit more, watch some tv shows that only I enjoy and make easy meals for just one girl. I also got in a little C25K week six action, which is the last day of the whole plan that includes any walking breaks in between running periods...starting with my next run I am running minimum 25 minutes straight every time..I am TERRIFIED. But, as I look back along this C25K journey I notice that every time I thought something would be too hard and I wouldn't be able to do it...I did it! I haven't had to do any days/weeks more than once I have just pushed through. Granted I'm not running 10 minute miles, maybe eventually, but not yet. I just run at a comfortable pace that keeps me in the 150-170 bpm heart zone I like to do cardio in.

I had a fruity/greek yogurt/fiber cereal breakfast...I thought I would never get sick of this, but I sort of am. I think I need to switch up my breakfasts a little more because I get bored and I think it makes me crave more snacky variety later in the day.

For dinner I tossed a salad together with some chicken, I recently bought this pre-cooked stuff, I'm usually not a huge fan of pre-cooked meat but this stuff intrigued me so I gave it a shot. A lot of times pre-cooked chicken like this smells like tuna to me and I DO NOT like tuna.

This stuff gets my thumbs up.

I was so hungry after my workout I ate half my salad before I remembered to snap a picture! 

Then my puppy climbed up on my chair and tried to snuggle and beg at the same time..but I'm greedy and didn't share. 

Later in the evening I needed a snack so I cracked open a can of Zevia and some Popcorn! 

Did you have an exciting or uneventful day yesterday?

Sometimes You Need a Grilled Cheese

I am fully aware the a grilled cheese is not the picture of nutrition. But I also know that sometimes, you just need one. Like when It is mid-April and snowy and windy outside, when your puppy is sick and keeps waking you up in the night coughing and throwing up, when you just feel like it.
So that's what I did.
But first, I worked out :)
I did Week 6 Day 1 of my C25K, which after running 20 minutes straight on Saturday seemed like a breeze. It was run 5 minutes, walk 3, run 8 minutes, walk 3, run 5 minutes. Boom! Done
Well not done, I continued to walk until I hit 45 minutes because that is my time goal.
So workout=done.

Then for lunch I just felt like a grilled cheese. We had some leftover sandwich bread from the weekend, I took some reduced fat colby jack cheese and some spinach and made that grilled cheese in my panini press...and it was delicious.

For dinner, I knew the bf was going to be gone so I planned to finish off the rest of my baked Tofu from Trader Joe's and make another stir fry. I took cooked up some egg whites in a pan, then I added broccoli slaw.

I heated up some mixed frozen veggies and a cup of that whole grain medley from Minute Rice.

I tossed in some lower sodium soy sauce. 

 Mixed the veggies, rice, and cut up tofu into the broccoli slaw and egg whites and tossed it all together.

Then I divided it in half and for 7 Points Plus had this for dinner and another servicing leftover for lunch at work tomorrow. WIN 

Monday Again?

I'm not sure I'm ready for it to be Monday. The weekend went by too fast! Although the now that it's Monday I hope we are one day closer to NOT having snow and blustering cold winds. I'm seriously starting to consider moving to another state, three nice months out of the year just doesn't cut it for me. Anyone have any suggestions of where I should move to?

Here are some of the things from my weekend that I'm holding on to so that I can have a little Marvelous in My Monday.

1.) On Friday, the bf and I went to TGI Fridays to use a coupon we had, it has been a while since we went there...and honestly I was not that impressed. Compared to other chain restaurants they do not have many healthy options and they do not list any nutrition info on their menus. I ended up getting their Yucatan chicken salad, with dressing on the side. It had tomatoes, chicken, avocado, lettuce and onion. I used tiny bits of the vinaigrette dressing because the stats for this salad are generally awful because of the dressing. Well this is a very blurry picture- sorry!

2.) Saturday morning I woke up and did my Week 5 Day 3 of my C25K...which was running for 20 minutes straight!!! I was really nervous about this and told myself that if I felt I needed to stop to walk, I could and I would keep working on this day until I did it...well I just did it the first time! I put on a movie that I had never seen before, put my shirt over the clock on the machine and just ran. It was awesome!!!

3.) After my awesome run I decided to make an awesome green smoothie. This one included baby spinach, vanilla protein powder, banana, frozen cherries, pineapple and mango. YUM

4.) Saturday night the bf and I put baseball on TV, cracked open some beers and played Monopoly! I love love board games but we hardly play them anymore, well let me just say that even though the snowy. icy and cold weather is awful, it was nice to have a sweet night in with my best friend :)

5.) Oh and my poor little brown dog Bella girl is sick. The vet thinks it is kennel cough but I'm keeping a close eye her just in case it turns into something more serious, she is just not herself poor lil thing. She was very cuddly though this weekend, probably because she was up so many times hacking and throwing up! I got a taste of what it's like to have an infant this weekend lol

 

Lifting Weights and Orange Chicken

I guess I'm really into this whole literal blog title business, when it comes to being creative or witty I'm kinda slacking, I just title posts what I'm going to talk about...hey maybe it's will be a new trend? probably not...

Anyways!

We had a big snow storm in MN  yesterday...gross...so I worked from home, which was nice because it gave me the ability to spend a little more time preparing food and a little less time driving in traffic.

Breakfast was an apple and PB (not pictured) 

Then I got my workout in, Week 5 Day 2 of my C25K which was run for 8 minutes straight, the longest so far, walk 5 minutes, then run 8 minutes straight again! Well the plan usually gives about 30 minutes for each workout but I usually just repeat the patterns until I reach 45 minutes (the length of a tv episode...I am laaaame) but it gets in a good workout. But this time I was not really up for repeating a third run of 8 mintues straight, so I got of the treadmill after I finished and decided to do 15 minutes of free weights...I was very surprised that the whole time I did weights my heart rate stayed in my zone...I guess I figured it would drop down and it wouldn't really be a great cardio workout, but either I'm really out of shape or weightlifting is hard and good for your body. Either way I got in my 45 minutes of cardio AND my arms are a little sore today! WIN

For lunch I made egg white and spinach wraps with some feta cheese and Frank's hot sauce, I love that stuff!! This filling lunch was only 5 Points Plus!

Then, since I was home doing work, I decided I would finally try this black bean brownie  mix I picked up a while back...they sounded weird but I was really curious about how they would turn out for 3 Points Plus a brownie.

There are no pictures of the baking process because when I put all the wet ingredients in my food processor to mix they all started dripping on the counter, I guess it wasn't on the base right...anyways I got it all fixed and then did not take any pics until it was done.

They look normal, the true test will be if the bf likes them! (he did!)

For dinner I was also feeling ambitious with all my extra time at home I decided to make Orange Chicken. The bf and I both enjoy Asian food but it is often really bad for you, high in sodium and fat, deep fried or just generally mysterious as to the actual calories. I based the main recipe off of this recipe from Cupcake Diaries and added a little inspiration from this recipe from Laa Loosh. It turned out delicious and we both really enjoyed it. For 8 Points Plus it was filling and tasty. I highly recommend! 

And for dessert, I used my last Points to take a brownie, a dark chocolate sugar free pudding, a banana and some fat free cool whip for a bowl of OMG YUM.

Green Smoothie's and C25K

Tuesday was an exciting day for me, why? Because I made a yummy green smoothie for breakfast, I knew I wanted to make a green smoothie for breakfast because I was going out to lunch with an old co-worker who I adore and I wanted to have some extra points to eat.

I grabbed the frozen fruit I wanted to use, frozen cherries and summer harvest blend.

I put baby spinach, protein powder, a banana and some toasted almonds with a little water in the Magic Bullet.  

Then I blended it up real green :)

Added the fruit and voila! Smoothie yum

P.S. don't look at my messy desk at work...

For lunch my friend and I went to Panera, I love that place and the bf won't ever go with me so I only get it when I am with girlfriends. I checked out the menu ahead of time planning what I wanted. I got their Turkey Cafe sandwich and their Apple Chicken salad for a total of 13 WW Points Plus. Don't look at that stupid piece of bread they tried to trick me with, boooooo sneaky extra bread.

After work I stared Week 5 of my C25K, which is 5 minutes of running and 3 minutes of walking, it was actually really easy, but then I made the mistake of looking ahead to what my run will be like for Thursday. 8 minutes of running, 5 minutes of walking then 8 more minutes of running. AHHHH Luckily I'm joined up with  The Spring Training Challenge and have plenty of support!

I used leftover taco ingredients to throw together a super filling and super delicious taco salad for dinner! 

What a great Tuesday :)

 Did you enjoy your Tuesday? 

Did you wake up to snow on the ground like we did here in MN today? 

BOO SNOW 

Top Eight From My Weekend

The top things from my weekend that make my Monday Marvelous! 

1.) On Friday morning I went with my best friend down to the studio of the top 20 radio station in Minneapolis, KDWB. My friend had won into a giveaway special where the DJ was celebrating her birthday by giving us all her "favorite things". Similar to Oprah's favorite things show. It was so cool that my friend picked me to come down with her and we got all sorts of gift cards and tickets to things. Happy Friday! Oh and we got our picture with Dave Ryan who has been the main DJ on the morning show there since as long as I can remember.

2.) The bf got back into town on Friday after work (he was supposed to come home Thursday but they needed him one more day) so we went out on our Friday date night to Applebees. What I love about the 'bees is that they are a dependable friend, they will always have something I like and want to eat and I especially enjoy their WW menu letting me know exactly what to expect with their food. 

3.) On Saturday I decided I needed to go shopping..yes needed :) So I went to a bunch of stores, Maurices, Old Navy and Walmart, I got myself some new clothes, here are a few of my finds.

4.) I also stopped at Trader Joe's while I was out and picked up some more reduced guilt chunky guacamole ...and used it on egg whites for breakfast!

5.) Number 5 & 6 go together, because for the second time in my life, I grilled! I still won't turn the girll on myself (I'm a big baby) but I used the brill and cooked yummy food!!

6.)And for supper Sunday night I made kabobs! I love kabobs because it is all sorts of yummy fresh veggies all grilled and crisped on the grill. So good.

7.) The weather is finally starting to cooperate A LITTLE here in MN, although there was snow on Friday...but Sunday was nicer and I took my brown dogs out for a little walk, afterwards I google mapped my walk and realized I went almost 3 miles! Yay

8.) On Saturday morning I woke up and wanted to just lay around and do nothing...BUUUUT I didn't! I got my booty downstairs to the treadmill and did Day 3 of Week 4 of my C25K. It helped that I had a new episode of Grey's Anatomy to watch while I did it :)

Did you have a good weekend? 

What would be your top 8?

Jelly Beans, Chocolate and Working Out

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend! We had friends over Friday night and visited with family both Saturday and Sunday. This year, for the first time in my adult life, I hosted an Easter meal :) I feel like a big girl now! But not only was there pressure to host the meal, it was with the bf's family! So it was my first time hosting them for an event too. Luckily they are laid back, fun and so wonderful so everything went smooth. The food was great and my brown dogs only did a little begging. I also knew that I would be consuming foods (in moderation) that I don't normally consume, so I did my normal Saturday run for my C25K, which by the way now has running segments of 5 minutes!! I also woke up Sunday morning and got in a 45 minute run before I started cleaning and prepping food too. GO ME! Those two runs really gave me the energy I needed to get through the weekend and made me feel a little better eating some of the more rich foods that I did.

On Friday at work, someone had given everyone some Easter candy treats...this was a big dilemma for me because I didn't want to eat any of it...but then again it looks so yummy. So I decided I would eat only the white and pink beans because they are the only ones that taste good, and two of the four little chocolate eggs. That way I get a little taste but don't go overboard. The rest of the candy I threw away (sorry whoever gave me the candy!)

I had two Easter events to attend and I knew I wanted to eat the foods at the meal at my house, so at the first gathering we went to I tried to eat small portions and mostly the fruit, salad, and veggies. But there was a cheddar biscuit that happened too, so good.

For the dinner at my house, I was making green beans with toasted almonds, fresh cut up fruit, jello, and the most amazing and dangerously naughty potatoes I made this recipe at Christmas too and they are so easy and so so delicious. I have yet to find a person who does not love them. However, they are are rich and are obviously not a "health" food. So I make sure to monitor my portion with them. I also made them with reduced fat cheese, low fat sour cream and a little less bacon than it calls for. That made me feel like I tried a little to make them not as awful. So trust me, I know my plate here is NOT DIET FOOD. I am aware of that , but I feel that sometimes for events you can bend a little and eat things you don't normally eat all the time. I had only one plate of food, where in the past I might have had seconds or thirds, I had smaller portions of foods, and I didn't finish my dessert- I only had a little taste.

How was your Easter? 

Did you have to eat more than one meal?

How do you handle holidays?