A Typical Breakfast in the Chickpea/Jordan House

I know what you're thinking...
Julie, you only blog about dinners now.  What gives?  I know you eat other meals.  I miss hearing about those!  Tell me about those!

You're right, reader.  I've been so focused on sharing my clean eating dinners that I've neglected to tell you about the rest of my day.

Lucky for you, I snapped this picture at breakfast:

On the left, we have MJ's oatmeal and a smoothie.  MJ usually eats oatmeal 6 days a week.  Maybe 4 of those days he'll add some fruit - like pieces of bananas or strawberries.  If we have other fruit, like cantaloupe or honeydew he'll eat some pieces on the side. 

To accompany his meal of oats, he'll usually have a big glass of skim milk.  (Is it still called skim milk?  fat free? whatever, that's what I mean.)  Today, however, he made a smoothie for breakfast.  MJ loves smoothies.  He probably makes 6 smoothies a week, usually after getting back from the gym.  I don't like smoothies so I never share with him even though he always makes enough for two glasses.  He then drinks two smoothies.  Remember, he's trying to gain weight so he's allowed to have too many servings of smoothies.

On the right, we have a Go-To Breakfast that we've all grown to know and love.  In case you forgot, this consists of a whole wheat english muffin, toasted, topped with all natural unsalted peanut butter and 1/2 sliced banana.  I'm nice and I give the other half of the banana to MJ to put in his oatmeal.

To accompany my go to breakfast, I usually have a half glass of non-fat milk and lately I've added an iced coffee, with only non-fat milk in it (no sugar!). 

So there you have it.  Thanks for joining us for breakfast.  Bring a plate next time and we'll feed you, too!

Days 67 - 70

Dear Readers,
I'm so sorry that I haven't been blogging!  I was about two days behind when computer mouse stopped clicking, and the apple store needed to borrow it for a while to fix her up.  She's back and working, and now I have a lot of food to share with you!  I'll try to do a quick synopsis since I have so many days to cover!  Unfortunately I have no pictures to share.  I'm so sorry, I'll do better next time!

DAY 67

For breakfast I had a half cup a kefir.  Clearly that means I was starving by the time I got to work, so I purchased an egg and cheese sandwich.  It was on white bread, and I can't remember the last time I ate white bread.  I tried to pick off the extra pieces/crust and only eat the egg-y and cheese-y parts.  Along with this white bread sandwich came a huge coffee.  

For lunch I ate the leftover Jack Daniels pulled chicken with brown rice.   


I ate a lot of snacks throughout the day, including:

• 5 multigrain flaxseed crackers with peanut butter
• 50 calorie blueberry yogurt
• cheese stick
• apple

For dinner, we went on a double date with our friends the Paternos.  I had edamame, 1 vegetable dumpling and delicious sushi.  We also had some tasty martinis and a few beers.

Overall, I did a good job eating up some of the leftovers we had in the house, but shouldn't have purchased breakfast AND dinner.  

DAY 68

For breakfast today, I had a whole wheat English muffin with peanut butter.  I couldn't have my "go to" breakfast because we were out of bananas.  

I met my fairy blog mother  for lunch and we shared a Chopt Salad, which as you remember is super low cal and also great for sharing!

For my snack I ate a Twix.  It was one of those days.  You know what I mean. 

For my other snack, I had a cheese stick.  Much better option.


After work I went to an African Dance class, and set a new "fitbit high score" with 18,482 steps!  Take that twix bar!  


After the gym I had a little bit of a smoothie that MJ made and then we ordered in some dinner.  I had some trout with a butternut squash and wheat berry risotto.  Delish!  Pretty sure it's not healthy though.

For dessert I had a VitaMuffin Top and loved it.

DAY 69

Tonight we had a big banquet for work, and I was hosting a pot-luck dinner before the banquet for some coworkers.  This meant that MJ and I needed to pre-workout in anticipation for the night to come.  We went for a run (about 3.3 miles) and ended at our favorite bagel place as usual.  This will surely become a once a weekend habit, weather permitting!  At the bagel place I got a whole wheat bagel (scooped out) with low fat cream cheese, lox, tomatoes and onions. 

The only other snack I had during the day was a "go to" almond butter slice. 


Then I made an epic amount of pasta.  For the pot luck, I was making pasta, some one was bringing different sauces, another person was bringing garlic bread, someone else was bringing bruchetta, someone else mini hot dogs and some baked cheese dish, others brought desserts, and of course all the men who were not domestically inclined brought alcohol.  

I think it's safe to say that this was definitely my "night off" of my clean eating meal plan.  I wasn't too too bad though!

However, I did set a new new world record in my own fitbit stats!   After running in the morning and dancing at the banquet, I put in 19,861 steps! And the crowd goes wild!!!!!!!

DAY 70

Today for breakfast I had a little 50 cal yogurt and a half of a banana.  Then MJ and I ran some errands (AKA to the apple store to bring my poor little laptop in to get fixed!)  We also stopped at Costco and I had a few free samples - turkey bacon, tuna, and apple juice!  Don't you just love free sample day at a food store?!  I mean they stuff they have is always so random but you can't help but try it, right?


For lunch we had pasta and turkey meatballs.  I mean I have a TON of pasta left over and hate to see it go to waste.  YES, I did call the local homeless shelter and unfortunately they can't accept cooked food.  


In the afternoon we had some cantaloupe and mini cheese quiches.  Also we had some brownies.  Also a caramel machiatto from starbucks.  I forgot to say a skinny one.  Shoot.

For dinner we went out to eat with the Jordans.  I had 2 little slices of bread and 1 cup of mushroom/barley soup (with 2 saltine crackers).  For my main dish, I had cod with green beans almondine and rice pilaf.  


For dessert I had 2 bites of dark chocolate with mint in it.  Totally unnecessary.  Man I was not good at all this weekend.  This is not going to go well tomorrow on that scale. 

Week 4, Sunday (Day 64)

Monday Morning Weigh In:

I lost another half pound this week.  That means I'm only 2 pounds away from my goal weight.  I'm also 2 days away from finishing the meal plans in the book.  

Breakfast: 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1 chopped apple, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 cup low-fat milk; 3 egg whites

This morning's breakfast was pretty good.  I ate the apple as a whole apple instead of spending time chopping it up.  The oatmeal was decent with the cinnamon.  I upped the milk to 3/4 cups and instead of 3 egg whites had 1 hard boiled eggwhite.  Very filling.
  
Snack 1: 2 tbls natural almond butter, 1 whole wheat English muffin

This was a nice twist on my normal "go to" breakfast.  I think I like peanut butter on an English muffin better than almond butter on an English muffin, but it wasn't bad at all. 

Lunch: 1/2 cup edamame, 3/4 cup wild rice; 1/2 cup blueberries with 3/4 cup yogurt

I vote this meal in the "strange" category.  When I went to prepare this lunch in the morning, I was disappointed to see that MJ selected a package of edamame that expired the week before.  I could see that the edamames were brown and slimy inside.  I ran to the grocery store and went right to the customer service desk.  They let me replace the edamames, but all the fresh packages were expired or dated today (I advised the customer service lady to take the bad edamame off the shelves) and so I had to get frozen edamames.  This only required a little more effort on my part in the morning, but I definitely like the ease of using the fresh, shelled edamames.

Instead of wild rice, I used microwavable frozen brown rice.  Way easier since I had to spend more time with the edamame.  I threw in some soy sauce as well to add some flavor to  my otherwise boring lunch.  


I never got around to eating the yogurt or blueberries.  Whoops.


Snack 2: 1 sliced banana with 1 tbsp natural peanut butter wrapped in 1 whole wheat tortilla; 1 handful unsalted almonds

Another snack similar to my "go to" breakfast and lunch, but different.  This was a pretty good snack, but could definitely use a big cup of milk!  


I also had 1 mini Reese's Peanut butter cup.

And a free iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts (SO MUCH BETTER THAN STARBUCKS!)

And 2 beers at happy hour.

Dinner: 3 oz grilled pork chop (replaced with chicken thighs), 1 cup torn romaine lettuce and 1/2 cup chopped cucumbers with 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar and 1/2 tsp evoo; 1 cup cooked black beans; 1/2 cup cooked quinoa

MJ and I don't eat pork, so we replaced the pork with some chicken thighs.  I ended up broiling the thighs so they would cook fasted.  We also didn't have any black beans, so we used a can of chickpeas instead, which went well with the "salad" side dish.

This was my first time making quinoa.  My mom warned me to rinse the quinoa a few times before I cooked it to get off the "yucky" taste.  Rinsing quinoa is kinda tricky because it is so small!  I need a strainer with smaller holes!  Mom also suggested throwing fresh, raw garlic bulbs into the water while the quinoa was cooking to give it some added flavor.  I think the final result turned out very successful!

 

Looks good right!??!?! It was super filling and I would definitely make this meal or some combination of this meal again!     


The only negative thing was the amount of dishes I used making this meal.  Good thing the rule in our house is whoever cooks doesn't have to do dishes!  Thank you, Michael Jordan.

Also, I didn't go to the gym today, but Mr. Fitbit says I walked 12,419 steps (5.35 miles) and burned 2,152 calories!


Also, I now have over 3,000 blog hits!  Thank you for reading my blog!!! Maybe one day my blog hits will surpass my fitbit steps.... maybe...

Days 61 - 63

Hello all!  This Saturday I had a huge event for work, which is why I've been exhausted all week and not eating my best.  Here's how the weekend played out, clean eating wise:

DAY 61

For breakfast I had a cup of Blueberry Kefir.  Kefir reminds me of those drinkable yogurts I used to have as a kid.  Gogurt I think it was called. Was there another kind?  Mom feel free to comment if you remember!


I honestly can't remember what I ate for lunch.  I'm 90% sure I had my "go to" snack of almond butter on whole wheat bread, but I can't say for sure.  Sorry :(

For dinner, we had a "kickoff" cocktail hour for the big event.  At the cocktail hour I had some wine, some bites of cheese (I love brie cheese!), 1 beef satay stick, 1 coconut shrimp, 1 mini chicken empanada, and some pita chips with artichoke dip (not very good).  


After the kickoff cocktail hour, we stayed at work until past 11 working to finalize things for the big event.  I ate a twix bar.  It was 100% necessary.  One of those "In case of emergency, break glass" type of things.  You understand, right?  Great, thanks!

DAY 62

Today was the day of the "big event".  In the morning, I wanted my "go to" breakfast, but we didn't have any bananas, so I settled for a whole wheat english muffin with peanut butter only.  I also had a huge coffee.


During the day, I only ate 1 granola bar and 1/4 whole wheat bagel.


Next thing I knew it was 6pm and the event was finally over and I was ravenous!  I had some chips and bean dip, and then we went out for Spanish Tapas to celebrate a successful event. 
I had a few bites of the following items:

 

We also order Sangria, and then we went out drinking.  I allowed myself to have beer.  Partly because I knew I had eaten so few carbs that having beer really wouldn't matter, and partly because I just really wanted to, and I make my own rules!

DAY 63

HOOORAY!  For the first time in a LONG time I could sleep in today!  And then, I had absolutely no plans.  Probably the best day ever.  Mr. Jordan and I decided to start our day with a nice run, and then to end at our favorite bagel place (where the owner knows us by name and has 2 waters ready for us as soon as he sees us!)  The run was great - I surely missed the warm weather and I like spending that quality time with MJ.  When we go to the gym together, MJ is in the "big boy" room with all the weights, while I usually just go to a class.  

For brunch at the bagel place I had a whole wheat bagel scooped out with chicken salad, lettuce, tomatoes and onions.  It was delicious.  They use cranberries in their chicken salad so it reminds me of thanksgiving!  

After we ran/walked back home, I check my FITBIT STATS and found that we had taken over 7,000 steps and traveled about 5 miles.   I didn't look at the exact mileage before we left, so that's an approximate guess. 

In the afternoon, I ate a health valley granola bar and a little bit of thai food leftovers.  


Since it's March Madness, and there are few things in life I enjoy more than March Madness, MJ and I made some homemade guacamole and homemade pita chips as a snack to enjoy the basketball games.  Delish!  

homemade guacamole!

homemade pita chips!

For dinner, I made a quick and easy salmon with cauliflower.  Just broiled in the oven for 10 minutes.  We weren't really hungry, so it was the perfect, light dinner to end our relaxing, pleasant day.

 
Only bad part about today was that my basketball team lost.  Time to start rooting for the underdog!!

Days 57 - 60 (Week 4 Thursday and Friday)

Monday Morning Weigh In:
I lost 3 pounds this week!  I can't believe it.  I've lost 11 pounds in 8 weeks and now I'm only 2.5 pounds away from my goal weight!  I'm really happy with the way I've been losing weight.  Not a lot at one time and I really don't feel like I'm on a diet.  I cheat.  I eat twix bars.  I substitute out things I don't like for things that sound better.  I drink.  But I do everything a lot less than when I wasn't "eating clean."  It feels great to have made this progress.  In fact, today a male friend of mine asked me if I lost weight.  I didn't think my weight loss was noticeable and I really enjoyed getting that compliment from my friend.  

***Now since it's been so many days since I've blogged, I can add that three separate friends have come up to me to tell me it looks like I lost weight.  Feels great to know that my hard work has been noticed.  Thanks friends!

DAY 57

I did not follow a meal plan today.  


For breakfast, I had my "go to" breakfast.  Whole wheat english muffin with peanut butter and bananas.  And I look lots of pretty pictures for your enjoyment.  

Also, MJ made a smoothie for breakfast, so I drank about 1 sip.

For snack 1, I had my "go to" snack.  A slice of whole wheat bread with almond butter.

My new best friend, Mr. Almond Butter

Folded up, ready to go!

I had another snack later, because they were giving out free FREE free chocolate pudding at work.  I looked at the label and recognized everything, so pudding I did eat.


For lunch I had leftovers from when we went out to dinner the night before.  Essentially, I had some rice and veggies left over, so I added my own cooked grilled chicken to make it a meal.  Yum!

For snack 2, I ate some grapes.  No picture, but they were green.


Dinner
Tonight for dinner I decided to make pizza!  I wanted to reward myself with some food that I love and show that anything can be healthier and still taste good!


I open up my good ol' clean eating cookbook and find pizza in the index.  SHOCKINGLY the page numbers are wrong.  Seriously???  Where are the editors to check for these things?!  I flip through until I find the pages and essentially find out that if I don't feel like cooking my own dough (which I certainly do not want to do) then it's just a matter of finding pre-made whole wheat dough and putting whatever topics I like on it.  The cookbook also comes with a website for more pizza ideas.  I'm excited and check out the website they've given me.  And, the link doesn't work.  You go ahead and try it and tell me - www.cleaneatingmag.com/pizzacombos.  No go.  @#%$!$.  Seriously?  Seriously.  Edit this sh!t.  You are editors, after all.  


Apparently my grocery store doesn't have any whole wheat pizza dough.  We compared calories for our other options and picked the next best thing, and then bought a can of diced tomatoes (better than a jar of sauce), mushrooms and peppers for topping, part-skim mozzarella cheese and lots of spices.   Delicious!

Also I had a glass of wine.  Red wine.  

DAY 58

My goal today was to do a meal from week 4 meal plan.  I even went to the grocery store to buy everything last night.  But I woke up late and had 20 minutes to get dressed and get out the door, so if it wasn't already wrapped (i.e. bananas and granola bars) it wasn't coming with me. 

I started my day with a banana and a very large coffee.  My first snack was a Health Valley Double Chococlate Chip Granola Bar.  It was pretty good for a healthy granola bar. 


Lunch

As I said before, I didn't have time to pack a lunch.  I ventured into Mexican place by my office.  But remember, I vowed never to eat a ridiculous taco again. I saw that they had a special "tofu fajita."  Call me crazy, but I tried it.  Crazy!  Essentially they were 2 small tortillas with grilled onions, peppers, tofu and some cheese.  They were..... eh. ok.  Just ok.  I would never order them again but I didn't keel over and die.

When I got home I found out that those muffins I made went bad.  Guess failed didn't pass my "last a long time" test.   

My sister in law, Bethany, had been telling me about these things called VitaMuffins, so I finally looked for them in the grocery store.  I could read all the ingredients so I bought a box of VitaMuffin Deep Chocolate Muffin Tops.  I opened up the box and threw one in the microwave for a few seconds.  It was pure deliciousness.  Enough so that I made Michael Jordan try one when he got home.  Okay half of one - I ate the other half.  With a big glass of skim milk.  Delicious Delicious Delicious!!!

Dinner

For dinner I made another salad - spinach, grilled chicken, pistachios, craisins, blueberries, blue cheese, raspberry walnut dressing.  Yum! 

DAY 59 (Week 4, Thursday/Friday)

Today I really did make an attempt to follow the meal plan.  After all, I'm so close to finishing and bought all the foods to Thursday and Friday!  But, I accidentally switched what I was doing half way though the day, so I created a little Thursday/Friday mutant baby.  Oh well.

Breakfast: 1 hardboiled egg; 1 apple, 1 slice whole-grain bread, 2 tbls natural almond butter (Friday)

I liked having so many things for breakfast.  I ate the egg at home and then spaced out the rest of the breakfast during the morning.  I prefer snacking to having a large meal.

Snack 1: make ahead watermelon freeze (purée 2 cups watermelon chunks with 1/2 tsp fresh lime juice; freeze in a small cup with stick to make freeze pop); 1 cup low fat milk (Thursday)

This sounded way too complicated for a morning snack, and I wasn't about to try to bring a frozen watermelon freeze pop to work.  So I just ate watermelon.  Just plain old water melon.  No need to complicate things.  Skipped the milk.  I don't bring milk to work.

Lunch: 3 oz grilled chicken, 1/2 cup spinach, 1/4 cup each green and red bell pepper, 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, 1/2 tsp fresh ground blakc pepper on 1 whole wheat tortilla; 1 cup low-fat milk (Friday)

I simplified this lunch: threw some chicken, cut up peppers, and lettuce onto a wrap and sprinkled some red wine vinegar on it.  Wrapped it in some tin foil and threw it in my bag.  Super fast because we had left over peppers cut up from our pizza the night before.  This didn't taste like anything really.  Just a different way to eat a boring salad.  Skipped the milk.  I don't bring milk to work.  Still.

Snack 2: 1 cup blackberries, 2 oz goat cheese, 4 multigrain flaxseed crackers (Thursday)

I obviously replaced the blackberries with blueberries.  For the goat cheese and crackers, I bought this flavored goat cheese (olive and... something) that was low cal and spread it one some crackers.  Didn't really love it.  Ok didn't really like it, but I survived the 4 crackers.  I'll probably let that one expire... quickly


Dinner: Meh (Neither)
 
My dinner plans were spoiled because I got held up at work.  While I was stuck at work, I had an apple and another health valley granola bar.  

When I finally got home I was exhausted and decided I was only patient enough to make some eggs.  I whipped up some eggwhites with mushrooms, orange peppers and part-skim mozzarella cheese.  

Then I passed out from exhaustion.

 

DAY 60 (Week 4, Thursday/Friday)

I was a little discouraged today because most of the things I needed to complete the Thursday/Friday mutant child day are gone now.  I made do with what I had and ad-libbed the rest. 

Breakfast was supposed to be: 1 banana with 1.5 tablespoons natural almond butter; 4 hardboiled egg whites (Thursday)


This breakfast failed because we had no bananas or hardboiled eggs left.  I made a "go to" almond butter bread slice and called it a day.

I think we've seen this before...

Snack 1 was supposed to be: 1 pear, 1 oz goat cheese (Friday)
 
This snack failed because I didn't have a pear and didn't want to eat goat cheese without crackers.  So I replaced the pear with an apple and ate a mini twix bar.  A mini one I swear!!

Lunch: 2 cups torn Boston lettuce, 3 ox tuna, 1/4 cup each chopped carrots, celery, cucumber, scallions and basil with 2 tbsp red wine vinegar and 1 tsp evoo; 1/2 cup brown basmati rice

This lunch failed because I didn't have time to make rice.  I ate the rest of it, and it was horrible.  Just tasted like soggy red wine vinegar leaves.  Horrible.  I ate some of the tuna threw it out.  

I had a few cubes of cheese and crackers instead.  And 2 mini milky way bars.  Mini ones, I promise!!!

Snack 2: 2 tbsp hummus, 10 carrot sticks, 4 multigrain flaxseed crackers (Friday)


This snack actually didn't fail, per se, but I did upgrade it.  I ate hummus with snap peas and carrot sticks.  No crackers. 



Dinner: Nope (Neither Thursday or Friday)

MJ and I decided that since we actually had time to sit down together and eat dinner and watch some March Madness, neither of us wanted to cook.  We ordered in some thai food.  I had 2 steamed veggie dumplings, some Chicken Pad Thai and some Chicken Pad See Ew.  Mr. Jordan consumed twice as much as I did.  Good lord, why can't he gain weight???

For dessert I had a nice glass of white wine and split a vitamuffin top with MJ.  Perfect dessert after a not so perfect day.   

Sorry it's been so long between posts.  I promise to do better.

Day 56

Boring alert!!!


For breakfast I had a muffin and a coffee.
For lunch I had leftover salad from Chop't.  My pita chips were soggy.
For snack I had a cheese stick and some cocoa almonds.
For dinner I went out to eat.  


We went to the same restaurant we went to the same restaurant we went to on Day 10 for Dinner, and I ordered essentially the same thing.




Worst post ever.  Not even worth tweeting.


Weigh in tomorrow!  8 week mark!

Days 53, 54 and 55

In order to fight off my problem with leftovers getting lost in my fridge, I interrupted week 4 for a few days of leftovers.  Brace yourself for the boredom (but at least there are pictures!!):

DAY 53

For breakfast I had about a cup of Nature's Path Optimum Blueberry Cereal... or whatever it's called.  


For lunch I had leftovers from Day 50's Lunch.


During the day, I snacked on:

• cheese stick
• 2 whole wheat crackers with peanut butter
• cocoa almonds
• 1 apple

For dinner, I used the leftover chicken (4.5 oz) and made a salad with spinach, grapes, strawberries, pistachios, and some blue cheese.  I topped it off with a little raspberry walnut dressing, which is not very healthy but I used a very minimal amount. 

After dinner I tried out a new healthy breakfast muffin recipe, that I will post about another time.  I know, talk about cliff hanger, right?!?  Just like the girl with the dragon tattoo trilogy - which I highly recommend!!!  

DAY 54

Today for breakfast I had 2 healthy muffins - post coming soon.  


For lunch I made a "healthy taco" using a whole wheat tortilla wrap, veggie burger, black beans, part-skim mozzarella cheese, chopped tomatoes and chopped onions.  It was pretty good, and a nice variety to the usual veggie burger meal.


My snacks today were:

• 1 chewy mocha brownie cookie
• 2 mini muffins
• 1 cheese stick
• cocoa almonds
• handful of grapes

For dinner I decided to re-make Lunch from Day 50 and upgrade it.  This time, I replaced the tofu with shrimp and the green onion with red onions.  Those little changes made a HUGE difference.  I would highly recommend this version of the meal - and it took no time to make!

DAY 55

Sorry for the lack of postings.  I've been unbelievably busy with work and just had a half second to sit down and finish up this post so you can read all about my lovely meals.

Today for breakfast I had a VERY LARGE cup of coffee and 2 healthy muffins.  I think.  I'm so tired I can't even remember what I ate for breakfast.  That is horrible.  I bet I'll find 3000 typos in this post when I re-read it.  Sorry for the severe sleep deprivation.

I snacked on an apple, cheese stick, and cocoa almonds in the morning.  

I ate a really late lunch from Chop't - a salad place that makes yummy salads. I had a salad with shrimp, tomatoes, avocado, pita chips, chick peas and a spa asian dressing (on the side - barely used it).  The nutritional info is the most complicated thing I've ever seen, but I think my salad was about 400 calories.  Which is amazing because I didn't even eat half of it.  Chop't = winner.  Or I = horrible at figuring out their nutritional info and I'm totally wrong and just too tired to figure it out.

I was exhausted all day and my friend Aimee and I were working overtime on this ridiculous project we have for work.  I was dreading when dinner time approached.

But then guess what happened for dinner?!?!!  

You will never believe it!!!

MJ COOKED DINNER!!!!

This is a rare occurrence in this household, so praise, thanks, and compliments must be given so that MJ will continue this new trend.

Chef Jordan prepared an feast for us, comprised of scrumptious morsels of chicken mixed with a medley of greens served over steaming brown rice a topped with a glazed orange soy.  

AKA he made asian stir fry.  Chicken.  Veggies.  Rice.  Asian flavoring.

But hey, I didn't have to make dinner so major props to you Michael Jordan!!

After dinner I had some low fat chocolate frozen yogurt and low fat cookie dough ice cream for dessert.  

And a large glass of wine to make the work seem less painful.

Now I think I need to get some sleep, since I'll be losing an hour anyway for daylight savings.  Sigh.  This may call for some more wine.

Also, I'm officially at 2,000 blog views!!  Thank you for reading and keeping me accountable for my clean eating life style.

Week 4, Monday (Day 52)

I'm not feeling well again.  I can't believe it.  I was just sick 2 weeks ago.  What gives?  Also my muscles are SO SORE from yesterday's gym class.  I wanted to go to zumba tonight but couldn't bring myself to get past the soreness to workout again.  Sigh.  


Breakfast: 1/2 cup oatmeal with 1 apple chopped, 1/2 banana, 1/2 tsp cinnamon; 1 cup low fat milk


My oatmeal overflowed in the microwave.  No better way to start your day than cleaning up a sticky microwave.  Awesome. I didn't bother chopping the apple, but just ate it straight up.  I packed my banana as a morning snack and replaced the milk with a cup of hot coffee to soothe my sore throat.  Yea, I know tea is better.  But coffee TASTES better.  


Snack 1: 1 cup chopped pineapple, 1 handful unsalted almonds
I was not in the mood for pineapple today, so I ate a full banana and 1 handful of Cocoa Almonds!  I bet you forgot about them because it's been so long since I mentioned them.  They are still delicious. I had 9.  


Lunch: Veggie burger (1 veggie patty with 1 oz goat cheese, 1 slice tomato, 1 slice red onion, 1 boston lettuce leaf on a whole wheat roll); 2 plums


I ate 1 plum and decided it wasn't ripe enough or good enough to eat the second.  Fast forward 8 hours, and I give the second plum to my friend Aimee, who informs me that it's extremely sweet and juicy.  Guess I picked the wrong one.  


I was all set to eat my veggie burger, but my MJ's friend texted me to say he was near my office and wanted to meet for lunch.  I agreed, and we went to the best sandwich place ever, where I indulged in 6 inches of yummy grilled chicken with pesto, onions, roasted red peppers and tomatoes.  On a non-wheat roll.  It was just as delicious as I remembered it.  I'm sure the insides of the sandwich meet the "clean eating standards" but the bread certainly does not.  Just call me Cheater Pan, Tinkerbell.


Snack 2: 3/4 cup 1% cottage cheese with 1/2 cup raspberries
I ACTUALLY ATE COTTAGE CHEESE TODAY.  Sound the alarm!  Alert the media! Cottage cheese was consumed today!  I decided to eat less than 3/4 cups of cottage cheese in exchange for a slightly less healthy 2% cottage cheese with strawberries.  I think it was a pretty fair exchange.  In case you're curious, Aimee says it's 3 points on weight watchers.  


Dinner: 1 cup whole wheat spaghetti with 1/2 cup low-sodium tomato sauce. 1/4 cup fresh torn basil leaves, 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes (halved), and 1 oz shredded part-skim mozzarella; 3 oz grilled chicken breasts cup into strips
Aimee came over for dinner and I prepared a delicious meal for us.  I changed a lot about the meal plan - for starters, I did not use low sodium tomato sauce or cherry tomatoes, but instead made my own "tomato sauce" using chopped up whole tomatoes, red onion, and spices.  I broiled the chicken, because as I mentioned earlier this week, MJ and I think that broiled chicken is extremely tasty.


I also eliminated the cheese and used 2 different kinds of pasta because I will not conform to pasta norms.  Variety is key!  And so fun!

Mmmmmmmmm! 

Aimee says our dinner was only 7 points - which allowed her to have 5 extra points for dessert, so we went out and got 90 calorie no-fat chocolate frozen yogurt.  This was 19038209 times better than my frozen smoothie dessert.  Apparently every 1/2 cup is 2 WW points.  Good thing I'm not following WW!

I also had 3 cups of tea and complained a lot about my sore throat.  I'm so over being sick.  

Day 46

Today was leftovers day because I was too tired to figure out which meal to start with on Week 4 and I had leftovers from dinner last night.  Sorry to be super boring.  I was also super healthy though, which is a major plus!


I am pleased to announce that the grocery store has our unsalted almond butter again!  This, of course, required an almond butter feast!  


For breakfast I replaced my usual whole wheat english muffin with peanut butter and bananas with an upgraded whole wheat english muffin with almond butter! and bananas; 6 oz of low fat milk.  It was delicious.  Oh how I have missed almond butter!  We'll have to buy it in bulk so we are never out of it again!


When I got to work I had a huge coffee.  It was 100% necessary.  I don't regret this decision.


My morning snack was obviously a slice of whole wheat bread with almond butter.  If you are surprised by this, you should probably go back and read some more posts about how much I adore almond butter.
















Ok great, welcome back.  I love almond butter.


For lunch I had leftovers from dinner last night.  It was a little weird to eat shrimp at work, but I don't really care what my coworkers think anymore.  


For my afternoon snack, I had some cut up red pepper with 2 oz of hummus. I'm starting to think that buying the bulk "to go" packets of hummus from Costco was a bad idea because we have 9 left and they all must be eaten by March 8.  5 days to eat 9 hummus packages.  Sigh.  It was totally convenient though and made taking hummus to work so easy that even if I have to throw out some it was probably worth it in the long run.


MJ also made a smoothie, and I had about a 1/2 cup.


For dinner I searched through the cookbook until I could find a meal that could be made entirely from things we already had in the house.  I found a recipe for turkey and black bean soft tacos.  Bingo!  The recipe only calls for tortillas, ground turkey, salsa, romaine lettuce and low-sodium black beans.  I was thrilled that we had all 5 ingredients.  I was not thrilled, however, with the meal.  It was just plane jane boring and pretty tasteless.  We even used a fun southwestern salsa and the meal was still pretty bland.  We will not be making these again.  But at least we didn't make an extra efforts for the ingredients, right?

Day 44 & Michael Pollan's Rules

I'm back home!  Gosh it feels nice to have all my own foods and not have to worry about catching a plane or buying a non-healthy meal.  


For breakfast, jetlag required that I had a cup of coffee (flavored fat-free vanilla creamer, no sugar) and a whole wheat english muffin with peanut butter.


For my morning snack I packed a 1/2 cup container of that Nature's Optimum blueberry cereal with a 1/2 cup of fresh blueberries.  Yum!  I probably would have had it for breakfast with milk but MJ drank all the milk while I was gone.  


We didn't have much in terms of food for lunch, so I bought a taco salad from the mexican place by my office.  I'm too embarrassed to tell you what was in it.  I make a vow never to buy it again.  


For dinner I went over to my friend Aimee's house for dinner.  Aimee is the person I have to thank for introducing me to the vodka gimlet and the best breakfast sandwich ever: peanut butter and bananas on a whole wheat english muffin.  


Aimee is following weight watchers, and made us a yummy dinner of chicken, mixed veggies (tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers) and cauliflower in some cheese sauce.  The entire meal was less than 4 points on weight watchers!  Aimee and I had a long discussion about the cheesy cauliflower.  It was 0 points for weight watchers.  They come in frozen, personal packages.  We're positive there is nothing natural about the cheese sauce but both agreed it couldn't really be that bad for us if it was 0 points. 


For dessert Aimee served this delicious low-fat chocolate moose tracks frozen yogurt.  I have no idea how many points it was for weight watchers but we really could have eaten the entire container.


Michael Jordan sent me this really interesting article called Food Rules by Michael Pollan.  


Mr. Pollan's rules are:
#11 Avoid foods you see advertised on television
#19 If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't. 
#36 Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk.
#39 Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.
#47 Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.
#58 Do all your eating at a table.


I definitely agree with Michael Pollan's rules and will try my best to follow them.  He's definitely right about the junk food - you're not going to see my wasting my time making home made french fries!!

Days 42 and 43

DAY 42

I'm traveling for work so I'm not really able to make my own foods.  Before I left I had a whole wheat english muffin with peanut butter and bananas.  Then I grabbed a coffee in the airport and was on my way.  For lunch I had a chicken salad sandwich on some dark bread that I think was pumpernickel.  A coworked presented me with a mint chocolate chip cupcake his wife had made and I couldn't really turn it down.  It was delicious.  I can't believe I've had 3 cupcakes this week.  That is so not allowed.  Shucks. 
Dinner was a t-k-y sandwich from PotBellys in the airport.  But I added mayo.  And an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie.  Hey, I'm traveling, so it's ok, right?
Sorry this isn't exciting.  Not many options when I can't make my own meals!

DAY 43

Breakfast today was just a whole wheat English muffin with a light cheese spread.  After a morning meeting I got a skinny caramel macchiato.  No surprise there.  For lunch we went to an asian restaurant and I got a little bento box.  In my bento box was edamame, 2 steamed chicken dumplings, a seared tuna/avocado sandwich and an almond cookie.  It was delicious.  I wish the sandwich wasn't on a white bread-roll though.  After another meeting we headed back to the airport and I had just enough time to grab a mexican "low carb" salad for the plane.  Overall I wasn't the best eater, and I really really miss my kitchen.


Sorry this is the most boring post ever!

Chewy Mocha Brownie Cookies

Since I'm almost out of Almond Butter Cookies, it was time to try a new, healthy cookie to test!  I found this recipe in the "3 Books in 1" cookbook.  This was in the 200 Calorie Desserts section, page 128.

The recipe is very easy - flour, baking soda, margarine, sugar, unsweetened cocoa powder, brown sugar, coffee granules, reduced-fat buttermilk, vanilla and powdered sugar to sprinkle on top.  I went ahead and used whole wheat flour and all-natural cane sugar - can't tell the difference!  

The cookies came out so well!  Each cookie is only 71 calories!  I'm definitely going to keep these around for those days when I'm craving chocolate!!

Days 20 and 21

I was off of the meal plans this weekend because I had a lot of leftovers to eat.  I was also conducting interviews all weekend, so I was not home for any meal except dinner.

DAY 20

On Friday night I threw all of my "to go" snacks into a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY bag.  It is not my birthday, not even close.  I just needed a good sized bag to carry all my snacks.  The unintended effect of using a happy birthday bag is that I was really happy when I saw it.  Perhaps subconsciously my brain associated birthdays with good things and so my snacks became good things.


For breakfast Saturday morning I had a whole wheat English muffin with natural peanut butter and a gulp of milk.  I would have had more than just a gulp of milk, but that's all that MJ left for me in the gallon.  I sent him out to buy more.  


When I arrived at the office for interviews, I saw that my team had brought a coffee pot, donuts and munchkins.  Sigh.  When they passed around the donuts, I declined and took out my apple.    Throughout the course of the interviews, I ate:
• 1 low-fat cheese stick
• 1 apple
• 10 snap peas with 2 oz hummus
• 1 whole wheat cracker with spreadable cheese
• 1 cup of coffee (half and half, no sugar)
• 1 almond butter cookie
• 1 glass orange juice
• 4 munchkins


I just found the Dunkin Donuts Nutritional Information and discovered that I ate 215 calories of munchkins.  Oh nooooo!  I had no idea they were that bad for you.  But I am SO glad I didn't have a full donut.  Those things are horrible! And delicious.  But horrible.  

For lunch, I made a salad with red leaf lettuce, white beans, 1/2 avocado, 1/2 cup edamame and 1 hard boiled egg.  The salad was actually very filling and I wasn't even able to finish it.   In the future I would add balsamic vinegar and tomatoes.  My coworkers complimented my salad and my snack bag.  The person who brought the donuts indicated that he would bring healthier snacks for me the next day.


When I got back home I made tilapia with sauteed broccoli and part-skim mozzarella cheese.   The meal was really easy and I had a lot of broccoli left over, so I wasn't hungry enough to eat any carbs.  Which is good because I had 4 munchkins.  

DAY 21

Today was another day of interviews.  For breakfast I cooked up 2 egg whites with mushrooms, low-fat cheddar cheese, 1/2 whole wheat English muffin; 6 ounces orange juice.  I still had that half of an English muffin left over from the time the Clean Eating editors only let me eat half of one.  I love mushrooms and wish they were in more of the meals.  


When I arrived at the interviews, my coworker presented me with a container of sliced strawberries he brought for my healthier alternative to donuts.  I was very appreciative.   During the interviews I ate:
• some sliced strawberries
• 1/2 cup granola
• 10 snap peas with 2 oz hummus
• 100 calorie bag of cheese
• 2 cups coffee (with half and half and 1 splenda each) 
• 2 munchkins (95 calories).
I didn't know yet that the munchkins were that bad for me since I just looked them up now, but luckily I picked less than 100 calories worth of fat.  


For lunch, I had a veggie burger with low-fat mozzarella cheese, 1/2 avocado and lettuce on whole wheat bread.  This made one of my coworkers question whether I was a vegetarian.  I'm not, but I really enjoy veggie burgers.  


Now for the bad part of my day.  Superbowl Sunday. 
We went to MJ's friend's house for the game.  I knew there would be a lot of unhealthy choices there, so I made my all-natural guacamole, which was devoured by the group by the end of the 1st quarter.  I personally ate:
• about 15 blue chips and guacamole, with a little bit of a bean dip
• crab dip served on 3 little toasted bread slices
• 2 beef sliders (no buns) with roasted onions and 1 scoop of mashed potatoes
• 2 brownies
• 1/2 piece of funfetti cake
• 1 light beer (No one noticed I only had one beer the entire game, and I didn't even finish it!)


Sigh.  I was doing well till the brownies came out.  I probably should have passed on dessert but I didn't want to.  Maybe I was rewarding myself for 3 weeks of eating healthy.  Or maybe I was celebrating the Packers' victory.  Or I just really, really, really love chocolate.  I felt bad until one of MJ's friend picked up the remaining tray of brownies and ate them like a slice of pizza.  Always good to keep someone around who will eat more than your daily serving of calories in one sitting.