Daily Sugar Limits

Good morning bloggies! The clouds burned off early today, so I might be able to enjoy the sunny weather

Breakfast

I had to take off to my nannying job early today so I stuck with oats. Oats in a Boat I couldn’t resist the name!

I was inspired by Teenage Health Freak’s Peachy Quinoa and added (what I thought was a peach)  nectarine and cinnamon on top of the steel-cut oat boat.

I didn’t even think about the fact that it didn’t taste right because:

1. It was a nectarine.

2. The banana threw off the “Autumn taste” I was going for

3. Probably should have added some nutmeg, ginger or pumpkin to get the taste I was looking for.

But it was sadly an awkward nectarine and banana oat boat

Daily Sugar Limits

So I really been thinking about all of the sugar added to our foods. I try to only get sugar that is naturally found in fruits (fructose) and milk (lactose). However, this is almost impossible with so many innocent-looking foods with loads of sugar added to them.

I noticed that a serving of plain goat milk yogurt had 7g of sugar in it, but the strawberry flavor had 14g of sugar in it. The problem is, I can’t tell where the extra 7g of sugar comes from. How much of it comes from the actual strawberries and how much comes from the couple of other foods they added into the mix that may not be naturally occurring?

Is there a limit of the amount of naturally occurring sugar we should be in taking? I’ve heard the number 25g floating around for the maximum of added sugar to our diet. But then I read this article saying that women should have a maximum of 20g of sugar a day or 5 teaspoons. The article eventually resolves to say just get your sugar intake from naturally occurring sugars such as fruit, but does that mean that we need to stop eating fruit once we reach the 20g limit?

According to Sugarstacks.com, I have reached my 20g limit at one serving of grapes, or surpassed the limit with one orange! I am truly hoping they mean added sugar when they say 20g, because I eat lots of amounts of fruit.

What do you think about daily sugar limits?

Lovely

Good Morning bloggies! I am in such a lovely mood this morning, cause guess what? It’s sunny here! I’ve been complaining about the lack of sunshine for months, but Summer has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest.

Just look at the forecast!!! 90‘s by tomorrow! Prior to this, we haven’t hit 75 for almost an entire year.

I had just the most loveliest dream last night. Thanks to all of your Eclipse posts that I read before I went to sleep, guess who I dreamed about? Jacob and Edward. Or should I say Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson.

(source)

In my dream I was dating them, except they were the same people. They could transform into each other whenever the feel like it. So I got two sexy guys for the price of one. Sounds lovely, right?

Breakfast

For this lovely mood I’m in I decided to go with a lovely Snackface-inspired breakfast.

Layers of Loveliness

• Layer 1- Millet Puffs
• Layer 2- PB Puffins
• Layer 3- a naner
• Layer 4- cinnamon

With almond milk somewhere in the mix!

With a side of Crate & Barrel

Even Mount Rainier showed up for the lovely party

This is the first time that I’ve seen the mountain since I have been home. Whenever its cloudy the mountain suddenly disappears.

Welcome back Rainier! It’s been far too long.

Later

I have to head off to my internship today, but I will be back with my updated goals later this afternoon.

I hope everyone has a lovely day

Lots o’ Nuts

So I could definitely make some sexual innuendos with my post title today, but I’m going to keep it clean and classy.

Today I’ve definitely consumed my fair share of healthy fats in terms of nuts.

Breakfast

Breakfast actually started out innocent and nut free.

One egg scrambled eggs with red bell pepper, spinach, onion and mushroom wrap

Sunflower and Millet toast topped with cinnamon and truvia

and my usual fruit fix– 1/2 a naner and starfruit

This breakfast gets three stars

Snack

My snack is where nuts came into my life today

Honey Chobani Greek Yogurt with 2 T almond butter.

I only have a little bit too much almond butter left for Oats in a Jar (OIAJ) so I decided to start digging in. Healthy fat, right?

So about 3-4 T of almond butter today. I usually actually try to limit my nut butter intake to 2 T a day just to keep myself in check. I could eat a whole jar if I allowed myself.

But I don’t feel guilty about my sudden surge in nut butter. It’s not going to kill me and it’s not that unhealthy.

Lunch

The lack of guilt over consuming lots ‘o nuts  headed into lunch. Once again, it started off innocent with a homemade pizza.

• organic marinara
• spinach
• pesto
• grilled chicken
• mushrooms
• yellow and red bell peppers
• onion

but ended rather guilty again.

A fresh herb salad (best salad mix ever!) with strawberries, blueberries and walnuts. Dang it. Guilty as charged. I knew that I had already had a surplus of nuts too.

It was definitely yummy though

Snack

Cally was baking a cake (it’s chocolate too!), so to fight my hunger from the lovely aromas coming from the kitchen I went with a berry fresh smoothie

• frozen strawberries
• frozen peaches
• POM juice
• almond milk
• 1/2 a naner
• chia seeds

garnished with shredded coconut

So yummy.

So goals for the rest of the day: layout my portfolio for my architecture class, oh, and don’t eat any more nuts!

The latter goal will be lifted tomorrow

So Many Recipes… So Little Time

I think “so little time” applies to every single part of my life this week. I spent 7 hours on the project today, and I’ll probably try to hammer out some more tonight. Since I am spending constant time just sitting on my butt working on the computer, I’m trying to eat more fruits and veggies than other carbs since I’m most definitely not burning them.

Breakfast

I started off the day with a banana and almond butter wrap and *gasp* a Green Monster. A couple weeks ago I made a Green Monster that tasted like dirt, and ever since I haven’t gotten enough courage to make one again.

The almond butter didn’t spread too well, and I actually think the wrap is better with sunflower seed butter *another gasp*

But it was still absolutely delicious.

Next I conquered my fears and made a Green Monster

In the smoothie:

• frozen strawberries
• a frozen naner
• spinach
• coconut milk
• water (to thin it out)
• chia seeds

It actually turned out really well. I still like the look of my pink, tropical looking smoothies. But hey, at least I get my veggies in!

Snack

It wasn’t long until my mid-morning snack. I knew that I was going to be gone quite a bit today so I packed the last of my Pirates Booty

Yum.

Lunch

I made this wonderful salad last nigh for lunch todayt. I recreated this absolultely spectacular salad my mom made Richard and I this weekend.

It contained:

• Spring Greens
• roasted pecans
• organic blueberries
• goat cheese

And for the dressing (mixed in the blender):

• Annie’s raspberry vinaigrette
• organic raspberries
• olive oil
• honey
• sea salt and pepper

Packed up and ready to go. It wasn’t quite as good as when my mom had made it, but then again, all of her food is just spectacular.

Snack

The salad didn’t keep me full for very long and I found myself hungry again. I packed myself the greatest snack ever invented. An organic granny smith apple sprinkled with cinnamon. Thrown in the microwave. Then crushed Annie’s cinnamon crackers on top. Holy moly this was good. Everyone in my studio was jealous of the wonderful aroma.

Dinner

I was really inspired by all sorts of recipes that I have found over the web for this dinner. Dinner was parsnip chips, cheesy rice and a stuffed portobello mushroom (do you say -bello or -bella? When I read it I say -bello in my head, but if I say it out loud I say -bella. I guess my brain is just very confused)

For the parsnip chips I used a recipe from Zesty Cook. They were really good, but I was really cinnamon-ed out from earlier today and couldn’t finish them. Tomorrow, I’ll try to eat less cinnamon so I’ll be prepared to gobble up the leftovers!

The cheesy rice was really good. I was inspired by Caitlin’s cheesy rice. I tried making my own alfredo sauce by using Hungry Girl’s recipe for alfredo sauce, but I felt that it was really lacking something. Next time I am just going to buy the sauce.

Then was the portobello mushroom. The biggest disappointment of them all. The toppings were excellent, however the mushroom was super gooey and not very good. I ended up just scraping the toppings and leaving the mushroom.

The plate by the end of the meal.

I wasn’t very full so I decided to plop some leftover salad I had made from last night.

I love how the sauce is pink!

I did devour that one.

Whew! So many new recipes from the internet all in one meal. I think it’s time to go back to some solid favorites for a while.

Do you ever just get so sick of a food, you can’t even look at it? When I took the parsnips out of the oven, usually the cinnamon makes my mouth start watering, but definitely not today.

The Great Soy Debate

Hey bloggies! This week is going to be absolute madness! It’s the week before my final presentation for my studio class, so essentially I will be working 24/7 on this project. Because of this sudden time consumption, I’m limiting myself to only one post a day I really love posting twice a day so I can get more in depth on the food and some issues, but its just not going to happen. Ugh.

Breakfast

I felt so behind on my blog reading from the weekend, and I knew that I wasn’t going to have much time to read today, so I made overnight oats to give myself more time to read all of your wonderful blogs. It’s such a guilty pleasure of mine to go through blogs in the morning!

In the mix:

• 1/2 c. oats
• 1/2 c. almond milk
• 1/4 c. coconut millk
• 1/4 c. water
• 1 T chia seeds
• 1 T flaxseed meal
• 1 T chocolate chips

Topped with:

• a bit of vanilla that I forgot to put in last night
• a couple of shakes of cinnamon
• coconut flakes
• 1 1/2 T TJ’s Flaxseed Almond Butter

I don’t know how this bowl of oats disappears so quickly. One moment its full, the next moment I’m desperately scraping the sides for more oat-y goodness. Such is life.

I also had a side of a banana covered in cinnamon

and the entire breakfast

Lunch

I don’t have any food in my kitchen right now, so I knew I was going to Holy Cow today. After eating loads of pasta, coconut cake, and other heavy homemade foods, I have been desperately craving a salad.

Okay, so it was also really cold today, so besides the small salad I got a bowl of Corn Chowder soup (made with whole ingredients, nothing artificial, and its even made with sea salt!) with organic, local crackers and a freshly made whole wheat roll.

Wow. I love Holy Cow and all of their organic, whole grain, local, fresh food. No weird preservatives in any of the food. Now that is some true love.

For the salad I think I had more toppings on the salad than I did actual leafy greens.

In the salad

• local greens
• corn
• chickpeas
• beats
• olives (they were pretty nasty!)
• carrots
• onion
• goat cheese
• cherry tomatoes
• topped with Raspberry Vinaigrette.

Notice the lack of my beloved Tempeh? Don’t worry–they offered it. Just after doing a bit of research last night, I’m not so sure if this love and I are truly meant to be. Enter  The Great Soy Debate. I first learned that my beloved Tempeh is essentially a soybean cake, ok, no biggie right? Ehhhhh…maybe. Here is what I have gathered on this subject.

Soy originally started in Asia and have known to be a great source of protein for vegetarians. Soy was also thought to decrease the risk for heart disease, osteoporosis and relive menstral symptoms. However, soy beans, when raw, are not adequate for human consumption. In Asia, the soybeans were soaked for a very long time and fermented. This cooking method, however, is what causes some of the health problems–where this debate sources from.

Soy contains high levels of phytic acid. Phytic acid is found in all legumes, but soybeans contain by far the highest amount. Phytic acid blocks the body’s uptake of essential minerals like magnesium, calcium, iron and especially zinc. Furthermore another shocking problem with soy the isoflavones found in soy can act like estrogen. Since many babies (approximately 25% in the United States) are fed a soy-based formula, they are being fed essentially estrogen. This can be like a baby receiving 5 birth control pills a day! (source)

These facts don’t even touch on the fact that 90% of soy produced in the United States is genetically modified and has one of the highest percentages for being sprayed with pesticides (source).

These are really scary facts. I can definitely see why some health bloggers are trying to avoid soy.

I avoided tempeh today, but I think the occasional soy (the non-genetically modified stuff) shouldn’t be something to completely fret over. Personally, I’m going to avoid general products made with soy (such as chips) but I still might indulge in the occasional tofu or tempeh.

What is your take on the Great Soy Debate?

Shopping and Saving Part 1: Setting Your Budget

So I decided to make the way I shop for groceries a series!

Shopping and Saving Part 1:

Identify & Setting Your Budget

Before we dive right in, if all you get out of this series is this: if you don’t make a list, I highly suggest starting now my Type-A personality will be very happy. The entire way I shop is based off of the list, and I can’t imagine life with out it.

Look at Your Last Grocery Receipt

(source)

For those who don’t pay attention to how much you are spending at the store and want to start, find a few of your last receipts.

A lot of grocery stores now-a-days sort your products on your receipt for you into categories such as ‘produce,’ ‘home,’ ‘bakery,’ and a general ‘grocery.’ Look at it closely.

1. Circle the items in the dishes you cooked.

These are great buys and are definitely labeled as a “need”

2. Now look at the items that you snack on.

For me, these are so-so buys if it is chips, popcorn or something other than a fruit or veggie. If it’s a fruit or veggie, I usually consider this a good buy, unless I’m splurging on a certain item like a starfruit or horned melon, then they stay in this category.  So-so items definitely don’t have to get taken off of the list, but notice how much you spend on these particular items.

3. What you are probably left with is items that you may have splurged a little on.

Was it the kombucha, the ice cream, awesome nut butter that might be fun to try, maybe a couple of chocolate bars thrown in? Ask yourself if you really need these items for now. They’re great to buy every once in a while ,but if you really want to start cutting down your budget these are the items that you need to watch. They can rack up your grocery bill fast than you can say “almond butter”

Set a Goal

If you want to really crunch the numbers add up the total cost for the items you need, about 50% of the so-so items and about 25% of the splurge/want items. This could help you decide on a goal.

Or, what I did was look at my current bill (it was $120/wk) and find a budget that would push myself to not buy the splurge items as much, but still allow me wiggle room to try a new product or two. In my Limit the Bill goal, I set an amount of $75 and eventually I wanted to step down to $50/wk. These were just my preliminary goals. I ended up spending around $60-65/wk and recently I spent less than $40. I found it very comfortable to spend about $60-65/wk and I adjusted my goals to hit around that target in the end.

These tips are just guidelines. This is just what worked well for me.

Next part of the Shopping and Saving series will be formulating the List.

…back to your regularly scheduled program.

Snack

Guys, I had a seriously one awesome snack. It was inspired by Melinh‘s fake apple pie

I chopped up an apple and sprinkled it with cinnamon, like my norm.

popped it into the microwave for a minute, like my norm

OOO! OOO! This is the fun part! Crumble up some graham crackers, I used graham thins, and place them at the bottom of a bowl. Dump the gooey apples on top and gobble up!

There was a little bit too much apple-per-graham cracker ratio, but I’ll fix that next time

Seriously a divine snack. Thank you so much for the inspiration Melinh!

Time to work on some homework and do some reading. Chelsea Handler’s My Horizontal Life is honestly amazing. It’s the absolute PERFECT summer beach read!

What are your grocery shopping saving tips?

I Gotta Run!

Usually this would mean I have itch to go running but this whole day has been absolutely jam-packed with really fun activities and I’m only going to be doing more as the day goes on! I just gotta run!

Breakfast

Breakfast was a random mix of foods. I’m absolutely loving the banana and sunflower seed butter wrapped in a tortilla! I was craving it last night and knew I had to have it this morning.

It also came along with toast covered in maca, cinnamon, mesquite and truvia; as well as 3/4 of an orange and some cantaloupe.

I think the calorie count was a bit high on this, but it kept me full for a really long time. It was definitely worth it

Lunch

I’m joining Kalli in smoothie friday with a very tropical creation.

Most definitely not a green monster, but I’m a bit scared to try one again after yesterday’s disaster. I think it may be the peach where I went really wrong.

In this very tropical smoothie:

• frozen peaches
• frozen bananas
• frozen strawberries
• almond milk
• coconut milk
• banana for garnish

A super simple smoothie but it was pretty good. I kept getting brain freeze though!

I also wanted something carby so some brown rice with a little soy sauce accompained the smoothie

All together.

I got a huge kick for some chocolate so I broke into the dark chocolate Attune bar.

It was really good, but I think I’m still a sucker for the almond milk chocolate

I went outside to play cards with Richard but my stomach was killing me for some odd reason. I went inside to put on some sunscreen (I had realized that I forgot to spray some on! Yikes!) and I sipped on some water and ta-da! my stomachache was much better. It’s funny how you can be dehydrated and not really even realize it.

I’m off to run to play some more with some friends. Afterwards I’m having roomie dinner and it’s Cally’s turn to cook.

Any dehydrated stories? I was hiking during the summer and had absolutely no idea why I was having really bad stomach cramps, my legs were cramping and I felt nauseus

Mexi-lunch

Good Afternoon everyone!

Breakfast

I love waking up knowing I had this waiting for me

Overnight Oats!

• 1/2 c. quick oats
• 1/4 c. almond milk (I ran out)
• 1/4 c. coconut milk
• 1/2 c. water
• 1 T chia seeds
• 1 T flaxseed meal
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• sprinkle of cinnamon

Put in the fridge overnight and topped with:

• 1/2 a nana
• dark chocolate PB

I didn’t include the chocolate chips because I knew I was going to top with the PB. The PB was definitely yummy, but I like the chocolate chips better

I also made my first “healthy” breakfast recipe I tried when I was a junior in high school.

I was a junior counselor at an adventure camp and the cook happened to also be a nutritionist. At this point in my life every time I ate, my body told my brain to throw up the food because it was making me sick. I never did because I thought that I would become bulimic. Therefore I just slowly ate less and less because all the food was making me sick. The nutritionist told me that my body wanted me to throw it up because I was eating such awful food, it was like poison to my body. The next day he made me this breakfast:

A naner covered in coconut milk and topped with cinnamon. It always reminds me of cool, summer mornings

I started eating this every morning and slowly my body stopped telling me to throw up the food I was eating.

I used coconut milk from a carton this time, but it is definitely better with coconut milk from a can because it is thicker.

Lunch

After eating an unpicture kiwi and my last cantaloupe spear for early afternoon snacks, I dug into my Mexi-lunch

A Mexican-inspired wrap

• whole wheat tortilla
• pesto
• salsa
• mixed spring greens
• brown rice
• red and orange bell pepper

I forgot the goat cheese this time, but I was still hungry so I included it in my goat-cheese nachos.

I absolutely can not get enough of goat cheese obviously. I didn’t even touch the salsa on the side because the goat cheese and blue corn chips were just phenomenal by themselves.

I have zumba in a little while and chapter afterwards! Hopefully I can get a good picture of dinner tonight

Do you remember what your first turning-point healthy food was?

A Tale of Three Breakfasts

Good Afternoon bloggies!

So the title of the post originally was going to be “A Tale of Two Breakfasts,” a cute play on the novel A Tale of Two Cities,  but then I was still hungry so I had another breakfast, thus making it 3

I started off with 3/4 of a chopped apple, a dollop of Chobani Greek yougurt, and my beloved puffed millet cereal

Before

After

All mixed up with a sprinkle of cinnamon

Later, when a few of my roomies were awake I was hungry for some eggs

Inside my one egg and one egg white omelette was:

sauteed frozen veggies (red bell pepper, mushrooms and a whole lot of broccoli)

turkey

half of a laughing cow cheese packet

S&P

which created this guy…

Yummy.

I started doing some homework and I was still hungry an hour later! Thus came the third breakfast.

Half of a banana dipped in Maranatha Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter

It didn’t stand a chance

The sun started to tease me again so I recruited Richard and went for a walk.

It ended up going for 2 1/2 hours

We followed the river the entire time and saw some gorgeous scenery

Some ducks and geese also joined us.

At the end of the walk my joints were getting pretty sore and my entire body was pretty pooped out. I could really feel the 5K and the elliptical and the walk I went on yesterday.

It was time for some much needed grub:

An amazing turkey sandwich filled with:

2 slices deli turkey

1 slice provolone

tomato

red onion

apple slices

red bell pepper

greek yogurt

dijon mustard

pesto

Tossed into the toaster oven for a couple of minutes. The toasted bread with the crunch of the apple, juice of the tomato, and melted provolone was just perfect!

What is your dream sandwich? Mine is filled with lots and lots of veggies!

Yay for a 5K!

Hey bloggies! I just got back from running a 5K

It went really well considering I didn’t care about my time one bit.

(In case you were wondering it was around 28:30-29:00.) I didn’t hear my exact time cause I had my headphones still blasting, but I will get the results soon.

I did cut back on my workouts this week which was really difficult! I kept getting the urge to do some serious cardio, but I knew I would die today if I did.

I fueled up with very watery oatmeal and a banana this morning.

In the mix:

1/2 c. old fashioned oats

1 c. water (I’m almost out of almond milk!)

2 T of THE MIX

Topped with:

2 T Coconut Milk Creamer

1/2 a banana

2 strawberries

1 T Crunchy PB

a dash of cinnamon

It was pretty good!

The other half of the banana was topped with maca and cinnamon

After the race I was handed samples of So Delicious Coconut Ice Cream Sandwiches, which I definitely ate. I’m pretty well stocked up on Cliff bar samples too.

I’m really feeling a smoothie for lunch, but I don’t really have any fruits besides bananas left. Time to get creative?!

Question of the Day: Do you usually run races for fun, or do you try to get a PR?