Dang, I Love Football

There is something about being in the second row, watching the #1 Ducks win. Again.

The pure energy of the crowd, the exquisite uniqueness of the duck and the domination of the football team makes for such a memorable atmosphere.

Breakfast

A proper game-day breakfast: Oatmeal with chia seeds mixed in, topped with Crofter’s raspberry fruit spread and almond butter.

Game Fuelage

For Lunch: A Mediterranean salad–eaten at studio

Dinner: almond butter and banana tortilla with an unpictured POM bar

After-game snack: apple

And a sweet potato biscuit with raspberry fruit spread for my friend. He never packs enough food for his metabolism.

The salad worked out really well. I always have a bowl in studio, and I stealthily borrowed the Spanish student’s fork that I always borrow anyways, so I was able to mix the salad when I was in studio.

The POM bar was also really great! That and the tortilla really kept me full during the entire game.

Today’s Breakfast

I was in architecture studio all day today and knew I needed a proper breakfast. Taking advantage of the fact I’m at my friend’s place with a proper stove, I made myself huevos rancheros with two whole eggs on top of whole wheat bread topped with salsa.

I so enjoyed having whole eggs! At the sorority house the eggs are mixed with whipping cream, but they leave the egg whites untouched so I most always just eat the egg whites to avoid the unnecessary whipping cream.

Dinner

Also taking advantage of the stove and the oven again for dinner I made myself a Chicken Caesar Wrap with Roasted Parsnips and Carrots

The roasted veggies came out perfectly! I put them in a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes after covering them with olive oil and salt.

My goodness do I wish I could cook like this more often. Only 6 more months of living with out a stove or oven?

 

What is one appliance you couldn’t live with out?

Proportions

Hey blog world!

I’ve been crazy busy nannying the past couple of days. Wednesday I did 11 1/2  hours, Thursday 12 hours. I have a couple of random eats where the proportions have been thrown off.

Breakfasts

Almond Butter and Honey Toast with a green tea frappachino

I usually only have one piece of toast, but these babies are small!

They fit on a small salad plate!

And the green tea frappachino. I have been tweaking the recipe bit by bit. I will hopefully have an updated version soon!

Fitnessista Breakfast Cookie, Fruit Salad and Toast

Quite a bitty Breakfast Cookie by normal standards.

And a bowl of fruit

I didn’t think this would be enough calories to sustain me, so I went with a piece of toast with 365 blueberry fruit spread. Also itty bitty.

Enhanced Huevos Rancheros

One egg and one egg white scrambled eggs with 3/4 c. corn, 1/4 c. onion and dried basil on top of the last piece of Great Harvest low-carb dakota bread with salsa.

Tiny again, ahem.

Lunches

On-the-Go Indian and snacks

1 c. cooked quinoa with 1/2 a package on TJ’s Indian Fare Jaipur Vegetables for lunch. Plus some of the below.

A couple of the snacks for the day:

2 clementines, a granny smith apple, cherries, baby carrots and Sabra Roasted Red Pepper Hummus.

Plus whole wheat crackers and some maple buckwheat cereal at the the boy I nanny for’s house.

Egg, Spinach and Cheese wrap with a salad

An egg puff, spinach and gouda cheese on a sonoma tortilla.

On the salad:

• red onion
• tomato
• Annie’s Woodstock dressing

Whew. So many random eats through the day. Dinner is usually what ever my mom has made for dinner. I come home from nannying very late, so I usually just crash and eat whatever she makes. Last night was pork, Caesar salad and broccolini.

And don’t worry about my miniature portions! I‘ve been eating about 5 or 6 mini meals every day, essentially eating when I’m hungry. My diet isn’t perfect, but I’m feeding myself when I need to.

I never show all of my eats in the day. It’s easiest for me to mainly post meals, not the 10 cherries I have there, a piece of toast here, and 800 carrots scattered through out the day.

Do you prefer lots of mini meals or a few big meals?

Almost Rotten

Hey bloggies! Boy am I loving soaking up this weather! It’s 104 down in the valley right now. Grant has been laying on the kitchen tile, not moving ever since I got home

Poor Bernese Mountain Dog.

Today was much easier day of nannying. After the boy’s temper tantrum he threw with in an hour of me getting there, I let him cool off then we talked a bit. He really started to respond to me a lot better and did the things I asked him to do. He loves saying “no” to me because in his words: “I’m too lazy” but we talked about it.

Anyways, after dropping the boy off at the orthodontist where his father met me I: went to the bank, picked up goodies (and naturally ventured around) the natural foods market, filled up my car with gas and picked up some of this mouthwatering bread:

Cinnamon Chip Bread from Great Harvest

Despite me just coming from the swimming pool with blobs of mascara under my eyes the young guy working there gave me a huge slice to sample, a lot more than he gave the other two older women in the bakery. I wonder if I’d get the entire loaf if I actually wore makeup?

Dinner

I had to make a quick dinner. I’m going up to my cabin with Best Guy Friend in a little bit, but I still have a ton to do, including packing!

However a lot of the “fresh” parts of the dinner ended up being almost rotten.

An egg puff, almost rotten spinach and dijon mustard wrap

An entirely almost rotten salad with almost rotten strawberries and almost rotten blueberries on top of almost rotten spring greens.

But a fresh perfect protein salad from the natural foods mart featuring chickpeas, cucumbers and dill

Whew! Hopefully the sun has cooled off a bit, so I can go for a quick run!

What are your experiences with a working guy giving you a bit of “special treatment?” I’ve gotten extra large Starbucks drinks with an eyewink and extra chocolates on my pillow for being sweet to the cruise staff. I don’t mind it at all

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

Moving On

It should feel this good to be done.

But I’m not too proud of my presentation. I felt that it was a bit stale.

I made half of this model while I was sick, but I guess I’m just happy it all got done.

I had two reviews, but I was just so checked out of this project and architecture in general, that I didn’t care what they were saying.

It’s just good to know I’m done, and now I can move on in my life. I still have 4 more years to perfect these things.A

Breakfast

Breakfast was a super sad sight this morning. I only had a 1/2 a banana as far as fruits and veggies go, I’m super low on oatmeal and I didn’t have any almond milk for cereal. The only meal I could think of was an egg puff on toast (+ hot sauce & dijon mustard) and a 1/2 banana and sunflower seed butter wrap.

Pretty pathetic.

I really missed my fresh fruits and oatmeal today.

It’s time to raid the produce department of the grocery store.

Snack

In between reviews I was super excited for a snack! Breakfast didn’t fill me up at all so I inhaled a Kardea Bar.

The chai spice flavor was fantastic! I felt like I was taken out of the studio and put into a warm coffee shop in my comfiest and cutest clothes and just allowed to relax. The flavor was just that good.

But then it was time for another review and reality hit.

Have you ever been super disappointed of how a project turned out? I’m usually super upbeat about these things, but I just wasn’t feeling this one I guess

I Love Michelle Obama

Good news. No, great news. My project is done. Done. Done. Done. I will have pictures up tomorrow!

After I finished I was able to get in an afternoon nap for an hour. I was awoken because the sun was shining! I haven’t seen sun in days weeks. So glorious. I was also able to update my blogroll. For those of you I have *just* started following, I haven’t put you on it yet, but probably will after I have followed you for a while. I can’t wait to do more behind-the-blog stuff and do some mindcasting.

Let’s Move

Like the fact that I love Michelle Obama. I mean she has fabulous arms, and a kind heart (it also doesn’t hurt that we share the same name), but I was watching a CNBC special One Nation, Overweight which brought up the first lady’s fight again childhood obesity through her program Let’s Move.

Let’s Move seems a lot like what Jamie Oliver is trying to do in his Food Revolution. Let’s Move is trying to bring healthier foods into the school systems and get kids more active to prevent childhood obesity. I completely agree that healthier food in the school system is something we need. I remember my best friend in middle school would get a big slice of pizza and tater tots covered in ketchup everysingleday. I would get a chicken burger on white bread everysingleday. We simply couldn’t figure out why we couldn’t get sexy abs no matter how hard we tried and often fell sick.

It blows my mind that we still allow kids to be fed such crap food, and I’m glad the First Lady is on it. I love Michelle Obama.

Midmorning Snack

This is my midmorning snack. Not too shabby, eh? I just had to make it again.

Inspiration taken from Tyler’s “Frappe-Tyler”

Homemade Frappachino

• 1 c. almond milk
• a scoop chocolate protein powder
• 2 T chia seeds
• 1 t espresso mix
• lots of ice

I love how much energy I get from this. The caffeine from the espresso mix definitely helps, but also the chia seeds, protein and almond milk also really add up.

Soooo mouthwatering.

Lunch

The homemade frappachino kept me adequately full and I only needed a small lunch.

A quick almond butter + guava jelly sandwich on Great Harvet’s sunflower seed and millet bread did the trick for an at-the-studio lunch. I usually can’t ever get full from just a sandwich but it kept me perfectly content.

Dinner

After my lovely afternoon nap and catching up in the blog world I made some grub

The messiest Southwest-inspired wrap ever made. I was afraid to move it for the picture as it would probably get destroyed.

• Spring greens
• Red, yellow and orange bell pepper
• leftover cheesy rice
• blue corn tortilla chips
• Annie’s Woodstock dressing

I had a lot of extra ingredients so I just put the same ingredients and called it a salad. Yeah, I’m pretty lazy.

Time to pin up my final project. Have a good night bloggies!

Dessert of Champions

Hey bloggies! I hope everyone is having a wonderful Hump day!

Breakfast

Our weather is still soppy and wet so I was craving a big bowl of oatmeal. I actually dreamed of eating PB&J oatmeal last night!

I didn’t resist this craving, but topped the bowl with almond butter instead. I’m trying to get through specifically this jar because 1. I had been neglecting it and 2. I don’t want to have to move 4 jars of nut butter, 3 would be much better

In the mix:

• 1/2 c. oats
• 1/2 c. almond milk
• 1/2 c. water
• 1 T goji berries
• 1 T raisins
• 1 T flaxseed meal
• 1 T chia seeds

Topped with:

• Almond butter
• Crofter’s Raspberry fruit spread
• So Delicious Coconut Milk Creamer

I noticed I had a can a coconut milk sitting in the pantry. Since I’m trying to use everything up I went for it a recreated the breakfast the nutritionist made me at camp.

A naner, covered with coconut milk with cinnamon sprinkled on top. It still brings me back to cool, summer mornings

Snack

I packed myself another bowl of microwaved green apple with cinnamon on top and soon-to-be crushed Annie’s Cinnamon Crackers

There was some serious whining going on in the studio when I warmed this up and the aroma filled the air. Everyone wanted a bite of it! I’m not a huge fan of sharing my food, especially with people who tend to get sick a lot (ahem, architecture majors pulling all nighters), so I just lied and said I’m sick so I wouldn’t get their germs. Am I a bad person?

Lunch

I was super-duper excited to go to Holy Cow today. I was trying to decide between the salad bar and the pad thai. I wanted veggies but I wanted food to warm me up. I went with a new dish of theirs called the Veggie Volcano.

I can’t remember exactly what was in it but it was steamed veggies on a bed of quinoa with a pesto sauce and a lentil sauce on top. It was absolutely perfect! I got my veggies and carbs in and it warmed my soul

Dinner

After being at studio for 9 hours total today I was so excited to head back to the apartment for a little bit and make some dinner.

A Southwest inspired wrap and leftover salad

Into the wrap went:

• cheesy rice
• spring mix
• red, yellow and orange bell pepper
• salsa

Wrapped with care.

The Dessert of Champions

This didn’t quite satisfy me. I was craving chocolate but I was out of chocolate bars or ice cream, so I went with an old favorite.

Organic strawberries topped with MaraNatha Dark Chocolate PB.

That right there folks is the Dessert of Champions. Amazing and almost guilt free

Workout

As I mentioned before, it’s going to be difficult to get work outs in this week because I am working on my final review. I noticed that after working for 7-8 hours on Monday and Tuesday that my legs were really sore. So today I decided to stand at my desk (they’re pretty high, so I’m actually not bending over) for about half the time instead of sitting. We pumped some music, so I ended up dancing a bit as I worked. In effect, I didn’t had any leg problems today. I also went to Zumba (which was a sweat session!) and rock climbed today, so I got some cardio and strength there as well.

How do you manage getting your workouts in on incredibly busy weeks? Or if you have a desk job, do you try to do little exercises while at your desk?

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.

Lesson Learned

I woke up groggy this morning, but it quickly turned into a lesson about what you should and should not put into the microwave…

I’ll just give you what you shouldn’t put into the microwave:

This. TJ’s sunflower seed butter.

See the burn on the rim of the container? There was a giant spark that came from that spot. Ok, ok, microwave. Point taken. Lesson learned.

I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. Obviously this is plastic and plastic does funky things in the microwave. I’ve just gotten so used to putting my plastic storage containers in there to reheat food I forgot that those were special plastic. As in not TJ’s sunflower seed butter plastic.

Moving on.

The dark chocolate PB did much better in the microwave, seeing as it is glass so I was able to nicely drizzle it over my oatmeal, and just blob on the sunflower seed butter.

In the mix:

• 1/2 c. quick oats
• 1/2 c. almond milk
• 1/2 c. water
• 1 tsp goji berries
• 1 T chia seeds
• 1 T flaxseed meal
• 1 microwaved banana

Topped with:

• warm dark chocolate PB
• cold TJ’s sunflower seed butter
• a handful of strawberries

AHHH-MAZZZING (despite the little lesson learned in the process)

Lunch

Lunch was eaten in class today as usual, so I packed it up in my usual tupperware.

Firstly, a veggie wrap.

I would love to show you the insides, but I’m afraid once its in there it isn’t coming out with out falling apart (trust me on this one, I tried)

But I will tell you that it contained:

• pesto
• red bell pepper
• green bell pepper
• tomato
• spring mix
• salsa

It definitely needed some umph. Perhaps some brown rice next time?

An orange that was eventually dipped into greek yogurt also came along for the ride.

yummy and nutritious as always.

Well I’m off to feed my hungry-hungry giraffe with some leftovers. Catch you later

Anyone else learned some microwave lessons? Either recently or when you were a kiddo? I remember my siblings and I had these plastic, sparkly Disney cups that we put in the microwave to make some hot cocoa. They started to melt and bubble and my mom had to throw them away

Lunchtime Book Review

And now for a quick check of the weather: it is stunningly gorgeous outside. So we’ll make this quick.

Lunch

I saw Oh She Glow’s Quinoa + Mushroom Tomato Sauce wrap and knew I had to try it. I had all the ingredients anyways.

I wrapped this baby up and paired it with the last of my cantaloupe

It was really good. I naturally got my chocolate-kick afterwards so I ate the last of my Attune bars.

Mmm mint chocolate. I loved the bit of crunch to this one. It’s a toss up between mint chocolate and milk almond as to which is my favorite.

Book Review– In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

In Defense of Food really made me think. Ever since starting my healthy lifestyle I always thought about just eating healthier, but this book outlines how to eat healthier. Easy things such as looking at the label. Can I pronounce every ingredient? Are there more than 5 ingredients? Does it contain high fructose corn syrup? These questions made picking out food a lot more simple. Also, I always knew that I should get food as local as possible, but Pollan clearly explains why. I honestly did not think that I would like this book, but the last few chapters absolutely astounded me with a great outline of how to eat healthier and why. I highly recommend to all of those Type A’s who love a clear defined organization of a book, as well as anyone else who wants to learn how to eat a healthier diet. This book gets 10 almond butter covered fingers up

Time to soak up the sun a little bit more (slathered in sunscreen of course!).

I feel like a lot of you bloggers have read In Defense of Food, so what do YOU think of it?