A Long Week of Eats

What a crazy week!

I have been in a funk since the ½ marathon disaster, and it was being exacerbated by work stress and negative people in my life. I’ve decided to drastically remove the negative-Nancy’s from my life: they don’t help me live my life, and I don’t owe them anything. So, out the door they go. However, the work stress remains and I’ve decided a sense of humor is the best way to deal with it. Also, I cherish my weekend and evening work time, so I’ve taken to going in when others aren’t there to distract and ask things of me.

Eaten this week:

I actually ate a couple breakfasts that WEREN’T SMOOTHIES! 

Both of these were actually bfast on-the-go. I had some early mornings in the lab this week, so I had (left) frozen berries topped with some yogurt and Kashi Go-Lean Crunch. My other non-smoothie was >1 cup of natural applesauce with a Thomas multigrain english muffin with 1 tbsp almond butter and 1 tbsp all natural blackberry preserves. 

These were actually supposed to be the same smoothie - my rendition of the famed Chocolate Cherry Bomb Shake. Mine has:

1 c. almond milk

1 c. banana

1 c. frozen cherries

A biiigggg handful of spinach 

2 tbsp cocoa powder (sugar free cooking powder)

1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder

water to blend

 

Lunches were...standard.

Can you tell I always add the julienned carrot to my salad last? Well, I do. The highlight of this was my return to a more vegetarian-based diet. The inclusion of more animal protein in the previous weeks really increased my energy, but it did a number on my stomach. 

I hadn’t told you, but I rarely eat my entire lunch. I save a part of it for later in the day in case I get hungry. During the week, these ebb and flow. I might start with leftover yogurt, crackers, and a bar or cookie. Then later in the week, I don’t want my chips or fruit and swap it out for the leftover snack. This keeps me from raiding the candy drawer or vending machine too much, and keeps my overall eats healthier. 

Shakshuka! It's an Israeli dish with eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce. This was amazing...I had it with 1/2 c of rice and some steamed cauliflower topped with 1 tbsp of nutritional yeast. I went back for more rice because it was burning my mouth! I used this recipe with a few modifications - less oil (1 tbsp), 3 jalps, added 1/2 pint of mushrooms, 1 tbsp chili powder and 1 tbsp oregano.

I also made mahi mahi (broiled with lime and pepper) topped with homemade peach salsa. Sauteed soy-sesame bok choy and a confetti couscous salad on the side. This was a hit. I actually had to fight the fiance for leftovers. He won, but he had to make me a sandwich for lunch.

We went to see Prince of Persia with plans to eat at the salad bar afterwards, but they closed the salad bar at 7:45! I mean, it's summer! It's hot out! People want to eat salad...later in the day...right? Anyway, We got chinese to go. Singapore Mei Fun (noodley curry dish), steamed pot stickers, and vegetable tofu in oyster sauce. It was good. I had about 1.5x this plate.

Then there was the epic barbeque night. I cook to blow off steam, and this was Friday after work.

We started with mocktails. Cranapple juice, club soda, lime.   I also ate some pretzle goldfish with these.

Homemade pork ribs, baked beans, snap peas, corn, corn muffins.


How is bbq healthy, you might ask...well, it's all relative. Obviously the fish dinner pictured earlier was better for me, but this is still much healthier than restaurant bbq. I remove tons of fat from the ribs before I cook them, I usually make the beans from scratch (thus avoiding HFCS), and everything else is homemade or just steamed veggies. I probably could've eaten less in the corn muffin category, but then we went on a 16 mile bike ride after dinner, so it all negated out. 


Speaking of exercise, ERA:

Mon 3.75 mile run, 20 min yoga; Tues 17 mile bike; Wed 20 elliptical, 25 speedwork; Thur 20 min yoga, 20 min weights, 30 min elliptical; Fri 5 mile run, 16 mile bike. 

 Today I'm de-stressing and I did a little cheering for my friend who just finished her first distance race: 

Here we are at lab lunch a few weeks ago. I made her this obnoxious sign, and the event photographers made a point of picturing me with it! We'll have to look for that one!

 Then I dropped some serious cash money on new running shoes. I considered leaving my beloved Nikes, but I ended up moving to another model. Feet, meet my Nike Zoom Vomeros!

Love at first feel!

I have a fun post about sugars planned soon, but in the meantime have a beautiful weeked!