not a believer in global warming anymore…

Whatever happened to global warming? Atlanta is supposed to get more snow tomorrow! At this rate, we’ll be shut down for a year, LOL.  In light of all of the snow, I took some pictures.  Now I know that some of you are going to laugh…it is not as much snow as MD, or DC got by a long shot, but still enough to shut us down!

So I have to show some pictures of the snow.

Alright, enough of all the snow! I think I brought it down with me from NY!

So sorry I missed a day of blogging Please bear with me as I get back into “the swing of things” at home!!

Yesterday I thought I was going to run, but I just didn’t have the energy. (Probably because I didn’t run!)  It’s funny how that works out…I have more energy on the days that I exercise.  Yesterday’s breakfast was yummy, and I kind of ate the same thing this morning as well:

Yesterday

Today

Yesterday’s breaky was 1 egg and 2 egg whites with havarti cheese and ezekial bread with blueberry jam.  Today’s breakfast was 1 egg, 2 egg whites with baby bella mushrooms and herbs de provence.  Highly recommended! There was an ezekial muffin with blue berry jam.  I also took a picture of the jam, because it’s clean, with no processed sugars:

Yesterday’s lunch was Wheat Berry Salad…and I have to admit, I ate some chocolate and other things that weren’t clean.  There won’t be anymore of that, rest assured, because it didn’t taste the same that I remembered…and wasn’t very good!

The salad was so good.  I was kind of the person planning the dinners and since my in-laws were still here I decided a couple of days before to marinade some chicken and have Jeremy cook it on The Big Green Egg.  We had regular baked potatoes (I put some cheddar cheese on mine, I had a total craving.)  I also roasted carrots with some EVOO and garlic salt that I ate with leftover brussel sprouts:

Oh my, it was all soooo good.  We also celebrated Aidan’s 10th birthday yesterday, and in light of everything being closed down in the ATL my mother in-law whipped up a cookie cake for his birthday:

I partook in some cookie.  It was sooo sweet though! I kind of felt icky after eating it.  Oh well, I’m all sweetened out now!

oh, and before I forget, have a Happy Valentines Day!

Jessica xoxo

Sunday Funday! (and Greek yogurt review)

Today is my fun-day because usually Sundays are not at all fun with Jeremy leaving before the sun comes out on Monday mornings.  This week is different because he’s working from home, which is fantastic for me.  I have help with the kids, YAY!

“Little Miss Trouble”.  I would call her Little Miss Fit & Clean, but she’ll only eat her veggies out of a can and the only fruit she will eat are banana and dehydrated apples. (Weird, huh?)  Not even a regular apple.  I can’t even bribe her with candy, LOL!

So my challenge for myself this week is to not use any Agave Nectar or Nut Butters.  I found when I purged the sugar out of my diet, that I replaced it (and the junk, so I’m not saying it’s a bad thing) with other sweeteners (agave, maple syrup and honey) and everything else with natural nut butter.  This week I’m eliminating those 2 items from my diet, and am going to see if there are any physical changes (i.e. weight) or otherwise.  This does not include my homemade trail mix:

This morning for breaky I just couldn’t decide.  I kind of get tired of oatmeal after awhile. So I switched things up and made Cream of Wheat, with blackberries and 2 tsp. of maple syrup:

Yummy.  I also had some coffee in my huge mug that I got from Pensacola when we went on vacation last summer with the family:

I guess I kind of collect mugs.  I get one from each new place that we travel to   I think it’s better than the tee-shirts at the airport!

Yesterday did turn into a snacky-snacky day, but I made an effort to not snack. (too much).

I had a Fage Yogurt with Honey:

As far as Greek Yogurt goes, I can’t find one that I like better then Fage.  It’s pronounced “Fa- Yeh”.  I’ve tried Oikos (Stoneyfield Farms), and Chobani as well.  There are several reasons that I like Fage Yogurt better:

1. Taste – YUMMY!
2. Texture – it’s not as watery or sour.  It is sooo thick.
3. The taste of the honey or fruit.  The others, I found the honey tasted funny or the fruit.  The honey in the Fage tastes like normal honey, you could eat it plain if you desired.

Greek Yogurt is better for you (albeit a bit more pricey…3 containers of the kind with honey will run you $5.00 at Publix) over regular yogurt because it is higher in protein then normal yogurt…around 20 g/8oz.  Fage also comes in a 0%, 2% and full fat. I like the 2% with honey, as you are all aware!

You can try to make your own Greek Yogurt at home (and I have done this).  All you need is some cheese cloth and a strainer.  I take Stoneyfield Farms Organic Plain Fat Free (did you get all that, LOL) and rubber band some cheesecloth to my strainer.  Place the yogurt in the cheesecloth and the strainer into a deep bowl.  Let the whey strain into a bowl overnight.  In the morning, voila! Greek Yogurt.

Yesterday I also ate some homemade trail mix, and 1 raw brownie:

Ooohhh. I love me some of Averie’s raw brownies.  Fantastic

As it was snacky-snacky day, I drank a pretty pink protein smoothie (yes, it’s very pink)

and a picture of the inside because who just wants to see the outside of the blendy?

Water, frozen strawberries, frozen bananas, vanilla protein powder, agave nectar.

Then there was homemade trail mix, and then an extra handful of raisins to celebrate snacky-snacky day.  I was starving again by dinner time.  My meals have been way off because of stress…and I find that I’m not hungry (I kind of walk around feeling like I’m going to hurl a lot of the time) so I eat when I’m hungry, but when it hits, I’m off schedule, and then I’m ravenous.  So not cool, but there’s not much I can do about it.

IMPORTANT: Remember the principles behind eating clean include eating around every three hours and piaring a protein with a carb. What eating this way accomplishes:  stable insulin levels, less cravings for junk, and not being ravenous because of skipped meals, resulting in over-eating.

My husband fired up the Big Green Egg and made us some Fireman’s Chicken..not sure what the marinade recipe is, but it was really good. It reminds me of summer BBQ’s!  We had some leftover homemade scalloped potatoes, broccoli with lemon juice and real parmesan (not Kraft), and some homemade bread that I am happy to report did not turn out brick-like this time around:

No, I did not eat all the chicken, but I gave it my best shot!  I need to show you the bread machine bread, which turned out fantastic:

There were some kitty cat shinanegans during dinner:

I have no idea how Riches got herself into that little hole in the cat house.  She’s a really big cat!  I think she was trying to hide from the puppy:

Good thing that puppy is so darn cute.  She is a ton of trouble

Today the plan is to hit the gym for my 2 miles and work out on the legs for a bit.  I’m concerned about running the 1/2 marathon because the muscles in my legs aren’t back to where they were, so I’m going to hit a couple of machines and do some side walking squats and weighted lunges.

Hope you all have a Sunday Funday

Jessica xoxo

Happy Monday!

Wow. The holiday season is winding down, now. I sincerely hope that you all had a wonderful holiday! What are everyone’s New Years Resolutions? I know I’m going to have quite a few, I will let you all know what they are when I can actually sit down and write them out

This morning I am on my way to the airport, so I am going to make chocolate peanut butter cup oatmeal and call it a day:

This is a previous photo, but I’m fairly certain it would look the same

Yesterday I was still on my carrot kick, and craved veggies. Yay! I never thought I would get to that point. My wonderful husband got me a convection oven for Christmas, so I was able to make all the broiled veggies I wanted in short order

First, my new convection oven, it’s a Breville:

Shiny and NEW!

And the carrots that went into the oven:

And then there was some eggplant:

And then eating:

Roasted carrots and eggplant, a lovely salad with goat cheese and raisins and Goddess dressing, Sabra Hummus, and organic pita chips. YUMMY!!!

We were going to a friends house (where I freaked them out by pulling out my camera and taking pictures of the food, LOL!) But they didn’t care, really. There was a wonderful BBQ pork butt done on our friends Big Green Egg,

And my plate (where I went back for seconds )

I brought the salad. I ate lots of everything! Corn, pasta with dressing, feta, peppers and olives, salad. For dessert there was no-bake cookies, where I ate like, 5! I don’t know what’s come over me lately. They were very tasty! I wish I had a picture, but I was too busy stuffing my face.

Other things I did today: I opened an avocado (actually 2, the first one was yucky):

You wouldn't want to eat this one!

The second one was better and de-pitted, then refridgerated with lemon juice to hinder browning:

Here's a good one!

I brought chips and salsa to our friend’s house:

Chips and Salsa

No, I did not eat the whole bowl of chips. I had probably 2 handfuls, but no salsa since tomatoes are on my sensitivity list.

Veggies for Salad!

And there were pictures of the veggies I put in the salad, not because they’re something special, but because my wonderful husband also got me a new cutting board and knife to chop them up by

Just some little things that will make my cooking easier, because we all know I just don’t like to cook!

Have a wonderful day!

Tip for today: Looking to start eating healthy? Start with drinking water! Our bodies are made up of a large amount of water..anywhere between 55%-65%. Start your clean eating by flushing out your body with water which is essential for life. You can live for up to 2 weeks without food, but only 2-3 days without water. Strive to drink as much as you can each day, as the amount varies from person to person. And substituting sugary drinks or diet drinks with water could be your first step to clean eating! I will be posting about sugar soon. I have some very interesting facts about sugar that I would love to share.

Christmas Eve (Eve) and Merry Christmas Eve morning!

Merry Christmas Eve Morning!

Yesterday,  I spent the day running around (again)…I had to get the Honeybaked Ham, a Christmas Present for the girlfriend, and a stop at Starbucks. (it was a skinny hazelnut latte), not clean, but not loaded with sugar, (which I can’t eat) either.

So since I am posting this tomorrow, I am going to tell you about my sparse eats today. I am really looking forward to getting back on my normal schedule. I feel like I’ve been going for WEEKS! There’s no end in sight, either, not yet.

Breakfast yesterday was 2 slices of Ezekial Bread, with peanut butter, maca and raisins.

Breakfast today (Christmas Eve) was 2 slices of Ezekial bread, peanut butter, bananas, honey and maca. Soooo good!

Yesterday,  I really wanted to get some cardio in, and my gym wasn’t having any cardio classes, so I asked friends until I found a gym that had a class that I wanted to take at a good time. So I went to BodyAttack, at a different gym, and I have no idea how many calories I burned but I know I burned something It was good enough, not fantastic, but at least I got a workout in and could de-stress for an hour.

I came home and had a Fage yogurt (I know, boooring). But this was in-between driving the boys to a friends house (whoo-hoo!), taking a shower, and getting ready to head out again. So see yesterdays post for a pic, but I will tell you that it was the strawberry instead of the honey, and I was disappointed to see the the strawberry had added sugar in it (which I’m not supposed to have) so I’ll be going back to the honey.

SO, I finally had some lunch at 4:30 pm.  Raw cashews (first time having them, I LOVED them!) and Mary’s Gone Crackers with Hummus. I took some pics for y’all to admire:

Dinner was fantastic. Everything my husband cooks is yummy! He made BBQ Pork Butt on his Big Green Egg:

OMG. That was awesome. Granted a pork butt is not lean meat in any way, shape, or form. And that’s probably why it tasted so GOOD! So to offset the fat, I made myself a baked sweet potato with cinnamon, and a salad with feta and Goddess dressing:

The best dinner I ate ALL week! Thanks, Jeremy

I had a great dessert. I’m going to call it a banana boat, LOL! It was a banana, peanut putter, raisins, coconut, and honey. Scrumptious!!

Doesn’t the close-up look yummy?

Heading to the gym for one last cardio class…and the cookie dough is still in the fridge, too, waiting to be cut out into cookies.  Later today is cookie cut-out day! I will post pictures as soon as they’re done!

Merry Christmas Eve,

Jessica