Some of this, some of that…

Hello all.  Sorry I haven’t been blogging so much lately.  I’m home helping my parents, and my Dad is very, very sick.  Sometimes it’s just a lot to think.  With that being said, tonight’s blog is going to mainly be pictures.  I am still eating in the real world, and doing the best job that I can under the circumstances.

Let’s start with yesterday it was sunny again in Rochester! Amazing. I had everything taken care of, and finally got a run going around 3:30pm to enjoy the day outside.  Today it rained all day long, so I’m glad I took advantage of the sun!

I also apologize for every picture being kind of…crappy.  Iphone pictures leave a lot to be desired!

I was a little stop and go on that run.  I didn’t find my groove until the last 15 minutes, but decided to call it a day.

I ate some breakfasts:

3 egg whites, baby bella mushrooms, herbs de provence.  That other thing on my plate? A cinnamon roll. I just wanted something sweet.  I suspect you will be seeing some uncharacteristically sweet items the next few days until I go home, because when I stress, I eat sweets.  And not much else.  I am making an honest effort to eat healthy, but I’m not depriving myself of some sweets.  I can clean it up when I get home!

Thus eating in the real world.

Some more breakfast:

Clean pancake (meaning no preservatives or oil), Oikos plain Greek yogurt, blueberries and cinnamon. The next picture is all smushed down so I could eat it, and I sprinkled it with Truvia, because the yogurt was just so sour!

There was some snack/lunches:

It was actually the Apple Pie flavor. YUMMY!

and:

5 of these huge glasses of water.  I figured it out, and it was just over a gallon. Per day.  Water is definitely good for you! I’m glad I took my own advice and started drinking so much!

There was some more of this:

with some Mary’s Gone Crackers.

Sorry, I guess lunches weren’t much the last couple of days!

Dinners were a bit better!

Leftover Greek Salad from pasta night, roasted frozen brussel sprouts, and rotisserie chicken.  Very good! Completely filling, and good for me.

Today I had to go to the grocery store so I purchased one of their “$6 meals” for dinner:

Parmesan garlic encrusted tilapia, seasoned green beans, and squash with Craisins, spinach and onions.  It rocked, it was so good! I do have that food sensitivity to green beans, of all things, (found out through a food sensitivity test that I had done several months ago) and I hadn’t eaten them in a long time.  Wow, they did a number on my stomach tonight.  Green beans, of all things.  Ugh.  They will definitely be eaten in moderation (uh, or not at all) from now on.

Yesterday there was a very small piece of chocolate cheesecake with real whipped cream:

It looks bigger then it was!   It was truly the most decadent slice of cheesecake I have ever had, and very, very rich.

It looks like I’m all caught up, so I’m going to sign off.  Happy running, happy Tuesday, and don’t ever forget to tell your family that you love them.

Peace Out,

Jessica xoxo

What a beautiful day!

It was a great day in Western New York today! The sun was shining, it was warm and a little windy…perfect for a run:

I rocked the run!  It felt fantastic to get out there and run again, I’d been neglecting the runs lately, since I decided not to run the race.  I missed it, though!  I may not be the fastest runner, but I love it because I can get into a groove where it just feels good. I’ve read that this happens to runners, thus the reason why I consider myself one!

I also did a short ab workout which consisted of crunches, reverse crunches, v-ups and pulse-ups.

I was going to run earlier in the morning, but ended up running mid-afternoon because of a trip to Wegmans (the local grocery store).  So breakfast I had a protein and a carb, because I knew I’d be running today:

4 egg whites, 1 slice of mozzarella cheese, and herbs de provence.   The carb was a blueberry pancake sprinkled with cinnamon (no syrup).

After I returned from the store (breakfast was actually at lunch time, LOL) I needed something to get me through the run, so I had one of these:

I’m becoming very fond of these.  And this one does taste like PB&J!  I think it had 5 ingredients, tops. All pronounceable, and no preservatives.

When I returned after the run, I was hungry again, but it was so late in the day that I decided a snack would suffice:

Hummus with:

Mary’s Gone Crackers.  My fave snack! I got some great things at the store today!

My parents have some wonderful friends who cooked dinner for us, brought it over and visited while it heated in the oven.  I love any food I don’t have to cook, and it just so happens that this food tasted awesome.

They brought over the following:

stuffed shells.

and:

greek salad, garlic bread, pita.

The Greek Salad was wonderful!  There was feta, onion, big dark green lettuce leaves, olives, pepperocini’s, and calamari with a dill dressing.

This is what my plate looked like…veggified, LMAO:

Veggified!

Broccoli and cauliflower, stuffed shell, garlic bread, lots of Greek Salad, and a corner of a pita.  Awesome, awesome!  I stuffed my face full of some really rockin’ food.

Stay tuned tomorrow for another food rockin’ day in the real world!

Jessica xoxo

Real World Eating Saturday!

This morning, I woke up to a chilly morning, but the sun was out and shining!  I love when I wake up and the sun is shining.  It’s a new day!

I wandered downstairs and made Dad and Mom some breaky and then I made some for myself.  They had eggs over-easy with toast, and I made myself 1 whole egg with 2 egg whites and rye bread toast with my homemade cinnamon vanilla pecan granules butter.  My eggs didn’t fare as well as theirs, they look a little over-cooked (and they were!)  They still tasted great, though:

My eggs had orange peppers and mushrooms also, in case you were wondering what was in that mess on my plate, LOL!

Today was another day of errands, here and there…and when I got home I was kind of hungry for lunch so I made a small salad, with orange peppers and carrots, hummus and guacamole (all of this is clean, by the way) and Mary’s Crack:

I also took a close-up of the yumminess:

OK, the guacamole looks a little…strange.  It’s Wholly Guacamole that you buy at the grocery in the produce department.  I cut off the tiniest corner of the package because I hate when it turns brown. And that’s why it looks so…funny.

Then I decided to go on a run.  Let me tell you, it was 9 (NINE, in case you didn’t get that) degrees.  I had the same outfit I had on the other day when it was 15 degrees out.  I think it was windier today, or maybe because I hadn’t eaten any carbs since breakfast (my own fault, I know better)! this run was not a stellar run.  I kind of felt sick the entire time, and I was really cold.  I had to cut my run short by 2 miles.  I’m glad I did, too, because the tops of my legs and my stomach were bright red and cold when I got inside.  (Obviously, I had them completely covered!)  On the upside, I completed 4 miles, and faster then the previous 4 miles I did a few days ago.  YAY!

I had bought some trail sneakers in the men’s shoe section at Target:

They look very large. I’m not even sure what size they are in women’s, but they’re a 7 in men’s.  I think I have a blister on my pinky toe, but I’ll get over it.  I only slipped once, and that was on black ice.  The roads were covered in slush and snow and they got me through! A++

Miss my normal running sneakers, which happen to be Saucony’s (and pretty pink, too…I can be such a girl sometimes, LOL).  No, I did not buy them because they were pink, I was fitted in an actual running store where they watch you run.  Then they give suggestions on sneakers that will match your feet and how you run.  I’ve been fairly pleased with my “new” (I’ll need new ones before the 1/2 marathon at the end of March) sneakers.

I warmed up after my run with a leftover latte from you know where:

The I had a huge treat for dinner.  Subs (or hoagies, depending on where you are from).   Homemade.  Mostly clean.  Turkey (real), salami, fresh roll, provolone cheese, veggies, guacamole, salami and balsamic vinegar:

Fit for a Princess

A picture of the provolone cheese ingredients:

To make up for the salami, I ate a huge bowl of broccoli with peccorino-romano cheese and lime juice:

A picture of the cheese container ingredients:

Clean!

The reason I took pictures of the cheese ingredients is that a lot of people think just because you are eating clean, you need to cut out dairy and cheese.  Not so!  Low-fat cheeses can be used in moderation.  Just so you know, rennet is an enzyme that helps curdle the milk when making cheese.

I have had another long day, so I am going to relax with TV and go to sleep.  Have a wonderful night, and stay warm.

Jessica xoxo

Tasty Tuesday :)

I really need to figure out some new things for breaky. Oatmeal and Ezekial Bread with peanut butter are getting old Time to switch things up! Today’s breakfast is a homemade egg muffin. Egg whites, goat cheese, Ezekial muffins. Yep, that’s switching it up, for sure!!! It was really good!

I had some severe stomach issues which I attributed to stress. At any rate, I went to Whole Foods yesterday and stocked up on some necessary items: Mary’s Crack, cashew butter, smoked salmon, smoked muscles, goat cheese, Annie’s Goddess Dressing, arugula (I’m going to make pesto!), carrots, butter lettuce, and 50 other things that equated to $100.

I was finally able to find these “granola bars” at Whole Foods that I was looking for all over…they’re called Cliff Nectar Bars, and were $1.89 each.  They have everything I can eat…the flavor was Lemon, Vanilla, Cashew. It only had 5 ingredients:

1.  Organic Dates

2.  Organic Cashews

3.  Organic Goji Berries

4.  Organic Lemon Juice Concentrate

5.  Organic Vanilla

They were pretty good! They had nothing bad in them, and were only 160 calories. I ate one in the car on the way home…

And the nutrition on the back if you can see it…

I picked up some lunch, too. For lunch I had a Sesame Kale Salad:

In this was kale, carrots, red peppers, sesame seeds, sesame oil, ginger, garlic, sea salt, honey, brown rice vinegar, sherry, tamari and canola oil.  It was just as fresh tasting as it looked, and so good. I craved veggies again today. It is the strangest thing. I swear, that has never happened before. And certainly not 2 days in a row!!! I think I’ve come around some sort of bend with my diet. (Diet being the way I eat, not one that restricts calories. I want to make that clear).

There was also Mary’s Crack and the final end of the Sabra Hummus, and some water! (yes, I take my own advice, LOL!)

Before I hit the gym I made a modified version of one of Tosca Reno’s protein shakes. So it had water, vanilla protein powder, oatmeal, peanut butter, agave, cinnamon. It’s a modified version of Tosca’s because she uses milk and I didn’t want the milk today.

I went to the gym for my Monday night Cardio Core class. We did a ton of shoulder work today, so I expect to be sore in the morning. I burned 335 calories @ 25% fat in 44:07. Oh, and I need to perfect my “burpee”. Those are hard! If you don’t know what a burpee is, click on the link. We do the whole thing with the variation, as many times as we can. I have problems getting up off of the floor, let alone jumping! Try it at home for a good all-over body workout!!

So after the gym I came home and made some dinner. Yes, I am still eating leftovers! So nothing new here, just my sudden veggie addiction:

SO, in case you are just joining me in blogger land, this is broiled carrots and eggplant, a salad with raisins and natural dressing, and shredded mexican taco’s on blue organic corn taco shells with farmer cheese and green chili’s. YUMMY! I was starving, too, after doing fifty million burpees .

Dessert was some chocolate coconut snowballs that migrated into little muffin cups because I just can’t seem to get them round:

Hope your Tuesday is as tasty as mine!

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.