Good things come to those who wait…

and wait….

Remember these?

Wild Raspberries

The raspberries ripened and we got to pick some today…and they turned into these:

YUMMY!!

So this past weekend we decided that we were going to go camping at Red Top Mountain State Park, which is somewhat near our house.  Tent camping, which I have not done since I was in my early 20′s, lol!  A lot has changed since then, such as I’m a lot older, and I have 3 kids!  You really need to pack a lot more stuff when you have kids.

The Gruesome Threesome

and yes, just to prove I slept in a tent:

I have to admit, I was completely out of my element, but it was a lot of fun…and I really think that getting out of one’s element every once in a while helps you grow as a person.

At any rate, I tried to pack healthy things, but here is a sampling of what we ate while we were camping:

Bacon and Eggs

For the record, I don’t eat bacon very often because of the nitrites/nitrates, not to mention I have to watch my sodium intake…but it was really good as a treat.

Coffee!

I’m a bear without my morning coffee.  Starbucks VIA rocks!   You heat up some water, add the little packet, and voila! Coffee! And it tasted good, too!

Burger and Carrots

You simply cannot go camping without having a cheeseburger. Period!  I had mine with some cheddar cheese (unprocessed).

Snack.

Loving the Larabars.  With 5 ingredients, you can’t go wrong!  Very filling.  I’ve just purchased a box of the mini Larabars at Target today, because sometimes I don’t want to eat 200 calories and 12 grams of fat (or thereabouts).  The little bars are half that.

One night we made shish-kebobs and cooked them on the fire:

They were really good!

With a side of green beans.

There were some more eggs with whole wheat toast and Polaners All Fruit:

and some chicken breast with cottage cheese.  I was bound and determined not to eat bad.

There were also some of these

which ended up looking like this (of course!)

I’m the only person I know that gets bummed because I forgot to bring veggies (besides a bag of carrots). LOL! We went to the gas station down the road for some supplies and I bought a can of green beans.  What is wrong with me? Hahaha!

We drank a ton of water.  We went through almost 2 cases!  It was about 90 degrees out or more, at 97% humidity.  It was H.O.T.!!  I was monitoring my water intake and I was around 100 ounces during the second day and my ankles (and the rest of me) swelled from the heat anyway.  Even with all of that water! I was sweating it out as soon as I drank it, or so it felt.  We did some exercising, (a 3.5 mile hike) and swam in the lake.

Some things I learned this weekend:

1.  It’s not good to go camping when it’s 90 degrees with 97% humidity.

2.  I missed my vegetables.  I never really cared about veggies before, but now I enjoy eating them.  Especially broccoli and cauliflower.

3.  Getting to the campsite and unpacking is much more fun than taking down tents and packing everything back up. None of that is fun when it’s so hot out, though!

4.  Kids will complain about things no matter what, and embarrass you at all times. They also pitch fits wherever and whenever.

4.5  Kids like to play horseshoes…when the horseshoe is the size of my mailbox

4.75 Sophia will sing and dance anywhere.

5.  I can never be without my morning coffee.  (and thanks to SBux, I won’t have to be!)

6.  You can cook eggs anywhere.

7.  Even in the wilderness, I had a cell phone signal and Facebook.  LOL

8.  Camping is fun!

Next week is another adventure for us! Lots of pictures and stories to come!

So we got home, and I made myself a monstrous salad:

Greek Salad

right before making that fantastic salad I was sleeping on the couch.  At 6pm.  Exhausted!

I bought this dressing at my local Publizzle…preservative free and nothing bad in it:

Along with a rotisserie chicken.  Easy dinner!

Hope y’all had a fun weekend.  I sure did!

Jessica

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

new eats Monday!

Good evening my friends!  Hope you’re having a great day.  Today was slow going.  Eventually I made it out of the house and to Walmart with Sophia for some more groceries (we go through a LOT of groceries, LOL!)

I woke this morning to the kids jumping around and the dog barking.  We are on February break this week, so there wasn’t really any reason for me to get up super early.  After I tended to the puppy, and the cats, the goldfish, and the lizards, I was finally ready to make my own breakfast.

I was starving at that point!  I decided on some pancakes in short order!  I made a stack of them, but the ones I made for myself were decidedly thinner than a normal…as I was trying to make crepes.  They weren’t that thin, but it’s a work in progress!

Thin pancake

So I took my newfound cottage cheese that I bought the other day and hadn’t eaten in forever:

and mixed it in with some salsa that Jeremy bought me as a surprise the other day:

resulting in the following picture which I have yet to name: (and thinking of calling it a panoli…what do you think?)

It was spicy and yummy.  WOW! I actually made something that tastes good, LOL!

I was really, really missing my veggies for lunch today.  In light of that, I decided to eat the following and it was so good:

There was actually a lot more broccoli.  I ate the whole steamfresh bag! LOL!  I had put some Braggs Amino’s on it.  That other blob is a sweet potato that I made in my *new* convection oven that Jeremy got me for Christmas, and then sprinkled it with cinnamon.  I was full for hours.

I ate a PB&J Larabar for a snack after Sophia and I got home from Target.  That’s the only flavor that I even kind of like:

Jeremy’s home working this week so it makes dinner interesting, because sometimes, I just don’t want to eat what he and the kids are having, although most of the time I give in.

Tonight, we decided on spaghetti with meatballs for Jeremy and the kids.  My dinner was a variation.  Instead of semolina (regular spaghetti) I ate Quinoa Spaghetti.  I loved this spaghetti.  It doesn’t have the funky texture of whole wheat or whole grain pasta, and tasted just like regular spaghetti!

The nutrition information:

I only had 1 oz. dry…2 ounces would have been an entire plate full!

So instead of the meatballs, (which I snagged a couple anyway ) I ate the marinaded chicken from the other day (sans skin).  I also ate the squash with basil and craisins.  A complete meal!

My confession today is that I didn’t go to the gym as I planned.  I am trying to be so conscious of over-training. As many of you know, I’m training for a half marathon at the end of March, but I refuse to give up my aerobics classes to do it.  Yesterday after my run, my body completely rebelled against me…I woke up this morning really sore behind my right knee, and I must have slept funny because I could barely move my neck all day.  So no class for me!

I am really looking forward to my BodyAttack class tomorrow…my fave class….I’ve been missing it for 3 weeks!

So see you tomorrow night, my friends.  Hope the rest of your night is heavenly!

Jessica xoxo

back in the saddle…

I have a confession, I only ran 4.5 out of the 7 miles I was supposed to run.  I just wasn’t feeling it, and I over-dressed and was actually HOT!  It was 50 degrees out today.  I think I did a good job though, because I increased my time:

Not bad. That’s with all of the hills in my subdivision, too! It’s fairly hilly.

I had a light lunch before I went out to run:

I need to start using smaller plates.  It looks like there’s hardly any food on it!  I assure you there was.  It is Mary’s Gone Crackers, Sabra Hummus, and yellow peppers.

After my run I ate a Larabar:

It looked like this one but had green packaging. It was Key Lime Pie.  Interesting flavor, it wasn’t terrible!  Edible.  Not fantastic.

Since today was Valentines Day, Jeremy had stopped at the butcher and brought us home some monster Delmonico Steaks.  I love steak!!! I think we have it every year for Valentine’s Day.  We don’t bother going out, because we’d have to hire a sitter and then deal with huge crowds.  Jeremy grills better then any restaurant, anyway!!

Now THAT'S a steak!!

Now the sides are what are interesting.  I had a side of Pasta Roni (yes, I’m aware that it’s not clean, but I love Pasta Roni – I don’t eat if often) and I wanted to partially imitate that squash side from Wegmans in Rochester, NY.  Theirs looked like this:

Wegmans

and was made with red onion, spinach and Craisins.  Mine looked like this:

Mine

and was made with basil, Craisins, and caramelized yellow onion (the onion wasn’t on it yet when I took the picture).  I liked mine better…spinach doesn’t really taste like anything, but the basil added a lot of flavor.  Also, the red onion in theirs was too chunky, it really needed to be smaller/thinner pieces.  So overall, I was very happy with my recipe!!

Oh and there was a glass of this:

I also, for the record, ate 2 pieces of mozzarella cheese,  some chocolate and a small piece of the cookie cake from yesterday.  I don’t know what’s up with the cheese and the chocolate lately. I could seriously live on them for every meal!  I need to get my head back into it, and cut the sugar back out.  Sugar does nothing for my body and has absolutely no nutritional value.  Tomorrow, I pledge to remove all of the sugar from my diet again.  2 days in a row is too much!

See you tomorrow!

Jessica xoxo

Back in the ATL!

Sorry there wasn’t any posts yesterday, but I flew home on an evening flight and got in late.  This morning, I got up, got the kids off to school and went to the gym which made me very happy. 526 calories in about 55 minutes at 21% fat.  In BodyStep class!

Ezekial Muffin with natural peanut butter.

After my step class I had a Larabar:

Not impressive.  I was disappointed! It was edible, though, and I really needed something to eat after class, because my breakfast was so small.  I was at the gym for a while socializing with my friends, who seemed happy to see me.

When I got home, I just wasn’t that hungry and I was trying to unpack boxes and luggage and whatnot.  Before I went to pick Sophia up from school, I had my fave snack:

Sabra and Mary's Crack

Sorry about the photo quality…I’m still not completely unpacked and am using my iphone.

YUMMY!!!

I really need to go to the grocery store, it seems as though we’re out of food at our house…which is amazing, since I do have 3 kids!  I decided the clean eating dinner would be grilled pork chops, brussel sprouts, and Rice-a-Roni Nature’s Way rice:

It was sooo good.  I also took a picture of the rice box…tastes like the normal kind, but is preservative free!

I’m not sure what’s going on for the gym tomorrow. We’re supposed to get a ton of snow here! I thought I left the snow in NY!

I leave you with a picture of Biscuit, who didn’t forget me but is now the size of a small pony…

I didn’t take the picture, Aidan did, so it’s a bit blurrrry.

Have a fantastic night!

Jessica xoxo