old picture Friday and TGIF!

Good morning bloggies!  I am so happy that it is Friday.  My 10 year old came down and had to wake me up this morning, and then informed me that I had turned my alarm off in my sleep, lol!

Today is going to be old pictures of the food I ate yesterday, because my camera battery died and that makes it impossible to post pictures.  So let’s get this party started!

Breakfast Friday am:

chocolate covered raisin oatmeal

oats, unsweetened dark chocolate cocoa powder, Sun Warrior Brown Rice Protein Powder, raisins. YUMMY!

Sun Warrior.

I love this protein powder because it is so clean.  Not 1 bad thing in it!  Highly recommended.

Coffee. Lots of coffee.

Did I mention lots of coffee this morning? LOL!

I went out last night for dinner to a local Chinese restaurant and had sushi that looked something like this:

Sushi.

I say it “looked something like this” because my sushi last night was a bit different.   I had a spicy tuna roll, and it didn’t have cream cheese or anything.  It also had white rice, because they don’t make it with brown.  Accompanying my sushi was miso soup and a house salad with the ginger dressing that I love.   There was some water to drink, also…no drinkies for me last night!

So sorry about the old photos!

I snacked on this before dinner, because we didn’t go out until 7pm:

Just 1 whole egg, no pancake.

and a lowfat cheese stick, which I don’t have a picture of. (Lucky you!).

Lunch was a Gardenburger with leftover roasted broccoli and brown rice:

Except the picture shows cottage cheese, not brown rice:

Brown rice.

Of course I had to have some chocolate:

Decadent raw orange chocolate brownie always tastes good!

As do these cookies:

Kashi

Overall, I feel that I did a fairly good job of eating clean yesterday and had a minimal amount of sugar.

I also got a fantastic workout session in.  (FINALLY!) BodyStep for 1 hour, and then weights.  I had to do the majority of my weights in one day, but I’m happy I finally got them in:

• Bar military press 30 lbs. 3 sets of 12
• Bar upright row 30 lbs. 3 sets of 10
• dumbell front raise 10 lb 2 sets of 12, 12 lb 1 set of 12
• barbell bent over row 30 lbs. 3 sets of 12
• cable seated low row 20 lbs. 3 sets of 12
• dumbbell bicep curl 12.5 lbs 1 set of 12, 15 lbs. 2 sets of 12
• 21′s 15 lbs, 3 sets of 12
• machine tricep extension 80 lbs 3 sets of 8
• seated tricep extension 15 lb 1 set of 12, 20 lbs 2 sets of 8

Today’s plan is to do legs, abs and a short 2-3 mile run @ 10 minute miles or under.

So what’s everyone’s plans for the weekend? I have a busy weekend ahead. Soccer, birthday party sleepover, girls movie and dinner night on Saturday….working out…and 20 loads of laundry!

Hope y’all have a great Friday!

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

One more day until 2010!

Oh, boooy! Happy New Years Eve! What are your plans for New Years? My hubby and I stay home every year, we don’t like to go out and fight the crowds and worry about drinking and driving. Plus we’d need a babysitter, which is a problem of it’s own.  We plan on grilling out and having some snacks and watching the ball drop.

Today I am going to the last BodyStep class of the year. I can’t wait! I know the class is going to rock, because of the 2 trainers team-teaching.  It’s going to be a good one

For breakfast I decided to copy yesterday’s breakfast and had another peanut butter and strawberry non-jelly Ezekial muffin. Scrumptious!!!

Made with Cashew Butter:

Yesterday’s eats were interesting.  I got home from the gym (I started my 1/2 training today!) where I ran my 2 miles…non-stop, @ 10 minutes / mile. (I haven’t run in a year!) I burned 249 calories @ 32% fat in 38:57. This included a 5 minute warm up, cool down, and stretching my hip after. Just in case you were wondering!

Lunch was whatever I could scrounge together quick, so I had some smoked muscles and a salad:

The salad had pom arils and farmer cheese with Goddess Dressing.

Then we headed to the movies with the kids to see the new Alvin and the Chipmunk movie. It was great! The kids really liked it.  I didn’t want to eat the popcorn or anything they were selling there, so I made myself a clean snack to take in with me:

Raw cashews, raisins, and raw cacao nibs.  It looked like this:

Are you wondering what a cacao nib is? Cacao nibs are raw chocolate that are roasted and hulled. They are just a little bit bitter, but when paired with raisins and cashews they are fantastic! They crunch like a coffee bean. When processed with milk and sugar they turn into candy bars.

Dinner was boring, so it was roasted chicken, roasted carrots and salad. We had company, and I forgot to take a picture.  BUT, since I had bought a cake for the kids, (I had 6 kids at my house!!) I made Averie’s raw brownies. OMG, these were the best tasting brownies I have ever ate! And I took a picture:

I had a few Thanks Averie!!!

Last night for dessert I made a concoction but it didn’t turn out exactly the way I wanted (remember, I’m sooo not a good cook)…So I was shooting for another banana boat with a peanut butter/chocolate sauce and what I ended up with was a peanut butter/chocolate liquid that I had to put pieces of banana into.  I mixed 1/4 cup milk with peanut butter, 1 Tb of unsweetened cocoa powder, and 1 Tb honey, then added one banana and sprinkled coconut and raisins on the top:

It looks good in the picture, but needed something..a little less milk, and maybe some agave? If you tweek it and it turns out, let me know!!!

Happy New Years Eve my friends! I am still working on my resolution list!