Cooking Frenzy

Hello all!

Since I last posted, I have completely cleaned up my diet, and have been on a cooking frenzy!  It’s crazy how much I’ve cooked over the last couple of days, and I have lots of pictures too!

Has it been hot where you are? Here in GA it’s been in the high 90′s every day!  I honestly feel like I can’t get cool.  Hence the digging in my backyard as of Monday morning at 7am:

The Big Hole

We’ve been working on getting this pool for a while now.  There were all sorts of issues to begin with but they’ve been resolved, as you can see!  Can’t wait for it to be finished!  I’m an instant gratification kind of person.  When I want something, I want it right away, and usually yesterday. LOL  I’m working on my patience.

On to the cooking frenzy. I’ve obviously been on a clean eating kick.  I am also on a 1200 calorie kick, also.  I’ve been eating a ton of food for that little calories.  Let me explain what I’ve been doing.  In a nutshell I’ve:

1.  Cut out preservatives

2.  Lowered sodium and fat

3.  Increased protein

4.  Lowered carbs

5.  No refined sugar

That leaves unprocessed, whole foods.  In a nutshell!

I guess I’ll start with breakfast, since it is obviously the first meal of the day.  After we got back from NY, I didn’t have anything in the fridge.  Including eggs.  The chicken farmer down the road told my husband that his chickens weren’t laying very many eggs.  I was so disappointed, because I love my fresh eggs.  Off to the grocery store I went, though, because I cannot not have eggs in the house!  I bought 2 cartons of 18 and commenced to hard-boil an entire carton:

and there were some omelets but they all look the same, LOL! This morning I made a 5 egg white omelet that had chipotle gouda cheese in it.  YUM!

I’ve been all about hot sauce and seafood this week. I’m giving you advance warning!

We did manage to get some homegrown beefsteak tomatoes from the chicken farmer and they were so great!

These became part of a sandwich I made with snow crab (that I took the time to crack out of the shell!) a preservative free “thin bun” and hot sauce for lunch one day:

I do not recommend the snow crab.  It took forever to shell them, and the end of the process (a total process, by the way) I got 4 ounces of meat from 2 bunches of crabs.  King crab all the way!!!

I also made some chicken tortilla soup this week and it was so good. It had veggies in it, chicken broth, chicken, and a ton of chipotle chili powder along with some cumin, onion, oregano, garlic….

Soup's On!

I ate that for lunch 2 days in a row!  I did find some tortilla chips at Publix (my local grocery store) that are clean so I had half an ounce of those with it today:

Yep, they're blue!

The end result.

Since I am going to be home until at least November, I decided to grow some lettuce in my Aerogarden.   I love my Aerogarden!  Since the pool is taking up most of the backyard I’m not sure we’re going to have room for much of a garden next year.  I really want to plant some herbs too…maybe an excuse to get another Aerogarden? Hmmmm!

My Aerogarden

Those are little pods that have seeds in them.  According to the directions, I should have spouts in 1- 3 days!  I will take progress pictures to share.

The POD

Well, back to the food.

I had purchased scallops along with the crab (I don’t know where this seafood kick came from!)  I’ve never actually cooked a scallop before.  I read how to do it online (broiling them) and made a little lemon juice and paprika sauce to eat along with them.  They were good, but I think I need practice at broiling. 

With some broccoliciousness on the side!

Dinner tonight was chicken.  Jeremy’s family recipe for Fireman’s Chicken.  Marinated, grilled chicken.  I had 4 ounces of sweet potato with cinnamon on it and a really large spinach salad on the side.  Fireman’s chicken, by the way, is when the Firemen raise money by selling their marinated, BBQ chicken.  They sometimes have tables where you can go and eat outside with the family, or you can get it to go.  It’s common up in Western New York and Northern NY.  Not sure where else.

BBQ Chicken

along with the sweet potato:

and salad make for a perfect meal.

The salad had tomatoes, banana peppers, red onion, mushrooms, goat cheese and Seeds of Change Organic Dressing.  I love goat cheese!  Absolutely one of my favorite cheeses.

Let’s talk about working out for a minute.  I took class at the gym today (BodyStep) and burned 573 calories in 60 minutes.  KILLER!!! And I loved every.single.minute of it!

Question of the day:

What are you all cooking this summer?  I love trying new things!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Detoxification

Howdy!

As you can ascertain from the title of this blog post, I have finally arrived back in GA with my family.  For those of you that don’t know, we took a trip to Northern NY for the week of July 4th and then went down to Rochester, NY (just my husband and myself, we left the kids with my in-laws) to begin packing up my parents house and tie up loose ends there.

The second part of our trip was long and arduous.

This is where I like to have a blog, to show how a real person (myself, of course) deals with everyday frustrations that may or may not be common situations for others.  I would also like to share with you, that honestly, I fell off of the clean eating bandwagon.  The second week, I ate out ever meal except for breakfast.  Toward the end of the week, I gave up and ate breakfast out too.  I began to feel physically awful.  I blew up like a balloon (really – 10 pounds) which I am more then certain that it was from the sodium, fried, and preservative laden foods that I was ingesting in the restaurants.

The great thing about clean eating is that even if you stop, for any amount of time, you can start making wiser decisions at your very next meal. I came home with a plan.  It’s a detox plan, but not detox in the traditional sense (um, anyone heard of the water with lemon and cayenne cleanse??) I’ve never tried it and probably never will.  (It sounds disgusting!)

Detox clean eating style is cutting out the sugar, the unhealthy fats, and bad carbs, while drinking boat-loads of water to get rid of excess sodium, which causes bloat. I try to drink 80-100 ounces a day.

I shall get off my soap box now!   I tried to make better choices at times, and wanted to share the better (and worse choices) that I made with you.

TGIFriday’s (which was incidentally next to the hotel):

This meal was under the “Right Portion, Right Price” part of the menu.  The description:  Parmesan Crusted Chicken: “A sautéed chicken breast basted with Caesar dressing, then finished with a Parmesan-crust topping. Served with three cheese tortelloni tossed in spinach Alfredo sauce and a side of our fresh tomato Mozzarella salad.”

The other meal that I had was a salmon meal: (called Dragonfire Salmon)

The description:  “Norwegian salmon fillet fire-grilled and glazed with spicy Chinese Kung Pao sauce. Served over jasmine rice with pineapple pico de gallo, Mandarin oranges and broccoli.”

Those two meals weren’t terrible.  It was all of the rest of the yuck that I ate that put my body over the edge! Like these:

Buffalo Chicken Wings.

Let the detoxing begin:

Boars Head preservative free chicken and low sodium cottage cheese with Mrs. Dash on a whole grain preservative free thin-bun.

Tortilla Soup in the Vitamix.  So as some of you remember, I can sometimes cook and sometimes not so much and this was one of those recipes that needs some doctoring (so I guess it wasn’t my fault, lol…it’s not my recipe!).  It kind of tasted like veggie soup with taco seasoning.  Hopefully I can fix it tomorrow with the addition of more taco seasoning (organic) and boneless, skinless chicken breast!!

3 ounces of steak, boiled cauliflower and roasted sweet potato.  (Can you believe that the potato is just over 100 calories? All of that potato is only 1 cup!!)

Rotisserie chicken breast eaten sans skin with broiled broccoli with Mrs. Dash.  On the side I had leftover greek salad with Newman’s Own Lighten Up Sun Dried Tomato Vinaigrette Dressing.

I was disappointed today because the farmer down the road from my house was out of fresh eggs.  He told my husband that his chicken’s weren’t laying that many.  We’re supposing because it’s been so hot.   I only have one egg for tomorrow!  I guess I need to stop at the grocery store.  Jeremy did come home with a boat load of tomatoes, though!

So it’s been a couple of weeks of ups and downs.  I was sad when I came home, but then my girlfriends all decided to stop by the night I got back:

They made my night!

Vacation Destination: Destin, FL 2010

Hey there!  Sorry I was gone for so long. We went on our yearly family vacation to the beach! This year we went to Destin, Florida.  Destin is on the Gulf of Mexico.  Fortunately, we only had a half-day (we got to the beach late that day) where we couldn’t go into the water because of these:

tar ball

It was really bizarre.  The beach was clear, and then 15 minutes later there were tar balls as far as the eye could see.  We were staying at the Sandestin Hilton and the employees rushed to put up a fence when it happened:

But it was down the next day. It is very upsetting to actually see the devastation in person, because you know that eventually, the oil will follow….

We had a great time on vacation, though!  We also did a lot of eating and shopping. We ate at the Hilton every morning at the breakfast buffet and I tried to keep with what I eat at home instead of all of the glorious, fatty, unhealthy food that was spread throughout the restaurant.  I tried to stick with a protein (mostly eggs) and a carb.  I suspect that the eggs I was eating at the hotel aren’t as healthy as the ones I make at home.  The addition of butter (although unnoticed for several days because I wasn’t paying attention) into the frying pan before adding the egg whites (yes, I still ate the egg whites!) was a concern for me…because I tend to eat very little butter.  The following are different pictures of my breakfasts at the hotel.

Sunny Side Up

on an English Muffin……….and………..

Egg White Omelet

Egg white omelet with mushrooms, scallions, and cheddar cheese….and….

bagel.

Bagel with a clean cream cheese.  The regular cream cheese had no artificial ingredients where the fat free had several!

another egg white omelet.

With jalapenos, mushrooms, tomatoes and onions.  It was fantastic!   One day I even snuck some of this onto my plate:

Bacon.

Who can resist bacon?  I also ate orange and grapefruit slices every morning.

I also tried to eat some seafood…our first night there I ordered a “seafood bowl for 1″…

It has soooo much seafood in it, I could have fed the whole family!

amazing.

In this bowl for 1 (hahaha) there was a whole lobster, snow crab, crawfish, mussels and clams.  It was the first time I had ever had crawfish! (I had to ask the waitress what to do with it….lol!)

In between we enjoyed the beach:

The boys declared that they were "best friends" when I took this...so sweet!

and of course Sophia was all about playing in the ocean:

Of course there is the annual picture of one of the kids buried in the sand:

This year it was Sean!

There was one night where I was craving vegetables. I will never take my veggies for granted again.  Not one of our meals (besides breakfast) had vegetables offered.  All the restaurants offered were french fries and occasionally corn.  The family was having pizza one night so I decided to roam the hotel in search of healthy food:

Veggies from the little deli in the hotel, and….

My fave, sushi!  The sushi came  from the Japanese restaurant in the hotel.  YUM!

Then there was some food that wasn’t exactly healthy…it is so hard to eat healthy when you are eating every meal in a restaurant.  So I figured, everything in moderation!

There was a burger from Fudpuckers where they also have alligators at the restaurant:

Burger.

we viewed these on our way in:

Gators.

We went out one night for chicken wings:

Buffalo Wings. Not bad

and yet another night we had BBQ.  All in all the BBQ wasn’t that bad for me…

Along with the pork there was a plain baked potato that I added a smidge of butter and sour cream to, and corn.

However, as I said, everything in moderation…some lunches I had protein shakes at the beach:

BSN Syntha 6

with a side of plain yogurt:

So it all worked itself out.

Jeremy and I even got away for one night by ourselves to have a fancy dinner at the restaurant in the hotel where we had a wonderful time.  It was a steak and seafood restuarant.  I had the filet, and a bit of twice baked potato:

It was absolutely delicious!  There was some of this:

and some of this:

Foodgasms!

Followed by a run on the beach the next morning.   This was the first time that I actually ran on the beach and it was so.much.fun!!!  The only downfall to my run (3 miles) was that I did it barefoot and now have some wounds that I am nursing:

blood blister.

It was really bizarre, because I had them on the same toe on each foot.  I went for a run the day after but did it on the sidewalk because of the tar balls and it just wasn’t the same.  It wasn’t as much fun, and it was HOT!!  We roasted that day!

That’s 5:19 pm. Craziness!

I hope y’all enjoyed the vacation edition of my blog.  I still have some traveling left to do this summer, so my eats should be interesting.  I’m just a real person, blogging about eating in the real world.

I like my world to have my family, rainbows, sunshine and sand.

Sunshine and sand.

and

rainbows.

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

2 Days

Can you tell I’m homesick? I miss the hubby and the kiddos!

First Day of School, 8/2009

Pensacola Beach, summer 2009

me and Jeremy Pensacola 2009

Ok, so enough of the family!   I did some eating today (what else is new?)  Breakfast was bright and early:

Cinnamon raisin bagel from Wegmans with SunButter and some of these:

Peaches!

Peaches remind me of Georgia (uhh, I live in the peach state)!  They also remind me of summer, which can’t get here soon enough!  I’m so tired of being cold all of the time!

I took Mom to her appointment at the cancer center where she did really, really well.  I haven’t been hungry, so I had a salad with balsamic vinaigrette:

and there was some turkey noodle soup (but I wasn’t feeling it, I bit into a bone and that was kind of it for me!)

I’m not a huge fan of broth-y soups, although I do like some.

I was craving fish and veggies for dinner.  I never used to until I started clean eating!  I haven’t been eating my salmon!  For dinner I made a huge plate of leftover veggies with a piece of salmon (plain) and a slice of sourdough bread (also plain).

Now that’s the perfect dinner! It was great.

When I get home there’s going to be some updates, and possibly a new blog that will be mainly about exercising.  I was watching Fox News today and I swear that they made a comment stating that being thin and eating healthy are mutually exclusive. I didn’t think I heard that right, but I’m fairly certain that I did.

Really? What kind of message is that?? Of course the way that you eat will either cause you to be thin, or to gain weight. It’s as easy and simple as that.  I am a firm believer in the “calories in vs. calories out” mantra.  If you eat more calories then you burn, you will gain weight.  If you burn more calories then you eat, you will lose weight.  Of course, this is a generalization, and there are lots of factors that can play into the weight situation.  A person’s medical situation, how much they exercise (or not) are just 2 factors that could rock the boat.

I was very disappointed when I heard that said on national TV.  That’s a horrible message to be sending to the public!

(**I guess I will get off of my soap box now**)

Hope you all have a wonderful night! Big changes ahead, my friends! It’s going to be very exciting!

Jessica xoxo

Let’s Try This Again…

Good Morning my bloggie friends! It has finally stopped snowing but it is C.O.L.D. Holy cow! It was one degree when I woke up. Now it’s 6 degrees!   I am so not used to the cold weather.  I plan on running today, but I need to pick up some trail shoes..my sneakers slide all over the place on the ice and snow and sometimes I have two left feet anyway. So not a good thing!  Here’s a picture of the snow, mostly for my friends in the ATL:

That’s a picture of my parents backyard.

Let’s start with yesterday’s breaky.  Mine was yummy!  I’ve gotten away from eating so many carbs in the morning and kind of limiting if I don’t work out that day.  Yesterday I had a fantastic bowl of oatmeal:

Plain old oatmeal, pineapple, blueberries, granola, and oikos yogurt.  Creamy, yummy, and warm.  I ate the rest of the yogurt in the container to get some protein in (actually, a perfect amount…15 grams).

Fact: The body can only absorb between 15 and 20 grams of protein per meal.  Anything above and beyond gets stored by the body ( like fat does) and needs to be burned off.  Some web sites will put that a little higher (around 30 grams) but personally I like to keep it around 20.

The yogurt:

I have a confession, I had to put some Stevia in it to eat it plain.

Lunch was later in the day.  I really wanted a salad like the kind I make at home. So be it:

Lettuce, baby bella mushrooms, orange peppers, Mary’s Gone Crackers, chicken breast seasoned with Montreal Steak Seasoning.  All covered with Annie’s Goddess Dressing.  It was so good!

I ate before I started my errands, I had a lot of running around to do…the mall, BJ’s, Tops grocery store, etc., etc.  I brought a new bar with me in case I needed a boost.  A friend of mine on a different board that I belong to told me about these Think Thin bars.  Lots of protein, no sugar, low in fat.

Are you tired of seeing pictures of granola bars on my leg yet? At least my jeans were clean   It was ok.  It seemed to be missing something, not sure what…sugar? LOL!  My faves so far are the Cliff Nectar Bars, but I don’t remember without revisiting previous posts how much protein is in them.  And apparently the company is getting rid of Cliff Nectar, and replaced them with Cliff C Bars.  They actually look really good, they have a nut crust bottom, topped with fruit and almonds.  Sounds really good to me!

I had made dinner ahead of time and had it simmering on the stove.  I made homemade adobo pork, because it’s easy and my parents like it.  It doesn’t have a lot of ingredients, but there is sugar in it, so not completely clean.  It turned out fairly well:

I only had a little bit of the pork and ate a ton of veggies with it.  My parents ate their with the traditional yellow rice.  Loved the veggies, they had good flavor. Carrots, broccoli, lima beans, peppers, zucchini.

Again, I was hungry again a bit later and still giving that SunButter a chance.  It’s not that it’s inedible, I guess I’ve been spoiled with my favorite cashew butter I made a banana boat.  See how easy it is? You can make one 1300 miles away from your home!

This one is a banana, golden raisins, raw cashews, raw cacao nibs, and SunButter.  It was really good.  Even with the SunButter, but I hid the taste a bit with the toppings

I am heading outside (I think it’s 9 degrees now?) to run in the snow.  I got me some cheapy trail shoes in the Men’s part of the shoe department in Target…I think they were $39.99.  Then I bought some athletic insoles to put in them, because they didn’t have any sort of cushion. New trail shoes total = $49.99.  Not falling on my bottom in the snow = priceless! LOL.

I intend on bringing my camera and taking snow covered pictures for my family in the ATL.  I miss everyone! So here are some family pictures I want to share:

June 26, 2009 Family vacay in Pensacola!

My Seany and Bisquit

Aidan and Sophia

Have a Blessed Day!

Jessica xoxo

Icy Monday and what’s in YOUR pantry?

Good Morning bloggies! I had a surprise last night and learned that school is out today again for my 3 kids. We live in a huge county, and part of that county is so far north in the state of Georgia that apparently they still have ice up in the mountains. So the whole county is out of school again. Amazing! All of you bloggies up north are probably cracking up! It’s going to be 40 degrees today, so I’m assuming that they will be back to school tomorrow.

This mornings breakfast and first day without any natural sweeteners in a while but …I use Stevia in my coffee, I’m not going to give that up.

And to eat: something a little different,

Ezekial Muffin, 2 egg whites, shaved real parmesan cheese, and Cholula Hot Sauce.

Yesterday was a good day with food and otherwise. I promise to start shaking things up and eating different things today. So I apologize for all of the repeats that you are going to see, with the exception of dinner.

I had some more homemade trail mix (I am just all about this, it is sooo easy to make and eat):

I went to the gym (more about that later!) and had a protein shake after my workout:

Sorry about the stock photo My shake yesterday had chocolate protein powder, unsweetened cocoa, maca root, banana, oatmeal, water and ice. And was probably the same thing as the picture. (I’m a creature of habit )

Then I went to SBux with my GF Colleen and we discussed many things including exercises, figure competitions, and food where I had yet another Grande Non-fat Latte: (but not the banana)

And a picture of Colleen and myself from The Girls 2009 Christmas Party:



I had made dinner hours earlier, before I went to the gym, and it simmered on the stove while I was gone to workout and to the grocery store.  Dinner was adobo pork, (umm, not completely clean, has sugar, but homemade, so no preservatives!) brown rice with real parmesan cheese, and carrots with acorn squash baked in the oven:

The pork was absolutely divine. So savory! The veggies and rice with a bit of cheese were the perfect clean compliment.

Later, I had some of this tea that I hadn’t opened during the holidays:

It was, at the very least, interestingly flavored.  It kind of smelled like a sugar cookie.  It kind of smelled like orange.  It wasn’t terrible, but it was…strange!  I don’t know if I will be partaking in this tea again.  The jury is still out

I’m excited because I got my newest Oxygen Magazine in the mail today, and it’s all about ABS:

800 workouts to choose from? I’m all over that.  I’m also all over the sexy arms section, too! Summer isn’t too far away in Georgia..it starts getting warm at the end of March!

I also got some additional reading material while I picked up some essentials at the grocery store:

I need to re-order this, it is an invaluable resource when I am running!  I also got this:

(Another invaluable resource, LOL)

I also picked up some other items: shredded coconut, Braggs Aminos, oranges, the above pictured acorn squash and carrots, Fage 2% Yogurt with Honey, brown rice, Havarti cheese, and some other things.

So let’s talk about the pantry.  I have my own shelf in the pantry   All of my clean eating supplies are on the bottom shelf, and the rest of the pantry is, well, not so clean.  The sweets and such are above where the kids can reach, and “Lauzon’s Bar”  is on the top shelf   It’s kind of a mess, so please don’t judge:

The above picture is of the entire area.  The next few are of the healthy shelf only, as that is what we are most concerned about:

Raisins, honey, cacao nibs, 5 grain cereal, protein powders…

Oats, coconut oil, rice vinegar,

Honeyville Red Wheat Berries, natural peanut butter, agave nectar, coconut water, maca root,

and that basket behind the agave nectar has nuts and flours and grains in it.

So the question of the day is: What’s in your pantry?? Let’s see if we can’t substitute some of the unclean foods for clean!

Have a great Monday!

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!