Catching up! Hospital Food and More Real World Eating.

Hello my friends.  Sorry I have been away for so long. Thank you for all of your well wishes, everything went smoothly with my Dad’s procedure.  I am still “eating in the real world”, and will be for awhile, so I hope that you are enjoying the different foods and that they give you ideas for your own clean meals.

This morning it snowed and I decided that I wanted to go for a run around 11am or so.  I had my Mom take a picture of me:

Ready for the cold!

I absolutely love the jacket, hat and gloves.  My husband had purchased those items for Christmas 2 years ago. GREAT for cold weather running with a long sleeve sweat-wicking tee and running pants. 😀

Let’s discuss yesterday’s meals at the hospital.  It was a looooong day.  We were there at 5:30am, and did not get home until 7:30pm.  There was no way I was going to eat before I left the house.  After checking Dad in I snacked on this:

Edible, but not my thing. Let’s say that this was the second try. Three strikes and you’re out! (Plus, I bought 3 bars, LOL).  The flavor is bland, and the bar itself is greasy. Ack.

An hour later I went in search of coffee while Dad was being tended to.  I got a non-fat latte and sprinkled cinnamon on top.

Caffeine. Hit. The. Spot.

A couple hours later we were in a private room with a TV and a phone.  I received the care package I sent myself from home and packed my homemade trail mix! I brought it to the hospital and had a good, clean, snack:

A couple of hours later we were still watching TV and I decided to try to find the cafeteria.  This hospital is like a small city, and after getting on the red elevators, following numerous signs and sniffing the air, I finally found it.  Out with the years of heat lamps and soggy burgers.  In with any kind of food you could possibly imagine, and cooked to order! I couldn’t make up my mind, so I got a salad (surprise, surprise!):

Fresh, crisp and loaded with veggies.  I was looking for protein, too.  The protein on the salad bar was either something in mayonnaise (like crab/egg salads) or a mystery meat.  I opted for red beans instead, and red wine vinegar acted as my dressing.  It was very filling!  I was full for hours. That is a ton of salad, though!  I snacked on some more homemade trail mix again, a couple of hours later.  (This puts us at 3:30pm or so, we’re still waiting for the procedure to take place).

Just as a side note, the procedure happened at 4pm and went well.  The rest of the time was taken with trying to get checked-out and seeing the doctor and such. At 7pm we were successfully discharged! YAY!!

On the way home I called Mom and had her call in an order to a local Greek restaurant where I got yet another salad, but this time with gyro meat and a tahini yogurt dressing (YUMMY!!):

Fresh veggies, feta cheese, gyro meat. Fantastic! A great end to a successful day at the hospital. 😀

This morning Dad had requested homemade blueberry pancakes with real maple syrup.  I was all over that, since I wanted to increase my carbs this morning because of a possible run this morning:

Dad’s weren’t burned, LOL.  I couldn’t taste it, though.  I never said I could cook very well.  That is one behemoth pancake. 🙂

After cleaning up I went for the run, I ran 4.01 miles.  It was my first outside run in over a year, and it felt fantastic.  I actually don’t mine running in the cold, you don’t dehydrate as fast, so I didn’t even need to take any water with me.  When I got home, I was making lunch for us and straightening up some more.  I was also making a huge fruit salad and cut up all the fruit myself which is never fun or without cutting into a finger:

This was not the only container.  I made up 2!  Before the run, I made my homemade shredded beef in the crockpot so it would be ready to go for dinner:

And ate another bar instead of a traditional lunch:

Yes. 3 strikes. (OUT!)

Done with the bars.  My recommendation? Don’t buy them! There is nothing good about the texture or taste, and they are all greasy feeling. :p

Dinner was wonderful.  I love crockpots.  So useful.  The following was my dinner:

and another picture:

So on the plate was the beef, whole grain rice, broiled carrots.

Some after dinner coffee made the eats complete for the day:

Have a great night! 😀

Jessica xoxo