Chef's Tasting at Whisk

Over the weekend TKO and I went to a 9-course chef's tasting in Jamaica Plain. I believe I had first heard about the offer through twitter but they weren't advertising it much. The gist of the deal was that for $10 each you'd get to try out the brand new chef's tasting menu which regularly will be about $50. Count me in!

So I'm not sure how this happened but we thought the tasting was only dessert. Much to our surprise once we got there (AFTER eating dinner) we found out we'd be served both sweet and savory courses. Time to unbutton the pants.

The restaurant was VERY small but adorable. The chefs/staff were soo young and you can tell they really felt proud of what they were doing. The first course was deliciously soft bread and some red wine (unpictured). Someone came around to each individual table and explained what was being served for every course, so my descriptions are from memory only.

Second course: A seared scallop with a blood orange glaze and a side of shredded brussels sprouts. This was great! I've never been that huge of a scallops fan but I think I just wasn't eating great ones!


Third course: A variety of squashes. "Delightful" is the word that comes to mind for this one.


Fourth course: Mussels in some sort of delicious broth. The mussels on the other hand weren't cooked that great/were just bad mussels in general. I was pretty disappointed with this one because mussels are my jam!


Fifth course: Leek-filled ravioli topped with pancetta and chives. O.M.G. this was by far my favorite of the night. I need to recreate this stat.


Sixth course: New York strip steak with fingerling potatoes and a salted egg rim (you can see it on the left side of the plate). This was really good too. The combination of the egg, steak, and whatever brown sauce is on the plate was fantastic.


Seventh course: Pork belly with carrots. The crust on this was really amazing, although I'm not the biggest fan of the lighter side of the pork belly. I wish I could only get the darker side!


Eight course: Finally dessert! I have no idea what this was because our server was speaking too quietly but I know those balls on top are "honey caviar". I loved this but TKO wasn't a fan. The sweetness of the honey combined with the tartness of that cakey thing was perfect.


Ninth course: Best way to finish a meal is with chocolate! This was a chocolate mousse topped with lemon cream. It was awesome, of course.


Yum. This was an awesome night and I'm so happy we were able to do this!!

I'm exhausted after a long day of work and zumba so I'm thinking it's gonna be an early night. Later!

1-5

1. I finished reading book #3 of 2012 and am on to #4: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I read a few pages of a couple of different books before settling on TGWTDT. I'm excited for it!

2. The other night I went to the most fun yelp event ever! It was at a trampoline park in Everett and I went with TKO and two of my girl friends. We spent the night bouncing/flipping on trampolines and playing dodge ball. Unfortunately one of my friends suffered from a battle wound -- hello Cara :) -- but otherwise the night was awesome! We sampled some popchips, pretzel crisps, coconut water and other yummy goodies. I love being an elite yelper!

(That's not me)

3. Last night TKO and I went to a restaurant in Cambridge called Technique. Technique is part of Le Cordon Bleu's culinary program and is somewhat like a capstone class for seniors. Students run, cook, serve and clean the restaurant for a couple of months to gain experience. For dinner you can get a 3-course meal for $12 from potentially the next big chef in Boston. So awesome!!

The service was a little spotty (to be expected) and the food seemed to be hit or miss. TKO and I both ordered some cheap 22 oz beers and started with different first courses. I ordered the caprese salad which came with fried mozzarella on top (SO GOOD) and he got the shrimp risotto.

I wasn't crazy about the risotto but he seemed to enjoy it.

We both ordered the filet minion for our main entree. I've never ordered this before!! I couldn't resist because of the price so I just went for it. The meat was delicious but the homemade fries were definitely lacking.


For dessert I ordered the "cookies and ice cream" plate which came with 2 cookie and 3 scoops of homemade ice cream. The ice cream was great and you could definitely tell it was churned in house.

TKO ordered some creme brule type thing that was horrible. He ate the whole thing and kind of liked it but I took one bite and wanted it away from me. I'm not even posting the picture here!

Overall, for $40 even the meal was worth it. I will definitely go back when the menu changes.

4. I already failed my diet coke challenge. I had 3 DCs this week instead of 2 which isn't bad. Creating the challenge kept me from drinking what would probably have been something like 14+ sodas so I'm feeling good. Plus, it's made me drink a lot more water! I'm gonna continue to try to stick to my 2/week challenge for the rest of the month.

5. It's currently pouring out which is making me really wish I brought my gym clothes to work. I didn't feel like packing them up this morning and figured I'd be able to just go home, change and head out again. Something tells me if it's still pouring later that's gonna be a little more difficult.

TGIF...I'm falling asleep at work over here...

Eye Opener

I had my first real eye opened in this leg of my healthiness journey.

The past couple of months I had been eating out a lot, and each time it was the same thing: usually share some fried appetizer, eat some fried entree (buffalo chicken sandwich with fries), and have numerous drinks along the way.

On Sunday we decided to go out to watch the football games and I was worried about how I was going to handle it. I made sure to go to the gym earlier in the day so I had a little bit of a cushion. When I got to the restaurant allll I wanted was fries and mac n' cheese. Instead I ordered a salad that had bacon, avocado, eggs and grilled chicken (they were pretty measly with the toppings) and had two drinks. I was full, satisfied and didn't feel gross the next day. I haven't mentioned this on the blog yet but I've been calorie managing (not counting, but just keeping note of what I'm eating since I needed to reevaluate my portion sizes). When I think about the amount of food and calories I ate on Sunday (still a lot because it's a restaurant) compared to what I used to be eating I'm really in shock. The shock is surprising because I KNOW all this, but I guess we can continue to be surprised by things we already know?

That was rambley.

I just got back from an insane bootcamp class at the gym. I made a quick dinner: turkey, turkey pepperoni, tomatoes and pickles on toast with some carrots and the last of my potato soup.Now I'm catchin' up on the Office then it's off to bed!

Flurries

Day 1 of the diet coke challenge went flawlessly. I drank sooo much more water than I have been and had lots of cucumber water at work. Yum! I can tell this is going to be hard though. I had gotten into the habit of drinking diet coke with lunch every day and I definitely felt the craving. Hopefully I'll keep on keepin' on.

Last night after work I headed stratight to the gym and hopped on the tredmill to do some running! Since I'm way out of running shape I did some 2 min. run 1 min. walk intervals for about 40 minutes. I was tired after just the first interval and didn't know how long I'd last but every interval got easier and easier. It made me excited to get going with running again!

When I got home I was really hungry and made a big dinner: a turkey, avocado and tomato sandwich, an apple with sunflower butter, 2 pickles and a side of sautees collard greens I bought from Whole Foods. I looove sauteed greens but these had a bit of a weird taste to them so I chucked them after a few bites.After dinner I met up with some friends at a bar down the street and sipped on just 1 beer (go me!). I finalllly had a Harpoon Winter Warmer which I've been craving all winter!

Now it's snowing a bit this morning so I'm using it as an excuse to lay around all day :) I slept in and then made a yummy breakfast: an omelette with 1 egg and 1 egg white and a handful of mozzarella cheese. Apple slices dipped in pumpkin butter and a cup of milk served as sides. Sometimes I just crave a cup of milk.I might try to do some at home zumba today but we'll see. I'm pretty sore from yesterday and may just rest. Happy Saturday!

Cutting Out Diet Coke

I'm a serious diet coke addict. Growing up my house was always stocked with bottles and it was normal to drink DC with every meal. It wasn't until I got to college that I realized this was pretty abnormal. Most of my friends were drinking water with their meals/when they were thirsty. Go figure. Since leaving home 5 years ago I've certainly cut down on my diet coke drinking and upped my water drinking, but not nearly enough. Last night I scared myself silly reading about the dangers of aspartame and how the chemical has been linked to pancreatic and brain cancer, strokes, premature births.

Here's an interesting (ahem, frightening) fact: the National Cancer Institute has identified a significant increase in brain cancer beginning in 1984, one year after millions of people starting consuming aspartame. The first lesson in statistics is correlation does not equal causation, but that is still pretty startling to me. And enough to push me into a little Diet Coke challenge with myself!

Starting today and for the next month, I'm going to commit to drinking no more than two glasses/cans of diet coke a week. I'm not attempting to quit cold turkey because I'm sure that will lead to a DC binge where I chug a whole bottle without coming up for a breath.

So how am I going to do this?

- Create daily water challenges: This gives me a distraction at work and also makes me get up and move around more (more water drinking = more trips to the bathroom and the kitchen to fill up).
- Buy more cucumbers: Ever since being served cucumber water at a restaurant a few weeks ago I've become obsessed with it! And it's sooo easy. Just slice up a few cucumbers and throw 'em into a glass of water and the whole thing is transformed. My problem is that I love to eat cucumbers, so I'm going to make an effort to buy an extra one solely for flavoring water.
- Shop at Whole Foods: Whole Foods doesn't sell diet coke so that's easy. It's tough to get to WF since it's far away but I should always make the effort to go there and avoid stores like Stop n' Shop that have diet coke EVERYWHERE and always on sale.
- Try other drinks when a craving strikes: Like almond milk, coconut water, pure fruit juice (mixed with water -- sometimes fruit juice is too strong for me), and tea.
- Think before you drink: Hah. Couldn't resist this one. We all mindlessly consume (whether it's food, drinks, clothes, etc.). I need to remember WHY I'm doing this challenge whenever I go to drink DC and truly think, is this worth it?

Well good luck to me! This is gonna be a tough one. But it's just soda, I can doooo this!

Cue: Eye of the Tiger

Baked Potato Soup

Last night was a wash. I really wanted to go to the gym but it's just too GD cold! I can't take it!! No excuses tonight. I've packed my bag so I can go straight from work. I know that's really my problem-- once I'm in my warm apartment there's a 99% chance I'm not heading back into the freezing wind blasting tunnel that is South Boston.

Instead, last night I did some laundry, caught up on TV shows, made a weird dinner, and then made what is becoming one of my favorite soups.

Restaurant Wars on Top Chef was crazy! Tom was so mean at judging!! And I feel like it wasn't deserved at all. And don't get me started on Glee. I was in my bed crying for 20 minutes!!!! The episode was sooo good -- music, plot, everything! I can't wait for next week!!!! Okay exclamation point overload.

As I mentioned my dinner was strange. I made some spinach spaghetti with garlic salt, olive oil and parmesan cheese, and had sides of some shrimp cocktail I got from Whole Foods (no cocktail sauce necessary) and pickles! I spend every day craving food like a pregnant woman.

After I ate I first made some overnight oats! I mixed up 1/2 a cup of oats, a tsp. of chia seeds, 1/2 a cup of unsweetened almond milk, a big scoop of peanut butter and a little bit of sugar and cinnamon. In the morning I added a bit more almond milk. Deeelish!I also made a version of this baked potato soup!

Baked Potato Soup
Ingredients:
- 1 russet potato, washed and dried
- 1 small head of cauliflower, stem removed and cut into florets
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 cup 1% milk
- 1/2 cup light sour cream
- s & p
- shredded cheddar cheese for topping

*Last time I made this I topped it with bacon and chives as well.I started by piercing the potato with a fork and microwaving for 5 minutes, then turning it and microwaving for another 3 minutes. I let it cool (or didn't..ouch), peeled it and chopped it up.

While the potato was in the microwave I chopped up and steamed the cauliflower in a big pot. When it was cooked through I drained the cauliflower, then put it back in the pot with the potato, chicken broth and milk, the let that all come to a boil.

Once boiled I put everything into my blender and added the sour cream, salt and pepper. Blend it up until pureed, add your toppings, and then serve!
Yum! This was my lunch today and was so good I was pretty much licking my bowl (weird things at work anyone?).

Zumba tonight!

Weird things at work

Hola! Today's been a breezy day but time seems to have stopped in the last hour or so, which brings me here.

Last night I ended up doing a little bit of food prep for the week. I boiled a bunch of eggs, which I despise doing for some reason even though it's one of the easiest tasks on the planet. I also washed/cut up a bag of snap peas, 2 cucumbers and a bag of mini carrots. I split the veggies up into four sandwich size bags for easy packing. I can eat pounds of raw vegetables (no dipping necessary!) at once and like to bring full bags to work to eat during lunch. Random, but I HATE when people say "veg" instead of vegetables or veggies. I especially hate it when it's on restaurant menus. In South Africa that's all people used to say and it was torture.

Anyway...speaking of packing lunch, look at my adorable new lunch bag!

My mom got it for me for Christmas and I'm obsessed with it. I've used it every day since I got back from the holiday break. What I like about it is that it's BIG, keeps things cool (for those days you're too busy to even walk to the fridge), and has a little pocket in front for anything else (food or non-food related). Now I'm no longer worried my tupperwares are going to spill all over my bag and am not wasting a plastic grocery bag every day. Wins all around!

I probably should have brought a few of those eggs with me to work because I've been feeling snacky allll day. For breakfast I had two clementines and a granola bar and was immediately hungry again. I decided to dig into my bag of veggies and then ate 2 spoonfuls of dark chocolate peanut butter straight out of the jar. I managed to hold off a little longer and finally ate the rest of my lunch: a turkey and avocado sandwich with a side of blackberries and a clementine.My notebooks make the most exquisite backgrounds...

I'm hoping to make it to the gym tonight for a loooong sweat sesh. Then I'm going to make an amazing soup -- hopefully I'll actually do it and will have the recipe tomorrow :)

Edited to add: I titled this "weird things at work" because I felt like I was doing a lot of weird things today. I forgot to talk about this and then publish. Whooops!

Frozen Fenway & a Green Monstah

I LOVE short weeks! We're already half way through yay!!

This weekend was equal doses of fun and relaxation which was exactly what I needed. Friday night I just chilled at home and hung out with my roommate. Saturday I was up pretty early for a long day! I met TKO at Coda for brunch and opted for something lighter since I knew I had a big day of drinking/eating ahead of me. I ordered a cup of lentil soup (which wasn't that extraordinary) and a salad made up of arugala, pine nuts, bacon and bleu cheese. This salad was soooo good. I could eat it every day. It was pretty huge and unfortunately I was starving so I skipped a picture.

After brunch we headed over to a bar near Fenway where Northeastern was hosting an alumni pregame. We sipped on some brews and I stared longingly at the free buffet. Luckily I'm not into boiled hot dogs.

Around 4 we headed over to Fenway Park for "Frozen Fenway" -- a hockey game between Northeastern and Boston College. Despite wearing so many layers I could barely move, I only survived through two period of the game. It was frigid out. I think with wind chill it was probably negative 10 degrees in Boston. That's nooo joke. After the game was over we headed over to another bar for dinner and football. Although I'm forever a NY sports supporter it's always nice to see the Pats kick ass when in Boston. The fans can be pretty entertaining.

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing -- watching TV, painting, lounging, doing puzzles and playing board games. No complaints from this girl :)

Today was back to reality and work was tough, I had a suuuuper busy day and slammed my finger in a drawer -- I still can't type with it! I wanted to come home and go to a gym class but decided not to face the freezing rain and did an at-home circuit workout instead (based off of this workout). It looked a little somethin' like this:

1 minute of each, followed by 30 second rest
- Body weight squats
- Jumping jacks
- Plank
- Alternating lunges
- Hip lift
- Side plank/side crunches (I suck at side planks and only lasted one round of these!)
- High knees/jabs (30 seconds of each)
- crunches
- "jump rope" (just mimicking, I don't have an actual jump rope)

The first set I did everything for just 30 seconds, but realized it was to easy and upped it to 60 seconds each. I did this 2 times and was breathing pretty hard after! The whole thing took me about 35 minutes or so. I can already tell me legs are going to be sore tomorrow.

After I was finished I lucked out because TKO offered to take me to Whole Foods! I stocked up on some groceries and bought some special things for tonight's dinner. I ended up with the random combination of:
A green monster! (2 handfuls of spinach, 1/2 cup almond milk, 4 frozen strawberries, 1/2 banana, 1 tbs peanut butter, 1 tsp chia seeds, 4 ice cubes and topped with cinnamon)
and sweet potato tortellini! This was from the WF deli and I could never figure out what the sweet potato part of this was. Not like it matters, it was deeeelish.

I must be craving the greens today because for lunch I had a salad with spinach, edamame, avocado, cucumbers, tomatows and egg whites. Yum. After the crap I ate this weekend a spinach kick would be good for me...

I'm off to do some blog reading...good night!

(Not so) Lazy Friday Night

I was about to name this post "Lazy Friday Night" when I realized it was actually the opposite! I had a crazy productive day at work and a great lunch filled with all my favorite food: peppered turkey breast and avocado on a tortilla, clementines and hard boiled egg whites. I bought the egg whites from Au Bon Pain, which should be weird but isn't at all! For some reason the hard boiled eggs there are always soo good. Unfortunately it costs about as much as a dozen eggs cost. Oh well. I gotta get better with boiling my eggs ahead of time.


When I have kids I'm going to put faces on all of their food. These are friggen adorable.

I was planning on going to the gym when I got home from work but it's SOOO windy out. It currently sounds like a tornado is whipping through South Boston. Instead I turned to my handy dandy Wii and did a 55 minute zumba workout! It's definitely fun doing zumba at home but there's nothing like being in a class. Speaking of classes, zumba last night wasn't as great as I'd like it to be. I miss my old teacher so much! I'm having withdrawals.

After doing zumba I didn't feel totally worked out so I spent a half hour doing a little made up workout that looked something like this:- 10 bench lunges on each leg
- 25 jumping jacks
- 20 sit-ups
- 10 squats
- 25 jumping jacks
- 20 sit-ups

I love bench lunges. It's one move that I can feel as soon as I start and I know my legs will be sore tomorrowe. Here's what they look like if you don't know what I'm talking about:

I repeated this set 3 times and then did planks for 3 minutes total. Man have I gotten weak. I had to stop every 30 seconds in planks! When I was working with my personal trainer I was able to hold a plank for just under 2 minutes. At least I have a goal to work up to.

Now I'm chillin' on the couch watching A Walk to Remember -- hence where the laziness comes in. I don't know how much longer I'm gonna watch...this is one of those movies I can only watch the first half of, then the water works start. Later gators.

B & G Oysters

Have I mentioned I've recently become obsessed with oysters? TKO gets major props here. On our first date we grabbed a drink before our dinner reservation and we got into discussing the lack of oysters in my life. I'm a HUGE fan of seafood -- especially shell fish -- but for some reason had never tried an oyster (raw, that is -- I tried them fried once). I mentioned to him that I was always too embarrassed to just order one at a restaurant and next thing I knew he came back with one little oyster for me! 5 second later I was hooked.

Last night TKO and I went out on a surprise date to a little place in the South End called B & G Oysters. The restaurant was pretty small and about half of it was filled with a big open kitchen. We were sat at a great table that was higher than the kitchen, allowing us to look down into it and watch the chefs cook and the shuckers shuck. It was awesome!

When we sat down we split a bottle of No. 9 Park's Pinot Blanc (nice to support another local restaurant?) and ordered a bunch of oysters! TKO is usually the expert on these but this time I picked almost all of them.

The oysters were a.ma.zing. My favorite was the Thatch Island and the Shiny Sea. So yummy and refreshing!


For my entree I ordered the fried clams which came with fries, pickles, coleslaw and homemade tartar sauce. Everything was delicious and with TKO's help I licked my plate clean. My apologies for the crappy photos.

He ordered the hake which came with some mean tasting brussels sprouts. I'm not the biggest fan of brussels but these babies were great.

We decided to skip dessert and headed across the street to Stephi's on Tremont. It was bigger and nicer than expected and we got two prime seats right in the middle of the bar. The bartender was super friendly and with her help I ordered a pineapple-infused vodka martini. Sooo good! I then tried to order a chocolate type martini but it tasted too much like coffee :( Luckily the bartender noticed and replaced it with some pear/other fruit martini that smelled like bubble gum!

We headed home around 11 and I crashed. I'm so worn out today and struggling through work! At least it's almost 3, but I have lots to doooo. Time to get to it!

Zumba tonight, yay!

New Things & Tuesday Potluck

Half way through the work week yippee!! First things first, I finished reading A Stolen Life on Monday and started my third book of 2012: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It's hard to describe A Stolen Life as "really great" because it's about such a terrible story. That being said I really admire Jaycee Dugard for telling her story and being so honest and open. Truly a book that makes you think. I'm about a third through The Immortal Life and am already loving it, though I'm surprised the book has so many great reviews. I'd think you need to be a bit of a history/science geek (I am) to thoroughly enjoy this. Maybe it will take a different turn?

This week so far has been a full of new things. For Christmas I got a crock pot and a Wii (equipped with Zumba Fitness/Dance Party) and tried them both out on Monday!Zumba Fitness is HIGHLY recommended. Even though I only did about a 30 minute work out but I already know I'm going to get a lot of use out of it! I recognized most of the songs from my zumba classes and the moves were pretty typical. I can tell this is going to come in handy as the temperature starts creeping down. It may even be the thing that gets me up early to exercise before work...we will see!

The crock pot I received is a 3-quart pot from Target. My parents also gave me a great cookbook to go along with it and that's where my first crock pot experimentation came from! On Monday night I made Chicken Tortilla Soup -- it was a simple recipe and only took 3 hours to cook so I figured it was a good one to try out first. The end product made about 4 servings.
Chicken Tortilla Soup - Serves 4 (adapted from Best Loved Slow Cooker Recipes)

Ingredients:
1 lb of boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 15 oz cans of diced tomatoes
1 4 oz can of mild chopped green chiles
2 garlic cloves, diced
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 can of chicken broth - divided
1 tsp of cumin
s & p to taste

All I did was throw everything into the pot and left it on high for 3 hours. Eventually I removed the chicken, shredded it and then threw it back into the pot. I decided to add in a can of black beans for a bit more staying power. I ate the soup for lunch yesterday and it was DELISH! I topped it with some shredded mexican cheese and dug in:
Last night we hosted a pot luck at my apartment. My friends and I try to do this about once a month and it's a great way to get everyone together. I made my favorite pasta salad:

We also had portabella mushroom pizzas, pretzel bites, avocado and bean salad, cheese and crackers, stuffed peppers and blueberry pound cake muffins.Everything was so awesome and I'm always so impressed with what my friends come up with! Tonight I'm heading out to dinner with TKO to a surprise restauarant weeee!! I love going out to dinner and surprises, so a surprise dinner just makes me go crazy. All this food talk made me hungry for lunch. Adios!

Weekend update!

Hey there! Work has been super stressful this morning so I figured I'd take a little break to do some blogging. Let's see how I did this weekend shall we?

Weekend goals:
1. If eating out, choose something on the healthier side -- I didn't eat out at all this weekend. That's a surprise! I had the option a few times but turned it down, choosing to eat the $100 worth of food stocked in my fridge.
2. Exercise at least once! -- I went for a 3 hour hike on Saturday which definitely counted as exercise. My butt was killllling me the next morning.
3. Spend some time outside if weather permits -- See above :)
4. Go food shopping -- Went food shopping at my beloved Whole Foods on Sunday night. I bought some delicious treats for this week but the ingredients for a great new recipe I'll get to soon enough...
5. Make a new healthy recipe on Sunday for the workweek -- did this on Monday instead!
6. Drink minimally! 1-3 drinks per night if out -- I went out on Saturday night had 4 drinks, not too bad. Even better, I 99.9% avoided the huge plate of calamari and fries put on my table. The .1% is because I ate just one fry. Just one! Fries are my weakness so that's a big deal for me!

This weekend was really great! On Friday night I went to get some frozen yogurt and hung out with TKO. In the morning I made a delish little lunch and we headed to Blue Hills for some hiking. It was an absolutely beautiful day and I'm soo happy I took advantage of it. From the top of Blue Hill you can see Boston in the distance. This picture isn't great but here it is anyway:

On Saturday night I went out with some friends to one of my favorite Brookline bars: Publick House. They have a huge beer list and I love the cozy feel. I tried two new Belgian tripels while there: St. Bernardus and Golden Monkey. I loooved St. Bernardus but Golden Monkey was just ehh. They can't all be winners!

Sunday was a day for relaxing, and apparently for spontaneously booking trips to Iceland!!!! Yes, I'm going to Iceland next month!! I cannot wait and I can't believe I actually booked it! The deal was too good to pass up and I'm hoping to see lots of this:

Northern Lights

and this:

Lobster soup!

Tonight we're hosting a pot luck at my apartment and I'm real excited for it. I'm making pasta salad (tri color pasta with cucumbers, olives, artichokes and peppers covered in Italian dressing). Hopefully I'll remember to take pictures!

Weekend Goals

Happy Friday!!

I like getting back into old habits and this has definitely been a week of just that. First running, then Mexican pizza, then zumba and now setting weekend goals!

Like many people, the weekends are tough for me. Setting goals definitely helps in keeping the eating unhealthy foods/drinking under control. For my first weekend back on track I'm going to make sure I set reasonable expectations for myself:

1. If eating out, choose something on the healthier side
2. Exercise at least once!
3. Spend some time outside if weather permits
4. Go food shopping
5. Make a new healthy recipe on Sunday for the workweek
6. Drink minimally! 1-3 drinks per night if out

I really hope that the weather is nice tomorrow because TKO and I were considering going for a hike. Please please let it be nice!!

Only a few hours until the weekend officially begins yay!

Zumba is back!

Another good day in the books! I went to bed on the later side again last night and woke up feeling a bit sleepy. Work was busy and flew by pretty quickly! For lunch I had tuna salad (aka pickle salad with tuna), lots of raw veggies and popcorn. I ate a peach chobani greek yogurt around 4:00 and for the first time ever wasn't really digging the texture. Weird.

Early in the day I made the goal to exercise 3 times this week. As I mentioned my workout habits have been pretty nonexistant lately and I think 3x a week is a doable goal for me. So while at work I checked out my gym's group fitness schedule and decided I was going to zumba tonight!

I got home and made a quick but yummy dinner -- a cheese omelette made with 2 eggs and an egg white, an apple, and a piece of toast with peanut butter.


After dinner it was tough, but I went to zumba! The class was SO fun and I was thrilled to be back. It's nights like these that really reignite my spirit to workout. I can't wait for next week. Weee!

When I got home I was hungry so I put a frozen banana in the food processor with some peanut butter to make some banana "soft serve". I don't think I left the banana in the freezer long enough because it was a little watery. The texture was more like baby food than ice cream. Eek. Oh well! I topped it with some extra peanut butter and chocolate covered sunflower seeds and ate it anyway :)
Now I'm watching Project Runway all-stars before heading to bed. Surprinsingly I don't recognize all of their contestants and Heidi/Tim/Michael etc. have been replaced. Boo. I'll keep watching anyway. Good night!

P.S. -- although I pretty much neglect the "love" part of this blog, I have a feeling my new squeeze might come up some times. Yes, I said new squeeze! We'll refer to him as TKO for now :)

One down, 25 to go

Today was a pretty good day! I finished my first book of 2012 woo woo! I read Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin. For a book I bought on Amazon for $2.99, this was pretty good! I've been reading a lot of page turners lately and this wasn't quiiiite that, but it definitely had its moments. Overall it was a quick, interesting, unique read. Next up is A Stolen Life by Jaycee Lee Dugard. One down, 25 books to go for the year! I can't decide if this is too daunting of a task or not. 25 books doesn't seem like that much, but that equals out to a book every 2 weeks. I think I'll use this month as a gauge and see what happens.

Despite going to bed way too late two days in a row I woke up today feeling pretty refreshed. Work was super busy which always makes the day fly by. I did experience some weird bouts of nausea throughout the day though -- I'm hoping it's just a strange passing thing and I'm not actually getting sick. Hopefully it wasn't from something I ate today...

Speaking of what I ate today, for breakfast I had a chewy chocolate chip granola bar and a banana. For lunch, a turkey and tomato sandwich on whole wheat bread, a huge bag of raw veggies (celery, string beans and carrots) and some white cheddar poopcorn. This was the same exact thing I ate for lunch on Tuesday so I can't imagine that's was was making me feel sick. We shall see I suppose.

For dinner I brought back one of my favorite staples...Mexican pizza! This time I changed it up a bit and swapped out the refried beans for Smart Ground veggie protein crumbles. Cook this up with some taco seasoning and you're set! You can definitely taste the difference between ground beef and the veggie crumbles but I personally don't mind it. You don't get too much of that, how do I describe this -- nature taste -- that you get with some soy based products. Certainly a good substitute for me!I layered the veggie crumbles on a flaxseed tortilla with mexican blend cheese, salsa, tomatoes, avocado and hot sauce, heated it up in the oven and went to town! Served with a side of cucumbers.
Yum. I'm happy Mexican pizzas are back in my life :)

Off to do some relaxing under the covers. It's freeeezing here in Boston!

And I say the same thing every single time...

You da you da best, you da best I ever had.

No, this was not just an excuse to bring up one of my favorite 2009 jams. This title has a real purpose!

Every single time I get "back on the wagon" I truly believe that I will remember this feeling forever, and therefore never totally fall off the wagon again. Well it's happened people. The memory of building up my running a year and a half ago is still just as fresh in my mind as it was that first day I couldn't run half a mile. I fully remember the pain, the embarrassment, the hugging and puffing through every second. And yet, here I am, back in the same spot again.

I alluded to my current state of couch potato-ness a bit in the last post but didn't even touch the surface on just how ridiculous it's gotten. Over the summer I went through a couple of hard workout stages. I'd take classes at the gym every day for 2 weeks, take a week off, and so on and so on. My weight was VERY slowly creeping up. I noticed it, but just didn't seem to care. I was having a fun summer and wanted to drink, eat, and lay around all weekend, so that's just what I did.

By the time I moved in September I was down to working out about once/twice a week. I joined a gym in my new neighborhood but just never fell in love with it the way I did with my old gym at school. It is further away, smaller, the classes aren't great, etc. etc. I ran a few times when I first moved but that didn't last long at all. September and October went by and I was working out some weeks every day, and others none at all. By this point my eating was totally out of control -- and not out of control "in context", which I had mentioned in other posts, 100% totally and completely out of control. And you know what? I didn't care.

As the holidays crept closer and the temperatures crept downwards, it became harder and harder to get myself to the gym. I believe I worked out only once or twice between the middle of November until yesterday. For me that's pretty alarming. Even more alarming was that while I was at home for Christmas I went to the doctor and felt afraid/embarrassed to get on the scale, knowing it wold be much higher than the last time I was there. And even worse, I experienced a fear I had never felt before: when the doctor took my blood pressure I was completely frightened that she would give me bad news. This was a total eye opener for me and has really re-lit a bit of fire under my butt. The last two days I've been back to eating more cleanly and went for my first run in far too long on Monday. I could only run 1 mile before I almost passed out, but you gotta start somewhere right?

It's important for me to admit these things even in this semi-private place. This blog has been a really wonderful tool for me to look back and see where I've struggled and where I've accomplished. It's truly a motivator and I hope I can get back to the girl I was when I wrote my half marathon post back in March -- a person whose excitement and passion for fitness and healthy food just can't be contained.

Here's to momentum, progress and consistency!