In a funk

I am in what can only be described as a funk.  Well, maybe not only, but that’s what we’ll use. 😉  I would say I’ve been feeling this way for a couple weeks.  I’m tired, bingey, cranky, etc.  I’m thinking it has a little something to do with my increased sugar/fat intake these past couple weeks.  I was telling the boy that I need a serious detox – and by detox I mean clean eating.  I’m just not sure how to get there, though I’m sure a nice grocery trip to get some more veggies would certainly help.

Breakfast (411 cal): Banana flax oats topped with some of the no sugar added apple butter I picked up at the farmer’s market and a bit of PB. This apple butter is so yummy and sweet – why would you ever need to add sugar?

Snack (185 cal): Cantaloupe sprinkled with pepper along side a VitaTop. Have you ever tried pepper on cantaloupe? I love it when the cantaloupe is super ripe like this one.

Lunch (456 cal): So proud that I actually packed my bento today.  Clockwise – cantaloupe with pepper, carrots, avocado, a crumbled MorningStar Farms burger with bulgur.

Snack (407 cal): This was eaten when I went home to walk the dogs. I guess my lunch wasn’t very satisfying, because for some reason I was “starving” wen I got home.  Apple, string cheese, cottage cheese, Dr. Krackers and a mini Clif bar (which seriously tastes like a chocolate chip cookie – evil!). Also an un-pictured Jolly Rancher.

Dinner (463 cal): Farmer’s Market Flatbread Pizza: roasted zucchini, eggplant, green pepper and onions.  V. yummy.  On the side I had some carrots and an apple +PB2 for dessert.

Calories In/Calories Out: 1922/~2222

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Whirlwind weekend

Wow, it has been a packed weekend. So packed that I’m just going to do some food highlights.

Started off Saturday with our weight watchers meeting and then pilates. Immediately after pilates we went off to the second class in the Vegetarian Series at Cookology.  Only 6 people had signed up for the class and only one other couple actually showed up, so it was quite an intimate class.  We had a blast and the food was awesome as always.

Cookology

Vegetable Tagine

This dish was so wonderful.  The dish was a simple stew with onion, butternut squash, sweet potato, carrots, tomato.  It was spiced with fresh garlic and ginger and then cinnamon, cardamon, star anise, and cayenne pepper.

Prepping the Vegetable Tagine

Vegetable Tagine

Vegetable Tagine Close-up

Stir Fried Egg Noodles

Tangy, salty and oh so yummy. This dish was very simple – sauteed garlic/ginger/some spicy pepper, mushrooms, bean sprouts and egg noodles.  We finished it with soy sauce and some Thai basil.

Stir Fried Egg Noodles

Stir Fried Egg Noodles Close-up

Plum Compote

We sauteed the plums to give them a bit of color and then added some sugar and then some Liqueur 43 (or something like that).  The liquor and sugar made a wonderful sweet, fruity syrup.  Need I even say this was heavenly and it was the first thing I ate once everything was ready? Yeah, didn’t think so. 😉

Plum Compote with Vanilla Ice Cream

Food Inc., Poets and Busboys, and Maggie Moos

After our class we headed down to Shirlington to catch the 3:15 showing of Food Inc.  My thoughts on the movie are so jumbled and I really still have such a lot to think about, but I just have to say wow.  I was tearing up many times during the movie and left feeling that there are some serious changes I need to make in my life and lifestyle.  If you haven’t seen it I strongly urge you to do so.

My rough thoughts are that I need to stop buying so many pre packaged foods.  Really, I would like to move as far as possible away from the manufactured food industry as possible. This means that I would like to grow as much food as possible and look to farmers markets before the grocery store.  I would like my diet to include primarily foods that are in their natural state or foods that I prepare from whole foods.

Over the next month or so, the boy and I will be researching ways to implement these changes.  In addition, we will be trying to use up our packaged foods.  As we are clearing our kitchen of packaged foods we can augment them with homemade foods and then switch over to make most everything ourselves.  While I think this will be a lot of work I also think it will be a great challenge.

For dinner we ate at Busboys and Poets, a lovely vegan friendly establishment.  They strive to buy local and have a gift shop to support fair trade in the restaurant. I highly recommend it.

Sweet Potato Fries

Tempeh Panini with Fruit

For dessert we stopped by Maggie Moos for the first time.  So much better than Coldstone.

Maggie Moos - Toffee Temptation

So yeah, I ate way too much yesterday. 😀

Long Run, Farmer’s Market and Pho

We set out for our second try for 17 miles this morning.  It was crisp and just beautiful out.  I fueled pre-run with a mini clif bar, which may be exactly what I was looking for – no nausea at all! Everything was going great, until right before 11 miles and then my Achilles tendon started acting up.  Running was no longer possible, but walking was fine.  So, we finished out our 17 miles walking…. could have been worse. 🙂  Our next long run is in two weeks and we will try 17 again.  I love that we built in so much cushion into our training schedule.

After the run/walk we ate, showered and headed over to the farmer’s market in Sterling.  I picked up some zucchini, yellow squash, onions, red potatoes, egg plant, watermelon, cantaloupe, no sugar added apple butter, bacon & jerky for the boy, and this oh so yummy oatmeal bar.

Oatmeal Bar

As we were heading back from the market, the boy got a call from his dad.  He had biked out to our house and wanted to know if we were up for lunch.  We headed to a local indian restaurant we’ve been wanting to visit, but there was a line, so we went next door for our first experience with Pho.  I started off with a tofu summer roll and then had a small (which was HUGE) bowl of vegetable pho.  I added way too much spice, but it was still pretty good, and I have regained feeling in my lips so that’s good.

Pho 99 - Summer Roll w/ Fried Tofu

Pho 99 - Vegetable Pho

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sore nibbles

Yep, someone found my blog with that search term today.  I chuckled, and can’t help but thinking about what they meant by “nibbles” even though I keep trying not to think about it.

Just to note some of my other new obsessions: delicious (Yes I realize that I am sometimes way behind the times…) and a blog called TasteSpotting. I have found that instead of printing out countless recipes and then never organizing them, I could instead bookmark and tag them on delicious for easy searching for later.  And TasteSpotting – pure food porn and more stuff for my delicious accout.

Otherwise it has been a pretty standard Friday – get up, run (slow enough that the boy was literally running around me, backwards, and other shenanigans at times – I was not all that amused 😀 ), eat, go to work, spend my early Friday napping, yadda yadda yadda.  Eats were great and I tried something new, which always pleases me.

Breakfast (532 cal): An un-pictured bunch of cherry essence prunes and super yummy pancakes that included: 1/2 C egg whites; 1/2 C oats; 1 super ripe banana; 1 T flax meal; 3 crushed walnuts; generous amount of cinnamon; stingy sprinkle of nutmeg, cloves, and ginger; 1/4 t baking powder, 1 packet splenda. I topped them with SF syrup.  Amazing.  Have you tried these yet? If not get on that this weekend! 😉

Snack (150 cal): Dr. Krackers with cottage cheese.

Lunch (510 cal): Large veggie salad from the deli, which might I say was fricking amazing.  Seriously.  It contained: romaine, broccoli, cauliflower, olives, green pepper, celery, cucumber, carrots, onions, beets , a packet of roasted almonds and FF ranch.  BTW, those 100 calorie packets of roasted almonds by Emeralds are super yummy, I’ve only been able to find them at one store though.

A little later I finished lunch with an oikos topped with a vita top and strawberries. Um, yum.

Snack (177 cal): Un-pictured: samples of cookie and bread at the store. Carrots while cooking dinner.

Dinner (483 cal): Something new – Tandoori Tofu. I simply pressed my tofu during our run this morning, added 1/2 a jar of tandoori paste to a zip-lock baggie, tossed in the tofu and coated it, and then let it marinade all day.  When I got home I baked it at 425 for about 30 minutes.  On the side I had some roasted pepper and onion bulgur pilaf as well as sauteed broccoli. The sweet roasted veggies were a nice contrast to the tangy, spicy tandoori.  So yummy.

For dessert I had a new Mint Chocolate VitaTop with ice cream.  Ummm…. yuck.  Imagine an altoid brownie…. curiously strong indeed.  I’m so sorry I bought a dozen of these and I may see about getting a credit or something.

Late Snack (225 cal): Strawberries, the sweetest nectarine topped with crumbled Nature Valley Nut Clusters – Roasted Almond.  Also a few un-pictured cherry essence prunes.

Calories in: 2077
Calories out: ~2300

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Hello its me again

Sorry for the extended absence.  It was sort of intentional, sort of.  It was brought to my attention that my thoughts may be a tad food centric, so I thought I would abstain from taking pictures and blogging for a while. I don’t know that it helped at all, and perhaps hurt in reality.  Without the public “evidence” of my eats I have to admit that I nibbled more than was necessary and my choices could have been better.  Alas, it is best to not dwell on the past. 😉

So since I’ve been gone we went to Williamsburg.  We had an awesome time at Busch Gardens (rode every scary roller coaster), visited Jamestown, had a cold rainy day at Water Country USA (blessing in disguse – NO LINES!) and got rained out of colonial Williamsburg.  If you are ever in Williamsburg stop by Food for Thought – you won’t be disappointed.

Trip Food Highlights

Silver Diner - Oats topped with strawberries and low-fat sour cream w/ cinnamon

Smokey Bones - Peanut Butter Pie

Cracker Barrel - Oats topped with fried apples

I celebrated my 31st birthday with the boy on July 7th and then again with the family on Saturday.  We all attended a vegetarian class at cookology.  It was a blast!  We made corn and mushroom crostini, bulgur burgers, summer succotash and a fig and berry tart.

Cookology - the boy and I

My MIL also made my favorite cake and brought it to the class.  I had a huge piece and a half. *burst*

Cookology - Me looking strangely suspicious with my lovely cake

After Cookology we biked about 20 miles trying to plot a route for Sunday’s run, which we found out would work for a run.  And then yesterday we attempted a 17 mile run.  I say attempted because we completed 12 and walked 2.  Its a long story, but it involves a Cliff gel and an iPhone.  The boy was very upset and we ended up buying another new iPhone shortly (the external speaker and powerbuttons aren’t working).  So anyway, I just don’t think the boy had the heart to keep running after he discovered his sticky phone.

The rest of this week has been pretty boring, but I have had some good eats!

More Food Highlights

Panera - Strawberry Poppyseed Salad, Garden Vegetable Soup, Multigrain Baguette

Oats topped with blueberries, nectarine, almonds and (my new favorite topping thanks to Silver Diner) oikos w/ cinnamon

Flat bread pizza - lavash topped with roasted zucchini, roasted onion, spinach and roasted orange pepper (almost exactly like Bertucci's Tucci) with sauteed broccoli.

I’ll see you all tomorrow. Promise.

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Stacking and Packing

Started out the day getting stacked with a lovely lifting session at the gym. 😉  I gain more appreciation from the Stability Ball Leg Curl each time I do it. The trick, though, is to really roll forward onto the balls of your feet (a little further than this video). Oooo hurts so good – I can only eek out 12!

We are heading down to southern Virginia after our run tomorrow AND we’re leaving the puppers with the grandparents.  I love getting away with just the boy… We will be visiting Busch Gardens, Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown/Yorktown, Running 17 miles!! and Water Country USA.  I am so very excited, well except about food.  I’m doubtful that I will be able to find much of anything vegetarian (I have looked at countless menus) and probably none that will be healthy.  I’m packing some fruit, oats, bars and primal strips (protein) to supplement though.  We’ll be taking the computer so I’m pretty sure I’ll be blogging, unless I’m too wiped out that is.

Have a super wonderful 4th!

Breakfast (517 cal): Loverly Banana Walnut Oat Pancakes – 1/2 C egg whites, 1/2 C oats, 1 smushed banana, 10 grams (maybe a scant tablespoon) crushed walnuts, cinnamon, ginger, clove, nutmeg.  Covered them with SF syrup.  Best idea ever to put the walnuts IN the batter. The gym left me extra hungry so I also had an english muffin with banana and orange marmalade.

Snack (280 cal): The rest of my chocolate ‘fu pudding dusted with cinnamon in a fancy glass.  On the plate I have PB and sliced banana on an english muffin.  I stuck this sandwich in the toaster oven to crisp the outside.  It was yummy, but would have been better if I got to eat it when it was warm (I got “stuck” talking to some co-workers).

Lunch (396 cal): Huge veggie salad.  My first “entree” tasted a little funny (marinara from the fridge – who knows how long it was there??) so I decided to toss it rather than risk getting sick.  I grabbed this boca on the way out the door.

Snack (146 cal): Brown bag popcorn and 2 un-pictured mock mochas.

Dinner (630 cal): I had started making some stuffed peppers but they were taking too long so I made something else!  I had an egg white/pepper scramble, green beans w/ Parmesan cheese and bac’UN bits, half a pita with melted cabot and the other half with PB & orange marmalade. I waited too long to eat so it wasn’t quite enough so I had a mug of puffed corn with banana for dessert.

Calories in/Calories out: 1969/~2200

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Molasses

I wish I was eating it instead of running through it….  OMG, so this is getting really old already.  It took me about 20-25 minutes this morning to stop feeling like every step required maximum effort. I just don’t know what it’s all about. I’m thinking that I need to get some more shut-eye each night??? I have been reading magazines and getting to sleep about 30-45 minutes later than I need to.

Anyhow, I told the boy this morning that we would just walk the rest of the way after we hit our 30 minute goal, but I was actually feeling quite good once we did and so we ended up running for about 55 minutes.  Since I don’t wear my gadgets for anything but our LONG runs anymore, I expect we traveled about 4-4.5 miles. Have I mentioned how freeing it is to just run and not worry about covering a certain distance in a certain amount of time? I think that is one of the reasons I have been fairly injury free during this training – I run for distance OR for an amount of time, but not both. I also don’t try to “beat my time” anymore. Most of the time I’m quite surprised with my pace when I do wear my polar though.

How do you run – gadget or gadgetless?

I just wanted to thank everyone for their thoughts on menu planning.  I want to start making bento lunches again for me and the boy.  I love the idea of eating before I go home ot walk the dogs.  They would certainly love more me time instead of watching mommy throw together a lunch and eat it at the speed of lighting.  I’m off work most of next week, so I have some time to think about everything and throw a plan or two together.

Breakfast (467 cal): A big bowl of my snacky oats from yesterday.  Orange-Almond Oats: 1/2 c oats, 1/2 c soy milk + water, 3 orange essence prunes chopped, flax meal and almonds. Delish. On the side I had 1/2 scoop protein and 1/2 c soy milk with instant espresso.

Snack (162 cal): I had an un-pictured mock mocha and this Kashi bar.

Lunch (582 cal): In the bowl – Tasty Bite Madras Lentils over brown rice. On the side – green beans and a banana w/ orange marmalade and PB.

Snack (253 cal): Beets and an english muffin melt.

Dinner (558 cal): We grabbed a bite to eat at Jason’s Deli because we had to head to REI to pick up rash guard shirts because we are going out of town this weekend and will be hitting a water park. *squee*  I am super excited!  We also picked up a ton of running fuels, a water/fanny pack, an SPF running shirt for me, and two shirts for the boy.  Don’t ask how much… 😳

Dinner was awesome.  I ordered a Ciabatta Garden (no pico, cheese, dressing) with steamed veggies and a salad bar.  My salad was greens, red/yellow pepper, cucumbers, sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, peas, onion and roasted red pepper hummus.  I had three strawberries and a coconut dumdum for dessert.  SO STUFFED.

Later we stopped by Caribou Coffee and I picked up one of their lovely cinnamon caramels. <3!!!!

Calories in/Calories out: 2022/~2525

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