Weekend Things

March 10, 2014

This weekend was busy again. It was filled with family and fun, my two favorite things.

We went to my sister and brother-in-law’s house with my parents and some friends. The kids had a ball and so did the grown-ups. Talking, eating and just spending quality time together. The night ended with s’mores so you know it was awesome.

Sunday I woke up super-hungry and decided to make a yummy breakfast. We had leftover pork roast so I sautéed that with the last two eggs we had, mushrooms, onions and a chopped jalapeno. I put this over top of a corn tortilla that I fried in coconut oil. Topped it all with a little feta, a roasted tomato slice, half of an avocado and hot sauce. It hit the spot. I also liked that it cleaned out the refrigerator 😉

Lunch was a restaurant that has great New England style seafood. I had the fried shrimp with hush puppies. The portion was huge!!

As you can see, the hush puppies were popular.

I also managed to get our back porch all cleaned up. I am ready for dinners outside now that the sun will be out longer and the weather is absolutely beautiful.

Hope your weekend was great too.

Breakfast Switch-Up

February 19, 2014

When it comes to breakfast, I tend to find something that works and stick to it. I think I spent a whole year eating overnight oats for breakfast Monday thru Friday. I have definitely been getting in that routine lately with smoothies. I’ve touted the benefits of throwing everything in the blender and being good to go. Another reason smoothies are good is that I usually eat breakfast while literally running out the door. This works great for convenience, but I must say sometimes I miss “eating” my breakfast during the week. I also noticed, that I tend to stay fuller longer when my breakfast consists of more than liquids.

So here are a few of my recent breakfast change-ups.

Overnight oats are showing a resurgence. I use the Basic version of this recipe. It is easy because it is just 1/3 cup of everything so I use one measuring cup and good to go. This one was in a Trader Joe’s Almond Butter jar. The almond butter was really hard at the bottom (I was having a hard time parting with it becauase we don’t have a Trader Joe’s here. So it may or may not have gotten extremely hard sitting in the fridge because I knew I wouldn’t be able to replace it anytime soon. #foodhoarder) but it did the trick. I added banana, strawberries and blueberries to the top. With iced coffee.

Overnight oats again. This time I topped with blueberries, half a banana, crumbled half of one of the oatmeal cookies I made the day before and almond butter. Again with the iced coffee.

Oatmeal made with almond milk, water and a mushed up banana. Topped with strawberries, blueberries, vanilla greek yogurt and almond butter.

This was just Chobani Vanilla yogurt topped with blueberries, bananas and Love Grown Foods Sweet Cranberry Pecan topped with almond butter and chia seeds. Iced coffee on the side.

Another overnight oats topped with strawberries, blueberries, half a banana, Love Grown Oats and this peanut butter. I have a slight addiction to this stuff. A Fresh Market JUST opened by us (we are so behind) and they were on special at the grand opening. So good, and I think I’m somewhat obsessed. I’m also late to this bandwagon but the Double Espresso flavor is soooo good! It is definitely a splurge considering I normally make my own iced coffee. But I am hooked.

So I am feeling like these breakfasts have made it a little easier to break out of my smoothie rut. Overnight oats are good too because a little prep the night before makes for a quick breakfast when I’m in a hurry (which is every day). As you can see I’m a fan of sweet breakfasts. If I’m going to consume sugar in the day I like to get it out of the way early-on. My workouts have been a little longer lately also, so I feel like the more substantial breakfasts are really helping.

What are your favorite go-to breakfasts?

Gym Machine Workouts

January 14, 2014

I have been going to the gym off and on for years (more off than on). I know my way around pretty well but for some reason I am completely and utterly intimidated by the weight machines. Every day I skip my butt to the Arc trainer and jog/climb/run/walk whatever it is I am actually doing and get my cardio in for the day. I watch the people making their circuit rounds on the machines and it looks pretty effortless really. Unfortunately, when I try to use the machines my absurd social craziness kicks in and I feel like every.one.is.watching. Watching me look at the machine to see which muscles I will be working, and then when I clumsily pull on the handle to adjust the seat (26 times) then finally get ready to go and just know I look like a dufus. I’m sure I am exaggerating but I really want to become more comfortable with the machines. I know the benefits of strength training and have really been trying to incorporate this into my workouts. I have been scouring Pinterest to find good workouts and schedules for each day of the week but keep coming up short. I will keep looking for ideas. My husband said he will walk me through it as apparently he is a exercise equipment master. So I will give it a try again tomorrow and see how it goes. Will give a report on the dufusness.

Breakfast followed my gym escapade. This smoothie had Unsweetened Almond Milk as the base, Chobani strawberry yogurt, almond butter, a frozen banana and a scoop of Designer Whey. So yum. I just really love smoothies. Mainly because I usually have zero time to eat breakfast in the mornings but also because they are so good.

Lunch was inhaled at my desk. Strawberries, cheese stick, deli turkey breast and a tomato and baby carrots dipped in Ken’s Blue Cheese Vinaigrette.

I am also getting back into using MyFitnessPal. Love this App. Has a million different food choices. I was a Weight Watchers member for a while and I was always searching for foods and having to calculate when I couldn’t find them in the database. MyFitnessPal has SO many things in the database. Love it. I really like getting back to keeping track of what I eat and how much I move.

Hoping to try a turkey chili recipe for dinner tonight. We will see how it goes!