Tag Archives: bagels

August Wrap Up and the return of Bagel Wednesday!

Where the h-e-double-hockeysticks did summer go?? 😯  I can’t believe I am doing the monthly wrap up post already.

John asked me to get him up when I got up so we could get an early start on the day because we both have a lot to do today.  I requested no whining when I did so.   It was a gorgeous morning, nice and cool.  We headed out on the path, which was so quiet in the early morning.  We actually saw 3 deer on the path! They bolted before I could get a picture, though.  I said to John, “See how nice it is to get up this early?”.  His answer, “No.”  😈

After 6 miles, we arrived at our destination.

Check out the temperature before 8 am:

I had a wheat bagel with cream cheese and a cuppa joe!

The weird thing? Chewing the bagel.  I have not had any bread product in 3 weeks and there is no other food that has the chew of crusty bread or bagels.

I’m happy now. 😀

So let’s review goals, shall we?  I had 2 goals for this month.

1. Begin C25K.  In progress.  This is a 9 week program, so obviously I am not finished.  I am uncertain as to whether I will finish the program.  The run intervals have been short and I notice little niggling things with my leg, but I have completed the first 4 weeks without incident.

2. Go grain-free for 21 days. I did it!  I might have ingested some accidental grain products, like when I had a few marshmallows (corn syrup), but other than that I did stellar.  And you know what?  It was not that hard.  The hardest thing was eating out.  And let me tell you – going grain free is a lot harder than going gluten free!  Corn is in everything.  Everything!

I did find out some interesting things about me going grain free.  It eliminated pretty much all my cravings for bread products and for sweets.  Not that I didn’t eat sweets, but it really curbed my penchant for over snacking.  Which is a good thing. When I did snack, it tended to be on nuts pretty much.  I ate a *lot* of nuts.  Sometimes fruit as well (especially dried pineapple :mrgreen: ).

I also found I didn’t need grains to get in my fiber.  I averaged 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day. Coconut flour, flax,nuts, and fruits and veggies gave me what I needed.

Was the food I ate boring for 3 weeks? You tell me.

And now, the part I know you all reaaalllly wanted to know.  Did I lose any weight? Yes.  I did.  In those 3 weeks I lost 6.5 pounds.  😯  Now, I do  take 2 pounds of that with a grain of salt because I weighed myself after a long bike ride, which always results in a couple of pounds of water retention.  So even if it was 4.5 pounds, that is an enormous amount of weight for me to lose in 3 weeks!

I have decided I am going to keep grains lower in my diet for the time being because to not have the cravings for food is really so, so nice. It pretty much took care of PMS cravings as well. They were minimal at best.  I am definitely using this strategy for the holidays and letting the grains I eat during that time be the treats and such.

I am so pleased that the no-grain challenge did exactly what it was supposed to do, which was to get me on a better choice path because I was veering off it a little bit. Weight loss was a bonus.

Now I have to come up with some new challenges for September!

Bagel Wednesday and the flat tire fairy visits again.

Happy Bagel Day!  I ended up not posting yesterday because it would have just been boring food. I have decided if I don’t have anything to say other than what I eat, I don’t have to post.

John is feeling better, but still has an icky cough.  He was up for riding to breakfast to North Country Cafe.  Here he is milking up his coffee.

I had a wheat bagel as per usual, seeing as it is Bagel Wednesday.

John had some sort of raspberry lemon coffee cake and said it was picture worthy, so there you go.

Normally he doesn’t like to wait for me to take pictures 😀

On the way home, we passed through a construction area that was not there on our way to breakfast.

Shortly after that…. hisssssss… thump, thump, thump.  Yep –

That was a 1-inch screw completely embedded in my tire.  I think that is 12 flats now between the 2 of us since April.  Is that a record?  Hello Guinness, where is my prize? 🙄

At least we are pretty quick with tube changing now.

After a morning where I had trouble focusing on work (is it not Friday yet??), I made up lunch to eat on the porch.

1-minute muffin with peanut flour on top.  I also have not had a pear in about a week, what is up with that?

Another couple of busy days.  Seems like it always comes in clumps, doesn’t it?  I made myself really try to be productive in the afternoon.  But I did take a break for an almond milk latte and a date with PB.

I made up a quick early dinner:

And then commenced to making John’s birthday cake for Thursday.

His request? Boston cream pie.   I have never done this before, but we shall see how it goes. Baking with a box? Yes please!

Cakes are just coming out of the oven and I am off to meet my mom for ladies night! Gotta run 😀

Bagels and busy

Busy!  I was thinking it wouldn’t be so bad today, but you just never know.  I was up for an early ride and of course, being Wednesday and all, I had to stop for breakfast!

This was a banana nut bagel.  Num!  Had a nice chat with the cafe owner this morning.  I don’t mind eating out alone.

Then I figured I would get an early start on my day.  Good thing I did, because work and the business were  both busy this morning! 😯   John owes me big time.  At least I managed a 14.5 mile ride today.

I took a quick break for lunch.  Nothing exciting on the food front today.

I put items up high while John is gone.  I do tend to want to snack a lot when I get busy and stressed, so I moved the cereal and cashews up high.  It’s too easy for me to nibble my way through the day. I also pushed the chocolate chips (John’s favorite snack) to the back of the fridge so they are out of my line of sight.  They would be up high, but it is hot, so they are in the fridge now.  I have given myself permission to snack on extra fruit today if I really want to eat.

Speaking of snacks, I made up an interesting drink today.  Using some coffee from Godiva as part of the Foodbuzz tastemakers program.  This was the chocolate truffle flavored coffee:

  • 8 oz of unsweetened almond milk
  • 4 ounces of cold chocolate truffle coffee
  • 15 grams of peanut flour
  • sweetener to taste (I used a little honey)
  • 4 large ice cubes.

Blended in my new bullet blender and I got a chocolate peanut butter protein smoothie!  I think you could just use PB2 in place of the peanut flour and not use a sweetener at all.

Slushy and good! And 9 grams of protein.  Yay!

One thing about being really busy – the day goes by super fast.  I was ready for dinner for sure!  I nibbled on a coconut flour cookie (will post recipe tomorrow) and assembled a quick salad.

Then it was back for more work.  I am done with my job for the day, so I am nibbling on some blueberries from this giant bowl:

After I hit publish, I need to go out and pack orders to ship out tomorrow.  I hope John gets me a nice present (hint, hint) for doing this :mrgreen:

I have not opened my Google reader since last night. I apologize for not getting to any blogs today.  I hope to catch up by tomorrow night or Friday.

Question: Do you eat out alone?

40 miles – Riding for fun

The heat wave finally broke! Yay!  Woke up to a glorious 72 degrees out and breezy.  No real plans on tap for the day, which was nice.  Our ride today was for fun and not for a specific reason like the  group ride or my 100-mile ride (and what really was the reason for that???).  I woke up too early this morning, shooting caffeine as a reason for no sleep out the window being caffeine free for 6 days.  I was happy to get out and poke around in the garden.  Look what I found out there:

He was on the ground and I think just chilled because he did fly away after a bit on my hand.

We decided on a different method of riding today.  We wanted to go the the lake, but decided to eat breakfast on the way.  So – after 8 miles, we ended up at Panera Bread.

I had a blueberry bagel and decaf.

I like Panera Bread bagels, but their coffee is pretty lame in general and weak.  And the decaf is worse.  Oh well, at least there are free refills.

We then continued on the path to Lake George.  Haven’t done these hills in a few weeks!

King Queen of the world!

There were gobs of people on the path today, including a group of people on land skis with poles.  It was obviously some sort of class, but they were taking up the whole path! 😡

We finally reached the lake at mile 17 and grabbed a couple Adirondack chairs to sit and enjoy the beautiful day.  It was even windier at the lake.  Isn’t it funny how it is windier near water?

I know you all missed seeing the lake!

Want to rent a boat?

Or you could take a group tour:

I actually like taking the tour boats, although not on a windy day like today.

View from my pear:

I also had a Balance bar.

These are new and awesome!  I don’t eat many bars now, but I do like them.

We relaxed and talked a little bit about where we wanted to ride to.  Lake George and back is about 32 miles, but we both agreed that seemed a little short.  So we decided to go south again and then loop around to home.

We went for another 17 miles before taking a break.  Fresh bike legs and a tail wind can do wonders for you!  At mile 34 I wanted some refreshment.

This was a different road than we normally go on, but it was nicely paved with a decent shoulder.

Even though it wasn’t as hot, I was really sweaty!  It actually feels so much better to be sweating when you doing something rather than sweating just sitting around because it is too hot.

Strike a pose:

John’s goal in life now is to be goofy in all pictures I take of him.

6 more quick miles and were were home.  40 miles in the books and it was not even 1:30 when we got back!

Ride stats:

Total miles:  40.2

Ride time: 3 hours 2 minutes

Average speed: 13.2 mph

Top speed: 27.7 (Wheeeee!!)

Calories burned: 1450

I’ve been snacking the rest of today to get in those calories.  And watching the end of the Tour de France.  Congrats to Cadel, it was a hard earned victory and he really did deserve it.  Andy Shleck’s time will come, he is still pretty young.

Tomorrow is return to caffeine day – yippee!!

Bagel Wednesday and jazz in the park

There was a small front that went through last night and the temps fell down into the upper 50s.  It was glorious!  I slept like a log – hooray!  John said Pixie managed to get into the bedroom and got in his face and I didn’t even stir, which is pretty amazing.

It was 58 degrees when we left the house this morning.  Awesome! We biked to breakfast today, taking a loop around town before ending up at the coffee shop.

I had a honey wheat bagel today.  With Minnie in Paris:

Then we looped around to home for a total of 11 miles today.  Now the next heat wave comes.  The temps rose 30 degrees in the space of about 5 hours today – crazy!  Not much biking going to happen in the next few days.  Too hot and humid. Booo…

I broke for lunch and did my usual hot weather fix:

This is a new cereal, which I may not be able to buy again because this is what I snacked on the other day.  It is really good, though.

Watched some of the tour during lunch.  It is very exciting this year, I have to say!  After following it for a few years, now I think I really understand how it works and the strategies.  It just takes a while (like learning football).

Here is a shot of Pixie going back to school:

The Queen of Calculus.

Afternoon snack.

Decaf iced latte paired with:

Balance bar because I had the hankering for something sweet and I wanted to avoid the chocolate chips!

I am doing okay on the no caffeine front.  I have been very tired the last couple days, but no headaches or crankiness. At least I don’t think I am cranky. The family may disagree.

Dinner time and time for omelets!

This had some grilled chicken in it topped with laughing cow and carmelized onions.  I will do a post tomorrow on how to make these.  It’s easy, although it takes a little time.

On tonight’s agenda? Instead of mother/daughter cafe night, we did music in the park night.

A little jazz:

A little fruit:

A pretty sunset:

And then some fireworks:

That picture came out pretty good with my little digital :mrgreen:

This was a nice mid week break.

Jammin’!

It’s Bagel Wednesday!  John is still having some bike issues, so I went out for a solo head start to Panera Bread for a change.  Haven’t been there in about 6 weeks!  I started off with half of a Balance bar because it takes 40-45 minutes to bike there trying to avoid construction.

John scootered and we arrived at almost the same time.  Good timing!

I had an asiago cheese bagel.

The other half was in my tummy. :mrgreen:

It was a warm and sunny ride home, but the humidity seems not so bad.  Lots of people on the path, and so many of them not abiding by the rules of the path or just general consideration, like not having your group stop and stand in the middle of the path, riding/walking/jogging on the wrong side while wearing headphones so you can’t hear who is coming behind you, dogs on leads that are way too long, etc.  Sometimes it is easier to handle auto traffic than pedestrian traffic!  A good 17 mile ride today.

I had a quick lunch today.  Leftover cooked chicken (I love leftovers!) with laughing cow and BBQ sauce, plus 2 plums.

Not sure why I wanted 2 plums, but I did. One is not quite enough, but 2 is a little too much.

In my Google reader today was a post I was looking forward to:

I participated in the jam exchange last year and I am going to do it again this year!  Anyone want to join?  Basically you are paired up with one person to send two jars of jam to, then we all talk about what we got 😀  It’s fun.

My afternoon snackage:

Almond milk iced coffee.

Sweet/salty mix.

I had to talk myself out of getting more.  That was tough.  I wasn’t hungry, but I just wanted to eat more.  I was trying to figure out where that was coming from because I wasn’t bored (work was busy), I wasn’t stressed (doctors for work were my favorites today), not PMSing.  Who knows?  Maybe the bagel did it.  But, I did manage to not eat until dinner.

Then I could not decide what to have for dinner as nothing was appealing.  I ended up doing a standard lunch –

I even tried to make it look pretty for the blog.  Cereal, berries, plain greek yogurt and a drizzle of honey.

Storms and rain rolled in this evening and cooled things off big time!  Tonight is mother/daughter cafe night.  I will be walking there and back for another 2.5 miles on the day.  A lot of exercise today!

Question:  Have you ever made jam?

Bagel Wednesday and ride recovery

It’s Bagel Wednesday!  Yesterday was a complete rest day other than some gentle walking. It was a warm and sunny morning and we headed out for a brisk ride to breakfast.  My legs felt pretty good.  Still recovering a bit from the 88 mile ride on Monday, I think.  I felt it a little on the hills, but not too bad.

Saw a friend at the cafe, too, which was a nice surprise!

They were out of wheat bagels, so I had a poppy seed instead.

When we left to go home, the ridiculousness continued:

This is really getting discouraging.  John’s tire, this time the back one – the tube on this was from last year, so at least it wasn’t a new one.  It is getting expensive though.

This week I am getting super puncture resistant tires for my bike.

12 mile ride today. All this, plus a general late start to breakfast put me behind for the day.  I told myself no Tour watching until lunch time so I could get work done.

Then I could watch!  Hooray for eating in front of the TV!!  I’ll admit it.

I mixed up some vanilla greek yogurt with peanut flour to make peanut butter yogurt.  This was really good!  I mixed in a little granola.  Red plum on the side, which I dribbled on my shirt because it was so juicy.

The Tour had a scary stage today with a lot of crashes.  That would be so scary to me, and one reason why I am happy with a 13 mph average speed on my bike.  I don’t need to race.

I got hungry an hour or so after lunch, so I grabbed a granola bar.

All while Pixie napped away in catnip splendor.

Awwww…. she always looks so sweet when she is sleeping.

Then it was time for an iced coffee with almond milk and some cashews.

One thing I really struggle with is eating during these long ride periods.  It’s like being on a big calorie see-saw. I have trouble balancing calories, and the scale jumps all over the place.  Right now my goal is for it to go down, but that is difficult to do with hard training (as anyone who has trained for a half or full marathon can attest).  I have also been upping my carbs a fair amount as of late.  So why is it that I am doing a 100 mile ride again?? :mrgreen:

I made a quick dinner tonight.  The usual salad.

It was dark and stormy during dinner, so funny lighting.  At least I didn’t need to water the garden!

Tonight is more work and a snack:

Question:  Are you watching any of the Tour de France?

Bagel Wednesday and doggy visits

Ahhh… back to regularly scheduled programming 😀   Glad you enjoyed the BOW posts.  It was a very nice weekend and such a great program to try things you never might think of doing in a very accessible way.  Women just rock anyway…

We had some fierce storms blow through last night and it was a crap-filled road for riding today.  John had a flat.  He had one the other day.  Brand new tube and came out today and that one was flat as well.  Our tire luck is flipping unbelievable this year.  So, he decided to walk while I rode around.  It takes about 25 minutes to walk there, so I got in a little over 5 miles of riding and met him there.

Bagel!  I haven’t had a bagel since before the weekend!  I keep thinking about making my own bagels, but I don’t really need to have more than the 2 a week I normally have.  Or do I??

Then I biked around more before heading home.  A good day for riding, but a squidge humid.

The last couple of days, I needed to food detox.  While my general meals were pretty good at the workshop, the food on Sunday was not what I am used to eating, and then I got wanting chocolate and stuff because of that, I think.  So, I had 2 no sugar days and no grain days Monday and Tuesday and really felt good by this morning!

Having grains today.  With lunch:

Plain greek yogurt, berries, and Kashi Heart to Heart.

This week is a little slower for work.  I think there is the preholiday slow down going on.  John made up some cookies to take to his poker game tonight, and I snagged one to have with my latte.  He used the recipe on the chip bag, but subbed wheat flour with some peanut flour and some of the butter with coconut oil.

I hope very, very few of these cookies come back home with him.

During the slow times, I watched  a cute birdie friend visit the feeder a lot today.  I think this is a very young sparrow:

I love the birdies. Well, I just like nature in general.

I made a new discovery for my salads this week.  Cooked broccoli makes a nice addition to salad!  I don’t like broccoli raw, and I wanted more substantial veggies on my salad, so I sauteed up some broccoli and added it.

The typical BBQ chicken/feta mix with the broccoli.  It was tasty.  Who knew?

I normally visit with my mom on Wednesdays, but she was busy tonight, so I thought I was going to spend the evening solo.  Then my sister texted that she was dropping by!  Her dog Georgia had surgery a couple weeks ago because she ate a bunch of things she wasn’t supposed to and they had to remove part of her intestines.  😯  Tonight the stitches came out, so that was why Colleen was in town.  Here is Georgia:

It took about 10 pictures to get this shot.  Never work with kids or animals, right?

Colleen also brought my belated birthday gift:

It’s a little garden cart that I can keep on the front porch and store all of my tools and stuff!  It has a removable pad there for kneeling and a couple cup holders.  Yay!

Now I am munching on some cashews and trying to avoid cleaning the litter pan…

Question: How easy is it for you to get back on track after an indulgent weekend?

Walking, walking, walking

Bagel day today.  No biking, however.  It was very cloudy and radar showed heavy rain coming in.  So, we decided to walk to the new cafe.  It’s only about 1.3 miles from our house, so a good walking exercise there and back.  Our town put up new little flags.  How charming.

Note the saucy French beret signifying the French-Indian war.  Our area is actually very history filled.  Birth of the nation and all that.  😀

I had Bagel Wednesday, which I kept in the French theme by the Eiffel Tower!

It rained quite a bit while we were in the cafe.  The ground needs it, though. My bike does not.

It was kind of nice to walk somewhere for a change, although it felt so darn slow compared to being on a bike.  I think that is a sign I bike a lot.

Kind of a dreary day all around.

I did eat lunch on the porch, though.

I made tuna salad on some sourdough I made yesterday.  I still am on the search for the perfect sourdough recipe.  The boule I made on first try was the best, but I am going for some kind of sandwich bread.

I was hungry for something other than my latte today, so I had a Balance Bar.

I do like these, as does John, but I don’t eat them very much anymore.  I suppose they are a better choice than straight up chocolate!

Plus my latte.

John-made latte today, so it is extra special!

Note the dreary quality to today’s photos from the rain.  I never use a flash unless I can absolutely help it and didn’t feel like getting up and using my white board for lighting <——- lazy photographer.

I made up a light dinner after I munched on some potato chips.  Ever get those nights where nothing really appeals?  I decided on a potato with laughing cow, ground beef and BBQ sauce.

Actually ended up being a pretty tasty dinner!

Went out for some mother/daughter time tonight.  I met her at the new coffee shop!  That meant another walk in the rain, but I  got in 5 miles of walking today!

So I had a perfect Lori-sized raspberry tartlette and a nice visit with my mom!  We are imaging how fun it will be on a cold winter night at the caffe with warm coffee and watching the snow come down.

Wait a minute… no snow.  I can’t believe I said that after the winter we just had!!

Working from home and scheduling

Bagel Wednesday!  We had to try the new coffee shop as they had my favorite bagels there from Uncommon Grounds in Saratoga.  Problem is, the shop is only a little over a mile from our house.  So, we just got on the bikes and wound around town to put some miles on.  What a gorgeous morning, too! We got around to the shop and they are having a grand opening with free coffee.  Triple dip score!!!

So far, they only have plain cream cheese, which is okay by me, but John likes flavored.  Check out that nice bagel and the presentation!

2 bagels with cream cheese and 2 coffees only $3 plus tax.  How awesome is that??  The owner used to work at Uncommon Grounds, so he gets a good deal on coffee and baked goods from them, which he passes on apparently.

We biked around for a while and back home.  10.5 miles today at a 13.4 mile per hour pace.  Not too shabby! 😀

Cute thing – I got home and was in the kitchen taking my vitamins when I heard “Brrrritttt”.  Those of you with cats know exactly what I mean.  I looked around and saw this:

She has never gotten up there that I can remember, so I don’t know what was up with that LOL  Jody – I thought of you when I took this picture!

I did a little work before showering to get some of it caught up.  It still has been sooooo busy and I didn’t want files to fall too far behind their turn around time (I am such a good worker – totally worth that raise!).

I thought I would talk a little bit about working at home and how it is to keep a schedule and all that.  For those that don’t know – I work at home as a transcriptionist.  I don’t know if there is a more sedentary job than that.  Really.  All I do is listen, type, and edit.  My environment has to be very quiet, too – so no music or distractions like that.

A lot of people think of how great it is to work at home, but they do not realize that you have to have a very distinct personality to do so.  You actually have to be more disciplined than if you go into an office.  The old company I worked for had a specific time window for me to work in on certain days, but my current one has no set schedule.  I can work any hours and any days to meet the commitments for them. There is no one sitting there and telling me to get to work or to get to the gym or even mow the lawn.  It’s all on me.

I have found that I need to have as set a schedule as possible in order to be the most productive.  I normally wake up pretty early, which is something I am trying to work on with Operation Sleep this month.  I do like to do my workouts first thing in the morning to get them done, plus it is just a nice way to start the day.  Although with biking season, I tend to do that more in the evening with John during the week.  Strength training is always done in the morning to avoid the afternoon preeners at the gym.  Exercise is nonnegotiable for me.  Like Nike says – Just Do It.  No excuses.

I start my work day no later than 10 am, most times a little earlier.  I make sure that I work straight through.  When I stop typing, I stop earning money, so I won’t open my google reader until lunch break or the evenings.  Although I occasionally get Fridayitis and goof around a little.

Segue…

Let’s take a lunch break, shall we?  Our porch is shaded until mid afternoon, so it was still nice to sit outside and eat lunch.

Yes, the plate was precariously balanced.

Speaking of food and working at home, this can be quite tough.  My house is filled with foods I like to eat because… well, I live here.  It is very easy to get up and go to the pantry and get a snack.  Calories add up whether they are dates, nuts, cheese, chocolate, crackers, blueberries – any ‘healthy’ treat.  It all seems innocent until you have eaten 5 snacks during the day because you can.  And it is very easy to make snacks if I want.  All the ingredients are in the pantry to bake anything, really.  Slow day at work? How about cookies??  Although I am pretty good about that.  I do have to have some things kept up high that start to get my snack engine revving, which helps a fair degree, but I can always pull over a chair if I really want something.  I think keeping an eating/snacking schedule is just as hard at home as it is in an office, if not more so!

So yes, there are some great benefits to working at home, but it isn’t always easy.

Speaking of snacks – I received a bag of these from FoodBuzz for the Tastemaker program.  I love Fig Newtons and these are like crunchy newtons.

Very interesting. They have the Newton taste, but are thin and crispy.

Note that 2 are pictured, but I ended up eating 6 of them!! That’s 2 servings. Addictive little buggers.  Guess these need to go up high…

We hit a high in the mid 90s today.  Hot!!  Funny how 6 months ago we were at minus 27 degrees and today 90 degrees.  Now that is a wide range of temps.

Our house stayed a cool 79 degrees with no AC on with our new windows.  Yes indeedy – worth the $$$ putting those in.

I did want a cool dinner, though.  I had the forethought to put some oats into vanilla greek yogurt and let those soak for a couple hours.  Then when dinner rolled around, I added some chopped strawberries and cinnamon!

Looks like a mess, but cool and refreshing.  Kind of a pseudo muesli  (does anyone else find that name kind of icky?)

I do have to do a little more work tonight as it was a tough slog with some of the doctors today, but otherwise a relaxing evening at home – and staying out of the Fruit Thins!