Tag Archives: oats

Up, up and away

A blissful Friday.  I have Sunday off from work because of the Charity Ride and John said it was a 3 day weekend for me.  Yes – just like a 3 day weekend except I have to work today…. 🙄

It was a chilly morning and I headed out at 7 am for a run.  About a 1/2 mile in, it started to sprinkle on me.  I figured there is no difference between sweat and rain (except salt content), so I kept going. I don’t like wet shoes, though.  I did 3 miles today and I was thinking about how easy it felt.  All that biking has sure been doing a lot for my running, I have to say 😀

I was ready for brekkie when I got back.

I got some jams yesterday in the jam swap I participated in.  Dina sent me marionberry jam and blueberry jam!  Yay!  So – onto the banana custard oats it went!

Last of the almond butter as well, time to get out the food processor!   I commenced to some work – relaxed style.

Lunch time!  Something different, just because it is Friday.

Why yes, that is cauliflower.  Roasted in the toaster oven along with the fish sticks.  They were both done at the same time.  I like convenience.

More work after lunch.  I got an email about the Charity Ride on Sunday.  There are 93 riders all together on the 3 different distances.  There are 51 riders doing the 62 mile ride, so I won’t be alone.  Well, I won’t start alone at any rate.  Probably will end last :mrgreen:  This is the first organized bike ride I have ever done.  I forget that I won’t be climbing the hills or finishing the route by myself.  There is a sag wagon and a mechanics vehicle for problems, plus a couple rest/snack stops at 20-mile intervals.  No worries.  I do find myself alternating between excitement and panic.  That stupid 5-mile hill really has stuck itself in my mind.  I must tell myself it is okay if I need to walk up some of that hill.  It’s not a race, and the kids that attend this camp have way more problems in their lives than I do with this hill.   Weather looks iffy that day.  Supposed to be showers and it will be chilly with a high of 64.  I wanted to wear my Rosie jersey, but I think I need a long sleeve shirt since morning temps will be upper 40s/low 50s.

Afternoon snack with a latte:

Instead of the usual What’s Blooming, I thought I would show you something different!  (I’ll do flowers tomorrow). Today was the start of one of the local balloon festivals!  My mom and I went to see the evening launch tonight.

It’s neat because you can get up and close to the balloons taking off.

I loved this balloon!

I was hungry as it was dinner time, so I brought along sustenance.

Kinda creepy, eh?

Me and my mom!

Up, up, and away!

We went out for dinner afterwards.  Since John wasn’t with, we could go to Steve’s Place (he doesn’t like it there).

I love the breakfast all day!  I got an eggbeater cheese omelet with wheat toast.

I ate all but a small smidgen of the omelet.  Yum!

A very nice day, all in all.  We are in the stride of festival time around here.

Question:  Ever been to a balloon launch?

Lifting and Team Challenge ride

Yay – my Broncos won last night and looked pretty good! Can’t wait for the real season to start. I biked to the gym today, where I decided on lifting only for a cardio break.

Operation endurance is still going:

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell squats 3 sets of 10 with 45# bar Lower body
Dumbbell pullover 3 set of 12 with 20# DB Back
Chin ups 2 sets 2 Upper body
Decline sit ups 3 sets of 12 Core
1-leg deadlifts 3 sets of 12 with 15# DBs (30# total) Hammies and balance
Seated calf raise 3 sets of 10 at 110# Calves
Push ups 3 sets of 10 Chest
Lower Back extension 3 sets of 12 at 80# Low back
Front Raise 3 sets of 12 with 5# DBs (10# total) Shoulders
Cable pull down 3 sets of 15 at 30# Triceps

I tried chins again for the first time in a few months. I lost some strength there, which is annoying. I stopped doing them because I didn’t want to concentrate to much on them, plus I was getting a little bored doing them each workout.  Then lookie what happens 😀

Quick bike home. It’s going to be a hot one today! Not humid, though, which is always good in my book.

Are you tired of the oats yet? I have really been on a super kick lately. This blog should be called finding oats and broccoli…. (which ought to bring in a lot of readers).

This is the size banana that I use for my banana custard oats (I know there is a joke in there somewhere).

I don’t like using half a banana, so we just find the smallest ones possible.

I cannot tell you how great it feels to be back down to a single job’s worth of hours.   Yay!  I’ll have my new bike paid off next week, so that is a good thing.  I might just keep the 2 jobs as part time instead of moving to 1 only, as I am afraid that there won’t be enough work with one company (it’s feast or famine in my industry).  Plus job #1 has eased up a little on the constant berating of employees – or a lot of them left at any rate.  I’ll just play it by ear.

Lunchtime involved something different.  I made a protein crepe using egg white protein powder.  I am not that fond of it, but we must use it up.

  • 15 grams of egg white protein
  • 1 whole egg
  • 1/4 cup liquid egg whites
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 tbsp of whole wheat flour
  • stevia

Whizzed up in the magic bullet and cooked in a skillet.   Filled with blueberry sauce and a dollop of vanilla greek yogurt.

This was tasty, but a little on the tough side, thanks to the egg white protein.  I have tried this with brown rice PP and kind of had the same result.  I need to try it with whey and see what happens.  Definitely in the keeper file, though.

I now have the donate button for my charity ride if anyone wants to use it in the sidebar (or below).  😀  I’ll be getting the recipe book out to people this week.  It’s about a 50 page booklet!
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I am getting excited about the ride.  I just need to find out what the course is like.  I imagine hilly because it is in the Adirondacks, but I am prepared for that.  I did 100 miles this summer, so I know I can do 62 with hills. The only thing I won’t be prepared for is rain.  The ride is rain or shine, so I am going to have to suck it up and ride if it is bad weather LOL!

Snack time included one of these:

Plus some of this:

I am starting to have cereal snack issues again, so this box is going to go up high tonight.

Finished up with work by dinner time, which is so awesome!  It’s so great to know I don’t have to log back in after dinner and do more.  It’s also great to see a man cooking:

Although, truth be told he was cooking some shrimp for himself LOL!

I had a baked crab cake and finally some red pear!  They are back around now.  Red pears are my favorite.

Now I have a whole evening with no work to do, but a lot of other things to do.

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway of  “I’m With Fatty!”  Recipient will be chosen on Tuesday.

Back to squat basics

Monday, Monday! I decided on just a weight workout today and skip the cardio for a bit of rest. Biked to the gym and got right to the iron.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell squat 3 sets of 10 with 45# bar (lower than parallel) Lower body
Seated lat row 1 set of 4 at 85#

1 set of 6 at 70#

1 set of 8 at 55#

1 set of 10 at 40#

 Back
Stiff-legged deadlift 3 sets of 10 at 75# Lower body
Captain’s Chair 3 sets of 10 Abs
Incline barbell chest press 3 sets of 8 at 55# Chest
Seated calf raise 3 sets of 10 at 110# Calves
Lower Back Extension 3 sets of 10 at 100# Low back
Nosebreaker 3 sets of 10 with 30# bar Triceps
Front Raise 3 sets of 10 with 8# DBs (16# total) Shoulders

I did a video of myself with the squat and wasn’t all that happy with my depth, so I decided to back way off on the weight and make sure to go below parallel to work on form. I really want to be able to do full squats (aka ass-to-the-grass) with more weight, so back to basics!  I see many, many partial squats being done at the gym, and I don’t want to be in that category.  I may or may not show that video as an example of poor form. 😀

Biked home and made up a new oat dish – Apple Pie oats!

  • 40 grams of oats
  • 1/2 of a granny smith apple chopped small
  • 1 tsp of brown sugar
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 cup of water
  • 1/4 cup of egg whites
  • 4 toasted pecans, crushed
  • 1 square of lowfat graham cracker

I added apple, cinnamon, and brown sugar to the cooking water with the oats when it came to a boil.  Cooked for a few minutes, then tempered in the egg whites.  Topped with the pecans and crushed graham cracker (for the ‘crust’ ).  Quite tasty, I have to say.  I think a tart, firm apple is best in this.  If I was feeling truly decadent, I guess a drizzle of caramel on this would be pretty awesome…. just sayin’

I also had some of these on the side.

I was asked about any supplements I take.  These are my dailies.  I do a multivitamin, a flax seed oil (don’t do fish oil), a vitamin C/B combo, and a vitamin D3.  Vitamin D3 is important for me living in a northern climate and my liberal use of sunscreen.  If I think about it in the winter, I add zinc.   I actualy probably could do without the multi as my diet has a good variety of whole foods, but I just want to cover my bases, particularly as I am progressing forward in years.

Work time ensued.  Busy, busy.  Yesterday not busy, today very busy.

Lunch break was so awesome!  I made a 1 egg/2 egg white omelet stuffed with some cabot reduced fat cheddar, sauteed broccoli and caramelized onions.

I found the secret for me and omelets is to pour the egg mixture into the pan and cover it to sort of steam the omelet so I don’t have to flip it.  Doesn’t it look purty?  Not sure if it is sad or not that I was excited at how this omelet turned out LOL.

I had to laugh at some of the interpretations of yesterday’s post title,  from bikini butt to not knowing what the heck it meant!  A bikini is not something I think I would ever get in for one, and I don’t often talk about my behind on the blog (other than to get it in gear), but I thought that particular issue of biking needed to be addressed.  The soreness seems to be a major sticking point for people getting started with biking, so I want to let you all know it does go away.

Snack time!  Latte and some dark chocolate.

Then I was hungry again an hour later, so I had some blueberries.

These are from the store and not the local ones and I can taste such a difference.  Oh well.

John was on the grill tonight and did up some ground pork burgers.  I like ground pork as it is not as dry as lower fat ground beef and still quite tasty.

I had mine with laughing cow and more caramelized onions (I have a batch in the freezer).  Good thing I am already married 😆

Still working tonight.  We have a weekend getaway planned, so I have to get as much extra work done as possible this week!  Gonna get a snack and back to work after posting this.

Question:  Do you ever get back to basics with something?

Will bike for cupcakes

Unbelievably gorgeous day today!  It was chilly this morning, though.  I was ready for a warm brekkie.  I had forethought last night to soak some steel cut oats, so they were quicker to cook this morning.  Love that technique.

I did the usual banana custard style topped with some strawberry jam and cashew butter.

My mouth and tummy were happy campers!  I got a chance to catch up on blogs and some emails while waiting for John to get up 😛

We packed up some snacks and got ready to hit the road for a long ride.  I am so happy to go riding!

Headed down to Saratoga today.  It was such a beautiful day for a ride.  I kept saying that until John got annoyed LOL!  (Did I mention it was a beautiful day??)  We stopped around mile 12 as I wanted a snack.  It’s hard to wait longer when I ate breakfast about 2 hours earlier than John did.  Product placement:

This was in the swag bag from the Silk & Satins race. I wanted to see how Craisins did in place of my usual dates.  They did fine.

Does anyone smell ham?  I do:

(He thinks he is so cool now all decked out in the new jersey….)

I started to have chain problems around mile 16.  Uh oh.  I messed with it a little.  There is one link that if it gets the smallest dust speck in it, it tends to stick.  This is after wiping off my hands.  Ick.

It seemed okay after that for the rest of the ride.  After 22 miles, we got to Saratoga.  First stop?  Cupcake Lab!

We wanted lunch and a little something else.  It was nice not to be dripping sweat since the day was so nice.  Did I mention that already?

I love this saying:

Of course, anything that says coffee is all right by me…. My choice for lunch was the breakfast burrito.  I got that forgetting it had sausage in it (I thought it was the local bacon).  They get the bacon locally, but not the other meats.  Not quite sure why that is as the smokehouse they get the bacon from is where we buy all our meat.  Anyway – here is my delicious burrito in a honey wheat wrap with egg, cheese, potato, and sausage.  With a perfect strawberry on the side.

Yum!  I was so hungry that I kind of woofed this down.  Ooops.  Trying to be mindful, but really hard when you are hungry.

We wanted dessert, of course.  How can you go to a cupcake place and not have anything?  Choices, choices.  I wanted a peanut butter frosted cupcake:

We also had the Almond Joy, which I was remiss in gettng a picture of.

And some fresh brewed coffee.

They brew each cup individually with a filter, which I adore!  I got a coffee called Witches Brew.  Very smooth coffee. I would probably brew this a little stronger, but everyone I know says we make our coffee too strong. 🙄

Then the owner brought out a new flavor cupcake to us to try on the house.  How nice is that?  She actually recognized me from my blog.  First local recognition!

This was a coconut cream cupcake.  Vanilla cupcake with coconut cream filling topped with buttercream.  It was really good.  Very coconuty.  Again, I like this size of cupcake because it isn’t monstrous in size.

John proclaimed the almond joy to be his favorite.  I like the peanut butter frosted.  I like anything nutty anyway.

After this, we walked around town.  Big horse.

Saratoga is horse town, as the track runs during the summer.  It is track season now, but downtown was surprisingly uncrowded.  Guess everyone was at the track itself.  Stopped in to Borders just to see if Caitlin’s Operation Beautiful book was there, but it was not.  Boooo on Borders.

We were trying to let our cupcake babies settle for a bit.  I was a little full.  Hopped over to the bike store and got some much needed chain lube.  Chain all better now!  Yay!

Then we rode home.  My legs felt quite good.  After 30 miles, John asked if I was warmed up yet.  Hardeehar.  Such a comedian.  After 32 miles, we took a break for some coconut water.  More product placement!

Maybe Zico would sponsor my Team Challenge ride?? (I wish!!)

Long road behind us.

This is the entry to someone’s driveway.

It’s all gravel.  That has to suck in winter time LOL!

We hit a big hill right after this and I think I drank too much water and coconut water, because I was getting a side cramp that lasted for about 3 miles.  Ugh.  Then I felt fine.

It was an awesome ride today!  Great weather can make all the difference in how a ride feels.  I could do the 62 mile Team Challenge ride tomorrow.  Well, maybe not tomorrow since I did 45 today, but I am ready now.

Ride stats:

45.6  miles

3:25 of actual ride time

Top speed:  24.8 mph

Avg speed:  13.4 mph

Calories burned: 1440 (good thing after those cuppicakes!)

I have to say that I feel so strong right now.  I still have work to do on my leg, but I don’t think I could ask to be more in bike shape than I am right now.  The scale is just a box with a number on it.  It does not tell me that I am strong and beautiful.  It does not know that I can bike 100 miles in a day.  It does not know that I can squat and deadlift in the weight room with the guys.  And I don’t care what it doesn’t know about me – because *I* know it 😀

Lots o’ lifting

Woke up to a cooler morning in the 60s and cloudy, so it was a nice bike to the gym. I actually did not eat a snack because I thought I was just going to be doing a 30-minute lift session with no cardio (for a rest day). I probably should have had something.

I got to the gym at 6:50 am and there was not a soul there! I was shocked as there have been a lot more people there lately. This is one of the good things about a small local gym, though. That meant that I could take a bunch of videos of myself for the lifting move of the week (lucky readers!), as I won’t do that if anyone is there working out. Then I did my regular lifting routine:

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Stiff-legged deadlift 3 sets of 10 at 75# Lower body
Barbell split squats 3 sets of 10 at 75# Lower body
Barbell chest press 3 sets of 10 with 55# bar Chest
Close grip lat pulldown 3 sets of 10 at 50# Back
Horizontal Wood Chop 3 sets of 10 (each side) at 30# Abs
Barbell Good Mornings 3 sets with 10 at 55# Low back and hammies
Upright Row 3 sets of 10 30# Shoulder
Triceps press down 3 sets of 10 at 30# Triceps

Dang I was tired when I was done.  I think I made 8 videos of various moves. Ended up doing about an hour of lifting, which was way more than I have done in a looooong time. My upper body was shaking while I biked home.

Needed breakfast STAT! Banana custard oats topped with cashew butter and some pomegranate jelly that was gifted to us.

And a loverly beverage:

Got started with work right away and had the Tour on.  Poor Andy Schleck!  I know that there is no fairness award, but I swear that Contador would pitch his mother off the Eiffel Tower to win.  If he does win the Tour by just a bit, it will be tainted, so he had better rack up about a 5 minute lead.  The boos and whistles when he put on the yellow jersey were quite something.

Lunch break!

I bought some roasted red pepper hummus the other day, so I mixed that with some tuna.  Yum!  Plus a wonderful plum.

Regarding how long I will be working 2 jobs, that is really up in the air right now.  With the 2nd job, I am sort of being moved to different accounts and I really want to settle into a home account and make sure there is enough work for me to do full time.  As of right now, there is not enough and I do not want to give up job 1 until I know for sure I have enough work.  Only time will tell.

Latte break!  The temp was cooler today (relatively), so I had a hot latte with protein added, plus a couple squares of Lindt.

Delicious!

Look at this cherubic face:

They always look so sweet and innocent when they are sleeping.  Kind of like kids….

John grilled some burgers for dinner, and I almost burned my broccoli today.  Must pay attention when cooking!  This is a 3 oz burger.

Where’s the beef??  It wasn’t even big enough for my laughing cow wedge….  This is why I don’t eat ground beef very often, even though I do like it.

After dinner, I decided to take a walk since I wasn’t doing any other cardio today.  It’s still warm out, but not blazingly hot – so have to take advantage of that when I can in the evenings.  Also got caught up on weeding.  Yay!

Evening snack of a blueberry cornbread muffin.  I will post the recipe tomorrow with the toaster oven review.

Question:  What do you mix your tuna with (if you eat it)?

About that protein…

Don’t forget to enter the Lanacane giveaway – ends on Tuesday!

Ah humidity. It was like waking up to a warm wet blanket this morning. Ick. I had half of a balance bar and then drove to the gym because it was raining. I had enough biking in the rain on Saturday 😀

I started off with a jog on the treadmill. There were 5 of us working out and after I hit 1 mile, the power cut out in the gym! We all stopped dead. That was really weird. It stayed off for about 10 seconds and then came back on. I just decided that was enough of a warm up and moved on to the iron.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Chin ups 2 sets of 2, 3 sets of 1 Upper body
Barbell squats 3 sets of 8 at 75# Lower body
Dumbbell pullover 3 sets of 10 with 25# DB Back
Barbell Good Mornings 3 sets of 10 with 45# bar Lower back and hammies
Rope Crunch 3 sets of 15 Abs
Barbell Chest Press 3 sets of 10 with 55# bar Chest
Reverse Fly on bench 3 sets of 10 with 12# DBs (24# total) Shoulders
Triceps press down 3 sets of 10 at 40# Triceps

The plan was then to run 2 more miles on the hamster wheel, but the legs were not having it.  Not sure what was up with that, so I walked for 20 minutes instead.  I think it was the extra leg work?  Running has become very difficult for me since my injury, but I am not sure if some of that isn’t mental.  I don’t know how to proceed with this.

Anyway, I went home and was ready for brekkie.  I had soaked some steel cut oats overnight and made custard banana oats topped with almond butter and 15 grams of dark chocolate chips:

It’s amazing that those chips are 70 calories.  It is so, so easy to overeat on chocolate.

Work was busier today, thank goodness.  I will either have to take some PTO this week or try to make up 6 extra hours of work at some point this week. Booo….

Lunch time was the leftover Palak Chole from yesterday!  Yum

Check out this humidity.  I had just poured this glass:

It wasn’t all that hot today, but the humidity was horrible.  Just blinking made me sweat 😀  Even poor Pixie was hot:

We finally turned on the AC downstairs and it got much better.

Susan had asked about protein on bagel days.  On any day, I strive for 100 grams of protein.  Most days I hit that pretty easily.  I do drink 15 grams of protein before most workouts in the morning, including the bagel days.  At least on days where we bike to breakfast.  Sometimes I take a Sunday as a rest day and obviously don’t need to eat before breakfast on those days.  I do try to make it up later in the day with heavier protein meals.   I have recently switched to whey protein isolate now, which is basically pure protein and has less calories and more grams of protein per serving.  I get the unflavored kind, so that I can add it to things.  It’s easy to make up your own flavored drink using something like Capella flavors and stevia.  Who needs 5# of cake batter protein powder?  I get bored with flavors pretty fast.

Plus, I can put some of this whey in my latte, and it is like the protein shot at Starbucks.  It is pretty much undetectable at about 5 to 10 grams of powder in a latte made with 8 oz of milk:

Afternoon snacks consisted of some Kashi and some chocolate.

Nibbler is in the house again…. sigh….

I wasn’t feeling like much for dinner.  I had plans to have just some toast for dinner with that yummy bread.  I sliced off a piece, and then noticed all these tiny ants on the loaf!  Ahhhhh!!! There was about 1/3 of the loaf left that we had to toss.

I decided just to have a no-cook dinner:

Good pears this week.

I am going to work for a little bit more tonight and watch some Tour de France preview shows on Versus.  The Tour starts this weekend!  Woo Hoo!

Evening snack is something I haven’t had in a couple of years:

This is the non Splenda version.  Those are harder to find now, unfortunately.

Question:  Which is worse for you, the heat or the humidity?

What’s blooming and dress find!

It’s Friday, so you know what that means!  Time to show off the garden again.  But first, must get the other important things out of the way.

Had a preworkout protein drink:

and biked to the gym.  I changed up the workout a little today in that I didn’t do any chin ups.  I just didn’t feel like doing any, so I left them out.  That’s when I could use a personal trainer, eh?

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Stiff leg Deadlifts 3 sets of 8 with 75# bar Lower body
Wide grip lat pulldown 3 sets of 12 at 50# Upper body
Standing leg press 3 sets of 8 with just machine weight Lower body
Nosebreakers 3 sets of 10 with 25# bar Triceps
Captain’s Chair 3 sets of 10 Abs
Push ups 3 sets of 10 Chest
Upright row 3 sets of 10 with 25# bar Shoulders

Today was a run day, and I decided that I would just hop on the treadmill and do it then instead of going back outside later. I did 3 miles and was soaked! Even though there was AC on, it makes such a difference to actually have the breeze from running outside on you.

Then I biked home.  That’s a lot of exercise!  I burned 600 calories and I was hangry for brekkie!

I cooked up some banana oats and topped with peanut butter and raspberry fruit spread.

I actually had some PB off the spoon, too.  Told you I was hungry!  I did make myself eat slowly, though.

Then I read blogs for a while before I even showered.  I told John I felt like I was being lazy and he reminded me that I had just done that workout.  LOL!

Spent the morning making almond butter, baking some bread, roasting coffee and puttering around outside.  This day is a picture perfect summer day.  The garden is just busting out all over with the schedule of rain and sun we have had:

Black-eyed Susans are starting:

Veronica (speedwell):

Clematis (Snow Queen) – and I thought this one was lost to frost.  Turns out only the old growth died.

My scentimental rose bush is bursting!

This smells absolutely heavenly, too.   Love it.

Daylilies are still going as well.

Can you believe how tall these are? They have to be about 4 feet tall.  Flowers and gardening just make me so happy.  I wish I could find year round work in this regard.

Back in for lunch.  But first, I got the bread ready for the oven:

This was made from the Healthy Artisan Bread in 5 minutes book and is the Milk and Honey loaf (with raisins).

While that was baking, I had lunch:

A redux of my curry chicken salad.  Just a couple ounces of chicken, chopped apple, light mayo, and curry powder.  Quick and good!

The bread finished baking and was a success!

Letting this cool was really hard.  I am a sucker for warm bread (or any bread, really).  I made a piece with some real buttah and blackberry fruit spread to have with my latte.

So good.  I can envision french toast with this bread, oh yes I can….

After snacking, I headed out to one of my favorite consignment shops and scored!  I got a work out top, plus the cutest little dress:

This mirror was tilted back, I wish I looked this thin LOL!  Now I need to get a cute pair of sandals.  The best part?  It was only $4.80 !!!  I loves me a bargain.

I was all kinds of happy when I got home and whipped up some pan fried shrimp with brussels and a pear:

All in all a good day 😀  I am thinking about some frozen yogurt tonight, maybe.  I do need to stay out of that bread LOL!

Question:  What is your favorite type of bread?

Ch.ch.ch.changes…..

Lanacane review/giveaway – don’t miss it!

Ah, the last work day of the week.  I decided to take a rest day and make it a no-added sugar day.

Last night involved a moving up to 6th grade for my niece:


They were all singing here.  We were in the very last row way in the back, so I am surprised I could get a shot at all.  2 really good pieces of advice were given to them before heading to the big middle school next year:

– Choose your friends wisely

– Wear a helmet  (Safety first, as I love to say)

Sound advice, no?

We had pizza and a cake that Logan made and decorated all by herself:

Also, some pretzel M&Ms were had by me, since my sister bought them!  Twice in one week – eek!

That kind of inspired the no-added sugar day today.  I started off with oats cooked with egg whites and made parfait style with my blueberry sauce:

Then got to work.  It has been a frustrating week.  Poor John is probably really tired of hearing me complain about my current employer.  I decided to accept a position with another company, but I am going to start part time and see how the fit is before I give up my current job.  It pays less and I won’t have my benefits, but the plus side is that I can work whatever hours I want, so I can mesh my work schedule with John’s (and no more weekends unless I feel like it).  They also seem very relaxed and laid back, which is a big change from my current whip-cracking company.  They also were understanding about me starting part time to test the waters with them (I was up front about that).  So, not sure when that all starts, probably some time next week – which means I will be busy!

Lunch break for some tuna salad and crackers:

Tuna is starting to wobble back off the ‘like’ list LOL!

When I do the no sugar days, I eat dates to satisfy my sweet tooth:

These are so soft and sugary, too.  Maybe it defeats the purpose, but at least I get fiber and potassium with the sweetness.

Very good paired with a latte.

Dinner involved an experiment:

Roasted radishes!  I actually like radishes on salads, but I thought I would try roasting them to see what happened.  I have to say that I prefer them raw.  They got soft and lost that bite that radishes have.  Maybe if I roasted them longer (20 minutes), they would have gotten crispy.

I have lots of paperwork to fill out tonight for the new position, and a nice walk in store.

Tonight’s snack will be some clementines!

John got these at the store, surprised to see them at this time of year.  They are very juicy and oddly pale.

See you tomorrow for more what’s blooming in my garden (there is a lot!).

Chili on a chilly day.

Quite the rainy  and cool day today!  Perfect day to have a warm bowl of banana custard oats.

Topped with chocolate fluff and some homemade pecan butter.  I really relished this bowl and took my time eating it.  Yay!

There is a large art show each year sponsored by the lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council (Larac). It joins with another group and they have a big festival, so we went down to check it out.

Too bad it was rainy, but didn’t really seem to stop the crowds too much.  I would have taken more pictures of art, but most artists/craftspeople don’t like pictures taken of their wares.  I came really close to buying another pottery bowl, but what I really want is a new plate.  Instead, I just got some jelly made with beer!

The gentleman selling it kept talking about putting in on meat before grilling, but I am all the while thinking it is going to end up on my oats in the morning.  Starting the day off with beer?  Could be interesting!

Went out to lunch afterward.  O’Tooles.   It’s very sports bar-like.

I am itching to watch a football game here (come on preseason!).  I do like this place, but so many tempting (read fried) stuff on the menu.  Since it is cooler out, I decided on some chili with a side salad.

Look at all that dressing.  I did the fork dipping technique with this stuff.  I also had a few of John’s sweet potato fries.  Just cannot get them this crisp at home.

I think I did pretty good food wise here, and enjoyed it quite a bit!

Then grocery shopping and home.  I also stopped at the pet store for kitty supplies and got Pixie a refill on one of her favorite toys – Da bird.  She annihilated the last one – just loves it.

Action shot – she does move around, just so you know.

Soon it was latte time!

With some Divine mint chocolate.  Good stuff.

You know that toy pictured above for Pixie?  She just broke it…  Time to get out the super glue.  Again, cannot have nice things.

John cooked up pork burgers for dinner.  I had a toasted slice of bread with laughing cow with mine.  This was sooooo good!  Lean pork, but very moist.

I didn’t feel like any veggies tonight, so I went with the flow.

With no outside biking today due to rain, we watched the Tour de Suisse on TV:

Time trial tonight and 2nd stage tomorrow.  I’ll have to sneak some watching in during work.

Going to get some good sleep for the race tomorrow.  It’s at 9 am and the forecast is about 60 and partly cloudy.  Sounds pretty perfect to me!

Question:  Any fun activities on tap today?

May wrapup and goals

I conked out good last night!  My thigh was pretty stiff and sore after the run, so I took a Tylenol PM last night and woke up about 8 hours later!  That is pretty amazing to me.  My legs are stiff today, so I will be taking an easy day today.  It’s also rainy, which limits biking 😀

I was in the mood for some chocolate oats.  Reese’s oats, really 😀

5 grams of cocoa powder with 1 mashed banana and some cinnamon cooked into the oats (plus 2 egg whites).  Topped with nut butter.

Love the voluminous bowl created by the egg whites.

Work still busy today after a slow start. I am so looking forward to my 4-day birthday weekend coming up! :mrgreen:

Lunch time.

All-Bran for fiber, greek yogurt for protein, strawberries cause they’re just good, and buckwheat honey for sweetness.  I also had a 1/2 of a protein drink.

So, here were my goals and the assessment for May:

  • The return to running.  Yep – it happened! Not 100%, but doing good.  I realized that the atrophy in my left leg is not going to be a quick recovery.  Just because it doesn’t hurt doesn’t mean it isn’t going to take a long time to get back to normal.
  • Lose 3 pounds.  Epic fail. I went the other way.  Still just too much snacking and really not being in the losing frame of mind.
  • Go to the dentist. Done!
  • Really, really think about my current job.  Have been. I’m not really in any hurry to make a jump, but I have explored some other options.  (Bagel/donut shop LOL).
  • Try to make the blog more interesting with recipes and  lifting stuff (or anything else you want to see!). Done.  Well, doing really.  I started the lifting move of the week, and I posted some recipes.  I also organized the great veggie experiment page a little better.

So, not too bad on the whole.  Always room for improvement, though.

Afternoon snacks:

This bar was really m’eh.  Would not buy again.

Plus the usual:

FYI, as I don’t think I have ever talked about the lattes.  We use 1 cup of 1% milk (that’s what we drink) and a couple shots of espresso in this.  The foaming makes it really seem like a lot of drink (again the volume eater in me loves this!).  So this is around 110 calories or so, with maybe another 20 calories of honey on top.

June Goals:

  • Enjoy my birthday (the 5th).  I took a couple days off of work so I can do whatever I want this weekend!  You only turn 42 once :mrgreen:
  • 70 mile bike ride.  I know we can do this.  It’s only 10 more than the last long ride.
  • Read more books.  I read voraciously when I do read.  Need to make it happen more often by unplugging the computer.
  • Run a race.  I think we will do the Read/Run on June 13th, if my running continues to progress.
  • Go sugar free for a few days during the month.  Just to make myself aware.
  • Note I am not making a weight loss goal this month.  If it happens, it happens.  No number pressure allowed.

Leftover pizza for dinner.  Pretty tasty, though.

My brussel sprouts got kind of crispy because I got a phone call right during cooking.  Note to self – remove pan from heat, don’t just turn off the burner.

Got most of the soap packed up and ready to go.  I really should make extra for us, but I never get around to it.

Gonna unplug and relax tonight.  This is the snack for later:

If you  have never tried pears and cheese, you should.  It is quite a tasty combo.

Question:  What are your goals for June?