Creature of Habit

I have a morning routine. It isn’t quite timed down to the minute, but…it’s close.
My alarm goes off at 5:39 am. At this point I have two choices, a) get up, or b) snooze my alarm for 5 minutes. I usually just get up right away. I change my clothes, let the dog out of his crate, bundle up and try to be out the door for our walk no later than 5:50.
Our walks usually end between 6:18 and 6:20 am, depending on how late we get out the door. Between 6:20 and 6:30 I feed the dog, and turn on the TV to watch the news/weather report while I stretch. At 6:30am, I throw the dog in the back yard, and get in the shower. I am done with showering, lotioning, blow drying and putting on my makeup at 7:00am. I need to be eating my breakfast by 7:10. I eat and watch the Today show until 7:20. Then I brush my teeth, warm up the car, scrape the windows (if needed) kiss my husband goodbye, and back out of the drive way at 7:30am.

I am not this type A about anything else in my life. Ever. I don’t plan out my schedule to the minute too cook dinner, or make my lunch for the next day. But, I like to have a plan, a schedule for the morning.
And when it gets thrown off..I know it’s going to be one of those days.

Today, I woke up at 6:07am. My alarm was flashing, but not making any noise. I think it was probably set to “wake up to ipod” (it’s an ipod docking station alarm clock, Thanks Husband!), and my ipod wasn’t docked. So…..that is almost 30 minutes later than I normally wake up! Gah. It shortned my walk and made the whole shebang just feel off.

On our walk, which was exceptionally cold at 24 degrees!, I saw the most incredible shooting star! I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a shooting star “in town.” I’m pretty sure all of the shooting stars I’ve ever seen have been out in the woods, far far away from city lights. Anyway, I was still feeling frustrated about my alarm going off late, and seeing this star kind of put it in perspective for me. A little cheesy…I know.

Ok, on to something relevant…
I posted about the grocery challenge that I am doing this month, in my last post. This week I bought $55.00 worth of groceries. It was only 50, until my husband invited his parents over for dinner tonight, and I needed some supplemental food. Anyway, that brings me to a total of $91 dollars for the month, so far.

I normally buy a bunch of bananas to have for breakfast each week. This week at the grocery store, every single bunch of bananas was bright green. Ick, not oatmeal ready!
So, I found two of the yellowiest bananas, and bought a huge can of pumpkin to have in oats this week.

I’ve decided that I prefer to microwave my oats each morning (it fits better in the aforementioned routine), but if I am going to have pumpkin in my oats, I think I prefer stove top!

Here is today’s bowl of oats. I’m calling it pumpkin pie oatmeal with maple infused whipped cream, topped with nuts.

Here is what is in it
½ cup oats.
Dash of salt
Water, I don’t measure, I just put in enough ot cover the oats.
Microwaved for 1 minute.
Take out, and add in 3 big spoonfuls of pumpkin (see not type A about cooking!)
A few dashes of cinnamon and a splash of vanilla
Stir and microwave for another 1.5 minutes.

Top with plain non fat yogurt, mixed with maple syrup and topped with walnuts.

This was actually really good! The only thing I would have done differently would have been to mix the maple syrup and yogurt in a separate container, and then spread evenly on the oat meal. It really made the flavor combo.

I love vegetables that taste like dessert!

Snacky McSnackerson

Everyday I bring two snacks with me to work. One for before lunch if I need it, and one for after lunch, when I always need it.

I’ve tried various bars, Larabar’s, Luna Bars, Clif Z Bars, Odwalla bars.
And to be honest, I’m a little barred out. (barred out? Is that even English?)

Each week I plan before I go grocery shopping, I plan out our dinner menu, what I am going to take for packed lunches, and what I am going to take for snacks. This week I decided to go a different route.
I bought a big container of lowfat plain yogurt:
This is the only brand my cheap grocery store sells. I could go to the more expensive stores, but seriously, we save so much on groceries this way. Plus, I like the yogurt. It’s no Fage, but it’s good. Speaking of greek yogurts, I noticed yesterday that one of our stores started stocking Oikos. I might have to try that. No sign of Chobani yet though.

I then went to the cereal aisle. This store sells Kashi products (well, cereals anyway) pretty consistently, but not much else. Then I happened upon this!

Yum….chocolate granola? Yes Please.

This is a divine combination, the granola is VERY crunchy and I don’t like eating it plain by the handful (unlike Honey Nut Cheerios).

I’m using about 1/3 a cup of the granola. A serving is labeled as ¾ of a cup and has 220 calories, so I’m estimating my 1/3 of a cup to have 74. I then use 100 calories-ish of yogurt. I don’t measure the yogurt. I just know the size of my container, and blob spoonfuls in until I think I have about a cup. So….for 174 calories I get a lot more volume and A LOT more protein than any of the bars that I’ve been eating. Most of the bars usually come in between 200 and 250 calories.

Also, eating this with a spoon forces me to snack slower, instead of mowing my way through a bar.

And as a follow up to yesterday, I am loving my body today. It’s kind of like Valentines Day. You shouldn’t tell people you love them just once a year, it should be everyday.

And I leave you with a picture of our pup. He is five months old now! awwww look at that face! He sits patiently by the counter each morning as I'm making my breakfast...just waiting for the day that I drop something on the floor!

new type of yogurt

So, out here in Redneck-ville...finding organic REAL food can be pretty challenging. In one of our local chains, Fred Myers (think super walmart, only nice), there is a "natural food" section. it's like a mini grocery store..everything from bulk bins to cleaning products are in these four aisles. anyway....I was there picking up some LARABARS (my fav!) today during my lunch break....and I thought I would pick up one of these yogurts to test them out.
Very good! This was a full fat version and gluten free. It was 6oz and had 130 calories, 9 g of sugar and 6 grams of protein. Not bad. I mixed in a Kashi Pumpkin Spice Flax Crunchy bar (90 calories). For 220 calories...It was great. I am not hungry at all (I ate this at 2pm, and it is now 4:40), although my mouth was craving something, so I've been chewing gum like a mad person and ate a carrot off the veggie tray in the break room.
Anyway...a good find!

Isn't that brown cow cute?

snack and afternoon stuff

Well I finally got hungry just now, which is about 30 minutes later than I usually get hungry. I had my ~4oz of yogurt with the other half of the kashi bar from yesterday. But...NO PICTURE.

When I went back to the breakroom to get the yogurt out of the fridge..two of my co-workers were in there. Almost everyone I work with, is extremely blunt and curious, and I'm just not prepared to take pictures of my food in front of them. Ah...eating insecurities live on. Am I afraid they will see the blog? Am I afraid they will comment on my choice of food? Who cares...apparently me!

Also..my lower body is SOOOO sore from my workouts this week. I've been part of the body by Glamour program (http://www.glamour.com/) for the past couple of months, and this week I've been doing the strength workouts from month 1, and man my lower body is killing me. Hurts to sit down pain. I suppose when it hurts to sit on the toilet... I should just be thankful it doesn't hurt to pee! Ok bad joke.

Today has gone by super fast, can't believe it's already 3:30! Not sure what we are having for dinner tonight..we have a TON of corn tortillas that my husband bought that we need to get rid of..he makes these delcious taco things...that yeah..aren't healthy at all, so we'll see what I can do to not gorge my self. I think I might also try my hand at home made baked tortilla chips.

But..there will be pictures...hurrah!

weighing in on lunch...and life

Well, I ended up going to the gorcery store and grabbbing a "chicken florentine" frozen meal by Kashi. I wish I worked closer to the co-op. There is a natural foods market here, in the town I work in, but they dont' have a salad bar or anything. :( .

At the grocery store, I got one more sweet potato for dinner tonight, my kashi meal, a little 1% milk for my tea and coffe (no more processed creamer for me!), and I found....individual plain yogurts! I could only find them in big containers at a different store this week, and I didn't want to purchase it until I could find some that I really like. They only had store brand..but man oh man was it good. A little sweeter than I remember plain yogurt being, so it might have had a little sugar added. but..very creamy and low fat to boot! I added a crumbled up Kashi TLC Toasted grains granola bar into it. the perfect ending to my lunch, and I only JUST got hungry. It's 3pm now. Usually I start getting hungry about 2:30-2:45. I would like to buy a bigger container and then take my yogurt in small tupperware, better for the environment. Now that i'm 100% sure that they dont' sell Fage in this area, I'm going for it.

Also, Weigh-in. Is Thursday. My old weigh in day was Tues. and I just can't quite break my self of this habit....so I weighed in this morning and I was down to 240! Minus 2 pounds. This could be due to eating less yesterday, or starting my period..but it is what inspired me to go to the gym....hard work is what makes us healthy!