Plums

This is my second post title with the word "plums" in it. Which makes me realize that a) I really love them and b) I wish they were more of an all-season fruit. I was so excited to see some fresh looking plums on sale at Mr. Melon this weekend... 3 for a dollar and just the right amount of juciness!

I'm having a rough few days because my headache just won't go away. I'm trying my best to just not think about it because my stomach literally cannot handle any more medication.

Here are some food pics from this weekend and today.

Saturday's breakfast: scramblled eggs with peppers, banan/apple with some melted peaanut butter

Rob's birthday cupcakes - funfetti cake... I had  two :-(

Its been awhile since I made my egg-white pie. I love so much that its three easy steps and lasts all week.

Step 1 - Spray pan with SPAM and add any chopped veggies you've got laying around (red & yellow peppers, scallions and tomatoes)

Step 2: Cover veggies with raw egg whites (or egg). Sprinkle some fresh parmesan cheese on top (optional)

Step 3 - Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until set. Slice and pack up for the week!

I also made some yummy roasted red potatoes last  night. Choppe red potatoes, oiliv  oil, garlic, salt & pepper. I'm definitely going to make these more often - it was only $1.16 for 6-7 potatoes!

For dinner last night I sort of came up with my own recipe and I loved it! I chopped some veggies: peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, scallions and olives. I tossed them in lemon juice, olive oil and oregano. I marinated the chicken in lemon juice, salt & pepper and then baked it for 20 minutes. I scooped some of the "salad" on top and added some lowfat feta cheese. Even Marvin had two servings!!

I've been loving my "no lettuce" salad's lately.

Yesterday I watched Gravity. It was definitely a unique film but I was literally sweating and scared the entire time!! Outer space has always creeped me out and this movie basically confirmed my fears. 

Live Life Active

I was so excited to learn that March began Weight Watchers Live Life Active campaign. Basically all of the meetings revolve around initiatives and incentives to be more active, which I can totally use.

On the other hand, I'm so happy I took Marvin with me to my meeting this week. He got a big shout-out for being a supporter (a little embarrassing) but overall, he was a much better meeting attendee than I am! I typically go through the motions of the meetings. I sit in the back, I play on my phone, I don't participate or contribute, but just listen to others. Marvin was so attentive, laughing at jokes, nodding his head, and encouraging me to raise my hand. He sort of changed the way I view the meetings. I think it also helped that I went to a later time. There was a different leader and about 10x the amount of people than the normal time I go.

The purpose of the meeting was to create "clubs" and then commit to activities together. I didn't join any groups... I'm a little bit anti-social... but Marvin and I did commit to taking 3 long walks and trying one yoga video before my next meeting. Sounds pretty simple... except for...

Being in Migraineland last night. Ugh. The migraine began at 1:30pm, and honestly, the intensity wasn't as bad as the length. It didn't start to subside AT ALL until about 8:30pm... and all during that time I literally could not lay down so I just had to sit there and DO NOTHING. I think I am going to download some audiobooks in preparation for the next time this happened.



When I rose from the dead at 8:30, we ordered Chinese food (I always want something salty and potentially greasy when recovering from a migraine. Its like being ridiculously hung over). I'm actually really happy because I ordered vegetarian mei fun and asked for "light oil." It was not greasy at all and tasted really delicious. Almost like steamed angel hair noodles with lots of delicious veggies. Looking something like this:

(not my pic, stolen from the internet)

I'm really looking forward to relax and take a walk on this beautiful Saturday, and tonight we're heading to Sushi212 out in LI for a friend's birthday.

Bachelor Finale!!!

I started this post yesterday and never finished. The bachelor finale was terrible - and this is now the second time this year Ive have to seriously doubt continuing to watch my favorite show... First the biggest loser and now this. Granted, I cant take reality shows that seriously.... But come on now!

Yesterday I woke up planning for a completely healthy day and walked into work to find this:

Full bags of chips and 4-5 plates of cookies. What you're seeing is the end product after ravaged by teachers.... But please!! My downfall- chips?? Enough already with the snacks in the teacher resource Room! I controlled myself to having just a handful of Doritos, but that was still one handful too many. 

To make matters worse, a couple of platters of fruit and cheese...and pastries! This doesn't get me as bad as the chips but still not easy to look at...and walk by.

Dinner last night was a random  assortment of leftovers. Marvin was really hungry so he had whole wheat pizza, some rotisserie chicken, a mini prosciutto sandwich, and I snuck some quinoa on there. 

My dinner wasn't nearly as gluttonous but still delicious to me! Some leftover vegetarian minestrone soup, a veggie burger, and couscous. Still on that no meat kick, depending on my mood.

Yesterday was a pretty standard fitbit day with around 10,000 steps. 

Tonight I went out to dinner with Laura at one of our staple outing venues: Bogota. I was sooo proud of myself for ordering a salad with grilled chicken. Even though, shockingly, I ate the chicken, the salad was pretty tiny. Still, the avocado and hard boiled egg made it very filling and I was extremely pleased with my choice. I did have 3+ beers though! Free beer tasting at Bierkraft, and half an ice cream sandwich. My fitbit stats were a little higher today so I'm hoping that at least cancels out half of the ice cream sandwich. 

A Taste of Spring on Saturday

Yesterday, the weather was lovely...and Marvin and I decided we were going to hit 10,000 steps no matter what!

Despite the 60 degree spring-like weather, we started off by walking to Burlington Coat Factory in search of a new winter coat. I'm returning my current one and need a new one. Well apparently its already bathing suit season because even the coat factory is completely out of winter coats.

I deepened my disappointment by stopping by Victoria's Secret to look for a new bra. I seriously don't like VS bras, but for some reason I continue to go in there and buy them. I just can't really fit into them properly and it made me feel fat.

We walked out way over to 67 Burger where I imagined eating a healthy-ish turkey burger and sweet potato fries. I surprised my self by ordering the Greek salad, which came with grilled chicken (I don't usually have great experiences ordering grilled chicken at restaurants). It was delicious - and huge. I ate it without dressing and could not even finish! 

Next stop was Starbucks for a NF Iced Latte with caramel drizzle (stole this idea from Danica's Daily) - and then onto my favorite place to go on Saturday - The farmer's market at Grand Army plaza. I stole these two pictures below from yelp, but I just love how the market is squeezed between Grand Army plaza and Prospect Park. Great views and people watching while browsing the stands.

I wound up buying:

-Some "no spray" local apples (7-8 for $1.95)

-Whole grain local peasant bread (on sale for $3 because the market was close to closing)

-Local raw honey ($4.50)

-A large Crumb Bun from my favorite stand to bring to my mom's house tonight ($8.00)

On the way back, we stopped at Union Market for eggs, milk & yogurt (they sell cage-free local eggs, organic milk, and fage yogurt much cheaper than the grocery store). We wound up sampling (and then buying) some delicious balsamic crusted parmesan cheese - we decided to get some Baba Ganoush as well and just have some snacks for dinner. Not the healthiest thing in the world, but definitely not the worst.

That was pretty much it for our walking, so I was very excited when I checked my fitbit stats to see....

'

Woohoo! Its amazing how much I LOVE walking but hate any other form of exercise. Walking is just so pleasant and fun.

For dinner, we had the cheese, peasant bread and Baba Ganoush among some of my other favorite things: green grapes wrapped in prosciutto & hummus. Marvin also weirdly had some sauteed kielbasa sausage that he was craving and insisted on buying from Key Foods.

Yesterday, I noticed how great my plants are doing. One has completely bloomed these adorable tiny rose looking flowers. The other is growing a ridiculously long "arm" of leaves that I love!

 

I love writing on weekend mornings because the sun shines SO brightly through my living room windows. It's almost blinding when you enter the room, but I love just sitting in that spot right near the windows and having the sun shine on my feet. I <3 my apartment :)

It's not so bad being hungry

Today at work I reached for my usual 3:00 snack and realized.... I had nothing! Usually I have an extra piece of fruit, string cheese, veggies & hummus, granola bar or something stashed away for the afternoon pick me up. Or worse... There's some sort of unhealthful food laid out in the resource room for me to guiltily take.

But today, there was nothing. 

So I just dealt with it. I chugged some water. I made a coffee, took one sip, and chucked it. And then I did some work. And I forgot about being hungry. The thing is, I do think I actually was hungry. I just wasn't that hungry. And sometimes, it's just not that big of a deal to be hungry and not eat (I mean, in isolated incidents, not like, in life).

Anyway- what was on the menu today?

BFAST

-2 egg "muffins" SF

-Apple SF

LUNCH

-vegan split pea soup SF

-WW string cheese

-strawberries

SNACK

-carrots

-Kashi TLC crackers

-olive hummus

DINNER

-veg minestrone soup

I've been craving beer lately and am recently obsessed with Brooklyn Brown Ale... So I'm having one now. :-)

Fitbit stats today. A little less than yesterday, but I walked to the WW meeting and back so that's prob why. 

Back to WW

I finally went back to Weight Watchers tonight... It's been exactly a month since the last time. I'm both sad and relieved to say that I gained .8 pounds. The pasf month has been pretty crazy and my eating has been pretty inconsistent. But the past week or so I have been sticking mostly to simply filling and I think that helped me not gain more weight. Anyway, here are my thoughts about my weight watchers meeting tonight. 

-I'm starting to like my leader more. At first I thought she was fake and annoying but now she's not so bad. I think at first I was acting like a know-it-all but now I realized she actually does know some stuff that can help me.

-I really never like the other people at the meetings, and tonight was no difference. There is this group of 5 or so middle aged women who come every Wednesday and just bring such a bad vibe to the room. They talk amongst themselves the whole time and are just so negative. Ugh. 

-WW is doing some fitness incentive thing for the month of March which I'm pretty excited about.. Because that's one of my current... Goals I guess? Just figuring how to be more consistently active. 

-The past 5 times I went to WW I got a free sample- including today, yay!

Okay that's enough about WW. This weeken was Marvin's cousins first birthday. This kid is literally so adorable. Like you cannot look at his face without wanting to kiss it!

I also made soup from Danica's Daily. It didn't come out as flavorful as I imagined but it looks really pretty, is super healthy, completely SF... And very filling! So- works for me!

Today's menu:

Breakfast

-2 egg "muffins" (made them last night with kale, zucchini, red pepper & turkey bacon! SF

-apple SF

Snack

-Natures Valley sweet n salty almond bar

Lunch

-Veg minestrone soup SF

-Carrots SF

-Beanito chips

-hummus

-WW string cheese

Dinner (Chick P takeout)

-Falafel trio platter (basil, siracha & plain falafel balls with hummus, cabbage salad, pickles and olives)

-whole wheat pita

Fitbit data today:

Polar Vortex

Here we are, waiting for yet another storm. Usually I get a little tiny bit excited before a storm based on the prospect that school MIGHT be closed or delayed, but now I'm just pissed because I know it won't be. No matter the severity of the storm or the condition of the roads, I will be required to go to work and basically babysit children. Every time there's a storm, only about a third of the kids come so wind up doing nothing but pretty much... babysitting!

However, I'm in a really good mood this morning due to excellent customer service with two different companies: DSW & Zappos. The lesson I learned from this experience is a) always give customer service people the benefit of the doubt and b) if you buy something, and it doesn't meet up to your standards, always try to return it... even if the return window has passed!

Cases in point:

I recently bought Totes boots from dsw.com. I loved them for the first wear or two, then began to notice that they "stretched out" a lot and were basically falling off my feet. Since I had already worn them a few times, I thought I had to suck it up so I just wore thicker socks. Then, in DC, one of the bottoms of the shoes cracked open, leaving me with a very wet and nearly frostbitten foot. 

I emailed DSW explaining the situation, and they wrote back right away apologizing and said to take the shoe to any DSW store for a full refund. I was skeptical. Not only were the shoes worn, but they were broken. I went in to DSW with my fighting guard ready, and was shocked when the cashier told me there was a note on my account to issue the full refund, and she didn't even glance at the shoes! Score!

Onto Zappos. A month or so ago I ordered a winter jacket, which I have worn daily since. I love it, but after a day or two of wearing, the zipper began getting stuck at the bottom. Now, its so bad that I pretty much have to step out of the jacket every time I wear it because I can't get the zipper open.

Zappos has a great return policy, but only if you keep the original packaging and return items unworn. Last night I figured eh, I'll give it a shot... and I emailed customer service about the jacket. Literally 15 minutes later I had a lengthy response from "Mike" at customer loyalty apologizing deeply for the issue, even making a comment about wanting to keep the NY customers warm for the upcoming snowstorm, and told me to call so they can process my exchange or FULL REFUND! When I called this morning, I was thrilled to discover that they had ALREADY credited my account with the cost of the coat. Since they don't have those coats anymore, they emailed me a free shipping label to just send it back for a refund. I am so happy!!!

I actually do need a coat though, so I ordered this one late last night. It doesn't look that warm but the reviews say its fur-lined and really warm. I guess we'll see!

Friday at work I had such a yummy lunch that sort of reminded me of Julie so I had to take a picture. What you see here are Beanito bean chips, Applegate turkey breast, and baby carrots.

I paired the beanitos with my favorite tribe hummus: olive.

These Beanito chips were pretty tasty, and based on the ingredients they actually do fall under Simply Filling

Every Friday I try to stop by Mr. Melon during my lunch break at work and stock up on fruits and veggies for the weekend. Here's what I picked up:

After work I was really craving good beer, so I stopped by Beirkraft and picked these up. The best were the Brown Dog Ale.