Thursday 28 October 2010

Breakfast:  Tea and toast with almond butter and sugar-free apricot jam.  (I know, something different!)  I also popped into the local coffee place on the way to work and picked up the biggest cup, a mix of chocolate raspberry, mocha java decaf, and Sumatran, with half-and-half.  Yuuuuuum!

Lunch:  Whole Foods hot bar.  It was an odd mix of stuff today.  I had a bunch of mixed veggies, some sweet potato, a little of an Indian dish with peas and tofu, a dab of shepherd's pie, and a chicken wing.

I also ate a whole bag of "Kale Krunchies" outside by the waterway.  Then I took a stroll through the work neighborhood and enjoyed the Halloween decorations.  Most were not nearly as gruesome as that the Addams Family Condo I showed the other day.

Kitteh can haz pumpkin?

Rats.  You can't see it very well, but the upper window has a Frankenstein face in it, giving the appearance of the house barely containing a giant.  (Of course, the creepy effect put me in mind of Clifford the Big Red Dog books...which made it seem more absurd than anything.)

The Mr. Potato Head decor on the pumpkin was rather cute!

I liked this string of jack o' lantern lanterns.

Pink spider for Lori!

And then there was this condo, apparently attacked by chewing-gum-spinning spiders...

Afternoon snackage: Dark chocolate with peanut butter - from the Thursday office goody tray.

And some grapes

And some dry-roasted wasabi edamame.

Reason #3,452 that I adore Mr. Handsome-and-Handy: No, not because he cooks me dinner (that's reason #10) nor because he's a really good cook (reason #5), but because he will grill any weird vegetable I bring home.  Those pretty scalloped-looking things are grilled acorn squash.  It was nearly impossible to cut, let alone peel, so he left the skin on and grilled them.  Grilling acorn squash makes it dryer than, say, baking it, but it was tasty with butter/canola spread.  The skin got very hard and brittle, like a shell, so the innards peeled right out. "Peel-and-eat squash," he called it.

Dessert:  We got some Sees in the mail from my dad & step-mom.  I had a bite of chocolate butter (not shown - it's weird, but they taste like coconut to me now), this half, and half of the one shown below.

Later on, after the kids went to bed, I felt like something warm, so I made some decaf coffee and put cocoa powder in the basket with the grounds.  Not sure it worked very well, but with the almond milk, half-and-half, and a titch of orange extract, I could almost imagine I was drinking a cafe borgia (which is a mocha with orange syrup in it, really tasty).

Wednesday 27 October 2010

Breakfast:  The usual...and a spider!  (I do love me some kid art!)

At the podiatrist:  I met with the podiatrist this morning.  He checked out my foot, and said there wasn't any damage.  (No stress fracture or tendon stuff - whew!)  He gave me an ankle brace, checked out my old shoes and noticed that I supinate - said I needed to buy some New Balance 1123 or Brooks Beast shoes and also needed orthotics for my athletic shoes only.  I got the okay to start fitness walking once I get the proper shoes, then running after I get the orthotics.  I also need to wear the ankle brace during walking/running workouts.  If I don't do all that, I have stress fractures in my future.

So, I'm a little bummed that we have to up the ante on my fitness equipment.  No more $30 shoes at Target. :-(  I also need to see if The Walking Company will take back the inserts and give me a refund - got a note from the doctor saying they were not okay for my feet, so hopefully that will convince them, but I didn't keep the packaging.  Ugh, I hate having to do stuff like that, but if they don't, then there is a chunk of wasted money.  Stress...

Pre-workout snack:  Blackberries, Clementine orange, and 2% Greek-style yogurt.  Yuuum!  And good fuel for CardioSculpt class.  Class today was quite glutes-intensive, not to mention arms.

Lunch (post-workout):  Green beans, steak without sauce, and "candy" - a square of Valrhona dark chocolate (yeay, TJ's, for having it reasonably priced!) + a lump of peanut butter + toasted wheat germ.  I mushed up the wheat germ into the peanut butter for additional crunchy texture, then dipped the chocolate.  I'm going to date myself here:  anyone remember the old Reese's peanut butter cup commercials?  "Hey - you got your chocolate in MY peanut butter!"  "Yeah?  Well you got your peanut butter on MY chocolate!"  Just imagine a 3rd hippy character in the mix with a jar of wheat germ:  "Whoa, chill out, man!  Like, your peanut butter and chocolate and my wheat germ taste way radical together."  I think the only reason wheat germ didn't get into the Reese's recipe is - you know - it's too crunchy-granola for The Man.

Mr. H&H got sick, so I needed to leave work early.  Downside?  More stress at missing work.  Upside?  Got to see more of the kids.

Oh look!  Cute kids in Halloween costumes!  (They got to wear costumes to dance class today.)

Mid-afternoon:  Here's the part of the last ounce of beef jerky I ate this afternoon.

I also had some nuts.

Dinner: 3 of the meatloaf "muffins" and some baby carrots.

I had many more of these than shown.

"Oh no he DID-n't!"  Yes, Mr. H&H brought mini meat sticks back into our house, for Thing 2's lunches, but did I have to open them?  Nooooo.  She's notoriously picky on protein that can be packed into lunch, especially now that nut-eating students are placed at a particular table at lunchtime.  (A "nut table" was established because a couple of kids have been diagnosed with nut allergies at our school.  At least we can still do PB&J for Thing 1...have no idea what we'd go with if those were forbidden!)

Don't worry - I did exercise SOME restraint when it came to these and consumed only 4 french fries.  Took a picture of Thing 2's to remind me that I did it.

I had many more than shown here.  I managed to get myself to stop after whipping up the no-sugar-added hot cocoa.

Tuesday 26 October 2010

Breakfast: Sausage gravy, toast with butter/canola spread and sugar-free jam, couple of cups of coffee with almond milk and half-and-half.

Mid-morning: 2 Tbsp chia seeds, coffee, half-and-half.

Lunch:  Carrots, meatloaf (1.5 "muffins"), and 4 peanuts (ate in the breakroom while lunch was heating).

And a handful of dry-roasted wasabi edamame.

Afternoon snack:  grapes, strawberries, and 2% Greek-style yogurt.

Not shown: 4 baby dill pickles.

Had a square of chocolate, too.

Dinner:  Steak with sauce, carrots & celery & dip, Brussels sprouts with olive oil, garlic, and lemon pepper.  I forgot how much I love lemon pepper!  Try it (and a sprinkle of thyme) in your tuna salad sometime.

Dessert:  Cashews and peanuts.  Hmmm...something not quite right here.

Ah, that's better.

Monday 25 October 2010

Thanks for being calm voices of reason in my comments yesterday. (Overreactive much, Pubsgal? ;-) It just seems like October has been a really intense month, both personally and just in general for lots of folks.  But there's also lots of fun stuff going on, too. I guess it's sort of like our weather lately: gloomy and rainy a couple of days, then the gloriously sunny next day takes me by surprise.

Breakfast:  The constant omelette (with tomato today) and toast and the usual coffee.  With a tiny jack-o-lantern carved by Thing 1 at the "day out" last Saturday.  It's even more fun all lit up.

On the way to work:  I picked up the biggest cup of coffee at the local coffee place after my post office detour. (I mailed the hats for Christie O's NICU baby shower project.  And a couple of other things I couldn't quite resist.)  I mixed Brazilian Dark Roast + Chocolate Raspberry + French Roast Decaf.  Yum!  (I like mixing the flavored coffee with regular, because on its own it's sometimes too flavored.)

Lunch (camera angle whoops!):  It's a green salad with Balsamic vinaigrette and leftover chicken breast with bbq sauce.  I took a 2-mile walk in the sunshine and chatted with my mom on the phone.  Loved it!

I think part of my stress is the whole Vegas half-marathon thing.  I'm registered and have a plane ticket, and I'm stunningly unprepared at this point.  Maybe I just need to focus on preparing to have a good time and not worry about the event quite so much?  I guess I feel worried that I would be "wasting" the race registration money if I can't finish the event within the cutoff time of 4 hours.  But going and having fun with the people who will be there is money well-spent, so I just need to release some expectations and roll with it.

This was 3 baby dill pickles.  (I'm trying a new salt delivery system.)

Afternoon snack:  Yogurt and a tiny Clementine orange, with wheat germ and cinnamon.  Yummers!

And a square of dark chocolate.

Dinner...in reverse!  The main course was still baking, so I had a handful of peanuts.

And a low-carb tortilla, toasted, with the rest of the guacamole.

And here's the main course:  mini-meatloaves!  The lighting does not do justice to these morsels of meaty goodness.  Mr. Handsome-and-Handy baked them in the muffin pan.  He used low-carb bread for the bread part.  Heavens, they were tasty!

I had another half of one when I was packing the rest away.

P.S. - Forgot to mention, the a1c from the lab was 5.7%!  Woot!!!  And all related tests were normal.  That makes 1 year and 9 months of maintaining my a1c below 6%.  It took me 6 months post-diagnosis to get there; I aim for the "normal" range on the a1c test, to try and prevent diabetes complications.

Just when I think...

...I kicked the old habits to the curb, I lapsed back into them for four days.  I think I'm doing great, feeling healthy self-respect and body love and all that good stuff.  Then I get a hectic week at work and home, and it seems like everything went out the window:  Exercise?  Non-existent, and that's the thing that bothers me the most.  Proper food choices?  Well, I've sure made worse, but it was hard to not shovel in everything in sight.  Comparing self with others?  Road to Funktown (as opposed to the uber-cheerful "Funkytown"), that one.  Photo food journal?  Ugh...I ate that before I stopped to take a picture...And this?...Aw, heck with it, I already ate something without taking a picture, I blew it, might as well just do the rest of the day off-camera...I can start again tomorrow. (Yeah, we all know where we've heard that scenario before...)

I thought about this a lot over the weekend, and I have to scream, "STOOOOOOOOP!!!"

I fought too long and hard to regain my health, such as it is.  Even after two years of habit, it's hard to remember what to do with this thingy that just dropped from the ceiling, this yellow plastic cup and bag that doesn't inflate dangling from this tube, and shouldn't I be putting it on this person/situation first?  (With one hand, of course, while I nom-nom on more of these pecans with the other; they are just ripping with the in-flight beverage...)

Well, now.  That proves that we really are what we eat.  I AM nuts!

So here goes. I'm just popping it back on at Sunday....

Sunday 24 October

Breakfast:  Mr. Handsome-and-Handy made sausage gravy.  I was pining for a vegetable (I ate zero green food on Saturday), so inspired by lunch last week, I thawed some spinach and mixed it in.  Wow, that was yummy, even without the quinoa.  I had the amount of Thing 2's donut shown (the part peeking out from under the paper) and lots of coffee with half-and-half.

I also had a slice of my toast with cream cheese and sugar-free jam.  I call it the "Fake Danish."

I also had a bite of pumpkin cupcake.  That was really tasty.  It made me want to make Georgie's cinnamon streusel coffee cake, but with pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice instead of applesauce and cinnamon.

Lunch:  We were on the go, Thing 2 and I.  I had a ginger chew between stops, and at Target I had the carrots and ranch dip from her kids' meal.  She doesn't like carrots anymore, which is just sad.  And I had this flavored water, which was actually sweetened with splenda instead of flavored-unsweetened.  Weird, drinking sugar-free punch that was clear.

I also took a page from MizFit's book and ate some beef jerky.

And I tried to eat the other half of just the hot dog part of Thing 2's lunch (she was full after half), but it tasted pretty yucky to me, so I threw it away.

Dinner & Dessert:  I forgot to take pictures, so I drew sketches instead.  Dinner was a full chicken breast on the bone, with the skin off of half of the other one (because the skin is not good the next day), about 1 cup of broccoli with olive oil and lemon pepper, 1 beer, 2 low-carb tortillas (toasted!) with quite a lot of guacamole, and some peanuts and chocolate chips (15) for dessert.  I was still craving chocolate big time, so I made myself some hot cocoa with unsweetened almond milk (12 oz.), 2 Tbsp Green & Blacks' unsweetened cocoa powder, 2 packets of Splenda, and about 1/4 tsp vanilla.  Oh, that hit the spot, big time!