Thanks Lori!

This cup of awesomeness brought to me by Lori of Finding Radiance! Thanks so much - it is delicious!!! :-)

Diabetic Lunch FAIL

So in my usual tearing hurry to get out the door, I plunged into the fridge and grabbed the black container that held leftovers of this marvelous chicken & cabbage salad Mr. Handsome-and-Handy made for dinner last night.  (I'll share the recipe later - it's inspired by Chinese chicken salad, but not completely authentic.)

Here's the lunchtime reveal:

Well, at least I got a laugh out of it...Mr. H&H, on the other hand, ended up with a highly crunchy salad requiring lots of chewing, and he had a mouth sore & swollen from getting a filling replacement.

Leftovers Can Be Fun!

Hi Everyone!

Popping back in briefly to let you all know I'm still around, but swamped beyond belief.  It'll probably be a couple more weeks before things are back to what passes for normal around here. :-)

I did want to share a little about my weekend, though!  We had our dear friend, "twriter", over for dinner.  He brought potatoes (which we rarely have - loved the tiny fingerling ones, it's like eating a bunch of potato skins!) and sausages and cheese and obscenely huge steaks and we had a BBQ.  I now remember why Standard American Portion Sizing (SAPS) no longer works for me.  (Go ahead and use it along with the Standard American Diet acronym - you know you want to!)

So anyhow, when our appetites finally returned this afternoon, Mr. Handsome-and-Handy came up with a brilliant use for the leftovers we didn't send home with our friend.  Those being a mess of grilled peppers and onions and about 6 ounces of steak.  We cut up the steak and he added garlic and cumin to it, and he chopped up the peppers and onions a bit smaller than we had for grilling.  He heated up part of a jar of queso sauce, put it all together on a low-carb wheat tortilla, and voila!

Cheesesteak tacos!  (Or, edited as above, I suppose that should be "Cheesesteak Tacos in Spaaaace!")

They were really tasty.  Definitely a good excuse for making extra grilled peppers and onions, not to mention steak.  I suppose we could healthify it by making our own healthier version of cheese sauce, or even just throwing some shredded cheddar on top.

Something That Made Me Laugh Today

I was in the breakroom at work today.  I noticed a paper grocery bag from Whole Foods.  While it was the "EAT MORE KALE" that made me stop and notice (and crave some kale crunchies), there were a couple of other "Healthy Tips" that made me chuckle:

"You say 'crunchy granola' like it's a bad thing."

and

"When in doubt, eat a sprout." <-Make mine roasted Brussels!

Got a playful "healthy tip"?  I'd love to hear it!

Quick Hello on the Foodie Front

Hi to you all!

Just wanted to post a quick "hello"!  Life is crazy-busier than ever, but I'm managing to squeeze in my exercise and tracking my food in the calorie counter (vs. photos).  I'm doing well enough to have put a halt to the upward march, but not well enough to lose those 6 holiday pounds.  Grumble, grumble.  Yet my blood glucose levels have been great; I got my a1c done last week and it was 5.5%, down .2% from last time!  And that includes the holidays and birthday celebration.  So I feel pretty good health-wise if a little strung out work-wise.

I had to tell you all that I am KICKING myself for not taking a photo of dinner last night!  We went to a local eatery, Pasta Moon, for which Mr. Handsome & Handy got a gift card.  We both got the same entree, and it was kind of nice to order something and not have to say, "But can I get this instead of that?"  It was grilled salmon on a bed of sauteed shredded brussels sprouts and diced (tiny) butternut squash, with this heavenly citrus sauce drizzle underneath.  Not often you can get BOTH of your favorite veggies in one dish!  If I hadn't seen that, I probably would have gotten an appetizer and either soup or salad - this one sounded good: "roasted brussel sprout salad-butternut squash, pancetta, baby cannellini beans, frisée, aged white balsamic vinegar, EVOO".  We had planned to use the gift card here just ourselves, but Things 1 & 2 really love going out to eat and it was an opportune evening.   I think this is the fanciest place we've taken them so far.  Thing 2 knocked over her huge water goblet, yet caught it mid-fall, and it only splashed a little water and a few ice cubes on their pizza - we discretely cheered her impressive save!  I only wish there had been a little more space between tables, they have room to expand now, yet their dining room is rather cheek-to-jowl.

Hope everyone enjoys a great rest of the week!

Believe it or not...

...I was not the one who went on this Costco run. (And no, nut-thing wrong with a few more nuts, Debby! ;-)

Grrrr...(I'm mad at Starbucks)

So I ordered a "Skinny Caramel Macchiato" the other day at Starbucks.  I liked it so much, I got the iced version today.  Both times, I asked the person at the register:  "The Skinny Caramel Macchiato is sugar free, right?"  Both times, affirmative:  of course it's sugar free.  (Well, aside from the natural sugar in milk.  I accounted for that already.)

"Wow!"  I thought to myself.  "This is so tasty!   And it tastes so non-fake caramel!"

There's a reason for that.  I checked their nutrition web site, to get the calorie count, and I viewed the info about this wonder of the espresso-drink world.  In the fine print:  "Caramel drizzle is not sugar free."

Guess the old adage is true:  "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is."

I guess the good news is (1) this followed a 2-mile walk and (2) that I found this out before I popped the top off the empty cup and licked all the caramel drizzle off of the inside.

BSI: Yogurt Recipe - Spicy Yogurt Veggie Dip

Hurrah!  Biz is hosting a "Blogger Secret Ingredient" event, and this week it is yogurt!  You all know I do love me some plain yogurt.  Especially Greek-style!

(Also, Biz is having a Chobani giveaway.  She had some serious Chobani wealth dropped onto her doorstep, so she made lots of yummy looking stuff with it.  I think my blog article would have had the photo with the box, like she did, and then a photo of me laid out on the floor, surrounded by foil wrappers, empty yogurt cups, and a spoon in my hand.  My oven mitt scrawl would have been "I was supposed to cook with this?  Ooops. Love, Pubsgal")

Anyhow, I just got a 17.5 oz. container of Fage on sale at Target...to see the "Use By" date was the day after I bought it! Ack!  That was yesterday, so I'm living dangerously today, in more ways than one:  I used some of it to make Spicy Yogurt Veggie Dip!  Now, this doesn't taste overly spicy to me, because of the yogurt, but it does have a little kick to it.  I also found that I had to do a spoon assist, because it didn't stick to the veggies as well as, say, a ranch dip would do.  But since I was the only one eating it, that didn't worry me too much.

So are you ready for this amazingly complex recipe?

Are you sure?

Okay, here goes...

Ahem!

You're taking careful notes, right?

Okay.

Ingredients:

• 1 serving (5 oz.) "Tasty Bite" Punjab Eggplant (5 oz.) - This food item is almost like a thick salsa in consistency.
• About 1/4 cup plain Greek-style yogurt (I used Fage 0%, but any kind would do nicely.  Did I measure this?  No, I just put in a couple of large dollops, which looked to be about 1/4 cup.)
• Assorted raw or blanched veggies

Instructions:

1. Mix the Punjab Eggplant and the yogurt.
2. Prep the veggies.
3. Serve!

Pubsgal dines "al desko" today

Thursday 13 January 2011

Breakfast:  Broccoli cheddar omelette (I was unintentionally Lori's copy-cat!), usual toast, 3 mugs of the usual coffee.

Pre-workout: 1/2 lo-bar.  Not shown:  packet of low-sugar electrolyte sports drink mix I consumed during the workout.

Workout:  I did the "F'ab Ride" spin class at the gym.  It's the same spin class instructor that I had before, but this class is 45 minutes of spinning and 15 minutes of ab exercises.  I liked the new format pretty well, although I was a bit weak on the planks.  Oh well, if I go often enough, I'll get better at them.  I forgot how great the endorphins are after this class! :-D

But yes, the down side is that it does make me hungrier later in the day.  The calorie counting app I use lets me input exercise, so I use that and estimate on the lower side when it prompts for intensity.    

Lunch:  6 oz. "spaghetti joes", mixed green salad with plain rice wine vinegar.

And 1/8 cup of dry-roasted wasabi edamame.

Snack:  1 apple + 1 cheese stick.  Not shown: 4 mini dill pickles.

Dinner: 3.5 oz baked potato with 1 Tbsp butter and lemon pepper, 3 pork ribs (packaged), 1.5 cups Brussels sprouts with 1 tsp olive oil and lemon pepper + garlic powder.  

Calories:  2171 food - est. 377 exercise = 1794 net calories

Macronutrient breakdown:  48% fat, 26% carb (25 grams fiber), 25% protein

(Oh, and your comment about yesterday, Lori, about not seeing any nuts?  There WERE some hidden nuts - those kale crunchies have cashews as an ingredient!  Not to mention the almond milk in my coffee.  As Debby said once, "Pubsgal, even when you're not eating nuts, you're eating nuts!" ;-D ) 

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Huh.  It's been awhile.  I hadn't really intended for this to become a weekly blog like my other one.  Oh well, back to it...



Breakfast:  Spinach & cheddar cheese omelette, usual toast, usual coffee x2.

Pre-workout snack:  1/2 of a lobar, an hour before the workout.

Workout:  The Wednesday strength class was good, as usual.  I hate lunges, but I suppose they are good for me.  We also did some plie squats, then on our toes, and my legs were shaking!  I did a lot better on the upper-body strength parts, except I am still kind of weak on the pushups and planks.

Post-workout lunch:  South beach bar + 8 oz. whole milk. (Not shown - low-sugar sports drink mix in water that I drank after class.)

And a 2-oz. bag of kale crunchies.  These were "Bombay Curry" flavored.  Yum.

Pre-dinner: I had some frozen broccoli and cauliflower than I'd meant to eat but hadn't gotten around to it yet.  So I rinsed them off - they were mostly thawed - and ate them on the drive home. (Not shown - the dill pickle I grabbed out of the work fridge in a moment of, "Hey!  I still had pickles in here!")

Dinner:  4 oz. of spaghetti sauce.  The way Mr. H&H makes it, it's almost like sloppy joe meat or chili, so it's edible without the noodles.  I had a piece of toast with butter and jam, too.

I was still hungry and had some calories left in the budget, so I had an apple and a cheese stick, too.

Total calories for the day: 1733 (budget of 1800)
Macronutrients: 43% fat, 32% carbs (23.5 grams fiber), and 25% protein.

Yes, I'm back to working on the habits:  cram in more veggies, portion control other carbs + protein + fat, and working with a calorie budget.  I'm shooting for 1800, which is (logically) plenty of calories for me; it's not easy since I'm used to more, but it's not too extreme for me, either.

Let's just say I saw this number on this object and am feeling tightness in my supposed-to-be-loose pants that made me think, "Well, if not now, then when am I going to correct this holiday overage?"  That said, my blood glucose numbers have been really great!  Go figure.  Yes, of course, there was a lot of inner raging and despair and angst and etc., which I vented in off-blog writing.  I won't even bother to going into it all-because it's the universal venting of anyone whose life struggle this is-but I'm mentioning in passing to let you know that my current calm resolve didn't come about in an unnaturally rational manner.  Venting did make me feel better, because after all the venting got out, I brainstormed on this:  "Well, so you feel that way, and that's fine.  But what can you do right now to fix this stuff?"

So yeah, I'm sure you remember that I was at this point, right about now in December, and it seemed to be going pretty well, then went kaput.  What am I going to do differently this time?  I'm not sure yet.  How's that for an amazing plan? :-D  I think I need to figure out how to better handle the weekends, and I think I will also not record weigh-ins using the tool I'm working with, because it reduces the calorie budget as you lose, and that really seems to mess with my head.  I think I also need to get back to training for a triathlon, because some of the deeper angst was wondering if I'd ever do anything athletically amazing (at least, for me) ever again.  I saw a web site that had a whole bunch listed, including a winter series of  "hey I can do that NOW!" super-sprints at a local community college, and I felt that flare of excitement.  Could that be my long-lost mojo?  

Anyhow, I'm going to do this for a week and see how it goes.  I have a birthday coming up in a few weeks, so it would be really nice to hit it with a strong stride. 

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Breakfast:  Plain cheese omelette, usual toast, back to the usual coffee.  Mr. Handsome-and-Handy got a bag of some tasty "weekday" coffee from Costco, so I'll be savoring my Kona stuff on the weekends.

At work:  Coffee + chia seeds.  Mmmm!

Pre-workout snack:  Later in the morning, I had a lo-bar and some almonds about an hour before my lunchtime workout.  This gave me great energy for my workout.

The lunchtime workout was intense!  Our instructor had been out for a couple of weeks, so she wanted to have a very impactful first workout of 2011!  (Thursday note:  I'm so sore.  Oh, my aching glutes!)  We did these lunge + leg lift combos, and lots of these gnarly plank and sliding leg moves. I hope the new folks aren't too discouraged.  I've been doing her custom class format for 6 months now, and I still often come out of there feeling like a total marshmallow person.  I couldn't keep up on the plank things, so I really felt that way today.  Will I always have days of delayed-onset muscle soreness after Wednesday classes?  Am I getting at all stronger? :-/  The upper body stuff was doable, and I do have pretty decent squat depth now, so I must be getting a little stronger.

Post-lunch munchings:  Wednesday classes do tend to make me ravenous.  I ate little bits of stuff spread out all afternoon.  I chugged a cup of milk with a splash of coffee in it in the breakroom when I grabbed my lunch bag.

The bag o' kale crunchies.

"Hi, Lori!"  (We're about halfway through the Costco box of blueberries...you'll be seeing these for at least a couple more days.)

Walnuts.

Romaine lettuce with plain rice wine vinegar and all-purpose seasoning powder.

Bye, yummy, slow-roasted gift pecans!

Apple and peanut butter.  I think I could live off of this combo.  And kale crunchies.

Dinner:  Holy Bratwursts, Batman!  Well, just 2/3 of one actually (about 3 oz.), with some tasty mustard, and a big ol' bowl full of broccoli and cauliflower with extra-virgin olive oil and spices (salt, garlic powder, and Thai curry powder).

Dessert:  Sugar-free toffee.  It's really tasty, but self-limiting, because the maltitol has that "Oh, man!  Go sleep on the COUCH already!" impact on me.

Tuesday 4 January 2011

Breakfast:  Spinach+cheese omelette, the usual toast, 2.5 mugs Kona coffee, all 1/2&1/2.  I can taste the almond milk in my coffee now, and I just wanted to savor exclusively the Kona goodness.

Mr. Handsome-and-Handy purchased our Christmas coffee and macadamia nuts for me from an interesting place: Smithfarms, a small, sustainable coffee and macadamia nut farm on the Big Island of Hawaii!  Both items were so very tasty!  I have had 100% Kona coffee before, and their coffee is excellent.  I especially noticed a difference in taste between their mac nuts and the factory farmed variety.  More lightly salted, and they had a more crunchy texture, too.  I think we'll definitely be ordering from them again.

Lunch:  1 cup milk (not shown), steak in salad (just romaine lettuce) with Balsamic vinaigrette, apple

Oh, and more Christmas booty!

I'm glad I went for a walk at lunchtime. It felt good to get some sunshine, talk to my Portland-based BFF on the phone, and spend a little time off my rear end.  I ended up not getting any other exercise today.

Snack time 1:  I had these...

and these!

Lori, you asked if I ever tried baking kale chips.  I did, and the results were somewhat inconsistent:  I had perfectly crispy ones, some soggy ones, and many burnt ones.  I did try using my microwave dehydrator, and that was much better.  I just need to learn a little self-control in waiting until the whole batch is done before chowing down!  I also like all the flavors on the packaged varieties, so I found a recipe and will let you know if it works. (crossing fingers!)

Snack time 2:  I had some blueberries and almonds.  (If you lived closer, Lori, I'd have happily shared these with you.)

In the car on the way home:  For some reason, it felt really soothing to eat crunchy vegetables on the way home.  And the commute isn't even really that stressful.

Dinner:  Pesto-jack cheeseburger and green beans.  Holy habaneros, this was tasty!

I thought I was going to have some of my sugar-free toffee, but didn't get around to it.  I don't know if it was frustrated anticipation that made this happen, but I was feeling very strong hunger signals when I was trying to go to sleep.  I decided to ignore it, because I had plenty to eat, and I'd be eating again in the morning.  So yeah, maybe it took me 5 minutes to get to sleep rather than 2 minutes. ;-)

Monday 3 January 2011

[Like jumping back to the fitness routine: deep breath, no fanfare, just do it.]

Breakfast:  The kids go back to school tomorrow, so we did a dry run of the morning routine.  Ugh.  The "carrot" was going to out to breakfast.  Three Zero wasn't open, so we opted for Sam's Coffee Shop. Nom nom nom.  I felt like something a bit lighter than my usual, so I got the veggies (tomato, mushrooms, bell peppers, onion) + spinach + cheddar cheese.  When it arrived, Thing 2 observed, "That looks like a yellow burrito." She was right - the eggy part was strrrrreeeeeeetched over this ginormous pile of veggies!  It was quite tasty, and just right despite the size, since they don't go too heavy on the cheese.  I had that + 1/2 slice sourdough toast + 1/2 of my fruit cup.  Oh, and lots of looooovely coffee!

Lunch:  Green salad with romaine, celery, cucumber, and tomato with balsamic vinaigrette, 2 oz. steak, apple.

I took a nice stroll after eating lunch - it was sunny, hurrah!  I bought some yoga socks for tonight's hula class, and stocked up on the kale chips.  Bummer-no longer on sale, but they still have the $2 off coupon.  I think part of 2011 will involve a quest to find a reliable kale chip recipe.

I also picked up the new schedule at the gym.  SO relieved that the Wednesday strength class with my favorite instructor is still on there.  There's a new one, "Transformer," on Mondays during lunch time.  Guess they listened to all of my Wednesday classmates who've been begging for an "express" strength class during that time, because the class is 30 minutes!  Woot!  I'm also going to have to try the spin class + abs sometime, although I'm not really sure what the instructor will have people do for abs in the cramped spin room.  Oh, the possibilities!

Snack: A bag of the Bombay Curry flavored kale chips and some almonds.

"My name is Pubsgal, and I used to have a nut addiction, but now I think it's transferred to kale chips."

"Oh, wait, maybe I spoke too soon...."

Dinner, part 1: Celery and carrots on the drive home.  

Dinner, part 2:  Fried chicken.

Good thing I had hula class tonight!  It's a new class through our city's Parks & Recreation department, and it's so much fun!  I had been reluctant to sign up, since it's on a week night and I'm usually supervising homework and noodging the bedtime process along, but Mr. Handsome-and-Handy said "go for it!" Given that I like it so much and it helps with my fitness goals, I'll find a way to fit it into our busy lives.