PB Problemo

Phew, I made it through Tuesday.  They are my longest days because I have interning all day and then class.  It feels like a mini accomplishment when they are over.

Yesterday when Keefer left I gobbled up the rest of my dad's beef veggie stew.  YUM!

After the gym I ran to Johnny's to get their italian ice.  It is SO good and such a treat.  I just need to find out the nutrition facts.  I'm sure there is a fair share of sugar in there but the best part about it is that it's not TOO sweet.

I also snuck a piece of Gramma's oatmeal bread.

Before class I heated up my leftovers from the other night.  Roasted veggies and roasted chicken.  MMM

I grabbed some yogurt with my granola added to it for dessert.

This morning I had to wake up a bit early so that I could register for summer and fall classes (which means I'll only be registering for classes ONE more time, YAY!)  It was so nice to drink my coffee and relax instead of rush.  I added pb to my oatmeal this morning for some protein but for some reason I just CANNOT get into pb in the morning.  Weird, I know.  I also topped it with a nanner.

I snapped a pic of my lunch last night while packing and then dumb me left out my turkey sanwich.  Needless to say, I threw it away this morning and made a quick pbj.

Today I met with a patient at the hospital who was a type 2 diabetic in poor condition and he REFUSED to talk to me saying that he would not change any of his habits.  I know we all have habits that are hard to break but it's really sad that some people let it harm themselves.

I had lots to do after my internship and before class so I stopped at Subway for a turkey sub loaded up with veggies and some broccoli cheddar soup.  No pic, woops.

Dessert was chocolate and a smoothie tonight.  YUM!  My smoothie was a banana, OJ, whole grain drink, yogurt and an apple.  The apple was a weird texture but yummy.

(Blurry pic, eek)

Off to bed, night!

Tara (:

It's a Beautiful Mornin

Today I felt as if I had never left!  Because I got almost no sleep two nights ago, last night I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.  It felt so great to sleep so well.  This morning my alarm went off and the sun was shining!  I don't know about you, but for me it's so much easier to get up when the sun is peeking through my curtains.

Can't wait until there are leaves on these trees!

I started my morning with a bowl of old fashion oats, flax seed, whole grain drink from TJs, banana and agave.  YUM!

My lunch at the hospital was a little better today because I put sprouts on my turkey sandwich.  I LOVE sprouts and always have so I'm not sure why I don't always keep them in my fridge.  They made my sandwich 100x better!

After my day at the hospital I could not force myself to go back inside to the gym so I went for a run outside.  I didn't work out much last week at home and I can DEFINITELY tell.  I need to get back at it. I came home and did a Yoga Download session which I really liked.  I was also craving a smoothie so I threw a banana, frozen raspberries, cherry vanilla yogurt, OJ and flax seed into the blender.  I thought the flax seed would make it seem a bit more substantial but it was NOT good.  I will NOT be adding flax seed to my smoothies again.

My dad also sent me back with some of his homemade vegetable beef soup and it was DEEEELISH.  Homemade soups are SO much better than the canned.  I must say it's nice to be back and still eating mom and dad's cookin.

I packed a snack for class and made this yummy tea.

I knew I would be hungry after class so I tried to minimize the amount of soup I had so I could make this awesome salad topped with sprouts, olives, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, blue cheese, pepper and italian vinaigrette.

I still had a sweet tooth so I made a slimwich with pb and chocolate chips.

No interning tomorrow for St. Patty's Day but unfortunately I'll be studying for a midterm on Thursday ugh.  I am going to head downtown to go for a run by the lake with Jenna tomorrow if the weather holds up.

Night!

Tara (:

Pink Inspiration

Howdy folks!  We are over the hump.  Can't wait until Friday when my spring break starts!  I'm headed back to MI and I'm sure it won't be quite like my trip last year to Puerto Vallarta but it will be wonderful to be back home with friends and family nonetheless.

Today I forgot to take a pic of my breakfast oatmeal AGAIN.  What's wrong with me???  Oh well, I did remember to snap a pic of my lunch today.  Like I said, I don't like to go grocery shopping before I go home so my fridge usually gets pretty bare the week before.  Today I had a PBJ, blood orange, everything pretzels, cheese stick and carrots.

Today was an interesting day at my internship...like I said yesterday, we worked on a display for National Nutrition Month, Nutrition From the Ground Up!  It took us a while to figure out what we were going to do so we didn't quite finish.  This will have to be to be continued...

haha it looks like the second layer of grass is floating but thats a second shelf.  The top shelf will be nutrition info!  We tried to give it a "grass roots" kind of theme so hopefully that's how it will turn out.  I really do love this theme!

So now for the really interesting part of my day.  We have to choose a case study patient to research and present to all of the RDs at the hospital at the end of the semester.  Yesterday I found the most interesting and one of the saddest patients I have seen.  A teenager who had a gun shot wound to the face.  Everything about his story amazed me and drew me in  (I'd love to share it all but that's not exactly legal.)  I will be reviewing his fractured jaw diet and his progression back to a general diet.  I got to speak to him today for a while (while he was eating his pureed diet) and I spoke with him about how lucky he was to be alive!  It also made me think of how grateful I am not to have grown up in a neighborhood where I EVER had to worry about guns or crime.  Definitely something I take for granted.  Anyways, the good news is that he is 100% okay...crazy, I know!

When I got home I could not bring myself to go to the gym because it was just too beautiful outside (yes, sunshine and 35 degrees = beautiful.)  I went for a run around the neighborhood and it felt AMAZING.  So good to be back outside running.  Come onnnnnnn spring!  I also tried to do the first ab work out on the p90x dvds.  I couldn't even make it through the whole first work out!  So hard!  Hopefully I'll finish up the rest of it tonight.

I just got these today and I'm not saying that I approve but I heard so much about it and a friend gave me the dvds so I wanted to familiarize myself.  Plus, Pink does it and if I haven't said it yet I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Pink.  LOVE her.  haha

I'll get into all the reasons why I love her another time...

For dinner I decided I needed to use up some of the things in my fridge like mushroom, onion and goat cheese.  My fav recipe that my mom always made growing up was cream cheese chicken which is a chicken breast stuffed with butter and chive and onion cream cheese wrapped in bacon.  (The amount of cals/fat in this recipe CANNOT be thought about...it's just too good.)  I thought about doing this kind of thing but hopefully not as fattening haha.

I also had some broccoli with mozzarella and brown rice on the side.  It kind of looks like the plate method (half veggies, quarter starch, quarter protein.)  My meals never do this!

It was very good but next time I would use less goat cheese, I forget how strong it is.

Here's what I did:

• Preheat oven to 375*
• Sauté mushroom, garlic and onion with olive oil.  (I don't really use amounts...just eyeball it.)
• Pound chicken breast flat.
• Spread mushroom and onion on the chicken breast.
• Put 1 Tbsp (use less!!) in chicken breast.
• Roll chicken breast up.
• Sprinkle with basil and parsley.
• Bake 25 minutes on each side, 50 minutes total.

I have another huge chicken breast leftover so I'll have to eat some of that tomorrow.

I'm going to try and finish this ab session.  Night!

Tara (:

A Mitten Blizzard

How did Sunday night get here so fast?  Weekends always go by fast but they seem especially speedy when I'm in The Mitten.  Friday morning I woke up before my weekly intern class to finish packing and get some things done.  I had eggs over easy and they were delicious.  I actually didn't over cook them this time!

I also packed up a lunch for class and the road.  I had a turkey wrap, fiber bar, apples with cinnamon and everything pretzels.

After class I hit the road under clear, blue, sunny, beautiful skies.  Illinois was nice, Indiana was nice, then I drove under the Pure Michigan sign and BAM!  I had to hold on tight to the steering wheel because the wind was blowing my car all over the place and the snow was creating a white out!  I've lived in MI for my whole life so I'm no stranger to driving in the snow but my freshman year of college I got in a nasty accident and have been nervous in bad weather ever since.  Anyway, I ended up sitting in park on the expressway due to an overturned semi.  I hope the driver was okay however I hope that made them realize that they CANNOT go seventy five mph when everyone else is going twenty five.  UGH!  I made it in just under six hours (usually takes me 3.5) and Keith was nice enough to have dinner waiting.  Side-note...one thing I love most about MI is the awesome Pure Michigan commercials they have.  They always remind me of being home and Up North and why I truly love The Mitten.

We had bread with dipping oil for an appetizer.

I love making my own dipping oil mixtures!  This one had olive oil, basil, oregano, garlic and pepper.  I suggested Keith try a recipe I found on FMF's blog.  It was great!  (Also great when we got home from the bar last night.)  We added a bit of cheese on the top as well.  Can't be too cheesy for us!

I was so stressed from my ride that Keefer was nice enough to go out and get me a Burger King strawberry milkshake (I'm very picky about my strawberry milkshakes and I rarely get them but this one is great!) and he also got my a grown up juice box.  YUM!  I think I inhaled the milkshake too fast to take a pic haha.

Yesterday morning Keefer had to get up and go to work so I stayed in bed for an obnoxious amount of time.  It was glorrrrrious.  When he got home he made me this yummy omelet with sausage, tomatoes, mushroom, onion and cheese.  Best om I've had in a while!

We then headed to a coffee shop to study.  One of my midterms was pushed back until after spring break so now I only have two this week woohoo!  (Can't believe I just said woohoo to two midterms, ugh.)  I grabbed a rice krispie treat (my fav) and picked out a tea for two that included vanilla and rooibus tea.  I was trying to recreate the Starbucks kind and it was good but it didn't compare.

Like I've said before, we love trying new recipes together so we thought we would try another Ellie Kreiger recipe.  I love chicken pot pie so I chose this one with phyllo dough.  It turned out to be okay but we both agreed you can't mess with the original recipe.  It's just too awesome the way it is.  We missed the crust.  

Today I had big plans to get up early and study and they didn't really happen.  We made french toast on texas toast bread, always amazing.

We were then off to the library for a good part of the day.  I felt like I was back in undergrad again and actually missed it.  Every time I'm back on the MSU campus I get so nostalgic and miss it terribly.  Especially living in my house with all my roommates!  We packed some grapes, Pringles and trail mix to hold us over.  Studying always gives me the munchies..and Keith the crazies I guess!

This mix from Costco is awesome!  Ignore the hideous econ notes underneath.

We get to use one 4x6 notecard as a "cheat sheet."  I don't think I've ever written so small.

We finally had to leave because I was starving and we had homemade pizza on the brain.  We made our pesto pizza again and this time topped with sausage (which we couldn't even really taste), mushrooms, tomatoes, olives, roasted onions and garlic, mozzarella and feta.  SO delicious.  I could eat this everyday.

For dessert Keefer made me some cinnamon sugar toast.  I used to love this when I was younger and forgot how good it was!

Off to bed.  I have an early (and hopefully less snowy) drive back to Chi tomorrow morning.

Tara (:

More Veggies Please

Sickness, sickness, GO AWAY!  I felt better this morning than I did yesterday morning but it was more of a head cold today.  I did make it to my internship but didn't see any patients so i left a bit early.  My morning fuel was cream of wheat, banana and agave.

For lunch I snapped a pic last night when i was making it so I wouldn't forget.  I had melon, an apple, a blood orange, a cheese stick, a fiber bar and a turkey sandwich.  My lunch for tomorrow looks very similar so I think I need to make a goal for next week to throw in some more veggies.  (I only had spinach on my sandwich!)

When I got home I hit the gym for my 30 min cardio day and the treadmills were full so I rode the bike.  I also did some abs and planned on doing a yoga video when I got home but it wasn't working!  

Today turned out to be kind of a four meal day so for a linner I had my leftover pizza from The Cheesecake Factory, cottage cheese and an acorn squash with butter and brown sugar.  (When I have acorn squash like this it is like a dessert, my fav!)

After class I was starving so I made an open faced tuna melt on a Slimwich!

I'm watching The Olympics and relaxing for the rest of the night.  I have three midterms next week so I better start studying tomorrow!

Night!

Tara (:

Fat Wrap

Again, I woke up feelin sick this morning but I do feel better than I did yesterday.  (I must feel better by tomorrow because two of my best girlfriends are coming to visit!)  I made maple syrup oatmeal and decided to try topping it with my homemade granola and some TJ's peanut butter.  It was good but I don't know if I like it that much better than plain oatmeal.  The great thing about it was that it kept me full until after my workout.  I also tried another Ellie Krieger recipe.  I made some iced coffee.

Here's what I did with the iced coffee:

• Mix 1 Tbsp of sugar with 2 Tbsp of instant coffee.
• Add 1/4 cup of boiling water until dissolved.
• Put in blender with 1c ice, 2 c skim milk, 1 banana.

I didn't follow the recipe exactly.  I was suppose to freeze the banana, which I think would have been better.  I also didn't add any cocoa powder which was an option.  If I made it again I would half the recipe and not include sugar.  I might also use soy milk instead.

When I hit the gym today I was going to follow my plan.  I started with a ten minute warm up walk, then I did weight training with Hannah and also did a 15 minute incline cool down.  It felt very strange not to run or do more cardio but I'm trying to get that out of my mindset of run, run, run.  My arms did feel like jello after.

Yesterday I accidentally bought two OJ's while grocery shopping.  What's wrong with me??  Anyway, must be a sign that I need to drink it to feel better.  Which I still don't know if that is true or not.  I also made a MONSTER wrap because I'm hoping it will last until I get out of class tonight.  I had a whole wheat wrap and added, turkey, spinach, swiss and blue cheese, tomato, onion, cucumber and italian dressing.  It was delicious but a little too big.

Off to shower before class, ugh.  Can't wait for this weekend!

Tara (: