Happy Fat Tuesday!

So unfortunately I didn't get to eat too fat on fat Tuesday.  (Or maybe fortunately, right?)  I was up and off to the hospital this morning.  Before I left I had some cream of wheat, banana and agave.  An english muffin with my new TJ's pb too.  The verdict is still out on Krema's competition. 

I alllllways forget to snap a pic of my lunch while I'm interning however today I just brought my leftover orzo recipe from last night, a fiber bar, celery sticks and a kiwi.  

The day started of rather slow while interning so I decided to pick a fellow intern's brain.  He has a previous degree in exercise physiology and is a personal trainer with a lot of experience, so he knows a lot more than I do about working out.  I told him about my recent challenge.  We talked for a long time and he went into a lot of detail but here's the summary:

• Every single time I go to the gym I do some type of cardio (usually running) and my body is getting "used" to it, therefore it is not as effective.
• Solution: 30 minutes of really pushing myself for cardio 2 days/week.  Eventually I can build up my speed and work up to 45 minutes perhaps even making it to five days a week if I have time.  However, that should be the absolute most cardio I would do and it would be very hard to find time in my schedule to do that in addition to my strength training.  These additions should take place slowly; approximately 2-3 weeks each time I want to add on.  (This isn't saying that cardio/running is not good, just that I need to switch it up a bit more.)  This is also not what I would do if I were to train for a race.
• I am not doing enough strength training during my workouts.  
• Solution:  I received a detailed work out regimen to focus on my strength training.  Each week I should increase by the number of reps or the amount of weight I'm lifting.  I do not want to get "bulky" but he assured me that this would result in fat burning and toning.  I don't think I'll be turning into a body builder any time soon.
• Stop eating carbs 3-4 hours before I go to bed.  (Note:  I did NOT say stop eating carbs all together.)
• Solution:  Stop eating carbs 3-4 hours before I go to bed!  There isn't much of a plan to this. I am always hungry when I get home from class and I am usually in the mood for cereals, bread, bagels or fruit.  ALL CARBS!  Ahhh!  I love carb containing foods and they are SO important in your body but because of how they are digested it really does make sense not to eat them before going to bed.  Tonight I tried to snack on almonds, cottage cheese and hummus with broccoli.  (Pics to follow.)  It was hard but I think I can do it.

I also would love to improve my balance.  I have TERRIBLE balance and the older I get it seems to get worse.  (I can only imagine what it will be like when I'm eighty years old!)  I can do some yoga and balance exercises on my two off days to help improve this!

Because my schedule is always changing and usually pretty busy I don't know if I can stick to this 100% but I am going to try my best and see what works for me and my lifestyle so I can feel the best about myself!

Because I didn't get home from my internship until later, I didn't have time to go work out so I caught up on a few things and made some dinner.  I had a done a Warfarin teaching today at the hospital so I was talking about leafy greens all day.  It got me craving a spinach salad.  I topped mine with onion, tomato, colby jack, dill, and my dressing was a mixture of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, dill and italian dressing.  It was tasty!  I also had a plop of cottage cheese with pepper and TJ's pesto tortellini topped with tomato sauce.  I hadn't tried TJ's tortellini before and I was very pleasantly surprised.  I will definitely try the other flavors.

After class I knew I was going to make an effort not to eat carbs, hoping my bedtime was in the near future.  Instead I snacked on these!

(and a little bit of cottage cheese too.)

I'm off to bed.  Nighty night!

Tara (:

Time to Get Serious

After a wonderful but gluttonous weekend with Keefer, I woke up feeling not so great about myself and my recent eating and exercising habits.  I have been slacking not only at the gym but I've also been eating pretty much whatever my heart desires, however much it desires and whenever it desires.  I've never been one to take the number on the scale too seriously but lately it seems to be staying a little higher than normal.  I'm not saying that I'd like to lose a ton of weight but I would love to tone up, get back in shape and FEEL better about myself.  (Wouldn't everybody?)  I'm currently 145 lbs. and 5'8.5.  (Yes, I need that extra half inch.)  I'd really like to lose 4-5 lbs.  I need to think of a plan that I can stick to.  Every time I go to the gym it needs to be an A+ effort workout.  I also need to force myself to think if I'm actually hungry or if I just am going to eat because it looks/sounds good or I'm bored.  Finally I need to make my splurges few and far between.  I do NOT believe in diets so eliminating anything I love from my diet would be out of the question however cutting back on certain items wouldn't be the worst idea.  I'm going to think of a plan for me for the next few days that is attainable and sustainable.  (I'm open to suggestions!)  I will keep you updated.

Anywhoooo, this morning, at 4:30am I made Keefer some eggs over easy with toast and sent him on his way, back to The Mitten.  I went back to bed but when I woke up I was craving some of those eggs.

I hit the gym and had a pretty good work out.  I did a run/walk for 40 minutes and made it 3.47 miles.  Hopefully I can run longer and faster if I get more serious about my workouts.  I also did some strength training so I was ready for lunch when I got home.  I didn't want to eat a huge meal because I wanted to eat dinner before class so I went with a big smoothie and a PBJ on an english muffin.  I also used the last of my Krema so now I'm going to try the TJ's brand of pb.

Last week I found a recipe I wanted to try on a food blog and for the life of me I cannot remember which one.  I made it for dinner and it was pretty good but if I had to do again I would add chicken instead of beans (clearly I'm a big meat fan.) and mushrooms.  Probably more tomatoes too.  Marie suggested olives which I think would be yummy as well!

I actually had to bring this to class because I ran out of time.  Marie and I decided to leave early for class to go to Starbucks and try their new TAZO vanilla rooibos tea.  No pic but it was DELISH.  Can't wait to get another.  (I used all my self control not to order an oatmeal cookie, my favvvv.)

Anyways, here's the recipe.  I would definitely recommend it with those changes.  I'm sorry that I can't remember where I got this wonderful recipe!

• 2 cups orzo, uncooked
• 2 cups frozen spinach
• 1 pint grape tomatoes, havled
• 1/4 cup goat cheese, crumbled
• 1 can chickpeas, drained
• 1 Tbsp. dry dill
• 3 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• pepper to taste

Cook orzo and spinach in a pot, bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Add chickpeas, dill, grape tomatoes and goat cheese. In a seperate small bowl, whisk together olive oil, salt, lemon juice and garlic. Add oil mixture to orzo, stirring until pasta is completely coated. Serve in a bowl and enjoy!

When I got home I was actually hungry but not starving so I stayed with light snacking.  I had a kiwi and a grapefruit.  Both delicious.

I'm off to start some homework.  I'm off to the hospital again tomorrow!

Tara (:

Vday Slacker

Well I have seriously been slacking on my blogging.  I have been snapping some photos, just not posting them.  When Keith is here I don't get around the computer as much as I usually do.  

So here's what I've been eating....
...a big bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios.

...grapefruit!  With a little bit of sugar on top to add to the sweetness.

... a turkey wrap in a wheat tortilla with swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato and Italian dressing.  I absolutely love eating these for lunch.

...chocolate pudding with a frozen banana on top, SO tasty!

Whenever Keith comes we try to plan a new recipe or new restaurants.  When he got here on Friday night we had thai from Penny's Noodles.  It was ok pad thai but I think there are better places to get thai around here.

I've been dying to try Ann Sather.  It's a breakfast place all around Chicago.  It was DELICIOUS.  The portion sizes were huge though.  Most of the breakfasts have two sides to choose from and one side is TWO giant cinnamon rolls.  This weekend they had pink icing for Valentine's Day.  Needless to say we had a doggy bag.

Although the cinnamon rolls seemed like our actual meal it was not.  I had a Mediterranean omelet with a side of fresh fruit and Keith had Southern Decadence which was a biscuit topped with a sausage patty, poached eggs and sausage gravy.  He got a side of tomato slices.

Later on in the day we made some granola.  It was a recipe out of an Ellie Krieger cookbook.  I don't watch the Food Network much and haven't seen her show but I learned about this RD chef lately and so far LOVE her.

She has a very realistic view on eating and her RD credentials make her even better!  Last night we tried her chicken cacciatore with some broccoli on the side.  It was fabulous!  I am borrowing the cookbooks from a friend but definitely will be getting my own soon to try all the recipes.

We also mixed and matched a six pack of beer from TJ's.  It was fun to try different kinds.  Here were two of them...

We tried to make a dark chocolate fondue for dessert but it did not turn out.

Breakfast today was eggs over easy although I overcooked them a bit.

For lunch Keith made me one of my favorites, a grilled cheese with tomato.

Valentine's Day really isn't a big deal to us so we decided we would do a pizza night at Giordano's.  Hannah and Marie joined us.  It was fun!  Although they offered a heart shaped pizza, we thought it might be awkward to cut so we just stuck with the regular one.  MMM deep dish...

I'm off to soak up the last bit of my boyfriend for the next couple of weeks.

Tara (:

Food Lull

Greetings from snowy Chi!

Lately I have been in such a food lull.  It's not that I don't feel like cooking I just don't know what to cook.  Everything seems like the same ole same ole.  Yesterday morning I had the same ole same ole cream of wheat, banana and agave for breakfast.  (Although I'm not sick of this....maybe I should meet for every meal, not.)

At my internship I did have the same ole same ole lunch.  Blah Blah Blah.  Interning is going well and I feel that I'm learning a ton!   It is nice, however, to have snowdays like today!

Last night I was still dwelling on that delicious pasta from last week so I tried to remake it only this time adding broccoli and using mozzarella and colby jack for the cheese.  It was good but last time was definitely better.  I also had the leftovers for lunch today.  

I decided to celebrate with waffles this morning because of my snowday, however I was very disappointed.  My 10 grain mix was good for pancakes but not for waffles.

I couldn't think of what to make for dinner tonight and I had also already eaten up my pasta leftovers so Marie and I got Jimmy Johns.  It is a guilty pleasure of mine.  Turkey Tom and a pickle please!

While doing homework, Marie and I treated ourselves with some Dark Chocolate pretzel thins that I picked up at TJ's today.  YUM!  (Pic to come soon.)

Off to bed, nighty night!

Tara (:

Boring Bites

After my workout and interview I was itchin for some lunch.  I haven't really been in the mood to make/cook stuff lately so I just threw some cinnamon Puffins in vanilla yogurt and had a bit of brown rice on the side.  Borrrrring but tasty nonetheless.

I was ready for dinner so I heated up some of the leftover chili from last night.  I forgot to turn it off after it was served last night so it was a little dried out.  Nothing a little cottage cheese couldn't fix.  I also had a salad and a potato, which I forgot to snap a pic of.  

Tuesdays are always my longest days, ugh.  Here we go!

Tara (:

Happy Day After The Super Bowl!

Hope everyone had fun celebrating The Saints victory!  I have been craving pancakes for a while now so yesterday I whipped up some whole grain pancakes and topped with bananas and syrup.  MMM  I also finished the leftover batter this morning with a bowl of cereal!

After I went to the gym yesterday AND IT WAS CLOSED????  Marie and I went on a long walk around the neighborhood.  It was a beautiful sunny day out!  When we got back I was quite hungry but didn't want to eat too big of a lunch so that I would be hungry for our Super Bowl snacks!  I had a few slices of colby jack cheese and some brown rice with a salad.

Finally last night it was time to eat the food!  I had started chili the night before in the crock pot.  It was Keith's recipe and it turned out pretty good.  (Although I still think it tastes better when he makes it.)  The rest of the food was great too!

Here's what I did for the chili:

• Brown 1 medium onion, five stalks of celery and 1 lb of ground beef.
• 1 can chili beans
• 1 can northern beans, rinsed
• 1 can light kidney beans, rinsed
• 1 can dark kidney beans, rinsed
• cumin to taste
• basil to taste
• oregano to taste
• black pepper to taste

Once again, I LOVE cooking in the crock pot.  It is so easy!

Time to hit the gym and get ready for an interview, wish me luck!

Tara (:

Green Eggs and Tummy Aches

Dr. Seuss definitely glamorized green eggs because this morning when I woke up while eating my breakfast sandwich I noticed a small green patch.  Stupidly, I didn't think much of it and kept eating and didn't feel so hot for the remainder of the day.  It even ruined my Saturday night plans.  Grrr.

Last night after a total, but fun pig out and wine night with the interns I needed a lighter food day.  After my stomach began feeling normal again I thought I should eat easy foods.  I made a PBJ and chicken noodle and vegetable soup for dinner.  You can tell I like my strawberry jam.  (:

These were both yummy and fortunately they settled well haha.  For dessert I grabbed a grapefruit and am now sipping on some hot cocoa.

I'm making chili in the crock pot for the mini intern Superbowl party!  I haven't made it before but it's Keith's recipe and his always turns out great!  Wish me luck!

Off to bed!

Tara (: