New and different food, finally.

Thanks for your comments on yesterday's post about my running frustrations. As soon as I finish this post, I'm heading out again to run. I'll monitor my heart rate again, to see if it's still just as high as it has been. I'm doing the 3rd week of the "Couch Potato to 5K" running plan which means that each workout is a 5 minute warm up, followed by a 90 second running interval, then a 90 second walking interval and then a 3 minute running interval and a 3 minute walking interval. You repeat this one time for a total of about 18 minutes and then finish with a 5 minute cool down walk, although mine is always a lot longer, because I find myself far from home and I have to get back. :) Plus, I plan to do upper body strength training at my gym today, so I'll end the walk/run at my gym (which is about 15 minutes away from home).

Anyway, on to my food and as promised in the title of this post, it's actually new and exciting! :)

On Wednesday afternoons I now teach violin from 2pm to 8pm with an hour break from 3-4, so I will probably routinely treat myself to Whole Foods, since I teach about a 5 minute walk from there! :)

This included:

-spinach
-dandelion
-Asian tofu (upper left)
-chicken salad (upper middle)
-sweet potatoes (upper right)
-two kinds of quinoa salad (middle-ish)
-antipasto salad (lower middle)
-balsamic marinated mushrooms (lower left)
-Parmesan cheese sprinkled all over!

Then one of my students brought me this:

This particular family is very close to my heart. Their child, who I teach, is a very bright little girl who is also a perfectionist, and very hard on herself, just like I was at her age! I think the ABSOLUTE best part of my job is having a lot of young girls look up to me! I have had MANY parents tell me that their child loves having me as their violin teacher! I want to be the best possible example to them that I can be and I want them to know that I care about them as wonderful individuals, not just as my violin students! I want to give them the tools through music, to succeed in life, using skills that I can teach them such as mental toughness, persistence, patience, self-forgiveness, work ethic, and determination. I care about my students so much that I send many hours during the week thinking about them, their needs, their personalities, and how I can best help them. And the return of knowing that I have and am continuing to inspire them is the best pay off ever!

What about you? What is the BEST part of your job?

Ok, back to food stuff now. Sorry, in case you couldn't tell, I have a passion for teaching! :)

On Wednesday night I made myself a bunch of leftovers.


This was the other Indian-spiced sausage from Whole Foods (needed to be eaten!), leftover butternut squash (that was also about to go bad!) and some more sauteed cabbage/tofu/red pepper. With a glass of white wine. I've really been going through a wine phase recently. Oh well, there are many worse things I could be consuming, right? ;-)


Then yesterday morning I woke up thinking about an omelet so that's exactly what I made. And what an omelet it was!!

This included:

-1 egg, 1 egg white
-sauteed mushrooms and spinach (with garlic)
-avocado
-cheddar cheese!

with salsa on the side!

Along with coffee and a banana!

Then I caught up on blogs and for the first time in a long time my Google reader was empty!


For a late lunch (after I ran!) yesterday I made this creative concoction!


Layered:

-brown rice (can't really see it)
-sauteed cabbage
-one can of tuna
-melted Cheddar cheese
-avocado
-salsa all around

This was honestly SOOO good! I'm going to do something similar to it today later on! (Brown rice needs to be used up before it goes bad!)

I definitely had TWO Luna bars while out teaching yesterday. I'm addicted to the chocolate raspberry kind! They're like a decadent brownie!

And I came home to this sugar free fudgesicle:

(While reading blogs.)

Finally, last but not least, my most scrumptious breakfast this morning was this bowl of oatmeal:


-cottage cheese
-almond butter (finished the jar! Not even close to the 11 servings it said was in there! *smirks*)
-a few remaining raspberries
-leftover nut mix with a little sugar that was in the bottom of the bag sprinkled on
-freeze-dried banana and pineapple Gerber baby mini-fruits! These:



Don't judge. I found them at Big Lots yesterday and they were $1.00! I figured that they'd be good on oatmeal (I was right!) and the don't have any added sugars!

Don't forget to enter my Nut Clusters giveaway! If nothing else, the name of them is so dirty that you just HAVE to want to try them, right? *Thanks to Michelle for pointing out the innuendo here! Hah!*

Finally, congratulations to Caitlin for all of her successes and life changes. This woman inspires me so much! I totally believe in her Operation Beautiful campaign and her attitude through all of her hard work is so positive! I admire everything about her!

Alrighty, I'm off to workout then I'm teaching just two students later on, so I have a pretty light day today.

Happy Friday everyone!