The ups and downs of life are a funny thing.

Thank you so much for your encouraging comments on yesterday's post! They really mean so much to me, I could not even tell you! I am so glad to be a part of the blog world!

Today went much better! I think my bf and I realized that we had both let things slip in terms of making sure the other one felt appreciated and loved in this relationship. The discussion we had yesterday was very good, even if it was hard, and I think we both feel closer to each other today! I honestly feel like I'm a better person around him, and I love his companionship and constant support of me. I am blessed to be dating him and I can't imagine us breaking up. Therefore, I am going to be more intentional about making sure he knows how much I care about him and how valuable he is to me. This doesn't mean that we don't still have some differences to work through, but I think that we're coming at it from a much better angle to resolve those things.

And on a related note, I'm really proud of myself for not even once--at all--having thoughts of restricting through all of this! In the (recent) past, I've had those thoughts but I haven't acted on them--despite the strong temptation. And in the farther past, this is exactly the thing that would feed disordered thoughts. I'm very pleased about that--like I said, I haven't actually struggled with that for a while, but this is the first time that those thoughts haven't even showed up! :)

So here's the yummy food I've been eating.

Yesterday's breakfast was a great bowl of oatmeal with PB, raisins, flax, pumpkin and cottage cheese:

And a whole plum (I had already eaten most of it--sorry!)


Then, while I was baby-sitting I had one chocolate chip muffin that the mom said I was welcome to--it was delicious!!

I slept in a bit more today but still got less than 7 hours of sleep. Surprisingly though I felt OK and I went on a 5.5 mile "run". (Remember my running is short segments with a lot of walking in between.) It was great though, and I felt awesome afterwards! I have that 5K at the zoo on Sunday, so I think I'm going to do one more "long" run tomorrow and then rest on Saturday (which is a VERY busy day for me anyway, so it works well.)

Yesterday night I made a delicious dinner/snack of sauteed zucchini and EVOO topped with Sabra spinach and artichoke hummus! I think it's a new flavor and I love it!


Speaking of hummus, check out this awesome giveaway to win some free tubs of it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yesterday I got my first ever package from FoodBuzz!! I got ridiculously excited upon opening them! Woohoo!

(I apologize for the blurry pictures!)

So far I have only tried the Whole Wheat loaf and it is excellent! I have been enjoying it--many pieces of it!--topped with cheddar cheese and avocado like this:

And then with spinach too like this:

It also makes excellent sandwiches, such as this one with veggie "bologna", cheese, avocado and spinach:

For a non-traditional breakfast this morning I had the same thing (finished the avocado--so sad!) and had mushrooms and carrots with hummus also.


And with coffee. (By the way, yes my plates are always perched precariously on the edge of my computer desk, where I'm eating while either reading blogs or doing e-mail!)


The bread is so delicious and I am very much looking forward to trying the other loaf soon! Thanks FoodBuzz!!

My bf and I went on a real date to get dinner at Chik-Fil-A (my first time ever!! I got the char grilled sandwich and fries and I loved it! It seems A LOT better than most fast food places!) and to see "The Hangover" which looked good and was still showing in theatres. It was hilarious (minus a few raunchy scenes!) and I actually really enjoyed it!

We sneaked these in and I had quite a few. (Like definitely more than one serving...so good!) This has been kind of a major choclate week for me!

Finally, I've been snacking on many Shapers whole grain chips (black bean and salsa flavor!) because I fund big bags at Big Lots for $1.80! They're very comparable to Sun Chips in their nutritional facts and I've been enjoying them frequently!

(Thank you Google Images!)

Here's one more great giveaway:

AnAppleADay is giving away Tropical Traditions coconut oil to cook with! I've wanted to try this for so long because I've read about it frequently in the blog world.

Good night everyone!

Some days are just three cookie kind of days!

Hah! And I should add "plus chocolate chip banana loaf" and "mini black and white cookie" and "cinnamon coffee cake" to my title, but it would have been too long. ;-)

In all seriousness, today was a crappy day. And I know I caved sweets more than normal, both because of the frustrating day but also because that's what my body wanted. And I can honestly say that I'm proud of myself for EATING what I wanted and not worrying that it was A LOT of carbs and not exactly nutritionally dense. I don't do that all the time, but it was definitely in order today. (Also I can honestly say it WASN'T a binge, because I've done that in the past many times but I'm finally truly over that). Additionally, I didn't end up going for a workout because I started to feel really hungry right when I was going to leave and I hate working out when I'm hungry. (I did that for LONG ENOUGH, thank you!)

So anyway, a quick recap of my eats. Get ready for one of my least nutritious days in a long time:

After my healthy breakfast, I got hungry for more real food. So I made a sandwich similar to the one from yesterday. One of my roommates got home as I was making it, so I'm using a recycled photo. The only difference is that I added cheddar cheese and BBQ sauce to it.


Then my sweet tooth struck!


This was about half of a chocolate banana loaf from Starbucks! One of my favorite things! So delicious!

And a mini home made black and white cookie:

And then I left the house and had over the course of the next several hours, while driving to and from gigs and teaching, *3* Kashi dark chocolate oatmeal cookies. *drools*


And finally, I had a teensy bite of a cinnamon coffee cake.

(This was the full amount I had).

Additionally, yesterday night I had 2 glasses of this red wine, and I'll be having another one shortly here:


And in good news, my doctor said they can forward over the antibiotic prescription to my pharmacy tomorrow so that I can start those for my finger, which should help. But I thought when you take an antibiotic, it should have gotten rid of the entire virus from my system! Why did it come back?!?! Well, it'll get better tomorrow, when I can start the next round of antibiotics!

Well, I think I'm playing Scrabble with my bf and drinking red wine tonight. I hope you're all having a great evening!

100th post!

Good evening everyone! I'm posting this at 2:30am--I am a night owl, but unfortunately I have to be up to run a 5K with my boyfriend at 6:30 (race at 9am). Oops, I was just out with friends for a couple of drinks (1 glass of red wine and 1 diet coke and vodka) and a big order of French Fries (no picture).

I just wanted to get a few pictures of my food from today up. I haven't been nearly as hungry as I normally am lately, really for an entire week or so now. I wonder what's up?

For breakfast I had a bowl of WF high fiber cereal, blueberry granola, FF milk and a bit of PB. Plus coffee with milk, of course.


Then I took another nap in the morning (trying to get over this cold) and ate aquick easy lunch of more tofu + veggies + PB. Topping it with Peanut butter really is the key. It's so delicious!

For a snack I had a bowl of grapes:


And I've been drinking a lot of a low calorie beverages lately, unintentionally, or rather intuitively I've been craving cold liquids, while still definitely consuming enough water as well.

This was an FRS low calorie packet mixed with water for after the gym today (workout = 35 minutes on the elliptical, 45 minutes of walking).


I'm so sorry for the fuzzy picture. I thought it was good enough, but I guess I was wrong. But you get the idea, and this was another lovely cold beverage for a hot day.

For dinner I had a slice of ww bread with hummus and full fat cheddar cheese, plus another slice of bread with PB and a whole red bell pepper on the side (my favorite!)

And earlier in the day I had a yogurt with cereal, and tonight after I got home I had another yogurt and about half of a large Starbucks pastry. Oops, but I had been well under my calories for today, so it's not really a problem at all.

Well, I'm off to get some laundry and then go to sleep! I'll see you all in the morning. It's always *SOOO* much fun to run a 5K on under 4 hours of sleep! Hah!

Being sore feels great!

I woke up nice and sore this morning but it feels great. In addition to the racquetball from yesterday, I also did a bunch of frog jumps (jumping squats) to warm up with and my legs definitely feel it today. Of course, I'm still going to the gym shortly here. :)

The sad news is that the Pens lost the hockey game in overtime, so the 7th game in the series will be played on Wednesday night. Talk about NERVE-WRACKING. Go Pens!

I ate a great bowl of blackberry cashew oats today:

-1/2 C oats
-1/3 C pumpkin
-noni juice (I'll put this in every day to use up the bottle, not because I think it's really as great at it claims to be!)
-ground flax
-cashews
-blackberries
-a tiny bit of granola to finish it

Yesterday I was hungry all afternoon. A couple pictures:


Tofu with sauteed cabbage, kale, fresh ginger, onion, tamari and hot sauce

Eaten with Ak-mak crackers and hummus

My dinner was this amazing bowl of veggies. Consisted of broccoli, the mixture above (the cabbage/kale/ginger stuff), tofu, and topped with low fat feta cheese! This was incredible and also a HUGE amount of food, which I love!


Fruit for dessert.

Unphotographed foods were 2 Clif Z bars, 2 Miller lite beers (at night with the boyfriend), some chocolate covered espresso beans, and 2 squares of Ghiradelli raspberry dark chocolate. :)

Sweet and Fit is having a giveaway for $10 off a purchase from MixMyGranola.

On my to do list today, before leaving the house to teach at 3:30 is:

-Bank
-Post office
-Look for housing options for next year!
-Gym
-Practice
-Shop, and try to convince myself to buy an iPod. I ONLY have EVER owned an iPod shuffle (*first generation* thank you very much!) It's ironic especially considering that I'm a full-time professional musician. Umm, yes, I might just need to shell out the money for the iPod. My cord on my shuffle pretty much dead and I'd have time today to run up to the Apple store and buy it/load it up with music! Woohoo! Yes, I need to do that. Full report later. :)

MIA blogger has returned!

I've missed you all (shout out to Mariposa, with your adorable comment! Thank you!), but I had a fantastic weekend and VeggieGirl had the right idea in her great video post on blogging about when you want to, versus out of obligation and I totally agree with her. I love you all, but I also enjoyed being out and about this weekend (and yesterday!) and spending time with my friends, mainly my boyfriend. *Roll eyes at me here* :)

As such, I am going to have to re-cap the weekend fairly quickly since I have a lot to do this afternoon before teaching all evening. Let's start with my amazing breakfast today.


With coffee. Currently drinking Komodo Dragon Bold roast from Starbucks, given to me by my wonderful boyfriend, who knows just how important coffee is to me! I had specifically mentioned to him that I had tried this roast and really liked it, so he brought me an entire pound!


The usual oats, pumpkin, flax, and noni juice topped with:

-goji berry trail mix (from WFs--this stuff is amazing!)
-soy nuts
-0% Greek Yogurt
-chocolate covered ginger!!! (From TJs; if you like ginger, this stuff will greatly contribute yumminess to your life! So incredible, melted over hot oatmeal!!)

(I have been snacking on small handfuls of this stuff all weekend! It's so addictive! Let's just say that I finished the container almost entirely by myself in about 5 days, which has 11 servings. Haha, oops.)

My breakfast yesterday was similar, with added blackberries, and no trail mix:

I went to TJs and WFs on Friday night while waiting for my boyfriend to finish a show he was playing. (Yes, he's another musician and composer! And he wrote a piece and dedicated it to me! It's a fantastic piece and I'm not biased at all! ;-) Anyway, I picked up quite a few things but only got pictures of some of it.
Most of it's pretty self-explanatory. I bought the feta which I'm excited about, but I'm coming up short on suggestions of what to do with it. What are your favorite ways to eat feta cheese? Any recipes you love with it?

I made a bunch of veggies on Saturday as they were starting to go bad in my fridge. I just boiled some green beans and brussel sprouts and sauteed a pan of red kale, white onion, cilantro and red pepper.


I also baked a sweet potato and ate a bit of it before I remembered to take its picture. :)

So now that you've seen my healthy food, here are the treats from this weekend. Only some of them! There were actually quite a few, unphotgraphed things, mostly eaten while out with friends! I think you all know my food philosophy by now, of never denying myself yummy food simply because it's not healthy. In fact, during my years with DE, I'm pretty sure I would have qualified as orthorexic (an obsession with healthy food) as I NEVER ate ANYTHING made without 100% whole grain flour, anything with more than 4 grams of sugar per serving, absolutely no fried foods, and quite a few other highly restrictive rules placed upon myself. Like I've mentioned before, I missed out on quite a bit of life, and I don't want to do that anymore. The treats I had all in the past 4 days included: 2 slices of chocolate cake (on different occasions), 3 martinis at a swanky martini bar downtown (I had a blueberry martini, a tropical martini and a blackberry-ginger martini! Yes, I know they were probably 300 calories each! Oops!), a couple random beers here and there, and a couple pieces of unphotographed chocolate here at home. I had an amazing dinner on Saturday night with my boyfriend after the wedding I played, which went really well! I got to play with my first choice violist which made it a pleasure, knowing he was so solid musically and my cellist is great, too! We went out and I had a grilled chicken sandwich with sun-dried tomato pesto on a whole grain ciabatta with rosemary fries on the side. And a Yuengling to drink! What a great meal!

So on a related note, here's some chocolate that did make it onto the camera, all of which was mightily enjoyed by MOI! :)


A couple random bars eaten to and from teaching on Saturday:

Plus I dumped this into a bottle of water.


And some snacks from way back on Friday, since they were on my camera:


This is a small piece of ww bread topped with a soy sausage link, FF cheese and homemade hummus!

Broccoli topped with more homemade hummus!

These were blooming in my back yard! I love them!


OK, I've got to go do laundry, go to the bank, get gas, workout and shower before teaching, so I've got to end here. I'll try to comment on your blogs tonight after teaching. Hope everyone's weeks are going fantastically well!