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!

Moderation is not my strong suite.

What do I mean by my title? Well, I've always been a bit of a black and white thinker. When I was younger, I'd either not practice for a few days or practice for 5 hours at a time, never taking a day off. I wanted to "lose weight" and was diagnosed with anorexia. My eating fluctuates from quite clean to pretty unhealthy every few days or weeks. And when I exercise, I either don't do it for a week at a time, or I do it every day for an hour or two. Case in point, yesterday I wanted to go out for a 30 minute jog/walk (which I am now calling a wog!) and it turned into about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Haha, I did the 30 minute wog, but I also did 25 minutes of expresso bike (racing--so sweaty after this!), 20 minutes of leg strength training and another 25 minutes of walking.

I need to work on being able to do more things in moderation. Even the little tiny things that I catch myself doing, such as only setting my A/C in my car to either be THE coldest or THE hottest (when I get too cold). I never set it in the middle, until I've made myself start doing it (for moderation practice!) and it was actually very uncomfortable for me.
What about you? Are you and all-or-nothing thinker? If so, in what ways does that manifest itself? And how would you like to get better at that?

But onto the food. My recent love is eggplant. It's so easy and so good. I slice it width-wise and rinsed the discs in saltwater then stuck them in the oven with EVOO for 20 minutes (?? I don't remember how long I baked them--sorry!!) But afterwards, I almost used them like bread (loving the texture!) and topped them with lunch meat (free range, grass fed, humanely raised turkey meat). Like this:


And this:



(with butternut squash fries)

I finished the eggplant, but I bought another one, so expect to see it soon. :)

I had my go-to snack of PB and carrots at some point. (On my camera, maybe from Thursday?)

And for the past two nights I've treated myself to the WF salad bar because it's the ONLY thing that has sounded good and (confession) I was tempted to just skip dinner, which I knew was NOT a good option. So I figured that spending a few extra bucks to be good to myself was definitely worth it.

Here's the first night's salad and the second one was similar.

-spinach
-organic dandelion greens
-red bell peppers
-Parmesan cheese
-2 chunks of vegan chicken stuff (mid left)
-balsamic tofu (upper right)
-curry tofu (lower right)
-quinoa salad (bottom middle)
-and my FAVORITE, poppy seed tarragon (??) chicken, the purple-ish stuff on the right! This stuff is sooooo good! It has almonds in it to and I'll probably be picking some up just to make sandwiches with.

Now for three different mornings' breakfasts:

Which is:



And the second day was similar, with half a peach:


Diced it and saved the other half.

Then I decided that bowl of cereal and yogurt needed something else...Carob chips!!

Much better! :)

And my breakfast today was DELICIOUS!


I had one slice of healthy homemade banana bread (recipe follows!!) with ~1/2 C cottage cheese and the other half of my peach from yesterday.

Here's the lovely loaf of banana bread, with the inaugural slice already having been cut and shared by me and my boyfriend. :)

And here's the recipe:

3/4 C honey (the recipe called for Splenda)
3/4 C flax meal
5 ripe bananas
1/4 C skim milk
1/4 plain yogurt (the recipe called for 1/4 C sour cream)
2 tsp eggwhites (I used one regular egg's egg white)

2 C whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Pre-heat oven to 350.

Mix together the first 5 ingredients.
Combine the next 3 ingredients in a separate bowl, then stir into the wet mixture.
Pour into a regular (large) loaf pan and bake for 1 hour, 10 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

~~~~~~

There you have it. It's super easy!! I'm not exactly a baker extraordinaire, so if I can do it, I'm sure you can, too. :) And it's delicious! Even my bf liked it and I didn't tell him what I had done to make it more nutritious!

OK, check this out for a free sample of Dandy-Lyon bites, an impressive raw foods snack.

I know there are several giveaways happening in blog land, but I don't have time to hunt them down. I'll try to post again tonight with those. Right now though, I'm off to shower then go to and help with the registration event for one of the music programs where I teach and I'm teaching a private lesson at home later today.

I hope everyone is having an excellent Saturday!

A whole weekend of posts!

Sorry I've been away all weekend. I detect a trend in my blog of mostly blogging during the week, both because no one around me knows about my blog, and also because I tend to have incredibly busy weekends due to my job as a violinist. Many gigs happen on Saturdays and Sundays and I also teach most Saturday mornings.

In fact, here is a picture of the venue of the bridal show gig that I played yesterday.



It was a fancy-schmancy "one stop wedding shop" event that I played with a string quartet, advertising live music. There was some fun free food but due to the "Meatless in March" challenge I'm doing with Jenna, I only had:

-2 tiny plates of salad, one with feta and raspberries over mixed greens, the other with honeydew melon over bibb lettuce
-1 mini vanilla cupcake with whipped cream icing (advertising wedding cake services!)

I'm proud of myself for sticking to no meat. If I were eating meat this month, I could have tried some apricot chicken, some sort of tilapia, some sort of beef, and some other chicken dish. Fancy people, I tell you, fancy! :) Oh and here's the outside of the building. It was a bed and breakfast, with the grand hall (where we were) connected in the back.



Now that it's the work week again, I promise to have (hopefully fun!) pictures!

TRIGGER WARNING! The following involves calorie counting and could be triggering so read carefully!

Starting with today's breakfast and working backwards.



1/2 C oats/bran (150)
1 tsp ground flax (10)
1 TB raisins (40?)
1/2 C ff cottage cheese (90)
2 TB peanut butter! Yum! (180)
1 medium banana (100)


= 570

And I think I need to count calories for a while, just to make sure I'm not eating way more than I think. Because I am maintaining, but I have been trying to lose weight for 2 weeks and working out EVERY DAY and I'm exactly the same weight!

Has anyone had a similar experience to me? I use to be anorexic and it was miserable. I rarely even speak about those few years of my life because it was one of the most terrible experiences of my life. I am thankfully recovered and I reached a healthy weight, but I kept gaining weight in grad school, due to stressful years and too little sleep and exercise. Now that I am at a healthy MINDSET and actually sort of have semi-regular periods, I feel like I can safely and reasonably lose about 15 pounds. But it's actually very difficult due to the fact that I am constantly hungry and get really sick/weak when I'm slightly low on calories for a day. Like it's REALLY hard for me to survive on less than 1800 calories. It's just frustrating because I am working out and I'm eating nutritious/voluminous foods and drinking enough fluids but I can't cut enough calories to lose weight. And let me assure you all that I am safely over my natural (pre-ED) body weight. And no, I won't let this consume my life, even if I can't lose the weight.

OK anyway, sorry for posting that. I'm just a little frustrated right now.

And I definitely have to add that I snacked on cottage cheese and PB plus a carrot not even 2 hours after breakfast. Go figure. I'll use it for fuel at the gym later today!

Anyway, food from the weekend: (BY THE WAY, I do not post photos of everything I eat. In fact, I am missing a lot of photos, when I don't remember or don't want to be obvious in taking it. So realize, that this is DEFINITELY not everything I eat!)



Breakfast yesterday was pretty similar to today's, but it also had the last of my can on pumpkin in it. I will definitely be making a WF shop today and getting more! Sorry about the picture quality.

On Saturday, I was out running around all day (teach, gym, teach, symphony--roughly 10am-10pm) so I took pictures of the stuff I packed.


-BBQ tofu sandwich


-spinach with a tiny bit of leftover brown rice (like seriously a couple of TBs) and a few bites of tofu
-Fiber bar (Quaker's Fiber One knock off.) I really don't like these, and they give me stomach cramps! Same thing with the Fiber One bars. I don't know why, because I eat a ton of fiber. I think it's the type of fiber maybe? Coming from chicory root? Anyone else have this problem? And I always THINK I'll like them "ooh, chocolate peanut butter!..." but I NEED to NOT buy them anymore!
-banana
-apple
-half an almond butter and sf jelly sandwich

All together:

WHEW, but yes, I ate it all, spread out throughout the day. And that was after my breakfast of:

-2 slices of ww Tuscan pane from TJ with a lot of almond butter and jam
-banana

And a random snack of cottage cheese with cocoa powder, PB, and splenda I honestly love this combo, and it's healthy. Anyone else with me?


In the blog world, Missy Maintains is giving away a bunch of Erin's Baker treats. I have wanted to try these for so long and never gotten around to buying them. So I would LOVE to win! :)

And Emily at the Health Nut is giving away this cute meal planner.

Ok, enjoy your Mondays!

Lots of exercise!

I am trying to be more active overall for my health and energy levels and hoping that weight loss is a convenient side perk. :) I have about 15-20 lbs to lose, but I also want to get more fit, more toned, and stronger. I'd be OK with a smaller pant size even without much weight loss (my goal is at least 5-10) if it were because of muscle gain/fat loss. Basically, I was an active child and in my early teens. Then I started college and became much more sedentary at which point I also developed and was diagnosed with anorexia. It almost ruined my life an I lost way too much weight. After outpatient and therapy I maintained a still underweight body, and was still restricting, but in a much less obvious way. Eventually (especially when I got to grad school) I couldn't keep up the 1100-1200 calories a day (DUHHH!) and I started binging frequently. I quickly gained 40 lbs and stopped caring. In fact, I didn't mind being slightly overweight, except that my energy levels weren't great and I knew I didn't look my best. So recently, I decided to take charge of my health and my weight by adding a lot more exercise to my days. I try to work out for *at least* 30 minutes a day; most days it's over 60. I do a blend of heavy lifting and cardio. Plus I am trying new activities like yoga, and going back to gymnastics. I'm pretty sure some weight has already come off and I'm going to continue with what I'm doing (~1600-2000 calories/day) because it seems to be working. I am much happier now, because I really don't worry about food that much on the whole. Most nights I go out with friends and have one of two beers. I eat too much chocolate, and sometimes too much food overall. Yeah, they're extra calories, but that's LIFE. And I missed too much of that during my ED/DE years!

OK, with that said, I have really been enjoying working out A LOT, knowing that I'm also fueling myself properly. I did a 10 minute slow run on the treadmill to warm up, then about 20 minutes of leg weights, and then about 55 minutes of the Expresso bikes. I'm fairly certain I burned about 550 on the bike alone, not including the other things. And tonight, I went to an adult gymnastics class from 7:30-8:45. I was pretty high intensity the whole time, so that was probably another 300-400 there (I'm really not sure). Anyway, I'm pretty amazed with myself, knowing there is a realistic possibility that I burned 1100 calories through exercise. That is VERY APPROXIMATED THOUGH! :)

And my lovely food. I started with a carrot

and my usual bowl of oatmeal. Basically the same toppings:

1/2 C oats, water w/ a splash of milk
1 TBSP ground flax
1/2 scoop chocolate protein powder
2 TBSP (?) trail mix
1 vanilla honey energy chunk (60 cals)
1 TBSP (?) Peanut butter


plus coffee:


I kept taking little tiny bits of more PB on the spoon and might very well have had another 2 TBSPs, but hey--it's healthy fat, right? :) And some of it accompanied another carrot:

Later, I had the rest of a cherry pomegranate Clif nectar bar,

plus several handfuls of this trail mix:


and an apple with still more PB:

Some days are just PB days, ya know? OK, so A LOT of my days are PB days! :)

And then I went out to run a bunch of errands and along the way I ate at Chocolate Almond Fudge Clif bar (250):

After my first workout, I treated myself to the Whole Foods hot bar! It was only $8.70 give or take a few pennies!

I had:

-Chicken Tikka Masala
-Some sort of Indian tofu (curried)
-Buffalo tofu (this was awesome--had blue cheese and buffalo sauce; a little too oily, but still great!)
-Curried broccoli/cauliflower
-Vegan "beef" something
-Seitan chili (also vegan)


And after that, before gymnastics, I was craving chocolate so I had 2 Clif Z bars (chocolate chip is definitely my favorite flavor!)

and this:

Goodnight!