Monster post!

Thanks for your patience with my lack of posting over most weekends. I'm BACK and I have a monster post for you! It's amazing how much food I eat in 4 days! Haha, and that's not even including all the stuff that went unphotographed because it was eaten with friends. But I do have pictures of almost everything I ate when I could take pictures.

I think I should start with breakfast today but then go back to Friday night and work my way forwards. So this morning I woke up wanting protein, so I made scrambled eggs (1 egg, 1/4 C egg whites) with a little milk in the eggs (makes a better consistency) and stirred in some frozen spinach. I topped it with a little LF feta cheese and some salsa (hellooo, lycopene!)


I also had a cute star-shaped muffin-type thing that my roommate made. It was coconut citrus flavored and really good! It was also reasonably healthy with applesauce and some whole grains. I had coffee on the side and was going to have the banana, but I didn't end up needing it. (I ate it two hours later, while blogging!)





Before I drove 2 hours north for a show on Friday night I had a great workout. (30 minutes on the Expresso bike --check out their website! These are seriously the most amazingly fun form of exercise!) Afterwards I made a quick tuna sandwich before a student arrived for her lesson.

I mixed this dressing into the tuna and ended up finishing the bottle. (There was less than 1 TBSP left).

Plus a few leftover veggies on the side.

A word about fat free dressings. I know that you need fat, especially with some veggies in order to better absorb the fat-soluble nutrients. I think you all know from my blog that I eat quite a bit of fat, mostly healthy sources, and some less healthy choices. I do however buy low- and non-fat dressings because I don't taste a difference and I'd MUCH rather eat more PB, cashews, olive oil, avocado, CHOCOLATE (hehe!), and the like. It is definitely not an attempt to eat low fat because 1) I'd be failing miserably (haha, that's my lame attempt at humor SkinnyRunner style), and 2) On a serious note, I do NOT believe in low fat eating AT ALL! In fact, I personally feel WAAYYYY better on quite a lot of fat. This might sound strange, but it's true. I've long stopped counting how many grams of fat I eat each day, but I'm guessing it's up around 80. That being said, I need to start looking for dressings with fewer chemicals in them and I might need to find ones with more fat instead. I don't know and I'm not too worried about it. Wow, that was a long paragraph about salad dressing.

Back to Friday evening. I ended up eating 3 nutrition bars in the car! (One Clif Z, one FiberPlus Antioxidants, one Smores Luna). Wow, guess I was hungry.

(Sorry about the shadow).

I obviously relied way too heavily on bars on Friday, but they were there and easy to grab and reasonably healthy. This one was eaten right after the gym, before I started driving north.

When I got up there the guys were eating pizza, so I had two smallish slices. I felt just fine after them. Full, but not too full and it was good to play a show not hungry. We played well to a pretty full house! :) And I ended up driving home late (10pm-12:330am) and had another Apple Cinnamon Clif Z bar. Yes, I realize I ate 5 bars on Friday. This is NOT a normal habit, but it happens once in a while with my lifestyle. I also ate this apple on the way home.


Saturday morning I woke up nice and early and made a delicious omelet. It was pretty simple with feta and spinach and topped with avocado and low-sugar ketchup.


On my drive to my students' recital I ate this PB and banana sandwich I packed.

Plus a Chocolate Chip Clif Z bar. This is why I love summer:

Woo! Yay for melted chocolate!! The chocolate chip flavor is BY FAR my favorite. Like hands down, absolutely no questions. It has TONS of chocolate in it for only 130 calories and it's whole grain with quite a few vitamins and minerals. If Clif wants to send me any more products of theirs, I'd be happy to review them! :)

Here's the top of my students' program. I can't show you more for privacy reasons. But the whole recital went really well, and I am so proud of my students!

At home I snacked on some yogurt and cereal. The current open box in my cupboard is this:

With yogurt.


I did another 25 minutes on the Expresso bike on Saturday (think racing the whole time, trying to break my previous best time, which I did!) and then went to the boyfriend's house for 2 slices of pizza (cheese stuffed crust! OMG, holy yum and the blog phrase goes! :) And then we went to a social event (his friend's going away party). There were snack foods there and I had 4 bite sized cookies, some black coffee, a blondie type thing, and half a very large, dense and delicious PB/chocolate rice krispie bar! Again, holy yum!

Onward. Sunday morning's breakfast was pretty non-descript. I barely even remember what it was. I think it was cereal with a peach cut up and skim milk. I came home to teach just one lesson and headed to my local food co-op for their member appreciation day, where they take 10% off your whole order. I was going straight to play a rock band show, so I couldn't buy anything cold/perishable. I spent around $18 on the following:

(Up close of some whole grain spelt sticks and carob chips).

I've been snacking on these a little bit here and there. For example, dipped in hummus:


Plus this incredible lentil salad for $3, which I ate in the car on the way to the rock show.



I also had a few of the Food Should Taste Good chips. I hadn't tried the Jalapeño chips before and they are EXCELLENT. They are not TOO spicy, but do have a good zing to them. I'm sure I had at least 2 servings because they're pretty addictive. I would be MORE than happy to review other flavors if they wanted to send them to me. :)


I need to finish up reasonably quickly here, so I'll just give you a few pictures from yesterday's food. I ate this banana and PB for breakfast and had a second breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese at my boyfriend's house where we were rehearsing.



I was craving protein, so I ate half of this.


I am a fan of the fruit + PB combination! :)

I love biting into mild peppers like you eat an apple. No need to cut them up. Just enjoy the flavor and the crunch! :)

For some musical inspiration. I borrowed this from a friend and am going to listen to it to try and become amore familiar with jazz! I'm excited about the jazz rehearsals and THANK YOU for your sweet comments about my branching out on yesterday's blog post. :)

This was on my camera from a few day ago. Don't remember, but it was delicious.

I taught 3 lessons yesterday and got 2 contracts for wedding gigs ready to be mailed. I also packed a box of the giveaway winnings to mail out today. Which means it's time for another giveaway VERY soon! Stay tuned! :)

OK, way too long of a post, but I hope you enjoyed it! I'll try to leave comments on all of your lovely blogs soon! Have a great Tuesday! :)

Catch up posting

I have pictures for you today!

Yes, I know I didn't post over the weekend. My weekend included:

-being at school (to practice) from 12-6 on Friday
-7:30-10:30pm dress rehearsal Friday night (plus an hour drive each way)
-teaching 10am-3pm on Saturday (no breaks--I was starving afterwards!)
-gym 4:30-5:30pm on Saturday (watched a hockey game while running on the treadmill!)
-played a symphony concert Saturday night from 7:30-10pm (plus an hour drive each way) -picking up a friend who didn't have his keys, hanging out with him
-quick library run for some sheet music for a Sunday gig
-treated myself to Panera Bread's veggie sandwich (so good! I have to take a moment to express how much I ADORE PANERA BREAD!! In the spirit of Meatless in March I am still being completely vegetarian for this whole month)
-Sunday afternoon Jewish wedding gig (played)--we were held overtime, but at least got compensated for it
-drove home to teach a violin lesson
-Food co-op grocery shopping on their monthly member appreciation day (where everything is a 10% discount! :)

• kale (organic)
  
• 1 avocado (organic)
  
• bag of apples (organic)
  
• 1 purple onion (organic)
  
• purple cabbage (organic)
• non dairy carob chips (delicious!)
• red quinoa (organic)
• adzuki beans (currently soaking)
• 1 Spirunela (sp?) Raw Revolution bar (CAN'T WAIT to try this!! I've seen it all around blogland)
• 1 apple pie Larabar (another thing that I've heard so much about!)
• box of Optimum Slim cereal
• ww Rudi's flax bread (I LOVE Rudi's!!)
  

I read a great article on body image today. Check it out! She talks about having spent so much time and energy that could've been used for better things, but instead were spent worrying about 10 pounds and weather or not she was thin enough for acceptance. This is so true--what a liberating experience to be able to say "I'm going to be good to my body for maximum health and energy and just not worry about what exact size I am or whether I look fat with an extra 5 lbs." I still get caught up in it too often, but I am much more frequently able to appreciate my body for its health and what it can do for me: allows me to live life to the fullest!

Onto my eats. I drank a little too much yesterday (ahem, and thank you for not mentioning it) and woke up feeling dehydrated. I've been drinking water + coffee all morning like it's going out of style. But I lso had a banana with PB and 2 whole grain pomegranate waffles with blueberries, a few non-dairy carob chips and more PB on them:

First one:

2nd one:

(the same spoon of PB in both pictures!)

I'm going to have to eat something else soon here, but those were amazing! :)

And on Saturday I packed a ton of food for the day:

-BBQ tofu sandwhich w. lowfat cheese on the bread (the black thing on the bread is carmelized BBQ sauce)
-yogurt with Kashi and granola mixture
-apple
-tofu with sauteed veggies
-somewhere in there half a NuGo protein bar (locally made) and a Clif Z bar were both consumed

And just to re-cap my breakfast for 3 days straight (it was that good!):

-oats
-pumpkin
-cottage cheese
-blueberries
-cherries
-grapes
-PB
-coffee of course ( I can't do mornings w/o it and I'm not motivated at all to cut back, so hopefully it's not THAT bad for me, even in the quantities in which I consume it.

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!