Bye Bye Weekend

Hello everyone! Hope you all had a fabulous weekend :)

I was up bright and early at 7:30am today and stayed in bed checking e-mail and such until after 8:00. I finally got out of bed for breakfast and was in the mood for something savory.

I ended up making cheesy broccoli grits!

In this was:
1 packet of instant grits, prepared
1 cup of steamed broccoli (chopped up)
1 Babybel cheese (chopped up)
a generous sprinkle of black pepper

This was great! It warmed me up and kept me full for hours. I was avoiding studying and continued reading chic lit all morning until it was lunch time! I was in a Snackface state of mind and made a random plate of yummy things.

Clockwise: Doctor Kracker seeded cracker, millet toast with buttah and nutritional yeast, ants on a log, my last carrot, and half an apple.
Let's get a better look at that millet love:

ohhh yeahhh
...Oh No! Fire ants have invaded the colony!!!

What's that? Ohhh...phew it was just craisins. :)

I continued reading while I ate.

I'm a big fan of Candace Bushnell- she wrote Sex and the City and Lipstick Jungle! This is her book One Fifth Avenue. I ended up finishing this late this afternoon.

In other news, we have been having major problems with our shower's low pressure and I thought it was due to some kind of build up (we have hard water). I poured some drano in a cup and immersed the head of the shower in it. Alas, it did not work.

Seriously. This is what we live with.

I broke down and e-mailed my landlord about the issue (after I scrubbed the bathroom so he wouldn't think I was a slob) and he stopped by to check it out. He pulled off the showerhead and worked some kind of voodoo magic on it and now we have high pressure- more than we have ever had here! I'm so ready to shower tomorrow morning and not spend 30 minutes getting all of the shampoo out of my hair.

I was feeling snacky again about two hours after lunch and ended up depleting my limited samosa supply even more.

I had 2 samosas with some tamarind-date chutney for dipping. I pretty much ate the crusts off of these- the insides were spicy!! I did not finish all the chutney.

I forced myself to study for a little bit and talked to my little sis on the phone. She is taking the TAKS writing test on Wednesday, wish her luck!

Around 5pm I Shredded and then realized I hadn't drank any water all day. Oops! I chugged 3 glasses of water and got back to studying, which quickly turned into watching television.

I was in a creative mood for dinner and whipped something up around 7pm. I found this in my pantry:

This is a tamarind based spice mix that you can add to rice and kind of stir fry it. A little goes a long way! I decided to make a quinoa stir-fry steam. I prepared half a cup of quinoa and set it aside. I also steamed some broccoli and set that aside.
I washed a can of chickpeas and dumped them in a skillet with a spray of Smart Balance and half a tablespoon of the spice mix.

mmm...this would be good on its own too!
This is what's inside the spice mix:

I'm not sure how there's so much sugar in this- it is not sweet at all.
I added the broc an quinoa to the skillet.

along with a secret ingredient...

Honey Roasted Peanuts from my flight back to Lubbock! I knew these would come in handy for something.
Served with a Sriracha smile :)

This was totally awesome. I ate half of what was in the skillet and reserved the rest for lunch tomorrow.

Dessert was also had.

1 cup of Peanut Butter Bumpers in a Chivas Regal glass. Keepin' it classy as always.

What do you like to do on weekends? Do you prefer getting work done or relaxing more? I'm pretty bad maintaining a healthy balance between doing both of those things...

30 Day Shred- Day 5!

Alternate titles to this post:

 

The Squirrel Who Scampered Away

HELP I need Fashion Advice!

Sodium Overload

Note to self: do not attempt to Shred after 9pm...I was exhausted by the time I got around to working out! Today was great though. I slept in until 10am and had one of my fave breakfasts (or in today's case, brunch) around 11.

Holla! PB Bumpers for $1.48 at Target! Gotta love that. I had these with a sliced banana and soy milk.

Yep.

I lazed around in bed for a while, caught up on my Google Reader, and read for a bit. Around 1pm I snacked on some of my leftovers from Hayashi.

I smothered the rice with the mango relish you see in the background and ate half of it, along with the sweet potato tempura piece. How pretty are those rose petals that were included with the spiralized jicama? IF that's what it was; I still haven't figured it out. I know it is some kind of veggie though.

Then, we hit the mall to find my interview outfit. I could use some help picking a top! I have the pants already; they're what I'm wearing in the following pics.
Exhibit A: short-sleeved Express top

I am worried that this is a little too casual.

Slightly closer up.

Also, are these pants too short for these heels?

(scuffs on the mirror, not on my legs)

Exhibit B: Navy ribbed Ralph Lauren sweater with gold buttons on the shoulders

Closer...

Exhibit C: Purple flowered cardigan with silver buttons

 and closer:

 I ended up buying this cardigan because I like it so much.

What do you all think? Would any of these work, or should I go with something different? Also, what's the verdict on the shoes? I haven't had to dress up for a business/academic reason in a Very Long Time and feel a little out of the loop on what's appropriate these days.

While I was at the mall, a friend texted me and wanted to know if I was up for a movie. I met her at her apartment and saw a squirrel dancing around outside!

 this was take 5 of Mr. Squirrel...he was quick!

We decided to see the movie Valentine's Day and it turned out to be great! Unfortunately, I ended up eating a lot of popcorn (as well as inadvertently dropping several handfuls down my top-hopefully that saved me a few cals) and as a result feel very salty. I need to work on carrying snacks in my purse!

The movie was cute and I am sure that my boyfriend is grateful that I spared him, after the horror that was When in Rome. I know a lot of people said Taylor Swift was horrible in the movie, but honestly I think that's how a lot of high school girls act nowadays! I could be wrong though.

After the movie we cruised around Best Buy for a while and I was thisclose to buying a Wii Fit! Luckily they were out of stock and will be for the next 3 weeks. I probably don't need one very urgently at this moment, but I would love to have one!

After I got home I sat around for a while, delaying the Shred. I finally started it up and once I got started it flew by. My abs are starting to feel sore, though! I think it's working. Level 1 is going swimmingly so far, and I'm starting to feel excited about getting into Level 2. Five more days :)

For dinner I had the last of my leftovers along with a chopped up carrot and a stalk of celery.

 This was just as good as it was yesterday! I am glad to be through with it though. I need to work on keeping my sodium level down this week! And also on getting more fresh foods into my meals...I am always a slacker on weekends.

Tomorrow is a new day! What do you do when you get off track?

Date Night!

Last night my boyfriend and I hit up a new restaurant in Lubbock called Hayashi. You can check out their extensive menu on that site. 

When we got there, the place was absolutely packed. Should have made a reservation! We experienced a 45 minute wait, which actually flew by. Around the 30 minute point of our waiting time, the hostess tried to persuade us to sit at the sushi bar instead, but we were looking forward to ordering off of the actual dinner menu so we declined that offer. 

After we were seated, I ordered a Fuji Sunset, which was a cocktail that included Midori and apple sake. It was great! We also ordered the California Rolls sans imitation crab meat to start.

I kept forgetting to take pictures before I started eating! These were really good- the orange on the sides of the rolls turned out to be some kind of caviar so I scraped it off before eating it. I definitely enjoyed the wasabi and pickled ginger with these rolls.

We also had a mushroom soup:

which was about as appetizing as this picture looks...it was pretty salty and otherwise bland and oily.

And, I guess my camera ate my picture of the salad! It was your basic lettuce mix with shredded carrots and ginger-peanut dressing. Can't go wrong with that! I practically licked that bowl clean.

I ordered the tempura vegetables, and my boyfriend went with the teriyaki chicken.

This was amazing!! I absolutely love tempura, and this is the first time I've found a veggie one here. This one came with sweet potato (!!!!), onion, asparagus, zucchini, broccoli, rutabaga (??), and mushrooms. It also came with a side of rice. I keep my eats at home pretty clean and simple so that I can indulge at restaurants without feeling any guilt or remorse over something that I ordered. It's all about enjoying myself!

As you can see, I was extremely happy with my dinner (that cocktail didn't hurt, either!).

I ate a little more than half of this and packed the rest to go. I wasn't in the mood for dessert, but I did want to try some sake! I ordered a shot of warm lychee sake, and it arrived at the table steaming!

This was really good! I was expecting something really strong and hard to drink, but this actually tasted like warm apple cider! I sipped on it until we left and it kept me warm all the way home, which is good because our car doesn't have a working heater and it was cccold outside!

My boyfriend loved his meal and didn't have any leftovers! He did however leave something on the side that tasted like spiralized jicama which I gladly took home. Yum!

Overall, this was a great restaurant experience. The service was wonderful and the food was fabulous. We will definitely be visiting Hayachi again. I am looking forward to trying the hibachi grill next time!

It's the Weekend!

Hello Bloggies!

Wow, these past few days have been a whirlwind of activity! Earlier this week I got an e-mail from a grad school I'd applied to, inviting me to come for a non-formal interview and open house. The open house is to take place on March 8th. I started worrying about how little time I had to prepare, and then started worrying even more when I found that the small town the school is located in doesn't have a commercial airport. After a few days of shopping around for flights, finding a city (150 miles away from said school) that does have an airport, and booking a rental car, I think everything is set. More details on this later...

Rewind to Thursday morning: I had that other piece of millet toast for breakfast with Crofter's Strawberry and unsalted peanut butter.

 I also had a glass of soymilk with this (times 2). You can tell that college students live here because 90% of our glasses came from whiskey box sets. Hello, Jack Daniels! This held me over through my 9:30 class and I wasn't hungry again until about 1pm at work.

For lunch I enjoyed a jar full of my boyfriend's chili with a Babybel cheese to tone down the spice.

This stuff was hot!! My nose was definitely running after I finished this. Definitely delicious, though.

After work I went home around 4pm too exhausted and sore to do the 30 Day Shred right away. I decided to have a snack and watch some television for a while before I got started on that. Cue the perfect after-school-and-work snack: popcorn with nutritional yeast!

I start with 1/4 cup of kernels,

put it in a paper lunch sack with a shot of Earth Balance spray, and fold over the top.
Then I lay it on its side and microwave for about 2 minutes, give or take a few seconds.

I get my extremely aesthetically pleasing beaten up ziploc of nutritional yeast ready...

...and as soon as the popcorn is poured into a bowl, I shoot it with another blast of Earth Balance, and sprinkle the yeast all over it.

Delightful.

This was gone in about 5 minutes. Perfect serving for one!

I got my Shred on around 6pm and found that despite my soreness, it was a lot easier to get through today. I dallied around after working out, trying to decide on what to have for dinner. I was in the mood for fresh veggies, and also wanted to use up some leftovers.

I preheated the oven to 425* and put some fresh green beans on a pan. I sprinkled them with Emeril's bayou blast and added my baked tofu from earlier this week to the dish.

I only cooked this for about 8 minutes- enough to get the tofu hot.

I paired it with 2 stalks of celery, a chopped up carrot, and a samosa. I'm down to 4 of those! EEK!

This was really satisfying, but about an hour after dinner I hit the candy my mom had packed for me to take home. I had several Bit o' Honeys and 2 mini-Snickers! I was obviously too guilty to take a picture. I was also too guilty to take a picture of the tiny bowl of cereal I also had...

After binging on sweet treats Thursday night, I was feeling some fresh fruit for breakfast the next morning. Hello extremely pithy orange.

I chopped this up and scarfed it on the 5 minute ride to work.

I pithy the fool!!!!

I enjoyed a veggie sandwich on rye for lunch along with a few small cookies from a bake sale...It was for Lupus Awareness!! I promise :)

After work my boyfriend and I hit up Target for some travel essentials (he is coming to IL with me!), and headed home to get ready for date night! We tried a new restaurant in Lubbock called Hayashi. I will be posting a review of that later today.

So, about the grad school thing. Even though I have already been accepted to one school, the program in Illinois might be a better fit for me. I'm worried about living in such a small town though. I am also still waiting to hear back from 2 other schools, so we'll see where I end up. One thing is for sure: I am getting out of Lubbock! Today I'm off to the mall to find the perfect interview outfit. 

Wish me luck!

PS- I had an Anonymous comment requesting that I put up an About Me page or post more about myself. I promise that is coming soon! I am going to do a post on who I am, what I do, and the details of my weight loss story. I'm just trying to work up the courage to get it out there!

Day 2 of The 30 Day Shred

I woke up this morning expecting to be super sore from my workout yesterday. I think most people use soup cans or 2lb weights during that DVD, but I decided to use fives. I was surprisingly fine until about noon when I stood up from my desk at work and felt a tightness in my inner thighs and calves. A few hours later I had to lift a heavy box and my arms felt really sore as well.

Needless to say, my arms were shaking during the workout today! I feel so good afterward though! I really want to make it through this 30 days. 28 days to go :)

Also, tomorrow I am going to try a yoga class at the gym I go to. I am sure that will be great for my achy muscles.

This morning was another I-don't-want-to-wake-up-it's-too-cold morning, so I completely ran out of time for breakfast. To reward myself for sleeping in, I decided to indulge in one of my favorite bfasts that I rarely eat. Biscuits with Gravy! Or in this case, one gigantic biscuit and gravy.

 

 Yummo! I probably have biscuits and gravy about 2-3 times a year so it is a real treat for me. I actually tried a biscuit for the first time when I was 18 and came to Texas Tech! Not sure how I managed to avoid eating biscuits, but I'm sad that I did. I read a story when I was younger about some kids who found a scrap of paper with half of a word on it (the other half was torn off) that said "cuit." They become convinced it was a map or instructions to locating a secret circuit and went hunting for the rest of the paper it was written on. I don't remember the middle of the book, but end the end they found out it was a biscuit recipe! How funny is that?

I had a late lunch since I ate breakfast around 9:30 and it was also the product of rushing around this morning. I grabbed a Evol burrito and a tupperware of tomato salad I made last night.

microwaved in the break room at work

This flavor was really good! I would have to say it is almost better than the veggie fajita one that I have also tried. I can't wait to try more of these. It was jam packed with flavorful beans, spinach, potato, and tofu.

 

+ tomato salad with a horrible view of the med school library

When I got back to my desk, I found out that a co-worker (who happens to be the mom of a friend!) had left some goodies for me on my desk. A perfect banana and a granola bar! I am very picky about bananas and don't eat them once they get spots. This one was uniformly yellow and I will eat it tomorrow! I decided to have the granola bar right away.

 

Yes, that is a rubber rat on a can of Carnation milk in the background. I have a very interesting job.

After work I relaxed a little before I did the shred, then made a recent favorite meal for dinner. I made quinoa with yogurt like I did two weeks ago. I was also very proud of my boyfriend who was making- gasp! -vegetarian chili! 

 

I tried a bite or two and it was great! A little spicy, but that's just the way he likes it. He subbed canned tomatoes for Rotel. It did the trick!

 

My quinoa:

 

cook my little children, cook!

Pre-Mixing:

 

I also had a slice of millet bread with buttah and nutritional yeast, and a mocktail a la Kath. My boyfriend made grape koolaid to go with dinner so I filled a glass with ice and about 1/4 cup of koolaid, and topped it with club soda! Mmm...

 I was so tempted to have another piece of bread (I actually toasted 2 of them), but I knew I didn't need the extra piece. I put it in the fridge for tomorrow. When I had the fridge open I suddenly remembered my secret chocolate bar!

That may be re-appearing some time this evening :)

Do you feel like you need dessert after every meal?