Mmmmmhmmmm, there was leftover birthday cake hanging around my office yesterday, so I packed a piece and brought it to class last night to round out my apple/pb/raisins/mini-Luna dinner! I also found manchego cheese samples at the gourmet market next to Hunter, so those made the dinner cut, too. Here’s the spread all together:

Now, let’s talk about this cake for a moment. In social work, we use something called a strengths-based perspective, and I like to apply this perspective to food from time to time … or all the time. As I worked my way through the cake during class, I noted three major strengths: (1) it had pineapple bits!, (2) the frosting tasted like whipped marshmallows!, and (3) the texture of the sugar flowers on the cake reminded me of meringue!!!

The third strength is the most noteworthy, as sugar flowers on cakes can sometimes have a bitter taste and a rock-like texture that indicates they perhaps were not meant to be eaten. But these flowers were so airy and lightly crunchy that I felt like I was floating on a sea of frothy egg whites. Unfortunately, I developed fuzzy, swirly sugar-head syndrome immediately upon finishing and had a hard time focusing on my class for a few. I ate some bites of roasted vegetables when I got home as I prepped today’s lunch, and that seemed to help, but the fuzz didn’t go away for real until I woke up this morning. I just can’t do sugar like I used to!

After the gym this morning (legs and stairs stats: 1 hr, 15 mins; 434 cals; 125 ave hr, 163 highest), I heated up a cup of my BSI entry: Zucchini-Lime Cheesecake Oatmeal. I may not have won the competition — sushi obviously ranks over oatmeal! — but this meal is still a champ as far as I’m concerned :-). I topped it with 1/3 cup of my healthy cream cheese “frosting”:

This frosting is sooooooo good. It makes everything taste like carrot cake!

Lunch/evening snacks today are going to be exactly the same as lunch/evening snacks yesterday … with one exception. In place of the mini-Luna bar, I will be taste-testing this beauty:

That’s right, my Quaker True Delights samples — all six of them! — arrived from Foodbuzz last night. Here they are, marching across my floor:

And there’s no better time to try one out than on double workout day, right? I should probably be trying a different flavor first since Allison at Green Dog Wine already gave this one rave reviews, but come on, dark chocolate raspberry almond??? Who can resist that?

I’ve got another long day with the running club tonight, but I’ll be back eventually to report on any extra nibbles that appear along the way!