Tag: oatmeal

A lazy challenge

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Ooooh, I felt so relaxed and refreshed after sleeping in until 6:30 this morning (the main benefit of going to running club at night, if you ask me, is that it removes the need for an early am workout the next day). Breakfast was a lazy affair, too.

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I heated a heaping 1/2 cup of banana bread crockpot oats from the batch I made and froze ages ago:

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With the oats, I enjoyed 1/2 cup yogurt, sprinkles of coconut and additional nutmeg, and a good old-fashioned spoonful of crunchy pb:

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Plus water and soymilky black tea on the side:

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My friend Diana sent me this NYT article announcing this week as “A Week Without Shopping,” the idea being that most people will find they can easily survive for a week on the food already in their homes. I wish I had known about this challenge sooner because it’s definitely my style! What do you think? Could you survive a week with no groceries?

Top o’ the mornin’

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Up before the sun as usual, but it came out just in time to light my breakfast:

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There’s a plan afoot for running club tonight, so I kept this morning’s workout heavy on the strength and light on the knees and cardio. I did the workout from Self Magazine’s 2008 “Reach Your Goal” challenge — I think it came out in August because I did it all the time last fall until my body got too used to it — along with 15 minutes on the elliptical’s cross-training program. Stats: 1 hour and 6 minutes, 268 calories, average heart rate 106, max 175.

Breakfast was the rest of yesterday’s custard oatmeal:

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Topped with 1/3 cup yogurt, 1/2 tbsp pb, unsweetened shredded coconut, and 2 crumbled graham sticks:

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And on the side, 1/2 cup “roasted” cantaloupe. Brigitte’s cantaloupe had fallen off of its last leg and was a little sour, so I tried to doctor it with heat, nutmeg, and coconut:

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It almost worked.

With soymilky black tea and water:

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I have a lunch packed (well, really, I left yesterday’s lunch at work since I obviously didn’t need it then :-)), but as you know, anything can happen …

See you after running club tonight!

Did you eat your breakfast by natural or artifical light today?

P.S. Tina at Carrots ‘N’ Cake is doing another photo scavenger hunt. I know from experience (scroll down to the bottom to see the prize) how lucky her winners can be, so make sure you go enter!

It happened again

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Monday comes every week, but somehow it always ends up surprising me! Does this happen to you?

daffodil says hi!

daffodil says hi!

Gym this morning was my all-about-the-steps favorite workout :-). And my body seems to have finally picked up on the fact that I increased both my weights and the cardio level! Stats for arms on an aerobics step + 30 minutes StairMaster + jog to gym and back + stretching and abs: 1 hour and 14 minutes, 476 calories, average heart rate 132, max 171.

Breakfast was custard oatmeal:

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I made two portions of this last night because I needed to use some up some dying roommate fruits (strawberries and cantaloupe) and some open pieces of my own fruit (banana and pear). For extra zip, I added nutmeg, cardamom, vanilla extract, and almond extract. To make the two servings, I used 1 egg, 1/4 cup soymilk, 1/4 cup old-fashioned oats, and 1/2 cup steel-cut oats. I re-heated half of what I made in the oven this morning while I got ready:

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Today’s toppings included the last tsp peanut butter. There’s little I love more than scraping a pb jar clean!

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Along with a crumbled graham stick, unsweetened shredded coconut, cardamom, and 1/2 cup yogurt:

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Come back this afternoon for another guest post from The Professional Vegan, and I’ll return after class tonight with the rest of today’s food!

The most important meal

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Well, the eye mask and ear plugs carried me through until 9 am. Which would have been impressive if not for the fact that I went to sleep after 2! I think I was expecting a miracle, but at least I didn’t wake up at 7 …

I put together a slammin’ spread for breakfast:

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Chocolate caramel enchantment chai with soymilk and an Earl Grey Biscotti Bite on the side:

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img_4460This little strawberry Activia yogurt came my way during the big cleanout of the fridge at work on Friday. There’s no date on it, but it was unopened and passed the sniff test, so all systems were go. Fruity flavored yogurts are too sweet for me these days (yeah, yeah, but 5,000 pieces of candy are not?), so I mixed it with two cups of plain yogurt and scooped about 1/2 cup of that blend into into my teacup along with a sprinkle of cinnamon:

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Plus half of a pear with nutmeg and the last of mom’s goodies. I heated them in the oven until they got all crispy on the outside (partly on purpose and partly because I was distracted doing other things), but it worked out scrumptiously because it created a vigorous crunch on the outside and an almost creamy texture on the inside of her phenomenal oat bake. And just look at all of the seeds and grains and the big layer of dark chocolate on top of this kitchen sink muffin heart:

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Thanks, mom! Please continue to send your care packages my way any time you get the urge :-D.

I’ve just refilled a giant mug of tea for the 3rd time (I upgraded teacup size post-picture because big isn’t always beautiful), and I feel sufficiently fueled to buckle down on the homework for the next, errrrr, 10 minutes or so? We’ll see how long I can stay put! What’s your attention span for work that requires sitting still?

The best mornings start with pb

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But before breakfast, I continued my quest for pumped up workout intensity. I did arms and steps this morning, using higher weights on the arms like I did Wednesday. I went back to the “fat burner” program on the StairMaster (it actually has more speed and resistance variety than the “speed intervals” program), but I increased the level from 9 to 11. I certainly felt like I was working harder, but my HRM didn’t show as drastic of a change as I had expected: 1 hour and 10 minutes, 404 calories, 124 average heart rate, 178 max. I’ll keep working on it …

After the gym, I ate another overnight concoction of sorts. Last night, I mixed the last cup of “pumpkin plus” puree with 1/4 cup dry steel-cut oats. This morning, I put it in the oven for 30 minutes while I got ready and then topped it with 2/3 cooked apple, 1/4 cup yogurt (because the puree already had ricotta in it), 2 crumbled graham sticks, 1 spoon pb, cinnamon, and nutmeg:

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Sometimes I like my oats more pudding-y — like when I do them in the crockpot — but overnight steel-cut oats have a very satisfying chewiness to them:

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I had the oatmeal with a tall mug of black tea with soymilk and a tall glass of agua:

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Be back tonight with the rest of today’s food! Are you happy it’s Friday?