Tag: yogurt

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?

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep

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9.5 hours!!!

Yes, that is how much sleep I got last night! 10:45 pm to 8:15 am.  Normally, I am up at 7 am with the sun, but the eye mask helped me get through that last hour (thanks, John!). I felt SO well-rested when I opened my eyes. After a bit of blog-reading, I launched a surprise breakfast attack through the rose branches:

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My breakfast inspiration came from SnackFace during the morning’s blog catch-up session. She’s been going wild with pumpkin yogurt the past couple of days. Reading her posts motivated me to pull myself out of bed and whip up some of my own.

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My mix included 1/3 cup of yogurt, 1/3 cup of pumpkin, 1/2 cup chopped grapes, and a sprinkle of Kashi GoLean Crunch!

I also had 1/3 of a toasted (burnt) wheat bagel with 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1 chopped date, and a sprinkle of cinnamon:

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I like to eat my bagels in thirds. This is kind of a leftover habit from childhood — the slots in my toaster growing up were too skinny for a full 1/2 bagel. A third at a time is still my preference now, even though I’m sure I could easily fit 1/2 in the toaster. Vani commented on this bagel-style recently, and I thought I’d share my response with everyone! The smaller 1/3 portion not only allows me more flexibility to mix and match the bagel with other foods; it also creates a higher ratio of crunchy surface area to doughy inside. Also, because these bagels are refugees from a work event, I only have a limitied amount. Eating 1/3 bagel at a time makes them last longer. How do you like to eat your bagels?

On the side, I had soymilky decaf sweet coconut thai chai. And fun with matching dishware:

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Kate came over a little after 11 for our 8-mile run, and we just couldn’t WAIT to get started (that’s sarcasm). But I found us a charming route on mapmyrun that took us through all of the best Brooklyn neighborhoods — Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights — and the weather was perfect, so our run was quite enjoyable! Stats: 1 hour and 22 minutes, 653 calories, average heart rate 151, max 161. I got home and did my favorite post-run stretch: 20 minutes of Gentle Hatha Yoga.

Lunch was fun to assemble, thanks to last night’s leftovers. I made the cut again and split the salad down the middle (how exciting that the $8 I spent at dinner gave me enough food for three meals!):

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To reassemble the salad for today, I pulled all the salad greens out of the mix, including the side salad I swiped from Emily’s plate last night after she packed up her leftover wrap. (Side note: I don’t normally take food off the plates of people I am meeting for the first time, but an added benefit of blogger dinner was that my food companions already knew about my waste-nothing obsession!).

The greens went on a plate to wait. I separated and toasted the tortilla strips in a dry skillet to crisp them up again. While the chips were crisping, I also threw the salad in a pan to heat because quinoa, corn, and beans take kindly to warmth. I added some leftover Chinese food broccoli (after a quick roast to kill off any unsavory lurking bacteria) that my supervisor Heather rescued for me while carrying out her fridge-cleaning duties at work yesterday :-). Once heated, the salad went on top of the greens, and the tortilla strips went on top of everything:

(with water and more tea in the background)

(with water and more tea in the background)

Yum, this salad made excellent leftovers. And I still have more!

And of course, the afternoon also involved lunch dessert:

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I had 1/2 of each of mom’s treats that arrived on Thursday, heated in the oven to get the chocolate all melty:
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Along with more pumpkin yogurt that I mixed with 1/2 of this banana yogurt, also rescued from the work fridge. The sell-by date was Jan. 13, but unopened individually packaged yogurts seem to last forever. This one passed the sniff test. I topped the yogurt with a mountain of Italian cookie crumbs (still left from the work Valentine’s lunch), a piece of Blogger Secret Cupid hazelnut chocolate, and two conversation hearts:

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I know there was still sugar in all of that, but it was very controlled sugar instead of random snacking. I think this may be because, according to SweetiePie‘s comment here, I have sent the sugar monster to her house! Whoops! So sorry SP, but thank you for taking him off my hands :-D.

And now, it’s back to the great blog-catch-up of 2009! I also need to go back out at some point to buy kale so I can figure out what the heck I’m doing for
Beadie’s BSI. Back later!

The sugar monster is back

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Ahhhh, must get a grip on the sugar craze!

My morning snack was this delicious strawberry Trio bar (once again from Tina’s Carrots ‘N’ Cake Valentine’s day prize package).

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This bar definitely tasted as good as it looks … real strawberry essence and packed with satisfying nuts and seeds and crunch:picture-026

In addition to my soup and yogurt, Myrna gave me some of her mangu (salted mashed plantains) and fried cheese, yummmmmm:

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And then, because there’s always something to celebrate at my office, I had three slices of angel food cake with thick thick chocolate fudge icing and chocolate-covered strawberries:

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And that totally set me off on a sugar binge for the rest of the afternoon! Before my visit, I had a Riesen and two big lollipops:

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And after my visit, I ate the grapes I packed and the rest of Heather’s skittles:

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Again, I need to get a grip. Hopefully all the sleep I get this weekend with my new eye mask will help bring back my sanity and self-control!!

Now, I’m off for a mini-blogger dinner with two lovely ladies: Emily of Super Caloric Chalk Dust and Vani from Fit for Free. You can be sure you will hear all about the meal when I get back!

Who has battle tips for fighting the sugar monster??

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?

One can dream …

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Last night, I actually dreamed that I had free time. I was very disappointed when I woke up! So I dragged myself out of bed for a loop around the park. That almost felt like free time because I got to watch the sun rise over the lake as I ran by. Stats: 4 miles, 42 minutes, 333 calories, 146 average hr, 162 max.

Breakfast preview:

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I got home and did the 20-minute Gentle Hatha #1 from yogadownload.com . And then I ate:

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All the talk on Carrots ‘N’ Cake yesterday about overnight oats got me thinking about another one of my favorites: overnight Kashi GoLean Crunch! Before I went to bed last night, I mixed 1/4 cup of the crunch with 1/2 cup yogurt and a chopped date. I was looking forward to it all through my run this morning. I added 1/3 chopped apple for crunch and a sprinkle of cinnamon because I can’t live without it:

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I didn’t heat the overnight crunch because I didn’t want to kill off the good bacteria in the yogurt. So for heat and more crunch, I had 1/3 toasted seedy bagel with 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1 chopped date, and a sprinkle of cinnamon (again, because i can’t live without it):

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Mmmm, I love peanut butter in the mornings.

I don’t quite know what the rest of the day will be like. Class until 1:00 followed by a mandatory workshop about who knows what at Hunter. They would only give the start time for the workshop — can you believe it?? End time is not available. All I know is that it will be “longer than 2 hours.” SO inconsiderate. I’m packing lunch and snacks, so we’ll see what happens with those later.

Do you dream when you sleep? And do you ever dream about things that are so close to being possible that you think they’re real … until you wake up? What’s the best trick a dream has played on you?