Romantic dinner for Moi

Happy Tuesday Lovelies! I only had two things on the brain this morning, food and fashion. Let me explain. My soupy dinner was not as substantial as usual and I woke up starving. This is never a good thing! Then there was my annoying fashion dilemma rearing its ugly face again. It's getting nicer out and I have NO Spring clothes that fit. As in fit right without being either an over sized trash bag or a snug tube sock. I find neither of these looks to be aesthetically pleasing!! I will clearly need to go shopping soon! SIGH!

I found myself humming, smiling and singing all the way to work today. Visions of beaches, cocktails and sunshine were running rampant in my head. I'm clearly still enjoying the afterglow of our successful vacation planning. I'm currently happier than a pig in --it! ;)

BREAKFAST (meal #1) at 9:00am.

I NEEDED oatmeal and I needed it BAD! My stomach felt like it was eating itself from the inside out.

• 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
• 1/4 wheat bran
• 1 1/2 cup water
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• dash apple pie spice
• pinch salt
• Splenda to taste
• 1 tbs unsweetened dark cocoa
• (Microwaved and topped with 1 tbs ground flax, 2 tbs sugar free cherry preserves and 1 tbs Better N' Peanut Butter.)

Oh....so....good....

Work was... well it was quiet today. SO STRANGE! The last few days of the month (and in this instance, the quarter too) are usually riddled with insane demands, temper tantrums, whining and threats. All was well in florescent paradise though. I got a lot of filing done and cleaned my office up a bit. I think the sunshine was fueling my inner workaholic!

LUNCH (meal #2) at 12:30pm.

I present to you a tasty salad, served in my new office bowl. I was sick of eating large salads off of a plate so I picked this up the other day for less than $2. Not bad right?

• Spinach
• Tomato
• Carrots
• Broccoli
• Morning Star Farms Asian burger
• Kaia Foods Garlic & Sea Salt sesame seeds
• Spray Butter

We left with ambitions of enjoying some fresh air and sunshine on our break today but somehow found ourselves roaming around Pier1 like a bunch of drooling babies. I could just go crazy up in there if money were no option. I managed to refrain and left with nothing though. Nothing except refurnishing and redecorating dreams that were crushed by those little annoying things called "price tags". :)

SNACK (meal #3) at 4:00.

A plain cup of Yoplait Greek yogurt livingly accompanied by a juicy Fuji apple, cinnamon and a sprinkle of Udi's vanilla granola. YUM!


DILEMMA - I am STILL struggling with my water intake. No idea what the hot heck is going on. I used to drink way more, no problem. Lately I struggle to get in over 60oz. Not good! You would think that with the nicer weather, it would be easier. NOPE! I need to work on this some more! I just wanted to vent. All done now...

After work we went straight to the gym for Chest, Back and Cardio day.

WORKOUT!

Advanced Chest Press (plate loaded)
40lb x 15 (3 sets)
Row Machine (plate loaded)
50lb x 15 (3 sets)
Seated Chest Press (plate loaded)
70lb x 15
60lb x 15
50lb x 11
High Row Machine (plate loaded)
100lb x 15 (3 sets)
Seated Chest Press (cable)
75lb x 15 (2 sets)
60lb x 15
Face Pull with rope grip (cable)
90lb x 15 (3 sets)
Lat Pulldown with V-Bar (cable)
70lb x 15
60lb x 15
50lb x 15
Elliptical Cross Trainer
30 minutes, 2.64 miles, intervals at level 6-10

Total time at the gym = 1:18
Max HR = 169
Average HR = 139
Total Calories Burned = 638

I was a sweaty mess of a human being by the time we were done. GROSS!

SNACK (meal #4) at 7:15pm.

I rushed home and made a quick recovery shake with 1 scoop of chocolate peanut butter whey protein powder, 1/2 unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze and 1/2 cup water. Shaken, not stirred, thank you very much!


I was all by my lonesome tonight, unless you count the cat. He is my forever and always there, in your face, by your feet staring at you while you pee companion. HAHAHA! He's such a little pervert! Nick was at his Mama's having some sort of an unhealthy FEAST per the usual.

DINNER (meal #5) at 9:00pm.

I set the mood for a romantic dinner for one this evening. I lit some candles, placed the remote within reach for some girlie DVR lovin and grabbed the necessities for a pedicure/manicure. Sometimes I love being home alone!

I actually felt like making something special just for me tonight. I had no plan but somehow managed to come up with the most amazing dish. A bowl bursting with healthy mexican style goodness. It couldn't have been simpler.

Into a saucepan I added the following...

• 1 serving of Morning Star Farms grounds
• 1 tbs Taco seasoning
• 1/4 cup pinto beans
• 1/2 cup cooked Arborio rice
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• Sauteed and chopped onions, mushrooms and red bell pepper (which I cooked up with Pam & S+P right before adding it to the mix)

The entire meal was done in a less than 15 minutes and that includes sauteing all of the veggies first.


Topped with sour cream and enjoyed with a few low fat blue corn chips on the side.


The only thing it was missing was corn but I didn't have any at home. It was still insanely delicious though. And filling! Good grief! I will definitely be making it again.

Time to get my cry on and turn on one of my recorded episodes of What Not To Wear. I always cry when I watch that show. I just can't help myself! I bet it will only fuel my desire to go shopping even more... OYE! I wish someone would hand me $5,000 and tell me to spend it in New York. OH NO! PLEASE! YOU'RE REALLY BENDING MY ARM HERE! Pshhh, I would be ALL over that card baby! All over it!

Stay Sassy!
XOXO
Ildie

Lazy BUM!

HELOOOOOO there. I somehow managed to get ten (YES, 10!!) hours of sleep last night. Good grief it felt fantastic! I didn't wake up during the night either. A rare occurrence indeed! Now then, where did we leave off last night? Ahh, yes, my friends Birthday dinner. Let's recap shall we?

We arrived at Aladdin's Eatery right on time and promptly sat down to feast. I was FAMISHED! Seriously! I was completely and utterly starving by the time I opened the menu.


Drool and food fantasies ensued as soon as I started reading over my options. They have great choices for vegetarians and meat lovers and everything is delicious. It's why I love the place so much! I decided on the Ali Baba Pitza. (From their site: A fresh pita topped with pureed eggplant, sliced tomatoes, feta cheese, char-grilled slices of eggplant, slivered calamata olives all sprinkled with oregano.)


I also enjoyed two cups of green tea and a small side salad with their delicious almond nut dressing but I forgot to take a picture. I love their almond nut dressing!!! It's to DIE for!

After dinner I pulled out my LAME card and decided to call it a night. I was physically exhausted from my busy day! Everyone else moved the party to a friends house to enjoy some homemade cake. Sadly I didn't have the energy to join in the decadence. I passed out less than an hour after we got home and stayed in bed for 10 hours straight. I clearly needed it!
______________________________________________________
SUNDAY....

I woke up feeling refreshed and ready to go! The best part was that I had nothing to do and nowhere to go. GLORIOUS! A whole day ALL to myself! YAY! I loaded up the French Press with vanilla biscotti flavored coffee and enjoyed a cup while perusing blog land. So lovely!


BREAKFAST (meal #1) at 11:00am.

Breakfast was WAY later than usual today. I sort of lost track of time with all of the magnificent blogs I was catching up on. ;)

Here we have an egg white scramble made with 4 eggs (seasoned with S+P), a fruit salad (1/2 banana, 1/2 fuji apple, 1 kiwi, lime juice and Splenda), and a wheat bagel thin with Better N' Peanut Butter on one side and sugar free strawberry jam on the other. Perfection!


After breakfast I did some amazingly boring and unexciting things around the house. I made the bed, emptied the dishwasher, cleaned my makeup drawer and organized the medicine cabinet. WHOAH! FUN I KNOW! ;)

I then proceeded to do some SERIOUS vacation destination investigation (I like rhyming) online. Somehow I managed to get lost in my deeply focused research for nearly two hours. BUT, I do think we decided on a destination. I'm excited!

LUNCH (meal #2) at 4:00pm.

Once again, lunch was WAY later than usual because of my super late breakfast. I wasn't very hungry so I decided to make a small salad.

• Spinach
• Orange bell pepper
• Tomato
• Carrots
• Chick peas
• Morning Star Farms black bean burger
• Sea salt & garlic sunflower seeds
• Spray Butter
• Light honey mustard dressing

SNACK (meal #3) at 6:00pm.

I was craving yogurt like MAD so I made a delicious little treat with plain Yoplait Greek yogurt, a Fuji apple and a sprinkle of Udi's original granola.


OMG. This granola is amazing. Jam packed with raisins, banana chips, walnuts, cashews, almonds and pistachios. The flavor and texture is incredible. I'm seriously in love with this flavor. Though the Au Naturel variety is tasty, I like this one EVEN more. I gladly rate this one a 10 out of 10. NO! WAIT! 11 out of 10. Yeah, that sounds better! :)


After my snack attack, Nick and I dove head first into vacation planning again. We're driven damn it! We're DYING to pick a place already. We have officially decided on Ocracoke Island, NC. We've narrowed it down to 3 rental properties and plan to call them up (hopefully tomorrow) with some questions. Details to follow once we make it official. SOOOOOOO EXITED!

DINNER (meal #4) at 9:30pm.

Nick's brother Dan just showed up for another MANLY SESSION of Rally race watching. The two of them decided to have a classy dinner together. Breaded fish sandwiches, hot fries and Red Stripe beer. I don't get men sometimes!! HA! I, being the responsible (and lazy) one, decided to have cereal instead (without beer of course). :)

• Kashi 7 whole grain honey puffs
• Nature's Path Crunchy Maple Sunrise
• Unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze
• 1 Banana
• Raisins

Easy peasy. I just didn't feel like cooking. I've been a LAZY BUM all day and I loved every single second of it. I didn't even get dressed until 10 minutes before Dan showed up. Classy I know! ;)

I think I'll go hibernate in my bedroom now. The boys are hootin, hollerin and getting all PUMPED UP over some crazy Subaru's going 100 mph on winding snow covered roads (that's like my worst nightmare by the way...). Again, I'm baffled at their excitement. I think I'll go watch some of the Travel Channel or HGTV instead. To each their own I guess. ;)

Be back tomorrow!
XOXO
Ildie

Shorty tackles anger

Hyper angry people amuse me. If they would only breathe and calm the heck down, things wouldn't seem as fussy, confusing and stressful all the time! I came across a lot of them at work today. How do you live like that? A constant tense ball of angry rage. Sort of sad really.

I often contemplate getting into Yoga because I get all worked up about stupid things too as of late. By no means comparable to the rage filled humanoids I was just talking about. However, I fear turning into one of those Hyper Angries one day and we can't be having that, damn it! Sometimes I feel like I'm teetering. :-o

I've been feeling TENSE a lot lately. I know Yoga can be therapeutic and helps you relax, stretch and open your body up in ways that nothing else can. The only problem is that I have NO BALANCE what so ever. On top of that I'm clumsy, accident prone and short. So short in fact that I can wrap my entire hand over the tips of my toes. Not even kidding. Hey, maybe I CAN do Yoga after all. HA! Maybe I'll download a free video and try it at home or something. ?? Can't hurt right?

Anyways, I'm rambling again. Sorry about that. I've been feeling rather chatty this week! Once it starts there's no stopping it!!! DA DA DAAAAAAA!

I did my best to avoid the "Angries" today. The trick is to smile a lot when they get close. Smiles are apparently a toxic repellent to their kind. Hey, works for me. Smiling does a body good anyways! Do you ever laugh for no reason? I swear it makes you feel better when you're feeling down. After a few seconds you're actually laughing for real and you don't even know why. Try it! ;)

BREAKFAST (meal #1) at 9:30pm.

• 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
• 1/4 wheat bran
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tbs unsweetened dark cocoa
• Splenda to taste
• pinch salt

Microwaved per the usual and topped with...

• 2 tbs sugar free strawberry preserves (Smucker's)
• 1 tbs Better N' Peanut Butter
• 1 tbs ground flax

Enjoyed in my office with the door shut. I love the aroma of dark cocoa oats. So rich! I savored each bite.

I spent all morning and early afternoon working my little tail feathers off. I was quite busy today. It's nearing the end of the month so it's to be expected. It was lunchtime before I knew it.

LUNCH (meal #2) at 12:30pm.

I had another mega salad. Can't get enough of them lately. Today's had a some sassy Mediterranean flare to it.

• Spinach
• Romaine
• Chick Peas
• Bread & Butter Pickles
• Roasted Garlic Hummus
• Broccoli
• Tiny drizzle of Spray Butter

This was fantastic! I love using hummus as a "dressing" on salads. YUM!

Ann and I managed to escape the office today for a bit. AHHHHHHH, it felt so good to get a break. Yesterday was WAY TOO LONG without one! We frolicked around CVS and Ann stocked up on some supplements. I just browsed, picked up a bunch of them (including multi vitamins) but couldn't decide on what to get so I put it all back. BAH! I need to do more research!!!

SNACK (meal #3) at 4:00pm.

I tried the plain Yoplait Greek yogurt for the first time today. Reviews online have been mixed but I wanted to give it a shot anyways. Not as creamy as Oikos, Chobani or Dannon but I wouldn't call it HORRIBLE either. It was a bit more "sour" as well which I don't necessarily mind. All in all, not bad for the price. Not my favorite though. OIKOS YOU'VE GOT MY HEART!


I had it with a kiwi and a Pink Lady apple.


After work we hustled to the gym for Chest, Back and Cardio day. Not my favorite but you gotta do what you gotta do.

WORKOUT!

Lat Pulldown with V-Bar (cable)
70lb x 15
60lb x 15 (2 sets)
Modular Seated Chest Press (cable)
60lb x 15 (3 sets)
Seated Row (cable)
60lb x 15 (3 sets)
Advanced Chest Press (plate loaded)
40lb x 15 (3 sets)
High Row (plate loaded)
100lb x 15 (3 sets)
Seated Chest Press (plate loaded)
70lb x 12
60lb x 14
50lb x 10
Elliptical Cross Trainer
20 minutes, 1.8 miles

I forgot my Polar watch at work so I have no stats for you today. TRAGIC! :-O

SNACK (meal #4) at 7:15pm.

When I got home I decided to experiment with something new. Protein packed Banana Chocolate Peanut Butter Softserve Ice Cream. SAY WHAAAA? Yep, you heard me right. I tossed the following into my food processor and hoped for the best.

• 2 frozen bananas (frozen in chunks)
• 2-3 tbs unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze
• 3 drops of vanilla custard Capella Flavor Drops (or use vanilla extract)
• 1/2 tsp of Xanthan gum
• 1/2 tsp of Guar gum
• 1 scoop of chocolate peanut butter whey protein powder

I had to blend it for roughly 5 minutes or so (scrapping down the sides every 30 seconds) until it got nice and creamy.


Verdict? Uhm, sort of weird. It was like a mix between ice cream, pudding and marshmallow fluff. NOT in a good way. It was TOO much stickiness and weird consistency. I managed to down maybe 1/4 of it and tossed the rest. Bummer, I had high hopes for it.

I found myself watching an episode of Millionaire Matchmaker for a bit. I turned the TV on and got sucked in. Sometimes I just crave BAD TV I guess. :) Then I cleaned my messy self up and started on dinner.

DINNER (meal #5) at 9:00pm.

Nick was having dinner with his Mama so I was on my own tonight. With my typical flare, I took the easy way out. I cut up a leftover Tilapia from the other night and tossed it into a FlatOut with refried beans and fat free cheese. I toasted the Flatout in some spray butter until it got nice and golden and topped it with avocado and peach salsa. TASTY!


Nick just got home and I think we're about to watch Lost. I just made a cup of coconut chai black tea and some fat free popcorn (seasoned with sea salt, spray butter, splenda and cinnamon) to nibble on. I forgot how much I love it seasoned this way! Sweet and salty goodness.


Goodnight!
-Ildie