Update coming soon

Our cat Cleo had 4 kittens yesterday! She’s one of the 4 strays we brought to NY from Georgia. Her brother Stewie is the one that’s missing, but he’s neutered and now their other sister Bonnie is missing too! Ugh Things have been unusually hectic around here the past few weeks, so cooking, counting calories, working out and everything else that I routinely do is out of focus at the moment. We just hired an entire staff of employees for the first time, plus all the other things that I’ve mentioned in previous posts. Consequently, I haven’t had time to do updates as often as I’d like to. Sometimes I need to prioritize and even though I love blogging, it’s really only my hobby, so I have had to put it on the back burner quite often lately to give attention to other things that are going on. But like I said before, things will settle down after Labor Day and return to normal.

When I woke up yesterday, I was craving radiatore pasta again. So, I made a pot of sauce in my cute little “single-serving” saucepan. I picked up a set of them the other day; I also got 2 mini frying pans that are big enough to cook just one egg in or something else similar in size. I love single-serving cookware; I can’t stand making a big pot or pan dirty just for my itty bitty portions lol.

The tomato sauce (the tomato is for size comparison):

1. I added 1 minced garlic clove (5 cal), 30g diced red onions (15 cal), and a little bit of water to the saucepan; I let it simmer for a few minutes
2. Then I added in 1 can Red Pack no salt added tomato sauce (80 cal), dried oregano, and fresh basil from my AeroGarden and let it all simmer for about 20 minutes

When the sauce was done, I started boiling 2oz radiatore pasta (210 cal). When it was done, I drained it and added it back into the pot with about ¾ of the tomato sauce, plus ¼ cup + 2 TBSP Shop Rite fat free ricotta cheese (75 cal) and 2oz Polly-O full-fat mozzarella cheese (160 cal). I stirred it all together and then transferred it to a single-serving oven dish; added 1 more ounce of Polly-O full fat mozzarella (80 cal) to the top and popped it into the preheated 375F oven for about 12-14 minutes.

While that baked, I sautéed 1 cup Birds Eye broccoli florets (30 cal), 1 cup Birds Eye mixed stir fry veggies (40 cal) and 1 cup string beans (40 cal) in a nonstick pan with 2 teaspoons olive oil. When they were done, I sprinkled 1 TBSP pecorino romano cheese (20 cal) over them and tossed it all together.

I had some leftover tomato sauce, so I put it down on the plate and put the veggies on top of it:

Everything comes out to 835 calories; a very big and satisfying meal but it could easily work as 2 meals if you use half of everything or just save half for another time. Oh, by the way, I made the iced tea with 2 cups tea (4 cal) and several drops of liquid stevia. If you like “sweet tea” as they call it in the south, you will LOVE iced tea made with stevia for a lot less calories. It tastes nearly identical to it! My family always made homemade iced tea with just tea and sugar, never added lemon, but after living in Georgia for 2 years I found out that it’s called “sweet tea” lol, who knew?

My BodyBugg results for 8/26/08:

Went to sleep at ???
BodyBugg reset at 12:00AM
Woke up at ???
12:20PM: 1249 calories burned
End of day: 2474 calories burned

We didn’t get to go on a walk, too much commotion with new babies in the house. Anyway, I’ll try to do another update later tonight. I had an excellent night’s sleep last night and actually woke up 4 lbs lighter. I think a lot of my water retention goes hand in hand with my poor sleeping habits. Whenever I sleep through the night and get an adequate amount of rest, I always wake up feeling light and fluffy; as opposed to waking up feeling like a sack of potatoes. lol Definitely getting better though and I’m sure as things get back to normal in the next week or so I’ll feel even better.

Hi \ /

I haven’t done an update in a couple of days! It was one of “those” weekends. My stomach is very upset at the moment. Not sure why; just another one of my episodes I guess. I did a lot of moping around and shopping this weekend. Just when I start to feel better mentally, I start to feel worse physically. Ugh!!

I burned a lot of calories yesterday and didn’t even go on a walk or anything special. We went to the mall for most of the afternoon. I had Starbucks for the first time ever! It was really good. I got a ‘tall’ double chocolate chip frappuccino. It was REALLY yummy, but hard to drink; the chips kept getting stuck in the straw, so I got bored of it halfway through and threw it out lol. My husband got a blended lemonade, which was really good too. We felt kind of out of place ordering; every other customer seemed like such a pro, but my hubby and I looked like the biggest coffee-newbs ever!! lol I didn’t think I’d actually like anything from Starbucks and figured it was just over-hyped java juice, but it’s actually very yummy and I’m glad there’s not one close by ’cause I’d probably get addicted to it and have to find a way to work a 400 calorie beverage into my daily menus LOL. I’ll definitely go there again though. I want to try everything they have! Except for the 600 calorie muffins lol.

My BodyBugg results for 8/24/08:

Went to sleep at ???
BodyBugg reset at 12:00AM
Woke up at ???
4:14PM: 2156 calories burned
End of day: 2862 calories burned

Not bad for no formal exercise!

It’s the afternoon now on 8/25 but I’m just getting around to yesterday’s update lol. Dustin and I went on a walk early this morning around 7:00AM and thought we could beat the rainfall, but we weren’t that fast. By the time we got to town, it was pouring, so we called my mom to come pick us up. While we were waiting by the post office, the town police officer pulled up to talk to us. Everybody knows everybody in a small town lol. He offered us a ride, but my mom was already on her way. He was laughing at us for not realizing it was going to rain any minute lol! Guess we won’t try to race Mother Nature ever again, eh!

While we were at the mall yesterday we went to Target where I found a bunch of Hello Kitty stuff *glows* and this cereal that someone mentioned on TDP the other day:

It has 15g protein, 4g fiber, and 190 calories per serving even though it’s not made with all whole grains. I was excited to hear about it, because Kashi GoLean is the only very high protein cereal that I have found thus far, so now I have 2 in my collection — YAY!! I had 1 sevring of it (190 cal) with ½ cup skim milk (45 cal) for 235 calories yesterday. It’s delicious! It tastes JUST LIKE “Cinnamon Toast Crunch”, only with a different texture. Loved it! And it doesn’t bother me at all that it’s not 100% whole grains; with so much protein and fiber, it’s basically got everything that you would get out of whole grains anyway.

True to Sunday standards, my mother made a pot of tomato sauce yesterday. One of my favorite ways to eat sauce is with bread, with nothing else. It’s like cheese-less pizza:

2 slices Martin’s 100% whole wheat potato bread (140 cal) with ½ cup mom’s tomato sauce (90 cal) for just 230 calories. Honestly, I do not know how many calories were in the sauce, so I just guessed lol. I know she uses olive oil, but not too much and never adds sugar or anything like that. So, I guess that sounds like a reasonable amount of calories for just half a cup. If she measured anything, maybe I’d know for sure, but she never measures anything when cooking. I used to be the same way, but that method didn’t work so well for me LOL.

The bread and sauce combination is SOOOOOOOOO YUMMY! It makes the bread really moist and soggy — which I LOVE. I could eat this like 10 times a day. The tomatoes and basil are naturally sweet; heavenly! And it’s actually very healthy for you too; whole grains, fiber, protein, plus all the tomato and garlic benefits. Perfetto!

I’ll do another update later (much later) tonight. We have an appointment this afternoon. I’d like to complete my walk now that the sun is out, but if I don’t, that’s ok too. We’ll see what happens!

Our kitty is still missing and my in-laws were supposed to arrive today, but they canceled and rescheduled at the last minute. So, now we don’t know if or when they are actually coming to visit. Wonderful. And to add insult to injury, I feel sooooo puffy and yucky. I know that the water weight will come off quickly when I resume my lifestyle with a more consistent deficit, but it’s frustrating nonetheless. Like gaining 4 lbs since yesterday. I know for a fact that I did not eat 14,000 calories over my maintenance calories; I didn’t even eat anywhere close to 3500 calories over in the past several days. But sodium is not my friend. So every time I overdo sodium and/or calories, it’s about 3 or 4 times as dramatic on the scale for me and being I have had so many “free days” so close together this summer, I never fully recuperated from the beginning of June. It typically takes me about 5-7 days to “deflate” from a free day, but taking time off the entire summer hasn’t given my body the time it needs to balance out my water weight. I fully accept responsibility for the true fat gain — which my husband doesn’t think occurred, he believes it’s all water weight — but I know my body and I know my issues with fluid retention make it seem much worse than it really is. I’m not complaining, because I don’t mind weight fluctuations; I’m used to them but I do hope to get to the bottom of my swelling and edema issues. Like my new doc said, this can’t go on like this forever. Ah well, all in due time. Right now, life is just being life. No worries.

Our sleeping schedule is so erratic at the moment; worse than ever. I’ve been taking short naps and haven’t had a full night’s sleep in I don’t know how long. I’m sure this is contributing to my equilibrium being out of whack. My body hasn’t had a chance to rest and “reboot my brain” as I like to refer to it as. My stomach has been on the fritz and my walks have been making me extra puffy immediately afterwards. It’s all relative I’m sure; poor sleep, stress, water retention, sodium, unhealthy foods, etc. When I found out my in-law’s weren’t coming, it was sort of the last straw for this week of chaos and I haven’t felt like finishing the projects that I started in our house or even finishing shopping for things I wanted to get. I’ve been just lounging around for the past few days, except for our walks to town. I’m sad about Stewie, our kitty that’s missing. I’m going to finish our redecorating projects this weekend though. I hope.

I didn’t cook anything today, I just grazed. One of my snacks/mini meals was this plate of yumminess:

1oz (30g) Snyder’s unsalted mini pretzels (110 cal) with 4 TBSP (24g) PB2 powdered peanut butter (108 cal), 1 plum (30 cal) and 1 Stonyfield Farm lowfat Mocha Latte yogurt (130 cal). This was a great mini meal/snack for just 378 calories! I haven’t had PB2 in a long, long time. It’s delicious, but I don’t eat it that much anymore. I’ll explain why another time. I don’t want to alarm anyone, but it’s just one of those things that I decided I probably shouldn’t have in my menus that often; for now anyway.

My BodyBugg results for 8/22/08:

Went to sleep at 3:00PM
BodyBugg reset at 12:00AM
Woke up at 8:00PM
End of day: 2676 calories burned

I haven’t worn my heart rate monitor on our walks, it’s always in the same range, so I haven’t bothered. We’re going to go shopping today. Maybe it will cheer me up. I doubt it though. I think I’ll go cook a batch of chicken breast now. I’ve had a menu I’ve been wanting to make a few days, maybe I”ll actually get around to it today.

I developed a callous on the bottom of my left foot that only bothers me when I walk outside on the road. So, I got a pair of those Dr. Scholl’s messaging gel insoles for my walking shoes. They feel squooshy inside my shoes and even squeak when I walk, but they actually helped! I was kinda surprised. Of course, they aren’t as comfortable as the commercials would lead you to believe, but I think they are helping absorb the shock from the hard pavement. If the callous doesn’t get better, I think I’ll have to avoid road walking for awhile and stick to my elliptical which is low impact but not as much fun.

It’s around 9:38AM and we just got back from a walk a little while ago. We haven’t gone to sleep yet, so this is my second walk of the day! I plan to take one when we walk up later in the evening too. On top of that, we’ve been cleaning, rearranging and organizing our house nonstop for the past 2 days. I spent over 2 hours cleaning out our fridge last night. There was some seriously nefarious stuff in there!! I took out every shelf and washed them in the bathtub where there’s more room. I threw out about 5 or 6 lbs of cheese and tons of veggies that went bad. Come to think of it, I probably threw out about 75% of everything in there. I say this every time I do a heavy fridge cleaning, but I really mean it this time; we’re only going to buy what we plan to eat for the week or so and that’s it!! Too much waste! The problem is, there’s only 3 of us in the house and a lot of things that I eat (and like) my husband and mother don’t and vice versa, so we can’t always finish a family-sized container of something. Sometimes I wish they had single-servings of everything because I am the queen of eating or trying 1 serving of something and then not touching it again lol. I was huffing, puffing and whining while I was cleaning it, so my husband asked if that’s making me change my mind about overbuying when we go shopping; so, I giggled and shamelessly said, “Probably not!! ” Well, at least it’s clean. Maybe I will do better from now until the next heavy-duty cleaning. Maybe.

My BodyBugg digital display finally came today!

It took awhile to get here; I ordered it last week. I guess they didn’t ship it out until Friday? Ah well, yay for new gadgets. I haven’t tried it out yet, maybe tomorrow or next March. lol I’m also known for buying things and not opening them. It’s almost like I just enjoy collecting things. When I get birthday or Christmas presents, I sometimes just leave them unopened for months and sometimes years. My husband is the exact opposite. He cannot wait to tear the package open on something and try it out. I don’t know what I’m saving stuff for but sometimes I just like to preserve things the way they are. I’m weird, I know! LOL

My BodyBugg results for 8/20/08:

Went to sleep at 11:00AM
BodyBugg reset at 12:00AM
Woke up at 5:00PM
8:24PM: 2894 calories burned
10:22PM: 3115 calories burned
End of day: 3259 calories burned

Nice burn rate, huh? All the cleaning, walking, and shopping has kept me pretty active. Imagine what it would be if I did my elliptical or some other sort of cardio. The crazy thing is I’m going to be even busier for the next few days. My BodyBugg results should be interesting.

My heart rate monitor results for my first walk:

Summary:

01:13:16
474 cal burned
154 max HR
118 avg

I didn’t bother wearing it on our second walk. It was chilly, but morning walks are awesome! The birds are singing, the sun is bright, the air is crisp and fresh, cars drive 90MPH by you because they’re late to work and almost run you over… err, yeah… like I said, morning walks are fun LOL.

So, I’ve been busy and haven’t cooked anything in 2 days. We’ve been eating pizza, sandwiches and whatever nibbles happen to be around. I’m not worried about counting calories for the next couple of weeks, too many (stressful) things going on. I like staying active though. Makes me feel good even if my food choices aren’t perfect.

We got a white pizza and a roast beef sub tonight. I shared the sub with hubster and momster. I don’t order roast beef from a restaurant or fast food place unless it states that it’s homemade like this pizza place down the road from our house does:

Homemade roast beef sandwiches are one of my favorite sandwiches ever! I ordered it without any mayo on it so I could put some olive oil mayo on at home. Loved it! The white pizza was FANTASTIC too! About a billion calories, but that’s ok. Worth it!

I’m cooking tomorrow and looking forward to it. I have a menu planned and all, even though I’m not officially counting calories at this time. I have gotten to the point that I could probably not count calories or weigh portions and still lose and/or maintain, but I like to count calories to also ensure that I am getting enough. It doesn’t bother me and I’d go as far as to say that I like it; a hobby of sorts. When it gets to be overwhelming or uninteresting to me, I just take a day or some extended time off — like this summer. hehe Even professional athletes have off-seasons to regroup and retrain! I like my plan. So flexible, so enjoyable. So “me”!!

My cousin wants us to play tennis with her this week. None of us have ever played, unless you count Wii tennis? lol I’m sure we’d look absolutely ridiculous but it sounds fun. I guess we’ll see. For now, I’ll get some sleep. Lots to do tomorrow and the day after and the day after that and… ugh, I don’t remember the last time I was bored!! lol That’s a good thing though. Idle hands and yada, yada, yada. *giggles*

I’m worn out right now, so I’m going to do an update later in the day. One of our cat’s, Stewie, has been missing for a few days now. He’s never wandered off like this and I’m very upset about it. We just made a poster to put up around the area offering a reward for anyone that finds him.

Then, my husband and I were sitting in our office early this morning when we heard a chirping/screeching/cry coming from outside. My husband went outside to see what it was and came back in a minute later to tell me that our other cat Clyde was out there torturing a baby bunny. UGH! We got the cat away from the bunny, but the bunny just sat under the tree shaking. We thought it might have been hurt, but we didn’t see any injuries on it. So, my husband put it in a shoe box with some grass and then we put the shoe box inside of a cat carrier. We called the wildlife rescue hotline to find out what to do, but they just gave us local numbers that didn’t answer when we called. Hopefully they will return our calls soon. *sigh* Animals seem to be a full-time around here!

Anyway, I need some sleep, so I’ll do another update later today.

When I burn over 3000 calories in a day (according to BudyBugg and Harris-Benedict predictions), I am simply exhausted the next day. Even if I eat the 3000+ calories or more to refuel, I’m still wiped out. I slept right through our alarm this morning. It was going off for over an hour before I woke up. I am also pretty sure that I burn a few hundred calories more than BodyBugg estimates on days I am very active; my heart rate monitor alone shows a big discrepancy between certain activities, and of course strength training burn-calories that go undetected. What’s even crazier to think about is I started out weighing much more and eating a lot less. There were probably some days in the beginning of this journey that I was burning 4000-5000 calories and only consuming 1500 calories or so and believed that was being generous with my intake. I’ve come a long way since then.

The good news is that even when I eat at or close to maintenance but stay low on sodium, I tend to go down on the scale without even trying. I weighed in 3 lbs less today. Partly because of all the walking we did yesterday, but I’ve also been minding my sodium intake a little more closely the past few days. It’s unbelievable how quickly I can gain and lose water weight. These new diuretics are weird. They kick in randomly; sort of like a series. *shrugs* I’m glad that I’m starting to not feel as puffy. I used to think people complaining that they gained 5 or 10 lbs were being vain until I gained several pounds of water weight (seemingly overnight) and can feel every ounce of it; especially in my fingers, feet, legs and bloated tummy. Ah well, at least there’s improvement. It will all balance out when I am paying closer to attention to everything once again. No worries.

We got our walk in shortly after waking up. The weather is gorgeous; not too hot, not too cold. My heart rate monitor results for the walk:

Walk summary:

01:10:56
529 cal burned
161 max HR
127 avg

My BodyBugg results for 8/18/08:

Went to sleep at 7:00AM
BodyBugg reset at 12:00AM
Woke up at 4:00PM
End of day: 2670 calories burned

I didn’t burn as many calories today, mainly because I slept so much lol. I was starving when we got back from our walk, so I had some yogurt, anisette cookies and skim milk. I picked up even more Stella D’oro yummies when we were out tonight:

The Almond Toast is just 100 calories for 2 cookies and the Anisette Toast is 130 calories for 3 cookies!! 3 enormous cookies… for just 130 calories?! Are you kidding me???? Oh my GOD! Hmm, let’s see… 15 Oreo bite-sized wafer thingies in a little pouch or 2 or 3 full-sized cookies? Stella D’oro for the win!

We went shopping this evening. I finally found a bedding set that I liked in Kohl’s. YAY! Tip: Use a shopping cart before attempting to carry a comforter, sheets, pillow cases, and throw-pillows to the checkout counter.

When we got home, I made what some people call a tuna melt. I like to call it TUNA PIZZA!!

First, I made the tuna salad with:

4oz Bumble Bee very low sodium tuna (140 cal)
1 TBSP Hellmann’s olive oil mayo (50 cal)
¼ cup Fage Total 2% plain yogurt (40 cal)
2 TBSP organic sweet relish (30 cal)
30g diced red onion (15 cal)
Black pepper

275 calories, 1 serving

Then I sliced 1 plum tomato (15 calorie) and put it on 1 Gefen 100% whole wheat unsalted matzo cracker (110 cal) and piled the tuna salad atop the tomato. Then I added on 1.75 oz Shop Rite no salt added swiss cheese (175 cal) and popped it under the broiler until the cheese melted. It came out to 575 calories, but it was HUGE and very satisfying. Lots and lots of protein; well over 50g! Wow!! Loved it and it was fairly low in sodium to boot! WOO HOO!!! YUMMY! I would love to eat this every single day. Maybe I will. hehehe

Well, the week has just begun. I better get some sleep, I really need to organize our house. *sigh*

Geez, I haven’t had time to do many updates this weekend, sorry ! I have so much going on and it seems like there’s never enough time to finish anything. Ugh! I spent most of the weekend shopping and house-rearranging. Plus, sneaking in exercise here and there. We went to Woodbury Commons again today, but traffic was horrific, so it ended up taking 2 hours to get there! We live within minutes of the Monticello Raceway, Bethel (the original Woodstock location), the Concord hotel, and various camps and lakes. So, Sullivan county is the vacation destination for lots and lots of NYC and New Jersey folks, but only in the summer. After Labor Day it goes back to being a ghost town, thankfully lol. I couldn’t take this heavy traffic 7 days a week, it’s ridiculous. It was literally backed up for 20+ miles. If you think NYC or Atlanta traffic is heavy, that’s nothing compared to weekend visitors returning home to the city/Jersey/wherever on a Sunday night in Sullivan county NY. We decided we’re not going out on Sundays in the summer anymore lol.

At least I burned a good amount of calories today!

My BodyBugg results for 8/17/08:

Went to sleep at 7:00AM
BodyBugg reset at 12:00AM
Woke up at 12:00PM
3:21PM: 2022 calories burned
10:19PM: 3019 calories burned
End of day: 3218 calories burned

We went for a walk in the afternoon, then we came home and showered before we left. We wanted to leave much, MUCH earlier than we did, but one thing leads to another and we find ourselves in the middle of rush hour almost every single time. *sigh* We were starving, so we stopped at a pizza place a few miles from our house that we’ve never been to. I had a slice of (NY style) cheese pizza with a bottle of water. I don’t know how many calories that was, but I imagine like 500-600. It was fantastic though! Not sure why we’ve never gone there, but it’s going to be hard to stay away now LOL. It’s actually 7 miles from our house and I tried to convince my husband that I should walk there everyday so I could fit it in, but he wasn’t agreeing with that. lol

We got to Woodbury Commons very late, so I didn’t have time to do very much shopping. We’re going to go back again this week. I’ve been trying to find a new duvet cover set, but I haven’t found anything that I like. I bought our last set from eBay, but I’d like to get one sooner and eBay delivery tends to be unpredictable. Speaking of unpredictable delivery; I ordered one of those “Peticure” nail files for your pets the other day and the confirmation email said it would take 4-6 weeks to arrive. Geesh! That’s a long time for this day in age, isn’t it? I digress.

We did a lot of walking at the outlets in that short amount of time and worked up a huge appetite. I paid an outrageous $2.75 for a bottle of Vitamin Water on our way out, then we went home and I made this; the stuff most dieters are too afraid to touch. Not me though, I went all out! Eggs, butter, carbs — Oh MY!

I made the French toast with 2 slices Martin’s 100% whole wheat potato bread (140 cal), 2 large (cage free) eggs (150 cal), and 1 TBSP butter (100 cal) in a nonstick pan. I was in the mood for a HUGE breakfast, so I had it along with 2 TBSP 100% pure maple syrup (100 cal), 1 Fage Total 2% yogurt with side cherries (140 cal), 104g red seedless grapes (63 cal) and 1 cup skim milk (90 cal). FABULOUS! 783 calories, but totally worth it! It was well after 9:00PM, but is there ever a bad time for such a rich, hearty post-shopping breakfast? Absolutely not! I was going to use Egg Beaters instead of eggs, but boy are Egg Beaters LOADED with sodium! I never realized it before, but they have 115mg per ¼ cup! I do like them a lot, but for sodium-saving purposes, I think I’ll go with regular eggs for a few calories more.

I found these at Hannaford yesterday:

Only 100 calories each and made with very wholesome ingredients. I tried both of them and they taste exactly like Rice Krispie Treats, minus the questionable ingredients. The chocolate flavored tastes exactly like Cocoa Krispies. Loved them! I’ve been craving Rice Krispie Treats lately; perfect fix. Yummy!

This is going to be an even busier and more hectic week than last week, but I’m still going to try to stay as active as possible. I guess I really did take the summer off from creating a deficit, but that’s ok. Like I’ve said, I’ve maintained with a slight gain which is mostly water and from not being as active as usual. I’m fine with that. Life happens, no worries. Everything will be back to normal soon. Then again, being this is a lifestyle, this time off isn’t necessarily abnormal; it just goes with the territory. Sometimes I’m in a deficit, sometimes I’m maintaining and sometimes I’m not making a conscious effort to do either. It’s unrealistic and unhealthy to be completely obsessed with whatever plan you’re doing 100% of the time. I like variety and I like being in control. I’ve reached diet-equilibrium. YAY!!

Someone posted this video on thedailyplate.com today: http://www.surfthechannel.com/info/television/Penn_%26_Teller… It’s for “mature audiences” only So, expect adult content and language. I think it speaks a lot of truth, especially about the BMI chart which is a load of CRAP! I think knowledge is extremely important, so I genuinely enjoy opening my mind to all sorts of sources of information and not limiting myself to what just one person or one group of people say. Many of you know that I like to think outside of the box. After all, if I had listened to what doctors and so called experts had said for decades, I’d probably still be over 300 lbs and inactive after starting and stopping another dozen ridiculous diets in my lifetime. Don’t be afraid to challenge what you feel to be untrue or incomplete. We’d probably still believe the world was flat if someone wasn’t brave enough to prove otherwise.

I was so busy yesterday that I didn’t even get a chance to do an update. Then today we stayed in all day, except for when we went on a walk this evening. We have plans for Saturday and Sunday though, so I guess I took today as a rest day lol.

Last night we went to Bed, Bath & Beyond; I picked this up in the “Beyond” section:

I’ve wanted one of these for awhile now, but never got around to it. I remember the ones we had at the ice cream stand using to be awesome for slicing meat and veggies. This one isn’t commercial-quality, but I think it will do for now. I’m wondering if I can slice bread thinner than the pre-sliced loaves? I’m hoping I can! I’ll have to see when I try it out. As soon as I make room in the kitchen that is.

After BB&B, we went to Price Chopper where I found these:

I’ve never seen cling peaches in 100% juice. I’ve seen “no sugar added” (Splenda) and of course light/heavy syrup, but I got excited when I saw these because they go perfectly with cottage cheese or even ricotta. Yummy!!

Out of curiosity I was checking out Stella D’oro cookie nutritional labels and to my delight I discovered that their Anisette Sponge cookies are only 90 calories for 2 of them!!

My family has eaten Stella D’oro cookies since I can remember and never once did I realize how low in calories some of my old favorites are. Their “Breakfast Treats” are only 90 calories each and from what I saw, none of them contain high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners. I could seriously eat an entire package of these or the Breakfast Treats in one sitting with milk or coffee. SO GOOD!! But 2 of the sponge cookies is a satisfying treat too. With ½ cup skim milk, that’s only 135 calories! Very cool.

We’re on a very late-in-the-day schedule at the moment, so we were sort of rushing to get a walk in before sunset this evening. Mainly me. My husband definitely wouldn’t cry over missing a walk LOL. I would. *giggles* My heart rate monitor results for the walk:

Summary:

01:11:16
517 cal burned
153 max HR
125 avg

When we came home, I made breakfast. An unlikely duo of lunch and breakfast. I suppose it was a brunch of sorts:

1 cup (52g) Kashi GoLean (140 cal) with ½ cup skim milk (45 cal), 72g fresh strawberries (25 cal) and 34g fresh blueberries (20 cal) and a turkey burger made with 4oz ground turkey breast (120 cal) on 1 Martin’s 100% whole wheat potato roll (80 cal) with ½ cup Bibb lettuce (3 cal), tomato slices (15 cal) and ½ TBSP Hellmann’s olive oil mayo (25 cal). This is a perfect meal to me! Savory, sweet, and best of all; FILLING!! The ultimate breakfast, lunch, brunch, or dinner for just 473 calories! Only took about 5-10 minutes to make too.

I never got around to making the lunch I planned today, but I did make the fabulous pasta dinner that I planned:

Radiatore is my favorite pasta shape of all time. I love the texture and the cute shape, but I haven’t been able to find a whole wheat version. I try to eat whole grain at least 80-90% of the time, but there’s nothing wrong with regular white pasta; millions of healthy people all around the world eat it, including every member of my family — especially the ones in their 80’s and 90’s. Who am I to argue with wisdom and experience?

I boiled 2oz radiatore pasta (210 cal) while I sautéed 1 cup frozen string beans (40 cal) in a nonstick frying pan with 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil (40 cal), 1.5 oz julienned carrots (19 cal), 30g diced red onions (15 cal), 50g no salt added canned mushrooms (15 cal), ½ cup (130g) Eden no salt added canned kidney beans (100 cal) and 2oz white wine (40 cal) that I added in towards the middle. When the pasta was done, I drained it and added it to the veggies and beans with 2 TBSP (10g) grated pecorino romano cheese (40 cal). With my side salad, this was a fantastic belly-stuffing pasta meal for just 644 calories! This was probably enough to split into 2 meals, but I ate every bite and had 2 of the Stella D’oro sponge cookies right afterwards. This dinner (and dessert) could have been a page right out of my childhood dinner table. DEEeeeeLISH!

My BodyBugg results for 8/15/08:

Went to sleep at 9:00AM
BodyBugg reset at 12:00AM
Woke up at 4:00PM
9:32PM: 2495 calories burned
11:33PM: 2730 calories burned
End of day: 2766 calories burned

I have lots of activity planned for tomorrow. I want to get my strength training in first thing in the morning and hopefully my elliptical time. We’ll see what happens though. It’s going to be a wild and crazy weekend — week for that matter. Did I mention that I cannot wait for Labor Day? lol I’m sure I’ll regret saying that when all the soft serve ice cream places close for the summer.

The days have been going by so quickly and I’m not even scratching the surface with things I plan to get done this week. Then again, I haven’t felt well the past few days, so I’m probably not functioning as fast as I usually do. I have a “to do” list a mile long and I haven’t checked very many of the things off, except for shopping. I’ve been had great success with that part of the list lol. We absolutely loved our trip to Woodbury Commons, but we’re going back again this weekend because we didn’t get there until 7:00PM and they closed at 9:00PM. The place is MASSIVE! 220 stores that require a good amount of walking between each one. I haven’t been there in over 10 years, but it’s exactly how I remember it, only with new stores. We only got to visit a handful of the stores, but we practically filled the car up anyway! LOL

The first store we stopped in was the ADIDAS outlet where my hubby and I both got a pair of sneakers:

These were only $44.99, but get this; all sneakers were buy 1, get 50% off second pair of equal or lesser value. So, my husband’s were only $39.99, minus 50%, so we got 2 pairs for just over $60 bucks! I bought my husband a pair of ADIDAS back in June and they were $80 in Dick’s sporting goods, so I think these prices are awesome. And the stores aren’t like TJ Maxx or Marshall’s “bargain basement” quality, they’re actually the same quality you’d buy in any other store but the selection is more limited. I really needed a new pair too. All the walking I have done in the past few months has definitely worn out my old sneakers that I just bought back in the spring. Can’t wait to break these in!

Aunt Flo is settling down a little, but this has definitely been one of her worst visits in a long while. I’ve been enjoying “bigger meals” as opposed to several small meals lately. I find that they keep me more satisfied on low-cal days. I’ve been experimenting to see which works best and I think on low-cal days (1400-1800) I’ll go with 3 to 5 meals/snacks instead of 6 or 7. I’m all about volume and I found a lot of it in breakfast:

2 Kashi original GoLean waffles (170 cal) with 2 TBSP Smart Balance Omega peanut butter (200 cal) and 1 TBSP seedless raspberry Polaner All Fruit spread (40 cal). Along with 1 cup skim milk (90 cal) and 1 Fage Total 2% with side peaches (130 cal) with 72g fresh strawberries (25 cal) and 34g fresh blueberries (20 cal), this was a DELICIOUS, filling, and healthy meal for just 675 calories!! Melted peanut butter on waffles is one of the best combinations ever! Mmmm… SOOO YUMMY!

Lunch was a split-second decision, but fantastic:

1 can Health Valley NO SALT ADDED vegetable soup (180 cal) with ¼ cup organic green peas (35 cal) that I added into the soup when I heated it in a small saucepan. When it was heated, I added 1 oz Shop Rite no salt added swiss cheese (100 cal) over the top and ate it along with 1 Gefen unsalted whole wheat Matzo cracker (110 cal). VERY filling meal for only 425 calories. I looooooove breaking up crackers and letting them soak up soup. The mushiness is so tasty and comforting to me lol. Plus the cheese made it even gooier! The weather has gotten chilly, so I think soup is going to be making a lot of appearances on my menus in upcoming months. It’s so low in calories, yet filling and good for you — especially if you add more veggies. Next time I think I’ll add chicken or turkey to this for even more protein. YUM!

My BodyBugg results for 8/13/08:

Went to sleep at 9:00AM
BodyBugg reset at 12:00AM
Woke up at 1:00PM
Took nap at 4:00PM
Woke up at 6:00PM
11:13PM: 2396 calories burned
End of day: 2472 calories burned

I haven’t felt like going on a walk or my elliptical in a few days. Strength training wasn’t appealing either. Just an excuse of course lol, but I really did feel yucky. I’m definitely getting a walk in tomorrow and strength training on Saturday. I’ll probably burn a good amount of calories cleaning and organizing our house. We have things ALL over the place right now. I need to find places for the new things I bought, throw out or find homes for old stuff and a million other things, but I’m procrastinating. I just want to do the shopping part, I don’t feel like doing the harder, less fun parts right now LOL. I’m sure I’ll feel more energetic when Aunt Flo is heading out of town. Being a woman is tough work! Luckily my husband understands why I’m in hell-beast mode LOL.