A Taste Of Summer

I felt much better today!  Thanks for all the well wishes!  I was still a bit dizzy this morning, so I decided to ditch the gym for some outdoor activity later.

I was starving as soon as I woke up and couldn’t wait to make breakfast.  Eggs sounded good, so I whipped up and open-faced omelette with ham, spinach and Cabot’s 75% reduced fat cheddar…

Most of the morning was spent catching up on all the things I couldn’t do yesterday (blogging, cleaning, grocery shopping).  I finally got around to lunch quite late because breakfast had been such a filling meal.  I decided to use up some leftover fridge items for lunch – chickpeas and butternut squash.  Hmmm…an interesting combo, right?!  I thought it might be good with some whole wheat couscous and grated parmesan cheese.  It was a good call!

When the daughters got home from school, I decided it was too nice a day to stay inside.  It was beautiful and close to 70 degrees!  Unfortunately, big daughter had too much homework to finish, but little daughter and I got to go for a nice 30 minute walk around the neighborhood.  I would have loved to walk longer, but little daughter wasn’t having it!  But, we had a great time soaking up some vitamin D anyway!

For dinner, I took advantage of the beautiful weather to bring back a bit of summer with burgers on the grill.  Regular ones for the family and a Gardenburger Portabella Veggie Burger for me.  I snazzed up my burger with a topping made with my favorite goat cheese…

Chavrie goat cheese is the best!  It is mild and really creamy.  For my topping, I mixed 2 tbsp. of Chavrie with 1 tbsp. of sundried tomatoes (in oil).  I spread it on the veggie burger and put it on and Ezekiel Sesame Hamburger Bun…

I went with shoestring fries and a nice green salad on the side…

Mmmm…I taste summer!!!

I ended the night with the new Cooking Light…

Ah, so many great recipes…so little time :)

Enjoy your day, everyone!

Question of the Day:  What is your favorite magazine?

Get Me Off This Ride

Sorry for being MIA yesterday.  I had a horrible dizzy spell in the morning that left me in bed for most of the morning and early afternoon.  It’s been going on for a while, but yesterday was the worst ever.  I’m not one for spinning amusement park rides, yet I felt like I was on one the whole morning.  It made me pretty sick and I felt washed out from the whole experience.  I did get to a specialist later in the day who diagnosed it as benign positional vertigo.  I have a few more tests to undergo, but in the meantime, have some medicine to take in case it gets the degree it did yesterday.  Today, I’m feeling better and not as ‘tilt a whirl’, so I should be back in action! 

Needless to say, when you’re feeling dizzy, food is not the first priority.  My eats were pretty random yesterday and I just picked here and there when my stomach could handle it, so I didn’t take any pics.  But, I’ll catch you up with the day before and a nice surprise from yesterday…

Tuesday

I was looking forward to getting back to the gym since it had been a few days and I was actually excited to run!  I hit the treadmill for 20 minutes at a decent pace (trying to work on that!), then continued for another 15 minutes walking at a 10% incline.  I moved on to weights – chest, shoulders and abs for another 15 minutes.  It felt like a decent workout, but in record time :)

Once in the car, I was ready for breakfast- a Cherry Pie Larabar and 2 clementines…

Then, it was errand time;  it never ends :)

Lunch was pushed back to later than I liked.  When I come in starved, I want to just grab the easiest thing.  Today it was an Applegate Farms Organic Uncured Beef Hot Dog on a whole wheat bun, Tabatchnick Vegetable Soup and carrots.  All ready, thanks to the microwave, in under 5 minutes!

The daughters had a doctor’s visit in the afternoon, then we did some shoe shopping.  So sad to be leaving the flip flops behind and get into some real shoes :(  While we were out, I did cave into some more coffee (I’m glad my doctor doesn’t read this blog), a tall decaf nonfat latte from Starbucks which held me over nicely until dinner.

I was lacking a dinner plan tonight, but thankfully pasta always goes over well!  My brand of choice is Barilla Plus.  It’s a multigrain blend of oats, spelt, barley along with the addition of  lentil and chickpea flour.  Be not afraid!  It tastes terrific and the husband and daughters are none the wiser.  It really does resemble regular white pasta in both taste and texture.  Now, I do have to make it plain for them with either sauce or butter and cheese, but I decided to jazz mine up with some pesto!  I know I’ve been kinda hooked on that lately:)  Since pesto is pretty caloric, I only used 1 heaping tsp. to dress the pasta, along with some of the pasta water and added it 1/2 cup chickpeas and shredded baby spinach.  I topped it with some grated parmesan and couldn’t wait to dig in…

I puffy heart pasta!  And it was surprisingly filling due to the extra protein punch of the chickpeas.  Yum!

Then, it was off to bed only to be awakened by the dizziness in the early morning.  I felt badly because it was our 14th wedding anniversary and I wanted to make a nice dinner for the husband.  But, that didn’t work out.  We did get a special treat from my parents, though…

A gift basket filled with wonderful Italian-inspired treats.  Even though my stomach wasn’t quite up to it, I couldn’t help trying out one of the treats…

Who could resist that?!  Not me.  Dizzy or not!

So worth it :)  Thanks Mom and Dad!

Have a great day, everyone!!

Question of the Day:  Do you like amusement park rides that spin and twirl? Aaaaaahhhhh!

Sundays Are For Relaxing

My first thought this morning was that I wanted to run outdoors. It's been quite a while and I figured if I got out early enough, the heat wouldn't be too brutal. I decided to go to a local track instead of running my hilly neighborhood; I didn't feel quite up to that. When I arrived at the track, it was already 80 degrees! There was a bit of a breeze, so it wasn't too bad. I wanted to run 5k and a quarter way through, my right hip started killing me! It was so sore. I worked through it by keeping my stride short and lots of pep-talking! I finally finished the 5k in 45 minutes...





Me and my bum hip headed home for some breakfast and Advil! I had a whole wheat cinnamon raisin english muffin topped with PB2 and a sprinkle of shredded coconut...




Later, we packed up our lunches and headed to the parents' pool for our final swim there. Dad is having some repairs done and closing it up. Boo!





Before the final swim, I ate some lunch. I brought an all- leftover lunch : Mushroom Asiago Stuffed Burger, Gram's green beans and chick peas. I went bunless for the burger, but not, topless! I added an extra slice of asiago for more yum...

still delicious...

We had a very relaxing afternoon in the pool. I even lounged around on a pool float for a while! It was great.

We headed home for dinner with our guest for the evening - Gram =) I had a light, easy dinner planned : Barilla Plus Farfalle pasta with homemade marinara...

Sauteed zucchini from Mom's garden with garlic, evoo and parmesan...

tomato and cucumber salad, also from the garden...

I had a small bowl of pasta...

and plate of zucchini...

I felt satisfied after eating this, so I stopped. This is a major coup in the fact that I have rarely not gone back for seconds or thirds with pasta. It's just something that is hard for me to control, portion-wise. But, I knew I could have more if I wanted it, but since my stomach was satisfied, I decided to be done =)

It was a beautiful evening and we enjoyed dining al fresco...for about 10 minutes! The bees were so annoying and the daughters are extremely freaked out by them, so we headed in for the remainder of the evening.

Before bringing Gram home, we enjoyed a cup of coffee...

I've been Splenda-free for 3 weeks!

As I am writing this, my stomach is beginning to growl! Why does pasta not hang around very long?? I may have a snack of a handful of cheese crackers; don't think I can go to bed growly :(

It was a nice relaxing Sunday! Hope you had the same =)

Have a great night, everyone!