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!

You Wanna Play, You Gotta Pay

That was my motto this morning as I headed to the treadmill for another 5K run! I figured if I am going to have these moments of uncontrolled snacking, I better be making up for it with the exercise. Hopefully, that will balance it out. The scale will tell. Thankfully, not until Thurs. :)

After my super sweaty run, I went with a little breakfast of 3/4 c. Puffins and a Weight Watchers Strawberry Yogurt...



A reader mentioned to me that I might need to bump up my breakfast to help with the afternoon munchies and I have actually been thinking that same thing to myself! With this more intense running, I seem to be hungrier, so I will try that the next few days and see if I notice a difference.

For lunch, I decided to make a big salad. My thinking was that all the crunching might be beneficial in curbing the munching that may be approaching in the afternoon! I made a Chicken BLT Salad with 2 oz. chicken (Perdue short cuts), 2 slices of center cut bacon, lots of lettuce and tomato topped with 2 tbsp. Kraft Light Three Cheese Ranch Dressing. Awesome, flavorful and took a while to eat! A great 5 POINT lunch...

I resisted the urge to find something else to crunch on and got myself busy. The daughters and I spent much of the afternoon cleaning out our basement of old/unused toys to be shipped to the Land of Misfit Toys, otherwise know as, Good Will. There was lots to give away and also, lots to throw away. Why we hold on to things with missing parts, broken, etc., I don't know. My car is packed to the brim for Good Will and the garbagemen are going to hate us this trash day!

Around 4 :00, I figured I should have a snack before I got to the dangerous time before dinner. I made more hummus (this is an addiction for sure) and paired it with a cut up Arnold Sandwich Thin and carrots. This has to be my favorite 3 POINT snack!

Dinner was pasta for all tonight. Of course, the husband and daughters wouldn't dare eat pasta that is possibly mixed with anything resembling a vegetable, so they got plain spaghetti with butter and cheese. I decided to "get craaaaaazy" and mix mine together with veggies. Eeeeeewww, they said. What do they know????? My delicious dish was made with 3 oz. (dry) Barilla Plus Elbow Macaroni , 5 baby bella mushrooms, chopped roasted red pepper , 1/2 c. frozen cut leaf spinach sauteed with garlic, and a cheese sauce made with 1 wedge Laughing Cow Light Cheese, 2 tbsp. parmesan cheese and 1/4 c. fat free milk. Mmmmm...so yummy. This was a ginormous portion. I was feeling piggish and I had the POINTS, so I went for it! This all-you-can-eat plate was 9 POINTS...

Still had room for dessert, believe it or not! I had sugar free ,fat free cheesecake pudding with a drizzle of Lighthouse Reduced Sugar Caramel Dip...

So, a pretty good eating day! No crazy snacking. I need to keep focused these next few days since there are no more Weekly Allowance Points left before weigh-in on Thurs. Funny, I'm not so anxious about my WW meeting weigh-in, but my BLBE2 weigh -in skitzes me out!!! I guess that's a good thing! Whatever works to stay on the course...

Have a great night, everyone!!!!