Wednesday, September 29, 2010

My First Green Monster

Well this morning I finally decided to try the infamous green monster! Except mine turned out brown. You’ll see why.

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In the mix:

    • ~2 cups spinach
    • 1 cup milk
    • 4 ice cubes
    • 1 tbsp ground flaxseed
    • 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
    • 1 banana
    • 4 strawberries

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Verdict? Tasted fine but it didn’t hold me over at all! Post green monster I waited 30 minutes before working out. I only did 20 minutes of a Hip Hop Dance workout and the 10 minute Biggest Loser Jumpstart. I was starving after so instead of trying to wait it out I had a piece of whole wheat bread with Teddie unsalted peanut butter. I felt much better after eating that :)

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I ended up not leaving myself enough time for a real lunch before having to head to school so I grabbed a string cheese and an apple on the way out.

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I didn’t have class at school today so why was I there? Well we are trying to start a nutrition club at the high school next door to campus so a couple of us went over for the “club fair” to get students to sign up for the club. Don’t we just fit in so well at the high school? haha Everyone say hello to Debi! She’s my thesis partner :)  We got a fair amount of names but I’m not sure how many people will actually come to the first meeting. I’ll keep you updated.

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I was pretty hungry when I got home so I had leftover soup and some ginger-turmeric roasted cauliflower that I made. I used wayyyy to much ginger that’s for sure.

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And dinner later was whole wheat penne with bell pepper strips, marinara sauce, and parmesan cheese.

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Man my afternoon eats were pretty boring, huh? I’m feeling so blah. I have nothing inspiring or interesting to talk about today I guess……

 

I was thinking about it earlier and I don’t know how much I can keep up with blogging with all the work I’m supposed to be doing for school. I might have to cut it back a little, but we’ll see if I can even stay away ;)

 

Goodnight bloggie loves!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

A Healthy Lipid Panel

2 weeks ago I had a check-up at the health center and decided I might as well get a baseline lipid panel since I’m going to be a whopping 23 soon.  I finally got a copy of my results yesterday and everything looks good! My total cholesterol is 187, HDL 77, LDL 96, and triglycerides 69.  Now for those that don’t know I’ll also tell you what the recommendations for each are.  Total cholesterol should be below 200 mg/dl. HDL for women should be over 50 mg/dl and for men over 40mg/dl but above 60 mg/dl is optimal really. LDL should be below 130 mg/dl BUT for those at risk for heart disease less than 100 mg/dl is preferred and for those at extremely high risk for heart disease below 70 mg/dl is desired.  Lastly, triglycerides should be below 150 mg/dl. So as you can see I am very happy with my levels!

 

So on a not-so-happy note, my copy of JADA (Journal of the American Dietetic Association) came in today and was so annoyed to read the results of one of the studies. Not so surprising but NEWSFLASH: “The top sources of energy for 2-18 year olds were grain desserts (cookies, cakes, pie, etc), pizza, and soda.” And that is why I want to work with kids when I become an RD……

 

Now it’s catch-up time. Mondays through Wednesdays are my craziest school days I think (even though I’ve been stressed like every day now!) I did take some time to do yoga OnDemand again this morning. It’s definitely something I’m going to try to make a habit.

Eats for Monday:

Apple Oats with Almonds (I saved a bit less than half for this morning)

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Red bell pepper, celery, carrot, and hummus for dippage + sandwich thin w/ Teddie unsalted p.b. and honey

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Dinner was INHALED without a picture when I got back from class. A few sauteed asparagus spears and a bowl of cheese ravioli w/ sauce.

 

Eats for today:

Leftover Apple Oats

Scrambled egg + 2 whites + red bell pepper

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Bean and Bulgur soup! I made this modified recipe again but doubled it this time since last time the family devoured it in 1 day!

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More soup and some salmon

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It’s been rainy and gloomy lately. I hope tomorrow is better. Almost Hump day! G’night.

Questions: Have you ever gotten your lipids checked? What do you think of the JADA article mentioned?

Sunday, September 26, 2010

The Big E

Friday started off with a breakfast I was thinking about before going to sleep: Stuffed French Toast. I dipped 2 slices of whole wheat bread in a mixture of egg whites, cinnamon and nutmeg to make the french toast and the stuffed part was a mix of plain 0% Chobani, cinnamon, and sliced banana. It was so filling I couldn’t eat it all but it was yummy which made me sad that I couldn’t fit it all in my tummy.

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After digestion, I decided to try out one of the workouts OnDemand which I didn’t realize were free! I did the Yogaworks Slimdown. I’ve decided that I want to start doing at least 2 days of yoga per week. It’s supposed to make you long and lean right? Well anything that will make 5’3.5” look long sounds good to me!

I ate a light lunch because I was in a hurry and new I’d be eating junk later.

Carrots, Celery, Red Bell Pepper, and Garlic Hummus

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Leftover fruit from the Nutrition Liaison meeting

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Then I got into my best country get-up for the Big E. For those that don’t know, the Big E is a HUGE fair for all of New England. Each state has their own building on the fairgrounds. There’s of course a midway full of rides, stages for concerts, and other exhibit halls and fun stuff. Plus lots of fair food! Their main food attraction is the Big E Cream Puff. It’s famous I swear. In 2004 they started the Big E-clair too.  I wanted to go on Friday because Jason Michael Carroll was performing and his concert was free. YAY!  We ended up not getting there until 6:30 though so we didn’t have much time to look around before the concert started. Here are a few photo highlights.

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Let me tell you – elephants are hard to get pictures of! We took like 10 and it kept moving so all the pictures were blurry. I wish we could have been there earlier to look around with out being all frantic to get to the concert but maybe next year….. I enjoyed the concert. Jessie James was the opening act. She has a good voice but her songs made her seem kind of….for lack of a better word slutty LOL.  Jason Michael Carroll was great. I was so surprised he cut his hair!

I was starving by the time we got back to the apartment so we ordered pizza. I have a love/hate relationship with Dominos haha. We got pepperoni, banana peppers, and mushrooms on the pizza (tried to get a little veggies!) plus a side of cheesy bread. I gotta say my stomach has shrunk since I was an undergrad. I used to be able to eat half a pizza myself when we ordered it. (I LOVE PIZZA!) Anyway last night I only ate 2 slices plus 2 breadsticks. And a couple gummy dinosaurs :)

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We watched the premieres of House and Fringe and then I passed out. It was a long night!

Saturday we really didn’t do much. I ate more “typical college food” so instead of 1 treat day I had 2. Oh well! It was fun but now I’m back home and have to get into school mode again.

Hope you all had fabulous weekends too!

Friday, September 24, 2010

Say Hello to Mr. Moo

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I’ve got a much quicker post this time compared to Wednesday’s crazy day.  Last night and the night before I was finally able to sleep a good 8 hours each.  And thanks to Christina I figured out my insomnia was because of my period. There really is such a thing as menstrual insomnia, NO LIE.  I’ll confirm it next month lol.

I also think because of my bloating that I never want to eat much for a couple days. It’s just so uncomfortable. Anyway….

Eats for yesterday:

Asparagus with an egg

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Ginormous Salad (Spinach, Red Bell Pepper, Carrot, Avocado)

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Yogurt Parfait (Plain 0% Chobani, Ezekiel 4:9 Golden Flax Cereal, Peach)

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I had more errands yesterday so all my walking around counted as my workout :)

We also had our first Nutrition Liaison meeting yesterday. Nutrition Liaison is basically the nutrition club at Simmons.  I’m really excited about this year.  I think we are going to have a lot of fun activities and volunteer opportunities.  The first couple things I’ve started to assemble are group activities so everyone can get to know each other. Hopefully we are going to take a group trip to a farmers market and also a trip to a farm for pumpkin picking, hay rides, and a corn maze. Like I said, SO EXCITED!

I’m also excited because I’m going to the Big E tonight! Going to see Jason Michael Carroll!

Have a great Friday!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

An Eclectic Day of Events

O-M-G. What a day. I wasn’t even going to post until tomorrow but I changed my mind because I know this is already going to be long and I didn’t want to have a super long one tomorrow.

Again I could not get to sleep! I fell asleep around 1 (which is earlier than the night before) BUT I had to wake up at 5:30. You see, I was taking a CPR course this morning in a location that is supposed to be 30 minutes away but I have never driven there and was afraid of getting lost so I gave myself an hour LOL. Well with traffic it ended up being 45 minutes anyway. So I arrive at 7:15 while registration was supposed to start at 7:30. I waited and waited and no one was coming. There was one paramedic who was supposed to help out but he didn’t know where the main instructor was at all. There was also originally supposed to be 10 people coming for the class. Around 8:15 (the class was supposed to start at 8) I find out that the class was downsized to 5 people and the main instructor wasn’t coming so it was just going to be the paramedic I saw. We waited til 8:30 and the other 4 people never showed up! Finally I ended up getting a 1-on-1 tutorial and they even gave it to me for free. :) Super happy about that! Long story I know – sorry.

Pre-CPR training eats? Well it was a whole wheat wrap with Teddie unsalted peanut butter and a banana. And a cup of unpictured coffee. All eaten on the road I might add. I have an intense fear of driving places I don’t know and it’s worse when I have to be there at a specific time.

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After that I headed down to NuVal to meet up with Rachel and have a conference call with Annette (my old bosses) to chat with them and my thesis partner about the direction of our project. We got some really good feedback and I’m super excited about moving forward with this.

Then if you can believe it I actually had time to go home for about 2 hours and eat lunch and do homework! Lunch was a toasted sandwich thin with tomato, basil, and reduced fat cheese. I also sauteed up some asparagus with olive oil and garlic and put some lemon juice on it. I LOVE ASPARAGUS and was so excited that it was on sale this week.

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The crazy day doesn’t end there. Oh no. Then I headed off to another meeting with my thesis partner to talk to our advisor about our project and what we had discussed at NuVal. We have a lot of narrowing down to do!

It was sometime around then that I found out my dad fell off a roof he was working on (he owns his construction company – WM Builders if you are in the Hudson NY area! Not that he can do much now as you will find out). He broke his ankle……. He is going to the surgeon in the morning so I will find out more tomorrow. Oh and my cat who was sick? My vet/boss called me and said she thinks he has a tick disease. Not a healthy week for my family….

From campus I headed over to the Marriott in Newton for an educational reception. Hosted by the Massachusetts Dietetic Association along with the New England Dairy Council and Cabot Creamery, the lecture was called “How We Feed Kids.” It basically covered current research, trends and programs related to feeding children and techniques on how to prepare nutritious and appealing dishes.  The speaker talked about the National School Lunch Program and had a lot of positive things to say about it from her experience traveling to schools across the country. Well she never came to my school district. The food was appalling. And haven’t we all seen Jamie Oliver’s show? I really think that is how most schools are serving lunch. Counting french fries as a vegetable? Psh. So as of right now, from what I have personally seen, I do not hold such a high opinion about school lunches.

One thing I did like that she brought up was about serving food that meets the needs of the age group of the children. She explained how when her son first went to kindergarten he got an apple but couldn’t eat it. Why? Because he was given one big giant apple and he was used to eating it in slices. What do you expect for a 4-5 yr old, I mean come on. There were various other examples of cutting the sizes down for younger children and such.

Some food was served there. My awkward pictures look like this (I’m still trying to get used to taking pictures of food in public)

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So after being gone for 12 hours (including my 2 hour pseudo free time for lunch), driving over 100 miles within 30 minutes of my hours, using up 1/4 tank of gas in one day, and sleeping only about 4 hours each night for the past couple nights, I AM OUTTA HERE.

Really going to try to get some sleep tonight……..

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

I Think I’ve Caught the Modeling Bug

First let me start off with the fact that I had the worst insomnia last night. Despite getting up a little earlier than I did over the weekend, I still wasn’t able to fall asleep until after 5AM! Ugh! And I only had that one small cup of coffee in the morning so the caffeine should have been out of my system. That cannot happen to me tonight because I have to leave the house by 7AM for the CPR course I have to go to.

Did I mention how super busy my Wednesday is looking? I’ve got CPR course in the morning, 2 afternoon meetings, and a nutrition conference in the evening. FULL DAY! That’s not even counting homework. Geez Louise.

Anyway, back to the modeling bug, right? Well it all started simply enough. I just had a few photos taken for Raf for our anniversary. Once they were done (my sis in law took them at my brother’s studio by the way) I absolutely loved them. I think I loved them more than Raf did haha. Well during my bout of insomnia I just kept thinking about how much fun I had on the shoot and how I would love to do it more. Not that it could be a career obviously (I’m only 5’3.5”) plus my passion is nutrition. It’s just silly really. Here is my favorite photo of the bunch though:

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So despite going to bed after 5, I was up at 9 with things to do. Lots of errands and phone calls to make today. Bad news with job. I called back (it was Planet Fitness who called me) and they wanted me to interview for a spot in another location (not the one I sent my resume too) and that one would be too far especially for being part-time. So they are going to keep my resume on file in case something pops up in the closer location. We’ll see what happens……..

Breakfast was light because I knew what I wanted to make for lunch would be hearty (after Peapod was delivered because we were so out of fruit and veggies!).

DSC00905Coffee w/ Truvia (no milk before Peapod!), Homemade Bran Muffin w/ Teddie Unsalted P.B. and a drizzle of honey

 

So what is it that I was making for lunch you ask? Vegetarian Bean and Barley Soup! Except I didn’t have any barley so I substituted bulgur. Boy it sure bulked up the dish that’s for sure!

VEGETARIAN BEAN AND BARLEY SOUP

Ingredients:


1/2 onion, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
2 carrots, diced
any other vegetables desired, 1/2 cup each
2 tbsp oil or margarine (I used canola oil)
8 cups water or vegetable broth
1 cup pearled barley, uncooked (Like I said, I used bulgur instead)
1 cup pinto or white beans, pre-soaked if dry
1/3 cup tomato paste or crushed tomatoes
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp celery salt (optional)
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp oregano or Italian spice mix
1/2 tsp thyme
1 tsp onion powder (optional)
2 large bay leaves

Preparation:


In a large soup pot, sautee the onions, celery, carrots and any other vegetables for 3-5 minutes. Add vegetable broth or water and all other ingredients and bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to medium low.

Allow to simmer for at least an hour, stirring occasionally, until barley is soft and somewhat fluffy. Add more spices to taste and enjoy!

I forgot to take pictures of the process but here it is simmering on the stove.

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I actually got this recipe from about.com! Survey says – DELICIOUS! I have a ton leftover which puts a big smile on my face. For lunch, I added a side salad to up my veggie intake even more.

DSC00907DSC00909A close-up of my soup!

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Spinach, Red Bell Pepper, and Almonds

And guess what dinner was? Another bow of soup! It’s colder in the house than it is outside plus it’s so tasty. I’m planning on having a little something else but haven’t decided yet. You know me and my indecisiveness!

I would also like to point at that although it was nice out and I enjoyed walking around town for some errands, the lady at the post office was a complete witch so she totally ruined my mood.

Biggest Loser premiers tonight! I know some people don’t like how they lose weight so face but I still like the show – it’s very motivating for a lot of people!

 

Questions: Do you ever get insomnia? How do you cope? And have you ever modeled or dreamed of modeling? Do you watch Biggest Loser?