Neverending Days

Can I just say that these past two days have felt like an eternity? I feel completely wiped out and it’s on Wednesday night :(

Let’s rewind.

It was cold yesterday so I felt tomato soup and grilled cheese was an appropriate lunch.  I even took the easy way out with my grilled cheese and just toasted the sandwich thin first then put it in the microwave with a slice of cheese haha.

Later I had class for Nutritional Epidemiology.  It’s probably the hardest class in all of grad school but at least it brings up interesting articles to read.  Our current discussions revolve around sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictor values.  Basically, how often is a screening tool giving true positive and true negative results and what’s the likelihood a result being positive.  In one of the articles for class, BMI was tested on adolescent boys and girls.  Turns out that it’s a pretty accurate measure for boys but not for girls.  Overweight (higher body fat) girls were being misclassified as normal weight.

Snackage during class went unphotographed but consisted of a Chobani Champions Verry Berry, some multigrain cheerios, a clementine, and red bell pepper strips. Weird mixture?

When I got home later that night I gobbled down a black bean/quinoa burger with guac and a bowl of butternut squash soup. Must have been a soupy day I guess!

Today was another long day that started out with a tasty breakfast. Did you know it’s National Almond Day? I celebrated with some almond butter on a sandwich thin with a banana. On the side I had a honey-nana Chobani Champion.

After Peapod was delivered, I couldn’t resist making a green monster with my last banana. Guess I’ll have to go to TJ’s again for those 19 cent darlings!

In the mix:

• 1 banana
• 4 large strawberries
• 2 handfuls spinach
• 1 scoop protein powder
• 1 cup skim milk

This afternoon I worked on a super secret mission with my thesis partner, Debi. I’ll give you two hints: it doesn’t involve thesis but it does involve youtube ;) I’ll keep you posted on what’s to come of it!

Afternoon snackage: BlueBran Vitatop, clementine, red bell pepper, Carrot Cake Larabar. I enjoyed this flavor of Larabar but wouldn’t consider it one of my favorites. The Blueberry Muffin was definitely better. Still 3 more to try though!

Tonight I had my Health Care class. I almost fell asleep that’s how stimulating the lecture is hehe.

Not that I’m counting but only 11 more weeks of school. Uh yeah.

And yes I’m still doing the P90X program. In the middle of week 4 right now!

Goodnight. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.

Valentine’s Weekend 2011

Happy Valentine’s Day! I know a lot of people are cynical about this day but I love love so it makes me a happy girl :)

I won’t recap everything because I haven’t posted since Thursday and that is a lot of food to cover! But I will show you this delicious, albeit not pretty looking, quesadilla I made on Friday. I took some leftover chicken, broccoli, black beans and mixed it with diced tomato, onion and garlic. Put it in one of my Trader Joe’s whole grain tortillas with some cheese and slapped it into the George Foreman. I forgot to spray the grill though so it got stuck – hence the ugliness. On the side – some fresh guac. OH YEAH!

And for dessert, a much more visually appealing dish of grapes and clementine in natural light.

So for Valentine’s, Raf and I celebrated early by going to the Cheesecake Factory on Saturday night. We hadn’t been there in at least 2 years and I just really wanted to go! Lucky for me, they now have “small plates” selections so I was able to save room for dessert by picking lighter choices for my meal :) But really there is always room for dessert! Sorry for the horrible quality of photos!

Yes I dug into the bread right away. We had a 45 minute wait (they don’t take reservations!) so I was starving by the time we got in. The 45 minutes was fun though since we perused Barnes and Noble during that time.

My “small plates” of Beets and Arugula salad and a Margherita Pizzette. I finished almost everything but a couple bites of the pizzette.

Chocolate Coconut Cream Cheesecake. It has a chocolate macaroon crust with coconut cheesecake and coconut custard on top. It was super rich so I ate half at the restaurant and the other half later that night ;)

We also went to see “Just Go With It” last night which was much better than I thought! It got bad reviews (which I don’t usually pay attention to) but I laughed a lot and was pleased with the ending.  Plus I just love that girl, Bailee Madison. She did an amazing job in the movie “Brothers” and is just a great beginning actress!

Now it’s back to school stuff. We are out of milk (!) so I resorted to throwing together a different kind of breakfast before heading to campus.

Banana w/ almond butter, Chobani Champion Verry Berry, and a BlueBran Vitatop!

I attended a lecture at Harvard School of Public Health this afternoon discussing the reversal of atherosclerosis with dietary intervention. Very interesting talk! Some of their research alluded to the benefits regardless of weight which I thought was great.  They discovered some beneficial effects on certain biomarkers, like HDL and adiponectin, that continued to improve even if the person regained some of the weight that was previously loss. Hopefully more research will be done to improve upon these results.

Then it was off to Boston Latin School to hand out healthy afternoon snacks. We made trail mix to hand out to kids on their way out :)

Lots of dried fruit and grains. We even got fresh blueberries! Most of what we handed out were bags we put together ourselves but we set up the table for kids to make their own if they wanted. It was a whirlwind but lots of fun as usual.

Time to hit the books now! Hope you are enjoying your day <3

Spontaneous Baking!

I woke up this morning with one thing in mind – Green Monster. Even Misty wanted one!

In the mix:

• 1 banana
• 2 large handfuls spinach
• 6 strawberries
• 1 scoop protein powder
• 1 tbsp almond butter
• 1 cup skim milk

So while sipping away, I was perusing blogs and saw that Holly posted a Double Strawberry Muffin recipe which sounded delicious! Lucky for me, we just got strawberries yesterday which were on sale. I immediately had to make them. And so I did. Who cares about putting off homework when there is baking to do! teehee.

The batter was a little thick so I ended up putting a bit of water in when it was time to mix in the strawberries. Turned out beautifully though.

I also had errands to run (read – had to go to CVS and the post office) so I bundled up for the walk. It’s just under a mile to get there but boy was it cold and windy! I wasn’t expecting it really. But I survived and returned with new face wash and moisturizer :)

I was starving upon my return which lead to a bowl of butternut squash soup (I used a lot of my TJ’s stuff today!) and a heated up black bean burger with some avocado and ketchup. I ended up obliterating my burger so it would heat up faster!

My CSN order also came in today! I was the lucky winner of $35 from Anna’s giveaway.  I had been wanting to get a mandolin for months now but I fell in love with this apron as soon as I saw it. Isn’t it cute!

And my last magnificent eat of the day: Walnut crusted chicken, baked potato with black beans and CHO, and broccoli. Awesome dinner! Super easy to make and delicious. Can’t get any better than that.

Now Misty is being super snuggly and trying to get on my lap/push the laptop away from me. Persistent much? Goodnight all!

First time at Trader Joes

Well I did it folks, I finally made my way over to Trader Joes today.  I figured out that the closest one is 1.2 miles away from campus so I decided to walk over between meetings and class.  It was sad that I could only buy what I could carry back :( Plus I didn’t want to spend that much money either. I walked out $30 poorer with these items in hand -

The bananas were 19 cents each! I haven’t had any in a couple weeks and was craving them so I got the biggest yellowest bunch I could. I also snagged some almond butter, butternut squash soup, tomato soup, some protein powder, and unpictured container of Laughing Cow garlic and herb cheese wedges.  Oh yeah I almost forgot the whole grain tortillas too. I put those items in the fridge already.  I could probably go nuts in that store if I had an unlimited supply of money and people to carry my bags :)

Besides that I was also excited to start using my Chobani Champions lunchbox. I’m such a little kid sometimes.

Yesterday’s at school snacks: Multigrain Cheerios, Verry Berry CHOB, and grapes in the grape container. duh.

Now this was hard to stuff everything in. We’ve got tuna salad in the top middle with Wasa rye crackers next to it. Then the other little container is hummus for the veggies hiding in the red container underneath the strawberries and the Verry Berry.

And for breakfast I had my long lost love – oatmeal!

We had no fresh fruit at that time though so I succumbed to raisins. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.

Oh and remember those Larabars I was so excited to receive? Well I tried the blueberry muffin today! It seemed a lot softer and squishier (bad choice of word?) than the other ones but the taste was delightful.  Definitely a keeper in my books.

Looking back now at this post, I’m just like “Wow I’m all of the place” but hey maybe at least it’s a little interesting.

I’ll leave you with the best news ever. I’m finished with my internship applications! I just have to submit them now! I’m so so so happy but anxious now for the decision date – April 3rd. It’s going to be a long couple of weeks!

More Goodies – This Time Larabar!

I received another batch of goodies for review over the weekend.  The folks at Larabar kindly sent me a package for review.

Blueberry Muffin, Cherry Pie, Chocolate Coconut Chew, Carrot Cake, and Key Lime Pie!

And they came in this cute little bag :)

I’m super excited to try these because the only flavor I’ve had out of these 5 is the Cherry Pie. I don’t go through bars very fast though so you’ll see them sporadically appear when I try them.

As for the rest of the weekend, the only thing I really have to say is that I wish I played pool more! Billiards is so much fun! We went out Saturday night for a friend’s birthday and even though I’m not very good, it’s always a good time.

Today was back to the grind but I did oversleep. That tends to happen on Mondays when I have to adjust from my weekend to week schedule. I threw back a bowl of multigrain cheerios before getting to work. No pic though – I was a girl on a mission!

This is not my favorite book.

Lunch: Black Bean burger on toast with spinach and a laughing cow cheese wedge. Cantaloupe for dessert.

I ended up cutting out the second piece of toast because I wasn’t really feeling it.

I also had a fun snack plate a couple hours later – Chobani Champions, grapes, and half a pumpkin chia muffin with Teddie unsalted peanut butter

Over the weekend I wanted to use my last can of pumpkin I had left and I’ve got a bunch of chia seeds so I made heart shaped Pumpkin Chia Muffins

The heart shapes didn’t turn out that great though :(

Question of the day:

Any favorite Larabar flavor? Or what is your favorite bar of any kind?!

I’m a Snow Bunny?

Thank you all so much for you well wishes while I was sick! I’m feeling 100% better! Unfortunately, I hear that many of my family members who also got sick are STILL sick! So hopefully they all get better soon too.

Yesterday I actually had to venture out of the house for the first time this week so it felt appropriate to dress shall I say like a “snow bunny” or an “eskimo”. Either way I felt like I matched well with the outside weather.

I also started off with a fantastic breakfast that I don’t usual have – cold cereal! I decided to bust into my new package of multigrain cheerios and added some strawberries since they were almost bad and actually the last fruit left in the house.

Our lack of food since Peapod didn’t deliver is really getting annoying. Luckily I had some things to make black bean burgers. Really just mashed up black beans with some quinoa and spices. But there was no bread or anything so I did what the best of us would do – ate it with some condiments.

Ketchup and Mustard to be exact.

Did I mention that I’m going to be tutoring for a class this semester? Well if anybody signs up, I’m the tutor for Management of Food Service Systems. I only bring it up because I had a meeting to finalize things yesterday. We also had a Nutrition Liaison meeting and I have some great updates! We’ve got some fun things planned including a panel of current dietetic interns, having some RD’s come and speak, and a 5k run/walk! And that’s not even including our ideas for National Nutrition Month. REMINDER!- NATIONAL NUTRITION MONTH IS MARCH! It’s coming up fast and we’ve got to finalize some things.  The liaison will be bringing to the Simmons campus information about sports nutrition, portion control, fiber, salt, and sugar, quick and easy foods for college students, and more! Stay tuned ;)

Now I know you all want to see the loot I got from Chobani, right? Yeah it’s awesome. They sent me 2 of their new flavors to try: 0% Lemon and 2% Mango, along with a couple packages of their Chobani Champions: Honey-nana and Verry-Berry flavors.

And look what else?! Chobani Champions lunchboxes! I got two and plan on giving one to my 3 year old nephew.

So far I tried the Lemon, which actually wasn’t as great as I was expecting. It looked like the lemon curdled the milk. Sorry Chobani, not my fave. But today I tried the Honey-nana and LOVED it! They’re not just for kiddos ya know, hehe :) I’ll let you know when I try the other flavors.

Dinner was from the freezer. Seriously we have no food left. Ravioli and meatballs. Sorry for the horrible quality pics!

Alright this post is getting long. I’ve been eating the same things so far today as yesterday because Peapod didn’t deliver this morning like they said they were going to! We have to yell at them again now. Oh and I finally returned to my P90X routine since being sick. YEAH KENPO X!

Happy Friday!

Who will you be cheering for at the Superbowl on Sunday? I don’t even know if I’ll watch since neither the Jets (my team) nor the Patriots (Raf’s team) are playing……..

Snow Days and Sickness

Just wanted to post quick and let you all know that I’m still alive…..sorta.

As many of you know, there was a ridiculous snow storm blowing through the midwest region to the northeast so I ended up have a snow day both yesterday and today. I’m still not sure how I’m going to get my car out for tomorrow, and we are supposed to get more snow on Saturday. ENOUGH ALREADY!

I haven’t even gotten to enjoy my snow days though because yesterday I spent 2 hours shoveling (it didn’t help, more snow came) and then later that evening I came down with a bug. You know eggplant parm tastes a whole lot better going down than coming back up, that’s all I gotta say.  Apparently about half the people who were at my great-grandmother’s birthday party are now sick. No bueno.

So I have no exciting pictures but I did receive a lovely package from Chobani today (review later this week) and the multigrain cheerios I won from Jamie. That’s about all that has made my day really.

Hope ya’ll are having better days than me! Here’s to a better end to the week :)