Chocolate chip crap

I’m baaaack! With Internet service and all! This weekend was my father’s birthday so it included things like- a very large grilled steak, cheese burgers, fries, margaritas, wine, “dirt pie”, and drinking a whole bottle of Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka- oh and moonshine- that’s right folks- that’s how we do it in the south.

My mother gave me a copy of one of her vegetarian magazines- full of awesome recipes that I can’t wait to try. I attempted one last night- a “healthy” chocolate chip cookie. What a bunch of crap that thing turned out to be.

Ingredients:

• Milk
• Canola oil
• Brown sugar
• Wheat flour
• Chocolate chips
• 1 egg

The picture would lead me to believe the cookies will look like this:

In actuality they look like this:

And they taste NOTHING like the warm, gooey, loadedwithdelicious Nestle Tollhouse cookies- more like wheat bread with some chocolate in it. Don’t get me wrong- I still ate them. But still. What a let down.

Today's Eats:

• bfast- 2 egg whites, ww arnold thins, 1/2 slice cheese
• Green Monster: 1 banana, spinach, almond milk, strawberries, flax seed
• snack #1- greek yogurt with Kashi granola
• Lunch- Turkey sandwhich with mayo, tom, lettuce and 1/2 bag BBQ baked chips
• snack #2- carrots and hummus
• Dinner- Tomato soup with 1 slice cheese 
• spinach salad with balsamic, pine nuts, and craisins
• Fruit/Veggie count- 6

** I'm reading the Vegetarian magazine and say to my boyfriend "I really want to be a vegetarian." Boyfriend is visibly upset and says "please no. I don't want us to never have meat for dinner- that is just too hard."

I guess I shouldn't tell him that we haven't bought or cooked meat for about 3 weeks now. (not counting fish)

Brace yourself!

One year ago today I went from this:



(brace face)
to this:

(all smiles)

Getting braces was something that I've wanted since the "permanents" grew in. being an adult with braces SUCKED big time and was incredibly embarrassing sitting in the orthodontist's waiting room with a bunch of elementary school kids.
But in the end it was totally worth it. I am so happy with my smile.

Today is also baby girl's 4th birthday.

I LOVE veggies - no for real - I do!

So I am totally into The Secret and believing thoughts become things. I told Abbie that I am just going to keep saying out loud, to myself, and to the blog world that I LOVE ME SOME VEGGIES! Then perhaps it will just magically happen and I will actually love them. (does it work that way?)

Like- don't these just look yummy as hell?

source

Or these? I mean- I can eat these the live long day

source

And These:

Source

Shoot- how did those get in there? Man... Zebra cakes sure are loaded. I could totally eat a whole box in a day.

Will it ever be easy to just always make the healthy choice- or at least make the healthy choice 80% of the time?

I ended up missing the gym yesterday too- which kind of bums me out. I did however, manage to pass up an invitation to Chilis for dinner. And for anyone that knows me- that is a HUGE deal. I LOVE Chilis more than Michael Scott (any Office fans out there?). You just can't go wrong with anything on their menu - unless of course you are trying to be healthy. ha.

 Today's eats-

• Bfast- 2 eggs, little bit of cheese, WW Arnold thins
• Snack #1- POM with handful of cashews
• Lunch- left over veggie WW thin crust pizza
• Snack #2- banana bread Larabar
• Dinner-
• Fruit/Veggie count: 

Eat Cocoa Krispies to boost your immunity!

Feel like you are getting a cold? Feeling run down and tired? Well give your body the Immunity Boost it needs with a heaping bowl of Cocoa Krispies!

Source

I had a good laugh this morning watching the Today Show. They did a segment questioning Kellog’s claims that its Cocoa Krispies cereal can boost your immune system. Even a health idiot like myself knows that this can’t be good for your kid. I cannot see any parent pushing their cart full of brats down the cereal aisle and picking up a box of CHOCOLATE covered cereal for its health benefits!  Pretty funny they had to waste 2 minutes talking about it on TV.

Moving on… Today felt so incredibly LONG. My new schedule is killing me- work, walk dog, workout, make dinner. I don’t sit down until 8:30/9:00 at night! Life was so much easier when I stopped caring about working out. Ha.

Ok so here are today’s eats:

• Bfast- 2 eggs with WW Arnold thins
• Snack #1- Green Monster
• Lunch- turkey wrap with avocado, lettuce, tomatoes (no cheese or mayo)
• Snack #2- apple
• Dinner- spinach salad with vingar and cherry tomatoes
• Homemade pizza- thin WW pizza crust with organic sauce, cheese, red, green and red peppers and mushrooms (very good!)

My Slice

• Fruit/Veggie count: 5
• Workout- 45 minutes of cardio

** just a side note on the pizza- I would be out of my mind to say that this pizza was as good or better than my favorite pepperoni and cheese Hungry Howies pizza- but in all honesty it wasn't THAT bad. Definitely something I could get use to.

Weekend Celebration

Weekend Recap

·         Saturday – Florida played Georgia- needed to celebrate with 6 Bud Select 55.

• ·         Saturday- Florida BEATS Georgia- celebrated even more with 6 more Bud Select 55 (alcohol content on these is 2.4% a regular beer is 4%- just an FYI)

• ·         Sunday – was a beautiful day that needed to be celebrated-  I found this perfect location on the water- where we enjoyed mojitos and bruschetta- LOADED.

• ·         Sunday afternoon- Around 4pm we decided that we wanted to paint our guest/yoga/meditation/office- something I’ve been DYING to do since we’ve moved in. We were ½ way complete and decided to celebrate with a bottle of wine.
• ·         Sunday night- wine was so delicious that we decided to celebrate with POM blueberry and vodka

All of this celebration leads me to this awesome hangover I am working through today.

Sorry I was a bad blogger again and didn’t take pics of any of the weekend eats. This week we will finally have the Internet at our place and it’ll make it so much easier to blog.

I won’t lie- today has been rough. Just can’t bounce back like I use to. Fortunately I have resisted all urges to run to BK for a bacon double cheeseburger with fries…. Let’s hope I hold out.

I’ve been nursing this hangover with lots of carbs today. Today’s Eats-

• ·         Bfast- 2 eggs with Arnold thin and coffee
• ·         Snack#1- 1 WWpita with cream cheese (all I wanted was bread and cheese)
• ·         Snack #1.5- Green Monster

• ·         Lunch- ½ sub from this weekend- wheat, turkey, cuke, let, tom, pickels (no cheese or mayo)
• ·         Snack #2- granola
• ·         Dinner- Scallops with zucchini and wwpasta- sooooo good!

Fruit/Veggie Count: 4

Workout- 45 cardio
Ok- no more celebrating... starting.... NOW!

Trick or Treat!

This morning I was thinking about how when I was little everyone would wear their costumes to school on Halloween and I always had a fear while approaching the bus stop that I would be the only person in the whole school to come dressed up and would look like a complete idiot. 

Anybody else have this anxiety? ha.

Halloweens of the past:

Now back to the subject of Electrolytes…

The major electrolytes for your body are:

·         sodium (Na+)

·         potassium (K+)

·         chloride (Cl-)

·         calcium (Ca2+)

·         magnesium (Mg2+)

·         bicarbonate (HCO3-)

·         phosphate (PO42-)

·         sulfate (SO42-)

You lose electrolytes when you sweat after an intense workout- particularly sodium and potassium. Those electrolytes must be replaced to keep the electrolyte concentrations of your body fluids constant. (source) 

So then I Googled coconut water apparently coconut water replenishes electrolytes and has been deemed “nature’s Gatorade.”  Funny thing – every single article I came across said the same things using the exact same verbiage- which makes me believe that one company (that produces coconut water I would assume) did a study and created a press release that was published in multiple publications. As opposed to many studies being conducted showing that coconut water is beneficial. I’m going to continue to do more research on this.

Today’s eats-

• Bfast- gluten free waffles with coffee (and whipped cream- I couldn’t resist)
• Snack- Larabar
• Lunch- oats, almond milk, 1 apple, 1 spoon brown sugar, walnuts
• Dinner- organic chilli beans, cheese, couple of crackers, glass of red

Fruit/Veggie- 1 sad lonely fruit. I need my green monsters again!

Prayers Needed

Today I found out that my oldest childhood friends suffered a stroke yesterday. Hannah is only 26 years old and has two children- 8 and 5 years old. She recently pass the bar exam and was hired a week later. Unfortunately she didn’t work in time to receive health insurance. Right now she is in ICU. I don't have much more information. I would just like to ask for anyone reading this to please say a prayer for her and her family.