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Monday Musings

After a weekend of indulgent, delicious dinners and more than one cupcake taste, it felt wonderful to enjoy some whole, natural foods today. I packed my breakfast and lunch today which meant I was able to enjoy healthy food without much thought or temptation at the office.

Breakfast was a bowl of banana oats topped with chia seeds.

002 Lunch was a homemade spinach salad and a bowl of soup. While my mom and I made last night’s salad I grabbed a Tupperware and made my lunch salad at the same time with the leftover ingredients. Today’s salad contained baby spinach, cherry tomatoes, walnuts, 1/4 cup blue cheese, and Whole Food’s all natural honey mustard dressing. I loved the fresh addition of walnuts and baby spinach.

001 002 The soup was definitely not a winner. This very photogenic soup was my last can of Healthy Choice vegetable soup I bought on sale a few weeks ago.  Luckily, I ordered a case of Progresso Light soups from Amazon tonight. I realized a few weeks ago that my soup habit, while healthy and filling, cost at least $4 per day and didn’t allow me to control the sodium content. Therefore, ordering a case of soup from Amazon is far less expensive and healthier!

My afternoon snack was a yogurt bowl, which has quickly become a daily staple. Over 20 grams of protein, a serving of fruit, and lots of crunch keep me full for at least 3 hours.

003 Dinner on the other hand was a bit more random due to this evening’s Junior League meeting. I didn’t eat the yogurt bowl until 4:30 which meant that at 7:30 I still wasn’t very hungry. I had a dish of crunchy vegetables, hummus, and some cheese cubes while we discussed the month’s agenda.

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During my cab ride home tonight, while brainstorming my post, I came up with some Monday Musings.

  • After reading Theodora’s post about her session with a stylist, I realized that I couldn’t stand the shirt I wore to work today. Therefore, it immediately went in my donate pile this evening.

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  • In case you’ve never taken advantage of Origin’s free mini facials, they are the perfect treat for you and a friend, or parent! Last night my mom, dad, and I stopped by the Flatiron Origins and enjoyed being pampered by Augustine. While we both left with new skin care regimens, no purchase is necessary to enjoy this relaxing treat.
    • This product works better than you’d ever imagine! For $11.00 everyone deserves one of these for their desk drawer or bedside table.
    • Each week, I’ve tried to cleanse and purge a different part of my life. Last week my focus was my daily food through a one day cleanse and cleaner eating. This week, my goal is to clean under my bed and get rid of anything I don’t need or use. I tend to get lots of beauty samples through my job but never use everything. It’s time to get rid of clutter and excess products.
    • This weekend’s weather reminded me how much I love my Hunter Boots. While the $125 price point is hard to stomach, they’ve shown up on RueLala and Gilt before. If you already have a pair of Hunter Boots, or something similar, upgrade them for winter $30 with a fun bright liner sock!
    • One of my favorite Valentine’s Day traditions is buying a 6 or 8 pack of Hallmark cards and sending a random note to my college girlfriends. While we don’t talk weekly or even monthly at this point, it’s still a nice way to remind them how important they are. In addition, a random note brightens anyone’s day!

Do you send Valentine’s Day cards?

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ashleyd /

A Quarter of the Way There

Happy Thursday! Are you guys ready for the weekend?

Bo and I feel like we’ve been going non-stop since December 10th when we hosted our first of two holiday parties. Since then we’ve flown over 4,000 miles, spent time with our families in Savannah, celebrated New Years in Cozumel, and started 2012 with a busy work week. This has left no time for relaxation, breathing, or even collecting our thoughts. This weekend’s agenda is short and sweet, leaving plenty of time for relaxing.

  • Take down Christmas decorations and put them down in storage unit
  • Unpack
  • Run the Joe Kleinerman 10k

Like I said, short and sweet!

Even though it’s been a busy week, I’m proud to say that thus far I’ve stuck to my plan 100% so far! While I know we’re only five days into 2012, rumor has it that it takes 21 days to start a habit. Therefore, I’m quarter of the way there! 

Today was a great test in my recommitment to Weight Watchers and tracking everything I eat.

Instead of enjoying my planned soup and salad for lunch this afternoon, five of us went out for a girl’s lunch to wish one of our co-workers farewell as she begins a new chapter in her career. I wouldn’t have missed this opportunity but going to a Rain Thai restaurant for lunch didn’t allow for many healthy options. Their menu was limited to 12 or so different lunch options, of which more than 8 were deemed spicy.  (source)

In the end, I ordered pad thai chicken.  An old favorite of mine, I haven’t had it in ages and forgot how much I love it and how difficult it is to stop at just a few bites. (source)

Thirty minutes and lots of laughter later, I realized my bowl sat before me, empty. At the same moment, I realized my stomach hurt terribly. Instead of getting frustrated for over eating and indulging, I went back to the office, opened my Weight Watchers tracker, and tracked restaurant pad thai into my tracker.

imageWhile I didn’t eat lunch at Noodles & Company, this option seemed to be the most similar and realistic to what I ate.  The points were a bit shocking but instead of getting frustrated or discouraged, I decided to use this as a test and practice listening to my body. Since I had used up all my points for the day, and would have to use Weekly Allowance points, I vowed not to eat again until I was truly hungry.

Tonight at 8pm, my stomach finally growled. If I wasn’t focused on listening to my body I would have eaten around 6:30 or 7 tonight since I was out of work early. Since I had such a heavy lunch I was craving a big salad. I’m rocking the homemade dinner resolution this week!

Remember Tuesday night’s pork chops? They were the perfect salad topping tonight!

001I topped the last bit of my bagged lettuce with cherry tomatoes, onions, leftover green beans, cherry tomatoes, and sliced pork chop with Annie’s Naturals dressing for a delicious dinner!

As promised, below is today’s Weight Watcher food journal for your reference.

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Winter Beach Walk on Tybee Island

Editor’s Note: If you participated in the Home for the Holidays Virtual 10K don’t forget to submit your times here and email me your pictures as we will be choosing winners by December 31st! Also, check out the photo album here! 

Yesterday was a wonderful recovery day in every sense of the word. We slept in until our bodies woke us up, we were in no hurry, and spent the day enjoying a lazy morning, long walk on the beach, a movie, and finally a homemade dinner!

Breakfast

I wanted something healthy and filling to start the day and there is nothing more simple than fruit and oats! My mom and I had to buy these fresh strawberries as soon as we saw them at Publix! They were on sale and delicious! I miss produce like this when I’m in New York!

001 Lunch

After helping Bo set up my dad’s new computer and sorting through our scuba gear, I was ready for lunch!

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My mom and I used what she had in the fridge to make a Greek salad and enjoyed a new favorite crackers, Wheat Thin Garden Veggie.

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After lunch I headed to the beach with my parents for a long walk. The weather was beautiful, around 60 degrees, and the sun was shining! We didn’t expect to have 20 mph winds blowing against us but luckily we all bundled up enough so that we weren’t miserable. This was the furthest my dad had “power walked” and I’m so proud of him! He kept up with us the entire time and even ran a few minutes with me towards the end!

It wouldn’t be an outing with my parents without some hilarious photo shoot fun.

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054 057 058 060 After our walk we saw Mission Impossible with Bo. The movie was better than I expected and the best of the Mission Impossible movies that I’ve seen but I still really want to see Girl with A Dragon Tattoo and New Year’s Eve!

Dinner

Last night, we prepared pork tenderloin two ways: simply spiced and brined and bacon wrapped brined.

We brined both the tenderloins in a salt water/vinegar mixture with some Williams and Sonoma Argentinean spice rub for four hours before grilling them. Our sides were orzo, apple sauce, and roasted root vegetables.

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Wow, I forgot how much I love grilled meat! Unfortunately, we can’t have a grill in our New York City apartment and therefore are limited to cast iron cooking which isn’t quite as easy as a gas grill.

Question: If you’ve been to New York City, what was your favorite sight, restaurant, or bar? My parents are coming in January for the fifth time and it’s hard to think of new things to see and do.

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