December has arrived! How amazing is that?! I LOVE that it’s December already, although I hope the season doesn’t fly away from us as quickly as it arrived.

I started out the day with a very festive bowl of oats – probably my most festive yet: cranberry-granola oats. For this flavorful bowl, I used:

-1/2 cup old fashioned oats
-1 tbsp cinnamon
-1 tbsp vanilla extract
-water (eyeballed it)

Cooked for 2 minutes in the microwave and gave it a good stir. Then, I topped it with:

-1 tbsp of ground flax
-2 tbsp homemade maple pecan granola
-2 tbsp almonds
-2 heaping spoonfuls of homemade cranberry sauce

I really enjoyed this bowl – the tartness from the cranberries combined well with the sweetness from the granola. Not only was it delicious, but it filled me up for FOUR hours (from 5:45am until 9:45am!). Amazing staying power, I must say!

Mid-morning (around 10am), I snacked on a peach yogurt w/ half a cup of fiber one.

Delish as usual, but didn’t really fill me up, so I wound up digging into lunch at 12pm.

My lunch consisted of the usual suspect: whole wheat english muffin topped with chunky peanut butter and pumpkin alongside some new sides: a ginormous apple and crunchy pretzels.

I guess my lack of hunger yesterday explains why I’ve been starving today. I was planning on just having half a Clif bar prior to my workout tonight, but my co-worker brought in some leftover collard greens for me to try, so I dug right into them around 2:30pm. He is from the “south” and told me that the kind they serve here in BBQ places are NOTHING like the ones he makes – he was RIGHT ON.  They were delish!

After work, I headed to the gym and finally snacked on half of this bar.

I did lower body strength training, some quick abs, and then headed off to 5:30 spin class. I got a great workout in (burning over 400 calories), probably because I felt like I ate well today and didn’t load myself down with junk (like I had the last few days!).

Dinner was MORE pizza. It is the never ending pizza, at least it is delicious and not too heavy I had two slices of tomato pie with an amazing side salad, that included celery, carrots, cucumbers, and lettuce, that Bill made for us. Yummo! It was even more enjoyable because I didn’t have to cook tonight

Up-close pics:

Now I’m getting all settled in to relax and watch Heroes, but currently we’re watching Little People Big World – one of my favorite TLC shows. Bill still isn’t feeling well so I just made us some decaf tea and I am eating half of a Kashi TLC Pumpkin Spice Flax bar – totally love this flavor.

Have a great night blogland!