Love Of Oats

A blog dedicated to balancing a healthy and fun life… with oats!

Breakfast Makes It Better

Ehh, it was a really rough start today getting back to work after having off yesterday, but my breakfast made it better.  Today’s breakfast was inspired by all of you:  Quinoa in place of oats in my breakfast bowl!  I mixed in ground flax, chopped strawberries, sunflower seeds, cinnamon, and of course a blob of peanut butter again hehe…

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Mid-morning, I snacked on a Clif Z Bar

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For lunch, I had a nice change: tofu sammie.  This was chili pepper rubbed tofu that I made last night in a skillet with some spinach on two slices of wheat bread.

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On the side I had some cottage cheese & the last of my Girl Scout cookie 100 calorie packs.  I wasn’t a huge fan of these, which is why you are still seeing them now, although I do love that they are cinnamony!

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Mid-afternoon, I had my standard pre-workout snack, a Clif bar!  I started out eating half the bar, but it didn’t satisfy me, so I ate the rest of it :)

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For my workout o’ the day, I had planned on going for a run but it was COLD out, a nice 34 degrees with crisp winds blowing!!!   I started up with the excuses again and then I thought back to Caitlin’s post yesterday about motivation and how if you don’t want to do it, just run a shorter distance.  So I thought ok, I will run to the park and back, which equates to 1.1 miles.  Well, although I was freezing the entire time I wound up doing it three times which equates to 3.3 miles!!!!!!!!!!! I ran pretty steadily, at a snail’s pace (but it works for me!), the first two rounds with walking two times for 1 minute each time… and then for the last lap I was really chilled to the bone, so I wound up running / walking using street signs as my signals whether I should run or walk, yes I know, I come up with games to occupy myself during my run…

After my run, I decided to treat myself to Polly’s Yoga for Runners!  I felt amazing afterwards and it was just what I needed to stretch out and easy my muscles.  If you have not been to Polly’s blog, I urge you to go check it out!  Reading her blog has really helped me to dedicate time back to reading the Bible and appreciating life as well as myself both inside and out :)

Dinner was nice ‘n easy, but it was delayed.  Bill is off for the next couple days (he didn’t get to take off last week when I did) so he was bombarded at work and put in a 12 hour day ~ yikes.  So I made sure that I had one of his favorite dinners waiting for him when he got home… jerk chicken, roasted red potatoes (I had cinnamon sweet potatoes), corn (I’ve been craving corn!  Can’t wait to get my hands on Jersey corn this summer!) and I did make a side salad, but was too full to eat it!

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I’ve gotten comments on how I make my jerk chicken and I must say it’s quite easy :)   When Bill and I went to Jamaica we STOCKED up on jerk sauce (and it’s HFCS-free!) so I just marinate chicken in the jerk sauce all day in the fridge, take it out and bake it.  Simple and so good!

Now I’m getting ready to settle in with Bill and watch the 2nd half of The Biggest Loser while flipping to the Phillies game off and on, sorry I think Biggest Loser takes precedence haha… I love the Phillies but Biggest Loser is just a tad better, especially considering our Phils are losing :/

Tomorrow’s is another Phillies Game Day (World Series Ring Ceremony game too!) that Bill and I are going to… can’t wait!

Cheating

Before I get today, I had a little snack session last night while watching Biggest Loser… First I snacked on some Puffins because I was truly hungry… and then Bill brought out his dried fruit trail mix (Archer Farms) and I definitely picked out a substantial amount of raisins and dried bananas… I was not hungry in the slightest and felt really full afterwards! 

Then, perhaps from the sugar, while watching Biggest Loser I fell asleep during the last 15 minutes and so did Bill!  I was so mad this morning when I woke up and realized it!  Luckily, thanks to google I was able to find out who was voted off.  Who is your favorite contestant?  Mine is Kristen.  I just love her, I think she is such a nice, all-around girl and has a great approach to life in general.  The mud-wrestling contest last night was hysterical!  I think my 2nd favorite is Filipe ~ he’s hysterical and I love how he has fun with everything!

I was sad this morning after eating breakfast because I used up the last of my yummy strawberries; however, it was a really delicious bowl so I can’t complain too much!  As you may have guessed, I switched back to oatmeal this morning!  I think oatbran & oatmeal are basically tied as favorites in my eyes.  This bowl included:

  • 1/2 c oats
  • cinnamon
  • 1 T blueberry flax
  • 1/2 a sliced banana (cooked with oats)
  • chopped strawberries
  • chopped pecans

Can we say decadent?!

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Mid-morning, it was time for a Gala apple & PB2.  I realized everyday since last Wednesday, I have consumed one of these apples.  I know this because I bought a big bag of them when I went food shopping and it’s almost all gone.  Luckily, I’ve been able to brave off the sickness that is going around my office and I’m wondering if it’s because of my apple each day… “An apple a day keeps the doctor away…” hehe…

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Sadly, my snack didn’t fill me up AT ALL like the other day.  I was starving an hour after eating it and wound up eating my lunch as soon as my morning meetings ended at 12pm.  I was excited about the lunch I had packed though :)

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I started with a big salad filled with spring mix, cannelini beans, carrots, salmon, pepper, and my mustard vinagrette.  It was SO flavorful!

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Then I had a slight repeat of yesterday and had a slice of Arnold’s ww bread with my homemade hummus.

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And to top it all off, cottage cheese with chili powder sprinkled on top.  I never tried this before since I almost always put cinnamon on top, but I liked the spicy change!

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My lunch held me over for only 2.5 hrs and I started to get ravenous.  I feel like I’m getting hungrier and hungrier as the week goes on… Maybe it’s a sign that I should be eating more since I’m not eating “crap”?  I wound up just snacking on my homemade banana nut bread Larabar.  I think tomorrow I’m going to bring two of  them and see if that helps.

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I am planning on skipping the gym today since it’s been a while since I had a rest day, plus I have a meeting that will run late, and I need to go grocery shopping after work.  I think before I go, I might run in the house and grab a quick snack to tide me over to dinner, since I have to pass our house anyway en route… I’ll post it tonight with dinner :)  

Oh and I know when I posted about Crap-Free Week I made a committment of doing 30 minutes of activity everyday, but today I need a break, so I’m counting my hour or so that I’ll spend buying groceries, loading them in & out of my car, and unpacking them as my 30 minutes of activity.  I hope that’s not cheating.  I also plan on doing some light stretching since my muscles are sore from all the cardio I’ve been doing!

PS.  LOVE all the great comments I received regarding today’s Love Yourself topic:  Body Image!!!!!!!!  You guys are my inspiration :)