Love Of Oats

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

Tag Archives: english muffin

Three Days Til Ho Ho Ho

Can you believe less than three days until we hear Santa say ho ho ho ?!?! It’s amazing how time has been flying by, I just really didn’t want this season to go by so fast!

I started off today with something different: pb&j… it’s been a while since I had my beloved peanut butter & strawberry preserves on a toasted english muffin, so I took full advantage of that and had it for breakfast alongside an orange!

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This breakfast kept me full for a while, but mid-morning I couldnt resist reaching into my lunchbag and enjoying this Apple Pie Larabar… I was at CVS over the weekend and took full advantage of their Larabar selection – sadly, this is the ONLY place I can find Larabars – weird, isn’t it – and they only have PB cookie and Apple Pie, so I stocked up a little bit hehe… luckily, both of those flavors are my top faves!

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Shockingly, I didn’t eat lunch until 1pm, I just wasn’t hungry! But I am glad I waited to enjoy it when I did get hungry… I had tuna mixed with olive oil mayo on top of a leftover ww hot dog roll (leftover from Bill) with a slice of American cheese… On the side I had an apple and some whole grain Goldfish… it’s been a while since I had these guys, but I found the bag yesterday when I was cleaning out our pantry!

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Work definitely did NOT fly by… People have started taking off for the holiday so it’s been really quiet! I wish I was one of those people who took off today!

Around 3:30 I had half of this Kashi Pumpkin Spice Flax crunchy granola bar and then right before I headed into the gym at 5, I had the other half to give me a “boost” prior to my 5:30pm spin class…

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Spinning was great – nice ‘n sweaty! I feel like I always say that but it’s SO TRUE. Plus it’s fun because one of my good friends takes it with me every Monday & Saturday… Depending on who is teaching it on Wednesday, this may have been my last spin class until after Christmas… I hope not though… it always bums me out when they have a crappy teacher teaching on the holidays… it’s either usually a REALLY GREAT teacher OR a REALLY AWFUL teacher… i’d be fine w/ someone who was in between but noooo :) Sadly, the people at the front desk of the gym wouldn’t tell me who was teaching so I’m just going to have to see who it is in person on Wednesday!

It took me FOREVER to get home from the gym… my gym is located right across the street from a big mall (= massive Christmas shoppers) so the intersection was backed up which means I saw the traffic light go from green to yellow to red THREE times – lovely!

Dinner was a random creation partly inspired by a recipe I used to make a while back right when Bill first moved into his condo and we would make dinner together on Saturday nights… I used cream of chicken soup, a package and a half of frozen mixed vegetables, salt/pepper/italian seasoning/garlic seasoning, boca crumbles (simply because I forgot to defrost my chicken – oops!) and poured it all into a casserole dish. Then, I topped it with spoonfuls of Bisquick Heart Smart and baked it in the oven at 375 for 25-30 minutes or until biscuits turned golden brown… Bill loved it and went back for seconds… I thought it was good, definitely comfort food, but I am not a huge fan of creamy soups so I’d rather forgo that, btu then I know it wouldn’t be chicken pot pie ha…

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Now I’m off to relax a bit with Bill and upload some photos to Walmart’s website… I need to get some pictures developed and have seriously been slacking! I’m hoping there is something Christmas-y on tv tonight… I was kind of surprised yesterday when there wasn’t anything on… Bill and I wound up watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on DVD last night because we wanted to get into the Christmas spirit – what better way to do that than by watching THAT movie? Although I must say that A Christmas Story is seriously my all-time favorite Christmas movie!

While we relax, I’m going to totally enjoy my dessert: my christmas cookies that I made on Friday :)

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Have a great night!

Wowza

My wowza post title is due to the crazy weather we are having!  Yesterday it was almost 60 degrees and today it dropped back down to 30.  In fact when I left work AND the gym, we had a snow/sleet storm :(   Boooooooo!

I started out the day with a Chobani yogurt topped with flax, pom seeds, grape nuts and almonds. It was so yummy and a great way to start my day!

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Well today was literally a food fest in my office! When I got to work at 6:45am, there was already a ton of food out on display! I packaged up a majority of my cookies from the cookie exchange and brought them to work as my contribution to our holiday potluck. Here they are:

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Here’s all the extra cookies I made to bring to the pot luck today…

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I did my best to wait until mid-morning to snack on some goodies since that is when I would normally eat my mid morning snack. Normally I would dive into the bagels and donuts and danishes, but this time I tried to be smart about it. I knew there would be food present ALL day, so I kept it simple by having a ton of fresh cantaloupe, strawberries, and honeydew instead. It’s not often that I get to enjoy fruit of that variety, so I took advantage of it! I also had a tiny sliver (about 3 or 4 bites worth). My stomach started to grumble around 11 and this soft pretzel was really eyeing me up, plus it didn’t help that I was sitting RIGHT NEXT to the tables w/ all the food :) So I decided to split a small philly soft pretzel w/ a coworker.

Lunch rolled around and I tried to make the best decisions possible, while maximizing deliciousness! I had a little bit of this asian cole slaw that a coworker made and it was absolutely AMAZING! I need to get the recipe ASAP! Then I had some strawberry - almond spinach salad and a half of a turkey hoagie. I also had 2 pickles, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers for finger food. I felt like I needed caffeine so I did something I usually don’t do and had a half a cup of Diet Pepsi. I never have been a big soda drinker – I attribute that to my parents because all we ever drank growing up was milk or water!

A few hours later it was “dessert” time, so I had a tiny sliver of pumpkin pie, a chocolate covered graham cracker, and two chocolate covered pretzels w/ sprinkles on top.

I think I handled today’s lunch pretty well, I sampled everything that was worth sampling and avoided the normal junk – chips, standard dips, frozen meatballs, etc. I always read in health magazines that for events like holiday get togethers where there is a lot of homemade food you should opt to focus on consuming new and unique foods instead of filling up on the stuff that you could have any time. I never really tried this approach until today and I’m glad I did :)

Mid afternoon I decided I was finally done w/ all the food that was out, so I pulled out a handy Clif Z bar to snack on before I hit the gym. When I got to the gym, I decided today was an all-cardio day since I did strength training yesterday and was planning on doing kickboxing tomorrow. I did 30 minutes on the treadmill first and then hopped on the elliptical to do 30 minutes there. It was a great sweat session that had me burn 450 calories and I logged over 5 miles. Now I’m starting to accumulate a decent amount of points for the HBBC :)

When I got home, I was on a mission, so I threw in some chicken & potatoes to bake for Bill and I hopped in the shower – talk about multitasking!  As I was packing up my lunch I realized that I should probably use up the leftover chili that was in the fridge, so I served myself a bowl full of delicious veggie chili alongside some broccoli and a toasted english muffin smeared with Promise Light. Definitely a voluminous dinner, but super healthy. I was all sweeted-out from my eats earlier today so this did the trick!

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Now I’m off to work on our super late Christmas cards and then watch the season finale of the Biggest Loser – I really can’t wait to see who wins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It BETTER not be Vicki or else I will not be watching next season :)