A Food Diary

At this point in the semester, I've decided that I do indeed want to keep blogging. It gives me a nice little outlet to relieve stress. But I've also decided that taking pictures and posting them onto the blog is just (unfortunately) not something I can concentrate on due to end of the semester stresses, etc, etc.

So for now, this will be my place to talk about food. To track what I eat (because stress = terrible eating). To rant about running and training. All for three more weeks...when I'll hopefully have more time to just breathe. And cook!

Eats for 4/7/2009

* Dried plums
* Soy latte
* Salad: mixed greens, red peppers, red onions, tomato, mozzarella cheese, honey dijon dressing
* Dove dark chocolate bar
* Croissant
* Diet coke (not something I usually drink - at all - but my body was craving the caffeine)
* Amy's black bean soup
* 2 pieces dried ginger

Busy beaver

First off, I'd like to apologize for the lack of post yesterday. Tuesdays are so hectic, by the time I sat down and had time to breathe I just couldn't bring myself to do anything except sit there and vegetate and online window shop at Patagonia.

Second off, I'd like to say that there will be a post later on this evening. Woohoo!

Lastly, I would like to order a nice huge slice of chocolate cake and lie down in the sun.

I am one busy girl but I promise I will be back with recaps and posts!

1st day down

Is it really only Monday? Aaaaaaaaaaaah. This girl is already ready for Friday, and it's only been the first day back from spring break! (Although to be fair, I didn't have a "real" break since I was sick for 90% of it).

I did manage to get my sleepy butt out on the greenway for a run though; I jogged for 30 minutes and could have gone for quite a bit longer if it hadn't been for my time constraints. I didn't want to push my pace too much, what with still recovering from a nasty chest cold...or whatever the heck that was!

Tomorrow is supposed to be another beautiful day so I may bump tomorrow's swim to Wednesday and take advantage of the great weather before the rain blows in for Wednesday. The ambitious side of me wants to say I'll do a brick but I'm just not sure that I want to push myself into exhaustion two days into post-break life (am I cushy on myself or what?!)

My appetite is still meh - Before my run I snacked on a square of mint dark chocolate and after my run I grabbed a Key Lime Pie Larabar and after watching Blade Runner for my English class I ate a bag of pretzels and a banana. Not ideal dinnering by any stretch of the imagination - that's something I feel I'm going to have to work on this second half of the semester.

Overall my calorie tally comes to about 1750 calories, which is not too shabby (I try to aim for 1600-1800 a day) considering I never sat down and let myself have a real, relaxing meal. I felt like I was constantly eating on the run today.

But I'll stop rambling. See ya'll tomorrow for hopefully more organized and appetiteful eats. Tuesday is my crazy day (2 hours of work, lecture, lunch/errands, lab, lecture, workout, homework) so we'll see how that all goes!

Appetite, o appetite

Where for art thou appetite?! I woke up this morning with more anger at an alarm clock than I can reasonably explain (oh spring break, you were too short!) and absolutely zero desire to eat any sort of breakfast, nevermind the full breakfast that a good little worker-bee student such as I should ideally be eating. So after hitting snooze three times and getting up at the last possible second, I groggily grabbed a banana on my way out the door.

After class, my appetite was slightly resurfacing so I picked up a tall, non-fat latte and some trail mix from Starbucks. I'm not so much a fan of Starbucks coffee but was feeling too lazy to walk back down the flight of stairs to grab something from the school cafeteria and I really wanted that Starbucks trail mix. It is delish; the cranberries are orange infused!

[a] Lunch didn't happen at the normal time either; I was still "full" from the trail mix (which I guess makes sense since I downed 2.5 servings of the stuff). But by the time my French class let out I was slightly ravenous, or at least that's how it seemed, so I had a Dannon low-fat/all-natural strawberry yogurt with a handful of Kashi Vive (the vanilla-graham flavor - very very very appetizing), half a lavash with hummus, and some dried cranberries/papaya.
> Now I'm sitting in my favorite little coffee shop with a glass of iced tea and wondering if a) I should go for a run and b) if I'll want anything to do with dinner. I'm thinking that a run would do my appetite good...

Whew!

I can't believe it's 9:30 and spring break is officially coming to a close :( The good news, though, is that today was absolutely *beautiful* and I got a lot more done than I had originally even planned on doing and I am happy to report that I am once again back to my cheery (although still not hungry) self after all the strange feelings this morning.

After moping around the couch for a bit, I decided to get cleaned up and head to my favorite little coffee shop to try and be semi-productive. Almost immeadiately upon arriving, I ordered my weekend favorite: iced coffee with skim milk. I had two of these bad boys during my 5 1/2 hours there:


I also had a DELICIOUS lemon-poppyseed muffin. I usually get the bagels but man, am I glad they were out today. It was so amazingly good. Not too overwhelmingly sweet (tasted almost like a corn muffin with a hint of lemon) and full of poppyseed goodness

After a good, long afternoon of mostly studying (and not, ahem, looking at Crate & Barrel's website and drooling like a puppy), I headed home and planted myself on the couch (where I ate a spoonful of PB, a hummus & provolone sandwich with dried cranberries and papaya, and a square of mint dark chocolate...product review of that chocolate to come!)

But it's spring time in Tennessee and I could not help myself...I got dressed and went on a nice hour-long walk down the greenway. It felt nice to do *something* active, even though it wasn't running.

When I got home (part deux), my roomie arrived and announced she wanted to go grocery shopping so I chugged (literally chugged) a Naked Juice - I had the Watermelon Chill Bare Breeze and it tasted just like the juice left over after you cut a watermelon. Apparently, though, it consisted of "1 slice of watermelon, lots of yummy white grapes, 1 strawberry, and a hint of apple, lime, and Aronia". So delicious!!!!


And now I am fully stocked with groceries too. So providing that my appetite comes back, I'll be able to eat all my wonderful goodies.

Sad breakfast

I went to sleep fairly early last night, before 10, feeling really sad. I have to say, I've been doing fairly well with the whole "getting over the ex" deal but sometimes the loneliness and the heartbreak just hits me and I don't know why.


Unfortunately, the mood has somewhat carried over to this morning and my appetite is nil. I chewed down some dried ginger and drank some English breakfast tea but I just don't have the gut for anything else.


All these natural appetite suppressants are really starting to annoy me! First being sick and now feeling heartbreak. I want to enjoy food, by golly!

I have plans for enjoying the weather and my favorite cute little coffee shop today (to catch up on homework, blech), so stayed tuned for further. I decided against running because I would like to be able to pick my training up again tomorrow and I can't do that if I push myself and go for a run today!

Mmm...rice

It's always nice to get back to an empty apartment and have the ability to lounge around and get re-acquainted with life before post-spring break realizations hit (The plus, though? Only 5 more weeks of class!!!!).

After a slightly hectic day of traveling through airports (think being the last person to board the plane and windy skies...), I was definitely not in the mood to make a complicated dinner and I was definitely not in the mood to walk anywhere to buy a complicated dinner. So I did what a lazy & returning vacationer does: a microwave meal.
I started out with some "key lime pie" yogurt - I try not to eat this type of yogurt on a regular basis but there was an extra in the refrigerator and I just could not help myself. And honestly, for what it is, the yogurt is actually pretty delicious. But maybe that's just my still-stuffy taste buds speaking.

Then, with my rumbling stomach subdued enough to "cook", I moved onto my meal. I'd like to think that my microwave meal was fairly nutritious and it was completely low-maintenance: microwave steamed broccoli and Uncle Ben's long & wild grain 90 second rice. Mixed together + pepper, the two are actually quite delicious.

Excuse our nasty microwave...



And, the finished product:


I finished off my meal with a few pieces of dried ginger. I've never had dried ginger before a whew! what a taste bud surprise! Definitely delicious, but I'll never throw more than one of those babies in my mouth at a time again!

I'm crossing my fingers that I'll be able to run tomorrow since it's supposed to be beautiful. Hope for me!