12-22-12

but only with one picture. i get self-conscious taking pictures of my food when i'm around other people. not that taking pictures of your food in public is a completely foreign thing, but...meh. i get self-conscious about pretty much everything when it's related to food and diet, whaddya gonna do. so to supplement the lack of today's food pictures, i'll give you some other fun ones.

but first, today's food.

so my breakfast was a cup of cottage cheese and a chicken apple maple sausage. 

lunch: (but really brunch...but can you have brunch if you had a real breakfast?) was at clyde's with a dear friend of mine, in the city. we went to see the roy lichtenstein exhibit at the national gallery of art, and then had brunch! i got the brunch burrito - which i believe had eggs, chorizo, cheese, black beans, in a flour tortilla with sour cream and tomatillo sauce. it was BANGIN' but i have zero idea of the nutritional value.

"dinner" was party food at another friend's house - her 30th birthday is today and we went over to her house to celebrate. her parents made a TON of food, so i ate: 3 dumplings (2 steamed, one pan-fried), about 5 chic-fil-a nuggets, about a cup of rice noodles, 2 shrimp, and two coke zeros. again, delicious, but not entirely sure of the caloric outcome.

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what i *am* happy about, is that i declined all of the millions of desserts at this party. cheesecake, cheesecake bites, tiramisu, key lime pie, about four different kinds of cookies...also at brunch, instead of bringing bread for the table, they bring coffee cake. and i didn't have any of that, either.

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additional food photos:

sweet potato quinoa cakes with blackberry salsa, and kale chips. i made this a few months ago, it was SO good.

i also made some bangin' deviled eggs. also i love my little bird timer in the background. he's pretty adorbs.

this was from my vacation in california, in august. i had my morning coffee, was sitting in a lounge chair reading game of thrones (the 4th one, at the time), wearing pajamas, and i was in california. life was pretty perfect.

i made this ombre fruit tray for a work breakfast. i felt like i won pinterest with this.

12-21-12

not much else to say other than, i did get a little hungry and eat-eat-eat for dinner tonight. the calories are okay, though. the whole day adds up to 1810, give or take. i'm okay with a day like that, being on the higher end of what i prefer to have. nothing detrimental, and still no sugar :)

breakfast: i really need to get a new breakfast. gala apple and 1-2 tbsp of peanut butter (pb&co's mighty maple)

lunch: trader joe's harvest salad with grilled chicken (the two cubes of cheese come in the salad but i like to eat them separately, because..mmm, cheese.)

snack: fage yogurt, with cherry flavored...stuff.

dinner: trader joe's paneer tikka masala with garlic naan (also from trader joe's)

"dessert" aka "laura was still hungry": 9 shumai dumplings with crab

12-20 in total

thought i would change it up and just put everything in one post. so here we go!

breakfast: same as yesterday, gala apple and 1-2 tbsp of peanut butter (pb&co's mighty maple)

lunch: trader joe's (BIG SURPRISE) bistro salad - with kale, edamame, scallions, dried cranberries, toasted almond slivers, and a lemon herb dressing. and i added about 4-5 oz of chicken breast. b/c that's how i roll.

snack: coffee with half and half, if you even count that as a snack

snack #2: fage yogurt - this was good! i didn't use all of the jelly part, b/c i know that's where the sugar is!

dinner: i hope you don't think it's gross, but - two over easy eggs, 3-4 oz salmon, with sriracha on top. it's good! 

and finally, because, i have to mention trader joe's like seventeen million times a day, trader joe's sparkling water, lemon flavor! i lurrrrve it. this liter (litre?) is only 79 cents! say what! 

update on yesterday's public display of emotion: i made it through tonight's training session, though it was still difficult..but it's always going to be. and thank goodness, this week is almost over. if there's an equivalent of emotional crawling, that's what i'm doing through tomorrow at 5:30pm. and soon i can enjoy a little bit time off (but not much) for christmas next week and enjoy some general merriment with friends and family. 

12-19 wrap up, this time, with tears!

*glass of milk in my hokies cup
*two over-medium eggs with however much sriracha that is

(note on egg cooking: are they technically "fried" eggs if you cook them with just Pam? i feel like when i say fried egg, it means i doused it in oil, but...it's just Pam. i'm never sure how to describe it.)

and finally, your "wow, i'm glad i'm not her" moment of the day:

i had an appointment with my trainer tonight. he is always pushing and pushing and if i actually do something well, he just makes me do more. essentially his goal is to make me struggle. all. of. the. time. (realtalk: i appreciate this, and i like it. even though i also hate it, and spent most of the day in fear, like i do every appointment day) so tonight. tonight was...not great. i was whiny, tired, i stopped constantly, i think i only did one set/move without stopping. my trainer stopped the session early, took me into the office, and sat me down. he looked at me and said "what's wrong? tell me what's going on, because you're not like this"

and that's when i burst into tears.

work is incredibly overwhelming and stressful right now, and every day (especially now) i've been funneling almost all of my mental and emotional strength into just getting through each day and putting at least a semi-respectable dent into my to-do list, which is ever-growing. and so when the appointment rolls around, and my trainer is being hard on me, i am physically tired, yes, but i'm more emotionally/mentally tired and tonight i just didn't have anything left to keep myself going.

he told me "i'm hard on you because i believe in you". and i'm thankful that he's hard on me, because that's how i'll get stronger - that's how i'll achieve. i just didn't have the heart to deal with the struggle tonight. and so i cried. and then i went to shower and change, and i cried in the shower. it was actually fairly pathetic, but there you have it. i am really emotionally exhausted tonight.

the good news is that i'm not taking it out on my eating. the bad news is that i have to go back to the trainer tomorrow night, and i just don't have the slightest idea of how it's going to go.

12-19 lunch

coffee with half and haf, because i can't get enough.

trader joe's field fresh chopped salad (grilled chicken, israeli couscous, currants, asiago cheese, toasted pecans with sweet basil dressing) OM NOM NOM TIMES INFINITY

12-19 bkfst

gala apple, 1 piece of trader joe's 100% whole grain fiber bread, with 1-2tbsp* peanut butter & co PB, mighty maple flavor

and yeah, i took a bite of it before i took the picture. and yeah, i clearly buy a lot of things from trader joe's. they're just so good! especially their breads. i can identify all of the ingredients. i like that.

*i always have trouble judging how much a tbsp is. can't wrap my head around it. i should start going by coolio's measurements and refer to it as a dime bag**.

**are you wondering where i'm getting that from? oh, because THIS EXISTS.

12-18 wrap up

i also forgot to add earlier that i drank a cup of coffee with half and half. didn't take a picture. but i'm pretty sure you know what that looks like.

for (a lazy woman's) dinner:

salmon with lemon-dill sauce, a fage blueberry acai yogurt thaaang.

*yep, "thaaaaang". i know what you're thinking, and no, contrary to popular belief i don't work in fage's marketing department currently.

(also look at the expiration date on the yogurt! that's forever from now! i thought i read somewhere that basically the longer the shelf life, the more preservatives? well F*$K if i care, this yogurt is awesome. again, no i really don't work for fage's marketing department. i clearly should though.)

12-18 lunch

trader joe's ready made southwest salad, with 4-5 oz chicken breast added

12-18 bkfst

about 3/4 cottage cheese (2%) eaten post-body pump class and right before i had to leave to go to work. i think i ate it in about one minute and practically unhinged my jaw to do so. i am classy you guys.

12-17-12 final!

okay, you'll miss out on pictures b/c i felt weird taking them at my organization's holiday party (at our CEO's house) - but i ate: 2 shrimp, 3 wheat thins, 1 cocktail weenie (is there another term for this, i mean really?) and a small bowl of white rice with a sausage/bean stew, and a dollop of sour cream. and two glasses of white wine. and i'm home by 8:30*!

i'm just happy i avoided sugar (except for the alcohol, natch) and i ran week 1 day 3 of c25k this morning. plus after i finished the 20 minutes of intervals, i ran another 2 minutes at 5.0 which is the speed at which i'm running the intervals, at least right now, just...because i can't leave well enough alone? i don't know. i feel a little guilty that i'm not working harder. that probably means i should increase the speed, no? i'm walking at 3.0 and "running" at 5.0. maybe i should try 5.1 or 5.2?


*a tame but nice holiday party in all. we even did a white elephant and only ONE person stole a gift, and it was at the very end. it was the most polite white elephant in the history of white elephants, i think.

12-17 lunch

trader joe's pre-made roasted butternut squash, red quinoa, and wheatberry salad

(with 4-5 oz chicken breast)

12-17 contd

another cup of coffee with half and half. (i know, i know)

12-17-12 (so far)

breakfast: cottage cheese and a gala apple (i took the sticker off first before i ate it, fear not)
at work: cup of coffee with fat free half and half

12-16-12

it occurred to me that i am highly sick of posting nothing but feeeeeeeeeeeeelings on here. when i go to other blogs, rarely do i want to read those kinds of things, especially the health/food-ish kind of blogs. so, that stops. if you want to read feeeeeeeeeeelings, i am linking to my blog that i keep to help me deal with the compulsive eating. feeeeeeeeeeeeeelings.

on to pictures and such of what i ate today!

breakfast: two eggs with sriracha sauce, two chicken apple-maple sausages, grapes

lunch: balogna and cheese sandwiches, sunchips, and a not-pictured diet root beer (at my parents'  house for the redskins game today)

dinner: salad greens with trader joe's champagne pear vinaigrette, salmon with dill-lemon sauce

i also did week 1 day 2 of c25K today. day 1 i did on a treadmill, but i found a little bitty track near my apartment and so i ran outside this morning. it was cold, it was also uneven so jogging on a slight hill, even for a short period of time, made it a bit tougher. but i survived, it wasn't that difficult. i'm hoping i can get up tomorrow morning for day 3, but we'll see. it may wait until tuesday.