Today’s my Friday! I’m leaving Thursday for a super long 6-day “weekend.” We’re going to DC for a wedding and then up to New Jersey. I’m excited- I went to college in DC and it still feels like my second home, even though I haven’t been back for a while. Only problem– forecast calls for Thunderstorms every single day. Fingers crossed it changes.

Happy for another What I Ate Wednesday too! Visit Jenn’s page for more fun posts.

Here are my eats from Tuesday:

Morning exercise: The day started off with a mile long swim! I usually don’t count my laps and just swim for a specific amount of time (usually 30 mins, sometimes 45), but today I counted so I could make sure to go a whole mile. It felt great!

Breakfast was post-swim, eaten at Starbucks. Coffee with soy, an enormous banana, and a greek cobani yogurt with a spoonful of jam.

Lunch was raw swiss chard for a salad, topped with half of a leftover stuffed pepper that I was too full to eat at dinner the night before. Hit the spot. I heart leftovers.

Snacks: Juicy watermelon.

And my favorite snack lately– a version of chocolate milk: unsweetened cocoa powder, unsweetened almond milk and a spoonful of sugar, all whipped up in a blender. It’s not as chocolatey as the real thing, but does the trick when I am craving chocolate or sweets.

And dinner was a veggie plate with Swiss Chard, zucchini, and a carrot. Plus an egg topped with nutritional yeast on the side.

Hope your day is going well!

–What’s your favorite summertime food?
–What’s your favorite snack lately? I need new ideas to bring to work!

Happy Spring Wednesday, people! Since I know you’re all just sooo curious about what I ate, I’ll skip the narrative and get right to it. My camera needed to be charged so these are all from my iPhone….hence the lack of quality.

Breakfast: 7am. Blueberry yogurt, pineapple, and coffee in my ENORMOUS mug. Are you surprised I didn’t have a green smoothie this week

11:30am: Lunch. Sweet potato, kale, and baby carrots. I added some almond butter and sea salt to the potato after I took the pic. I cannot get enough sweet potato these days- love love love.

Since I ate lunch relatively early, I ended up eating two snacks today.

The first at 1:30- Wasabi seaweed (spicy!) and a green apple.

And then a Larabar when my stomach was growling again a little before 4. My computer clock is wrong, if you are wondering.

eaten at my desk, of course

A long-ish, post-work dog walk was the only exercise I got in today, unfortuantely.

7:30pm. Dinner was leftovers from Sunday night’s farmer’s market feast. Lamb, purple potatoes, and asparagus. yum.

And that’s my What I Ate Wednesday for ya!

– What time do you normally eat your afternoon snacks? I’ve been wanting mine soo early these days.
– Any food you can’t get enough of lately?

Hey! Another Wednesday. This month, Jenn is asking for everyone to add an extra cup of veggies to their day. Sounds good to me! Except one thing…that did not happen on Monday, which was when I took pics for this post. It was moving day at my office at 8am….and I just flew in from Florida at 1am the night before. So, needless to say, I was a little scatter brained and ended up eating up a bit. Oh well.

But here ya go:

Breakfast: 6:30am. After a weekend vacation in Florida without many veggies, I was craving something green….I was also craving plenty of caffeine. Breakfast was a frozen peach, banana, and spinach Green Smoothie. And 3 cups of coffee.

Hits the spot every time

I spent the morning “helping” the movers pack up. Best part about office moving day is wearing yoga pants and sneakers to work, by the way.

Lunch: 12:30pm: Stopped at the local market on my way to the new office and got the Quinoa “Wellness” Salad. I thought extra “wellness” to this busy day could only be a good thing.

Tasted really good. Was a mix of red quinoa, lemon juice, currants, and red pepper. Plus a scoop of the chickpea quinoa (the yellow one). Sprinkled a few almonds on top. Very filling lunch.

Break: 3pm. We walked over to the new Starbucks to take a sunshine break. I got an unsweetened iced green tea. Sprinkled cinnamon on top. Was just what I needed (and the extra caffeine helped a ton).

Sipped in the midst of unpacking

Dinner: 6:30pm. I’m sad to say that I totally broke the “Don’t Eat Out” challenge today and we ate dinner out too.

Here’s my cute dinner date looking very serious while he sent a work email before our food came.

Went to a crepe/salad/sandwich place (that truthfully is probably better for brunch or lunch than dinner). I got the bbq chicken salad– a huge pile of cabbage, corn, peppers, avocado and bbq chicken. I LOVE bbq sauce, so this was really good and I ate a ton of it and was so full afterwards.

After doing a few other errands, went grocery shopping and then pretty much face planted into bed. Moving is exhausting….even WITH movers and even when it’s just at your office (not your home). Glad that day is ov-ah!

Question:
– What’s your latest favorite Starbucks/Other-Coffee-Place drink order?
– Good lunch out places near your office? There are some yummy looking ones near the new office.
– Any good eats today? Do you love BBQ sauce as much as me?

Happy Wednesday! Blogging from an overcast and pouring rain day in SF. We need the rain like no one’s business, but it’s like Mother Nature stored up everything all season until this week and just let it all out finally! But rain= cheaper tastier produce, so no real complaints from me.

And now, time for What I Ate Wednesday, Thanks Jenn!

These are my eats from Monday. It was a weird all-over-the-place kind of day. I was getting over being sick and I had jury duty, which made my schedule far from usual. But some days are like that, so here ya go:

My morning started at 7am with a great swim in the pool. I got my own lane (everyone must have slept in because of the time change). Sweet!

8am- Breakfast. Random breakfast: Coffee with soy milk, a banana, and a handful of walnuts. Omega-3s and potassium to start the day? yes, please.

Check out the sticker, "I'm chiquita banana....." Love it!

I was on “call-back status” for jury duty, so I spent the morning working from home (in yoga pants sprawled out on the couch). I was totally expecting not to have to go in, so when the 11:30am recorded message told me that I had to “report” by 12:30 to the courthouse FORTY FIVE minutes from my house, I was way unprepared. Poor Charlie was woken up from a nap and dragged out of the house to “daycare” with me, lol. Aww, the life of a dog.

11:30am- Lunch. This was pretty early for lunch, but I wanted to eat before leaving for jury duty, so I just threw leftovers together. It sorta looked more like dinner (?). 2 chicken legs (with liquid aminos), kale (from the farmer’s market), and leftover roasted eggplant. I ate the kale in the car. Messy.

3pm- After serving my patriotic duty as a juror (thank goodness I didn’t get chosen), I went outside for a snack. Almonds (more nuts? yes of course), an apple, and an honest tea. It was my first time with the tea. It’s ok. Anyone love it?

Isn’t the courthouse pretty? Jury duty was actually not so bad– the whole process is really interesting and like one big history lesson (i’m a nerd, i love u.s. history stuff).

I did a few errands after leaving the courthouse before going home to get some more work done.

6pm- Dinner. Even with the daylight savings change, I’m still hungry early. By 6, I was more than ready to eat. Brussel sprouts and quinoa mixed with pinto beans and nutritional yeast. I got more than my fair share of nutritional yeast that day.

Snack: Later that night, I ate (unpictured) 2 pieces of toast and 2 handfuls of raisins. Raisins do not stand a chance against me. I can’t get enough. Too bad cause they are full of cals.
I got plenty of fats and protein, but I was still pretty hungry in the end of the day. Need to work on better balance, I suppose.

Have you ever been selected to be on a jury?
How often can you work from home?
Do you eat meals in the car ever?

Somehow, I was way ahead of myself when I called last week’s WIAW post #9….when it was actually #7, so fixing that this week, Whoops. Thanks again for hosting, Jenn!

This was a day of good eats. I’m still trying for mostly green, mostly whole, mostly easy-to-make-on-a-busy-workday foods.

Also, for both March and April, I’m in a pact to not eat out at all (except when I’m out of town) to save some $$$. We’re not taking cabs either– it’s crazy how you can blow $20 in an 8 minute cab ride sometimes. Anyways, we’ll see how it goes….

So, back to my day…..

7am: Quick 30 minutes on the elliptical and some stretching. I was a little tight from skiing this past weekend, so it was good to stretch out.

7:45am: Quick breakfast smiley face. Just what I felt like. Bananas are just so delicious sometimes.

Smile

10:30am: Homemade trailmix made up of my favorite almond, raisin, choc chip combo, plus a date mix.

12noon- Lunch. Kale salad, my fave. With tofu and leftover roasted eggplant.

i heart kale

3pm- Big, red apple. Eaten while getting some fresh air.

Check out how windy it was!

Can you tell how hard it's blowing? maybe not. Anyways, I managed to walk by this Starbucks without stopping....go me!

Dinner at 6:30pm: Millet (yum! long time no see), a big salad with beets and red pepper, and some leftover ground turkey. All of this was sprinkled with nutritional yeast and a little himalyan sea salt, of course.

Filling, coloroful, and tasty

Evening walk with a friend in the fog and wind. We almost made it to the bridge, but turned around because we thought we were going to get run over– It was so dark out, we kept having to dodge runners and bikers, lol.

Glass of wine to end the evening. Ahhhhh, nice!

I think my eat-in challenge this month is all about this:

sorry for no photo credit, can't remember where i got this

Note to self– Grocery shop and buy good food!

How often do you eat out? How often do you take cabs?
What’d you eat for breakfast this morning?

To end the month of February, this week’s What I Ate Wednesday post is all about VEGGIES! I’ve been making an extra effort to include even more fresh veggies as the majority of what I’m eating lately. Surprisingly, I went 5 days last week without much meat or dairy.  No, I’m not going vegan, but yes, all the veggies made me feel great!

So here you go, a day in the life of my veggie-filled plates:

Breakfast: Green smoothie, COFFEE with almond milk, and a blueberry oatmeal muffin. The muffins were a great addition to my usual breakfast and kept me full for longer.

Lunch: Broccoli, leftover brussel sprouts, and lentils. This worked well to bring to work and I just heated it up a bit before I ate it. It was super filling.

Snack: Carrot juice and an apple. Wondering about the carrot juice? I thought it was blah….frankly, it tasted like carrots and they are better to chew than sip.

Dinner: Back to my beloved Whole Foods. I was in a rush again tonight and had to grab dinner before an event. It’s become an expensive habit lately, but oh well. This wasn’t my usual Whole Foods so the salad bar had different choices. I chose a zucchini slaw thing and some tofu with a yummy peanut sauce (which became sorta a salad dressing). Yum!

Nighttime Snack: I ate a bowl of raw oats with almond milk and a spoonful of peanut butter. No picture. whoops!

So, how about you: Do you feel noticeable better when you eat more veggies?

Happy Wednesday!  Weeks after a long weekends are always so great- love that it’s already the middle of the week.

And can you believe it’s the end of Feb already?  Still trying to get my veggies in for Jenn’s Feb challenge.

These are my eats from yesterday (Tuesday).  It was kinda a crazy day and I ate out a bit, which was nice (on my tummy, not my wallet).

7:45AM- Breakfast.  After a light 30 minute workout, I came home to a Green Smoothie.  I eat way too many of these lately (or is that possible?).  Can’t help it, still obsessed.  It was the usual spinach, banana, blueberries, water, almond milk, and a tiny bit of pb (new addition).  It made a massive amount, a cup and a half.  Yum!

10am- Mid-morning snack.  An orange. Plus a cup of tea.  (Notice the no-coffee in the morning? was trying for less caffeine, but as you’ll see in the afternoon that didn’t work so well…..)

Sweet and delish

12- Lunch.  Whole foods salad bar, lucky me.  Tofu and Kale & Seaweed salad.  Have you had that salad yet, it’s amazing.

Scenes from the salad bar.....and my shoe peeking out in the background

2pm- Snack.  Almonds, 2 dates, and a Guava Kombucha (that I picked up at Whole Foods too).  Around 3, I had an (unpictured) cup of coffee too.  I tried to go without it today, but no such luck.

And good zen advice from the kombucha

7:30 pm- Dinner!  I was Hungry with a capital H by then.  Jared and I went across the Bay to meet a friend of his for dinner, which meant a long commute night.

We went to a little Peruvian place that had JUST opened that night at 5pm.  So fun to be with them on their first night!

We split a bunch of dishes– Roasted chicken, Hanger Steak over Rice, Sweet Potato Fries, and a really yummy veggie salad with beets, carrots, avocado and who knows what else.

I also tried a sip of a purple corn drink– it tasted like cinnamon applesauce.  But it’s a special Peruvian fermented soft drink.  Yum.

NOW– Things I want to know from YOU:

How many times/month do you eat at the Whole Foods Salad Bar?  I’m prob twice per month.
Have you been to Peru?
I’ve spent a lot of time in the Peruvian airport on my way other places, but never been outside of it.  Machu Piccu would be amazing to see.
Tried any other cuisines lately? I haven’t, but I’ve been wanting to try Ethiopian food for a while now, need to schedule that

What I Ate Wednesday, Valentine’s Day eats!

Thanks for hosting, Jenn!

These are my eats from yesterday– Valentine’s Day!  Since the day is known for its chocolate intake, getting veggies in took a little more thought than usual.  Cocoa beans grow on a tree, right?  How come chocolate isn’t considered a veggie?!

Breakfast:  Since I had such a chocolate-filled night last night, I thought I should prob get some veggies in early today.  I made a big ol’ green smoothie with the usual- spinach, banana, and blueberries.

Never fails, these always fill me up!

I drank this after I had a few cups of coffee, because in typical me-style, I woke up early to bake a Valentine’s Day cake!  I am a total habitual 6am baker (yes, I bake in my pajamas).  I sipped on coffee while mixing.  It actually worked out well because I could shower while the cake was in the oven.

Chocolate & Coffee....yuummmmm

And to continue the good morning, I woke up to these.  Beautiful, huh?

I'm a lucky girl! Best bf ever

My commute was a breeze this morning.  I think everyone played hookey for the holiday?

LUNCH:  I didn’t have time to make lunch before work, so I went over to Trader Joe’s around noon and picked up one of their pre-made salads.  This one had chicken and beets.   Their salads aren’t very good and never have much lettuce, so I bought an extra bag of organic romaine to add to it.   The salad wasn’t anything great, but it did the trick.

Also bought carrots and eggplant hummus to munch on.  (Have you tried their eggplant hummus?  Really tasty and less calories/fat than reg hummus)

There were a ton of sweets in my office today– Godiva chocolate and cupcakes– but I managed to hold off.  I wanted to save room for the cake.  So, yogurt for a snack instead.

EVENING:  For Valentine’s Day, Jared and I decided to stay in and cook together.  We made spaghetti and meatballs (his family recipe). We snuck some spinach into the sauce to up the veggie count and ate garlic bread on the side.  We had fun cooking together, ate by candle light, and the finished product was delish!

And of course, dessert!  Heart shaped chocolate cake.

It was already evening when I took these, so couldn't get the lighting right or any good pics sadly

Turned out cute though, huh?

Ended the day very full and happy.  I think my veggie count is only up to 4, but that’s not too bad for a chocolate-eating-holiday!

Were you able to get many veggies in on Valentine’s Day?
Do people bring in lots of chocolate and sweets to your work?
Do you ever bake in the early mornings?  Late at night?

Good morning!

It’s ”What I ate Wednesday” and today, I felt like I had some things to confess, so here ya go:

WIAW, Confessions Edition

BREAKFAST: 7am.  A big, delicious bowl filled with bright red strawberries, blueberries, and banana slices.  And one two cups of coffee.

Confession #1:  I’ve been putting half & half in my coffee instead of almond milk this week.  And guess what– I don’t like it!  They were out of almond milk (seriously, how could they?) and I thought I’d change it up and see what all the half & half fuss was about.  Not a fan.  Good to know, I guess?

Next, time for LUNCH.  Rainbow Chard with sliced steak (leftover from dinner last night), carrots, red bell pepper, and avocado.   Flipped through old magazines while eating.

Confession # 2:  I ate this at 11am.  I was too hungry to wait until Noon!  When I taught kindergarten, I loved how our lunchtime was at 11:15.  I still get hungry early!
Confession # 3:  I subscribe to 6 magazines……I get sucked in when they have their “$5.99 for a year!” type deals…..but because I get so many, I am ALWAYS months behind!  The ones I read today were from Dec and Jan!

SNACK at 1:30.  I got hungry again a few hours later, but wasn’t sure what I wanted so I took a work break and strolled through the grocery store for a few minutes until I figured it out.  Museli/Granola thing from the bulk bin (oats, raisins, a couple almonds, and who knows what else) and a Bragg’s Ginger Spice Apple Cider Vinegar Drink.

Confession #4: The museli was really messy to eat.   I used my fingers instead of a spoon.  It spilled all over.
Confession #5:  I was pretty unsure about the Bragg’s drink before I got it.  I knew I would either love it or really hate it.  Verdict?  Loved it!  If it wasn’t $2.29 a bottle, I would get it more often.  Zero calories and just made from water, apple cider viengar, ginger, and stevia.

Stopped at Trader Joes on the way home to get a free cup of coffee pick up a few things.  I also had some of their free coffee.
Confession # 6:  Their free coffee is one of the big reasons I shop there!  Not sure I would shop there as often if they didn’t have it.

DINNER:  6:45pm.   Chicken grilled with red peppers and onion, spaghetti squash sprinkled with sea salt, and steamed kale.  I wanted to make a 7:30 gym class, so this was super quick.  But it was delish!

Confesson #7:  I cooked and ate this in 25 minutes.  Rush!
Confession #8:  I ate twice as much spagetthi squash!  The other half was while I was cooking, way too hungry last night!

Home from the gym!  Pear for DESSERT.

Eaten still in my sneakers and gym clothes

And then I pretty much layed on the couch for an hour or so and then passed out asleep.

Questions:

What’s your normal lunchtime?   Anyone sometimes eat so early like me? 
If you have a 7pm gym class, do you eat dinner before or after?
How many magazines do you subscribe to?

Good morning!  Happy WIAW!!  Thanks for hosting, Jen.

Today was one of those totally gray and overcast SF days.  After the 70 degree weekend, this was a reminder that it really is (sadly) still winter.

7:30 am:  Breakfast was a green smoothie.
I got a new blender last week, so I have been on a total green smoothie kick.  If I worked from home, I’m pretty sure I would have 2 or more a day, I can’t get enough!

Today’s smoothie was a mix of frozen spinach and chard (ran out of spinach, but the chard tasted just as good), raspberries and blueberries (also frozen), and a banana.

Snack:  At 10:30, I was hungry again and ate a hard boiled egg.  Trying to increase my protein.  It did the trick and filled me up for a while.

Lunch was at 12:30ish:
I was planning to make my favorite chicken collard wrap because I am still so addicted, but I accidentally grabbed Chard instead of Collards at the store yesterday.  They def do not work the same and chard doesn’t stay wrapped (just falls apart).  Soo……I just made a salad instead.  Romaine, chard, chicken, avocado, carrots, and a coconut water.  Very crunchy!

Snack:  Around 2:30 I ate another snack- a bazillion of these seaweed rice crackers and a pretty red apple.

I don’t go out for sushi nearly enough, but I like including seaweed in my diet (iodine, etc), so I was happy to find these crackers at Whole Foods.  I also munched on half of a Clif Mojo bar on my way home from work.

After work, I went straight to Trader Joes for some grocery shopping.  I hadn’t done a real shop in over a week, so I needed a ton of stuff!  I somehow spent $80…..

Lots of frozen spinach and blueberries for future smoothies

Despite having a fridge full of food, when I got home, I was feeling lazy and made the fastest and easiest dinner possible instead of using my new stuff.  I was just too tired.

8pm Dinner:  Green beans w/ nutritional yeast and eggs.

And then, I ate a pear….

I don’t know why I thought $80 was ridiculous for that grocery shop.  Probably because I know I forgot a bunch of things and will have to go back before the week’s over anyways.  How much do you normally spend on groceries each week?