Calorie Sch-malorie

Someone tell me I'm not the only one who obsesses about beverages that have calories? I'm a water drinking fool. I pretty much always drink water because it has no calories! Next up would be hot and iced teas. I often drink these without sweetener, but sometimes I use a little honey to help with my allergies. After all, there are only 20 calories in a teaspoon of honey. I also have been drinking a good amount of kombucha. It has calories, but not as many as soda, and it has health benefits so I look at it as okay. Then comes the dreaded diet soda. I try not to drink these, but there's usually one a week that slips in. On my jam packed busy weeks with super early mornings, there are probably a few more. I also drink lattes on occasion. These are usually first thing in the am on my jam packed busy weeks with super early mornings following up with diet soda to keep the caffeine buzz. Yes, lattes have [skim] milk in them, but milk is good for the body so I'm okay with those calories.

But now beverages that contain calories freak me out. It is very very very very rare I will ever drink a real soda and here's why - the whole time I'm drinking it the only thing I can think about is this is 160 calories and 60 grams of sugar! I drink sports drinks before/after a big run, like my half marathon when I know I'm gonna burn 1,300 calories and need the electrolytes, but I not just on a daily basis. Now do I think about calories when I'm drinking my large glass of wine? Nah, that's a "health" beverage. ;-) But sodas, juices, flavored waters, sports drinks all give me I'm drinking calories anxiety. Anyone else out there? I know I can't be the only one!

I am a real person though and as I've said before I'm not always healthy. I may straight up be drinking a diet coke while eating gummy bears at the same time. I'm scared to drink my calories, but not afraid to eat them. Or as I discussed in Monday's post about being a Weekend Warrior - alcohol has no calories, right? I guess what I'm saying is I shouldn't fear the beverage calories and remember to eat/drink everything in moderation. If someone hands me a latte made with whole milk I should enjoy it as a special treat and know that it's not something I have on regular basis. So here's to calories in moderation! Cheers!

Looking for some Free Stuff? Check out these blogs for some giveaways.

Lara at Thinspired is giving away Attune granola
Travel Eat Love is giving away an entire case of Honest Tea
The Emily of Emily Eats Clean is giving away 6 boxes of Truvia sweetener.

Now for yesterdays EATS!

Because I was so stressed yesterday I didn't really eat much. My yogurt sat on my desk all morning and I never touched it. I still wasn't hungry when I went home for lunch but I made this for lunch anyway. Veggie burger on whole wheat English muffin, with Dijon aioli, spinach, and half a Wholly Guacamole 100 calorie pack.

Back in the office I had some kombucha

After work I headed home and knew I was in need of some comfort food. I pulled a pot roast out of the freezer and put it back into the crock-pot, after I thawed it under cold water of course. I then headed off to the gym where I did 25 minutes on the elliptical and then an hour long vinyasa yoga class. I felt sooooo good after that class. I came home and the house was full of warm pot roast. Mmmmmm! I had some of my amazing grass-wanna-be while I made some Cauli-mashers to go with my pot roast.

Cauli-Mashers
2 large russet potatoes, peeled, diced
1/2 head cauliflower, cut into bite size pieces
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup of grated cheese

Bring potatoes and cauliflower to a boil, cook until tender. Strain out water and then put cauliflower and potatoes in a mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients and mix with a hand mixer.

That's all for now friends. My schedule is going to be really crazy this month with lots of travel and a stay-cation with my best-ies! Then I'll be traveling to San Fran and then on to Denver for work. I'll try my best to keep up with my eats, but I have a feeling now it's going to be a crazy month! So bare with me. :-)

STRESS

How do you handle STRESS? 

I'd like to think for the most part I've got a good grip on handling stress. On a day-to-day basis I would say my stress level is fairly low. Most things I am able to blow off and know that things will just work themselves out on their own. But every now and then a big storm cloud blows over my head and the floods appear - and by floods, I mean tears. Yes, it's just been one of those days where I had to let it all out. Every couple of months, I don't know if it's hormonal or what, but I just get really worked up of something that is not that big of deal but if you add this in and that in and all those other factors it just seems completely overwhelming at the moment. And even as I sit there crying knowing that I will look back on that moment in a few days and wondered why I stressed but I just had to open the tear gates and let them rip!

According to this article, here are some ways to handle stress. 

1. Relax - Yeah, that's easy for you to say, you're not the one who's stressed! But stepping away from the situation, taking some deep breathes, cry to your mother and bitch to your best friends and you'll suddenly realize you are relaxed. 
2. Get Some Exercise - I have been stuck in a cubicle all day but plan to hit up spin as soon as I leave here. Luckily there is only one other person in the office today so I was able to avoid any humiliation of being "the girl who cries".
3. Take Some Vitamin C - I took my multivitamin and chugged down some kombucha. 
4. Aromatherapy - I think what they mean by aromatherapy is to make some comfort food so your whole house smells good and load up on some wine while it cooks. That's my plan for the evening. 

Hope your day was less stressful than mine!

Now for yesterdays EATS!

Breakfast yesterday was 1/2 cup plain yogurt with strawberries and ground flax seed. I recycled my Yogurtland spoon from the other day. I love it.

Lunch I had a tuna melt, a salad, and iced.

My salad was spinach, artichoke hearts, eggplant, sweet potatoes, asparagus and Trader Joe's creamy cilantro jalapeno hummus. I really love my veggies - and I really love my hummus - but this hummus overpowered all the flavors in my salad.

 For my tuna melt I used 1.5 oz drained tuna, capers, calamata olives, a dollop of Greek yogurt, and a little bit of Dijon mustard and light mayo. Toasted it on half of a whole wheat English muffin with some light cheese.

And half passion/half green tea mix.

Back in the office I snacked on TJ's Just a Handful with almonds, cashews, and dried cranberries.

And kombucha

Dinner was a remake of last week. I used used my Tomato White Bean sauce I made last week but this time I wilted some spinach and also topped the raviolis with some cottage cheese before adding the sauce. I also had some asparagus on the side. Yummy.

It was super, super windy yesterday. The winds were 40-50 mph with 65 mph gusts! I had to go get my runners packet for Saturday and was nearly knocked on my butt several times the wind was so strong. Because it was so windy I skipped my scheduled run and grabbed some Yogurtland on the way home. Plain and Lychee that I topped with strawberries.

Hope your day is less stressful than mine!

Making A List

So I've noticed I've been rather unproductive lately. Since I've started blogging I've notice it's much easier to fill up my days and keep me entertained with reading, writing and commenting blogs; however, what I've also noticed is a decline in keeping up with the rest of my life. All those mindless tasks that I use to say "I'll take care of that tomorrow" have traveled off into the deep dark spaces of my mind, whereas food, health, exercise and mainly food have filled up most of the functioning parts of my brain. :-)

So today I put so deep thought into how I would rectify this situation and I came up with the amazing idea! I will create a list of things I need to do and I will call it - A To-Do List! I will write down all the little tasks I need to do like clean out my inbox, return emails, make phone calls, organize photos, open my snail mail, etc. Friends, I have a feeling this To-Do list will change the world as we know it! Man, I am so happy I invented To-Do list so I could save the productivity of mankind.

How do you keep up with all of your "To-Do" tasks? Are you a list maker?

News Alert! If you have not seen Food Inc yet, which I highly, highly recommend you watch this movie like 5 times, you can watch it FREE on PBS through tonight at midnight!Be sure to check this movie out!

Now for yesterdays EATS!

Subway had free breakfast yesterday and who turns down free breakfast? They said this was a whole wheat English muffin but it doesn't look or taste quite like my Trader Joe ones. Topped with egg whites, a slice of Black Forest ham, and half a slice of pepper jack cheese. I also added onions and banana peppers because who doesn't like stinky breath first thing in the am??! The sandwich was, eh, okay. I will never have a craving for it like my favorite little Egg McMuffins, but I may try it again sometime when I'm traveling on the road. Subways website says this little sandwich only has 160 calories, 4 g fat, 18 g carb, 5 g fiber and 15 g protein. I feel like the calorie count might be a little low... but it's not too far off.

Lunch yesterday was one of my famous salads of randomness. Started with a bed of spinach and topped it with roasted veggies - eggplant, asparagus and sweet potatoes, beets, 9 grain medley, and goat cheese.

Then I added a veggie burger to the top and some roasted curried chickpeas for some crunch. I used up the last little bit of my Green Goddess dressing by mixing it with a little water, shaking the bottle well, and pouring the remains over my salad. Very yummy!

Afternoon snack was kombucha.

I don't know why this floaty stuff on the top freaks me out so much but I drink it anyway.

For dinner I headed to LAVO with some friends. It was good but wasn't amazing. I personally think Tao (same owners) has better food. However, if I were going to spend that type of money on dinner (ours was free), I would've gone to MESA grill or another spot. Here's a recap.

• Cocktail: Saggio - Stoli Blueberry, fresh muddled sage, lemon juice, splash of soda
• Appetizers: Garlic Bread with marinara, Caesar salad and Pizza (I only had salad)
• Entrees: Chicken Marsala served over spinach, Penne Pasta served al dente with eggplant & marinara, Salmon, Fried Zucchini strips, Gratin Mashed Potatoes and French Fries. ( I tried everything except the salmon and the fries)

After dinner we went upstairs where we had bottle service. Getting crazy on a school night! It was a great evening though. And did I mention FREE! ;-)

Side Tracked

You know how I know I'm getting old, LAVO, the club/restaurant is throwing a 90's themed party tonight and I'm going. To be honest, I've been spending more time today trying to come up with a 90's outfit than actually thinking up a quality blog post. You'd think that having spent my teenage years in the 90's coming up with an outfit would be an easy thing to do, but au contraire, my friend! All the outfits I can think of that scream 90's have all been removed from my closet over the past 10 years. I really can't fathom going out to buy a rayon dress with a vest and combat boots or some relaxed fit, high-waisted jeans and a flannel just for one random night at the club. Now if this were 80's theme, it would be a breeze! I have my perfect Madonna-esque outfit I keep prepared for any 80's occasion. I just didn't think people would start having 90's parties until I had children - also known as, "when hell freezes over." So wish me luck on finding the perfects 90's outfit and that my hair can still produce the perfect Rachel do!

 [source]

What were some of your favorite things from the 90's? Do you have certain outfits or items that just scream 90's? I remember having the big wedge penny loafers in the late 90's and spaghetti strap rayon dresses. And forest green jeans in the early 90's. And my promotion dress from 8th grade that had the big white poet-ruffle shirt and a forest green jumper dress that was very risque for my church. People commented to my mom that I was showing way too much leg! I wish I had some of those pictures scanned to show you. :-)

Now for yesterdays EATS!

Yesterday I finished off the last of the smoked salmon with a Laughing Cow wedge on a whole wheat English muffin. When I bought this huge fillet of smoked salmon from Costco I froze half of it, hence, why you've been seeing it so much lately. But you can finally say goodbye to it - at least for now. Bye Salmon!!

I had planned to run some errands during lunch so I brought this leftover curry I had frozen. I didn't realize I froze it without shrimp, so just potatoes, onions, carrots and yellow curry served over brown rice. 

Since I didn't run those "errands" on my lunch break, I decided mid afternoon my new errands should be...

Yummy! I did plain yogurt with strawberries, kiwis, and cheesecake bites. I also tried a dollop of coconut and a dollop of peach tart. Pistachio is by far my favorite flavor and I was totally bummed they didn't have it today. :-(

After work I snacked on a couple bites of this before beginning my P90X. That's right friends, I'm joining the big dogs doing the P90X routine. I did 60 minutes of arms and shoulders and the 20 minute Ab Ripper X video. Yeah, Ab Ripper kicked my butt!!

Dinner was simple. I'm made seared scallops, steamed asparagus, and a 9 grain medley from Trader Joe's that I mixed some frozen spinach into. I can't remember what all went into the 9 grain medley but it was something like cous cous, orzo, lentils, red quinoa and some other stuff. Everything got a healthy squirt of lemon juice and was delicious!

And later last night I finished off with these ice cream cookies from Trader Joe's. They look much bigger than they actually are. They're about the size of Oreo's just with mint chocolate chip ice cream in the middle. Yum!

Hope you all  have had a great day!

Weekend Warrior

Do you find yourself living good and healthy through the week but killing your diet on the weekends? Do you count calories throughout the week but depend on "portion control" for Saturdays and Sundays? Do you tend to use the weekend as your "rest" days from the gym? I know I do!

I came across this article this am about how weekend calories may be ruining your diet. I could not agree with this article more! I know for a fact I definitely take in more calories on the weekend. 

• Fact #1: Alcohol - Now I know alcohol is kind of a taboo subject out here in blog land; many people emphasize their "one glass of wine". I will be the first one to admit I do drink alcohol. If I have one glass of wine - it's very likely there will be at least a second one to follow - if not a few more. I am a Weekend Warrior! I've come a long way from my college years of binge drinking, but weekend are definitely a time for me to let loose, enjoy times with friends, and indulge in those extra calories.
• A thing to remember when counting calories [or cocktails] is that 4 glasses of wine with friends equals one bottle of wine which equals 500 calories. 

• Fact #2: I rarely count calories on the weekend - Whether it's laziness to track them in my iPhone, eating out and not knowing the calorie content, or thinking I'm doing well with my portion control, there are definitely extra calories that slip into my diet on the weekend. 
• Remember to track those extra calories munching around the house, having the extra slice of pizza, going out to eat - the bread basket, appetizers, salad (dressings!), entrees, desserts. One meal out can cancel out all the calories you've saved by dieting and exercising all week!

What can you do to help live a balanced life on the weekend? Well besides from the tips listed here on MSNBC, my suggestions are:

•  Remember to workout!! Getting in a good workout will help to counter act the extra calories taken in over the weekend.  This is definitely key to my successful healthy living.
• Drink lots of water! Drinking lots of water helps curb food cravings. Now I'm sure I'm the only on this happens too [insert SarcMark]; wake up Sunday morning after a few too many and confuse my dehydration with an intense craving and desire for brunch packed with carbs, fried food and, why not, more mimosas!

Do you have days you indulge? What are your weaknesses? What are your tricks for not overeating on the weekends?

Now for my weekend EATS! 

Friday I had plans to meet up with a friend in town after work, but things ended up not working out so I had a whole Friday afternoon/evening to myself! After a busy week of having plans every night prior, I was kind of at a loss as of what to do. I could workout, but I had just go my hair done and figured I should savor the new, blown out 'do!

So I worked a little in my yard and enjoyed the nice weather on my patio. Check out my awesome little tomato plant. Proof things can grow in the desert! Look how much Hope has grown since I first planted her. Very exciting! 

See my first little tomato starting to grow! I also have a small basil plant.

 
While I enjoyed the lovely weather I snacked on some cheese and crackers. 

  
And then I decided to get all my weekend errands out of the way which mainly consisted of Costco, Trader Joe's and a Target trip.  With no other developing Friday night plans, I decided to make it a movie & wine night. I couldn't help but snack on these on the way home from the grocery store. 

And once home I just had to try this habanero and lime salsa. Hot, but didn't burn my tongue off. Another way to save calories big scoops of salsa means less chips used! I love salsa. I could literally eat it by the spoonful! Literally. And next time I do I'll be sure to share it with the blog. :-)

And then I made this personalized pizza I got at Trader Joe's and enjoyed it with two glasses of wine and The Blind Side - that's right, 2 glasses! That's what How the Cookies Crumble considers moderation. :-)

Have you seen me? Yes, the next morning I had yet another English muffin with Laughing Cow and smoked salmon. Just one half this time. 

Lunch was a roasted veggie sandwich. The veggie mix of sweet potatoes, eggplant, asparagus and broccoli were hot out of the oven so they helped wilt the spinach. There were also some artichoke hearts buried beneath.  I topped the salad off with goat cheese, a Morningstar burger and Green Goddess dressing mixed with water so it wasn't so thick. 

Later in the afternoon I snacked on a couple handfuls of these wasabi peas. Love them!

Saturday night I went to a wine walk to benefit a local charity. Now I would love to say I worked out Saturday to counter act all the wine in take I had planned for later, but my hair was still looking good and I was not ready to wash it! I did squeeze 20 minutes of Pilates into my jam packed day of sleeping in and cleaning house. [insert laughing at myself] 

 Wine walk was a lot of fun! There were 20 different wine stations you could visit and get a 1 ounce wine pour. I think we made it to about 17 of them. After the wine walk we went to Brio Tuscan Grill for dinner. We decided to do some sharing. We got the Gorgonzola crusted lamb chop appetizer and a side of eggplant parmesan and mashed potatoes. I also decided that 2 more glasses of Sauvignon Blanc were essential to go with dinner. :-)

Very yummy dinner and perfect sized! I'm glad our bartender suggested sharing the appetizer instead of the entree of lamb chops!

Sunday morning I couldn't decide what I wanted for breakfast. So I had a bit of both. One egg + one egg while over easy and melted with low fat cheese on one half of an English muffin, and old faithful, Laughing Cow and smoked salmon on the other half. I ate all of my egg sandwich but ended up just picking the salmon off the other one. 

After my breakfast digested and I had wasted the day away doing god knows what, I finally laced up my running shoes for my first run since surgery and my half marathon 3 weeks ago. I ran about 2.5 miles and walked about another 4 miles. I'm sure my stride will come back soon, but I'm just not ready for a long run yet. 

Back at the house I snacked on a brown monster. This had half a banana, a beet, about 15 frozen cherries, a scoop of my wanna-be-Amazing Grass, some SF (sugar free) Quick, handful of spinach, ice cubes, and a little milk. 

And some crackers and hummus. 

  
I love my Kashi crackers, and everything Kashi for that matter, but I couldn't take my eye off the long ingredient list. Even though I could read and I knew everything in the crackers, when I set them side by side Reduced Fat Triscuits, Triscuits won - but just barely so I'll still eat my Kashi when I want too! :-)

Last night I had a "thing" to go to. Okay, you talked it out of me. I went speed dating!

My friend and I signed up to go, I was Girl #3. It was a interesting night and I had a lot of fun. Did I meet possible next boyfriend or future husband? Probably not... I should've given cute boy Chuck I met at the bar before speed dating my number. I figured he'd still be waiting for me after my 12 dates with other men, but sadly he was gone. Lesson learned: when you meet a cute single guy - pounce on him right away. I am getting close in age to being a cougar. Kidding, kinda, sadly kinda not. :-) At the speed dating I had a piece of BBQ chicken pizza and 2 glasses chardonnay. When leaving I swung by Whole Foods and picked up some sushi and then cooked some edamame at home. I was still a little hungry. 

That was my exciting weekend! Have you ever tried speed dating or online dating? How did you and your significant other meet??