Weekend Wrap Up

The first thing I need to wrap up is the fast food challenge. I am happy to be 30 days fast food free!! Here is what I have learned from this little mini-challenge

• I feel better not eating fast food
• There is always another option
• Eliminating fast food saves money
• Eliminating fast food makes you crave real food versus processed garbage
• I no longer have to fight the urge to hit the drive through

Even though the challenge is officially over I think I will make this a permanent part of my lifestyle. Can I say that never again will a Chick-fil-a nugget touch my lips? Of course not but I can certainly say it will never again be a part of my week/life/routine as it once was. Just like a bad boyfriend – fast food and I are done for good this time. 🙂

I also need to wrap up my week of scale-less living. I have to say I loved this. I ate healthfully, worked out hard, and ignored the scale. I weigh in tomorrow and I am already nervous. How unhealthy mentally is that? I am trying not to be too hard on myself though. Getting fit is a journey and I am in the part of my journey where I am trying to fix unhealthy metal attitudes toward food and weight. My dilemma is this: I cannot monitor my weight and be held accountable without weighing and right now I cant weigh without stressing. But from this point on its once a week on that scale like it or not. My new challenge is to learn not to let it define my journey or my week. No matter how it goes in the morning I will

• Be proud of my long run this week
• Be proud of taking the step to join body pump
• Not allow it to derail my healthy plan and attitude.

I am just a little lost with how to proceed right now but I am taking all of the right steps so I know it won’t be long until I find my way. 🙂

Finally, I wrapped up the semester and turned in my final project for class. I take the summer’s off for sanity reasons so I am class free for 3 months! For those new to my blog I am working on my second MA and hopefully my license for family counseling. I am most definitely pleased to be done for the summer.

The one thing I am sad to wrap up is the weekend. The hubs made it home safe and sound from camping and we decided to go see a movie (his choice). I sat through Robin Hood so I earned a Letters to Juliet date next weekend! I decided to change up the shirt-dress outfit that I wore to Kristen’s birthday with a dark cardigan, a headband, and different accessories.

After making it through Robin Hood we had a late lunch of tomato soup and a 1/2 a sandwich of grilled chicken/ham/onion/sun dried tomato/swiss/pickle spears and olives.

Tonight is going to be spent catching up on TIVO, reading blogs, and having organic chicken sandwiches with the hubs. (He thought my dinner last night looked awesome so we are having a repeat). Happy thoughts for tomorrow’s weigh-in. We are going on a month with no loss here. What was your longest plateau?

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Shop Til You Drop (and then have a truffle…but just one)

So as I mentioned on Friday I went up to Richmond Virginia to spend the weekend with one of my best girlfriends Liz. She used to live in the same town as me but then abandoned me moved on to other opportunities in Richmond a couple of years ago. I miss her a LOT but this gives me a good excuse to go visit and Richmond has way better food and shopping than we we do here.  Also, a little random tidbit; Richmond, VA is actually the “sky line” you see in my header at the top of the screen. I have been asked a couple of times where the picture is from so there you go. 🙂

While Liz is an excellent friend for many reasons I have to say one of my favorite things about her is her willingness to try new things. She is definitely my most culinary adventurous friend and I love that we can pick a random spot and just try it.  I also love that she shares my affinity for “fine dining” and will go have what my hubs refers to as “weird small food” with me. She is also one of my partners in shopping crime although this weekend we were VERY responsible (but I am getting ahead of myself).

I got up EARLY Saturday and had a gigantic cup of Hazelnut coffee in my Alice in Wonderland Red Queen mug. I love it and feel pretty sure I will need more of them. 😉 I also had a lack luster breakfast of frozen organic waffles, sugar free syrup and turkey sausage.

It says "I don't do tea parties" Hehehe

❤ flavored coffee

After Bryan left for golf and other man things with his friends I packed up the Wonderbug and headed up to Richmond.

Me waiting for GPS to get her act together. 🙂

As soon as I got settled we headed out for lunch. This should have been a reasonably easy task. I wanted to go to this vegetarian place I had heard about so we drove there to find they are not open for lunch on Saturdays. Liz then suggested a place called Cous Cous so we drove there instead. Also not open on Saturdays for lunch. Really? People do need lunch on Saturdays. So an hour or so after we started out we made it to a place that IS open for lunch Mom Siam a local Thai place. I LOVE independently owned local businesses. I will choose them over a chain any day of the week. Mom Siam was actually very good. The prices were reasonable and the menu was huge. You could get any dish made with tofu which I thought was pretty cool. I decided on the chicken basil (which was supposed to be really spicy and was only kind of spicy) which came with onions, peppers, and steamed rice (of which I only ate about 1/3). We shared some mango and sticky rice for dessert. This is not the best Thai I have ever had but it was very good and I would definitely go again.

We were the last of the lunch crowd.

basil chicken with onions and peppers w/ side of rice

Yum!

Mango and Sticky Rice

After lunch we headed over to Short Pump Town Center to do some shopping. It’s an outdoor shopping center which I love. They also have a pretty good variety of stores.

We went pretty much everywhere. We are two girls who like to shop for pretty much anything-clothes, shoes, pots and pans, scarves, candy, live frogs (ahem). Really there is no boundaries with the shopping. However, as we have become grown ups with bills and what not we have tried to reel in the addiction a little.  We both only found 1 item each during our day out. This is crazy when you consider that we once were in Delaware in the middle of a tropical depression/storm and decided to go outlet shopping for not one but 2 days straight. We did have a lot of fun looking around, trying on clothes, and scoping out the newest and coolest kitchen stuff at Williams and Sonoma.

We were pretty tired after our day of shopping and stopped by Godiva for one truffle each. We both chose the dark chocolate black raspberry truffle. Fantastic if you even have to ask!!

After getting changed we headed out to Avalon for dinner. Avalon is a tapas restaurant.  For anyone not familiar with that, this means you choose 2 or 3 small serving plates rather than 1 “normal” serving plate with sides. I LOVE tapas because you get to try a little of this and a little of that. It’s perfect for foodies!! Between the two of us we got a hummus/veggie plate, squash with goat cheese, and we each got a serving of seared scallops with English pea salad. This was by far the best dish of the night. I should also mention the bread was phenomenal. It was a thyme/rosemary/citrus loaf with Parmesan garlic butter. It was amazing. I loved this place. The food was great and I was glad they served actual dinner so late. We did not even make it there until about 10:30pm.

The best bread ever

hummus and squash with goat cheese

scallops and english pea salad

We tried to do a super cool self portrait in the car before heading over to Martini Kitchen and Bubble Bar.As you can see it did not turn out so super great!

Here is a much clearer picture of us from my wedding. 🙂

We finished our night off with a cupcake from Frostings. I REALLY wanted to like Frostings but Bubblecake in Roanoke has me spoiled. I can’t find another cupcake to measure up.

I drove home this morning and spent a super casual day out with Bryan at the dollar movies and grocery shopping.

I have been a slacker with the workouts this weekend and feel terrible about it. I am so ready for a good sweat until you can sweat no more workout session this week! On the upside I am now more than 2 weeks into my Fast Food Challenge and am doing great. Now that I no longer consider it as an option it is kind of cool to find all of the alternatives out there for when I am in a rush. What is your favorite “go to” lunch or dinner during a busy week?

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Dinner Swap

So tonight officially wraps up “Meals ala Bryan” also known as a week of guy friendly foods to celebrate Fraggle turning 34. So far most of the picks were diet friendly but tonight I had the task of taking on…… BBQ Bacon Cheese Burger and Fries.

“Their” version has 1757 calories and 97 grams of fat.

Now, I just cant have that. Ever. For me, that will never be okay.I could smell that and gain weight. 😉 Sooo I decide to create my own swap to give Bryan a huge burger for a reasonable calorie price-tag. For my BBQ Bacon Swap I used the following:

-Natures Own Sandwich Thins

-97% Lean Ground Beef

-2 slices of Center (lean cut) bacon

-raw onions

-lecctuce

-tomato

-1/2 teaspoon of FF mayo

-teaspoon FF BBQ Sauce

-1 slice 2% cheddar

-Sweet Potato Fries

Sara’s Swap contained 610 calories and 14 grams of fat with a savings of…… 1,147 calories and 83 grams of fat!

And it tasted pretty good too!

While the burger was good I was only able to eat about 1/2 of it. I think red meat and I might be about to break up. Sure we can see each other maybe on special occasions but that might be it. It was right on in terms of taste but it still grossed me out.

Bry and I shared a piece of organic chocolate for desert.

Do you have a favorite “meal swap”?

Thanks for bearing with me through my stressful work week. Normal healthy living blogging resumes tomorrow. Also, stop by tomorrow to check out my new hair cut/color. I am still undecided on what I am going to choose. 🙂 I do love a day at the salon!

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Table for One

I was up bright and early (well not so much bright as it was still dark) for work today. I had to do a lot of driving today but its only something I have to do every quarter so I cannot complain (too much). The weather was beautiful and I listened to U2 for the entire drive so all was not lost! Although even my poor pup Carrie looked exhausted when I woke her up this morning.

I started my morning with a Green Monster to go. I also grabbed a cranbran vita top to have later in the morning. I have to say these not so scary green monsters are growing on me. I want to get a little more adventurous with the flavor. Do any of you Green Monster drinkers out there have a favorite blend/recipe?

I decided to wear one of my new pairs of shoes that I found at last week’s charity event. Since I did not have to do a ton of walking I thought it would be a great way to break them in. Turns out it did not matter. They were almost as comfy as my running shoes. Had I known this I would have picked them up in black and red!

While my day was mostly driving I did get my work mission completed and then I started thinking about lunch. Every single time I have taken this trip (literally for over 3 years) my lunch as been fast-food of some kind since I was traveling alone. Today I decided to do something I have never done before- sit ALONE in a proper restaurant and have lunch on my own.  Is it really weird that I have never done this before?

I decided to stop at one of the towns I had to pass through to get home. There is a little cafe that I went to with my good friend Liz a couple of months ago and I remembered how fresh and yummy everything was there.  They were about to close up from lunch when I got there but they were really nice and let me come in anyway. YAY!

I had the place to myself.

I decided on an egg white omelet with spinach, mushrooms, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and cheese. It came with a side of seasoned baked potato pieces and some dry whole grain toast. It was dry in a good way not a bad way. 🙂

After lunch I ran into Whole Foods for a bottle of water and a Luna Bar for the trip home. I was stuffed from lunch so I didn’t eat it but I was excited to find a flavor I haven’t had before. White Chocolate Macadamia Nut. YUM!

I was literally in and out of Whole Foods in five minutes but I also grabbed a jar of black-bean corn salsa and a small piece of organic chocolate. (They were all in the Luna Bar isle so I figured it was meant to be). After my mini stop at Whole Foods I headed home.

My workout tonight was great. I did a hard 60 minutes. When I felt myself getting weak or wanting to stop I bumped up the speed or intensity level. When it was over I felt accomplished and it felt awesome. Getting back to basics with the week of cross training was for sure the right choice.

Dinner was joint effort at our house tonight. Bry made his super secret recipe for turkey tacos. He even remembered the whole grain shells and 2% cheese.  And what goes great with tacos?? My new salsa! YUM!

Messy and Yummy

What is your most favorite “messy” dinner?

Stop by tomorrow and tour my dining room. Have a Happy and Healthy Tuesday!!

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