I'm Back!

Hey everyone, hope you all had a great weekend! I had an awesome time at my friend's wedding and it was especially nice to catch up with great friends :)

I didn't get many pics but I did manage to snap a few shots of the vegan dessert i made for the reception for the sprinkling of vegans in attendance.  I decided to go for the chocolate chip cookie dough brownies.

All cut up and dressed in purple!

Packed up snug in my new cupcake carrier!!! Love this thing!

Be back tomorrow with meals!

Quickie!

Hey everyone, just checking in for a quick update. Not a super exciting food day so I'll just show you what I've got.

Breakfast was much later than I anticipated so I just had an apple with maple almond butter to hold me over until lunch.

Lunch: Stir fry of tofu, mushrooms, onions and zucchini.  It was good and there are lots of leftovers!

Midday snack: Iced coffee and a lemon coconut bar.

Unpictured dinner: Chopped salad.

That's all for today. I'll be at work 11-9 tomorrow but I'll try and update! Gonna be going to Buffalo on Thursday for my friend's wedding so I'll be on a bit of a hiatus for the weekend but I'll try and get some pics of my eats!

Delicious Day

Sorry I didn't get a chance to post yesterday, I had a Christening to attend so I was out for a while and didn't get any good shots of my food.  I'm back today though with super yummy eats.

I still feel crappy about not being able to train but I'm going to run on the trampoline tomorrow to get the blood flowing.  One more week...

Check out the grub:

Breakfast :A peach, a half of an orange and some cherries.  I ate about 3/4 of it because it was more fruit than I anticipated.

Midmorning: Iced coffee. I've noticed I've been drinking way less of it though. I didn't even drink a full small one.  This is a good step because I'm trying to limit my coffee intake.

Lunch: A delicious mediterranean meal from the Whole Foods salad bar.  Falafel, dolma, hummus and a spicy eggplant salad.  It was SO good, and the eggplant was delicious and spicy and a great addition to the dish.

Afternoon snack: Homemade Lemon Coconut Bar from Ani's Raw Food Kitchen. This treat is PHENOMENAL. It has beautiful, bright lemon flavor from adding a ton of zest.  It is like the best version of a lemon larabar...more fresh lemon flavor, lots of texture and costs less than $2 a bar :) I halved the recipe and made 6 and divided them up using a muffin pan, hence the shape. Totally recommend this treat...dates, almonds, coconut, lemon...can't go wrong!

Dinner will be this salad I made at the Whole Foods salad bar. Greens, carrots, zucchini and yellow squash, chickpeas, broccoli, cucumber and sun-dried tomatoes. This is gonna be good!

Dessert: Yes, I'm having dessert tonight! I plan on eating one of these raw Chai Spice macaroons for dessert tonight.  They look so good, I hope they taste as good as they look! I'll let you know!

Retail Therapy

Today I did a little retail therapy.  No food to post as of yet because both meals are repeats of yesterday and totally uninspired.  Breakfast was the same exact smoothie as yesterday and lunch was leftover salad.

Check out my awesome purchases though.  I'm pretty stoked about them.

Ring $10 from Kohl's - I bought this to wear with my dark purple bridesmaid's dress next weekend.  I love this ring, I think I'll get a lot of use out of it. And you definitely can't beat that price.

Amazing Tie Dye Sunglasses $12.99 from Target - These look completely ridiculous off but are completely amazing on.  I love these, they make me smile every time I look at them and that is totally needed right now.

Had a good day and I have plans to go to a friend's house, eat some dinner and watch the Bellator Fights tonight. Pretty much EXACTLY how I want to spend my Saturday night. Hope you all have a great one!

Another Day, Another Salad

First, I would like to say thank you Bikram yoga for making today's scorcher somewhat bearable.  I walked outside and while the heat isn't pleasant, it isn't unbearable. So thank you Bikram yoga for making me less cranky on an obscenely hot summer day.

Today's meals were not unusual for me but they were still good.  I'm looking forward to yoga tomorrow. And my bridesmaid dress still zips...for now.  Oy.

Breakfast: My favorite meal for today. A peanut butter and banana smoothie. 1 frozen banana with a spoonful of peanut butter, 1/2 cup almond milk and lots of cinnamon.  It was divine and I drank it out of my "Smart Women Thirst For Knowledge" mug.

Lefotver stir-fry from yesterday.  I drained it twice..it was still holding on to a little grease but it wasn't as horrendous as it was yesterday.

Dinner was half of this salad: greens, cucumber, carrot, sun-dried tomatoes and portabellos.  It was good...and it'll be just as good for lunch tomorrow!

Happy Friday everyone.

Lame-o Update

So I don't have too much to update.  I've been having a really bad week...I've been put on a mandatory hiatus from training because I haven't given my body proper rest in about 2 years.  I can't go back for 2 weeks.  Today was the first time I was supposed to train and I'm already hating it.  I am going to do yoga on Saturday but it won't be enough.  I'll do some trampoline running here and there too since it is no impact but I'm not a happy camper.  Some other things are going on but I'm not going to get into it here. 

As a result of this unnecessary stress and bummed out mood, my appetite has been really low.  I only have one pic to share today.

Breakfast/Lunch: Watermelon and cherries.  And some iced coffee. Couldn't even finish the coffee :(

For dinner I got a stir-fry from a local place and was so grossed out by the amount of sauce and grease in it I ate a few bites and couldn't deal with it.  I feel nauseous.  I literally spooned out the veggies with a slotted spoon to get rid of the sauce.  I'm going to wait for more sauce to separate and then drain again.  That is how much sauce they used. Ew.

Sorry to be such a buzzkill. I'll try and have some pics tomorrow.  I'm thinking of a peanut butter and banana smoothie for breakfast to get some calories in.  That should be yummy.  Check back in.

Tuesday Eats: Part Deux

Hey all hope you had a lovely Tuesday.  I'm back with the second half of my eats!  Since I ate (drank?) my breakfast so late I just had a few midday snacks until dinner which held me over just fine.

 

Snack 1: Cupcake mug full of cherries <3

Snack 2: Handful of these garlic and herb cashews that I HAD to try because they look and smelled amazing! And they were amazing indeed!

Dinner: Salad (which I chopped up after the pic) with mesclun greens, yellow and green squash, sun-dried tomatoes, carrots, broccoli and chickpeas.  Super yum!

Definitely had a great day of yummy eats. In other news, my trainer has canceled my sessions for the rest of this week and next week and said I need to rest and recover and that I've been overtraining.  I'm not happy since I have to be in a bridesmaid's dress next Saturday...I was planning my break for the end of August but a minor injury unfortunately pushed that break up to the most inconvenient time.  Expect some very clean eats over the next week since I won't be able to work out (except yoga on Saturday).  Sadness.

Tuesday Morning

I'm breaking today up into two posts because I have a ton of photos.  It isn't even noon and I've already accomplished a lot so I'm pretty happy about that :)

Woke up early, got to Whole Foods when they opened at 8.  I love shopping there this way, there is no one there, I have time to leisurely look around and find new things.  Here is my haul! Check out treats for raw and cooked meals.

Lots of stuff today! Oranges, baby bok choy, a lemon (for homemade larabars!), cherries, mushrooms, coconut oil, flaxseed meal, Silk hazelnut creamer, asian slaw from the prepared section, zucchini, a bunch of raw nuts (cashews, pecans, almonds), garlic and herb cashews, raw oat groats, and some Larabars to hold me over until I make my own.

After my trip to Whole Foods I did my morning 45 minute workout using my new trampoline! My trainer suggested I use it for no impact running/cardio since I'm beating my body up enough as it is.  I did 45 minutes and here is how I broke it down: 6 min running, 2 min jumping jacks, 2 min twists then another 6 min of running, 2 min jumping jacks, 1 minute of high knees and 1 minute of butt kickers. I repeated these two 10 minute sets one more time then finished with another 5 minutes of running.  After that I did some abs: 30 secs crunches followed by 30 seconds of reverse crunches then 30 seconds of bicycle crunches repeated twice.  Who thought a home workout could be so gnarly!

I made a green protein smoothie for my post workout breakfast.  Check it:

Front of green protein powder packet.

Back of the protein packet.  

Green smoothie!! 1 frozen banana, 2 dates, 3/4 cup almond milk, one packet green vanilla protein powder (contains spirulina as well as a few different kinds of protein!)

This is random but look how cool the lid for my blender looked splattered with green smoothie! I thought it was pretty so I wanted to share :)

OK so that was my morning up until now! I'll post the rest of my day when i get home from work after 9! Have a great day!

Blah Day

So I had a pretty rough work weekend and today was not too much better. My appetite has been down as a result of stress.  Not too much to look at today but here we go.

Breakfast: Banana with peanut butter, raisins, cinnamon and coconut.

Midmorning: Small coffee

sorry for the hideous phone pic!

Lunch: Chopped salad with organic greens, broccoli, sun-dried tomato, cucumber and carrots.

Post workout: protein shake

No dinner yet.  Not super hungry and not all that inspired to cook.  Any suggestions?  My shoulder is also a bit jacked up from carrying heavy bags all weekend then training tonight so I'm a bit of a mess lol. I'll try and figure something out.

CHERRIES!!

OK, my title comes from the fact that I ate A LOT of cherries today. And I'm totally ok with that. Cherries are delicious. :D

Breakfast: Breakfast banana split - banana split in half and spread with peanut butter, then sprinkled with raisins, coconut and cinnamon. YUM.

Midmorning snack: Lots of cherries! Round 1 ;)

Lunch: Some more of my stir-fry (I added broccoli) with some brown rice.

Post-training: Protein Shake.

OK so I didn't end up eating dinner tonight...after the gym and my protein shake I went to make my cupcake delivery to my friend.  She kindly invited me to join her and her son to Coney Island. It was a gorgeous night and I've wanted to go forever and I haven't been able to hang out with her in a while so I gladly accepted.  I got home around 11:15 and realized I hadn't had dinner...so naturally I just went and grabbed more cherries ;) What can I say, I love them!

Have weddings both days this weekend so I'll try and post if I can...we shall see!  Have a great weekend!

Girly Girl Birthday Cupcakes!

My friend celebrated her birthday yesterday and I wanted to bake something cute and fun for her.  Her favorite color is pink and she lives in a house full of boys so I decided to make her some super fun girly girl cupcakes!

These cuties are the basic vanilla cake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World with pink sprinkles and chocolate chips added to the batter for some pretty and yummy surprises.  I frosted them with hot pink frosting, sprinkled with glitter "flakes" and added some edible silver pearls.  I LOVE the way these came out, and she said they tasted great!

This carrying tray is probably the best way I've ever transported cupcakes.  Each one has it's own little spot and they stay all snug and still.  Totally recommend them!

Hope you like these! I was really excited about them! :) And happy birthday G!!!

Some eating, some fighting, some baking!

Today was a pretty good day :) I woke up late so I missed my run which sucks but I had a training session in the evening so I didn't feel too bad.  The training session was AWESOME! My trainer got his extra pair of shin guards in so we were throwing punches and kicks at each other and I was able to put offense and defense together finally.  He wasn't throwing anything crazy just enough for me to get the point...and my foot got the point when I kicked right into his elbow. I see a nice bruise forming (read: battle wound ;]). The funny thing is, this all probably looks crazy when other people read it but I LOVE doing all of this training.

Anyway, here is the food!

Breakfast: I tried quinoa flakes in place of my oats and I was NOT a fan.  It had a funky taste and was just not good.  Definitely going back to oats.  Topped with raisins, walnuts and coconut.

Midmorning snack: Coffee and an apple.

Lunch: Some of the stir-fry I made yesterday. It was really good.

Afternoon snack: Handful of trail mix.

Post workout: Protein Shake

I didn't take a pic of my dinner but I ate some veggies and hummus while I baked the CUTEST CUPCAKES EVER for my friend's birthday.  I'll post pics tomorrow after I deliver them so I don't ruin the surprise. Can't wait to show you all!

Crazy Day!

Hey everyone, just got home a little bit ago from a crazy day! I woke up at the crack of dawn (5:30ish) and did laundry and cooked a delicious stir-fry that I will be eating probably for the rest of the week.

You'll be seeing a lot of this dish this week.  Check out how bright and vibrant the greens are! It is bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, snow peas and tofu. Yums can't wait to eat it!

Anyway, after that I worked from 11-9, however I didn't get home until about 9:45 because I had to "help" (lets be honest I really kind of just supervised) my boss DUCT TAPE HIS BUMPER TO HIS CAR. Someone hit his car in the parking lot so hard that his entire bumper literally came off.  It was crazy and really disgusting that they just left.

So that was my LONG and crazy day.

Breakfast: Banana with peanut butter and cinnamon and an orange.  It was yummy!

Midmorning snack: Iced coffee and a key lime larabar.

Lunch and Dinner are un-pictured: Leftover stir-fry and salad from yesterday.  Very tasty the second time around!

Ok I'm off the rest, gonna try and get a few miles in when I wake up the I have training after work. Yay!

Quick One!

I'm practically out the door for work but wanted to do a quick post now so i don't have to when I get out tonight :)

Started off the day with a 2 mile run.  It was my compromise because I didn't want to go in the first place because my legs are mangled from 45 mins of all kicking yesterday.  Breakfast is an unpictured protein shake and banana.  Midmorning I had a small mug of coffee and a lemon larabar.

Lunch: An aggravating experience that ended up in me waiting 30 mins for a stupid stir fry while a family of 5 got their meals ahead of me.  Mushrooms, broccoli, zucchini, snow peas and cabbage (which was supposed to be bok choy so another annoyance on top of the ridiculous wait).

Afternoon snack: Will be an iced coffee and some almonds.

Dinner: Will be yet another chopped salad - greens, carrot, cucumber, sun-dried tomatoes, broccoli, chickpeas.

Rushed around this morning but got some super cute cupcake decorating materials for my friend's upcoming bday surprise! :) Can't wait to make em. 

Off to work, have a great day!

Total Case of the Mondays

Hey guys I'm back after a really great weekend. On Saturday I started off my day with a trip to the MMA store that just opened a few months ago a few towns over.  It made me happy :) Then I went to Brooklyn and spent two hours at a scooter store looking for a scooter for my friend.  I managed to find this adorable little pink scooter perfect for short girls like me :)

Maybe one day it'll be mine.  After that we walked 10-12 blocks to Wild Ginger and had a delicious vegan meal (I had the tofu with mixed veggies).  I totally intended to take a pic with my phone but I forgot :(  Yesterday was my friend's baby shower that me, my mom and sister in law threw so I was busy with that as well, but have no fear, I'm back!

Today was the same old so let's get on with the grub!

Breakfast: Huge orange and some big yummy strawberries.

Midmorning: Iced Coffee

Lunch: Steamed tofu, broccoli and eggplant with a few tbsp of garlic sauce.

Afternoon snack: Coconut cream pie larabar.

Post workout: OK just for the record my training session was gnarly.  45 mins of ALL kicking drills.  All kicks. Really. Seems easy, it's not.  Recovery protein shake consumed.

Dinner: Roasted chickpeas, corn cut off the cob and a small apple.  Really yummy.

Back in Business

So yesterday I felt completely hideous...I'll spare you the details but I assure you it wasn't pretty!  I seem to be back in business today so here we go!

Breakfast: Oats in a mug! Love this ginormous oversized brown mug filled with oaty, nutty, raisiny, coconutty deliciousness.

Midmorning: Iced coffee and an orange.

Lunch: Chopped salad - usual suspects plus broccoli decided to join the party.  Delicious.

Post training session: Protein Shake

Dinner: Roasted chickpeas and cauliflower and a few sun-dried tomatoes. Random noms.

Nommy day!!

Started my day off with a 3.5 mile run.  It was hard to get back into the groove and so hot it took a toll on my breathing pattern.  It was rough but I got through it.  After that it was smooth sailing though! Let's check out the grub.

Breakfast: Decided to go for some mochi this morning! It was AMAZING...I topped it with chopped walnuts, raisins, shredded coconut and cinnamon then drizzled it with maple syrup.  It was heavenly and call me crazy but it reminded me of baklava...especially when I had a bite with only walnuts, syrup, flaky coconut and syrup. Amazing.

Farmer's market mini-haul: Finally had a chance to get to the farmer's market and grabbed a few items.  I got a pint of cherries, a few ears of corn, a big ol' bunch of kale and some gorgeous peaches.

Morning snack: One of the aforementioned yummy peaches.

Lunch: Finished off the rest of my stir-fry with added broccoli to bulk it up. It was just as good the third time around :)

Afternoon snack: Iced coffee

Dinner: Farmer's market salad.  Kale topped with some raw corn, green onion and red beans.  I cut the avocado when I ate it so it would stay it's lovely fresh shade until then.  It was good but no matter how many times i try I don't think I'm a raw kale girl so it looks like I'm either making kale chips or steaming/sauteeing the rest of it.  

Have a great night!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th gang!  I enjoyed my day off tremendously and had some pretty yummy food.  Tomorrow is is back to the grind with work and a 3.5 mile run.  Guess the fun had to end sooner or later ;)

Breakfast: Unpictured, sorry! I woke up really late (especially for me) so I just slathered some peanut butter on a banana and ate it on my way out to run some errands.

"Snack": Iced coffee in a mason jar while I was getting my lunch together.

Lunch: A huge pile of leftover stir-fry with shiitake mushrooms, tofu and bok choy. Served over brown rice.

Afternoon Snack: I was craving hummus like crazy so I took a few Mary's Gone Crackers in the onion flavor (crispy gluten free crackers, yum!), slathered them in hummus and topped with sun-dried tomato.  So good.

Dinner: I had to take advantage of the gorgeous veggies in the Whole Foods salad bar so I made a salad. I took the pic pre-chop this time so you could see the full glory of this salad. It was a bed of mesclun greens with julienned green and yellow squash, cucumbers, carrots, chickpeas, broccoli, sun-dried tomato and one lonely dolma.  It was amazing!

Dessert: Unpictured bowl of juicy watermelon. Clearly I love watermelon.

Hope you all had a happy and safe 4th of July!