The Soup

Yesterday was a pretty good day. Work was crazy busy, so it went by fast (which is always a good thing). Unfortunately, I didn't bring my lunch and didn't have time to run out, so I ended up in our Cafeteria downstairs.

Yuck.

Lunch was broccoli, (I'm not sure what they did to it. Roasted maybe? It was ok..... ish)
and then there was the squash/zucchini/tomato... stuff. It was weird. It was ok.....
.....ish.

I also had a Carmel Nut Blast Balance Bar. It was pretty good - kind of like a Snickers, but not as good. But it has less fat and calories, more protein and fiber. It felt like a candy bar. I'd eat it again.

I managed to refrain from snacking the rest of the day (thanks to being so busy), and by the time I left work and finished the grocery shopping, I was pretty famished. (BTW - bad for the wallet when you're hungry. I also had to move away from the strawberry and pineapple samples as people were starting to look at me funny).

  The hubby was going to be pretty late coming home, so I ate a small snack to tide me over, then went ahead and made dinner. 

Ah, dinner.
The Tortellini Soup.

It was good.

First of all, I should learn to follow directions a little better. The recipe calls for 9oz of "Fresh or Frozen" tortellini. I totally blew past that, and dumped in 3/4 of a 12oz bag of dried tortellini.

Holy Tortellini Overload, Batman!
And of course the dried pasta absorbs so much more liquid, so I was adding more chicken stock and water to make it come out right... it was touch and go for awhile!

BUT... extra tortellini aside, the soup was Muy Bueno! I also added a shredded chicken breast - which was good but it totally didn't need.

Because I wanted just a touch of heat, I added about 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes. I also used the canned diced tomatoes instead of whole tomatoes, because that's what I had. I think the bigger chunks of tomato would have been great - but that's totally a chunk preference. (ewww?)

The moral of the story is, the soup is pretty hard to mess up. It would be good w/ some italian turkey sausage, with mushrooms, more tomatoes....

so, here's the link to the recipe. It's quick, tasty, and idiot proof.

and 'scuse my crappy photography. green bowl, dim light, camera phone = funky pictures. Lucky for you I have leftovers for lunch! ;0)

I actually had 2 bowls of this stuff - plus the garlic toast I made using the sandwich thins, 1Tbsp light butter, and garlic powder.

For dessert, approx 1/4 cup of semi sweet choc chips...

And, that's it! My day in food. The good, the bad.... and the "ish".

Sunday Eats

more crap food photography! You're welcome! ;)

Oh coffee, how I love thee.



So much so I want to be able to forswear my devotion in every language.....

Breakfast: 2 pseudo eggs (eggbeaters) w/ 1 slice 2% american cheese and diced ham
1 cup grits, 1Tbsp lite buttah, and 1/2 sandwich thin toasted w/ 1tsp butter

And then I cleaned house

and then we ended up at my husband's Aunt's house, where we had Chef Boyardee "homemade" pizza - which was ok, but if I was going to eat pizza for dinner, I would have much preferred really good pizza. Ya know?

Anyway, I had 3 slices (they were pretty small)

then I came home, and was unsatisfied, and had a Jello Pudding cup. 

Which unfortunately was not the magic pudding I was hoping for, so I ended up making a big glass of chocolate milk later on.

1Tbsp cocoa powder, 2 1/2 Tbsp sugar, and a big ol' glass of 1% milk. It was really rich, really filling,

.......and really hit the spot.

And even though it's a larger serving than I should have had, I feel like I did pretty well today, so I'm totally ok with it.

 

Food tracking 01/29/11

breakfast/lunch: Jersey Mike's turkey mini sub on wheat with lettuce, tomato, onion, light mayo, vinegar, light oil, pepper relish, salt and pepper

and baked doritos (which I shared w/ the hubby)

snack later: 20 baked tortilla chips (little more than a serving) 2Tbsp low fat sour cream mixed w/ 3Tbsp salsa.

Taco Salad from Moe's: lettuce, pico de gallo, grilled tofu, cucumber, black beans, olives, onions, southwestern vinaigrette, roasted corn and tomatillo salsa.

Very good! 

and for dessert.....

Jell-O Strawberry Cheesecake Temptation.

Saw this at the grocery store, and figured I'd give it a shot. It has 140 cal a cup, but if it's gonna kill a craving for cheesecake, worth it - right?

It was pretty good, but the cheesecake was a little to "whipped" for my taste. I like a real dense cheesecake, and this was more like their mousse desserts.



I feel like this photo thing is helping me be more accountable. Although I do feel kind of like a dork for taking a picture of everything. ;) oh well!

Aside from the food/diet thing - is it me or do the weekends seem to fly by faster and faster? It's already Saturday night?! Well, technically Sunday morning... and yet the weeks seem to drag on foreeeeeeever! I haven't gotten much of anything accomplished - yet I don't feel like I've rested or relaxed at all.

Did manage to get the taxes done. Long story, but not getting back nearly what I thought, which brings up this whole other world of issues. I hate money problems. Is there anything that can make you feel more overwhelmed and out of control?

On a brighter note, finally got around to seeing Black Swan. I really liked it - but it is seriously dark and twisted! Natalie Portman lost so much weight for that role! In some scenes you can see every tendon in her neck, and it's really kind of gross looking.

 I wonder how actors do that? Do they really have so much discipline they can just add or drop weight at will?  Obviously not the profession for me! LOL

Well, good night everyone. Hope you're enjoying your weekend!

A new approach

The things I need to improve upon are too numerous to name here... but we'll just start off with a few. Namely, tracking what I eat.

Oh yeah, and that whole exercise thing.

So I'm going to skim right over the "E" word, and talk about my tracking. Or lack thereof. I know I need to keep track of what I'm eating. I really know I need to be paying attention to serving sizes.

I've gotten pretty lax in paying attention to portion control, and keeping track of what goes in my mouth. I've been focusing on trying to eat healthier options - which is all well and good. But to be honest, I don't eat the healthy option all the time, which is why I need a better understanding of portion control.

So I've decided to make my neurosis work for me. I'm going to take a picture of everything I eat. I think this will work because:

• it forces me to put the food on a plate instead of eating it straight out of the bag.
• If I put a picture of a large pepperoni pizza and a package of oreos on here, I'm going to feel like an ass. The words in black and white are bad enough - but a full color picture? It's hard to kind of gloss over that, ya know? .
• Feeling like an ass will make me think twice (or third?) about what I'm actually eating. Am I willing to show people I ate this?  

And you know what - it already worked! I would normally have gnawed on my almonds straight from the bag, and undoubtedly gone over the portion size. But instead I put 24 almonds on a napkin and took a picture.

I also took a picture of the AWESOME salad I had from Qdoba for lunch. Romaine lettuce, black bean and corn salsa, fat free picante ranch dressing, pico de gallo, tomatillo salsa, light cheese (next time I'll go cheeseless), and grilled chicken. It was really spicy - but I sucked down my entire 20oz water, so that's a good thing. At almost $7 for the salad it's a little pricey but it's really freakin good!

The downfall: Going out to eat... I hate to call attention to my eating in public as it is - what am I going to do if there are people around? Heaven forbid if we're out with friends. How am I going to explain taking a picture of my food?

Well, sometimes I just won't have a pic. I'll try to find something close online, and if it comes down to it I'll describe it the best that i can.

So here we go!

Breakfast. Whole wheat bagel, regular cream cheese (approx 3Tbsp)

This was before I knew I was photo-journaling, cut me some slack!

Awesome lunch!













and my nice healthy snack

and since I was getting the munchies again after work, I stopped and got a granola bar!
Ok, the granola bar doesn't deserve an exclamation point (not that it was bad.... but, it's a granola bar...) but the fact that I picked it over the chips, crackers, candy, and chicken nuggets that all crossed my mind certainly does!

(BTW, these things take a while to eat! My jaw muscles are sore!)














It's a long time till my hubby gets home from work (he gets off at 9, I get off at 5. Makes for a late dinner and doesn't help my after work munchiness)

so a while later I had some Baked Tostitos and Salsa

10 Baked Tostitos scoops.

For dinner I had a small chili and plain baked potato from Wendy's. I used my low fat butter (1tbsp)/sour cream (2Tbsp), and it was better than I thought it would be,



For dessert, I had a single Ferrero Rocher Chocolate Truffle. Have you had those? Little chocolate/hazelnut bites of heaven. They come in packs of 3, I only ate 1 and had my husband hide the rest. :)

and that's it for today.  Not toooo bad, right?