Smoke Detector – friend or foe?

Don’t get me wrong. I  know smoke detectors are our friends.  Not many people are more aware of it than I am after the 2 alarm fire we had in my building a few weeks ago. Luckily, the fire was on the 3rd floor and I live more than 10 floors higher.  Aside from standing outside in the cold and rain for just shy of 3 hours… I was no worse for wear. Smoke detectors are saviours, I know this.

That being said… mine was a pain in my butt last night.  Do you recall the episode of FRIENDS where Phoebe’s smoke detector goes off all night?

This was sort of me last night. Got up at 3am for a washroom break… heard a beep. Realized pretty quickly it was my smoke detector with low batteries. Rather than change it right then, I decided I would go back to sleep at 3am and change the battery in the morning.  Every time I’d go to sleep I’d have a dream that somehow someone else had changed my smoke detector battery for me… then I’d hear the very loud beep of the detector and would get woken up. Finally after a couple of hours of repeatedly being woken up I got up, turned on the lights, found a battery, grabbed a dining room chair, dragged it over and changed the batter.  Hallelujah! Silence followed. Sweet dreams.

The damage was done. I managed to get up at 6am but my head was pounding so hard… when I tried to jog I felt sick.  I gave up!

This evening I was extremely tired and relaxed (last night was busy after all!).

Here’s what I ate

Breakfast: made a smoothie with 1c almond breeze, spinach, mango, amazing grass berry… and then to try to be super healthy I threw in wheat grass. Never. Again. It ruined it and when I got to work I ended up throwing out 3/4 of it.

Snack (breakfast #2): 1/2c ff cottage cheese (2), 1/2banana (1), 1/2c granola (2)

Lunch: 1/2c quinoa (2), spinach (0), tuna salad with mustard & hot peppers (1)… here’s a picture of the tuna. I LOVE IT!

followed by some fruit salad (1)… which I only ate half of

Afternoon snack: protein cookie dough with 1/2 scoop vanilla protein (1), 1tsp almond butter (1), water (0)

Dinner:… I was LAZY. cereal and almond breeze and no photos (6), 1/2c chapman’s fro yo (2)

Total: 19

Water: 2L – oops!

Also enjoyed some of my strawberry green tea from Tara!

Wish me luck at weigh in tomorrow. I will admit. I weigh myself every day. Some days it goes up (i.e. weekends and Monday) and some days it goes down (as we approach Thursdays).  I was rather disappointed this morning that despite my efforts yesterday the scale didn’t move.  Hopefully it moves tomorrow night!

I Am. Rookie

I made a rookie mistake today. I had a sweet night’s sleep last night. When the alarm went off at 6am I realized I really didn’t NEED to wake up that early while my plan is only 30min jogs. So, although I had gotten up to go to the bathroom and felt wide awake, I still let myself go back to sleep for a half an hour. Guess what happened next… I couldn’t wake up! I slept in until after 7! Oops!  Won’t do that again!

The good news is that I managed a short yoga session this evening AND a jog. I increased the speed on my jog and it hurt my ankles, shins and knees (knees? seriously? Holy I am fat!).  BUT, I decided it was mind over matter, took a couple of 1min breaks… and pushed through the pain. I know I have to start somewhere to get back into jogging shape!

Today’s food:

Breakfast: 2 egg whites with sea salt and pepper (0), banana (2) (picture is from the other day – no ketchup today)

Snack: 1/2c Greek Liberte (1), 1/4c granola (1)

Lunch: 1/2c quinoa (2), spinach (0), tuna salad with mustard and hot peppers (1) *Sorry, no photos!*, 1c pineapple and mango (1)

Snack: chocolate protein brownie batter (3)

Dinner: 1/2c ff cottage cheese (2), 1/2 banana (1), 1/2c granola (2)… low fat old cheddar (2) – cheese not pictured!

NOW, in keeping with my honesty… I did do some licking the spoon while baking lemon cupcakes tonight. SO, I’m going to count BLT’s today as 3pts.

Total: 21pts

Water: 3L

Tonight has included yoga, jog, baking & filling & icing cupcakes, making lunch for tomorrow, doing dishes… and now I am off to whip up a couple of quick birthday cards for girls at work (scrapbooking style) and hit the hay!

Happy Hump day!

Some catching up!

I don’t know where the time went this weekend.

Friday night’s dinner:

Saturday… was supposed to work. Shift got cancelled. Unexpected evening off to spend with Alex! Sweet!  We ended up grabbing some of this:

(footlong turkey on whole wheat for me! Cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, extra pickles, black olives, green olives, hot peppers, a few red onions, sweet onion sauce and black pepper – yes, I really do eat it all!)

Earlier that day I ate the following….

Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze, homemade granola and some freeze dried strawberries for colour (and flavour!)

A dish that a girl at work asked me to taste test for her… rice noodles, bok choy, onion and eggplant… in a light soy/hot sauce (some special recipe from Jamaica!). Really yummy!!

Chocolate coconut Kashi bar.

Saturday did also include a short jog! It was only 20min to be honest… but it’s a start while I’m finding my groove and getting back into the habit!

Sunday…

Enjoyed some grocery shopping (including Costco – but that was just to get denta stix for the pup, caved and also bought frozen mango and frozen pineapple)

Came home, unloaded groceries, cleaned… and relaxed. No jog. Oops.

Cottage cheese, vanilla protein powder, homemade granola and some of the new toasted berry crisp kashi cereal. SCORE. SO YUMMY!

pineapple!

A flatout with some refried beans, spinach, light cheddar and a teeny bit of quinoa… all cooked up in a frying pan (without any oil or anything)

Some fat free Chapman’s frozen yogurt (pecan caramel flavour. Mmmm)

Superbowl dinner… pizza! Blue menu whole wheat crust, little bit of chicken breast, mixed veggies, skim milk mozzarella.

Monday!

I wish I had photos for you today… but sadly I don’t.

I can tell you I DID jog! 

Food?

Breakfast: 1c granola (4), 1/2c unsweetened almond breeze (0)

Lunch: WW bagel (2), 30g light cheddar (2)

Snack at work: 1/2c ff cottage cheese (2), 1/2scoop vanilla protein powder (1), mango and pineapple (1)

Dinner: 1/2c quinoa (2), leftover chicken breast (1), mixed veggies (0), 1/2c Geek Liberte (1), 1/4c granola (1)

Total: 17

Time to do the dishes really quick and get to BED!

Happy Tuesday!!

Friday… delayed

Oops. My plan is to blog every day!

So… while I wait for Alex to come over I’ll catch you up on Friday.

No photos for now…

Breakfast: smoothie just with mango and 3 strawberries and crystal light (1), strawberry green tea from Tara!!! (0)

Snack: 1/2c Greek Liberte (1), 1/2c homemade granola (2)

Lunch: baked sweet potato fries (3), blue menu ketchup (1), apple (1), kashi pumpkin bar (2)

Snack: chocolate protein brownie batter (3)

Dinner: chicken breast (3), mccain low fat fries x28 (4), veggies cooked in some low fat salad dressing (1)

Total: 22 – not too shabby for a Friday!

Since I have no food photos for you… here’s one of me and my nephew, Simon! He’s 2 1/2 years old and one really cool and cute kid!

Tomorrow I’ll devote a post to today… and tomorrow!

I’ll give you some quick tidbits. Today was SUPPOSED to include working an evening shift at job #2. Shift got cancelled. Less money sucks. Getting to spend an unplanned Saturday with Alex is sweet.  Today also may have involved a very short treadmill jog! Woohoo!

Well, well, well…

UP 0.6lbs today.  Saw it coming. Scale wasn’t happy with me this morning. I felt bloated all day.

I resolve to get back to more activity this week. That must be what I’m lacking. My food has been mighty stellar if I do say so myself.  Also… I’ve ENJOYED eating healthy. 

Onward and upward… or… downward where the scale’s concerned.

This upcoming week (starting Saturday) will focus on some form of both morning and evening exercise… starting out with (probably) just 30min sessions.

Tonight has included my old faithful:

I went to a new Weight Watchers location tonight. I think I’ll try it again next week. It sucks not to see my old leader… but I never stayed for meetings anymore anyway. We’ll see where I end up!  The location I went to tonight is in a loblaws. When I was finished with weigh in I wandered around the store. I was CRAVING their potato wedges. Of course, I had zero intention of buying any… but while I was drooling over them at the ‘food to go’ counter I noticed sweet potato fries!  I asked about them – turns out they are BAKED without any oil added!  I went ahead and bought a small container. I ate about 3 of them.. of course, they weren’t crispy or anything, but still good. When I came home I baked them in the oven on low for a while to try to crisp them up a little. I have since set them in a container to take for lunch at work tomorrow!

The good news is that I had no nightmares last night! I’ve learned my lesson again for a while. No eating right before bed. Nightmares about people trying to kill me are not fun.

My Facebook status tonight says “Jen is so excited that when she looks into the future it’s so bright she burns her eyes”.  It’s true. I’m very happy with the plans I have for myself… but mostly for the plans Alex and I have together for both the near and distant future.  Lately, when I am feeling stressed about different things going on in my life (things out of my control), I find I just try to think about that future with him (and my family… and his family) and it makes me smile.  When I think about our future I think about us being old and retired… sitting on a front porch or back patio and watching the sun set… feeling totally content.  I think about the routine we will develop together in retirement… waking up to some sort of cereal with loads of fibre (because that’s what old people do!), watching the local morning show on the news, taking our dog(s) for walks, gardening, cooking… I see it in my mind and it’s beautiful.

Can you picture us being old and grey together? I wonder if I’ll look like my grandma when I get older… have beautiful white, short hair that I have to curl and style… my Grandma Pearl had beautiful white hair.

What do you think about in your future that makes you smile?

Better Late than Never?

I’m up late tonight. I just finished Yoga though!

Today didn’t start out with a jog. You see, I woke up with my stomach GROWLING last night around midnight. I fed myself one of these:

Add 2pts to yesterday’s total!

The problem with me eating in the night is that it tends to give me nightmares. Usually someone or several people are trying to kill me in these dreams. I can laugh about them the next day but it freaks me out in the night. I wake up sweating and panicking (sometimes crying) and can’t get back to sleep (I used to get night terrors as a kid… and I’m not so sure that’s not what these are now!). Last night wasn’t so bad, I was only up for an hour or so.  I was really disoriented this morning though and didn’t get on the treadmill.  In fact, I totally slept in.  My alarm went off and I couldn’t get snooze to work… once I realized I had my TV remote in my hand and was trying to use that to turn off my alarm clock… I figured out where snooze was and used it a few too many times!

So, breakfast was quick.  Luckily I had a sample from last week’s Weight Watchers meeting

I threw it in a cup with some Almond Breeze (2pts total).  Gotta say – I won’t be buying this any time soon.

Luckily I had meals packed from last night.  No photos unfortunately.

AM snack was 1/2c ff cottage cheese (2), 1/2c homemade granola (2) and 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder (1) – HOLY CRAP this was a GREAT snack. In fact, I think it would be a fabulous dessert. It was really filling. I ate it at 10am and still wasn’t hungry for lunch at 1pm.  I DID eat at that point though.

Lunch: Annie’s mac n’ cheese w/ veggies (5)

Looked similar to this, minus the chicken and add some steamed spinach:

PM Snack: 1/2c greek yogurt (1), 1/2c granola (2)

Looked similar to this:

Dinner: 1/2c quinoa (1), 1/2c butternut squash soup (1), dessert… 1 scoop chocolate protein powder (2), 1tsp almond butter (1)

AND, in keeping with the honesty theme… I had 1 piece of cheese (1) – light old cheddar

Total: 21pts

Tonight was some dishes, some TV and some yoga. I am going to keep up with the yoga and see how flexible I can get!  I am enjoying it. I turned on an extra heater in the living room and managed to sweat a bit!

So, tomorrow I must venture to a new Weight Watchers location. My meeting moved to down the road on Monday nights. The problem? I work late on Mondays!  So, I’m going to stop at a Loblaws location on my way home from work and check it out. I’ve been SEVERAL years with the same leader so I’m not sure if I’m ready to part with her or find another one of her meetings another day. Time will tell!

Oh, and to answer Lynn's question about the Greek yogurt.  Here’s the stats:

3/4c is 110cal, 0.4g fat, 0g fibre and 20g protein.  So… 1/2c works out to being 73cal, 0 fat and 0 fibre… 1pt!

Granola Groundhog Day!

Happy Groundhog Day 2010!

Today was great. It started out with me being able to hop out of bed at 6am and start a jog. Things went a little downhill from there. My headache that I’ve had for the past week made jogging difficult. I decided to stop at only a short one (30min) and put heat on my upper back to help stretch out muscles and rid myself of the headache (it worked! Headache has been gone since this morning!).

Breakfast was first a couple of egg whites with salsa (0) – note to self: remember to put salsa on egg whites more often! I LOVE SALSA

The next part of breakfast (post jog) was a smoothie with 1c unsweetened Almond Breeze (1), 1/4 banana (0), frozen strawberries (1), handful of spinach (0) and chocolate Amazing Grass (0) – all held together nicely in my insulated Starbucks cup!

Snack at the office was 1/2c ff cottage cheese (2), 1/3c oats (2), 1/2c mango (0)

*note: I add hot water to this mixture before I eat it… Makes it a creamy, sweet and fruity oatmeal*

Lunch: 1/2c quinoa cooked in chicken broth (2), spinach (0), leftover black beans and beans in tomato sauce (2) – using up what’s in the fridge you see!

Not pictured: sliced cucumbers with some vinegar (0), 2 little jars of baby food because I’m odd (2)

Snack: 1/2c Greek Liberte (1), a few pieces of shredded wheat (2)

The plan for dinner tonight was fish and veggies. Yep… didn’t feel like cooking. Instead my dinner plate was a replica of Yesterday's lunch… but with less chicken (6)

I also snacked on a few spoonfuls of homemade granola tonight… so, in keeping with being honest about everything I eat, I’m counting it as (1)pt

Today’s grand total?  22pts

How much water did I drink? 3L plus 3/4L of green tea!

I went to make my Greek yogurt and granola mixture last night only to realize I was out of granola. I stopped at Sobeys in Pickering tonight (15min east of Toronto) after work (and BTW – snagged TWO more containers of the Greek Liberte!!).  I was checking out the granola and wasn’t happy with any of it I was seeing. I decided I would be more satisfied if I just made the granola myself… then I could control the sugar, etc. in it.

I had found a basic granola recipe on the Prevention website and used it as my guideline.

I preheated the oven to 300F. I mixed 6c oats, 1/2c wheat germ, cinnamon, 1/2c unsweetened coconut and 1/2c raisins

In a glass measuring cup I mixed 1/4c honey (and maybe an extra squirt or two!), 2tbsp water & 2tbsp EVOO (didn’t have vegetable oil!).  Mixed it all together and spread it out over 2 greased cookie sheets

I let it cool and ate maybe 2tbsp of it. I am in love. I have officially converted to homemade granola. 1 cup is 4pts.  It made up 7 cups!

Tonight I also attempted yoga on my own. All I did was download a guide sheet from the YogaDownload website – the jury is still out. I will keep at it and try to get more flexible.

Time for bed now folks. Happy Hump Day… hang in there for a longer winter!  Although, I heard on the radio today that the groundhogs are only right 39% of the time… so there’s a 60% chance we’ll have a shorter winter!

Bring on the summer!

Protein Power!

I continue to be amazed at how full I’m feeling eating higher protein!

Keeping it short tonight, gotta get to bed.

I didn’t end up finding the time to exercise today. I was busy all weekend so I found myself needing to organize, clean, prepare food… then I had to go to work. It’s okay though. I’m glad to feel organized. I can’t exercise unless I feel clean/organized.

So, here’s what I ate today

Breakfast: 4 egg whites (1) with blue menu ketchup (0), 1/3c oats (2), 1/2 banana (1), flax, wheat germ, bee pollen (0)

Lunch: Annie's shells and white cheddar (5) with broccoli and cauliflower (0)… and a handful of edamame for kicks (0) with 1.5oz chicken breast (2)

I went to work (yay) and had a snack of 1/2c cottage cheese (2) and about 1/2c mixed fruit (0)… and I threw in 1/2scoop vanilla protein powder to make it more like a ‘dessert’ (1)

Dinner at work was a bed of spinach (0) with a whole tin of tuna (3), some mustard, relish and hot pepper relish (0) – YUM!  Followed by the ‘brownie batter’ consisting of 1 scoop chocolate protein powder (2), 1.5tsp almond butter (1), 2tsp almond butter (0)

the spinach

the tuna

the protein

I came home and made tomorrow’s lunch… now I have to quickly do the dishes and call it a night!  I am proud to report I did NOT eat anything when I got home tonight. Thank you protein brownie batter. I am in love!