I tweaked the same breakfast I have had for what seems the past two weeks to get in some diversity among my blog photos! I know you guys are probably “over & done” with my cottage cheese and fruit pictures- so I mixed it up just a tad.

No, not so much? I put almond milk with protein powder in the Bella Mixer ( magic bullet thing) because Almond Milk is a great milk substitute but lacks the protein we find in regular milk. Fruit today was cherries and raspberries, cereal was Puffins, and then I used the milk concoction to eat it all.

The milk turned red from the raspberries, it looked like those strawberry milk jugs.

My Mom could never get me to drink milk or eat yogurt when I was little. The only way she would get me to drink milk was to buy me Strawberry Milk (nope, not this great Organic Horizon Brand that is around now, I’m pretty sure it was Hershey’s and is not made anymore). I’m not gonna lie, I only liked it because it was PINK! It also tasted awesome, it was filled with sugar but it got me the calcium I desperately needed. Isn’t it funny how kids hate foods that are white, or love foods because they are pink? Ah, the joy of childhood.

I actually think that (as most people truly are mildly intolerant to lactose because humans had to genetically create the enzyme to digest cow products) I probably just didn’t produce enough lactase to digest the sugars in milk when I was younger.  Consumption of yogurt can actually help produce this enzyme through the fermentation of the healthy bacteria found naturally in yogurt.

Lunch from Whole Foods- I had a break between classes and didn’t have time to grab something in the morning before I left so I headed behind campus for some whole foods

Diversity is my post title, and well, what is not diverse about this lunch ?

Let’s see there is:

Kale!
Cabbage
Tomatoes
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Mushrooms
Chicken Curry
Quinoa
A few different Tofu types

I love getting lunch from whole foods, but it seems so outrageous in cost when I know what I can do myself. The power of knowledge and determination can really save you money!

Dustin at Wilwood Foods sent me a sample package of their Pasta Slim noodles and their Probiotic Hummus.

I decided to snag some extra veggies at Whole Foods today and try the Spinach Fettucini noodles for dinner this evening.

They had a little funny smell, kind of like spinach and kind of like tofu.

You can see they are made from Tofu, Water, Spinach Powder and some calcium additives. They are Gluten Free, only 25 kcal per serving and super quick to make. I could definitely use this fast and easy preparation… You just drain the noodles, place them in hot water, and then drain them about 2 minutes later like so

They come pre-cooked and tasted pretty much like regular pasta noodles, a little au dente and consumption-wise you can twirl them on your fork, etc. I am interested in how long I will stay full for this evening, so far so good (2 hours post dinner). I can’t wait to try the other flavor, and try the spinach again to formulate a proper review. Thanks Wildwood Foods!

Body:

4 mile run Tuesday – The apartment gym is so convienent!

Yoga Wednesday! Dave Farmar’s latest podcast is up but I could only fit in 30 minutes this morning. I am eager to finish up the 75 minute practice this evening.

Mind:

My mind almost feels as if it is a million places! I replied to a comment about where I work. It suddenly hit me just how slammed my schedule is, update nutrition curriculum for Job#1, four nights a week I am working 6 hour shifts as a service associate for Bonefish (job#2), I blog nearly everyday, and I have a full-time graduate student course load…oh yes, and I am a volunteer teaching assistant for Advanced Nutrient Metabolism. I could not pass that opportunity up!

Oh so appropriate.
Luckily, I have always had to be exceptional at time management. During high school , I was on four sports teams in one year plus student government and Im sure more that I cannot think of right now. Heck, as long as I could remember I have always managed my time best when I had the most on my plate to manage.

This week:
Draft of Lit Review section 1 for my Thesis: Done!

Draft of 10 pg Research Paper for Medical Nutrition Therapy- Done! ( Necrotizing Enterocolitis). On Monday we went to a Dialysis Center, which I was just amazed by the Dietitian there! She has over 170 patients, she assesss, diagnoses, and presribes the intervention plan for people with renal failure.
The most common causes of renal failure are obesity, unmanaged hypertension, and unmanaged diabetes (type 2). With rates of these diseases increasing every year, the rates of renal failure increase. This means we will also be seeing increases in Dialysis Centers and guess what, our tax payer dollars pay for that!  Some affected by kidney disease, genetically or otherwise, can benefit tremendously from life-saving dialysis.  Some people however, just leave their conditions unmanaged until they are forced into dialysis to save their kidneys.

Lifecycle Nutrition Class: We are on infant nutrition and breastfeeding. It was so awesome when a Lactation Consultant came in to discuss this and to add her presentation with our text material. I never knew lacatation consultants existed! Exam is next week!

I had to pick up a shift at Bonefish on monday, worked on tuesday, and will be working everyday this weekend again. I am super excited for a “night off” tonight and tomorrow but I have so much to study and catch up on!

Soul:

My food pics will be up on a separate post! This is a recap and a wish for Happy Valentine’s Day!

(source)

Body:
Yoga! I did another podcast mostly because I again worked all morning and had job#2 all night so I had little time in between to go anywhere other than my Yoga Mat in the living room!

It was very similar to the podcast friday and I did get a great sweat going for the 30 short minutes I had! 30 minutes is way better than 0 minutes, right?! I have usually been an “all or nothing” type with exercise, but I have slowly been realizing that you get it in whenever you can.  Based on statistics and studies, exercise broken up into short sessions throughout the day or over the course of a week is just as effective as long workouts. Be Active!

Mind:

In two days, I revised an entire Grade for my job#1 (updating nutrition curriculum for the state)… phew! I now have to focus on research for Sunday before heading into job #2 (Guest Service Associate at Bonefish Grill).

Have you ever worked at a restaurant? I was happily surprised to see just how busy we were both Friday night, Saturday night and today Sunday- Valentine’s Day! We had every reservation slot booked from 4 pm until 10 pm , and went on a 3 hour wait! It was interesting because I just kept going through it all- It didn’t feel busy because there are only a certain amount of tables so when we go on any kind of wait, it is just a matter of how quickly we can reset a table and re-seat it. Usually this process ends about 8:30 -9 pm but last night, it was still go, go, go until 10:00! I got home at 11:00, when the restaurant closes. It hit me and I fell asleep so fast!

Soul:
Oh Valentine, Oh Valentine. I know that several new readers have joined me here and most of you do not know that I spent most of 2009 engaged.

Past tense, meaning I am no longer engaged or married.

I lost everything, the love of my life, my best friend, the only person that I feel ever “got me”. I lost my house that I came home to, the place I wanted to make our home and my dog- who kept me company and joined me on countless walks. Gone were my friends, all the people I thought I called friends anyhow and if this wasn’t enough I lost family too.

I lost two wonderful parents, two sisters to get nails done with, brothers, countless uncles, aunts and grandparents. No, no one has died (fortunately). I am positive that I could “keep in touch” with them. Keeping in touch, however,  is a completely different level than Sunday dinners, birthday parties, and Halloween trick-or-treating with nieces and nephews though. This sounds almost morbid as I type but it comes down to losing “ours” because truly it was “his”. I gave back the ring and found an apartment by myself, so he also got money and a roommate as well.

Until recently, I was just in shock of what can only be compared to divorce. I didn’t want to look at it that way but honestly, how can you not!? It was a loss on a tremendous scale that I could never have imagined happening to us. The life that was supposed to be “ours” disintegrated into “his”.  The life that I thought we were sharing was ripped out from underneath me and I’ve had to start over, building up piece by piece on my own.

Notice I have not mentioned “fault” because this damage could only be caused by two, relationships take two. In most break-ups, its just a matter of “not the one, move on to mr. right now”. There may be a sense of loss but the reality of huge life-changing loss is not there. Everything that I knew and everyone that I had was ultimately  ”his” not “ours” as I had thought.

“Relationships are hard” and “marriages take work”, yes this is true. The hard part of relationships, the work, for me was maintaining “mine”. Maybe it was immaturity on my part, because I had to learn along the rocky path how to do that. I had shared most of “his” so I usually felt filled up to my capacity and no longer knew what “mine” meant. I most certainly felt that he didn’t share “mine”, another recent discovery.  How do you get someone to want to share in “yours” if you have lost what “yours” meant?

People offer sympathy or advice with such positive intentions. (thank you to those that have, you know who you are). My favorite is “Everything happens for a reason”. Very true and out of all this tremendous loss, I know that I have capacity to gain. I have been rebuilding my dreams, my plans, my friends, my life. I’ve started gaining more in the past three months than I have in the past three decades ( okay maybe not decades but you get the jist).

For anyone that is single on valentine’ day, I want to share with you what a truly wonderful friend of mine shared with me. “You’ve got to keep looking forward and be open to change, challenges, and new additions to your life. Think of your capability to manage your time, be  responsible, and still set high standards and accomplish them.  When you look at what you’ve gained you’ve got to be somewhat appreciative for what you have and what is yet to come….Great things!”

This was my breakfast today

Panda Puffs with Peaches and Cherries. I figured if it worked yesterday, why not give it another chance!? I added protein powder to almond milk and mixed it together in the magic bullet. High protein breakfasts keep me full for so long!

This salad…

with cannelini beans, roasted cinnamon butternut squash cubes, mushrooms, and a banana with peanut butter was my lunch.

Dinner was a smoked salmon filet with steamed broccoli, snap peas, carrots and water chestnuts..

and we all knew this was coming..

Yes, EVERYONE has FINALLY jumped on the GREEK YOGURT BANDWAGON! I just had to try the Dannon Greek, the Yoplait Greek, Brown Cow has been on the bandwagon but not quite as long as the founders: Stoneyfield Oikos, Fage, and Chobani… even Chobani is stepping up its game and adding “champion” yogurts with 9 g of protein and geared towards kiddos!  If you haven’t tried one of the plentiful Greek yogurts out on the common market now, I do encourage them because Greek yogurts are much higher in protein compared to regular yogurts. While they are more expensive, they are thicker and a little more sustaining. One thing I was interested in, all of the plain flavors from ALL the brands were GONE from the shelves. Meh..

I had the Yoplait after dinner, and I was surpised that there was no fruit at the bottom, rather flavored blueberry. Hmm.. not sure if it was worth the dollar twenty.

And finally, this was

the glass of wine I had while looking into more podcasts!

Body:

5 mile run… I thought I would rest from running this week but after mile 1, mile 2 just felt better and at mile 4 I decided to just keep going because it still felt great! Tomorrow is yoga and strength!

Mind:
Metabolism class went well, we discussed Vitamin K, A and B6! Most of the girls said they thought the test was much worse than how they really ended up doing so they are less anxious about the next one!

Spent all morning trying to mesh through research for my thesis. I am planning to write a descriptive thesis on the Vitamin D status of college, female athletes, however, that isn’t exactly a narrowed down topic! I wanted to look at the relationship between vitamin D and c-reactive protein, because of the anti-inflammatory role vitamin D plays in rheumatoid arthritis and cardiovascular disease. However, the only way to measure that would be to take blood samples, and we aren’t really equipped to do that. sigh. road block #1 of many to come.

Soul:
I could look at this as a road block, but I just see opportunity. Another way to figure something else out. Like the many things in my life that have taken turns, unexpectedly, or giant leaps in the right direction. This is a chance. Sometimes that is all we can ask for.

I found this frozen butternut squash on sale at harris teeter for 2/$3! What a time and money saver for butternut squash! I want to do all kinds of crazy things to them, roast them like oven potatoes, mash them into soup, mix them up with cranberries, the list of ideas that popped into my head as I saw them on sale just kept getting larger.

I grabbed two bags that have about 3 cups in each bag!

Health-o-meter: They are sustainable! Sustainable does not mean organic or local. However, these squash cubes were grown on a sustainable farm and packaged into an eco-friendly bag. Butternut squash is actually a great source of Iron, 6% of your RDA in one serving of these cubes! One serving also provides 120% of your daily recommended intake of Vitamin C and 14% of your Vitamin A

The more I try it, the more I love having squash for breakfast, first it was all kinds of ways with pumpkin , recently it was sweet potato, and now its butternut squash! I added blueberries, banana slices,

cinnamon, and peanut butter.

I really enjoyed the flavor combinations, but I’m sure its not for everyone. I know at least one person that would think its “weird” but I just like to experiment, its fun!

Oooodley noodles with “smart” chicken for lunch.

Health-O-Meter: Smart chicken is from free range, organic fed, hormone free chickens. One serving provides about 140 kcal and 23 g of protein! Chicken is also a source of B-vitamins, which are essential for amino acid metabolism. High levels of homocysteine has been identified as a risk factor for heart disease, among other issues. B-vitamins help in the removal of homocysteine through really fascinating pathways ( but I will spare the details!) which alter it to form other amino acids instead. ( I’m a metabolism nerd I know!) After browning in the skillet, I just added some rice noodles and Newman’s Own Marinara.. ta da.. lunch.

Snack

Celery Sticks and a Medjool Date filled with Peanut Butter.

Health-O-Meter: Peanut Butter provides healthy unsaturated fats, filling fiber, iron (6%) and a good dose of protein in 2 Tbsp (7g). Medjool dates are approximately 60-70 kcals each, this guy was organic. I enjoy grabbing a few of the organic dates from the bulk bins because 4-5 individual medjools cost less than $1 total. One of them can be a great energy provider when paired with peanut butter, which balances the sugar of the date with the protein and fat from the nut butter. Sometimes the pre-boxed dates that come in packs of 20-30 just don’t stay fresh long enough and are expensive ( $6 +)!

Dinner

… it was a healthy choice …

get it.. Healthy Choice

I know , not ideal. I find myself keeping these in my freezer these days (or similar) when I have to eat dinner really late sometimes because of work. I can’t just go to sleep hungry but I don’t need something huge to fill me up for sleeping!
The potatoes were tasty but I didn’t sense rosemary, and the merlot gravy was actually flavorful too!

I steamed Kale my usual fav. way with lemon juice and capers for the side.

Health-O-Meter: It has one serving of vegetables, which is comprised of carrots, green beans, and potato wedges (fairly starchy). The meat was quite good for a frozen entree, and it contained a fairly small amount of fat for red meat (8g total, 4 g unsaturated) and there was 5g of fiber. I don’t like the long list of ingredients, which would be one benefit of making a similar roast at home ( cut down on the ingredients). Overall, I really enjoyed this frozen steamer meal.  Sure, there are healthier options but this works for me!

Body:

Yoga Monday! I downloaded Yoga Detox Flow (which reminds me of my favorite class at the gym!) and did it twice plus some other moves as well. It was such a great stretch and I kept focused on my intention the whole time, “Be Present”

Mind:

I feel so overwhelmed but I am taking an organized approach to all this work! I have major thesis research to do, research for MNT, assignments, readings to catch up on, a book review to start, and tons of work for EFNEP… plus my other job! Yikes!

How do you stay organized? Lists? Apps on your phone?

Soul:

Be Present. Sometimes it is so hard to just be present in the current moment, especially for someone like me that daydreams and thinks about all the wonderful possibilities in life. I am just trying to take advantage of every moment I have and the people who I have to share the moments with.