Inspiration

Oh my gosh Breaking Bad blows my mind!! Ahhh! So many questions left unanswered.  For all you who watch it, what did you think? Is it how you thought it would end? I have this relieved but empty feeling now that another good series has ended. It’s the same feeling I get when I’ve finished reading a good book. *sigh*

So. Tuesday meals:

Meal	Food	Calories
Breakfast	Corn flakes	100
	Almond milk	30
Snack	Fruit Smoothie	200
Lunch	Apple sauce	50
	Left over stir fry	150
	Fiber one bar	90
Snack	Pumpkin Scone	250
Dinner	Curry Pumpkin Soup	125
	Slice of bread	45
	Flour tortilla	150
Total		1190

For lunch I ate the left over stir fry from Monday’s dinner with some added corn that we had left over from the Chicken Salad I made Friday for the Grad Student BBQ.  Filling and delicious!

And yes, I had another Pumpkin Scone.  That’s a total of 4 pumpkin scones I consumed.  Daniel ate the last one which saved me from having 5…. but I did ask for a bite of it. I miss them already =(

Now, since we were on a pumpkin theme, I decided it was time we finally ate the rest of the Curry Pumpkin Soup my Dad made back in August. Yep, that was still in our freezer (is that bad?).  And now we finally had some canned pumpkin to tone it down a bit (he added too much spice to it initially).

So I added what we had left from making the pumpkin scones.  Half a can of pumpkin, and some half and half.  I didn’t add too much half and half, but I figured it would make it creamier and less spicy.  If definitely was an improvement but still not quite up to par with the delicious soup Monica made for us back in Germany. She’s the one who gave my Dad the recipe and spices before he moved back home from Germany.

I’m thinking I need to buy some coconut milk or sweetened condensed milk to add to it.  We still haven’t eaten it all (my dad gave us a lot).  So for now it’s just in the refrigerator and we’ll hopefully eat it by the end of the week.

So for getting motivated to do pushups… I did 10! And then I called it good.  Better than none, but not the best. Hopefully we can get this P90x on a roll.

Random Thoughts

Walking around on campus, I see many girls wearing workout gear — nike shorts, tanks, running shoes, etc. Personally, I feel weird going to class without “real” clothes on. You know, jeans and a t-shirt. Anyways, that’s not the point. The point is that these girls look so fit and healthy. They inspire me to want to jump into my gym clothes and workout. Maybe they wear their gym clothes to motivate themselves to workout. It’s one less step if you’re already wearing them.  But someday, I aspire to be that same inspiration. Not necessarily wearing gym clothes, but looking fit and healthy.

What’s your inspiration? Aspiration?

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It’s OCTOBER! The best month ever. Fall is my favorite time of year.  Leaves change hues, pumpkins are everywhere, and mild weather make for a beautiful month. I still need to buy a pumpkin. And make/buy fall decorations. It’s happening.

So I’m not sure where the time went yesterday but 11PM came all too soon and I didn’t get a chance to blog.  It may have been due to the 4 episodes of Breaking Bad that Daniel and I watched yesterday.  We’re trying to catch up to the series finale! Don’t spoil it! We have 3 episodes left and will more than likely watch them tonight.

Ok so Sunday’s meals:

Meal	Food	Calories
Lunch	Pulled pork sandwich with awesome sauce and coleslaw	350
Snack	Caramel kettle corn	100
	2 Pumpkin Scones	500
Dinner	Raspberry Chipotle Salmon and stir fry	270
Snack	veggies with ranch	50
Total		1270

Monday’s meals:

Meal	Food	Calories
Breakfast	Corn flakes	90
	Almond Milk	20
Snack	Fiber One Bar	90
	Plum	25
Drink	Green tea with almond milk	10
Lunch	Pulled pork, sauce, bun, coleslaw	350
	Left over stir fry	40
Snack	Caramel corn	100
	Pumpkin scone	250
Dinner	Stir fry	250
Snack	Kudos bar	100
Total		1325

Not bad on calories considering I ate a few Pumpkin Scones…. that’s right, I made PUMPKIN SCONES! While watching the Chiefs game on Sunday I had a burning desire to bake something.  Maybe it was the sweet smell of my new butternut pumpkin candle (if it was edible, I would eat it). So I hopped on Pinterest to check out my options from sweets I had previously pinned.  I must say, it was a good choice, because they turned out amazing!

They’re not super big so I didn’t feel as guilty about eating them.  Here’ s the original recipe from Sweet Pea’s Kitchen.

Yeah, I took a lot of photos. They’re just so photogenic! I love scones.  After eating several the past couple days, I’ve noticed that they fill me up more than other sweets.  Yes, I was craving them.  But they did also offset my hunger compared to empty calories like chips or a cookie.

This batch made 12 and there’s one left!!!  They were popular on Sunday with our guests and of course Daniel and I have been snacking on them since.  I wish there was more…

Workout Recap

Sunday was my rest day. Ha. Aren’t most? But I did run yesterday! It was getting late so Daniel and I made a quick 3 mile trip around the park. Nothing too exciting though we did do a little speed work.  For some reason it was a lot harder last night for me to sprint than before. Maybe it was all of those scones weighing me down.

I really want to try CrossFit but it’s expensive so I think we’re going to possibly do P90x if we can find a way to get the DVDs.  However, K-State has a free CrossFit intro class that we plan to try out Saturday.  I at least want to see what it’s like but I’m pretty much ready for anything that builds strength.  I need something to hold me accountable like a class or schedule of some sort.  Trying to get motivated at home is hard.  If we do P90x we plan to set aside a certain time every day for it.

What do you do for strength training?

Now, go make pumpkin scones!

I’m going to attempt to motivate myself to do pushups.

Pumpkin Patch

Our outdoorsy day took a little different turn than what I mentioned yesterday.  We did go on a great run. FOUR miles! Instead of running around the park the whole time we swung around it and then up a hill. It was tough and once we made it up the hill we had to walk a little.  We went two miles and then turned around and ran the same route back.  It was a nice change up! And the downhill part was a breeze!

We ended up not going hiking in the Konza or mini golfing. Manhattan has an annual Pumpkin Patch that was going on and I did not want to miss it.  It’s not a typical drive out to a pumpkin patch with hay rides. It’s actually more of a craft show but with lots of pumpkins.  Most of it is outside so that was the outdoorsy part.  We ended up buying some fancy jam (dandelion and raspberry jalapeño), some candles (butternut pumpkin and hot orange danish), some earrings that perfectly matched the ring Daniel got me for my graduation last may (crazy awesome), and some caramel kettle corn. A successful day! And we ran into a lot of people we knew there.  It’s a popular place!

I’m currently warming my butternut pumpkin candle right now. It smells soooo good!  It’s not really a candle, it’s those wax melts that you use in Scentsy burners.  It officially smells like fall in my apartment. Now I just need some fall decorations! We were going to buy pumpkins but all of the big ones were gone by the time we got there.  It was the last day and the last hour.

Alright, back to calorie tracking. Saturday’s Meals:

Meal	Food	Calories
Lunch	Pulled pork sandwich with awesome sauce and coleslaw	350
Snack	Kudos bar	100
	Peach, apple, pretzels, crackers and jam	30
Drink	Grande Soy Chai Latte with pumpkin spice	260
Dinner	Bolos Fajita Quesadilla	450
Drinks	2 beers and o bomb	250
Total		1440

The host of the Grad Student Association BBQ from Saturday was so generous in giving everyone some leftovers. In fact, we have enough to still eat more of it! He’s a second year grad student and a grill master! He made all the sauce himself.  There was a sweet bbq sauce and a spicy balsamic sauce.  I mixed them together. It was tasty!

I added coleslaw on top per his suggestion.  Apparently that’s a thing. Have you ever done that? It’s really good.

For dinner, Daniel and I were out and about aka Starbucks, which is right next to Coco Bolos, a local favorite that boast flavors from Gulf Coast South Texas and Southern New Mexico.  I hadn’t been there in a while and we were getting hungry.  Everything sounded good but I finally decided on the Bolos Fajita Quesadilla with chicken.  I let Daniel have one of my slices.  It was really filling and I couldn’t finish it all.

I took an online test yesterday evening, so I of course needed some reward for doing it on a Saturday night.  Daniel and I decided to hit the bar scene with some of his friends. I had a couple beers and an O-bomb.  Definitely a nice relaxer after a 2 hour test and a nice end to a great outdoorsy-ish Saturday.

Alright, so I realized that I haven’t updated my measurements since I first took them back in July. Good news! I’ve actually lost some inches! I didn’t think it would really show since I’ve only lost about 5 lbs but that equals 6 inches off!

Measurements	Before	After	Inches Lost
Neck	13.0	13.0	0.0
Waist	30.0	29.0	1.0
Love handles	36.5	35.5	1.0
Hips	39.0	38.0	1.0
Right thigh	23.5	22.5	1.0
Left thigh	23.5	22.5	1.0
Right calf	14.5	14.0	0.5
Left calf	14.5	14.0	0.5
Right arm	10.5	10.5	0.0
Left arm	10.5	10.5	0.0
Total Inches Lost			6.0

I forgot to measure my arms the first time so I just made my current measurement the original.  These are all measured at the widest part, while relaxed.  No flexing or sucking in. I’m happy to see some improvement!

Today, we have a couple people over to watch the Chiefs game. I have no commitments today and it feels so good! I can do whatever I want! Don’t you just love those days?

Anybody watching some football today? Or finally have a day to do whatever you want?

Back In Action

Wow. What a whirlwind week.  Let me recap:

Ok, I failed at keeping track of my calories… however, I am losing weight! I think the last time I said my weight was here back on September 10th where I claimed I was 129 again.  Ok, realistically I was probably at 129.4 or something. But this morning I was at exactly 129.0 which I haven’t been in a loooonnnngggg time.  I hope to get down to 128 this week! Maybe even 127 if I step up my game.  I realize that October is upon us and I only have about 5 weeks to get down to my goal of 120.  I thought I’d be doing better by now but I seem to be plateauing.

Food-wise, this week has been better than most.  I failed at keeping tracking of all my calories (too stressed to care), but I really didn’t have any sweets all week except for last night.  And most of my meals consisted of lots of veggies.  I made Spaghetti Squash again.  Of course adding lots of veggies and more squash to the sauce!

I chopped up fresh veggies and snacked on them with a little ranch.

Daniel made a delicious lemon peppered Swai with Alfredo pasta.

Daniel also made us a stir fry with the Bangkok Peanut Sauce again. Sans chicken this time.

And then in my rush between classes and work, I made these little guys as a snack/lunch.  A slice of bread with turkey slices, spinach, feta, and Chipotle Raspberry sauce. Tasty!

Last night, the Grad Student Association for the College of Business Administration was hosting a BBQ potluck for all the grad students.  I decided to make Southwest Chipotle Chicken Salad.  It turned out really good and everybody was complementing it.  I found the recipe on Facebook, a friend had posted the link.  I failed to get a picture of it, I was running late as usual. But it was delicious!  I followed the recipe pretty close except I used Southwest Chipotle spice instead of taco seasoning and didn’t add any cilantro. I would definitely make it again, but there was a lot of mayo in it.  Good thing everybody ate and I didn’t have to worry about bringing any home! Seriously people, it’s a party pleaser.

Oh, and for desserts, one of the girls made delicious chocolate cupcakes with a salted caramel frosting. So good! And then somebody had brought a variety cheesecake so I picked out one of turtle cheesecake slices.  I shared both of them with Daniel and actually ended up giving him the bigger halves.  Progress. Haha.

Ok, so my workouts this week consisted of running.  I went running Sunday for 3.5 miles.  And then Tuesday, as I mentioned earlier, I went on a trail run for 4.7 miles.  It was so much fun! There were a lot of little hills which made it a little challenging.  And the scenery was gorgeous! It might be our new Tuesday tradition. Other than that, I didn’t work out.  I can’t believe how time consuming it is to apply for internships and prepare for a Career Fair (which was my first time).  I hope it all pays off!

I would have had time last night to blog after the BBQ but Daniel and I wanted to have a nice quiet movie night.  After we cleaned of course. Haha.  Daniel claims I’m an extrovert now, because the moment we got home I went on a cleaning spree and had so much energy.  I have to argue that though, I don’t think it was the group gathering that gave me all the energy, it was the fact that the apartment needed to be cleaned and I finally had the time to do it.  I usually like to be alone to recharge my batteries, so to speak.

Are you an extrovert or an introvert?

Today, Daniel and I want to do a lot of out door activities to enjoy the weather before it turns cold.  We plan to go mini golfing, running, and possibly hike around the Konza Prairie.  Should be a fun day!

What are your Saturday plans?

Not Dead

Hey guys! Still alive here.  Just uber busy.

I’m doing that whole applying for internships/career fair/interview/better-do-your-research-to-impress-employers thing. So as you can see I don’t have a life right now.  But don’t fret, I’ll be back with the regular programming soon!  However, my evenings are pretty full.  One of my applications suggested a cover video and I’m actually extremely excited to make one.  Except it’s due friday…. nothing like last minute!

But I just have to tell you real quick — I went on a trail run today! It was soooo much fun!  Way better than running around in circles at the park.  If you have any fun trails near you, take advantage of them!

Alright, bed time so I can stock up on energy for my busy day tomorrow. Have a great night!

Simple Saturday

Well other than my Wildcats losing, Saturday was pretty good.

Here’s Saturday’s meals:

Meal	Food	Calories
Breakfast	3  eggs and salsa	320
	2 slices of toast and jam	120
Lunch	Salad bar	100
Dinner	Hamburger, ketchup, mustard, relish	450
	Chips	200
Snack	Jelly Beans	150
Total		1340

My best friend, Charissa, was telling me how she was going to grill for the game.  She sweetly offered for Daniel and I to join her, however, New Mexico is a little far.  Thanks for the invite though! haha.  Well, Daniel started to really crave some bratwursts and we don’t have a grill so we decided to venture over to my parents’ house.  We grilled hamburgers and bratwursts for them and enjoyed watching the game with them.  It was fun and a learning experience.  They have more of a smoker than a grill I guess, so it took a little trial and error to get everything cooked just right.  In the end, things were pretty tasty!  Unfortunately, I didn’t get that appealing of a photo (I was so hungry!).

For exercise, Daniel and I went a 1.8 mile walk. We went on a nice relaxing walk through the neighborhood and talked about the houses we liked and didn’t like as we walked by.  I should have taken some photos because there were some cute houses! And then there were some that just needed a little curb appeal.  That’s my inner designer coming out.  Anybody else see a house that needs a little love and instantly start thinking of ways to improve it? Yeah? Just me? You too? Awesome.

Well it’s that time again.  Weekly Wrap-Up!

I’m down from my average calories last week by 55! Not much, but my work out frequency has increased a lot! Last week I only worked out two days. This week I only had two rest days!  Ok, the walk saturday wasn’t much of a work out, but it was still a little exercise.  I’m pretty satisfied with that.  I still need to work on the no-sweets thing.  Instead of saying I can’t have any at all (which I think just makes me crave them more) I’m just going to attempt to say “no” to a sweet at least once this week.  If I can resist just ONE TIME I’ll be happy.

Well I hope you all had a great weekend! Anybody do anything exciting? Watch some football? Grill? Be lazy?

I actually got a lot of things done this weekend.  Guess what I didn’t get done though.  That chair!  I think we’ll just have to get used to only having three dining chairs because that fourth one is never going to be finished.  Oh, well, maybe next weekend.

THE SANDWICH

Oh wow. I did not do well with my calories yesterday. Let’s take a gander:

Meal	Food	Calories
Breakfast	Corn Flakes	100
	Almond milk	30
Snack	Fiber One Bar	90
	A handful of peanuts	50
Drink	Dirty Chai latte (chai with espresso)	250
Lunch	Turkey Sandwich with spinach and laughing cow cheese	150
Snack	Jelly beans	150
Dinner	Almond Crusted Swai	395
	Rice	80
Drinks	Mixed drinks, beer	200
Drunk Snack	Mac N Cheese Grilled Cheese Sandwich WITH bacon aka THE SANDWICH	400
Total		1895

I realize that I consume a lot of things that I don’t need.  Take the dirty chai latte, for example.  I mean, I was a little tired, but I didn’t really need to have it.  I almost equate lattes to sodas.  They’re empty calories.  Milk in a latte is a little more substantial than soda, but not much.  I just love lattes!  It’s not even that I need caffeine either. Sometimes just having something tasty to drink wakes me up.  However, I could try to drink them less.

I also obviously didn’t need all the alcoholic drinks either.  But, it was the weekend and I hadn’t hung out with my friend Corey in a couple weeks.  She’s always a blast!  It was a nice stress reliever going out on the town with her.

So this “Sandwich” that I have listed — there’s a story behind it. A year ago, Aggieville (the downtown shopping/bar district) put on a Chili Crawl.  The restaurants and bars there let you sample their versions of chili and offer cheap 7oz beers.  Corey invited me along for chili consumption, and then we were going to stay out for a fun night. Well after all the chili I decided I needed to have a nap in order to last the whole night so I went home for a couple hours.  Later when I came back out, Corey had been drinking the whole time.  She was pretty much gone. I’m not sure she even really knew I was there, haha! But I ushered her around the bars with me. Well, we got hungry.  And the donut shop had recently opened up a food truck behind it, so we decided to check it out.  They have donuts, corn dogs, and this SANDWICH.  I mean, it just sounds heavenly: Mac n’ Cheese Grilled Cheese Sandwich. And for an extra $1 you can add bacon (so of course we added bacon).  It’s the most fabulous thing you will ever taste.  We’ve dubbed it THE SANDWICH because it’s the only thing Corey remembered that night, haha! You know it’s good when that’s the only thing you recall from a night of partying.

The picture obviously doesn’t do it justice because you can’t see the mac n’ cheese or bacon in it. Photo fail. But I had every last satisfactory bite of it.

Here’s a little more of our night.  We’re about to take Belfast Bombs which is Guinness and Bailey’s. I’m not sure what Daniel is doing with his lips.  I ended up not being able to finish mine because it curdled. I can’t chug!

Me, Daniel, Corey

And then we ran into our friend Knox, who started his own business, Aggieville Adventures, where he documents the shenanigans that go down in Aggieville.  He’s in the blue and our other friend Shaun was there too.

It was a fun night!

In the midst of all my bad decisions, I did have a few healthy things yesterday. Like the Almond Crusted Swai. It’s one of our favorites!  We didn’t add parmesan cheese this time so it was a little healthier.

Workout Recap

This doesn’t really balance out with everything I ate yesterday but I ran 4.6 miles! And I did some speed work on the last mile.  It felt good!  The weather was amazing for it. I went around 6pm and it was breezy and in the 70s so I didn’t get too hot.

So my Friday was pretty good. How was yours?!

Now, I’m finally gonna get a jump on all those things I said I would get done this weekend. And of course, I gotta watch the K-State game today!  Enjoy your saturday!

Sweet Sweets

Yesterday was a very busy day! I had class, then I worked, then I had a test, and then I had a networking event that I needed to go to for a class. I think the test went really well, and I got someone’s business card! Success!

I made Daniel go to the networking event with me.  It was a BBQ put on by Phillips 66.  They had cookies… I KNOW! I think I just need to stop saying “no sweets” because that always sets me up for failure. I need a new tactic.

Thursday foods:

Meal	Food	Calories
Breakfast	Toaster waffles and syrup	200
Snack	Quaker Banana Bread cookie	150
Lunch	Spaghetti squash and sauce	240
	Baked beans	382
Dinner	Chicken sandwich	180
Dessert	Cookie	150
	Jelly beans	150
Total		1452

The Quaker Banana Bread cookie was given to me by one of my supervisors. It’s basically banana bread in the shape of a cookie.  Pretty tasty!

Oh, and the jelly beans were a belated graduation gift from a friend so OF COURSE I had to try them…. right? They’re so good! They’re the Wonka Sweetart brand. The blue ones are my favorite.

Soooo yeah.  But on a random note: I read this pamphlet today that was being passed out on campus and it makes me not want to eat meat anymore.  It brought back all the memories of watching Food Inc. on Netflix (really good documentary by the way!).  The pamphlet was all about animal cruelty in big production farms and how protection laws against animal cruelty for pets should be applied towards farms as well.  It was so saddening!

Ok, well I have friends over now to celebrate the weekend. Have a fabulous friday night!

Wait… It’s not Spaghetti?

That’s right… and it’s not worms (which can sometimes be confused for spaghetti…).  It’s squash! Spaghetti squash. Have you tried it before? I was my first time last night (that’s what she said).

Last week I saw Spaghetti Squash for the first time at my local grocery store. Is it a seasonal thing? Because I had checked over the summer and they didn’t have it. Anyways, you get all the great flavor of spaghetti without the calories!

Check out my beautiful squash:

There are a lot of ways to cook it but I decided to follow the instructions that came with him.

So I cut him in half and gutted the seeds, then baked him for 45 min at 350 F.  Here’s him out of the oven.

Then I took a fork and scraped out his stringy pulp. There’s obviously a lot more than what’s in my bowl, this is just my serving.

I heated up some veggies: more squash, green pepper, kale, and cucumber. Then added in some sauce, got it all nice and warm and then poured it over my spaghetti squash. Yummy!

It was full over flavor and very filling!  And it was all veggies!

Daniel approved of the dish so I think this is a keeper, as long as those grocery stores keep it in stock!

Here’s the rest of Wednesday’s Meals:

Meal	Food	Calories
Breakfast	Corn Flakes	100
	Almond milk	30
	Fiber One Bar	90
Snack	Almonds	180
	Potato chips	200
Drink	Dirty chai latte	150
Lunch	Left over chipotle	230
Dinner	Spaghetti squash and sauce	200
Snack	Hummus chips	200
Total		1380

I went a little over calories again, and I didn’t work out.  I was so focused on studying! However, I think my test went well!

Now I can enjoy my weekend.  I plan to catch up on a lot like: finally finishing the staining of the 4th chair from our dining set, washing my car, looking up companies for internships, catching up on other homework, reading my bloglovin (I have almost 200 blog posts I need to catch up on! I think I follow too many blogs haha), and getting more sleep!

What are your weekend plans?!

Lame Title for a Lame Post

Oh man peeps, first test as a grad student tomorrow! Wish me luck!

So another quick update!

Tuesday meals:

Meal	Food	Calories
Breakfast	Toaster waffles and syrup	180
	fiber one bar	90
Lunch	half mango	54
	Leftover veggie medley	100
	raw vegies and ranch	80
Dinner	1/2 Chipotle Vegetarian burrito bowl, chips, and guac	500
Snack	almonds	180
Dessert	Banana ice cream	140
Total		1324

I went over a bit on calories but I did run 3.5 miles last night!

No food photos this time but I do have an exciting meal to share with you tomorrow!

Sorry this post is super lame.  I’ll make it up to you, I promise! Goodnight ya’ll!!