Ashley’s Before Photos and My Eats

I know, it’s been a while. Yet another busy week for me!  I had a big take home test to complete, a big test today, and an interview today for a summer internship! Needless to say, I had a few shots tonight when it was all over… that’s acceptable right? It’s Thirsty Thursday!

Ok, here’s Ashley’s before photos. Now remember, she has already lost over 100 pounds! Doesn’t she look good?! 60 more to go and she’s already been keeping up with her healthy eating and exercising!  She’s going to update me this weekend some more about how she’s been handling it so far but her occasional updates sound like it’s been a good week!

Ashley's Before Ashley's Before

She said she’s been working out twice a day! I haven’t even worked out once this week! I plan to go running tomorrow and hopefully figure out how we can start P90x now that I can have a little bit of a life again.

Alright so my eats? Well, I lost track of calories again so I’ll just update you on my meals. I don’t think I’ve gone over 1200 calories that much per day this week.

Sunday I was lazy and we had zucchini so I made zucchini pizza for dinner. It’s one of my faves! So easy, and so tasty! (Don’t worry, I ate more than just two slices. These were just the least ugly of the bunch.)

Squash pizza

Monday, I took advantage of the girlfriend discount for lunch and had Daniel make me a bagel thin sandwich from Einstein’s. Turkey, spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocado, and this awesome pesto/red pepper sauce. Yum!

bagel thin sandwich

For dinner, I decided we needed to finally eat up the Curry Pumpkin Soup my dad had made back in August.  We’ve had it in our freezer and last week I decided it was the season for us to finally eat it up. The problem was it was still a little too spicy, which overpowered the pumpkin flavor. After trying to add more pumpkin and half&half to the concoction last week, I decided to try coconut milk.  Third time’s a charm–it was finally a consistency close to what my dad’s friend Monica had made us in Germany. A little bit of that spice goes a LONG way!

curry pumpkin soup

Tuesday was salad bar and stir fry for dinner. The salad bar was to tide us over while we shopped. Grocery shopping on an empty stomach is a no-no! But to be honest, even when I’m not hungry I want to buy everything in the bakery.

salad bar

stir fry

Wednesday I capitalized on that girlfriend discount again and had another bagel thin sandwich.  They’re so good! And nothing tastes better than free. Sadly, he’s quitting soon due to school/work conflicts and stress so I need to take advantage of my discounts while I can! This one had turkey, spinach, cucumber, avocado, tomato, onion, bacon, light cream cheese, and bbq sauce.  I think it’s my new favorite combo. Obviously the best part is the bacon, cream cheese, and bbq sauce. Mmmm!

bagel thin sandwich

For dinner we didn’t even try and just had macaroni noodles with vodka sauce. I was too busy studying to care. No veggies. Nothing. Just sauce and pasta. But man, that vodka sauce makes everything taste good!

pasta and vodka sauce

So that was my week so far. I had some good veggie moments. I’ve also made a few smoothies this week that I’ll have to update you all on. I have a new protein powder to add now!

What have you been eating this week?! Did you make something healthy? Or perhaps those Pumpkin Scones?! Still can’t get over how good those were. Someone invite me to a party so I can have an excuse to make them again!

Alright, time to get some shut eye. I can’t believe tomorrow is Friday already! Goodnight!

Reached A Goal!

Another week has flown by. Where is the time going? Well, another week and another weigh-in. Last week I was 129.0 and I said I wanted to finally reach 128 or 127.  Well, I did it! This morning I was 127.2 lb. Woohoo! I’m really not sure what I did different to finally get out of the 130 plateau I had been on for almost a month but I’m happy.  I didn’t really work out this week. Oops. However, my average calories per day have been the lowest ever, so that must have been the contributing factor.

First let’s take a look at Saturday’s calories:

Meal Food Calories
Breakfast Corn Flakes 100
Almond milk 30
Lunch Brown rice 100
Fiber One bar 90
2nd Lunch Spinach and fruit salad 125
Dinner Veggie burger with guac 100
Chips and guac 200
Drinks Straw-ber-ritas and beer 400
Drunk Snack THE SANDWICH 400
Total 1545

At the grocery store yesterday, I picked up some similar items that Ashley had gotten because they were sounding good. Like some veggie burgers and guac! I usually buy MorningStar but I compared it with Boca, and Boca was less calories, less sodium, and more protein! I decided to give them a try. I chose the original Vegan Veggie Burger. I put some fresh guac on it. Doesn’t look pretty?

veggie burger and guac

Well, unfortunately it didn’t taste pretty. In fact, there wasn’t much flavor other than the guac. I think I like the flavor of MorningStar a lot more.  But the gauc was sooo good! I did some damage on that with tortilla chips. Yum!

It was a low calorie day until I started drinking. And of course with drinking comes the necessary SANDWICH at the end of the night. Mac n’ Cheese Grilled Cheese with Bacon. What’s not to love?

THE SANDWICH

Workout Recap

Daniel wasn’t feeling well yesterday morning. He went out with his cousin Friday night. So no CrossFit saturday =( Hopefully we can try it next week!

Weekly Wrap-Up

Weekly Wrap Up

My average is the closest to 1200 that it has ever been! I wish I had gotten more exercising in but I’m proud to have stayed closer to my calorie goals. I hope to keep it up this week as well but incorporate more workouts into my routine. I have a two tests and an interview, so we’ll see how well I can time manage.

I’ll be back later today with Ashley’s Before Photos!!

Making Two Meals out of One & Grocery Shopping on a Budget

When eating out, portion sizes are ridiculous! Sometimes I feel like I’ve barely made a dent in my mountain of food before I feel full. But that’s a good thing! Just take the rest home.  I used to feel obligated to eat as much as I could on my plate when eating out but now I’ve learned to stop when I’m not hungry anymore.  Plus, you get two meals for the price of one.  Most left overs taste just as good if reheated on the stove or in the oven.  But I do take the lazy microwave route pretty often myself.  That’s what I did with these bad boys:

boneless wings

Daniel and I went to Buffalo Wild Wings Friday for lunch because he just HAD to watch the cardinals game. Plus, boneless wings were sounding pretty good.  I ate four during lunch and most of the fries and some carrots/celery, and then saved the rest for dinner.

Friday Meals:

Meal Food Calories
Breakfast Fruit Smoothie 180
Snack Fiber one bar 140
Lunch and Dinner Honey BBQ boneless wings, fries, ketchup, ranch, carrots, celery 770
Snack Tortilla with nutella 200
Total 1290

Not bad for eating some high calorie foods.

Alright, now let’s discuss my friend Ashely. As I said yesterday, she’s going to be featured on the blog often to help keep her accountable.  She wants to share her story and weight loss journey and continue reaching her goals.  She started out weighing 325 lb and is currently 219.7 lb. What a transformation!  Her goal weight is 160 and she’d like to reach it by her birthday, March 19th. So that means she’ll have to lose about 2.6 lbs/week.  That will be challenging to cut out 7,000+ calories each week.  She’ll need to reduce her calories each day to about 1200 and then workout enough to burn 500-600 calories a day. That’s equivalent to a solid hour of cardio. Let’s keep her motivated! She’s going to be filling me in every few days on what she’s eating and her workouts and then we’ll weigh her once a week.

Ashley’s current diet consists of a lot of ramen and easy cheap meals.  I wanted to show her that she could eat healthy foods and still stay within her budget.  She had $40 to spend on groceries for two weeks. Here’s what we found:

  • Pita Bread
  • Turkey slices
  • Spinach
  • Strawberries
  • Bananas
  • Eggs
  • Guacamole
  • Cooking Spray
  • Veggie Burgers
  • Activia yogurt
  • Mustard
  • Raspberry Vinaigrette Lite
  • Feta

= $39 (including tax)

Success! And look what all she was able to get! She can make sandwiches, wraps, salads — a whole variety of options and most will last her the whole two weeks! She was wanting to cut out most processed foods, so I think we did pretty well in that category.

I can’t wait to see how she progresses! We took Before photos but I still need to upload them so that will have to wait until tomorrow.

It’s time to relax and enjoy this Saturday evening now that I’ve accomplished some homework/studying.

Have a great Saturday night!

 

Bagel Thin Pizza

I can’t believe how fast this week is flying by! Thursday already? Sheesh! But I am so ready for this weekend! OK, admittedly I have a test and studying to do this weekend, but it’ll be nice to sleep in!

Wednesday’s meals:

Meal Food Calories
Breakfast Corn flakes 100
Almond milk 30
Snack Fiber One bar 140
Almonds 30
Lunch Bagel thin pizza 271
Snack Tortilla with nutella 180
Dinner Pasta with veggies, swai, and alfredo sauce 300
Snack Tortilla with nutella 180
Total 1231

I have been doing much better on calories lately.  I haven’t been eating snacks after dinner except for last night, which I think is why I’m able to stay around 1200.  I don’t always put my food in order of how I consume it FYI. Sometimes I don’t write it down until the end of the day and I just list it out as I recall it.  So if it’s a snack after my dinner, I probably had it sometime during the day.  However, after filling up on pasta, I was really hungry a few hours later. Weird. So I had a second tortilla with nutella in it. Perfection.

In the afternoon I was in the library working on homework which is where the Einstein’s bagel shop is that Daniel works at. I met up with him when his shift was ending so we could walk home together. But of course, I had him make me something before we left. Bagel thin pizza! These are soo good! It was too hot to eat at first but on the walk home it cooled down enough so I started chowing down, hence my outside photo.  He put spinach, onion, and cucumber on it along with sauce and cheese of course. He forgot to add tomatoes, but I forgave him.

bagel thin pizza

 

For dinner, I was too hungry to wait for the fish to finish cooking before I dug in so that’s why it’s not featured in the photo. In fact, I didn’t add much Swai to my dish because I liked it with just all the veggies more.

veggie pasta bowl

I cut up yellow squash, cucumber, tomato, and green pepper to add, along with some spinach.

Workout Recap

We never got around to running yesterday. This week is lacking in the workout department.  I’m really looking forward to the CrossFit intro class on saturday though!

What workouts have you done this week?

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!

stir fry

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.

curry pumpkin soup

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!

pumpkin scone

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.

pumpkin scone

pumpkin scone

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!

pulled pork

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.

fajita quesadilla

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!

spaghetti squash sauce

spaghetti squash

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

veggies and ranch

Daniel made a delicious lemon peppered Swai with Alfredo pasta.

lemon peppered swai

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

thai peanut stir fry

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!

half sandwich snack

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?

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!

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 SANDWICH

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!

belfast bombs

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.

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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.

almond crusted swai

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!