Two reasons I look forward to Wednesday.  First of all – its starts off with bagel Wednesday!  I am so happy I am stealing Lori’s idea on this.   I had a Pam fried egg in the middle of my spicy jalapeno cheddar bagel – breakfast comes in at 10 points.

Things have been so crazy at my office – nothing I can go into detail here, but let’s just say I couldn’t wait to leave to go workout.  I decided to do a 5k, but break it up and do some sprint work.  I don’t know about you, but the first 10 or 15 minutes I run are just awful and I want to stop.  Then all of a sudden, my breathing is fine and I get my rhythm.  😀

I ended up doing 3.5 miles in 45 minutes with a warm up and cool down.  My sprints were in .2 mile increments, then I’d walk .2, increase the speed, etc.  My last sprint was 7.0 mph! Melissa told me I could in an email a while back (um, her whole run was at that pace!), but I didn’t believe her – thanks for the push Mel!

I had baked falafels on the lunch menu yesterday.  Um, pretty sure my co-workers thought this was a home run!  One even wrote me “I think every Wednesday should be Falafel Wednesday!”

Baked Falafel

  • makes 4 patties – 5 points plus each

Ingredients:

  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1/4 cup fresh cilantro
  • 1/4 cup fresh parsley
  • 2 cups drained canned chickpeas
  • 1/2 cup whole wheat bread crumbs
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 tsp. lemon zest
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 3 tablespoons flour
  • 1 teaspoon cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • cracked pepper to taste
  • 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
  • a couple drops of sriracha
  • 2 tsp. olive oil (for baking sheet)

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Put your baking sheet with 1 tsp. of oil on the pan while your oven heats up.  Mix all the ingredients in a food processor.  Form into equal size patties.  Bake for 10 minutes, add second tsp. olive oil and flip.  Cook an additional 10 minutes.

I served with a 3 pt. whole wheat pita (3 pts.), lettuce, red peppers and for my two co-workers, tomatoes and . . .this is what I great friend I am . . .sliced onions! And a serving of tzatziki sauce (1 pt.)  This giant plate of food was 9 points.

I actually thought the falafel could have been spicier, but my friends loved it.  I may have added a splash of Tabasco to mine after the picture was taken! 😀

Second reason I love Wednesdays?  It’s Hanging with Hannah Day!  We were going to do a group class, but by the time she got home from school, none of the times worked out.  We left the house around 6:15 – went to the gym and I did 20 minutes on the roller blade machine (very hard!) while Hannah ran on the treadmill.

Then we got our suits on.  Our gym’s pool not only has lap lanes, but what they call a “leisure” pool that is 10 degrees warmer than the lap pool.  We got in the lap pool but it was so cold!  So we went to the warmer one – for the first five minutes we found those weighted rings so we were throwing them and then seeing who could get to them first – we were laughing so hard!

Then an instructor came over and said “those are for swim lessons” and took them away. 🙁  We both decided we need to get our own pool toys for next time. 😀  So we did laps for 15 minutes.  Then the best part . . . 10 minutes in the hot tub!  It was so relaxing.

On the way home we stopped at Chipotle.  There is a site where you can build your meal.  I chose:

  • chicken
  • cilantro lime rice (my favorite!)
  • black beans
  • corn (that had hidden red onions in it I didn’t see – had to pick those out)
  • lettuce
  • spicy red salsa
My bowl comes in at 12 points

I ate about 3/4 of  it and 3 points of chips, so I am still calling dinner 12 points.

I got a junk email yesterday from Dr. Gourmet – its a site where you can find recipes for different types of diets, mostly medically related, such as diabetes, low fiber, low salt, etc.   It had a BMI calculator and I was curious, even just losing 8 pounds, where I ranked on the chart.  I am 5.2″ and 165 pounds.  I am still obese according to that chart.  But guess what?  In 7 more pounds lost, at 158 pounds, I will be in the overweight category!

So I am going to be breaking up my weight loss goals into smaller ones.  Instead of the typical “I want to be 135 pounds” my only goal in sight is to be just overweight, and lose 7 pounds.  I think it sounds much more attainable, and then figure out from there what my next mini-goal will be! 😀

Stats for Wednesday:

  • 36 points (including 2 glasses of wine while watching the Top Chef reunion and Storage Wars with Tony)
  • 10 flex points remaining
  • 45 minute treadmill walk/jog/sprint
  • 20 minute roller blade (the machine said I went 5.6 miles!)
  • 20 minutes swimming

Off to make some breakfast pizza – I haven’t had that in a while!  Have a great day – its another overcast day in Chicagoland – hope its sunny where you are! 😀