My Bizzy Kitchen

Lovely Long Weekend

I think I could really get used to four day weekends.  It’s enough time to get all your chores done and feel like you can relax before heading back to work.

On Friday I met with a personal trainer at my gym.  Um, turns out that all they wanted to do was “sell” me the personal trainer program.  The minimum purchase was $99 for three sessions, but she pointed out that since my goal is to lose 30 pounds the best option for me was their 36 session plan, which only cost $1100!  No thanks.

I ended up getting my 50 minute treadmill workout done though.  And that was the end of my structured exercise for the weekend.

I am normally not a list maker, but I did want to get several things accomplished over the weekend.

• call insurance about my glucose test strips
• put old cabinets that have been in our basement for years unused on freecycle.org
• pick up contacts
• check for summer clothes in the attic
• clean house
• clean basement area by downstairs fridge
• reorganize kitchen stuff (i.e., casserole dishes, pots, pans, etc.)
• wash windows and screens

I am happy to say that I accomplished everything but picking up my contacts – they closed by the time I got there.  Not bad!  I don’t mind cleaning, but I have to be in the mood for it, and luckily Friday was the day.  It had been a while since I wiped down the baseboards, wiped down the ceiling fans, move the furniture to vacuum, etc.

I guess the only good thing about a small house is that it only took me 3 hours to do everything.

We did a lot of grilling over the weekend:

  Pork roast on Friday Night.

BBQ Chicken Thighs on Saturday Night:

Don’t underestimate the deliciousness of hot sauce on corn!

Tony made me breakfast:

We ordered out for Chinese Sunday night – beef and broccoli with pork bbq fried rice – no onions.

Long time readers know I don’t bake very much, other than bread and pizza.   Strawberries were on sale so I knew I would be making some sort of dessert for Memorial Day.  I found this recipe and I am so happy – this dessert was stunning!  Although I have to say that it was 50/50 on liking the basil in the ice cream.  I think it made the dessert!

My strawberries were really sweet so I only added 1 tablespoon to the whole bottom layer.  And who knew ritz crackers, brown sugar and almonds would make such a great topping?!

I actually made this on Sunday and just left it out and served it room temperature.  Love how juicy the strawberries got after this came out of the oven.

I’ll definitely make this one again!  We had my Mom, SIL, nephew and his girlfriend over.  We decided on a taco fiesta!  Marinated flank steak and chicken – I also made crockpot refried beans, a black bean and corn salad and had way too much food – but my policy has always been “better to have too much than not enough.”

It was the perfect ending to a nice long weekend.  I did have my WI yesterday – guess what’s back?

Yep, I gained a pound this past week.  I can attribute it to not working out Saturday, Sunday and Monday – as well as some few extra licks and tastes since I didn’t blog over the weekend.  It’s all good – I’ll get back on track.   And thanks for the dozen people who emailed me to ask if I was okay since I didn’t blog since Friday – I appreciate your concern, but just needed to unplug.

So here is today’s Inspirational Diet video – make it a great day!  

I have the day off!

I swear, sometimes if my head wasn’t already stuck on the top of my head, I’d forget to bring it with me!  I forgot to pick a winner from last weeks giveaway!

My manners are awful.    So the winner of the Do Life Visor goes to:

True Random Number GeneratorMin: 0 Max:  25 Result: 24

24.  Brianne @ Cupcakes & Kale Chips onMay 18, 2012 at 3:21 am said:Edit

Your burrito sounds so good, though I prefer eggs for dinner. I may have to give this a try.

Congrats Brianne!  Send me an email at mybizzykitchen@gmail.com with your mailing address.

This is going to be a super quick post – I leave in 10 minutes to meet a personal trainer!  Erica had the bright idea that my gym might have a free initial evaluation, and they do!

I went to the fitness center before work yesterday – did the same routine as Tuesday, except this time I did each machine 3 reps of 15.  It took me 45 minutes to get through them all.

I forgot my camera so my breakfast and lunch pics are courtesy of my smart phone.  Breakfast was a breakfast burrito – 2 tablespoons refried beans, 1 flour tortilla, 1 egg with spinach and a piece of bacon with fuji apples on the side.

I have this blog to thank for my lunch – so good!  I had leftover steak and wasn’t sure what to do with it – this thai steak salad is delicious – they only thing I added to the sauce was some sriracha.  I also used shirataki tofu noodles.  I thought it would be weird eating those cold, but it was delicious!  That’s how Mary’s version turned out.

This was my version:

It was light and refreshing.  I also did a 50 minute walk/run before lunch – it was hot out – near 90, but luckily it was breezy.  Just wish my face didn’t get so red!

I know, the wallpaper in my office bathroom is still super creepy.

Dinner was quick – Tony and I split a steak, I made mashed potatoes and grilled up some zucchini.  I love grilled zucchini – I like it when it’s still a bit crunchy on the sides but soft in the middle.  Kinda like me.

Does anyone else have today off?  I am running late – I’ll post an inspirational video later on today – make it a great day!

Eat Me Biz!

Note to self:  If you don’t go to bed until 12:00 a.m., you will never get up in time to go to the gym the next day.  I hate when I stay up too late on a work night!

Note taken.

I did have time to do my 30 minute Classical Stretch – this one was called “feet and knees” and I swear at least 20 minutes was in the plie position – my quads were really burning by the end!  But my Achilles heel felt amazing afterwards. 

I hit the ground running when I got to work – didn’t even have time for a picture, but turns out you’ve seen my breakfast parfait before.

It was a gorgeous day – 70 degrees, sunny skies.  I ended up biking for only 45 minutes – my quads were not happy with the bike ride after the stretches!  So much so that half way through the ride I had to get off my bike and stretch in the grass.  Yep, I am klassy like that.

Don’t you love how my fingernail is in the shot!  This made me laugh when I saw it.

Lunch was a turkey wrap on lavish bread – 2 ounces of turkey, 3/4 ounce swiss cheese, 1 tablespoon buffalo wild wing sauce, baby spinach.  All wrapped up in a nice little package.  With carrot fries and watermelon and strawberries on the side.  A delicious lunch!

The dip is fat free Greek dressing – it’s Maplewood Farms brand and really tasty.

But by mid-afternoon, I was starving.  My bosses chip stash kept calling me “Eat me Biz – you know you love honey mustard pretzels!”  But I had a better idea – I had an apple with a teaspoon of peanut butter and that did the trick.   I actually thought of my inspirational video yesterday – on how the runner must have trained hard to get to where he was – thank you inspiration!

And Debbi – this picture is for you, to let you know that I do keep hot sauce at my desk at all times.

You can tell that the weather is getting summer like because my dinner plate looks just like a summer cook out – cheddar brat, corn on the cob and some of my leftover crock pot baked beans.  The corn was just okay.  And for the record, that’s not too much mustard.

Now our inspiration video today – just be warned that you may need a piece of kleenex nearby, and you might not want to watch this at work.  Tony and I first saw this a couple years ago, and I am pretty sure both our eyes were weepy by the end.

It’s long – in two videos, but it is worth the watch!

 

Tony and I thank our lucky stars that both our kids were healthy growing up!

Stats for Wednesday:

• 1310 calories, 1524 calories after eating 1/4 cup of peanuts while watching t.v.
• 39 fat, 180 carbs, 23 fiber and 70 protein
• 30 minutes stretch before work
• 45 minute bike ride
• average blood sugar 143

Make it a great day!  I am off to the gym.

It was a sandwich day.

Those of you who follow me on facebook know that I got my ass to the gym yesterday for some strength training.  Bad ass!  But, um, I really don’t know what I am doing.  At all.  I kind of just went from machine to machine until I thought I hit at least every muscle group at least once.  It took me 40 minutes!   I am sure there were some people looking at me thinking “why is that creepy lady taking a picture of herself?!”  Turns out, I don’t care.

I love scones.  The first time I ever had one was at Starbucks.  It was a cinnamon chip one and if you’ve not had one, they are delicious!  But they also around 500 calories.  And back in the day, it wasn’t unusual for me to have this as my “pre-breakfast” treat for the train ride to work.

I had bananas that needed to be used up.  Do you think mine are ripe enough?

I put in “banana” in Tastespotting and I found this recipe for roasted banana scones.  Holla!

Look at how pretty they are!

I liked the fact that there was only 4 tablespoons of sugar (2 tablespoons white, 2 tablespoons brown) and the only thing I did differently was not roast the bananas because obviously mine were near rotten.  I also left off the drizzle topping, so each one of mine comes in at 353 calories.

I think I did something wrong.  Long time readers will know I am not much of a baker, but I thought I measured everything well.  She described her dough as “wet and shaggy” – I would describe mine as just wet.  In fact, when I took the dough out of the freezer after 30 minutes, I simply ran my pizza wheel through the dough so I could separate them after baking.  Breakfast comes in at 428 calories, 13 fat, 62 carbs, 3.3 fiber and 14 protein.

I add an egg with spinach on the side for some extra protein.  Um, I wouldn’t consider my version a scone.  It tasted more like a muffin – tasty, but I’ll have to go back to the drawing board on that one.  Or have the woman who made the original version send me a dozen.

My blood sugar was only 155 when I wanted to work out, so a 50 minute walk was all I could do.  Weird thing.  I am walking along this well traveled road, and all of a sudden I look down and see this in the grass.

It was literally about 5 feet from the edge of the road.  It had a zipper around it, and when I opened it up, this is what I found:

How weird is that??  Veronica, I just left it – but I thought of you when I found it!  Isn’t that completely random?

Anywho, my blood sugar dropped like a stone – I literally walked into my office and grabbed a can of regular root beer and drank half of it (24 grams of sugar!) and I tested my blood sugar and it was only 62 – after the pop!  So I am lucky that my one and only picture of lunch turned out good.

100 calorie bun, 3 ounces of sliced pork leftover from our roast over the weekend, 1/3 cup of skinny cole slaw, 1/2 a serving of sweet potato chips, TWO pickles and watermelon.  It looks like a picnic lunch!  This whole plate is 486 calories, 19 fat, 53 carbs, 5.6 fiber and 24 protein.

Traffic was backed up on my way home, I didn’t get home until nearly six o’clock.  But dinner was a quickie!  My store sells these thin steaks all the time, but I never picked one up before.  But now that Tony isn’t into thick meat (insert joke here!) anymore, I thought these would make good steak sandwiches.  I ended up using only two of the three slices, so each sammie only had .2 pounds of meat (around 150 calories).

The big calorie bust was the bread, but it’s a local bakery bread in Chicago, Gonnella Bread, and its worth the 220 calories.  I simply sauteed mushrooms and red pepper in about a teaspoon of butter.  Then I chopped up the meat into strips, just salt and peppered them, and cooked the meat for literally a minute or two tops.  Once I took the meat out, I added about 1/2 a cup of beef broth to the pan for a little pan juice.

I had 1/3 of a bag of Grab Bag potato chips on the side, dinner comes in at 549 calories, 18 fat, 62 carbs, 5.4 fiber and 38 protein.  This dinner literally came together in about 15 minutes.

Stats for Tuesday:

• 1463 calories, 51 fat, 179 carbs, 12 fiber and 78 protein
• 40 minute weights before work
• 50 minute walk at lunch
• average blood sugar 117

And now our Inspirational Diet video of the day!  Make it a great day!

A shitty salad.

Okay, I may have a new favorite flavor of chobani – LEMON!  Holy shizz is that one good – slightly sweet/tart, with lemon zest.  It made for a totally refreshing breakfast parfait with fresh strawberries, pear and granola.  This one comes in at 343 calories, 1.9 fat, 63 carbs, 5.4 fiber and 21 protein.

Here is a tip for any diabetics out there, or if you know someone who tests their blood sugar.  I recently discovered that Walgreen’s brand test strips with insurance won’t ever cost more than $15.  The tip?  Have your doctor write that you test your blood sugar 8 times a day.  You get way more test strips for the same money – I normally test mine 4 times a day, so it’s like getting twice as many test strips for the same price.

My blood sugar was a perfect 230 before lunch.  It was cool – around 58 degrees.

I walked across the street from my office to a giant church called Willowcreek.  They have a lot of land and not a lot of car traffic.  They have this one long road and I decided to run some sprints to shake it up.  I don’t know if you can see the markers with the white tips on either side of the road – they were about 25 feet apart.  I would run one, then walk one, and I did that for 25 minutes.  With the warm up and cool down, it was a quick 50 minute workout.

So I grilled up some shrimp when I cooked our meat the other night for lunch.  Um, note to self.  Don’t bring unpeeled shrimp to work – it was super messy getting the shells off, I should have taken the shells off at home.

I made a side salad of edamame (sp?), cucumber, yellow pepper, cilantro, lime, crushed red pepper, salt and pepper and a bit of olive oil.  It sat for a good 24 hours so I thought the flavors would have melded by the time lunch came around.  It was actually quite tasteless.  And since I was at work I didn’t have anything to add to it.  And yes, I have a random pickle on my plate – a co-worker bought hot & spicy Vlasic pickles and almost died eating them, so she brought them to me.  I don’t know where people get the idea that I like spicy shit. 

The cup in my salad is actually cocktail sauce for dipping.  Lunch came in at 444 calories, 16 fat, 28 carbs, 5.2 fiber and 49 protein.  The watermelon in the back was my dessert.

Over the weekend I made a pot of pasta sauce – each batch comes out differently because you never know who sweet or tart the tomatoes are going to be.  This batch?  Super tart!  Tony gave me the idea a long time ago to add carrots to a sauce to bring it around. 

I bought this pasta over the weekend – actually cheaper than Barilla!

While I could eat regular spaghetti or cork screw pasta, Tony loves egg noodles – these held onto the sauce really well too.  My plate: 1 cup baby spinach on the bottom, 1 cup of cooked pasta, 1/2 cup of sauce and 1 link of Italian sausage – 550 calories, 20 fat, 69 carbs, 11 fiber and 23 protein.

Thanks for all the comments on my first Inspirational Diet weigh in!  I think I just needed something else to focus on to make myself more mindful.  No snacks again at work or at home!

Stats for Monday:

• 1337 calories, 39 fat, 162 carbs, 22 fiber and 93 protein
• 30 minutes Classical Stretch (before work when a deer walked through my back yard and scared the crap out of me!)
• 50 minute walk/sprint at lunch
• average blood sugar 137

And now for today’s inspirational video.  Make it a great day!