I had to share this picture from when I left work on Tuesday night.  Chicago at night never ceases to amaze me.  I have to remind myself how lucky I am to leave so close to a great city like Chicago!

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I was ill prepared with my food yesterday.  I wasn’t thinking about my lack of time to put stuff together for the day after working a double, so I do what I normally do when I am running late.  THROW SHIT IN A BAG!  This time it was all the fruit.  I decided to pick up steel cut oats from Pret on my way to work.  It’s convenient that it’s in the lobby of my building!  Their oats are 4 points, I used a teaspoon of brown sugar and a teaspoon of their granola for an extra two points = 6 point breakfast.

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When I was throwing my fruit in a bag and moving on to what to bring for lunch, I thought “It’s Thursday – just get a soup to eat after the WW weigh in!”  It wasn’t until I was on the train that I saw someone post this:

hump day

My blog friend Randi (hi Randi!) told me that she mystery shopped at Blaze Pizza and said it was pretty good.   It was kind of crappy out, but it’s only a 4 block walk so I sucked it up.  I got there right around 12:45.

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Quite a bit of a line, but the woman in front of me said it went by pretty fast.  In all, I think I waited all of 10 minutes from when I walked into the door until I got my pizza.  As I sat down almost at 1:00, there was only one person in line – lesson learned!

I chose the “Simple Pie” with 1 topping which came to $6.68.  I wasn’t sure how big the pizza was.  Before I went, I checked my trusty WW app, and it said a slice was 3 smart points.  The pizza cooks in a giant oven and literally cooks in a matter of minutes.

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That woman was hilarious – she’d shout out your name when your pizza was done, and if she yelled your name more than twice she’d say “it’s okay STEVE, this pizza you created looks good and I am hungry, I’ll eat it!”

I added banana peppers to mine – perfection.

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Three slices was 1/2 the pizza, and came in at 10 smart points.  I really liked this pizza.  Loved the crunchy edges, and the crust was perfect too:

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And I always love a shout out on Instagram!

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This actually kept me full all afternoon.  So between breakfast and lunch I had 16/30 points. 

Hannah texted me a picture of chicken legs that she was making for their dinner.  Or should I say Jacob’s dinner – she had tofu!  But I had already defrosted shrimp, so I told her to count me out.  Bad idea! 

Over the summer and fall you’ll remember me talking about Hardcore Carnivore Black Rub, and I think recently I showed you that I just got their new rub called Hardcore Carnivore Red.  Hannah baked the chicken with just this Red rub, and the flavor is outstanding.  I can only imagine how a grill would make this better.  So the first part of my dinner was eating one of these chicken legs when I got home for 4 points.  20/30 for the day.

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I had planned to make a shrimp cocktail kind of picky plate, but quickly switched gears after tasting this rub.  While it’s meant for pork, it tasted amazeballs on chicken, so why not shrimp?  I was lucky that I had an avocado that needed to be used up, and already baked wonton cups leftover, so this second dinner took just a matter of minutes to put together.   This recipe is for one serving, but you could easily quadruple it for a family.

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These were delicious.  And the fact that they are only 2 smart points each makes them even better!  After dinner I was at 26/30 points for the day.  I wasn’t that hungry since I didn’t eat my second dinner until nearly 8:30, but I needed to eat one more point to get my blue dot – so I ate two tablespoons of cool whip out of the container for 1 point!  And let the dogs have some puppy whip too – everyone was a winner!

Another Thursday, another WI.  Still going to weigh in before work so I don’t waste my meeting at lunch waiting in line to weigh in.  You’ll just have to see if my losing streak continues, or if I start to plateau – you never know.

Here is my Thursday Thought for the Day:

life

Make it a great day! (and Melly – promise I’ll post the pork and polenta dish lemon sauce tomorrow – pinky swear!)