Skinny Broccoli Mac N Cheese

One of the first things I did when Tony was referred to Mayo Clinic was to call my insurance company and find out if Mayo Clinic is in network.  I have something called an HSA insurance over a PPO.   For us, we each have a $2,500 deductible, and then everything is covered at 100%.  You may recall that Tony was hospitalized on January 1 of this year.  He was in the hospital for a week, and met his deducible by January 8 of this year.  So basically all his meds, doctor visits and local hospital stays have been covered 100% – nothing out of pocket for us.

Well, I was told by two different people that Mayo was in fact out of network – which meant we had an additional $5,000 out of pocket deductible, and bills after that were split 80/20 – meaning we were responsible for 20% of the bills after the deductible was met.  We started going to Mayo in the middle of July.  By the end of July we were getting bills from Mayo, but at the bottom it just said “pending insurance.”  So I waited.  And waited.  Well, yesterday I went on our insurance website and low and behold EVERYTHING WAS PAID AT 100%!.   Nearly 62k, and not a penny from our pocket.  Our only expense has been our transportation expenses getting to and from Mayo.  Whew!  I can’t tell you what a relief that is!

When I was meal planning for myself this weekend, I realized I had more blueberry vanilla pancakes in the freezer and brought two of those with some deli ham on the side.

I decided to restart my 30 day squat program since I only did it 3 days last week.  Which really started to bug me because I don’t need any equipment for that – I could have easily done my squats while Tony slept in the hospital!  Oh well – I started my lunch workout with Day 1, then did a run/walk for 2.5 miles.

One of my co-workers brought me a bag of cherry tomatoes from her Dad’s garden.  This woman is pregnant with her first baby, and since I found out she was having a baby, every time I share some of my food with her, I tell her “this isn’t for you – it’s for the baby!”  So I made her the same lunch as I had – roasted cherry tomato soup with a grilled cheese on sourdough bread.  I will share the soup recipe tomorrow, but this was an amazeball lunch – look at all that cheezy goodness – and I only used 1 ounce of cheese!

Since Tony is mostly eating plain food, it’s Biz Food on the menu this week.  I love pork chops but Tony isn’t a fan anymore, so I made a lemon pepper grilled pork chop with skinny broccoli mac and cheese on the side.  I had cooked up a bunch of pasta over the weekend and just had it in a ziploc bag for whenever I needed it, which made this dinner come together pretty quickly.

For the pork chop – I melted 1 teaspoon of butter and mixed that with 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice – I brushed both sides of the chop with that, then liberally sprinkled with lemon pepper seasoning (it’s just the store brand from my local store).  Then I grilled each side 2x2x2x2 just like I do with steak.  I know some people are grossed out with pink pork, but it’s so delicious to have a piece of medium cooked pork – so juicy!

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I ended up eating all the macaroni and cheese, and half of the pork chop.  I still had Insanity to do, and didn’t want to have too much to eat before doing that – so probably about 3 ounces of pork – so good!

After cleaning up the kitchen, making granola for a birthday work breakfast this morning, I got my sweat on – I forgot how hard Pure Cardio is!  The bulk of the routine is 14 minutes long with no break at all.  And Shelley, I thought you would approve at how matchy I was!

And I easily got my steps in yesterday.

Alright – I have to fly – I woke up at 6:45 and it’s almost 8:00 – still in my jammies and I have to leave in 10 minutes – no problem!   Make it a great day!