Hello hello!
I know, look who showed up to blog today. I think you all are familiar by now with my sporadic posting at this point. I blame life. Things have a way of always coming up don’t they? I’m just trying to go with the flow.
To be honest, I’ve been dealing with some health issues and trying to get some things figured and taken care of right now, so that has taken priority. I an hopeful it is something I can overcome, however I will say one thing… having your health/life threatened really makes you appreciate what you have. Thank goodness for my sweet mom who is willing to drop everything in her life without a second thought to come support me. I am a very independent person, but I’m realizing I can’t do everything on my own. I need help sometimes. We all do. So everyone, learn along with me…be thankful for your loved ones and spend time with them. Share laughs, share stories, and be there for them as there are there for you, too. There’s nothing much more important in life than love.
Little miss Cleo has still been keeping me busy as well.
We’ve had a few snow storms that here that have made the potty training process quite interesting, haha. But she quickly found out that she is a fan of playing in it. She looks like a little snow bunny hopping up and down in it. I have to watch her carefully because her color matches the snow pretty closely so she gets lost in it!
Yeah, she looks all cute and innocent. But that’s about the only time I can snap a decent picture of her. What you don’t see is the other 95% of the time when she’s running around like a wild animal. 
I figured I would go ahead and post a few recent eats for the upcoming What I Ate Wednesday and be ahead of the game for once. That doesn’t happen often as you know!
Breakfast
I used to make this oatmeal variation a lot but just recently started making it again. You cook up your oatmeal like normal on the stove top, and while that’s cooking away I microwave some liquid egg whites in a bowl. When the eggs are done, I take two knifes and criss cross cut the egg whites into tiny pieces. Once the oats are nice and cooked up, I add in the chopped up egg whites along with blueberries (or whatever else happens to float my boat that morning) along with the usual suspects: a ton of cinnamon, a few drops of vanilla extract, and a splash of almond milk. What you’re left with is a huge bowl of deliciousness that will leave you completely satisfied. I like to keep the oatmeal to egg white proportions about equal, usually 3/4 cup dry oats (cooked up like normal with milk or water) and 3/4 cup liquid egg whites. (cooked, chopped, added at the end.)
Lunch
just salad lovin’.
hard boiled eggs, ham, smoked salmon, olives, butter lettuce, Trader Joes champagne dressing.
sandwich with collard greens, ham, provolone, mayo, s&p. pretzels!
Snacks
microwave muffin top with pb and banana
It’s baaaaack. The Green Monster shakes have returned. For a while now, I’ve been on the “eat your calories” instead of “drink your calories” train, because that usually is what satisfies me most. But I’ve been craving some shakes lately and they are hitting the spot. I’m also trying to amp up the nutrients in my diet, so these are the perfect easy way to do so. I like to add spinach to mine of course, but also my favorite green powder:
Incredible Greens. Filled with nothing but incredible things. he he.
The above shake contained the following:
- 1 cup almond milk
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 cup ice cubes
- 1 heaping scoop chocolate protein powder (I used Giant Sports brand, a good protein blend that I recommend)
- 1 scoop Incredible Greens powder
- 1/2 frozen banana
- 2 handfuls fresh spinach
- 1 tbsp instant expresso
- 1 tsp coconut extract
- 1 spoonful coconut oil
- pinch of guar and xanthan gums for thickening
- pinch of stevia
The color can be so deceiving….this was oh so amazingly good.
Dinner
I made Courtney’s Chicken Parmesan Burgers and I can’t say enough how good they turned out. These babies were packed full of the good stuff and made 4 huge patties!
I served mine along with roasted rainbow slaw and marinara, and a toasted garlic wrap (filled with butter, nutritional yeast, garlic powder)
Dessert
protein pudding: 1 heaping scoop Giant Sports chocolate protein powder, 2 tbsp cream cheese, 1/2 cup greek yogurt, 1 tbsp dark cocoa powder, pinch of stevia, splash of milk. Topped with some super dark mint chocolate. Mhmmm.
Coming soon!
Oh boy. I have a new chocolate obsession. It has to do with this wonderful thing called “sweet and salty” and if you didn’t know, when you put the two together, it turns into something magical. I will do a little posty post on those chocolate covered pretzels very soon. They exceeded my expectations, being a sugar free and protein packed version! Oh yes.
And that’s a wrap. It feels good to be blogging again. Like I’ve said before, I can never stay away for too long. Plus, it would be cruel to show you those chocolate covered pretzels and not share the super simple recipe in a timely manner. I just wouldn’t do that to you guys.
Kristi
