Relaxing Pizza Sunday

My day didn't start off to well. I was sort of grumpy having not slept well, tossing and turning all night and before you knew it, it was time to get up. I did my best to turn it around. The sun was shining, I'd lost a pound (it's not much, but it was a good thing), the high today would be in the upper 70's, and I would get out of the house to visit with family and especially the grand babies.

I played a quick game of tennis on the Wii, did the fitness test, results weren't good. Today I'm 65. We were riding with Lindsay today, going to Mom's early, so I grabbed a quick breakfast to tide me over.

 

What's in the bowl

Lemon Chobani Greek yogurt

Ground flax

Multi grain flakes

Blueberries

Chopped walnuts

Loved that the lemon was a tart lemon. It was super yummy. I wish I could find some frozen lemon yogurt that tastes like this. What a great treat that would be.

 

I got this great shot of Mary on the way over to Mom's. Usually, I can never get good people photos, especially kids. This one was fairly clear and Mary had a beautiful smile.

 

When we got to Mom's the power was off. Luckily we'd already planned to get pizza. We got Domino's. By the time the pizza got there, the power was back on. We got 3 large pizzas. First up is the pepperoni for the meat eaters.

 

We also got a cheese for those who don't eat meat or veggies, no really we got for Lexi (her request) and as a neutral for leftovers. Great for vegetarians or meat eaters.

 

 But the best pizza we got was the Pacific Veggie, yummo!

 

We also had salad. As usual, I forgot a shot of the tomato and cucumber. I also brought my French dressing, which I didn't get a shot of. 

 

Except on the salad. This is my plate. I actually had 2 pieces.

 

 

For dessert there was fruit salad or Ambrosia, whatever, it was good.

 

I had a BIG spoonful of this.

 

Later, I also had a doughnut, actually only half. This thing was way too sweet. Good thing I didn't have a big 'ol cup of black coffee to go with it or I might have eaten the whole thing.

I had a great day. It was very relaxing. We ate, sat outside in the swing some,  talked, played with the kids, and worked on Mom's puzzle. When I got home I took out the garbage and raked leaves out of the yard.

I didn't get any other photos because my camera battery was dead. I wasn't really that hungry, so for dinner  I just had half an apple with peanut butter and a boiled egg. I know it was strange, but I was ready to sit down and it was easy. Now the big question is, did I gain back that pound, I lost? You take a guess and I will tell you tomorrow if you were right or not.  Please check out my recipe page if you haven't already and if you see something you like, please Stumble it using the StumbleUpon button on the right. Thanks.

French Dressing Recipe With Lower Fat Version

Boy was I feeling good this morning. I got up and played a round of tennis before breakfast.....on the Wii. Hey, it still ought to count for something. I also did some stretches and did a few exercises with my 5lb. weights.

What's in the bowl

Pineapple Chobani Greek yogurt

Ground flax

Multi grain flakes

Cheerios

Kix

Sliced banana

Unsweetened Coconut

Chopped pecans

This was good, but I wasn't really into the banana this morning. They were a little more ripe than I prefer. I am more of a slightly green banana person.

After breakfast, I played a few more rounds of tennis in Wii Sports. I also did the fitness test. I was tickle to find that I'm 8 years younger in Wii Sports. How cool is that?

For lunch I had a little of the leftover pasta and spinach with sun dried tomato Alfredo sauce.

Dinner was a small plate salad. I would have preferred a large plate salad, but I prefer wearing the same size jeans I am now, more, which btw are feeling a little snug.

What's on the plate

Butter lettuce

Spinach

Cucumber

Orange bell pepper

Mushroom

Shredded boiled egg

Imitation bacon bits

Saltine crackers

Homemade French dressing

Ground flax

This is my favorite recipe for French dressing. Unfortunately it has 3/4 cup of oil in it, which is in no way low fat, so I decided to try making it into a lower fat dressing by decreasing the oil. I had to add a little water to thin it out a little, but it turned out great. I've included the original recipe and directions for the lower fat version.

French Dressing

¾ c. vegetable oil

¼ c. cider vinegar

⅔ c. ketchup

⅓ c. sugar

½ tsp. salt

½ tsp. onion powder

1 tsp. mustard

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp. paprika

Put all ingredients into a pint jar. Put the lid on the jar and shake until blended. Refrigerate up to 3 weeks.

Lower fat version

Decrease oil to ¼ c. add ⅛ cup of water. 

 As you can now see. The small plate salad only led to a snack. I tried to at least make it a healthy one. Ants on a log, you know, celery & peanut butter with raisins. I needed the sweetness.

 Even after my healthy snack, I kept craving something else. I gave in to a spearmint lifesaver, not what I wanted. I really wanted something salty. I had water. Some nights just are easy. Now I need to go to bed before I'm forced to watch "The Manster" with Elvira as the channel host. Gotta love local tv. How do you stop the midnight munchies? By going to bed, doesn't count.

Quick Sun Dried Tomato Alfredo Sauce

A blueberry breakfast. Nothing like fresh blueberries, especially paired with Chobani Greek yogurt.

What's in the bowl

Chobani Peach Greek yougurt

Ground flax

Cheerios

Multi grain flakes

Kix

Fresh blueberries

Sliced almonds

Late doing my stretches and exercises today, but I did squeeze them in before lunch. I could tell yesterday evening that I haven't done stretches in a while. There were a few spots I was feeling it, not bad though. It was sunny and windy today, but I never made it outside. I stayed in and worked on the house. I just wasn't feeling quite so energized and because it was so windy, I decide to push myself to do things inside instead.

For lunch I had a huge salad. No tiny plate.

What's on the plate 

Romaine

Spinach

Carrot

Mushroom

Grape tomato

Red & yellow bell pepper

Cucumber

Breaded popcorn shrimp

Chipotle mayo dressing  (btw I've updated this recipe to make extra and toned down the spicy a little)

Ground flax

Black pepper

 

This evening I was working on using up my spinach before it gets squishy, so I made sun dried tomato Alfredo pasta with spinach. I didn't make the Alfredo sauce. It came from a jar, but I did make it sun dried tomato Alfredo. Yes, you can buy sun dried tomato Alfredo sauce, but this way you can buy your favorite brand of Alfredo sauce or a cheaper brand if you happen to have SD tomatoes and make it into a SD tomato Alfredo.

This turned out really good and I had a small salad to go with it.

Quick Sun Dried Tomato Alfredo Sauce
1 jar of Alfredo sauce
1/3 cup course chopped sun dried tomatoes
1/4 tsp. oregano
1/8 tsp.  each
    basil
    garlic powder
a few grinds of black pepper

Combine all ingredients in small sauce pan and simmer while your pasta cooks. For the pasta and spinach, I just added the shredded spinach to the hot pasta after draining and put the hot sauce over the pasta, spinach mixture. You could cook it in the pan a little, but the heat from the sauce and noodles was enough for me.

The Salad
Romaine
Spinach
Grape tomato
Cucumber
Sun dried tomato vinaigrette
Ground flax

It's really hard to keep from doing some late night snacking every night, when I have to post all these photos of food and sometimes view some of my other pages to get links. I did have a little dessert this evening after having dinner. I did so a little portion control though and it was a sort of healthy dessert; sort of. I had a peach nonfat frozen yogurt cone. I really could have eaten two, it was so good, but I didn't. Go me! What's your favorite healthy dessert?

 

If you are dieting and it's late when you are reading this (btw thanks for reading this), I apologize for leaving you with this photo. It certainly makes me want another one. If for some strange reason, you enjoy my blog, feel free to pass it on. You can email the link to a friend or submit it to StumbleUpon. I love StumbleUpon. If you'd like you can follow me on StumbleUpon. 

Is This Breakfast

I know what you're thinking.....is this breakfast?  It sure it. Maybe not the most ideal breakfast, but it qualifies, I supposes. It was was morning when I ate it.

What we have here is a bottle of SmartWater, a Pretzel Time soft everything pretzel, and a Fuji apple.

The pretzel was not my favorite, because it had a sweet taste to it, not exactly what I was hoping for.

I decided to add a little mustard. What's a pretzel without mustard?

Lots of everything goodness. I had high hopes for this pretzel. I didn't eat the apple, the big pretzel was enough.

I got some stretches in this morning and a few exercises using my weights. I spent the morning cleaning, trying to make up for my neglect and also get ahead, so I don't have to spend the next sunny warm day inside. I didn't have as much time as I'd like, because the Grand babies were coming to stay while their Mom ran an errand, but it motivated me to do a lot in a short amount of time.

Lunch was quick and easy. I had a frozen bean and cheese burrito. I also had the apple which was leftover from breakfast.

I had a few Aunt Tem's Benne Bites or sesame cookies/wafer. Very small, very tasty.

They are described as being not too sweet, but I thought they were very sweet. I would like to try to make some of these with less sugar, maybe slightly larger. I added the quarter to show how small they are.

The girls came and we played for a while. Mary was being her cute self smiling, dancing, babbling, etc.

Lexi, while very cute, was not in the mood for pictures. I did get a couple before she told me she didn't want her picture taken today. Here she's admiring her new haircut. I told her it was sort of like Dora, but she said, "No, Dora has bangs and I don't."  Then I said, "Well it is sort of like Snow White." and she agreed.

After the girls left, I had a big salad for dinner. 

What's on the plate

Butter lettuce

Spinach

Grape tomato halves

Cucumber

Carrot

Red bell pepper

Mushroom

Chow mein noodles

Mozzarella

Ground flax

Chopped walnuts

Newman's Own Light Roasted Garlic Balsamic Vinaigrette

Black Pepper

The salad was very good. I enjoyed it. The black pepper, the walnuts and the dress really made the salad.

I usually add the flax and sometimes the dressing after photos. It sort of hides the veggies.

It has been a very active day for me. I am so tired. I fiddled around too long after dinner watching American Idol and The Mentalist, before getting started and now I am almost too exhausted to do this. Sorry. I really need to do better. Lately it's been sort of a chore because I've been tired and I tend to put it off. I would love to be able to do it during the day, but there is alway too much going on and then it would be lunch, dinner, breakfast, which would just be strange. 

Well, I'm calling it a night. No question, no answers. Knock, Knock. You pick the question.

Great Day For A Girls Day Out

Today started off well. I got up feeling pretty good. I did a few stretches, some yoga poses and did some exercises using my 5lb. weights to strengthen muscles in my upper arms and upper back. Then had breakfast and a big glass of water.

What's in the bowl
Chobani pineapple Greek yogurt
Ground flax
Multi Grain flakes
Kix
Cheerios
Banana sliced
Unsweetened coconut flakes
Pecans chopped

This was very good and would be a great substitute for pie. I think half a banana would be plenty. This was very filling.

 

My Mom and my two Aunts called and invited me to go shopping with them today. Although I probably should have stayed home and took advantage of the good weather to get some more yard work in or done some house work, I excepted. I took a quick shower and even got some cleaning done before they got her. Go me!!!

We went to the Carolina Mall. We shopped a little and then we had lunch in the food court. They all got lunch at Chic-fil-a. I passed and got mine at Sbarro. I had spinach and mushroom pizza and a Caesar side salad (romaine, croutons, and Caesar dressing).

 

The pizza was good, but I hated that the spinach kept getting stuck in my teeth. Note to self....spinach pizza is better eaten at home.

 

The salad was just ok, nothing special, romaine and croutons. Sbarro does get brownie points for vegetarian options.

 

They also get points for offering bottled water. I love being able to get bottled water instead of soft drinks. 

We had a really good day. The sun was out, it wasn't too hot or too cold, we looked and shoes and clothes, I got 3 nice t-shirts, cheap, I got pizza, which I've kind of been craving and I'm pretty sure we got in a good deal of exercise walking. Yes, I call that a good day. I also got a Starbucks decaf Peppermint Mocha Latte, which I forgot to get a shot of. You know I always miss something. In case you didn't notice, I also almost forgot lunch. (See my partially eaten pizza & salad above.)

I wasn't done running when I got home. We ran out and pick up a few things at the store. Back at home, I had the last of my leftover crab cakes, potato salad, also from Sunday and some steamed broccoli with a little sun dried tomato vinaigrette. The vinaigrette also got on the crab cake. It tasted pretty good that way. I did the small plate trick, but I wasn't sure I could pull it off with the amount of potato salad I had left. I hated to leave just a spoonful or two, luckily if all fit on the plate.

 

Well, I guess that's it for today. I hope you had a good day too. What do you consider a good day? Tell me anything, well almost anything, I like to keep it G rated, lol. I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing.