Category Archives: snacking

Hello snacks

The end of the week.  Jeez it went by fast.  And the end of April, too!

The last day of the no lifting week.  My body needed the lifting break, but it sure sent me into a snack spiral this week.  Not quite sure what that was all about.

Fridays are designated oat days, so I soaked more steel cut oats in buttermilk and water last night.

Cooked with 1/2 a banana and eggs whites, as per usual.

I got rocking and rolling with work right off that bat today.  This week was some flexing of hours around, but today was pretty much straight through.  I do love job flexibility when I need it – and I also have to be willing to be flexible when the job requires it.

Lunch time was more like dinner time today:

Filling, too.  However, I proceeded to snack on granola (captured just before I finished for accountability):

Peanuts:

several bowls with some chocolate chips.  🙄

Sigh… One of those days.

So much rain this week. About half a mile away from our house, the river rose over it’s banks. Thank goodness we live on top of a hill.

It is receding now, though. On a good front, all this warm weather and rain made the garden pop up.

Next Friday there will be a ton of tulip blooms to show you!  I can’t wait 😀

I also saw some primrose that bloomed on the side of the house.  These are annuals, but they were tucked under all that snow for the whole winter, which actually protected them from freezing.

Cooked up some chicken for the weekend.  I decided on a small yukon gold baker with chicken and BBQ sauce on top.

I do like potatoes…

Done with work for the week – yahoo!  Going to go out and paint the town red tonight with possibly the library or maybe even the mall! :mrgreen:

Tomorrow is a long bike ride.  We are shooting for 60+ miles.  That means the monthly wrap up will be a day late.

I’ll be back on Sunday!

Happy Pi Day and weekend nibbling

Happy Pi day! (3/14).  Or happy Pie day, as we like to think of it…

I seem to be doing okay with the time change and sleeping, which is a little surprising to me.  I was up maybe a squidge later than normal, but not bad.

I was hungry and ready for some breakfast!  Today was a 1-minute muffin with some blueberry sauce and topped with a bit of coconut butter.

I do like this combo.  I could seriously eat the coconut butter just by itself.  I have seen it also called coconut cream (not cream of coconut, which is sweet).

I did the little work there was and then got productive and rode the bike trainer.  I did 11.5 miles in 45 minutes.  I actually read blogs while on the bike, so I killed 2 birds with one stone.  No replying, but still reading 😀

Then I practiced my guitar.  I am trying to work towards what my new schedule will be in a couple weeks for my new job.  I will be back to my Sunday through Thursday schedule, but the hours will be from 2 to 10 pm. I am not crazy about that, but I do actually start at 4pm on Sunday, so most of a weekend off.  I don’t know how that will affect my blogging schedule, if at all.  Not totally sure the MT industry is really where I want to stay as it is not something that really can be a career anymore due to offshoring and transition to EMR.  BTW – ask your doctor if their medical records are transcribed in the US or not.  You might be surprised at your personal info being shipped off to another country.

Anyway, it should be full time, but I am a bit gun shy with being told that previously and not having enough work – and I can always use the money. Girl has got to eat, right?  Such as this for lunch:

What is that, you ask?  I had about 1/3 of a cup of the palak chole (recipe) left from the weekend.  Not enough for a complete entree, so I was trying to figure out what to do with it.  I decided to make an omelet with the palak chole as a filling!  It worked out really well and was quite tasty.  I did scramble it a bit too much, but the flavor was very good.  I put laughing cow on the top, but truthfully I could have done without it.

So the title of this post is weekend nibbling. I was looking at my food log for the weekend, and while I didn’t really overeat anything in particular, I did have a few extra snacks.  Mostly in the form of peanuts and some chocolate.  Even after all this time, there is a tendency to want to eat more on weekends.  It’s funny, because I work at home and my schedule is really pretty much the same on weekends as it is on weekdays – only no (or little) work.  So it’s not like office versus home or anything. I have the same access to foods during the week as I do on weekends.

I often times do still plan my foods out in Livestrong for the weekend to help keep me on track, but then I will grab a few extra things.  I know that is probably how ‘normal’ people live their lives, but I always fear going off the deep end and really packing away the food.  Because I still can quite easily.  Yes I can.  The urge is there at times.  Not all the time, but sometimes you just want to say “whatever” and just eat out of a bag of chocolate chips or box of crackers without even knowing how much you have eaten.

On that note, the peanuts have gone up high so I cannot reach them.  I was heading to Snack Town on the express train with them, so I needed to nip that in the bud.

Dinner time full of grocery goodness tonight!

Well, the chicken was from the smokehouse, but fresh berries and brussels were from grocery shopping.  Hooray for natural light dinner pictures again!  Thank you time change.

And in honor of pi(e) day, John made these.

Coconut tarts with chocolate and coconut cream.

Recipe here. These are freshly minted and need to cool, so will have to wait to test them!

Question:  Did you pi(e) today?

Biking, bagels, and snacking

Bagel Day!  I was up for a ride on the trainer today.  It was minus 12 this morning at 6:30.  Oh my gosh is that cold!  I was glad to have the trainer to ride inside.

I grabbed a coconut water since I was going for a longer ride and sipped on it during my 55-minute ride (covering 13 miles).  Woo Hoo!

Then it was off to bagels.  After showering, of course.  I had a wheat bagel with a maple walnut cream cheese.

That was a new cream cheese and they charged extra for it (which we didn’t know), plus she was pretty skimpy with it.  Guess I won’t be getting that one again, although it was tasty.

Came home and had to get a new Visa debit card as some dinkwad stole my number and racked up several hundred dollars worth of charges on an online gaming site.  Sigh.  It’s a card I really only use for local shopping and not much internet, so who really knows how they got the number.  Could be any number of ways.  Now I have to wait to get that money back, too, which is annoying because that is my checking account and not a credit card.

Then I munched on some granola.  Stress related much?

I told you yesterday that you would be seeing the chicken with balsamic tomatoes again!  It made an appearance at lunch.  I chopped up one of the breasts and warmed the sauce slightly and dumped it on a bed of greens.  Instant bistro lunch!  This stuff makes good salad dressing, turns out.

So Trader Joe’s has officially discontinued their peanut flour.  Shall I start a business selling this stuff online?  There must be other addicts like me LOL!  Hmmm… peanut flour and soap.  Sounds like a great combo to me.

I had a couple of these mint cups with my afternoon latte.

Only one made it into the picture.  This is the first snacky day I have had in at least a couple weeks.  Think some stress has a lot to do with that.

I just was not hungry for dinner after I snacked on a magic roll with some cream cheese (recipe coming Thursday) after having a bit more granola.  Snacks are almost always carbs, or sometimes nuts.  Wonder why that is? So no picture of that.  You all know what snacking looks like…

I need to chillax like this one was today:

We are off for coffee and discussions tonight since we did not get to go last night.

It will be decaf…

Tomorrow is the magic roll recipe!  I have a busy day planned for

tomorrow, so I have that post scheduled up and ready to roll. Over and out!

Question:  Have you ever had an ID theft?

Snack attack.

One of those snack kind of days.  It was bound to be that way right from the start.  I had a poor night’s sleep and woke up at 4:30 am unable to get to sleep.  I finally got up at 5 to at least go do some work instead of staring into the dark.  Proof that Pixie really does sleep all.the.time is that she was sleeping when I got up.  So much for thinking she plays all night :mrgreen:

There was work to do, so I started right on that.  My stomach was really rumbling, so I had a Luna bar while I worked (not pictured).

John got up a couple hours later and we headed on out to bagels.  Decided on Panera Bread today instead of the other place.  It was cold bike ride! 39 degrees.  😯  Brrrrr……  I swear we hit every red light on the way there, too.  I put on my technical turtleneck and fleece,so I was toasty warm for the ride.  I was totally ready for coffee, though!

It really felt like Sunday because of being at Panera, complete with grounds in my coffee…  Nothing like getting really out of whack for the day, right?

Blueberry bagel.

Got home and settled back into work.  My stomach was rumbling more not long after.  This always happens when I don’t get enough sleep (thanks ghrelin).  I munched on granola, then took shower.  I decided to eat lunch, as it was noon by then.

This is a piece of the bread leftover from last night’s dinner under my egg.  Lots of hot sauce, which meant eating sammie with fork.  What do you call a sandwich that you eat with a fork, anyway??

After lunch I felt bottomless *again* and had some nuts and chocolate.

By this time, I had that sinking feeling I was going to be battling this all day.  I had more of this mix with my latte, too.  Along with some other nibbles.

I actually closed my eyes and dozed off sitting up, which is really weird for me.  I usually cannot do that.  I think I will have trouble staying up tonight to watch Project Runway!

John cooked dinner tonight while I was working.  Love my hubby.  He did chicken marinated in Mojito Lime from McCormick Grillmates.  He also made up brown rice on the side.

The broccoli was my contribution.  😀

Now I am sitting here kind of full.  Maybe that will last me the rest of the night?

Definitely need to have a good clean eating day tomorrow – and a good night’s sleep!
Ending on a fun note – here is Pixie chasing her tail. She gets a lot of enjoyment out of it. Yet another cheap toy 😀

Mums a bloomin’ for the garden pics tomorrow!

A trip down snack lane

I am officially beat.  Not to mention my brain is like an egg scramble.  I woke up super hungry.  I had a Luna Bar as a pre-ride snack while I waited for John to get up.

I also did some work.  It seems like I am always working.  Oh wait, I am!

We headed out for the first bagel ride on the new bikes.  Last week John had the flat tire and it rained on Sunday, so this was the first official bagel trip.

Wheat bagel enjoyed on the patio:

(My bike in the background within arm’s reach thankyouverymuch)

This actually seemed really small and I was somewhat unsatisfied, so we split a berry muffin.

Then it was home.  13 miles today.  My chain was having some problems.  Guess this is stuff that happens when you get a new bike and it breaks in, so to speak.  Didn’t stop me from cursing the thief from Montreal.  John said I couldn’t blame him for everything that went wrong, but I say “why not?” 😀

Settled in to work more.  I am moving to part time with job #1 after I get some paperwork stuff out of the way.  I have to cancel my benefits, and need to do that first before working less – as I don’t want all that money coming out of a smaller paycheck.    I’ll be getting set up with new insurance in a few months through the chamber of commerce and our business.  I went without insurance for years, so it doesn’t bother me all that much.

Lunch time!  I was feeling PB and J, so that is what I had.

I actually went back for another slice of bread.  I feel some snackiness coming on.

I was a bottomless pit today.  Midweek really seems to do that to me.  I have come to realize that it is okay.  If you eat well 90% of the time, the other 10% isn’t the end of the world.  I had some cereal and mini chips:

Then after I while I had some ice cream:

A quick visit from my sister and niece right near dinner time.  Devon wanted to learn the foam roller:

She needs to work a little on upper body strength, but she has the flexibility! 😀

John grilled chicken and we had a quick dinner, but I didn’t cook any veggies.  Sort of a mash up:

More work to be done and I was feeling the urge for more snackage.  We walked down to the ice cream place (this is becoming a habit on Thursday) and I had a malt with the world’s biggest straw.

I was talking to John about the big difference now in having a day like this is that I don’t beat myself up or feel bad about it.  I really think that allows me to just move on tomorrow without feeling guilty or have it send me into a multi-day spiral of eating.  Maybe I am getting the hang of this thing.

I have to work more tonight….sigh….
Stay tuned tomorrow for a book review/giveaway and what’s blooming!

Snack parade

Okay, I don’t know where to start, from today or last night?  I guess I will give you a little recap from yesterday.  John chose Pizzeria Uno for his birthday dinner.

Little known blog fact that we lived outside of Chicago for 5+ years.  We loved the deep dish pizza there.  So, that is what he wanted.  I actually decided I didn’t want pizza and I was really surprised at all the wonderful things on the menu!

Here is John’s pizza:

Yum.. Nothing like that buttery, crispy deep dish.  I decided on a warm goat cheese salad with blueberry pomegranate dressing.  The goat cheese was coated in crushed nuts and it was fabulous!

I would so get this again and again!  We then hit the theater to see Inception:

This was quite a good movie.  I enjoyed it a lot.  Not quite as good as Memento (also done by Christoper Nolan), but better than a lot of other movies out there!  Dinner and a movie.  That is the kind of date night we just never have anymore.

Fast forward to this morning and I could not make myself go out in the humidity to run, and I didn’t feel like going to the gym and treadmilling it, either.  I can get pretty lazy at times, too.    Actually, it is just the running thing.  I am having trouble getting really back into it again.

Anyway, I made breakfast and started working.  Here is the other new bowl I got the other day.

I like small bowls because they make my breakfast look even bigger, which makes my eyes happy 😀

I have to say that today I am really feeling the pressure of the 2 jobs.  I feel like I have been working all day.  Well, okay, I have been working all day.  Not to mention that this week has felt a little crazy, too.  I broke for lunch:

Then came the snack parade.  I had some blueberries:

and the last cupcake:

No latte today because we were out of coffee (I can’t even believe I wrote that!!!).  So without the latte, I managed to have some granola:

Count that bowl a couple times.  Pixie was like “Are you going to stop eating already??”

I think some of it was stress from working and just feeling a little out of sorts.  Finally at dinner time I took a break from work.  I did manage to not snack while making dinner :mrgreen:   At least that habit is going well LOL!  I had some Buitoni pasta that we received a coupon for from Foodbuzz.

It was shrimp and lobster ravioli.  John had some the other day and the garlic cream sauce was sooooo strong that I decided to leave it off and just use tomato sauce on the raviolis (which were quite tasty).

Then we decided to go for a ride.  I needed to decompress and get some exercise in today – so we hit a 12 mile ride.  John’s new jersey!

With his jersey and me in Rosie, we certainly are not a subtle couple on the roads LOL!  We hit up the frozen yogurt place.  It is so sticky and steamy out.  I had butterscotch yogurt.

Cool and refreshing.

So, there was a less than stellar eating day.  Actually, if I blank out the time between lunch and dinner, it would be fine LOL!

I am posting this and getting back to work.  I have a little more to do and really feel beat.  Gotta finish up to watch Project Runway!

Habit energy

Thursday, also known as the new bagel day!  We woke up way too early (or TFE, as John likes to say…).  Downed some protein drink and biked away.  I was maybe a squidge tired from the monster workout yesterday, but not too bad.  The heat broke and it was a beautiful, nonhumid morning!  Yay!  I also got to have breakfast with my favorite person…

Sunflower seed bagel and cream cheese.

Somebody please stop me from thinking about opening a bagel/cupcake/muffin/coffee shop… please…

It was nice to sit and relax since we were up early.  Funny, but now our 2 bagel days coincide with the start and end of my workweek.  We go Sunday, which is the start of the week for me, and then Thursday, which is my Friday (and my mind gets all sorts of mixed up when I start thinking like that).

Good ride home.  13 miles round trip at exactly 13 miles per hour.  Convenient!

Steady work right away with good dictators.  That made for a nice end to the week at job #1.

Lunch time!

Finally opened a bag of Food Should Taste Good Lime chips to have with tuna salad.  This bag has been unopened for 2 weeks! It’s funny how long things last when I don’t snack on them…  Whodda thunk that?? 🙄

One of the terms that I really liked in the Savor book was “habit energy.”  There is also a sanskrit work for it – Vasana.  Habit energy can be good or bad.  What happens is that when there is a little seed of something and it gets watered, it grows in strength.  You can see how this is good or bad.  The thing about habit energy is that it can be (and usually is) totally unconscious.  I had a lot of habit energy towards snacking while preparing meals.  First it was a little nibble of what I was making, then it was snacking on cereal or crackers while cooking.  It became really easy to add an extra 150 calories before I even sat down to eat.  I noticed that this habit energy was very powerful and occurred at all 3 meals!  I would get back from the gym and have some nuts while my oats were cooking, or if I was putting chocolate chips on my oats, then I would have a few. (Easy to eat 70 calories of those without noticing – 1 tbsp).

When I decided to nip this in the bud, I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be.  I had fed that habit energy so much that it was unconscious and like a snowball.  Do you ever have an epiphany like that where realize you did something, but now *how much*?  Breakfast was easier than the other meals, because I just would make my coffee earlier and start drinking it while cooking.  The other 2 meals were more of a challenge.  I started popping the Altoid ginger mints to prevent my nibbling.  There were some times where I would have 2 or 3 mints just to get through the cooking without nibbling and I still found myself going to the pantry out of habit, but didn’t eat anything.  The first week was really rough.  I chose to not even let myself nibble on something like carrots or part of the fruit for my dinner because it was the habit I wanted to break, not the food.  If I were to allow myself only something I deemed ‘healthier’ would put food into good and bad categories, which I don’t like to do.  It was hard because I am hungry when I am cooking (to which the intuitive would say eat, right?).  Of course, there really isn’t anything wrong with being hungry and waiting a little bit for your meal to cook before eating.

I have to say that it is much easier now.  The habit energy is there still, but dwindling.  I need fewer mints and don’t unconsciously start to grab for things as much.  I started this habit breaking on the 11th, so that is what, about 2-1/2 weeks?  Not saying I am going to never nibble again, but I do feel like I am getting this habit under control.  Wonder where that energy went?

The interesting thing about habit energy is that it really affects so many aspects of our lives, including how we react to other people or situations.  Being mindful can really make you stop for a second and notice that habit energy.  Once you acknowledge it, the power starts to go away.

Snack time included a latte and another couple squares of Lake Champlain chocolates:

I do much better with chocolate when it is in bar form rather than chip form.  Again, I have some strange food things going on.

Finished up job #1 for the week.  Yippee!  Tomorrow will just be some of job #2.  And blueberry picking 😀

I had an omelet hankering for dinner.  This has some sauteed broccoli, caramelized onions, and a laughing cow wedge inside.  With a plum on the side.

The drink on the side is a POM cocktail (of sorts).  I mixed some POM juice into lime seltzer water.  Very good.  POM Wonderful sent me a case of juice!  Gotta celebrate Friday Thursday.

And in even more celebration, John and I hit the mall just for fun.  Kind of like high school where you go to the mall on weekends, right?  I found some wrinkle cream at TJMaxx.

Score!  Hopefully it isn’t expired or something and burns my face off….

Then it was Starbies for some real vitamin C:



That’s the stuff…. It’s decaf, though.  Can’t live it up too much, now.

That’s where I am blogging this post from!  Starbies now has free WiFi to everyone, not just card owners.  ’bout time!

Question:  Can you think of habit energy you have that you would like to change?

Bagels and biking x2

You know it’s Sunday when you see bagels and biking in the title!  Here is  a picture of my trusty bike:

Nothing special.  Just an old Schwinn hybrid type that I got used about 5 years ago for $140.   You don’t need anything special to ride 100 miles 😉 , although it would be easier with a road bike.  I made myself a little protein drink and we headed to Panera.  We went a circuitous route today to add a few miles.  Met my mom joined us for bagels today!

Yum.  This was after 11 miles and I was quite ready to eat.

Then we headed home.  Total round trip was 19.5 miles, and average speed of 13.3.  Not too shabby for a breakfast ride 😀

Hit the ground running typing at work today.  I think a lot of MTs have just left job #1 company (or got fired) as there has been a backlog of work and they are hiring now.  That’s what happens when morale is down.  Maybe I will be one of those people soon (the leaving, not the fired, hopefully).

Lunch break!  Pumpkin and vanilla greek yogurt with Uncle Sam’s cereal in it.

Plus one of the last pears I have.  No more in stores, so I will have to put aside that favorite for a bit.

Do you want to see something really crazy?  In the comments from yesterday’s race is someone who did the same race as I did (AJH).  Read her recap post and check out the picture of her at the finish.  The man in the green shirt right next to her is John!  How about that for a coincidence??  Kinda spooky….

Latte in the afternoon.

I am drinking this sitting in front of the fan LOL!

Pixie just doesn’t know how to do her job.  She is supposed to scare the squirrels off of this bird feeder, and all she does is watch them.  That squirrel could care less!

Now that the Starlings seem to have moved on, the woodpecker is back, too!

I was pretty hungry for dinner.  Luckily John had cooked up some chicken earlier, so you know what I had to have!

Plus some strawberries on the side:

Lucky for you, I used up the last of the BBQ sauce and the salad mix, so I will have to come up with some different dinners this week :mrgreen:

I decided on a double dip ride again today.  Wanted to bike for a bit more tonight, so that meant yogurt!  I asked John how his yogurt was:

I guess his goal is to ham it up in every picture now,even though he knows they are going to end up on the internets.

I had pistachio yogurt, one of my very favorites!

Anyone have any good suggestions for an anti-wrinkle cream?  Seriously.

Total bike mileage today was 32 miles.  I so love my bike….  Just in case you are curious, today’s calories tallied up to 1710 (give or take a few).  I was surprised that it was that low, actually.  Big reason is because I didn’t nibble.  Funny how that works, isn’t it??

Off to foam roll and stretch!

Bagels and brussels.

It’s the new bagel day! Slept in until about 7, which was really nice. Fueled up with a bubbly protein drink and biked to Cool Beans.

It was a very nice morning for a ride. I do have to say that my legs were actually sore after my workout yesterday.  I hardly ever get sore anymore. Must be the deadlifts.

Debby brought up a point about wondering the difference between a squat and a deadlift. If you use dumbbells, there really is no difference. When you move to the bar, you have the barbell on your shoulder shelf behind your back for a squat versus in front of you with the deadlift. When you use a barbell, those 2 moves feel very, very different from each other.

Ze bagel!

I totally refined it today with a sesame seed bagel.  It was really good.  I haven’t had one of those in years!  I got it because the other bagels looked really dinky.

Nice tailwind for the ride home afterwards.  I didn’t push or anything because of the sore legs.  I have a race on Saturday, so I am completely resting tomorrow.

Last day of the work week for job #1.  Yay!  The day went slow on that front though.  Plodded through files today.

Lunch break included something sent to me by Attune Foods!

I guess Uncle Sam is a brand by US Mills, which also has the Attune brand.  Didn’t know that!

This cereal is good.  It is not sweet at all (1 g of sugar per serving), so I think it would be good used as a breading for chicken or other savory dishes.  Might have to try that.  It’s got 10 grams of fiber per serving, too 😯

I also had the last of the blueberry muffins I made the other day.  This meal kind of looked like a breakfast LOL.

Watched more of the Tour in and out while working.  I wish Andy had been able to shake Contador, but no dice.  They both worked so hard.  It’s actually good to see no hard feelings between them. Think Contador has it pretty much wrapped up unless something drastic happens.  Now it’s back to watching Cavendish and Petaki (sp??).

Afternoon break of a latte and a Luna bar.

I was really hungry.  I must have jinxed myself saying I wasn’t feeling snacky lately.

I spent the next couple hours trying not to snack.  I was not hungry, but I think I was just wanting to avoid work.  I kept saying to myself to go ahead and eat, but then I somehow got a handle on it and waited until dinner.  (Who is this lady?)

Dinner was something different.  I wanted a BBQ chicken wrap, but decided to put it in the waffle iron to heat it up.  Sort of panini style.

Very tasty.  This pile of brussel sprouts was only 4 sprouts (is that what a single one is called??).  They were ginormous! Sliced thin and sauteed in coconut oil, salt, and pepper.  My favorite way to eat them.

I just finished up work for job #1 for the whole week, so I only have job #2 tomorrow.  Yay!  I will work some on Friday, but Saturday is my no work day ever.  The one day I have to spend with John, so nobody gets to interrupt it unless I say so.

Evening snack will be some bread with nut butter.  I just made up a loaf of maple oatmeal bread.  Yummers.

Be back tomorrow with some more garden blooms.  Couple new things popped open this week!

Question:  Have you ever tried Uncle Sam’s?

Tour de bagel and 7 steps of mindful eating.

Off to the Tour de Bagel this morning!  I had a protein drink and we biked it out on the roads to Panera instead of the path.  Really set a nice pace today, too.

I was ready for that bagel today!  Asiago cheese.  Num.

We chatted for quite a long time.  It was nice not having to grocery shop  afterwards like we normally do on Sunday.  Then we pushed it again on the way home.

Ride distance: 16 miles

Avg speed:  13.5 mph.  Nice pace.  On the rough path, we are usually about 1 mph slower.

Had the Tour on while I got settled in to work today (job #1 very busy today).  Poor Lance.  Not the way to end his comeback for the Tour.  My thighs were burning in sympathy for those guys at the end on the climbs.  I don’t know how they do it.

Guess the heat relief was short lived.  Hot again today, but maybe not as humid.

Lunch break!

Made some egg salad on a Tomaxico wheat wrap.  These are good and have a better texture than the Smart Carb wraps.

I haven’t weighed myself since July 1.  I go through periods where I weighed every day and then periods where I would weigh once a week.  I did it to note the number, but the fluctuations stopped bothering me a while ago.  It has now been 10 days since I stepped on the scale.  I actually don’t really think about it that much as of yet, although I was a little curious after the 100-mile ride as to what the scale said.  It’s funny how yesterday morning I was feeling thin and fit and I thought that maybe because I was only relying on my eye and not a scale number?  Then last night I was feeling chubby, so maybe not LOL!  My brain is so weird.

My barista is back, so he made me a latte today and I had some blues with it.

I just love the color of these berries.  I am smitten.  They are almost gone now.  Might have to pick again on Friday 😀

More review of Savor includes the 7 practices of a mindful eater:

  1. Honor the food. Meaning to think about where it came from. I am taking time to think about this before each meal
  2. Engage all senses.  Notice the visual appeal, the textures, the smell, etc., not just taste.
  3. Serve in modest portions.  You can always go back for more.
  4. Savor small bites and chew thoroughly.  I could do better with smaller bites.
  5. Eat slowly.  Really need to work on this one.
  6. Don’t skip meals.  Never, ever a problem here.
  7. Eat a plant-based diet.  Vegetarianism is not for me.  I do have days where I don’t eat meat, but not going to happen all together.  Eating locally produced meat is important to me.  I want to be an ethical eater.

That is one thing that is bugging me about this book.  The pushing of vegetarian and vegan way of life.  There seems to be no distinction of purchasing local farm meat products and factory farming.  Otherwise, I am learning some good things from this book.

In keeping with being mindful, remember how I mentioned my habit of snacking while preparing meals?  I decided to really try to not do that today.  Lunch is always easier than dinner, and I had no problem there.  With dinner, I had Altoids come to my rescue:

I put one of these in my mouth while I was in the kitchen to keep from nibbling.  I don’t even want to nibble on what will be on my plate because I want to get rid of that habit all together.  The ginger mint (I really love these, btw) really helped me with that.  Then it was gone and I almost reached for something on John’s plate and had to catch myself.  A lot of habit energy to divert, that is for sure.

What I did eat:

BBQ shrimp!  3 oz of shrimp looks a little dinky on the plate.  My eyes don’t like that portion size.  Really tasty, though!

I am done with job #1 today – yay!  Going to relax and enjoy a couple mindful pieces of this:

Question:  Are you a fast or slow eater?