Category Archives: Wymans blueberries

Brand love

When talking about Fage the other day, I thought I would also share some of the other foods brands I love.  Normally, I find no-name brands to be just fine the majority of time. However, there are some foods where I am extremely brand loyal.

First off?  I love fresh blueberries, but alas, they are not always affordable.  When I buy frozen, I never get any brand other than Wyman’s.

Whenever you see the blueberry topping, rest assured it was from Wyman’s.

My pumpkin:

I prefer Libby’s.  Not sure what it is, but the pumpkin is almost sweet and always consistent.  I get other brands when Libby’s is out or I am totally stockpiling, but only if Libby’s is out.

Laughing Cow:

I like LC as a spread.  I actually don’t think of it much as a cheese as a condiment.  I have no desire to try other spreadable wedges.

If I want the real deal cheese, I like Cabot.

I have found that I actually like their reduced fat cheeses as they still melt and are quite tasty – as is the full fat versions.  We usually get the 50% fat ones.

And the broccoli that you see on this website almost every.single.day?

Yep – frozen!  And it has to be the baby broccoli florets.  Not regular florets.  Not chopped broccoli.  Not broccoli spears.  Baby broccoli florets. Period.  There usually are 1 to 2 pounds of this in my freezer at all times.

That’s where my loyalties stand! No company paid me to say this either, or gave me any free stuff.  Not that I would turn down free  stuff…  😀

Question:  What are some foods that have to be specific brands for you?

Easy blueberry sauce

I have a link to this in the recipe section, but thought I would give a step by step on making the sauce you see so often on here.

You can use any blueberries you want, but I happen to prefer Wyman’s because they are sweeter than other blueberries and they are the tiny wild ones, which gives you more blueberries in the sauce and makes it more cohesive, so to speak.

This is the big bag, too 😀

I weigh out 140 grams, which is one serving:

Okay, 1 gram over.  This is 80 calories of blueberries (another reason to like the little wild ones).

I set this on a little more than medium on the stove while I am cooking whatever these are going to go on.

In a small bowl, mix 1 teaspoon of cornstarch with 1 tablespoon of cold water:

When the blueberry mixture bubbles and has a nice amount of juice in the pot, dump in the cornstarch mixture, turn off the heat (if electric) and stir.

Stir as the sauce comes back to a simmer with the residual heat. It will thicken immediately.  Remove from heat and serve on waffles:

Or pancakes:

Or parfait-style Oats in a Jar

You can also put some granola on top for a quick cobbler-type dessert.

With the cornstarch, the topping is 90 calories.  You can add sweetener if you wish, but that’s why I like the wild blueberries because you don’t need it.  Honey would be nice for this, and also a touch of lemon juice.

This could also be done in the microwave.  I just don’t like to because it annoys me to start and stop the microwave and to keep having to check on it.  With the sauce pan, it’s easy to monitor.  That’s just me.  This takes about 5 minutes to make, so I do it fresh each time.

Enjoy!

Fat days flashback.

Well, we did not get all of that snow predicted!  Or it just was slop and melted fast, so no shoveling needed to get to the gym…. phew!  🙂

The workout:

Warm up of 10 minutes on the stationary bike.

I decided to change up the strength workout this week by doing lighter weights with higher reps:

  • Chin ups:  1 set of 3, 2 sets of 2.
  • Barbell squats:  3 sets of 8 at 85# (okay, not really lighter on this one)
  • Seated lat row:  3 sets of 15 at 45#
  • Horizontal cable wood chop:  3 sets of 15 at 30#
  • 1-legged dead lift:  3 sets of 15 with 15# DBs
  • Push ups:  3 sets of 15
  • Reverse crunches:  3 sets of 15
  • Prone cuban snatch:  3 sets of 15 with 8# DBs

That took forever.  I forget when you do exercises that are on each side that a set = 30 reps.  D’uh.   And I stuck 2 of those in there!

Then I got on the treadmill for walking and a bit of running interval work.  I was humming along on one of the older treadmills.  You know the ones where it just sounds ‘clompy’ when you are on them?  I was already feeling a little self-conscious about that. There was a man next to me on another one just walking.  I started doing some run intervals and all of the sudden this guy’s treadmill just cut out.  I didn’t think too much about it, and he fiddled around and restarted.  Well, next time I boosted my speed – his treadmill cut out again!  I would like to think it was coincidence, but it was likely getting jostled from my running, and there was a short circuit in the cord.  (We already have been told to not run on that particular treadmill until they get some new part for it).  Anyway, he got on another one and I heard him talking to the staff about how it kept cutting out whenever I ran.  I know it was not meant in any disparaging way, but I had face-flushing flashbacks to my overweight childhood (and adulthood) days where those kind of remarks were made to hurt and tease.  Any of you know what I mean?  There are times when I wonder if those old hurts are ever going to heal.  I’m 41 for Pete’s sake.

Anyway, I was a starvin’ Marvin when I got back after that workout!  I was thinking waffles on the way home, and John already had the wafflemaker out!  Woo Hoo!  I hurried and made these:

Protein Waffilus Giganticus.

No holiday for me today, had to work.  It was a little on the slow side, so I got my google reader cleaned out in the early afternoon.  Lunch was some of the red beans and rice from yesterday tucked into a tortilla.  With hot sauce!

That was a bit of overload on the fiber.  This was a smartcarb tortilla, plus the brown rice, plus the beans! D’oh!

I have been fighting the snack monster, too.  Had a bowl of chocolate with pretzels, cause you know I love my sweet/salty combos!

I went out and munched on pretzels a couple times, too, as the afternoon wore on.  One of the challenges of working at home 😀

We have a lot of food in the house now, and there were so many choices for dinner!  We need to start thinking about using stuff up before our vacation (12 days and counting….).  I decided on a sweet potato with lauging cow, broccoli and chicken!

A mish-mash combo for sure, but tasty.  I am so into the sweet potato/laughing cow!

You all know how I love New Rules of Lifting?  Well – check out this podcast  with Cassandra Forsythe!  I am downloading this to listen to on my run tomorrow.  Stumptuous.com is also a great site for getting strong with no BS!

Lori’s rules of lifting

Hello and happy Monday!  I am glad you enjoyed my winter pictures from yesterday.  I love my camera (even though I drool over DSLR!).  I made up a lifting program to do for the month of December.  It will be 2 alternating workouts for the next few weeks.  Today:

Big muscle group start:

  • Chin up (I am just going to keep trying a couple of these to build up strength each workout):  2
  • Barbell squats:  3 sets of 8 at 85 pounds

Then alternating sets of a pull and a push move:

  • Widegrip lat pull down:  3 sets of 8 at 60 pounds
  • Pushups:  3 sets of 10

Then alternating sets of lower body, upper body, and core:

  • Static lunge:  3 sets of 10 with 25 pound plate
  • Prone Cuban snatch (video below):  3 sets of 10 with 10 pound dumbbells.
  • Incline reverse crunch: 3 sets of 10.

Here is a video of the PCS – since I know you are all giggling about the name (turn the sound down before starting 😕  ):

Hit the treadmill after that.  I loaded up my mp3 player with Christmas music!

Came home and made up some of my patented layered Cream of Wheat:

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Half of the blueberry sauce is under the cream of wheat.  I could bathe in these Wyman’s blueberries! I love them so.  Sometimes brands really do stand out.

Busy work day.  They are moving over to a new platform, and I was one of the first to use it today.  Gotta love being the guinea pig!  It went pretty well, though.

Stopped for lunch.  We had some egg whites in the fridge and I decided to make a sandwich with them.  Just stuck them in the microwave and got a *giant* puff of egg whites (from 4 eggs).   I had to mash this sandwich down to what you see below.  Hello protein!

lunch1207I used laughing cow and a slice of Canadian bacon on it as well.  I kind of missed the yolks, but the cheese and bacon made up for it.  How could they not?  😉  It’s quite a low calorie and lowfat sammie, too, which is a bonus.

Ornament of the day:

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This is a blown glass acorn.  I love glass ornaments, but I am scared to have too many.  John and I call stuff like this ‘breakware’ because that is what we do to it.  My mother bought this for me last year and I love it.  It fits all my requirements of shiny and sparkly. :mrgreen:

Please forgive dinner, as it is another of my BBQ chicken salads!

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Even the gourd snowman was getting ready to enjoy it.  Plus a plate of strawberries on the side:

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These are really, really good berries.  We’ve been here for 3 years and I still cannot get over $2.99 a pound strawberries year round.  I don’t know who the buyer is for Hannaford, but they should get a raise!

Question:  Are you brand loyal?

Product review coming up tomorrow……

Pre-race eve

No formal workout today since my last 5K of the season is tomorrow.  Forecast is 30 degrees, which is 15 degrees warmer than last year!  Plus I am not sick.

Stacked up some protein pancakes with blueberries for breakfast.  Yay for superfoods!

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Made myself productive today with some cleaning and organizing before I get to relax for my weekend.  It’s gloriously beautiful outside!  Birdfeeders filled up and waiting.

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Driveway resurfacing is on the agenda for next year……

Had a quick lunch before going out:

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The juiciest pear ever.  Are they in season now?  I never know half the time what is in season and what isn’t if it is available year round.

Off to the consignment shop, where I got a couple turtlenecks, a sweater and a pair of pants.  I wasn’t going to buy pants, but I can never pass up petite lengths because they are so hard to find.  Being a shorty, most of my pants have to be rolled up unless I buy petites.  Size 8P!  And $5.80.  After doing some more browsing downtown, I stopped at the cafe for some of this:

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I had my laptop, so I put on some headphones with Christmas tunes and did some online shopping.  Now that is the life!  I am just about done shopping.  I also hit K-mart and scored more pumpkin!  I think I am set now for the season :mrgreen:

Ornament of the day:

orn1204

This is one of the ones I started working on this year.  I can see why these are expensive to purchase – time consuming, and I think I am blind now.   😯  I love the sparkle and how pretty it is, though!  I’ve done several in other colors, too.  Once I got the technique down, it’s much easier.

Dinner was a chicken, cheddar and cranberry wrap.  Jeez, I am in a rut with that flavor combo!

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Now we are settled in to watch a movie – Miller’s Crossing by the Cohen Brothers.  I enjoy their movies a lot.  My favorites:  Fargo, The Man Who Wasn’t There,  and O Brother Where art Thou

Have a great night blog friends!  I’ll post a race recap tomorrow.

Question:  Do you have a favorite Cohen Brothers movie?

Black Friday and no shopping here!

I ruminated a little on Jinx’s comment about whether or not I ever let my guard down.  The short answer to that would be no, not ever completely.

I actually ate a good amount of food yesterday.  I did not record the food I ate (except what showed up in picture form 🙂  ).  In fact, I even took off my GoWear fit for the day when I got back from my run. I just wanted to enjoy the day.  With that being said, I have learned some things.  I despise feeling stuffed.  I don’t like it when I am so uncomfortable after eating that I can feel my stomach bulge (something that I could not notice at 250 pounds) or that I wished I hadn’t eaten something.

That last part is so important to me.  I have made it my mission to not feel guilt or remorse over food anymore.  To do that meant to conquer the part of me that would just eat and eat because it was the holidays (or whatever occasion) and the food was there.  I don’t have to eat 5 slices of cranberry bread because 5 slices are available to me.  I don’t believe in deprivation, but I also know that is is okay to *not* want something.  I didn’t have any pumpkin pie last night because I didn’t want any.  I certainly could have had it because it was there, right?  What I really wanted was the cheesecake.  I knew that if I had both the cheesecake and the pumpkin pie, I would have been stuffed.  So, I didn’t have the pie.   I loved everything I ate yesterday (okay, the moose was a little overcooked, but anyway…) I nibbled on the cashews and chocolate pieces probably more than I should, but that happens.

As you all know, enjoying food on a daily basis is important to me to keep the weight off.  That way I don’t feel the need to gorge on particular days of the year, especially since I don’t restrict my calories to the extent that I feel the need to do that.  That is just what works for me.  Everyone is different in how they need to approach these things.

Maybe that is what is meant by everything in moderation?  I don’t know.  That phrase is pretty relative 🙂

Anyhoo, I woke up this morning and thought a nice walk was in order.  It was so foggy that I decided to go to the track for safety sake.  Crazy Black Friday shoppers and all that!  I couldn’t keep from a little running, though.  I did 3 miles and jogged one lap out of each mile.  Nice and easy.

Came back to protein pancakes!

brekkie1127

Full of ‘cleansing oats’ as John said this morning :mrgreen:

John was off today, so it kind of feels like Saturday!  No shopping on Black Friday here.  I don’t like crowds and pretty much avoid the mall from here on out.  I will be participating in Cyber Monday, though!

I won the football picks last week, so it was my choice for a meal out.  I decided that I wanted some pizza for lunch!  We went to East End Eatery, which I lurve!  John and I split a calzone (I so love that he splits meals with me!).  Side salad to start:

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And then the calzone.

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Fresh out of the oven and delicious!

Now is the time to get into the spirit.  Time to put up the Christmas tree!  Pixie wanted to help:

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The rest of the afternoon was spent assembling and decorating!

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I love real trees, but John is allergic – so we have had a fake one for many years.  I would like a nicer one, but the ornaments are the important part!  I think I will showcase one a day via pictures starting in December.

After finishing up, we had lattes and a slice of sweet potato cheesecake.  How thin can you slice cheesecake and still have the slice hold its integrity? This thin 😆  :

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I’ll have to get the link for the cheesecake recipe from John.  This is the real deal, though!  Good thing there isn’t much left.

I realized that yesterday was sorely lacking in fruits and veggies!  I had 1 banana and some cranberry sauce and a few green beans.  Ooops.  So, I decided on another salad for dinner.  2 in 1 day – that is pretty rare!  I had something similar to the other day:

sal1127-1

Turkey (you think??) with BBQ sauce, feta cheese, and sliced almonds on hearts of romaine.  It really tasted so good!

Making more ornaments tonight.  These things take forever!  Staying warm and snug tonight.  Rain is moving in with likely some sloppy snow by morning.  Think I will be going to the gym in the morning to run!

Question:  Black Friday shopper?  And if so, did you score any great deals?

More thanks and my camera is back!

Hope you are all having a great holiday week so far!  I woke up and noticed the temp was around 40, so I went out for a quick 3.2 mile jog.  I normally do not jog 2 days in a row, but tomorrow will be a rest day in case I run the Turkey Trot on Thursday.  It might rain Thursday, and if so, I will run at my gym.  Odd that my gym was closed on Columbus Day, but will be open for Thursday morning. ❓   Try to figure that one out….

Had a beautiful crepe this morning, only used Aunt Jemimah wheat pancake mix instead of Bisquick.

brekkie1124

Topped (and filled) with blueberry sauce with a tablespoon of ricotta cheese on top.  Yum!

My camera arrived right before lunch.  Olympus is fast!  The camera left my hands last Wednesday, and it is back in my hands today.  Now that is customer service!  (All under warranty, too 😀  )

You know you want to see the macro:

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More things I am thankful for:

  • John (did I already say that?? I will again!)
  • That I live in an area with 4 seasons
  • I am so thankful for all of you blog readers, both lurkers and non!
  • That I have the ability to move around every day
  • That I have been able to maintain a 100 pound weight loss for almost a year and a half.

Snack of homemade granola bar:

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Delicious!  Pixie could not care less about the excitement of having my camera back:

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She was sleeping next to me while I was working. 🙂  Our nickname (one of many) for her is Pixie Peanut Butter because it looks like someone wiped peanut butter on her nose.

We were having trouble with the router for our internet connection today.  I work via the internet, so that was really frustrating – but I am so thankful (another thankful!) that it was just the router and not the laptop, which is what I thought it was.   Funny how I realized while I couldn’t get on the internet that you can actually use the computer for other things….

For dinner, I had some brussel sprouts with scrambled eggs and feta cheese.  Simple stuff, but delicious!  Plus a little Forelle pear.  Isn’t it the cutest thing?

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For those that don’t know – I work as a medical transcriptionist from home.  That’s why I am working on Thanksgiving.  Even though I don’t work actually in the hospitals, they are open 24/7 – and the medical files for every visit need to be done within 24 hours.   I work Sun – Thurs, so Thanksgiving falls on one of my regular work days (although we get paid extra).  Lucky for me, Christmas and New Years fall on my days off this year!

Agenda for tonight: I will be making my special cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving to bring to dinner.

Question:  Do you have a dish that only you can make for special occasions?

6-miler and surprise beauty in fall

(I forgot to hit ‘publish’ last night 😳  )

Today was a run day.  Too cold to go in the upper 20s when I first got up, so I had breakfast first 🙂

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I worked for a while until the temp hit 39 degrees and headed out.  Pre run fuel:

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The addiction is still alive and well 😳

It was sunny and beautiful (if cold!)  I did a 3.2 mile loop, came back to the house and drank from my water bottle (and shed my gloves), then did another 3.2 mile loop.  2nd loop was the hill run.  If I had though about it, I would have done the hill loop first…..

Here is my GoWear fit today:

gsf

Can you guess where the run is in the graph??

Had the most wonderful lunch today.  John cooked up some pie pumpkins yesterday, so we have fresh pumpkin!  I mixed some with greek yogurt, pumpkin pie spice, cranberry sauce and some Hemp Plus granola.

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Tasty!

When I was outside today, I saw one of my roses actually had a bloom on it!

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Even with the frost and everything lately, and the beauty bloomed!  Very fragrant and I was so happy to see this.  I don’t know if the other 2 buds there will open or not, but it’s possible!

Decided on a burger for dinner.  I don’t bother with the lean ground beef anymore because it’s just too dry.  I don’t eat ground beef very often, so I like to get the good stuff.  The trade off is the tiny burger:

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Where’s the beef???  Good, though.

Last stop on tonight’s agenda was Starbucks!  We went with my mom.  I would have loved a gingerbread latte, but decided on a decaf skim latte.  I actually got almost 8 hours of sleep last night!  I hope to repeat that tonight.

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This last pic was taken with my mom’s Easy Share by Kodak.  She is actually trusting me with her new digital camera until mine comes back!  😀

Have a super night!

Biking and chinese food

Phew – I am feeling a little overwhelmed and busy lately!

A couple people commented about not seeing my triathlon videos – so here is the link to the post of the recap!

I did really well last night and didn’t eat any carrot cake that was for Mom and niece Devon:

cakeI just had tea and snacked on cantaloupe and grapes.  Thanks for providing those, Mom!!  😀

I was going to do a brick today, but decided I just need a long nonstop bike ride to the tune of 15 miles.  My duathalon is a 16 mile ride, so I need to keep doing the full 15 instead of breaking it into biking to breakfast/coffee, eating, and biking back home 😀

This was along the same road we did Saturday, although not the really hilly part.  It was a long and lonely road today since I was by myself.

road

Pretty durn cold, too!  It was 40 degrees and cloudy – plus a stiff wind. Check out this flag:

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At least the wind was blowing at my back on the way home.  Took me 1:21 to do the ride.

I had a Zone bar preride, which was good.  They just seem to last me a good while, so even though I want to cut them out of my life, it doesn’t seem too bad to have them in there.  I just have to not snack on them, but use them for a purpose.

I couldn’t decide what to have for breakfast and finally decided on warm and filling protein pancakes!  My Winney Farm blueberries are gone already, so it’s back to Wyman’s (which I also love).

breakfast

These were so warm and good in my tummy after a cold ride.  Plus coffee.  And speaking of coffee –  Hooray for caffeine!  Here is an article on some benefits of caffeine from one of my favorite blogs: Workout911

Spent a good portion of today training on a new account.  It’s nice to know they think highly enough of me to keep adding accounts, and it means that I should always have a steady flow of work.  Productivity does go down when learning, though.

Have you tried Attune bars?

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These are so good!  90 calories and full of probiotics and antioxidants.  Found in the refrigerated section. A little spendy, but I had a coupon 😛

Check out the chunks of raspberries in this:

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So, John won the football picks this week, so that meant I had to take him out to dinner.  He wanted Chinese, so we hit up a place that has steamed brown rice available!  Isn’t that great?  Hope more places follow suit.  I broke one of my rules of not eating corporate meat because I needed protein.  I chose the beef and broccoli bowl with brown rice.

chinese I tried to eyeball about 1/2 cup of brown rice.  There was easily 1.5 cups in the bottom of this bowl.  It was pretty good!

We were going to bike there, but it started to sprinkle.  John still wanted to get a run in this evening, so I decided to join him for a bit.  We went to the track and he ran 3 miles while I did a run/walk combo.  If only my duathlon could be spread out like that with the bike in the morning and run at night!  It was weird running in the dark, though.

Question: When do you like to do your exercise?

Breakfast of Champions

On the straight and narrow today after the Chinese food debacle of yesterday. Made my good protein pancakes for brekkie. I get a lot of questions about what these look like, so here are the pics (recipes below pics):

Naked right out of the pan. Look just like regular pancakes, no?

And topped with my favorite blueberry sauce:

Protein pancakes

1/3 cup lowfat cottage cheese
1/3 cup rolled oats

1/3 cup egg substitute *or* 1 whole egg

1/8 tsp baking powder

dash of cinnamon
dash of vanilla

Blend all ingredients together in a blender until smooth. Then cook as you would normal pancakes.

Blueberry Topping

1 cup of frozen blueberries (I like Wymans wild blueberries)
1 tsp of cornstarch
1 tbsp of cold water.
Heat the frozen blueberries in a small saucepan over medium heat until hot and just simmering. There will be juice in the bottom of the pan. Don’t boil them! In a small bowl mix the cold water and cornstarch. Add to the pan and stir until the mixture thickens up – about 30 seconds. This is a great topping over pancakes, or use as the base of a crumble.

Stats for this breakfast are:

291 calories 7 grams of fat 40 grams of carbs 9 grams of fiber 19 grams of protein