I would like to wish a very, very HAPPY AND HEALTHY Birthday to my BFF Blogger friend, Kelly!  Yay for birthdays and great presents!  Hope you eat some pecan pie today

Sweet Tarts! (C’mon, admit it!  This one’s kind of cute!)

How was your Monday?

It was another sunny day here in Mass, which always makes for a fabulous mood   As I was getting ready this morning, I started thinking about all of the things I had to accomplish at work today and got slightly overwhelmed.  I am happy to report that I was able to bang most of it out, so tomorrow should be relatively smooth-sailing.  Holla!  LOVE that feeling of accomplishment.  I’m pretty sure if you looked up “Over-obsessive, Type A Personality”, you would find my grinning face.  But, I’ll take it.  There are worse things, I suppose!

I want to thank you guys for the comments you left on the blog and the emails you sent about the format of the blog.  I’m so humbled to hear that I’m helping you in any way.  If you’re happy, I’m happy!  Apparently, the format is not as broken as I assumed and, therefore, needs no fixin’. 

With that said, let’s rewind to this morning!

I woke up at my usual time and rocked out 4 miles on the treadmill.  Of course, that includes my warm-up and cooldown, but whatever!  I still walked during that time, didn’t I?!?  I was welcomed back home by a very enthusiastic Mr. KD.  He was ready to tackle the “Chest & Back” workout for P90, so that’s exactly what we did!  I love this workout!  I especially love how you can customize it to your needs.  Since I cannot do pull-ups, I use a resistance band to get the same effect.  It’s great and doesn’t leave me feeling inadequate.  I actually loved ALL of the workouts and am so pumped to make it to Week 4 and see what our new workouts will have in store for us!

I’ve confessed to you guys before that I’m a cardio junkie because I’m hooked on the after-effect, but I truly can’t say enough positive things about weight lifting.  It’s so vital to a healthy lifestyle and while many detest it, I truly love it.  I can see changes in my body if I ever slack off.  It also helps me to feel strong and confident.  If you don’t incorporate weights into your routine, please consider it SOON.  The benefits will outweigh the negatives.  I PROMISE! 

Okay, enough of that.  Let’s talk about FOOD.  It’s always way more interesting, isn’t it?

Breakfast was a little funky this morning.  I decided to mix protein powder into my oats, which I’ve done before without issue.  The new protein powder I showed you guys last week has issues with the microwave, I’ve decided.  Remember when I told you I tried to create a “protein cake” from a recipe I found?  The other blogger’s looked light and fluffy and mine was like lead.  Completely inedible.  I assumed I did something incorrectly with the recipe, so I didn’t think twice to add it to my oats.  Thankfully, it was funky, but not disgusting.  It just wasn’t what I was looking for.  I’ve officially learned to stick to the EAS brand for any type of cooking.

“Thankfully” is actually a severe understatement as to how happy I was that I was able to eat these oats.  After all, I was dealing with OATS IN A JAR!  You know how difficult it is to knock down those nut butter jars!  After making my no-bake protein bars, my White Chocolate Wonderful container had seen better days. 

Bad for the jar, but great for my tummy!!

I couldn’t wait to devour this thing!

In the mix:
·       ¼ oats
·       ¼ water
·       ¼ cup almond milk
·       1 scoop protein powder
·       ½ tbsp chia seeds
·       1 tbsp flaxseeds

Toppings:

·       ½ banana

The finished product:

For slicing and topping at the office:

I didn’t think I would need the vanilla extract because the protein powder is already sweet, but I missed it.  Note to self:  This is a KEY ingredient.  And, as stated, the protein powder got funky, i.e. slightly fluffy in the microwave. It’s almost like the protein wanted to form a pancake consistency (except not a very good pancake).  Thankfully, the banana and peanut butter saved the day.  Oh, and the chia seeds.  I can’t forget those!  The mix tasted great, but the texture threw it off for me.  It makes me wonder if this brand would be good for actual protein pancakes with some egg whites, oatmeal and applesauce?  Hmm.  I might try this out soon!

I will forever remember today’s lunch in my heart.  Why, you may ask?  I ate my first LARABAR.  I know, I know.  The nerve, right?  Larabars have been a healthy eating staple since for-ev-ah and I’m just getting around to them now.  I’m not sure why.  After eating said Larabar, I can tell you I’m officially OBSESSED and making it my mission to try each flavor and rank them.  Stop laughing.  I’m not kidding.  I would never kid about such a serious matter.  The funniest part about this new obsession is that I ate it unexpectedly.  (Sorry…no pic.  You know what they look like!)

I packed up a killer tasting salad today:

·       Spinach
·       Arugula
·       2 slices of smoked turkey deli meat
·       Mushrooms
·       Caramelized onions
·       Dried Cranberries
·       Goat Cheese
·       Pineapple

Drizzled with some BBQ.  Apparently, I’ve had BBQ on the brain lately, huh?  This salad was AWESOME.  The tangy BBQ sauce with the sweet pineapple and salty goat cheese was pure tastebudded (Err, new word!) bliss.

On the side, I snacked on another amazing navel orange.  So good.

When I got back to my desk, I didn’t feel satisfied.  I thought back to my lunch and realized that the volume was large, but the actual protein/”good” fat content was rather low.  I would have been better off with more turkey (the slices were very thin) or a handful of walnuts tossed on top.  I didn’t want to dig into my snack and leave myself with nothing for the afternoon and then it dawned on me: I had a Larabar in my purse! 

I bought a box of the Apple Pie Larabars on Friday.  I stuck one in my purse to ward off any cravings while running errands on Saturday, but Mr. KD and I ended up hitting Dunkin’.  I was excited to try it and just LOVED looking at the ingredients list: Dates, Almonds, Unsweetened Apples, Walnuts, Raisins, Cinnamon.  Don’t you just love that?  Not a single strange ingredient and it tasted HEAVENLY.  It was legit apple pie in a bar.  Now, I’m going to have to resist existing solely on these bars!  It won’t be an easy task, people!  Do you think Pineapple Chobani is going to be jealous? 

As you would imagine, this lunch held me over until about half an hour past my normal snack time.  I did get hungry about 4:00 and pulled out some berries and non-fat Chobani.  This time, I drizzled it with honey and topped with cinnamon.  It’s still only okay for me.  I wish I could tell you I was in love, but I’m pretty much only eating it at this point because it’s good for me.  I figure if I share the time between the regular and the flavors, I’m compromising instead of eating the flavors all the time.

Dinner was leftovers!  Stuffed chicken breasts!  Mr. KD insists on corn with this meal, so we had some of that plus a few roasted baby bellas and broccoli.  Love, love, love.

Roasted broccoli goodness. 

This, my little Sweet Tarts, is the first of many leftover and/or random creations in the coming days. 

When I got home on Friday from the store, I was so frazzled by the money I had spent.  I feel as though food keeps getting more and more expensive and I refuse to settle for cheap, boxed meals.  Let’s face it – produce is expensive (even the frozen kind now!), but it’s essential to healthy living.  I asked Mr. KD if he would be up for complete randomness in the coming days.  I want to see how long we can survive without going to the store AND sacrificing our healthy lifestyle.  Granted, we may have to bop in to the store to get spinach.  I just want to see how long we can go without a full-blown shopping spree.  I actually have no expectations for how many days I’d like it last.  Don’t forget – I’m going away this weekend, so that’ll make it a bit easier.

I guess I want to show myself that I don’t have to make a big, extravagant dinner every night.  I love to cook, but now that the summer is approaching, it’s the perfect time to indulge in lighter fare, such as tuna salad (always have tuna that gets no love), tortillas (healthy wraps, anyone?), brown rice (you can do SO much), etc, etc.  I am viewing this as a personal challenge to myself to rely less on recipes and simply get creative!  If we can make it to April 23rd, I will be SO impressed with myself.  Like I said – stopping at the store to buy ingredients for a salad does NOT count.  Lettuce only lasts so long, people!  I’m not trying to get e. coli!  I just want to reduce the amount of stuff in my fridge!  When I finally do hit the store for a big run, I’m going to be more mindful of ingredients I have on hand and try to plan around these.

Mr. KD thinks it’s funny that I’m this bothered by the grocery bill.  His thought on it is that we hardly ever eat out anymore (we used to dine out at least twice a week), so obviously our grocery bill will be more expensive.  He argues we’re saving money in the long run.  He also understands that we eat healthy and while I do the best I can to eat in-season, it’s still extremely tough to keep prices as low as I’d like to see them. 

I had a very interesting conversation with the attendant in the check-out line on Friday.  She was ringing up my range-free, organic eggs and making a comment about how she won’t eat the “other” eggs.  I stated that I will never buy them for myself, but wouldn’t FREAK if I found out the eggs I ate at someone else’s place were not (moderation, moderation, moderation).  From here, she told me her boyfriend’s family actually owns a farm, so she’s ensured organic and healthy eggs at all times.  How cool, right?  This resulted in a friendly conversation about the price of healthy food and its direct correlation to America’s obesity epidemic.  It’s extremely shameful when apples cost more than macaroni n cheese.  It honestly breaks my heart to think about.  I don’t mean to be dramatic, but it truly does.

I consider myself so lucky to have a passion for a healthy lifestyle.  So many do not and also don’t realize how their poor food choices affect their physical and mental well-beings.  They also don’t realize what an impact it has on THEIR CHILDREN.  I would love to preach to the masses, but understand people’s frustration when it comes to the monetary value of their food.  I’m not saying it’s an excuse to eat poorly.  I still think you can slather peanut butter on some whole-wheat bread for cheap money.  But, I’m not naïve enough to think that it doesn’t have SOME kind of effect on the choices people make. 

Think about it – I’m complaining to you about spending too much for TWO PEOPLE.  Imagine a house with 2, 3, 4 kids?!?  It becomes extremely difficult to keep costs low. 

So, I think this little experiment will also help me to see that when I do have a family someday, there is always something healthy you can whip up.  You simply have to be resourceful!  That, and you must have a BJ’s or COSTCO card, which we’re thinking about doing very soon!

Holy tangent!  Sorry that I just talked your ear off for seven paragraphs.  Woops!

We’ll be chatting again tomorrow.  It’s Plyometrics day!  My favorite!  Yes, yes, yes!

Question of the day: Are you frustrated by the price of your grocery bill?  What are your favorite tips to save money?