Posted on November 19, 2009 - by Ashley Jackson

Wiiii!

This one’s going to be a long one and the Internet’s being pokey, so let’s get right to it…

Monday’s breakfast was a Chobani 0% Strawberry Greek Yogurt.

Mmmm…appetizing. This actually tasted a little weird to me; not sure if it was because I’d been eating other yogurt recently or just because.

I had half of a Chocolate Chip JamFrakas bar with breakfast. These are the kiddy versions of LaraBars.

They’re a good bit cheaper than LaraBars and much harder–they don’t crumble slightly when you bite into them like LaraBars do, and that is not a good thing. It’s kind of sad that they aren’t as good as the grown-up version.

For a mid-morning snack, I accosted two wandering gingerbread men.

I was proud of myself Monday–I haven’t been getting my walks in at work during breaks and lunch because of the weather, but I took a walk during my morning break and during lunch on Monday. w00t!

Lunch was a wrap that unwrapped when I took it out of the plastic wrap.

Caesar dressing, chicken, feta, and bacon, in a tortilla…no veggies in sight; I’m all out…

This was also the first day in a while that I got to work when I was supposed to, so I was able to leave at 3:45. I got home at 4:15 knowing there was just enough time to throw on running clothes, grab the dog, and hit the lake trail for some Couch to 5K action. I hadn’t run in a few days (a week? more?) and had to stop a little before the end of each five-minute run. One day I will consistently beat you, Week 4!

Dinner was a mish-mash of things…

The last of that incredibly delicious bratwurst (but there will be more…mmm…), some baked beans from a can, a little dish of grapes, and a whole wheat dinner roll with whipped honey.

The bratwurst is good, but it’s still made of pork. Thank goodness for the George Foreman grill!

Ew….

Last Wednesday the broadcast cable that Time Warner had inadvertently been giving me was shut off, and while the antenna I bought arrived on Saturday, I hadn’t realized that my TV wasn’t digital even though it was fairly new. So I had to buy a converter box and wait for that to arrive. The result? No Fox–no way to watch House on Monday night! Fortunately, I realized that there was a way–watch it in the fitness center! I got there at 7:30 and did about 15 minutes on the elliptical, then walked on the treadmill until the show started until about 15 minutes before the end, then did some crunches and stretches for the last little bit. It was kind of hard to hear because of the acoustics in the fitness center but I got the gist of what happened, and I can watch it again later.

For dessert–an English toffee bar!

Not buying any more of these for a while–they’re too good to keep around.

—

Tuesday morning brought back the LaraBar.

I like the cashew kind all right, but I really wish I could find the peanut butter ones…they were really good!

I didn’t bring my lunch (although I did get to work on time again! w00t! I will defeat you, End of Daylight Savings Time!), so I conned Jamie into going out to eat. We hit up El Cerro, a local Mexican restaurant.

They bring chips to your table as soon as you arrive!

And then you feel compelled to eat them with the individual bowls of too-hot salsa they provide!

Then you order queso and stuff your face with chips and cheese, and you do not regret it because it is good.

The one and only time I’ve been to El Cerro before, I ordered a taco salad, which was delicious. I wanted to try something a little heavier this time, so I opted for the fajita burrito.

It was pretty good–fajita meat and veggies wrapped in a burrito and covered with salsa and just a little bit of cheese. It came with a perfectly sized portion of rice–I even left a few bites behind when I realized I was full (something that rarely happens because I eat so fast when I’m not eating with other people).

Later in the afternoon, a co-worker rewarded my general awesomeness with some milk chocolate.

I sampled one or two of the chocolate pieces for an afternoon snack.

When I got home, I had to go to the leasing office to pick up my four boxes of electronics equipment. I spent the next hour and a half or so hooking up my converter box and the Wii, and then playing around. I finally threw together a quick dinner…

Of another chicken wrap! Surprise! I’m finally getting tired of the wraps…gotta find something else for a go-to meal for a while.

I also had a piece of the apple bread that I made a while ago, froze, and then defrosted.

Actually, I only had a few bites of it, because the freezer did not agree with it. Going to toss the rest of it and make chocolate chip pumpkin bread this weekend.

Heath had a snack after dinner, too–he’s still working on that bag of treats I bought him at the beach in September.

For a pre-bedtime snack, I had a maple leaf cookie. I like these because unlike the peppermint chocolate cookies that lasted only a few days, I like these but not enough to stuff my face with them. Still have over half of the box of 15 left.

On Wednesday I got to work at 7:15, which was perfectly because I had to stay late for Spanish class. I had a Pure Cherry Cashew bar.

I think the new packaging makes them taste better! I’ve taken to eating about half of whatever bar I’m having for breakfast all at once, and then munching on the other half throughout the morning. I’ve gotten better about eating breakfast (I used to never do it!), but it’s still hard to eat much so early in the day.

I’d brought the makings for white cheese macaroni and chicken for lunch, but was not interested. Instead, I walked to the on-campus store and grabbed a Greek salad.

It had romaine, spinach, a container of dressing, a lot of cheese, carrots, cherry tomatoes, green pepper, onions, and chickpeas. It also had cucumbers and olives that I expertly extracted, and when I moved some of the lettuce to uncover the tomatoes I discovered jalapenos hiding in the bottom. What?! I was not aware that was standard practice for Greek salad.

Later in the afternoon, I got out a banana that I’d brought with me and found a little package of M&Ms. I proceeded to stick the M&Ms into the banana as I ate it.

You’d think people had never eaten chocolate-covered bananas before.

For dinner, I was hungry but not in the mood to cook. I grabbed a whole wheat dinner roll and added some almond butter and strawberry fruit spread to make a mini AB&J sammich, mixed up some sour cream and buttermilk ranch base for dip, and had an organic carrot with it. Oh, and some toffee.

I started feeling bad later in the evening, didn’t fall asleep until late and then woke up at 2 or 3AM feeling awful. I actually started this blog at around 5AM this morning when I couldn’t go back to sleep, but I started feeling so bad that I had to lay back down again. I reset my alarm a few times in hopes that I would fall asleep and wake up feeling better, but when it went off at 7:30AM I just gave up and e-mailed in sick to work.  I crawled back into bed and stayed there until I finally fell asleep, and when I woke up again I still didn’t feel great but I actually felt like eating something. I just told someone a couple of days ago that I have so much sick leave at work because I never get sick…oh well, I still have three weeks’ worth…