Sunday and Monday Update

What a beautiful morning we had Sunday. I love a cool crisp fall morning and that is exactly what I got. With temperatures in the upper 50’s and a wonderful light breeze it was a quintessential fall start to the day. Apparently it was too cool for many shoppers as the market wasn’t crowded when we left at 7:45am.

We started the morning by helping Rudy (one of the organic farmers) unload his truck. He had picked some lovely green beans for us for helping. Rudy is such a nice man and we would happily help him for nothing but it so thoughtful of him to bring things just for us.

Our haul from the market today was out of control. When we left the house I knew I didn’t have much room in either of our two refrigerators and still I bought a mountain of produce. Somehow we stuffed it all in but I know things will be rolling out when I open either of the refrigerators, LOL. Today we can home with: 3 bunches kale, 1 bunch collards, 1 pound shitakes, 3 cucumbers, 6 large beets, 1 quart green beans, 1 quart white potatoes, small basket (about 10) of sweet potatoes, a huge basket of gala apples, a small basket of peaches, a bunch of watermelon radishes and probably other things that I have now forgotten.

On our way home I snapped a few pics of downtown on our way home. I love city life particularly early Sunday morning when the city feels as though it is still asleep.

This pic is looking up Charles Street that is the Walters Art Gallery on the left and the Washington Monument at the top of the hill.

Here is a shot down a side street near the Peabody Institute.

Also in that same area is a church that is so unusual. I love the colors on the building exterior.

Breakfast:

Once we got home it was time to get on the scale and find out the damage from eating out and then grab some breakfast. I always dread the scale after eating out but I really shouldn’t since it very rarely goes up any more. Breakfast this morning was oatmeal for Dan and a smoothie for me.

My smoothie this morning consisted of: 3 stalks/leaves kale, 1 frozen banana, 1 cup frozen wild blueberries, 1 carrot, 1 tablespoon chia seeds, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon ginger, ¼ cup fresh mint, juice of 1 lime, and water to process. It was almost a little too sweet initially which is why I added the lime juice to tame the overall sweetness. Here are the stats on the smoothie:

Calories - 353.17
Calories From Fat (9%) - 32.63

Total Fat - 3.89g
Saturated Fat - 0.54g
Cholesterol -0mg
Sodium - 112.25mg
Potassium - 1254.98mg
Total Carbohydrates - 80.42g
Fiber - 13.03g
Sugar - 19.42g
Protein - 8.91g

While we were enjoying our breakfast I had cannellini beans cooking for the mid day meal with my parents. I normally don’t plan what I am going to do with beans I just cook then and figure it out later. Making extra beans is never a problem at our house since they store so well in the freezer.

Mid Morning Snack:

While I was working on rearranging the stuffed refrigerator I realized that I needed a little bit of a snack to tide me over until lunch at 3pm. I grabbed a Gala apple and 3 walnut halves. I forgot to take a picture, but then again we all know what an apple and walnuts looks like. ;-)

Eating small meals often like I do it seems to make a big difference in terms of keeping me satisfied. I am convinced that one of the reasons I don’t eat much is that I never get too hungry. I personally seem to make bad food choices if I get too hungry or if I have eaten something with a high GI value (sugar, bread, those sorts of things). For whatever reason eating veggies and beans seems to keep my satisfied without food cravings and that is a good thing.

Lunch: Cold White Beans and Rice over Salad Veggies

I had no idea what I was going to make for lunch so I decided to go with an enormous salad. Turning lunch into salad had the added benefit of reducing the volume in the refrigerator. It was so stuffed that it could not have had good air flow in there. *rolls eyes are self for not planning better*

This salad for 4 contained: 2 cups white beans cooked and cooled, ½ cup short grain brown rice cooked and cooled, ¼ cup red wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard, 1 scallion finely minced, ¼ cup parsley minced, ½ teaspoon dried Italian season, 1 pound mesclun greens, 7 finely diced Roma tomatoes, 1 cucumber thinly sliced, 2 carrot thinly sliced, and 1 bell pepper thinly sliced. This was surprisingly filling for the few calories it had. I also sprinkled a few raw pumpkin seeds on top (maybe 1 tablespoon total). The nutritional stats for 1/4 of the total are as follows:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 310.99
Calories From Fat (9%) - 27.9

Total Fat - 3.34g
Saturated Fat - 0.37g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 106.92mg
Potassium - 1469.74mg
Total Carbohydrates - 60.73g
Fiber - 14.43g
Sugar - 11.16g
Protein - 14.48g

Surprisingly even my parents liked this salad. Now I did add a little drizzle of good olive oil to their plates but they seemed to enjoy it as evidenced by the empty plates.

Interesting articles:

I was trying to catch up on my health reading and came across two interesting articles. The first one is a about a poll that surveyed people regarding their exercise habits. Only 5% perform so type of vigorous exercise per day. My initial reaction was that number could not be right. But the more I thought about it the more reasonable it seemed. I know from experience that spending too much time sitting and not enough exercising can result in feeling lousy. If you aren’t exercising now I high recommend that you start. It can be as simple as walking every day at first, though that will only get you so far. But once you get into the habit exercise can be a very enjoyable part of your daily life.

The next article discusses the impact of diet on cancer. They even go as far as to discuss reducing the consumption of bread and pasta to increase the health benefit. The article also discusses the risk factors of being obese and inactive and having high insulin levels. My take from the article is that there is quite a bit of control all of us have in terms of staying healthy.

Afternoon Snack: Leftovers

Dan ended up having a veggie and tofu enchilada with mole sauce for his afternoon snack. I had the last little bit of oven roasted butternut squash, broccoli and red pepper soup topped with roasted squash seeds. I am making a concerted effort to get things out of the refrigerator at the moment so I can move things around and see what I have to work with.

Dinner: Fresh Juice and Walnuts

Since I really need to reduce the bulk in the refrigerator Dan and I decided that making a bunch of fresh veggie and fruit juice would be nutritious and use up quite a bit of fresh produce. We both liked that this didn’t include any grain.

Here is what I used this time: 3 Gala apples, 4 stems/leaves kale, 8 carrots, 4 collard leaves, 1 enormous beet (about the equivalent of 3 regular sized beets), 1 lemon, and 1 inch fresh ginger. We split this 1/3 for me and 2/3’s for Dan. Here is the nutrition info on 1/3 of the recipe:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 234.44
Calories From Fat (5%) - 11.34

Total Fat - 1.42g
Saturated Fat - 0.22g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 237.79mg
Potassium - 1406.87mg
Total Carbohydrates - 57.87g
Fiber 0.00g
Sugar - 30.28g
Protein - 6.02g

To accompany the juice I had 6 walnut halves and Dan had 12. I add nuts to make certain we absorb the fat soluble vitamins in the juice.

It felt good to have a nutritious dinner that didn’t have any flour. After our enchilada lunch and pizza dinner last night my GI system was certainly not its usual happy self. I never realized how sensitive my body is to what I feed it. However within an hour or so I can tell when I have eaten something that is less than optimally nutritious and it isn’t a good feeling. Sunday was much better with a produce filled day.

Sunday evening snack:

A certain man whose name I will not mention felt certain that he “needed” strawberry banana soft serve (without oats) because he was certain he had not had enough calories today. That is code for someone wants dessert. I had a few spoons but the hubby had 95% of the recipe. *rolls eyes* He has just a sweet tooth is it unbelievable.

Monday morning:

Why are Monday mornings always so rough? Today we went through our usual routine of making fresh veggie and fruit juice for Dan to take to work with trail mix in addition to his lunch.

When Dan left the house this morning so did I. We had taken 5 DVDs out at the library that needed to be dropped off. While I was there I picked up “The Kind Diet”. As soon as I read that I will let you know if I am buying a copy or if the library read was enough.

Breakfast:

Breakfast for me this morning was another smoothie. This one contained: 1 frozen banana, ½ avocado, 4 collard leaves, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon powdered ginger, ½ inch fresh ginger, green tea so the mixture will process. I really liked the taste of this smoothie. It was mostly banana flavored with a rich creamy texture that undoubtedly came from the avocado. I even think Dan would enjoy this and he isn’t an avocado fan. You know I will be giving him a smoothie tomorrow for breakfast to see what he thinks.

Calories - 274.61
Calories From Fat (43%) - 117.32

Total Fat - 13.99g
Saturated Fat - 2.03g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 24.05mg
Potassium - 1064.02mg
Total Carbohydrates - 39.98g
Fiber - 10.87g
Sugar - 15.07g
Protein - 4.13g

After breakfast I started reading “Engine 2 Diet” that I got from the library last week. My reading list just seems to keep growing. ;-) I hope to have this read by tomorrow so I can let you know what I think of it. So far I think it is pretty good.

Lunch and Afternoon Snack:

Lunch was a collard wrap stuffed with ½ cup fat free Spanish flavored hummus, 6 walnut halves, spicy greens (mizuna, tatsoi and arugula) and a few julienned cucumbers. I topped this with a little no salt seasoning and had a nice healthy few bites for lunch. The walnuts add nice texture to this wrap. The spicy no salt seasoning (Costco brand) adds a lot of flavor to the wrap. This was so good I had a second one about 2 hours later.

Signing out for now:

Since I got behind I wanted to get caught up with this post. I have no idea what dinner is going to be at our house tonight. However I have made enough of the dent in the veggies in the frig I may make something other than salad or juice tonight. ;-) I hope everyone is having a good Monday. Talk to you all again soon.