Hey All –

So, it’s Monday night and I have accomplished a few things on my post-work to do list for the day – exciting! But first a brief re-cap of the day. I woke up bright and early at 6:05 this morning – even though it was twenty minutes after my alarm went off for the first time… meh. 😦

Thankfully I had pre-set the coffee maker last night, so my coffee was waiting for me when I came downstairs. As I was heading out the door, my mom offered me half of her pumpkin muffin just coming out of the toaster oven so I took it with me to go along with my Au Bon Pain travel mug filled with coffee. Not a bad start to a Monday morning.

I did not have a moment to snap a photo of my half a pumpkin muffin, but tonight I did have a moment to look up the nutritional information of the muffin… ohhh scary stuff. I am so glad that mom and I split the muffin because the whole muffin (pumpkin from Dunkin’ Donuts!) is about 630 calories!! So my half of the muffin was 315 calories… which is not too bad for a once in a while breakfast. But it was only half the muffin! It kept me full for a couple of hours… I had the muffin half at 7 o’clock this morning (earlier than my normal breakfast). By 10 o’clock this morning I was starving and I had to break into a Luna Bar to keep me going until my lunch walk:

The luna bar was 180 calories. At 12 o’clock I walked a brisk (and much needed) two miles. The first mile I walked with my colleagues and the second half I walked on my own because I had to head back to the office before everyone else to prep for a few afternoon meetings. It was about 68 degrees when I went out for my walk today – and it was a beautiful, sunny day. How lucky we are for the middle of November!

Before heading back to my desk to work, I picked up a “small” cup of soup at the Caf. Today’s soup was white bean and escarole.

The soup was ok, but sort of bland. I could taste the sodium (I hate when salt over powers soup!) and not much else. If I had made this at home, I would have added a lot of garlic and other spices and used a sodium free broth probably. I added a few cranks of freshly ground pepper, which added some actual flavor. I had a few crackers with the soup. After my ‘cup’ of soup, I was still starving! I went to the caf to buy a Stoneyfield yogurt and on my way back to my desk, I passed by a pyrex container of double chocolate chip cookies made by one of my colleagues. I do not know what came over me (my hunger!?) but I grabbed a cookie and ate it on the way back to my desk. It was fantastic.

As I have stated in the past, Monday’s can be a challenge for me food-wise. Today was probably especially hard for me because I did not pack a lunch, and I sort of snacked my way through the day.

After an afternoon of meetings and projects, I finally had my yogurt at 4 o’clock today. I am glad that I had the yogurt because I had to go to the grocery store right after work today. I had told my mom that if she got me a chicken breast, I would make a veggie and chicken stir fry for dinner tonight.

Here are the veggies all cut up:

Broccoli, mushrooms, onion, green and red peppers (and three cloves of minced garlic not shown!).

The pots I was working with were rather small for the stir fry (where on earth is my wok!? I must find it!) so I used TWO pots / pans instead of one:

While making the veggies, I added the onions first because I always think they need to cook the longest… then I added the green and red peppers along with the garlic, the last veggies I added were the mushrooms and broccoli. I also made a stir fry sauce of 2 tablespoons, three tablespoons of rice vinegar, 1/2 a cup of water and a teaspoon and a half of ginger. I added this to the pot with the veggies along with stir fry noodles at the very end.

Here is the final result:

I garnished the plates with sliced almonds and sesame seeds. It tasted really good, and I was hungry by the time dinner was finally ready – around 7:30 this evening. Mom and I both enjoyed tea with our dinner.

My to do list that was accomplished:

TO DO:

1. Grocery store (produce for the week)

2. Make dinner

3. Pack lunch, breakfast and snack

4. Pre-set coffee

5. Laundry

6. Pick out clothes for tomorrow

7. Pack work bag

8. Clean up kitchen, wash pots, load dishwasher

For a Monday evening, I feel like I accomplished a pretty good amount of things. I am so glad that I have packed my food for tomorrow already. I think this will really help me get through my day without snacking or over eating. I have packed a whole wheat English muffin and a tablespoon of peanut butter for breakfast; an apple for my morning snack; left over stir fry for lunch; babybel and whole wheat & flax crackers for afternoon snack. I should be good to go!

I hope that everyone has had a good Monday and that your weeks are off to a good start. See you soon!