Hey Bloggies –

I hope you are all having a good week so far! Monday was sort of a hard day for me. I was a little tired from the Easter celebrations, and I was starving most of the day (nothing new there, I guess!)

The commute was a bit hellish – I left the house at 6:30 in the morning, and there were already (what seemed like) a million cars on the road. Meh! I got to work by 7:40 which is a little longer than normal. I broke into my breakfast a few minutes before 8am… low sugar Quaker oatmeal. No add ins or toppings. 😦 I was ok until about 10 o’clock. That is when the snacking (insanity) began:

My banana:

I do like bananas a lot – and they are good for you. However, when I have one in the morning when I am very hungry, I would say they do not do all that much to curb my hunger. My favorite snacks that include bananas usually also have something to do with peanut butter or almond butter.

About an hour later, I started snacking on my almonds. Somehow an Easter egg chocolate candy made it into my almonds. I ate that too. (Thanks Katherine!)

I had lunch at 12:20… how could I possibly still be hungry!? I do believe that part of my “hunger” was the fact that I was really excited to enjoy my lunch. My friend Megan had sent me home from Easter with a container of vegetable strata – YUM! This really did the trick for me, thank goodness.

Megan had never made strata before – and decided to tackle the endeavor Saturday and Sunday. Strata is one of my favorite things around the holidays (I always think of Christmas morning as a perfect time for strata!) and I was so excited when Megan told me it would be part of our Easter brunch. She did a fantastic job – it was wonderful!

After I gobbled down my lunch, Katherine and I went for a beautiful walk. We covered about 2.5 miles in 25 minutes or so. It was warm, breezy and it felt like summer time already. Sometimes New England skips spring all together and goes right into summer. A lot of people think this is a great thing. I really love spring, and I am always sad that the season is so short in my area of the country.

At 3:15 I ate my Greek yogurt, Chobani vanilla flavor. At 4:30 I left the office dressed in my running outfit… shorts and a tank top, because it was summer time out still! I ran 3.4 miles after work – woo hoo! I still had my knee pain, but I was able to do the mileage, and I was really happy during my time out in the sunshine. It felt great to do an easy run. I have started carrying my water bottle during my runs. I am contemplating getting a “fuel belt” once I start upping my mileage. I would like a way to hold on to my luna moons, water, etc. I drink a lot of water during the day, and a lot of water while I run. If you have any thoughts on the fuel belts that are out there – feel free to leave a comment and let me know your thoughts!

After the run, I went into Whole Foods. The smaller of the two WFs in Providence is closest to my route, so I usually always go there when I need a quick bite. I picked up vegetables to get me through the week and then I hit up the salad bar. The bar was not bad – except for the absolute lack of anything with protein in it! There was feta and other cheese, but I tend to avoid cheese in my salads. I stopped by the “hot” food bar and took two little chicken wings for my salad…. at least a few grams of protein! I was disappointed that there was not even a hard boiled egg on the salad bar. Hopefully I will have better luck next time!

Well, I am off to bed. See you tomorrow!