Hey All:

So, I missed yesterday (day four) so I will include a brief recap on that as well tonight. I am doing my best to keep up with eating healthily (not really a struggle for me at the moment), training, going to bed at a decent time, getting up early, laundry, cleaning my room on a regular basis, and so on. I feel like there is a lot of stuff going on in my life at the moment – and I am doing my best to maintain a delicate balance. I find myself writing a to do list often, so I can remember what I have to do. I love crossing through things on the list because I feel like I am accomplishing things.

Today I made an effort to have a higher protein, lower fat breakfast. Bring in the Greek yogurt, blueberries and Kashi Go Lean Crunch! It was a really good start to the day:

(I am still digging the fresh fruit even though I’m sort of paying a premium for it! Well worth it in my book 🙂 )

Lunch was at Harvard today. I had a soup, a salad, some grilled chicken and a mini cupcake. I did not take a photo since I was eating during a meeting, and that might have seemed a little strange. But the food was very good and I was so happy that there were some really healthy options. The curried, grilled cauliflower was amazing.

I did not have an afternoon snack. I left work at 4 o’clock and headed to the gym. It took me a longer time to get to the gym today, but I still made it in plenty of time for my 6 o’clock training appointment with my personal trainer and friend Celeste.

I got in to the gym, changed and did a warm up on the ERG (aka rowing machine). Did you know that I was on the crew team in college? It is such a hardcore sport – especially when you need to get up at 5:30 AM (or was it 5 AM?) in college when some of your friends were just getting home from parties, etc. It was a lot of dedication – but I loved it. SO, tonight I was on the rowing machine and I did 2,000 meters in about 9 minutes. Someone mentioned to me that they usually row 1,000 meters in that much time and it made me happy to hear this. I still have some of my ERG ability even though it has been years since I was a competitive rower.

After my warm up, Celeste and I did an hour workout session. I am pretty used to my routine of the bike, running and elliptical machine. I do weights maybe two times a week. But when I work with Celeste there is a much higher level of intensity and often I give her looks of death during our time together. But I do appreciate every moment of it because she pushes me harder than I push myself. (sorry to say – but I guess that is the point of a personal trainer… right?) After our hour together I stretched for a while and eventually headed home.

While I was in the car I had a plan for dinner. A boca burger on a whole wheat Arnold’s sandwich thin with some melted cheese, hummus and mustard. But when I opened the door, I could TELL that this plan had changed. Something smelled amazing. My mom had made her famous French Onion Soup. I was one happy camper!

I showered and changed, and sat down to a bowl of the soup:

To increase my protein intake for the day, I made a protein shake out of 3/4 water, 1/4 milk and a scoop of protein powder:

I am officially out of Jay Robb’s protein powder. If you have any suggestions for what time of protein powder you like, feel free to let me know. I am on the look out.

Yesterday was a fun day – we had birthday cake at work! My friend Laurie is awesome and she brought in an amazing birthday cake for our celebration of my being one year older. It was sort of special to have birthday cake this year since I was barely able to eat rice or any solid foods on my birthday last year! (My mom, best friend and I spent some quality time reminiscing about how bad my birthday was last year. But at this time last year I was just thankful to be alive.)

I really enjoyed this caramel apple spice cake! Laurie let me know that she looked at all of the nutritional information on all of the cakes, and this was the healthiest. When some of our colleagues looked at her quizzically for this decision, she explained that I am in training for big events in 2012 – woo hoo!

After cake I ran four miles as part of my training. Fun times.

OK, tomorrow is Friday. I so loved that this day was only a three day work week for me. Right now I am catching up on my DVR and watching Modern Family. I hope to be asleep by 10 o’clock tonight.

See you all tomorrow!