Greetings, blog readers. It is Tuesday night of week two in the healthy eating, back on track adventure. For some reason I thought this week would be easier than last week – but so far I’m not all that sure.

I have been eating much of the same thing for breakfast, lunch and snacks (when I have them) which does not make for the most interesting blog posts. But here is a glance at my day.

5:30 AM – my alarm goes off.

5:35 AM – I get up, after giving myself a couple of minutes to wake up.

5:36- 5:46 AM – I brush my teeth, wash my face, etc.

5:46 – 5:57 AM – I get dressed, put my iPhone and kindle in my work bag, gather my gym bag and lunch bag.

5:58 AM – I enter the kitchen. I pour myself a travel mug of coffee and a little bit of 1% milk and Natural Bliss vanilla creamer (I’m trying to ween myself off of this stuff – but it’s so good, especially when it is SO early in the morning!) I grab whatever is in the refrigerator for lunch and put it in my lunch bag.

Anywhere from 6 AM – 6:15 AM – I am out the door and into the car to get to work.

7:15 ish – I arrive at work and start my day.

8:30 AM I pour my instant oatmeal into my soup mug and make my breakfast. End result:

Breakfast is one package of instant oatmeal (my only choice during the week for oats), 1 tablespoon of natural peanut butter and 1/2 cup of fresh blueberries. (I put a few in the oatmeal and eat the rest as a snack during the morning).

Usually around 10:30 or so I will start getting hungry. If I can I will get a cup of tea or a mug of black coffee around 10:45 or 11 in the morning, in hopes of getting to noon. If I cannot make it, I will have a piece of fruit – a pear, apple or banana.

12 PM – 12:45 PM – Somewhere between these times I will have lunch. But if it is nice out (read, no polar vortex, not raining, sleeting, or snowing..?) I will go out for a walk. When I do this I eat my lunch at my desk once I’m back.

Lunch:

A wrap filled with low sodium Boar’s Head turkey, spinach, a thin spread of hummus & mustard, and a thin slice of swiss cheese. On the side, always fresh veggies (usually carrots and celery sticks) and sometimes a side of hummus or guacamole.

On Monday I received something great in the mail. My Nature Box for the month!

Somehow (and I haven’t figured out how yet) I still have a bit of all five of my Nature Box bags from last month. But I was super excited for five new bags to try. On the way to the gym yesterday, I wrapped a peanut butter Nom Nom in my napkin and ate it in the car. It was the perfect pre-workout snack.

(One peanut butter nom nom is 100 calories. It is small, dense and filling when you need a quick and healthy afternoon snack. I love it!)

4 PM (on a good day) I’m in the car heading to the gym

5 – 6:30 PM – Gym. Elliptical for 35 minutes, weights for 20 minutes, bike or treadmill 20 minutes.

7 PM – Arrive home. Shower. Think about dinner.

On Monday through Thursday, I am scheduled to make it to the gym at least twice. On one of the days I give myself a break from the gym I cook healthy food so I can have dinner already taken care of on the nights I go to the gym. Going to the gym, grocery store and cooking are not really possible 100% of the time. So I try to make the most of the nights when I do not get to the gym. Other things I do on the nights when I’m not working out: laundry, clean my room, organize my life, write a blog entry!

7:30 PM – eat dinner, watch TV and unwind.

9 PM – clean up from cooking, dinner and pack breakfast and lunch for the next day. Start watching Rachel Maddow.

9: 45 PM – start getting ready for bed (during RM commercial breaks!)

10:15 PM – crawl into bed with my kindle and read for a few minutes before I fall asleep.

5:30 AM – it starts all over again.

Yesterday I felt like I had a very successful day. I got to work early, ate healthy all day, took a walk at lunch, got to the gym and managed to meet one of my best friends for dinner. We went to one of my favorite restaurants and I was able to order a caesar salad with grilled chicken. I had a glass of wine and a piece of sour dough bread, but for me the dining experience was a healthy success!

Today was a skip the gym day. So I drove out of my way after work to go to Whole Foods and get a spaghetti squash. I really wanted to make this recipe for dinner tonight. I was so looking forward to it. When I got to Whole Foods I was heart broken to discover that they did not have spaghetti squash anywhere in the store. My entire night had fallen apart. I was so disappointed. As you can probably tell (since I write a food blog) I get really excited about food, and healthy food that tastes good. When I am being really serious about eating healthily there is little room for ‘error’ in my days. I could not think on my feet at Whole Foods and nothing else in the store looked appetizing to me (what!?) so I left without any food. As I was driving home, I came up with a plan. I knew we had tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach. I would make vegetable omelets for dinner. I was eventually able to get excited about this idea.

To my surprise, when I got home my mom had started making a beautiful salad for us. She had complied vegetables and mixed greens in a big bowl for us to divide up. She was hard boiling eggs and had warmed up some left over chicken tenders from Saturday. I was instantly excited for these salads.

I did the rest of the work – peeling the eggs, and making up our plates:

The salads were wonderful and with the help of the egg and chicken, I felt like I had some protein with my dinner. A little while after dinner I was hungry (or just felt the urge to snack?) so made a big mug of tea. That helped a lot.

It’s time to start getting together all of the healthy food for tomorrow – so I’m going to sign off. See you soon blog readers!