This weekend I was able to stay really healthy! Sometimes on the weekends it is hard to really stay to a strict plan… but this weekend I felt like I accomplished a good amount.

I ran and walked on the treadmill on Saturday, Sunday and Monday for 45 minutes or more. I had healthy meals and only one dessert that was a little overboard (a mini cupcake and a mini whoopie pie and a half. Yes, I really did.)

By the time I got home around 9PM on Friday I felt like it had been a long week. But I was surprised by these beautiful flowers, and it just made my night so much better!

The person bearing flowers was also armed with Skinny Cow ice cream treats – he sure is brilliant. One treat was just 110 calories and very low in fat. It made for a great Friday night treat, especially after a really disappointing salad while I was out to dinner with friends. (I was starving after eating the entire thing. I ordered my salad to have shrimp on it, which was $8. When my salad came out it only had THREE non-jumbo shrimp on it. So. Sad.)

On Saturday I made a chicken soup that had a bit of a kick in it! I added cumin, crushed red pepper, paprika, cayenne pepper to the mix. The rest of the soup was pretty basic (and smelled amazing as it was cooking) chicken stock, celery, onion, shallot, garlic, and carrot sticks. Two grilled chicken breasts, shredded. I added some Whole Foods pasta to the soup once everything was cooked, they acted as the noodles.

My bowl of Saturday night soup:

This was a hearty, soul warming soup – perfect for the snowy day we were having on Saturday.

My Sunday was filled with a breakfast of whole grain French toast, reduced sodium turkey bacon (yum!), the treadmill, the Patriots final game of the season and a family dinner where I had amazing lasagna and overdosed a little bit on dessert 🙂 I was so happy on Sunday night because I could stay up late and enjoy the evening because I had Monday off to observe Marthin Luther King Day.

On Sunday night I started reading a modern art history book, The Rape of Europa. Honestly, I read some of this book in college – but with so many thousands and thousands of pages I had to reach each week, I wanted to devote more attention to this subject. It has been a slow go – but I’m going to keep at it and hope to finish the book this time!

Monday I started the day with a healthy breakfast of 0% fage, blueberries, and Kind granola along with a big cup of coffee with steamed 1% milk. After breakfast, I headed to Wegman’s to get some more healthy food for the week. Chicken breasts, bananas, organic apples, cilantro, scallions, freshly baked bread (although I am trying to cut down on bread these days – it is definitely my #1 weakness!), milk, yogurts, etc. When I got home I started making a new favorite recipe. Skinny Taste’s Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken.

After several hours in the crock pot it looked like this:

While this was cooking away I also got out the food processor and whipped up a batch of the famous chickpea peanut butter cookies. These were a huge hit at the office today:

I also ate a salad:

…and got on the treadmill again.

The good new is that it is possible that my healthy eating and exercise routine might be paying off. I am officially 1.4 pounds down from my original starting weight. Phew! Now I just have to keep going and hopefully I will continue to see results.

For dinner I had the Santa Fe Chicken. I just love this recipe. I cannot recommend it to you enough! It’s full of protein, low in fat and overall just amazing. I garnished my meal with fresh scallions, cilantro and served it with 1/3 C brown rice and a sprinkle of 2% cheddar cheese:

Somehow I was able to enjoy this dinner without my nightly dose of bread 🙂 I just love making chicken in the crock pot.

Well, it is Tuesday night (I had the same thing for dinner tonight and it was even better tonight!) and it is snowing out to beat the band. I guess I will snuggle up with my book, a chickpeas cookie and a mug of tea. It just sounds like a fantastic evening to me! Happy Tuesday, everyone. Have a cozy evening!