Hi Blog Readers:
So, it has been a while. I don’t have much to report as to why I have been away from the blog – the same old excuses. Life is busy, work is busy, there is not enough time in the day to do everything. But sadly, cooking was getting boring for me. I was focusing on other things, like reading and exercise which is always a good thing – but I definitely missed the blog…. After a while the time has gotten away from you and I was wondering how to pick things back up.

Slowly I noticed that cooking was becoming more fun again. I didn’t necessarily have anything overly exciting to write about – but I figured soon enough I would.

On Sunday night, I decided that MONDAY (June 30 to be precise) would be the day I recommitted myself to healthy living and healthy eating. Really, in the summer there is hardly an excuse for NOT eating healthy! There is fresh fruit and vegetables almost everywhere. You can fire up a grill and cook some lean protein so it is nice and tasty. I just had to make it fun and sort of exciting, I figured. There is certainly no way around it – to eat healthy all the time, you have to MAKE TIME to do it. It takes a lot of commitment and work. It’s hard to plan everything and make sure that you always have fresh and healthy food at home. It is easy to give into potato chips! (I have done that lately.)

So, I feel like I have recommitted to my original cause – and I definitely have some weight to lose. I have some exercise to do, on a regular basis and some healthy food to eat. I hope you’ll join me, read along and send me your thoughts on what you do to be healthy and happy!

I started by taking photos of my food yesterday – more for a document for myself. The day started by sleeping in later than I normally get to on a Monday morning (I’m getting over the dreaded summer cold, and decided to go into work later than normal. Getting extra sleep is one of the sure fire ways I know to get over a cold!)

Because I was at home later that usual, I decided to enjoy breakfast at home:

Special K protein cereal, fresh blueberries and 1% organic milk. A couple of months ago I discovered that i had an iron deficiency and was told that Special K fortifies their cereal with iron. I started having it in the house and using it as a snack during the day. This was a rather tasty, low cal and high protein stat to my day. The blueberries were amazing!

At 11 o’clock I was ready for my morning snack – a perfectly ripe nectarine.

The nectarine got me through until a respectable lunch time, 12:30 when I got the bulk of my food out. Lunch was a low carb wrap with turkey, spinach and mustard. Hummus with cherry tomatoes and carrot sticks, and a little piece of dark chocolate.

I had two afternoon snacks. A yoplait greek yogurt (I do not like yoplait light greek yogurt because it has artificial flavors and sweeteners in it, but it was in the fridge, and I was not going to waste food… so, the yogurt found it’s way into my lunch bag!)

The second afternoon snack I had later, and was able to nibble on it for a while – about two cups of air popped popcorn. A perfect afternoon snack – and I knew myself, and knew i would be craving something salty and instead of heading down to the snack machine for chips or Chez its, I thought ahead and packed the popcorn. (But I forgot to take a photo!)

When I got home from work around 6 o’clock, I started planning food for the next day. I made my lunch, I hard boiled eggs for the next few days of breakfast and started thinking about dinner. I had a Laughing Cow light cheese and a few Stacy Pita Crisps. I also took an evening walk before dinner, which was about a mile and a half. Not a very long walk, but I was really ready for dinner!

Dinner came together well – chicken on the grill pan, steamed zucchini and couscous. I thought it was well balanced and it was SO tasty.

A little while after dinner, while I was watching an episode of The Americans, I had a Skinny Cow ice cream bar (100 calories).  

I thought my first day back was a success! I managed to maintain a high protein, low fat diet with lots of fresh vegetables and fruit. Now I need to sign off so that I can go out and take a walk and continue to plan a few more healthy meals for the week! Stay tuned 🙂