Well, my wonderful winter break officially ended this morning at 5:15 when my TWO alarms went off. Thankfully the alarms did not seem like a rude awakening. This morning I used a trick I learned years ago when I started getting to work early. When your alarm goes off turn on your bedside light. It helps your body think that it really is time to get up – even if it is completely pitch black outside.

It was down right frigid this morning. When I left for work at 5:50 AM it was still pitch black outside (the moon was high in the sky along with about twenty stars – it was quite beautiful) and it was NINE whole degrees. Thankfully my car warmed up pretty quickly and I was comfortable thanks to my heated seat and travel cup of coffee.

I had breakfast around 8am this morning after checking a few things off of my to do list. A couple of weeks ago Think Thin protein oatmeal was on sale at Target so I picked up a couple of containers. I love the “to go” fashion of the oatmeal – since I am always eating breakfast at work, and it was pretty helpful this morning.

The oatmeal was ok and pretty filling, I did not need another snack until 11 AM. My only hesitation with the meal was that it was rather high in sugar, and was 200 calories for the container. But it certainly served its purpose today!

At 11 o’clock a friend brought me a container full of cake pops as a belated birthday celebration – it was such a fantastic treat! She is such a thoughtful friend always considering the fact that I might not want a huge piece of cake on my birthday. These cake pops were the perfect portion and it really made my day. Having friends at work is such a great thing in life. It certainly makes coming back from a vacation a lot more fun!

My cake pop was delicious:

I was so happy with myself for all of the time I spent yesterday with my meal preparation for the week. My lunch was really good, filling and healthy. I had browned lean ground turkey with red onions and quinoa with eggplant, onion and zucchini.

I topped the turkey with salsa. It was a great lunch and I was thrilled because it kept me full for the rest of the work day. (And I had another cake pop when some other work friends stopped by later in the afternoon!)

I left work and headed straight to the GYM at 3:45 this afternoon. I was so happy with myself. I was a little tired after waking up so early and working a longer than a full day – but my number one priority for my day was to get to the gym after work. I felt accomplished just walking in the door!

I did a thirty minute workout on the elliptical machine – so it wasn’t a huge workout, but I was just happy to make it and get myself back into the routine. My fitbit had over 12,000 steps when I got home from the gym. Victory!

I was once again very happy that I did not have to do much to get dinner ready tonight. I got home, started pre-heating the oven to 350. I took a quick shower, by the time I was out the oven was preheated and I threw in the stuffed peppers. I tossed together a salad with tomato, cucumber, romaine lettuce, and avocado along with some crunchy strip thingies that were very good. I also had my “healthy” chicken nuggets with dinner for some protein:

The chicken nuggets were so easy yesterday. I cut up three chicken breasts, dipped each piece in an egg wash, dredged the pieces in panko and baked them for 25 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees. Tonight I put them into my toaster oven and toasted them up so they browned a little more. This dinner was really fun and creative. I cleaned my plate!

I hope I’ll be sleeping well tonight with waking up so early and having such a full day. I hope your day was as good as mine was. I highly recommend taking the couple of hours on a Sunday to plan and prep your meals for the week. It made a big difference for my day. I am hoping for another good day tomorrow!