Yesterday Today Tomorrow

I have just returned from yet another yummy meal out where I totally ate too much. One of these days I need to relearn how to listen to my body. Since losing the ability to regularly workout I have unintentionally learned how to compensate with overeating. This does not make for a healthy balance.

Yesterday started out with fabulous intentions (as all Mondays do, right?) even though outside looked like this…

I really had intended on trying to make a trip to the gym to start on my limited amounts of cardio.  But I woke up to a power outage and tweets-galore about how ridiculous traffic was because of the storm.  So instead I drank coffee…

Made banana date pecan oatmeal…

Snacked on mini oranges…

And hydrated with warm herbal tea…

Leftovers helped make dinner healthy in a hurry.  Chicken and gravy on a toasted bagel, served with leftover roasted veggies and a fresh batch of roasted broccoli and carrots.

The bagel was awful and the broccoli was worse.  Not sure what went wrong other than maybe they were both older than I recollect.

After dinner my friend Marcus came by to help me move my Winter tires from my storage locker to my car.  We braved the utterly awful wind just long enough to load the tires then ran back in for warmth and comfort.  He brought belated birthday chocolates and hot chocolate (apparently he didn’t get my “it’s Monday and I’m trying to be healthy” memo!).

Four chocolates are missing.  He ate ONE.  Bloody hell. Then I wrestled with another bout of insomnia and ate half a box of Multigrain Wheat Thins around 1am.  How to you break a snacking in bed habit?  This one is new to me and I struggle every night!

Today was another new day.  Insomnia left me feeling lethargic and mopey this morning but I had a car appointment to get to…which forced me out into the fresh air.  I even opted to walk the 20 minutes to home. :)  Sporting my fave toque and fuelled by coffee along the way of course…

See how that’s a venti?  Go big or go home apparently.

Breakfast was healthy and fabulous. Strawberry Chobani I carted home from Seattle with banana and Kashi Honey Almond Flax.

When I got hungry for a snack I cracked open the first of my Trader Joe’s loot…Almond Butter.  But not just any AB…the highly touted crack version featuring toasted flax seeds and roasted almond chunks.  Holy heck.

Multiply that dish by like three and then count licking the spoon. Yum.

Lunch was a carby affair that I like to call Leftover Mashup.  Leftover roasted chicken mixed with leftover red curry…tossed with penne.

Tried to walk it off with a trek back to the shop to pick up my car…but didn’t make it past Starbucks without another egg nog misto in my hand.  Can we say addict?

All of that alone would have been fine followed by a light and healthy dinner, but nooooo I had to decide to invite Tiffaney out for dinner (all in the name of next month’s foodie.ca post) and totally overdo it.

Mixed fries…chipolte mayo.

Look! Healthy salad! Ignore the creamy feta dressing.

Chicken soup.  Giant chicken soup.  With rice dumplings.  Extra giant rice dumplings. 

And here I sit with a full tummy and chicken soup bobbing in my eyeballs!

Maybe tomorrow will be the day.  At least there are only two dumplings left in the soup.

Seattle, Sake, and Sushi

So when planning our visit to Seattle we both threw out the idea of sushi.  I hadn’t had sushi since returning to the West Coast (until Birthday Party #4) and John looks forward to it every time he ventures out here from Boston.

Since Seattle seems to have a thousand and one sushi restaurants we opted to visit one John had enjoyed on a previous business trip.  Umi Sake House in Belltown.

We mistakenly didn’t make reservations ahead of time so we had a fairly lengthy wait, but the restaurant offers a very nice bar where we sat and enjoyed a cocktail.  After a while the hostess came by and asked if we wanted to sit up at the sushi bar but we opted to wait for a table. Turned out it was only another five minutes and we were seated at a neat little low-seated table.  Our seats were more like comfy little love seats (cool…however my lower back wasn’t a big fan!).

We were immediately served complimentary edamame (I’ll apologize now for the terrible photos…it was very dark in there and even with a flash I was hard pressed to get an attractive photo of the food)…

John suggested sake…and my first reaction was “I don’t like sake”.  I promptly retracted my statement and said “actually I’ve only ever had it a few times and found it too strong and bitter”.  When our server came back I asked her if she could help us chose something smoother.

She really understood where I was coming from and recommended we order a flight of three varieties to share and that way we could make an informed decision about what we might actually like.

Such a great idea.  She recommended one unfiltered (very creamy and almost tropical tasting)(Kinkgasumi Nigori), a sparkling (slightly cloudy with a good sparkling zing)(Tsuki Usagi), and a regular popular sake (much smoother than any I’ve had before but still not my fave)(Mu Daiginjo).

While we sipped our appetizer choice arrived.  (So sad it’s a blurry picture!!).  How could we pass up the Lobster Tempura?  It was hot, buttery, melt in your mouth delicious. 

We then opted to order a bottle of the sparkling sake to share.  Yum!

We spent a lot of time haggling about which sashimi to order so in the end we decided on an assorted plate…but asked her to make sure there was Toro on the plate. 

Everything was soooo amazingly fresh and melt in your mouth fabulous.  Aside from the squid (which I gladly let John enjoy) it was a plate full of my favourites…sweet shrimp, tuna belly, salmon…all yum!!

We decided to order something a little different as our sushi roll.  It came from their special sheet…it was called something like “Big Girls Roll” and included crab, tuna, kiwi, strawberry ponzu and other crazy things I cannot for the life of me remember.

It was delicious but a tad too sweet for us.  More like dessert sushi.  We probably should have ordered a spicy tuna roll but were being adventurous.

After that John wanted something warmer and more comforting.  We were considering some sort of tempura dish but when he asked our server about these crisp prawns it was pretty clear we needed to order them.

These were awesome!  Four large prawns wrapped with egg noodle then fried…drizzled with a sweet chili lime sauce.  So deeelish…even if they were a little messy to bite into.

After all of that there was no way we were ordering dessert.  Remember we ate four large cups of chowder earlier in the day.  Oh boy. 

We did go on the hunt for one of Seattle’s little speakeasy spots.  Seems to be the new “big thing” down there…tiny little hidden gin joints.  It took a bit of scouring around and asking two different hot dog vendors to help us find it, but we did eventually find a random door in a random alleyway that turned out to be Bathtub Gin & Co.

Tiny little hole in the wall.  We enjoyed a quick Grey Goose and soda then called it a night.  Lord knows with all of that food and booze sleep was pending. Nom. zzzzzzzzzzz.

I’d like to thank Seattle for really fattening me up for the cold weather!

Sunday Snackeroo

Apparently my plan for tracking my food/fitness this week has gone seriously astray.  All this nice weather made for some crazy ice creamy antics.  hehe.  Oh well, I’ll take fun in the sun with some treats over crappy weather and stringent tracking any day!!!

Yesterday we started out with breakfast at our fave little diner…The Armview.  We sat on the patio, and even though it was barely 10:15am it was already screeching hot.

I ordered the mushroom & cheese omelette with a side of bacon.  The side of bacon was like double-sized!  I didn’t eat it all…I was so hot food just wasn’t doing it for me…especially hot food with hot coffee!

After breakfast we went straight home to get painting again.  After completing the painting, I had a cool shower and went shopping.  Thank you SuperStore and Walmart for your fabulous air conditioning!

I got a tasty juice. 

Then ate the last of the homemade potato salad.

I had started a huge pot of coffee right before FH asked if I wanted to go for breakfast, so I added some brown sugar while it was still hot and put it in a jug in the fridge to chill.  Made the perfect iced coffee in the afternoon.  Just added skim milk.

Then enjoyed a bowl of fresh cherries.  Closer to BC cherries (by that I mean juicy, plump and yummmmy), but I think these were US and friggin expensive. 

I kept waiting for the house to cool down, but that’s like waiting for Santa to arrive so eventually I gave in a made some dinner.  I really didn’t want to cook anything hot, but I decided one measly frying pan on the stovetop wouldn’t kill us.

FH bought these veggie burgers not too long ago, so I dug them out and thought I’d give them a try.  Sol Cuisine Original Burger.  Soy based with few other ingredients.  Only 109 cals per patty and the patties were a decent size (and shaped like a flower!).

Certainly no substitute for a real meat patty.  I imagine that without my toppings and condiments these were actually pretty bland…and I found them a bit too mushy for my liking.  But in a pinch it was OK.

Served on a ww English muffin with marble cheddar, tomatoes, lettuce, mustard and ketchup.  A side of seared zucchini to complete the meal (just sliced and tossed in EVOO with s&p and cooked in the hot pan from the burger).

For dessert I broke into my new container of Lemon Liberte.  The thick, deeeelish Mediterranee kind.  Stirred up with the last of the fresh raspberries and blueberries.

And then the real fun began…

FH went out with a buddy to look at some cars…and asked if I wanted some ice cream.  Well of course!  Three days in a row please!  LOL.  They were going to DQ but it was so busy they went to Wendy’s instead.  They brought me a large Froster.  Yes, a LARGE.  I never order large anything.

But it was good.  and I ate the whole mother-effing thing. 

 

Then while watching True Blood (OMG, don’t we all just lurve lurve lurve Erik…? *gushes) I got the munchies.  Instead of taking my body’s cue that I’m dehydrated and drinking more water, I cracked open the bag of Skinny Sticks I bought…and ate the WHOLE BAG. Maui Wowie oh my!

Went to bed with a food baby.  And a gain on the scale this morning.  Surprise! 

Confession Time

"I just don't care."

That was yesterday's mantra. Well technically it's probably the mantra of the week, but I actually said it out loud to myself yesterday.

It was one of those days where I just wanted to cozy up with myself and a blankie and eat. So that's basically what I did. No gym. No homemade dinner. Just me and a big bag of crap from McDonald's. Followed by a huge bowl of buttered popcorn. I did enjoy it though, so at least there's that. I would feel worse if when I was done I hadn't liked it or felt shitty, but I didn't...it was allllll goooood.

Of course, by bedtime I felt like I'd eatten a salt lick, so water and I are going to be very good friends today. I even opted for green tea instead of coffee this morning. Not sure if it will help, but it was worth a shot. I haven't been feeling the coffee lately anyway so it was a good opportunity for change.

I can still feel that "I don't care" feeling niggling around in my head. I guess it's just one of those slumps...the weather has turned gloomy, DBF has been gone for a month, money is tight because of those stupid massage and chiro appointments, my arm/neck doesn't seem to be getting any better, and the Xmas gong show is already starting. Grrrr. DBF is home for this weekend and we are going to celebrate my birthday a little, so maybe that will help me snap out of it.

The food plan for today (here's hoping I can stick to it!)...

- green tea with smidge of honey
- PC BM bagel with natural PB and sliced banana
- tossed salad with chickpeas and cheddar
- afternoon tea with Fibre One bar
- dinner I was supposed to eat last night: Nutrigo chicken nuggets, grilled zucchini...maybe some carrots & spinach dip
- yogurt & raspberries