Tough Week

The past weekend and week has proven tough for me to follow my food rules.  It’s not usually a problem when I am home and making my own meals, but when I go out or if I’m with a group of people, it’s definitely more of a challenge.

I’ll recap Friday real quickly because it was fairly normal. We did have an Olympic themed party on Friday night – USA was the country of honor, of course. We all got decked out in our finest red, white, and blue, and cooked up an all-American meal. So here’s my day:

Breakfast: Banana and blueberry smoothie w/ milk and vanilla protein powder

Lunch: Honey whole wheat bagel from Einstein  Bros Bagels with honey nut cream cheese, corn on the cob and cantaloupe

Snack: Green grapes

Dinner: Cheeseburger with fixings, potato salad, baked beans, salad w/ Italian dressing, ½ corn on the cob, strawberry sorbet, and a glass of red wine

I know what you may be thinking, “I thought you were only going to eat junk food you made.” Well, I did make it. I bought an ice cream maker on clearance at Target for the sole purpose of making a berry sorbet I saw on the cover of Sunflower Market’s weekly magazine. Then I didn’t have all the stuff for the berry sorbet, but I did have strawberries so I made that instead. It is delicious, if I do say so myself.

But let’s move on to Saturday. This is where it fell apart. On Saturday, I knew I would be helping my brother move and then we were heading out to the reservoir to hang out and swim with some of our friends.  So I started my day with a fairly large homemade breakfast of eggs (1 whole egg plus an egg white), whole grain toast with blackberry jam, cantaloupe and skim milk.

I also made sure to bring a peach with me for a snack, but after that I was at the mercy of the foods available to me wherever I happened to be. After moving my brother, it was decided it would be quickest to order pizza before heading to the reservoir. I was at least in the company of other veggie lovers, so we ordered one all veggie pizza. I had 2 pieces for lunch before we headed out. At the lake, some of my friends brought a bag of Doritos, and I’m confident it was due to this self-imposed challenge that I didn’t eat a single one. Before, I definitely would have enjoyed a few.

At the lake I swam a little bit, which always makes me hungry, so when we got back I had a little snack. Unfortunately, all that was really available to me was the pizza, so I had another small piece. Then for dinner we went to Moe’s Barbeque. I’m sure you can see this is where it went downhill for the night. At Moe’s I got pulled pork, which came with corn bread and two sides. I chose macaroni & cheese and coleslaw. Honestly, I mostly ate the sides; I had a few bites of the pork, but Donnie finished the rest. I also had a Sunshine Wheat with my dinner, and a red velvet cupcake later that evening (we were celebrating my brother’s birthday after all). So, needless to say, not my best day.

The next morning started out better. We went to a local breakfast/lunch eatery in Colorado called Snooze. For breakfast I had an Italian version of eggs benedict, which included French artisan bread, some type of cheese, prosciutto, 2 poached eggs, balsamic vinaigrette, hollandaise (on the side), and arugula.  There were also hash browns on the side. And I had delicious coffee from Guatemala to drink. Yum!

After that, I kind of skipped lunch and had a bowl of cereal mid-afternoon. That definitely isn’t part of my food rules – skipping meals, that is. And for dinner I cooked up some more whole grain pasta with veggies so I could finish off my homemade basil pesto.

Here's my loot for the current week:

{bananas, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, apples, onion, tomatoes, peppers, avocados, broccoli, corn on the cob, and a jalapeño for a salsa} 

Monday, I started to get back on track. I’ll do a quick recap because this is getting long and the day was pretty normal.

Breakfast: fruit, yogurt, granola

Lunch: Salad with black beans, onions, carrots, zucchini, corn, peas, tomatoes,  and honey mustard dressing; and a peach

Snack: Kettle corn

Dinner: Tofu stir-fry with bell peppers in a homemade peanut sauce on top of  brown rice

Tuesday was another challenging day. We had a Mexican themed potluck at lunch for an employee whose last day is tomorrow. All the foods I ate were homemade and real, whole foods, but not especially healthy. I’ll try to recap everything I ate, but I’m warning you it sounds like a lot. I almost always have a little bit of every food at potlucks. Then that night I went to the Rockies vs. Cardinals baseball game, so my dinner wasn’t too healthy either. There aren’t too many healthy options at ball parks, let me tell you. So, here it is:

Breakfast: Berries, yogurt, and granola

Snack: Green grapes

Lunch: Mexican potluck at work – taco casserole; rice; beans; black bean & corn salsa with corn chips; guacamole; spinach salad with Italian dressing; watermelon; pound cake   

Dinner: Part of Donnie’s “monster nachos” (corn chips, beans, shredded pork, jalapenos, and cheese sauce – nothing real about that last element sadly), a strawberry & banana kabob drizzled in chocolate, and a Blue Moon.

Wednesday I went to the second game in the series for Rockies vs. Cardinals, but I ate managed to eat much better over the course of the day. I even found a “Field of Greens” salad bar at Coors Stadium for my dinner.

Breakfast: I honestly can’t remember, but it was either yogurt, fruit & granola or cereal

Lunch: Left over tofu stir fry in peanut sauce and brown rice

Snack: Green grapes & kettle corn

Dinner: Salad w/ spring mix & spinach, mushrooms, sweet peppers, peas, garbanzo beans, cucumber, and red win vinaigrette. And I can’t go to a ball game without having a beer; this time it was a Coors Light.

Today was completely back to normal. Here was my day:

Breakfast: Multi-grain cheerios in skim milk with strawberries & blueberries

Snack: Gala apple & a single dark chocolate square

Lunch: Salad with zucchini, carrots, onions, tomatoes, and honey mustard dressing; ½ grilled cheese; milk

Snack: Kettle corn

Dinner: Barley stuffed sweet peppers

Whew. Sorry for the length. I’ll be back soon with my “ingredient of the week.” Any guesses?