First Lunch

Today I got up at 8:15 to head to the gym, eating half of a Luna Nuts over Chocolate bar on the way.

Since last Monday I have been hitting up the UMD rec center nearly every weekday. It's a nice facility, and is even nicer because it is FREE (rather, it's already paid for with my mandatroy student fees). Even though I have been a student at UMD since June '09, I was unable to use the gym because my program was "off-campus." Lame. But now, after switching some things around, I am a regular student and can use the gym whenever I want :-).

Today I did 20 minutes on the cross trainer, then 20 on a stationary bike. I felt good, sweaty but not too tired; but I didn't want to push it and do more. I did 25 minutes on the cross trainer Monday-Friday of last week, and took the weekend off. But when I went back to the gym on Monday and Tuesday this week, I felt very tired and had trouble doing the 25 minutes even at a slower pace (like, 4-5 miles an hour). Yesterday I didn't even bother going in! Therefore, I didn't want to do too much today since it had been an off week.

After a shower, I headed to the grocery store to grab a few things for tonight's dinner, eating the rest of my luna bar on the way. At the store I grabbed some veggie's for our kebabs tonight (word!), as well as some staples (hot sauce), and an avocado.

I had to get the avocado because yesterday I had an AMAZING salad for lunch. On Monday night Kyle and I made tacos with:

• Trader Joe's marinated steak (deliciously spicy, we grilled and chopped it up!)
• TJ's pre-cooked basmati lime rice
• TJ's three pepper salsa
• TJ's roasted corn salsa
• chopped grape tomatoes
• cheese
• sour cream
• grilled peppers and onions
• 1/2 of TJ's quacamole kit
• mini tortillas

Needless to say, it was amazing, but we had a TON of leftovers to get through. So, yesterday I decided to make a nice steak salad.

• leftover marinated steak
• 1/2 cup TJ's pre-cooked black lentils (we used up all the rice)
• 1/3 cup of leftover guacamole with 1 tsp sour cream mixed in
• 1/3 cup chopped tomatoes
• 2 heaping spoonfuls of salsa
• CHOLUA HOT SAUCE (my god-send)

Today I made the same thing, the only change being I mixed the whole avocado with ~1 tbsp sour cream and a LOT of texas pete hot sauce (for my salad I used aboud 1/3 of the mix I made):

I ate at about 11:45 and had a large glass of water to drink. Then, for dessert, I had this little guy:

Now, I did not buy this yogurt because of the 100 calorie part. We all know you can find even lower calorie yogurts at the store; I bought this for a different reason.

I don't like yogurt.

I really don't. I much prefer it's brother frozen yogurt, and it's cousin ice cream. However, every once in a while I get a sweet tooth, and like cheese cake. So, this seemed like a good alternative. It's just vanilla yogurt with graham cracker crumbles, and it's pretty decent. I also like them because they are small... I can never finish a regular size yogurt, I like them that little.

My yogurt problem is another one of my issues with lots of the blogs I read... they are yogurt and oatmeal nuts! I totally get it; both are very nutritious as well as very filling if you are an active person; I just never got on the boat.

I have a much more savory palate, and honestly do not like sweet things often, so you can see why both yogurt and oatmeal are problems for me. Generally for breakfast I'll have a power bar, or a bagel with cream cheese and tomatoes. But I most prefer a more traditional breakfast with eggs loaded with veggies, home fries, and some meat. Yes, I know, not really the breakfast of champions due to the cholesterol, cooking oil, fatty meat, and mega calories.

But, that's what the blog is for... trying to find healthy alternatives for most of the time, so you can splurge on those old favorites other times!

Off to *try* and get some work done this afternoon!