My Cold is Back!

Uhg. I was sniffling all night last night and had trouble sleeping. Not good... I really need to stay healthy for the rest of the semester!!

Yesterday I had a Luna before heading to the gym:

Since I had two big work outs the last few days, I kept it a bit simple:

• 2o minutes elliptical, level 9 on random setting
• 25 minutes bike, level 9

While at the gym I looked more closely at these little laminated cards that I have been seeing in the past few weeks. February is Love Your Body month according to UMD Center for Health and Wellness. Always a good thing, until I looked more closely at their cards...

Do You Know Someone Who:

• talks about food.... a lot?
• exercises 5-6 days a week for 30-45 minutes?
• who is cutting foods out of their diet?
• etc etc

If you do, they could have bulimia/anorexia/exercise bulimia. Contact us for more information.

The first thing I thought of was... ME! I mean, I have food blog, and as Kyle pointed out I LOVE FOOD, and talk about favorite meals and recipes a lot. So of course I talk about food! In terms of exercise; every wellness ad, fitness program, or health magazine says that to see weightloss results one must exercise 4-5 times a week where they get their heart rate up for at least 3o minutes at a time. Yes, my 70 minute workout yesterday was a lot, but a rarity! And yes, I am trying to cut sodium, excess fried foods, and processed foods out of my diet. It's not like I'm cutting food out entirely.

I mean, I know those cards mean well, but now that I am trying to be healthier I see how bold and generalized those claims are.

Anyway.

After the gym I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things:

• boneless chicken breasts
• fresh shrimp
• turkey sandwich meat
• baby bel cheese
• mini-cheese wheel
• pre-shredded parm (I hate it, but it's cheaper than a block of parm!)

• bananas (I missed these!)
• mushrooms
• klondike gold potatoes
• onion
• red and green peppers
• yellow squash
• grape tomatoes
• spinach
• tempeh

• planter's fruit+trailmix x2
• wheat thins tuscan herb flatbreads (new buy)
• barilla plus pasta
• corn starch
• low sodium chicken broth
• diced NO SALT ADDED tomatoes
• 2 luna peppermint stick bars
• 2 luna blueberry sunrise bars

I have not been able to find the regular blueberry Lunas at several stores for the past few weeks... a true travesty!

As I unpacked and set up for my dinner prep, I had lunch, my leftover Bangkok curry:

For dinner we decided to try a recipe from a new low-sodium website Kyle found, Low-Sodium Cooking. We tried out the recipe for Crock-pot Chicken Curry, found here. My ingredients:

Thank goodness we already had all the spices... it would have cost me $8.99 just to get that teeny tiny container of cloves new! Can you believe it?! Anyway, as I began chopping the veggies, I realized that 5 potatoes was too many, and one green pepper was not enough:

I like a balance of veggies for taste and color, so this is only 3 potatoes with 1 pepper and 1 onion.

Layer of chunked chicken:

1 lb of chicken also seemed disproportionate.

The spices:

So many.... turmeric, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, corriander, etc...

Now mixed with the can of tomatoes and chicken broth:

And then dumped over the layers of chicken and veggies:

This went in the crockpot a little after 1pm, so I set it to high to cook for 5-6 hours. When I looked in on it at 4:30 it was already pretty well done, the chicken was tender and the potatoes spit at the touch of a fork. I turned it to low at that point, and then to warm at 5:30 because I wanted the spices to still settle, but I did not want the potatoes to turn to mush.

When Kyle got home we had a little appetizer spread and some vino:

Wheat Thins tuscan herb crackers, carrots, baby bel cheese, laughing cow garlic and herb spread, and plain hummus with hot sauce. The cheeses were both light, and very tasty. I really liked the garlic and herb spread on the tuscan crackers, which were great and low fat/calories/SODIUM.

This wine was a really good Oregon pinot, I recommend it if you like reds to be lighter on your palate.

My plate for dinner:

I thought it was way too potato heavy. If I make this again, I would use a mix of potatoes and cauliflower, as well as more green peppers. Also, while it had flavor, it wasn't hot in terms of spice... and Kyle and I love spicy food! I would add more cayenne pepper to spice it up for sure next time.

Other than that it was good, and we have enough for leftovers!

After dinner we settled in to watch some movies, and snacked some more. I wasn't hungry, but had insatiable cravings all night. One minute I wanted salt, the next chocolate. Go figure! I settled for some trail mix, light popcorn, and a piece of chocolate as we watched clueless:

As I said, I had a cold-infused night last night. I woke up feeling a little light-headed and sore-throated in addition to sniffling. So, I decided no gym and I can work out later if I feel less stuffy. I can tell I am a bit sick because I could barely eat my breakfast:

I can't really tell you if I liked the new Luna Sunrise bar or not, I couldn't taste it!

Uhg. I hate being sick. Everyone stay healthy!