Messing Around With The Grown-Up Toys

When I got home to visit my parents in Woonsocket after work I made myself some tuna fish for dinner. It was yummy! I also made my overnight oats for the next morning.

They were so good! I made myself my usual peanut butter and banana oatmeal, but this time I added some Grape Nuts my mom had to give it some crunch. It was pretty good!

The normal peanut butter I buy is the organic peanut butter that's basically the Stop and Shop version of Teddy peanut butter. The Stop and Shop I used to go to didn't have Teddie peanut butter, so I thought none of them did. But new one does! So I bought some to try it and.... it's amazing! I'm never buying another kind of peanut butter again, ha ha. Everybody should use this peanut butter.

Since I can't take my guinea pig to live with me while I'm at URI, my mom takes care of him in Woonsocket. So whenever I get to go home, I like to play with him because I don't get to see him a lot. His name is Wesley... isn't he cute?!? :)

While I was at home, I got to play around with my dad's awesome professional camera... I'm so jealous! That's why all these pictures are so much better than they are usually, ha ha! I really want to get a Canon Rebel for this coming Christmas. I'm so sick of my crappy point-and-shoot... I really need a better camera to take good pictures of my food. 

This is a picture of my mom! I basically took a bunch of pictures of whatever I could while I could play around with it because I love taking pictures so much. 

For dinner my parents made prime rib with this (bad for you but super awesome) horseradish sauce, these fry-like potato things from her Julia Child cookbook, and popovers! It was all delicious :)

Roadtrip!

So, today Brent and I took a "roadtrip" to Woonsocket (where my parents live) to bring up my old mattress and small refrigerator from North Kingstown. It's about a 45-minute drive... but in Rhode Island that's definitely a day trip! We both had a very long Friday, so we decided to sleep in, and ended up leaving the house around 1pm. I picked up this magazine at work yesterday (I love magazines for $1.99), which I started reading while Brent was depositing his checks at the bank.

For a late breakfast/lunch on the road I had a Zone Perfect Fudge Graham bar...

And a milk chocolate Slim Fast shake. I always drink my shakes out of this handy reusable bottle. It's got a great seal that won't open up in my backpack if I take it to school - and it's the perfect size! I also have a bigger 36-oz. one in blue that I keep water in and bring everywhere (it's especially good for work).

By the time we finished dropping off my mattress and the fridge, and said hi to my parents, it was 4:30pm and I was STARVING! Brent didn't want to waste his calories, but I decided to use a coupon and gift card that I got for Christmas to stop at Subway for a yummy early dinner.

When I go to Subway, I always get the same thing.... turkey breast on 9-grain wheat with provolone cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and mustard. 

The coupon also came with a free drink. I don't usually get drinks when I order fast food because I always have water on me, but since it was free I got a Diet Coke.

Me in the car with Brent on the ride home. Tired!!

The lovely weather outside.

One of my Christmas presents was Reebok EasyTone sneakers. I love them! I know the commercials are kind of silly and I'm obviously not going to get a butt like that just from wearing these sneakers to work. But hey... I mind as well get a little bit of an extra work-out while I'm walking around CVS for hours at a time. Who knows if they actually work, but they're cute, and every little bit helps!

Brent laughing as I take pictures of him and us in the car.

Since we always fight about each other's music, we decided to drive back from Woonsocket without it. We ended up talking about our diets. I always worry that he doesn't get enough to eat, because he prefers one big meal per day and a few small snacks, while I eat many small meals throughout the day. He likes protein shakes, protein bars, and bananas, while I'm constantly stuffing myself with stuff like tunafish, fiber one bars, and grapefruits. He said that I shouldn't worry because it worked for him before and it makes him feel good, so I'll try not to! 

I mentioned that I've been worrying that my weight loss is going to plateau soon. He suggested that maybe I should start walking with him. Especially with my new goal to start running, I definitely liked that idea. I said we should go for a quick one when we got back to his house... Let's even take the dog! 

But maybe exercising isn't in the cards for me, because about a block away from Brent's house, the dog cut back and forth in front of me a few times, which caused me to fall over and sprain my ankle very badly! I was down on the ground crying for a good five minutes. Brent was beside himself, not knowing how to help me. It hurt worse than when I broke my foot! Brent left me with the dog to lick the tears from my face and ran and got the car to take me back home. Now I'm lying with my ankle up on pillows with ice. I can't even stand on it! I even had to call out of work tomorrow... I asked if I could sit at the cash register on a chair and they said no!

At least I have my new stuffed bunny (I couldn't resist buying from CVS yesterday) to keep me company ;) And a boyfriend of course, ha ha! He already washed the scrapes on my knee with a hot washcloth and antibacterial soap. He's the best XOXO.

Is running for me?

Today was kind of bleh :(. I've been feeling pretty sick the past couple of days... my stomach hasn't been my friend. I don't know what it is; I haven't been eating anything new or different. Maybe I caught it from Brent - he had the same symptoms last week. 

Today I slept in a little bit at Brent's and then headed back to my house before working 3pm-10pm at CVS. When I got home I turned on court tv... which is pretty much all I watch now on the "only gets 12 channels" that my landlord called cable in the ad, and made myself a tuna-minus-the-bread sandwich with tomatoes, grapes, and cucumbers (yummm!) and a side of avocado. 

After watching an hour of Judge Joe Brown and Judge Jeanine Pirro I was hungry again, so I satiated myself with a nice grapefruit (I got this huge bag of them for $5 last week at Stop and Shop).

... and a whole wheat peach muffin :) I gotta eat them before they go bad! I still have three left.

At work I had a macaroni and cheese Lean Cuisine (on sale 5/$10 at Stop and Shop last week!). Also... I'm quite proud of myself because I almost stopped at Dunkin on the way to work for a yummy Dunkachino pick-me-up but I decided that a Diet Mountain Dew was going to be a lot better for me and just drove right by! I'm getting good at this will-power thing.

After reading blogs like Carrots 'n' Cake that talk so much about running and how great it is... I've decided that I'm going to try it out. I've never liked running that much before, especially since the outside air really bothers my asthma, but I'm going to try more seriously this time. I've been reading so much about it, that I want to set a goal for myself. My short-term goal is to lose 20 more pounds by June 1st, but I also want to set another small goal of being able to run 1 mile in under 11 minutes by August 31st. I know that seems like a really silly/easy goal to set, but I'm not the hugest fan of exercise and I want to start out small with this. Hopefully I will surpass that goal by the time the summer ends and running will become a part of my life, but we'll see...

Moving In & New Car!

Sorry that I haven't posted in forever! The internet at my new apartment isn't totally hooked up yet, so I've been MIA for the past few days. I have a lot of pictures from moving in and from what I ate, so I'll make two separate posts so that this one doesn't get really long.

After quickly meeting my landlord and seeing the apartment on Friday, I filled out a rental application. Later that day I got a call from him saying I'd gotten the apartment! He was probably desperate to fill it, considering it's only available until the end of May. But my old living situation was really not working out, and this was just the kind of place I was looking for. It's a little small... but, hey, for $650/month including all utilities, it's a steal!

These are pictures from it halfway set-up during the move on Sunday.

Also, over the weekend I stopped by in Woonsocket at my parents' house to pick up the "new" 1998 Toyota Camry they bought me! It's awesome and I love it a lot so far :)

Also, I just really want to thank my boyfriend. He was such a trooper! He came over Sunday afternoon and helped me move literally EVERYTHING from my old place to my new place. He's just pretty much the best thing ever XOXO.

Home Sweet Home

Today was nice. I finally went home to see my parents for the first time in at least a month. The reason I went home was to pick up my new car! My parents bought me a used 1998 silver Toyota Camry that I absolutely LOVE. I was driving my mom's old Volvo, but it was always having problems. This car will be much more reliable. 

My parents woke me up to see if I'd like to come out with them to eat, but I opted instead to stay and finish up some cleaning I had to do because I didn't want to eat those extra calories. For breakfast I had some Special K Fruit and Berries cereal with skim milk. It's one of my favorite cereals. I usually never eat cereal... I can't even remember the last time I did. But this morning I didn't really feel like cooking and cereal was what was there. When I do choose cereal, I always opt for a healthy kind like Special K that will leave me in less of a carb slump later in the morning that something else would. Later for a snack I had a grapefruit. 

The best part about today was... I weighed myself before eating breakfast and I lost five more pounds!!! Only five more pounds to go until I'm back where I was before freshman year. And 20 more pounds until I reach my goal weight for the summer :)

I told my mom that they should choose a healthy option for dinner, and instead she asked if I wanted homemade fried chicken wings. Umm... no, thanks, mom. No wonder I never lost weight until I moved out of the house!! But that's what happens when you have an Italian mother, ha ha ;). I asked her to grill me up some chicken breast for me to toss in a salad instead. And the salad was SO yummy! Along with the grilled chicken, I added tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, grapes, avocado, garbanzo beans, and cannelini beans with lite ranch dressing. And a glass of milk on the side, mmm.

This is my mom's cat Wolfgang. As you can see, he's not the most photogenic cat... But he's still cute! :) He kept moving around and not looking at the camera, that's why the picture's kind of blurry.

Tomorrow I get my keys to my new apartment!! Brent's being the perfect boyfriend and doing the man's work by helping me move in. He's awesome :) Also, my mom tipped me off to an awesome sale... 50% off at Savers on Monday for President's Day. This is going to be GREAT. I'm going to get a bunch of stuff for my new place and probably spend way more money than I plan to, ha ha... it's that kind of place. 

Also (I hate to be this person), but if you love reading my blog... Please recommend me for the Women's Health Magazine Blog Contest!! Thanks! XOXO

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/features/blogcontest

Brent Cooks for Me!

For a Valentine's Day special meal, Brent cooked me an awesome dinner! We're trying very hard to save money, so we decided that a romantic meal in would be a good alternative to an expensive night out. Also, we passed on exchanging gifts this year. Although Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday, both of our birthdays and Christmas just passed, so this year we're just focusing on spending this nice night together.

Tonight when I came home, Brent was in full chef mode. All I saw was a blur as he was running around putting the finishing touches on everything. At first his gnocchi were in some kind of a lemon sauce, but neither of us liked it, so I heated up some regular tomato sauce for them instead. He also made garlic bread, steak, and a spinach&artichoke dip. The dip was AMAZING! I totally would have paid for that in a restaurant and I hope he makes it again soon :) He's so sweet... he told me that he's never cooked for anybody besides me, which makes me feel very special. Especially since this wasn't even the first time he's done it for me. He's a great cook. We watch the Food Network all the time. Way too much, ha ha!

A New Year, A New Healthy Me :)

Lately, my boyfriend and I have been very focused on losing weight. As he's an ex-football player, he has to work very hard to shed the pounds and break his unhealthy eating habits. I'm slightly slimmer but still not at a super healthy weight or my goal weight. I'm not sure what his specific goal is, but I'm hoping to be a size 10 by the summer - right now I'm a 14. I'm hoping this is a realistic goal because over the fall I wasn't trying very hard and lost about 15 lbs and one pant size. I'm very excited to continue my diet this spring and can't wait to see my results in June.

Brent and I have very different ways of going about losing weight. For him, it's all about exercise and sticking to a strict high-protein and low-calorie diet. He nicknames it the "Nazi" diet and sometimes goes to the gym more than once a day. Basically... there is nothing I wouldn't do instead of going to the gym. I hate exercising and it's a pain in the butt to drag myself out of the house all the way down to the gym at URI. If it were more convenient I would do it more because personally I LOVE to swim. The way I'm going out my weight loss is going to be all about having a healthy balance. Inspired by my new favorite blog Carrots 'N' Cake, I want to focus on not completely limiting myself to calorie-counting like Brent but eating healthier in general. This will include smaller portion sizes, more fiber, more green vegetables, more protein, and less carbs.

Already I think I've had a good start. I've found these Zone Perfect Fudge Graham protein bars that I have been eating for breakfast along with a SlimFast Milk Chocolate shake mixed with organic skim milk. (Side note: My gynecologist actually told me that drinking organic milk is tons better for you than regular milk, especially since I have high levels of testosterone in my body). For lunch I've been eating tuna sandwiches.

Miranda's Tuna Sandwich:

- 1 can of tuna in water

- 2 tablespoons Cain's Lite mayonnaise

- 15 red seedless grapes

- tomato

- lettuce

- whole grain bread

- celery salt

- salt

I open and drain the tuna, then stir with mayonnaise until it gets to the consistency that I like. Then I wash some grapes and cut each into half twice and add them to the mixture. Then I mix just a dash of celery salt and a dash of regular salt into the tuna. I add just a little bit of mayonnaise to both slices of bread, because otherwise it's sometimes too hard to swallow, and then add the tuna to the bread. Then I will place 1-2 slices of fresh vine-ripened tomato on top of the tuna and finish with a generous leaf of romaine lettuce. Cut diagonally and enjoy!! :)

Usually for dinner I'll just have whatever I normally would've eaten, just a little bit less. Lately I've had hamburgers, lean cuisines, a tuna sandwich (if I didn't have one for lunch - don't want to overload on the tuna), pasta and meatballs, etc. If I'm still hungry while sitting in front of the TV after dinner (I'm always guilty of this) I'll have a couple miniature Butterfingers or some Rold Gold Honey Wheat Braided Twists pretzels. Brent and I both made a pledge to seriously cut down on ice cream. I don't even like ice cream that much and I was eating it just because of my sweet tooth! Since we're in this together hopefully we'll be successful since we'd definitely end up dragging the other one down with us if we relapsed.

Lastly, something I've also started doing that I've never really done before is take vitamin supplements. I want to make sure that I'm getting enough of certain things, so along with my prescriptions, at night I take Vitamin C, Potassium, and Cinnamon (claims to help metabolism)