Breakfast Bonanza!

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Coco

I love breakfast. For me, it really is “the most important meal of the day” as far as getting my day off to a good start. Plus, I love all breakfast foods–cereal, oatmeal, toast, eggs, pancakes, waffles, bacon, sausage–you name it!

I prefer to eat my breakfast in two parts, about half before I leave the house for work and the other half mid-morning. Since I have mild hypoglycemia, it is better for me to eat every few hours. Plus, while I love breakfast, I don’t like starting the day feeling stuffed and bloated from a big meal.

My first breakfast is usually an omelette made with 1/2 cup EggBeaters® and 1 egg white. I usually fold in some sort of veggie–broccoli slaw, leftover diced steamed broccoli, baby spinach, etc.–and sprinkle with a bit of shredded parmesan cheese.

I also have a piece of whole grain toast (usually Arnold® Flax & Fiber) with a schmear of Promise® Light and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. I find this very filling and a caloric bargain at about 200-250 calories.

My second breakfast varies with my day. My favorite right now is oatmeal that I make in the microwave with 1/3 cup old fashioned oats and 2/3+ cup water, and stir in 1 small box raisins, a generous 1/2 Tbsp peanut butter and 1/3 cup low-fat milk.

Delicious and very filling and another caloric bargain at about 250 calories.

If I have a busy day at work and need to multi-task, I may have a banana and a 100-calorie pack of almonds:

or a Luna Bar (Peanut Butter Cookie, Lemon Zest, and Chocolate Peppermint Stick are my favorite).

This Sunday I wasn’t in the mood for my usual omelette and toast, and decided to fix myself oatmeal before church. As much as I love it mid-morning and usually can finish the whole bowl, it was too much volume for my stomach at 8:00 am. It left me feeling bloated for a long time. And, worst of all, I was too full to enjoy more than one cup of coffee! So, I think I need to stick with my omelette and toast combination first thing in the morning.

This weekend I saw the new Vitalicious® egg sandwiches at the grocery store.

They are frozen and made for microwaving, and I thought they would be good for days when I need to get to work early and eat my “first” breakfast at the office. I used to get the Jimmy Dean® D-Lights Turkey Sausage Muffins but they are pretty expensive (usually $7-8 for a box of 4) for a grocery store purchase, and I’ve since gotten hooked on the Starbucks® reduced-fat turkey bacon, egg white and cheese sandwich:

Reduced-Fat Turkey Bacon with Egg Whites on English Muffin

but those aren’t cheap either, and have 320 calories and 700 mg sodium.

So, I figured the Vitalicious® sandwich was worth a try (although at $4+ for a box of 2, it wasn’t really any cheaper than the Jimmy Dean® sandwiches).

Well, I will eat a lot of things in the name of nutrition (low calorie! high fiber! protein!) but eating this sandwich was an experience that I am not looking forward to repeating. It was actually as I was eating it that I decided to do this review. I ate more slowly and tried to figure out why I didn’t like it, but it was hard to pinpoint. It was a bit mushy, but the texture wasn’t really offensive or that unusual for a microwaved frozen sandwich. The egg part was really tasteless (these sandwiches have 350 mg sodium, was that the problem?), and the cheese didn’t really seem to add much flavor. Maybe it was the bacon I missed?

Since I still have one sandwich left, I will have to figure out how to make it taste better. Aside from adding my own bacon, I could try slipping in some sliced tomato or even salsa.

Do you eat the same thing for breakfast every day?

Have you ever had a breakfast disaster?

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Going to Church

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Coco

I grew up in a family where going to church on Sunday was a given. Actually, I went to Sunday School while my parents went to the church service at the same time, but Sunday School had a similar format with opening and closing hymns and prayers before the “classes” broke up for separate readings and discussions. There were no excuses to miss church. Even if we were out of town, we would find a church to attend. 

I never minded going to church (or Sunday School), but when I was a teenager I found it boring (like many other adult-mandated things), and I started seeking out Saturday-night sleep-overs so I would miss Sunday morning church. I stayed away from church through college and afterwards. I never lost my faith or rebelled against organized religion, I just didn’t have any desire to go to church.  

My husband and I got married in a church his family attended when he was younger, but that didn’t lead to regular attendance.  But, it wasn’t too long after that I found a church close to where we lived, and started attending regularly, usually on my own. My husband is also an Episcopalian, but church just isn’t for him. His mom was always the parent in his family that went to church, and I think he internalized the concept that church was for women and children. I think there’s a Simpson’s episode that hits home on that point. I know he used to watch The Three Stooges while I went off to church. 😮

I used to bring my children to church, but it became harder to “make” them when they realized that Daddy was staying home. The church I attended at the time had very few kids their age, and the Sunday School and Youth Group were too small–and run too haphazardly–to hold their interest. Then, their team sports interfered–all of my daughter’s travel soccer games were on Sundays, and if my son doesn’t have a Sunday  game he has Sunday practice.  So, since the time they were teens, they only have attended church on Christmas and Easter, although now my (college age) daughter manages to miss those services too. 

I do think that this is one of my big failings as a parent, but unless I was more strict in the pre-teen years and found a way to fit church in around sports (our church doesn’t have Saturday services, but now there is a Sunday night service), I don’t think I could have done things differently, or attained a different outcome. If church was one more thing that I forced on my teenagers, I don’t think they would have benefited from it.

I alleviated my guilt by sending them to a parochial school, where they do take religion classes and attend a weekly chapel service. I also model my commitment to God and my participation in church. They know that Mom goes to church on Sundays, reads the Bible, prays, and feels blessed by it all. I hope (and pray!) that church–or some relationship with God–is something that they will come to enjoy on their own some day.

Our opening hymn today sums up some of the feelings I have about going to church:

I come with joy to meet my Lord,
forgiven, loved, and free,
In awe and wonder to recall
His life laid down for me.

Church is a joyful experience for me. While the focus of the readings and sermons are different from week to week, they usually are thought-provoking and inspire me to find ways to walk more closely with God in my daily life and share God’s love with others. Going to church isn’t something I do because I have to.  It is something I do because I want to, and need to, to keep my life centered where I want it to be.

What are your feelings about going to church?

Would you feel comfortable if a friend invited you to go to church?

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Chocolate That Won’t Wreck Your Resolutions

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Coco

We’re a few weeks into January–how are you doing with your New Year’s resolutions?

If you are trying to eat better but missing your favorite treats, you might be interested in how I work chocolate into my healthy living plan.

I like to have a chocolate protein shake before I workout with weights:

This is the best protein powder I’ve tried. There is no icky aftertaste and one scoop has only 110 calories. Dump a scoop in a blender with a scant cup of water and a bit of crushed ice and the result is yummy chocolatey goodness.

Depending on how hungry I am in the afternoon, I may have a 140 calorie Chocolate Brownie Cliff Z-Bar:

(look how I tore into that box!)

or a 190 calorie Chocolate Peppermint Stick Luna Bar:

These taste like a big, satisfying Thin Mint. Yum!

On weekends or for an evening snack, I often have a Double Chocolate VitaMuffin:

(I prefer the full-sized muffins to the muffin tops, and don’t like the brownies at all.)
The VitaMuffins are frozen, and 15 seconds in the microwave defrosts and warms them–I love how the chocolate chips on top get all melty and gooey (all for only 100 calories).

Now, these are all good chocolatey treats, but when I need a dose of the real thing, I don’t mess around:

90% cocoa may be too much for most people, but I really like it. It certainly is something to savor slowly, and I never really even want more than one square. I have to be careful about enjoying this at night, though, because I swear it can keep me awake!

Have you tried any of these chocolate concoctions?

What is your favorite way to enjoy chocolate?

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Praying, Not Worrying

Posted on January 16, 2011 by Coco

Carla has written about worrying as “praying for what we don’t want.” She writes about taking action when you can take action, and letting go of the fear if you can’t. As usual, I found her post thought-provoking, and here I am days later, still thinking about it.

I have had periods in my life when anxiety had a tight grip on me, and I took comfort in Matthew 6:26:

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

This passage speaks to me as why I don’t need to worry: God will take care of me.

This morning as I was listening to the Morning Prayer podcast, a passage towards the end of Psalm 33 caught my attention:

No king is saved by the size of his army;
no warrior escapes by his great strength.
A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all its great strength it cannot save.

This passage gives me another reason not to worry: it won’t do any good. I am powerless against so many things.

Matthew 6:27 also reminds me of the uselessness of worrying:

 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[?

While my initial reaction to these reminders of my helplessness is fear, the ultimate message of Psalm 33 is hope:

But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine.

Again, the Bible tells me that God will take care of me.

And the Psalm ends with a reminder that instead of worrying, I can put my trust in God:

 We wait in hope for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love be with us, LORD,
even as we put our hope in you.

I like the words from the New Jerusalem Bible (used in the podcast) even better:

Let your constant love attend us, oh Lord,
as we put our trust in you.

One of my favorite passages, from Philippians 4:4-7, also speaks to worry and prayer:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

I like the reminder to rejoice always–I am so blessed, I need to remember that. And I really like the idea that even as I am praying I should be giving thanks, because I can trust in God’s steadfast faithfulness.

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Ad-Hoc Running Route

Posted on January 15, 2011 by Coco

By the end of this week I had decided that for my “long” run this weekend I would do a 7-ish mile run from my house instead of driving to the bike path. I was momentarily tempted by a running store’s “fun run,” but I ruled it out as soon as I thought about having to wait around in the cold for a group to gather and get going!

As I got ready to head out the door, I decided to start my route from a different point, to give myself a decent walk to warm up. Somewhere along my walk I thought that I should start off with one mile on the high school track, so I did that. While I was doing those laps, I decided to take my run in a totally different direction, to avoid the very steep hill that I usually face at the end of mile one. After last week’s 9.5 mile hilly run, my back and ITB were not happy. Although both felt good today, there was no reason to push my luck again.

So, I took a different exit out of my neighborhood and then looped around to pick up my usual route just after that hill. Because that loop was a bit over one mile, and I had done that mile on the track, I had covered over 2 miles at the point where I usually have just finished the first mile.

I followed my usual long run route for the next few miles, and then had to decide which direction to take back home: a shorter route with a long, steep hill or a longer route with more flat sections and shorter, steeper hills. After remembering that the icy patches on the longer route probably were still there, I opted for a third route–I covered the first flat stretch of the longer route and then cut through a different neighborhood (with another hill!) to pick up the shorter route at the top of its hill. I was psyched when I hit 7 miles with one more mile to go to my neighborhood because I have such a hard time plotting an 8 mile route from my house. 

My house is about 3/4 mile into my neighborhood, so I decided to run until I hit 1:20 time or 8.5 miles on my Garmin. I pretty much hit both at the same time, just a short distance from my street. Yay!

Time: 01:20:05
Distance: 8.51 mi
Elevation Gain: 351 ft
Calories: 1,005 C

I walked the rest of the way home, peeled off my layers and put my iPod and Garmin back on their chargers. I grabbed my iPhone and downloaded the New Zealand Morning Prayer podcast to listen to while I stretched. Its 15 minute length ensured that I did plenty of stretching and even some foam rolling.

After a long shower and my new favorite breakfast

I was ready for a great Saturday!

Do you plot out your running routes in advance or see where your mood and the road takes you?

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