Wow…I am officially the WORST blogger ever! It has been such a long time since my last post. Since I was home for a week over Thanksgiving, I literally spent all of my time hanging out with my mom. It was such an amazing week filled with relaxation, family, and of course amazing food.

So here’s a little recap from my Thanksgiving week!

cooking the night before Thanksgiving with my mom!!

getting ready to run the Turkey Trot in 10 degree weather!

the delicious appetizers (they're the only thing that I photographed because I had a big part in making them haha)

me and my cute lil cousin Hayley!

The Thanksgiving meal was absolutely DELICIOUS, complete with sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, wheat rolls, cranberry sauce, and of course turkey. Dessert consisted of my mom’s wonderful pumpkin pie and cherry cranberry pie. I had a piece of both

So here I am, back in the windy city, missing my family and the beautiful Colorado more than anything! I ate pretty much anything and everything I wanted while I was home, and my mom and I worked out together everyday. It was such a great week. I feel really recharged and ready to finish out the semester!

Here’s a bit of info about today:

I planned on going to spin class at 7:10am, but upon arrival at the gym this morning, I discovered the instructor didn’t show up! I was really bummed, but I ended up just doing an interval run that felt pretty great. I did 5 minutes at 6 mph, 1 min at 4mph, 5 min at 7mph, 1 min at 4mph, 5 min at 8mph, 1 min at 4mph, 5 min at 8mph, 1 min at 4mph, 5 min at 7mph, 1 min at 4mph, 5 min at 6mph and 4 min at 6.5 mph. It was about 4 miles and was a great start to my day!

Breakfast consisted of a big bowl of Kashi Go Lean topped with frozen blueberries and a green tea. After my 9:00 class, I made some delicious low fat bran muffins with blueberries and ate one of those as a midmorning snack.

For lunch, I ate a yummy turkey sandwhich that my mom had made me for the plane ride back last night, but I was upgraded to first class so they fed me! So I saved it. It made a great lunch. I also enjoyed an apple and a vanilla Chobani.

Dinner was simple but great. 2 egg whites scrambled on a small wheat tortilla with ham and hot sauce. 1 Kashi peanut butter TLC bar. 1 Archer Farms eggnog yogurt for dessert

I’m off to Yoga-lates soon! So I will chat with you tomorrow Have a great Monday night!

First off, let me explain why a few days have elapsed since my last entry.

I’M HOME FOR THANKSGIVING!!!

While this may not seem like a great excuse, let me tell you about how ridiculous the actual trip back to my beautiful state of Colorado was. My flight was scheduled at 8:05 AM Saturday morning and was supposed to arrive in Denver by 9:45 AM (11:45 Chicago time). I was up by 5:30 so I could finish up the last minute packing and scarf a vanilla Chobani with some blueberries before my wonderful boyfriend drove me to the airport. My flight took off on time and things appeared to be going smoothly until right before we were about to land when the pilot informed us that the fog in Denver was too thick to land. They redirected the flight to Colorado Springs and we sat on the runway there for TWO HOURS! After spending 5 and a half hours on that little tiny plane without any lunch, I was sooo relieved to finally be on the ground in Denver and see my adorable mother ready to pick me up.

So here’s a quick recap of the last couple of days…

Saturday: Chobanni with blueberries and green tea on the way to the airport, fruit cup and tall skim latte at the airport, granola bar on the plan, a delicious salad and bowl of white bean chicken chili at Ruby Tuesdays, and a dinner of a hamburger patty topped with feta, a salad with goat cheese, walnuts, and sun-dried tomatoes, and some sauteed asparagus. Mmmm, I love being home!!

Sunday: protein shake and delicious latte, thanks to my dad, Qdoba chicken taco salad for lunch, green chili with a small carb balance wheat tortilla for dinner and dessert consisted of some DELICIOUS pistachio and dried cherry chocolate bites. My mom and I took my adorable little dog Violet on a short run and followed it up with a work out video. Very productive day!

Today has been fairly low key…I woke up with a bit of a cold so I’m trying to figure out what workout would be easy on my stuffed up nose and sore throat :-/

But for the most exciting news of the day, and possibly the whole week, I won Heather’s amazing give-away! (dieticianontherun.com) If you haven’t visted her blog, check it out! She’s an awesome Colorado runner girl, like me But anyways, I will soon be receiving a glorious package filled with oatmeal, yoga accessories, and other goodies! I absolutely cannot WAIT.

I can’t wait to tell you more about my time at home with my wonderful family! My mom and I plan to run the Turkey Trot on Thursday, which I am so excited about. I will also keep you posted on this weeks eats…seeing as we have a million delicious recipes that we cannot wait to try!

Hope your Monday is turning out as fabulous as mine!!

So…this stuff is AMAZING. I was suckered into buying Eggnog flavored AND Peppermint Mocha flavored at Jewel the other day because they were on sale. Not sure how I’m going to use both of them by the expiration date…guess I’ll be drinking lots of coffee! Fine by me!

I’ve had a fairly relaxed day so far…filled with lots of Kashi! I fueled up before workout this morning with a Kashi Trail Mix bar and an Emergen-c. Still trying to fight this oncoming cold! I kept my workout a little lighter today since I’ve hit it fairly hard this week…and I felt exhausted for some reason this morning! I did the Firm’s High Def Sculpt. I love this video because it’s lots of simple yet effective moves that target your entire body in 50 minutes. I started doing it with 5 pound weights, moved on to 8 pounds this summer and now do it with 10 pounds. The increase in weights makes it sooo much harder! I love that feeling.

Post workout I enjoyed a big bowl of Kashi Go Lean topped with tons of frozen blueberries and skim milk. Then I was off to class! My mid morning snacky mood inspired me to eat a vanilla chobani with some pumpkin and pumpkin spice mixed in, yum! Some grapes and a few almonds followed shortly after. I also enjoyed 2 cups of coffee with the previously mentioned eggnog creamer

It’s been a snacky kind of day all around! I couldn’t decide what sounded good for lunch, so I decided on some steamed broccoli and cauliflower and a banana. Later I enjoyed my second pumpkin pie yogurt of the day (Archer Farms this time…I highly recommend these!)

Dinner consisted of a Morning Star Garden burger with 1/2 slice melted provolone and dijon on an sandwich thin. Not quite satisfied, I grabbed a spoonful of peanut butter and a handful of sourdough pretzel bites. My awesome roomie also shared a few delicious raspberry yogurt covered almonds that her mom had sent her from California. I think those finally satisfied by cravings! I am now off to pack and hang out with my boyfriend before I leave for Colorado for Thanksgiving! I will be seeing those Rocky Mountains for the first time in over 3 months in t-minus 10 hours!! Can’t wait.

Hope everyone had a FANTASTIC Friday!

This Thursday is already off to a GLORIOUS start. I woke up this morning with a bit of a scratchy throat, so I ate an apple and downed an Emergen-c. If you guys haven’t tried this, I highly recommend it when you start feeling a cold coming on! I also had a little spoonful of peanut butter with my apple Then I was off to the gym! After an intense session with the treadmill, (I completed an interval run that I had found in fitness magazine and did about 6.5 miles in about 60 minutes), I stretched out, gulped down some water and headed back to my apartment.

On my arrival at our little place, I discovered that all of my roommates were already in class. And although I love my girls, I have to admit that I truly cherish the times when I have our apartment ALL to myself. I was able to cook the most fabulous breakfast I’ve had in a while without bumping into anyone in our already cramped kitchen. Which leads me to the title of today’s post…pumpkin bliss. My breakfast menu consisted of the perfect pumpkin pancake I have ever come in contact with. I discovered the recipe on a blog that I can’t currently remember the name of (oops!) and decided to test it out this morning. So glad I did!

• 1/4 cup Quaker oats
• 1/4 cup egg whits
• 1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tsp vanilla (I added a splash more!)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda (powder is preferred, but soda is all I had)

I mixed the ingredients up and poured them into a skillet watching a beautiful, plump, delicious pancake form! At first I wasn’t sure how well the ingredients would cook together, but they stayed in their pancake shape quite well. After cooking this bad boy for about 4 minutes, I topped it with a thin layer of reduced fat PB, 1/2 of a sliced banana, and a couple spoonfuls of frozen blueberries. Oh. My. Gosh. I was seriously in heaven.

Not quite sure what the rest of today’s meals hold for me, but I truly doubt that they will live up to this breakfast! Well, I am off to shower and prepare for my day! I hope you all have a blessed and delicious day. Stay warm if it is as cold where you are as it is in the windy city!

P.S. Today through Sunday, Starbucks is doing their buy one get one free holiday drinks promotion! Pumpkin spice latte, anyone?!

Well, here it goes! My first official blog…

What I fantastic day it has been! Woke up this morning at 6:30AM and hopped out of bed in excitement for what the morning held in store for me.

Wednesday mornings are my favorite of the week because I get to begin them with an AMAZING spin class. I have fallen in love with spin this year. What an incredible work out it is. I heard the other day that spin is the number one form of cardiovascular activity that your body adapts to the quickest. While this may be true…it is also one form of cardio that you can ALWAYS make harder for yourself. Whenever it starts feeling a bit too easy, we increase the load under our legs, increase our leg speed or omit a little break from the session. I always leave dripping in both sweat and endorphin-filled confidence and accomplishment. Before class, I fueled up with a delicious Kashi TLC Trail Mix bar and a big glass of water. After cycling and a little ab work, I rushed back to my apartment to get ready for my 9:15AM class.

I whipped up a little Quaker apples and cinnamon instant oatmeal (low sugar) and topped it with a heaping pile of frozen blueberries.

Question: for all you oatmeal fans out there, what are your feelings toward the prepackaged kinds? It seems like I always see suggestions that you make oats out of a cannister and add your own ingredients, but what is the real difference? Just a  little food for thought!

After rushing through both my breakfast and my morning routine, I zipped off to class. I ran to the store to pick up a few essentials (milk, bananas, coffee…and a blueberry Chobani for a midmorning snack) and headed to my second class of the day. Later, I enjoyed one of the BEST lunch/breakfast treats I have ever discovered. Last year, my parents went on a low carb diet and got me hooked on protein shakes. Here is the recipe for the most delicious protein shake you will ever have in your life:

• 1 scoop chocolate whey protein (we like EAS)
• 1/2 banana for breakfast shake (if I’m making it for lunch or dinner, I do a whole banana for a little extra substance and fuel)
• 1 hefty tbs of PB (I was raised on reduced fat Jiff. what are everyone’s feelings on natural peanut butter vs. jiff or other brands?)
• 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
• ice
• splash of water
• chia/flax seeds if you prefer

Blend to perfect, frozen perfection! My roommates call this my “purple drink,” because I throw in some extra blueberries and give my shake a nice purple tint. It is so delicious, you will feel like you should be sitting in a booth at Dairy Queen.

Following a short and easy day at work where I snacked on a mini granny smith apple and some raw almonds, I was off to Target with one of my fave roomies and later hit up yoga with my man. We’ve been going for the last few weeks and it has become a regular part of our weekly routine together…I’m loving it! Both classes were a bit hard today considering I worked out double time yesterday (The Firm Bootcamp in the morning and Spin/Pilates in the evening), but I feel great tonight! Hopefully I will get a good night’s sleep because of it.

Dinner consisted of a delicious Morning Star garden burger topped with 1/2 piece of provolone on a Pepperidge Farm sandwich thin smeared with my favorite sandwich sidekick: Dijon mustard. I heated up some steamed green beans from last night and ate a big handful of grapes for a sweet treat afterward. Here’s another topic of discussion: what are everyone’s feelings on grapes? Of all of the fruits out there, grapes are probably the ones that I hear the least about. Everyone is always praising the powers of berries. Do grapes have any special powers? Let me know if you are aware!

I am currently sipping on some water and watching one of my favorites, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I bought the new Women’s Health tonight and it is calling my name…so that is all for now! I will let you know what my favorite parts/pages are.

Goodnight all! (If anyone at all is reading this…)

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