Christmas 2013

Well, we survived Christmas 2013. And despite my doubts, it ended up being a really good day. A very relaxed day. Even though the restaurant we went to was horrendous, I didn’t even freak out on the waitress like I sometimes never do.

Christmas Eve we ordered our traditional Domino’s pizzas and watched 3 episodes of Breaking Bad, leaving the last one for Christmas. I semi-planned on waking up to run but then decided to set no alarm and rest. Like, actual rest. No worries of working out or reservations or anything. I slept for almost 12 hours, not hearing a peep until 11:45! Heaven. Johnny made coffee and I made some cinnamon buns while we relaxed and opened up our little gifts and stockings.

 

 

So that would be my stocking fillings from John! Haha so great, so ME! 2 avocados, swedish fish for my long run fuel, a cold pack for my leg, and rotting carrots as a joke obvi. And the pink fluff in the back is my new huge robe! I have been saying I wanted a robe for months and kept forgetting to look anywhere for one, but my sweet dude remembered and grabbed me such a fluffy one!

Ignore how awful I look, but don’t ignore my amazing new fur vest I bought myself for Christmas! I will be buried in this thing one day.

After hours of lounging around, we set out for dinner even though all we wanted to do was stay in our warm apartment. Which is exactly what we should have done. Whatever you do, don’t go to Duke’s on 39th and 3rd avenue. After searching on Opentable for a cheap place that was open, we thought the menu sounded good and came here. The service was the worst service I’ve ever had at a restaurant! And the food was really not good at all, to the point where John and I both felt sick after. Ugh, right? Next year we’ll either be splurging to go somewhere fancy or stay home and eat chinese in our PJ’s! Oh well, it felt good to get kinda dressed up.

Camo/leather sleeve jacket with my fur vest over. Love the contrast!

❤

Ended the night with these sea salt caramels from CVS that are so freaking delicious, and watched the last episode of Breaking Bad. Can’t say I loved the ending but it feels good to be caught up now!

Got my butt up for a 4 mile run through the beautiful park this morning. Definitely need to get back to being more consistent with my running. However, teaching spin so much lately has made my endurance even better and my heart rate is lower than usual while running!

 

How was your Christmas??

Alternatives.

Happy Friday people! Since a lot of you don’t work weekends I should really hate you but I don’t! I only work tomorrow and Sunday I’ll be off, enjoying my 10 mile race followed by my favorite brunch 🙂

If you’re new to my blog you may not know that I have struggled with IBS my whole life and it’s been a long journey finding out what foods I just cannot handle without severe pain. The top food that I just figured out this year is corn. ANYTHING to do with it gives me horrible stomach pains that I can’t shake. While I pretty much never ate corn itself, there is a lot of food that I never realized contained corn. Since I also can’t eat red meat, I resort to veggie burgers when I’m at a burger place but sadly many restaurant and frozen veggie burgers contain corn. The hardest thing to give up has been tortilla chips. I mean, who wants to go out for Mexican food when you can’t even eat the chips?! Well, my alternative is popped chips. Popchips are great but if you haven’t tried Trader Joe’s version of just the original, you need to go there right now. I LOVE guacamole, so if I know I’m going to a Mexican restaurant I pick up a single serving bag of Popchips to bring with me and couldn’t care less about the stares I may get. It’s also one of my favorite snacks right now.

Not only is this fine on my stomach but you save a ton of calories and fat. So even if corn doesn’t bother your stomach, this is a great option to bring with you to save some calories. A serving size of tortilla chips is like 14 chips for 140 calories and that pretty much goes in your mouth in about 60 seconds!

The other recent food group that kills me is dairy. My favorite food in the entire world is pizza. I also LOVE cheese but luckily my favorite cheeses are feta, blue and goat and they are okay for me. But I eat pizza at least once a week, usually twice. I have done this through my entire weight loss because I plan ahead and make the calories/macros work. It’s honestly so much easier to fit it in now that I can’t eat cheese! I honestly haven’t tried this at any other place because good Italian NYC pizza has very little cheese on it so I just pick it off, but we order Domino’s once a week and they make the most fabulous cheese-less pizza ever! I order mine no cheese, regular sauce or light sauce, jalapeno & onions. It’s basically like eating garlic-y jalapeno bread sticks dipped in marinara. I can eat the whole pizza for under 800 calories, but I usually save 3 slices for the following day.

My last alternative I’ll share with you today is my obsession with froyo. I LOVE froyo. Sometimes it affects my stomach, sometimes it doesn’t but it’s never too bad if it does. The problem is I load it with sugary toppings (what’s the point if you don’t?!) so I make it a once a week treat. Other nights when I have the calories/macros left, I’ll make my own little froyo concoction. I usually take a Chobani or Oikos Greek yogurt and stick it in the freezer with the intent to eat it in 1-2 hours. I just take the single serving size and stick it right in like that. Once I take it out, I take off the foil top (duh.) and stir it up. It’s usually frozen just a little bit and kinda thickens it up. Sometimes I’ll scoop it out in a dish to put the toppings on, but you can literally just eat it right out of the container and add the toppings. Last night I fancied up the best flavor ever, Chobani’s 2% key lime pie. 2% or nothing for me!!

 

 

I topped it with banana slices, 1 tbsp melted chocolate hazelnut butter, a few sprinkles and a 110 calorie white chocolate blueberry cookie. Fit my macros perfect! Eaten while watching Breaking Bad. We are up to episode 5 of season 2, so we’re chugging along!

So whether you have dietary restrictions due to health issues or are trying to meet calorie/macro goals, you can find alternatives to your favorite foods so you never feel like you’re missing out!

Do you have any dietary restrictions? 

What is your favorite caloric food to recreate a little healthier?