Eat, Live, Run » lunch out

Craving Kicked

jenna — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:59:28 +0000

Mikey is seriously the only cat I have ever heard of that likes the bath! Today he climbed right in while Mikan was being shampooed!

Aren’t cats supposed to hate water?! Strange. My mom and I had a great laugh over this.

So, this morning I got my act together and ran 2 1/2 miles on the treadmill. For some reason my short runs are SO much harder than my Saturday long runs!!!! Why is that?! I feel like I can go outside and run 5 miles no problem….but then 2 miles kills me. My shins were sore too….bah.

Since I wasn’t meeting Anne until later for lunch I went to town on these amaaaaazing wasabi almonds from the Briden Wilson Farm.

These are dangerous. I feel like I could eat the entire bag!!

At 12:30 I met Anne for some ethnic food lovin’. The other night we discovered we both were madly in love with Lebanese food and were having a hankering for falafel. There’s a cute little restaurant called The Oasis near my house that I had never been to so we planned to go today! In cognito mode with huge sunglasses, obviously.

I decided on the “Vegetarian Mix Plate” which consisted of hummus, babaganoush, falafel, stuffed grape leaves and tabbouli.

While Anne got the chicken shwarma wrap which was literally the size of my head

I traded her a falafel ball and a stuffed grape leave for a large bite of her wrap. It was awesome! I love it when you can tell that restaurants make their own hummus in house. Makes all the difference in the world, no?!

I’m off to the store now because I offered to make dinner tonight. Not sure exactly what is on the menu but it will include mushrooms since I have a mushroom recipe deadline in two days!

Later gators!

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Post tags: cardio, Exercise, friends, lunch out, Snack

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Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone

jenna — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:52:56 +0000

Hey guys!

I hope you all have enjoyed your Sunday. Mine was thoroughly spent basking in the sunshine…for a little too long. My tummy is unfortunately a bit on the burned side now despite sunscreen. Meh

After a great church service I grabbed some Panera for lunch!

No matter what, Panera will always remind me of Freshman Year of college because it was seriously the ONLY restaurant in the whole town of Elon. I haven’t been there in a while (ummm years) because I got pretty burned out on it, but today I was pleasantly surprised by their sweet new menu options! I got the soup and sandwich combo with the Mediterranean sandwich + cup of black bean soup. it was awesome!

As for the rest of the day, we headed up to Ryan’s parents house because Ryan had the awesome job to clean out the fishpond. Erin and I let the boys get dirty in the mud while we basked in the sun. Obviously.

(that’s Erin, not me. lol)

I read an entire stack of Food & Wine while chugging water to stay hydrated—

And ate a Pure Bar around 3:30—

After a few too many hours in the sun, it started to pour on the way home!

Yep, that’s Florida for you!! Sunshine one minute and a monsoon the next.

Dinner was very casual and delicious—egg and cheese sammies on Ezekiel bread!

I can assure you it tasted as good as it looked! I used some of the Wisconsin extra sharp cheddar + 1 egg. Soo good and simple!

There may have been some Edy’s for dessert….

I actually have a bunch of work to do tonight so I’m about to take a bubble bath, get in my jammies and get to it. I hope everyone had a great Sunday and I’ll see you in the morning!

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Catch-Up Friday

jenna — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 18:48:09 +0000

Hi friends!

Glad to see MojaMix in high demand—I can personally attest to the fact that this stuff rocks. Remember, you have until tonight at 10 (est) to enter!

This morning I started to get all caught up on emails, Summit happenings and life in general. I can’t believe the Summit is so soon, can you??! Its going to be AWESOME!! Around 12:15, I met my mom for lunch at the health food store. I loaded up a (1 lb) salad full of goodies—-

This was so good! I used lettuce, sprouts, hard boiled egg, pasta salad, hummus, babaganoush, chickpea salad, tomato & mozzarella kabob and feta. It was a Mediterranean delight! To drink, I had a yummy Honest Tea

And I wore my sweet new Cambria shirt! I love the sparkles, don’t you??!

I’m still plugging away at my inbox and plan on taking a break in about an hour or so to hit the gym for some light strength training. Then, I’m meeting Ryan at my parent’s house for dinner!

See you in a bit!

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Rest Day

jenna — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:53:39 +0000

Still foggy? You betcha.

Now I rarely have days like today where I just can’t seem to snap out of it! For the most part I like to think I have tons of energy and am on my A-game, but every once in a blue moon my body gently reminds me to quit going 90 miles an hour and take care of it! The post-power yoga soreness is definitely a factor as well as the awful stormy weather we are having. Regardless, I decided today will a 100% total rest day. The LAST thing I need is to get sick just in time for my trip next weekend! I’d rather lay low now and be 100%.

My mom actually gave me the best advice of the day when she came over this afternoon and I told her how I felt and she said (in a very mom voice), “Jennifer, if you feel that tired, lay down and rest! Your body is screaming at you and trying to get the point across!” Moms are always right.

This morning while running “errands” (cough cough totally DONE shopping now) I grabbed a tall soy Awake tea latte. Tasted dandy but didn’t wake this slug up!

And then for lunch, I met the lovely Anne at one of my favorite hole-in-the-wall joints, Cafe Hey!

I love the laid back atmosphere of this place! We had a bit of trouble actually finding it (which involved a few rather illegal u-turns) but once we did, we were golden. I also pretty much got the best sandwich ever!

This is the “T’Ank” sandwich (??) and consists of a whole wheat wrap stuffed with avocado, veggies, hummus, pepperjack cheese and yellow mustard….all pressed on the grill so its nice, hot and gooey. Can you get any better?! I think not.

My mom came to the apartment so I could give her a fashion show for my interview clothes and now I’m just being a total lazy bum sitting on the couch while it pours outside. Still need to do some writing though. Homemade pizza is tentatively on the menu for tonight. The tentative part is whether I want to venture out in the storm to get the pizza sauce I forgot to buy the other day. Boo.

What do you do when you just feel exhausted and want to rest?

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Post tags: friends, Lunch, lunch out, starbucks, tea

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Safe & Sound

jenna — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 01:58:58 +0000

Hi friends!

Wow, talk about a LONG day!!!

I am very thankful to be home and in my jammies, bout to get tucked into my big soft bed. The post-wedding brunch this morning was lovely. Katie and Matt had it catered by this wonderful little Italian deli and there was a great spread of Italian meats, gourmet cheese, olives, veggies and fresh fruit. I rarely eat lunch meat but I do love gourmet Italian meats and I made a sandwich with some as well as provolone cheese and spicy brown mustard. It was awesome! I haven’t had a sandwich like this is in a very long time and it satisfied all my taste buds totally!

Lots of fresh fruit and carrots on the side! I’ll tell ya—-I’ve had the BEST fruit this weekend! Somehow the plums, watermelon and berries just taste so much better here than do back home!

After this, if you can believe it, I was still quite hungry (my appetite has been out of control today!) so instead of making another sandwich, I made a “roll-up” with another piece of meat and cheese with mustard. I also tried one of the spicy peppers that was stuffed with cheese and salami and two giant olives……YUM! This totally hit the spot.

This is why I could never be a vegetarian. I adore vegetarian meals but once in awhile this gourmet foodie loves her meat! This is exactly why, for me, I can’t put any labels on my eating habits. I know it works for a lot of people but I love to have the total freedom to eat whatever I like….in moderation of course! Sure, I might go a week or two without any meat but then I don’t feel guilty when I indulge in some! Its all about what works for you individually. What feels the best for your body is what you should do….we are all made quite different!

There were a slew of homemade desserts and I tried a small piece of “The Best Bars”, which one of the moms made. Not sure what was in these little beauties but sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, graham crackers and pecans came to mind. I had to walk away from the table after one or I would have surely reached for a few more!

Matt and Katie are headed up north to a cabin on Lake Superior for a three day honeymoon this week! Where they are staying sounds gorgeous……Wisconsin is just so beautiful in the summer (almost makes the harsh winters bearable!).

We said our goodbyes and piled into the car for the hour and a half trip back to Milwaukee. Once in the airport I bought some snacks + magazines ‘cause I knew dinner wouldn’t be for a long while.

Never tried the dried fruit before but it was really good. I ate it WITH the baggie of soy crisps (it was a single serving bag….only 110 calories and 7 grams of protein!) for the whole “sweet and salty” combo. I really like these soy crisps for a snack…..’specially the salt and vinegar flavor because growing up that was my favorite flavor of potato chips! These crisps are pretty much totally guilt-free and they are as light as air. They also come in a variety of flavors such as sea salt and bbq. When I was in college my mom would send me up big bags of them because I couldn’t find them anywhere!

GREAT recipes in this month’s Cooking Light! I see a pretty major trip to Costco (!!!) in my future for tomorrow……

We got into Atlanta right around dinner time and since we had a 2 1/2 hour layover, we headed upstairs to Chili’s so we could sit down and relax out of the terminal for a bit.

I ordered the chicken fajitas for my meal—-

I ate the fajitas tortilla-less and with only a small amount of cheese. Loved me some of that guacamole though!

They were actually very tasty! I haven’t had fajitas in a long time! Definitely didn’t even miss the tortillas. After eating whole wheat for so long, white tortillas just don’t even taste good to me anymore.

My mom and I split this fro yo for dessert This was a nonfat twist of praline and white chocolate mousse with sprinkles! I get fro yo EVERY SINGLE TIME I go through the Atlanta airport. Its a tradition! Usually I hit up the TCBY but Freshens was right near our gate.

Our plane ended up sitting on the runway for ever (does this always happen to anyone else in Atlanta?? Happens to me every.single.time) and then we went through a bunch of bad weather on the flight down. I don’t get motion sickness at all and both of my parents were actually flight attendants for 15 years so I’ve grown up feeling comfortable on planes, but I still get a little shaky sometimes. When this happens I simply plug in my music, ask for some hot water and make some herbal tea while I meditate and think happy thoughts.

That’s all for now, friends! I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend and is feeling refreshed and renewed for the week ahead! See you in the morning!

© Jenna for Eat, Live, Run, 2009. | Permalink | 37 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: friends, Lunch, lunch out, Product Reviews, Snack, traveling

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Burrito Baby

jenna — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:00:41 +0000

Mmmm I’m so much happier with Mexican food in my belly . This morning I had a great 2 mile run on the treadmill and then headed over to St.Pete to meet Ryan for lunch (and bring him his gym bag. lol). On the way, I snacked on a new snack that came in the mail for me to try!

This packet was only 110 calories and was very, very tasty! The almonds and peanuts had an all natural berry glaze on them and there were little pieces of dried berries in the packet as well. It was the perfect snack when you don’t want something large because you are about to eat but still need something after exercise. Also, these are perfect for traveling!

At Burrito Boarder I ordered the same thing I always do–it never lets me down!

My bowl consisted of:

black beans
grilled fish
hot sauce
hot peppers
lettuce
guacamole
cilantro
onions
black bean and corn salsa

You really don’t even need the cheese—its just so good as is! Of course Ryan and I shared a basket of their chips, which are the best chips ever. So hot and perfectly salty!

To drink, I had an organic iced jasmine green tea—

Its STILL rainy outside and I love it! I have some herbal tea, my big soft socks on, and am wrapped under a blanket with Dexter. I love my sunshine but the occasional rainy day makes me happy (just not when we are having a garage sale!).

© Jenna for Eat, Live, Run, 2009. | Permalink | 38 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cardio, Exercise, lunch out, Product Reviews, Snack

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On The Air

jenna — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:39:38 +0000

The podcast went really well today!! Listen to it here–I’m listening to it right now! lol! We talked for about 20 minutes about the blog, culinary school and my advice to new bloggers, all while sipping pinot noir! How fabulous was that?!

Before I left though I had a GREAT cardio workout!! I did 36 minutes on the elliptical, resistance punched up all the way and speed at 3.7. Boy, was it ever hard!! I found myself gripping the treadmill handlebars a ton and then I would picture Jillian’s hand slapping them away. I actually wore my HRM this time and it said I burned 400 calories…..I’d say so–I was a sweaty beast for sure at the end.

To refuel when I got home I had some grass

(ahem, I totally did that manicure myself thank you very much!)

I love my Navitas Naturals bottle! My Amazing Grass shaker is in the dishwasher and this is the next best thing ’cause its small and I can add ice and shake, shake, shake baby!

I’m crossing my fingers that my Amazing Meal will get here tomorrow! Its not that I mind having just the SuperFood because I love the endless energy that the greens give me, but I do love that extra addition of the hemp and rice protein only available in the Amazing Meal. I am getting more used to drinking SuperFood plain with water though (the secret is adding ice and shaking really, really hard). Remember, the 40% discount on the 2lb Amazing Meal bulk container ends tomorrow night!!!! I’m glad I stocked up when I did!

I also had a super charge me cookie and more green tea! I only have one cookie left now—guess someone will be baking more asap!

I talked to Brendan again yesterday and he wanted yall to made sure you knew about his free Thrive in 30 Program available on his website. I’ve actually watched a few of his videos and they are great! The Thrive Program is a 30 day online free program made up of concise written and video segments that Brendan created to help busy people transition to a high-performance, whole food, plant based diet. Participants are emailed three times a week for four weeks and each email consists of a distilled written component of the book, The Thrive Diet, with the most pertinent information. And if you don’t feel like reading, you can simply watch the video segments. So, in about 20 minutes a week, for four weeks, you can gain enough applicable info to immediately begin making health and performance gains.

After the podcast I was whisked away to lunch with the food editor, Brian, which was very cool except our food really was not that good. We picked SoHo Sushi because neither one of us had ever been there and we both love sushi. I got the sashimi lunch plate which was okay if you are a sashimi person. It was nothing to write home about. The salmon and the tuna were both okay but the white fish in the middle was disgusting and I didn’t even eat it!

Luckily, it came with miso soup–one of my favorite things ever!

The whole reason I ordered this was because I had never really even HAD sashimi before so I wanted to try it. Um, not a fan. I missed the rice and fun sushi add-ins. This was just pretty boring, tasteless fish. I gussied up the pieces with tons of wasabi and ginger but it still was a no-go and I left still feeling very hungry! We also ordered the salmon zest roll to try and I had a few pieces of that as well—

Hopefully it doesn’t seem like I’m complaining—Brian thought the place was nothing special either and neither of us finished our meals. I guess we both are rather tough critics though! Hey, you win some you lose some!

My parents are going to see The Hangover at 4:30!!!! I can’t wait to hear what they think of it….they need a good laugh right about now!!!!!!

I’m off to write a True/Slant article on how I quit coffee, since a bunch of you have been asking how to go about doing it. Look for it later on Twitter or tonight on my evening post! I need a SNACK now!!

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Post tags: cardio, Exercise, Lunch, lunch out, restaurant reviews, Snack

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A Rawesome Lunch Date

jenna — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 17:33:36 +0000

Look who I found!!

Yep, that would be the infamous Heather from Heather Eats Almond Butter!

LOVE this girl!! We had so much in common and she just oozed happy positive energy. In true HEAB style, she brought me a jar of raw almond butter all the way from Trader Joe’s in Nashvegas. I squealed with joy!! I NEED to go to a Trader Joe’s someday……!

When she told me she was in town I knew exactly where we should dine….

This raw vegan restaurant is very ELR & HEAB friendly

Of course we both ordered the exact same thing—a half order of “Sabrina’s Favorite Sandwich”, which we both adored:

Yummy raw onion “bread” stuffed with cashew hummus, avocado, sprouts and lettuce. SO good!

I was so sad to leave my new friend……hopefully she can come to the Summit in August!!

Well, Ryan and I were going to spend the day at the beach or pool but unfortunately its quite overcast outside all of the sudden! Still might read pool-side, which is my vote. I don’t care about baking in the sun anyway—I just want to read and relax! Tonight the plan is either Bonefish or BJs then seeing The Hangover with some movie gift certificates we have accumulated! Has anyone seen this? I hear its hilarious!!

Have a great day!

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Mexican Made Healthy

jenna — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:54:01 +0000

Hey friends!

Oh my gosh, I feel SO SO SO much better than I did yesterday. All day long yesterday I had zero energy and felt almost sick I was so lethargic. Today, on the other hand, I have oodles of energy and feel at the top of my game. I’m giving credit to my super Green Monster this morning, obviously!

I was actually just answering a question about this in the comments to a reader who asked me how long a GM keeps me full. The answer is about 3-4 hours. Really. Smoothies never used to keep me full but I think my body has gotten used to them and now if I have anything heavier (like oat bran yesterday), I just feel so bloated, heavy and tired all day long. I’m not saying a big bowl of carbs in the morning is bad—oatmeal is great for you—but I just feel so incredibly energized and full of life when I drink a green smoothie instead. The boyfriend agrees!

So this morning I was pretty productive and wrote another article for True/Slant on how to keep your take-out meals healthy! Check it out here! I also shipped off the Super Charge Me cookies to Amy and brought over some for my parents as well. I may or may not have nibbled on half a cookie (from my parent’s batch, not Amy’s lol) while I ran around.

For lunch, I met Ryan at our favorite casual spot–Burrito Boarder! I LOVE this place because they are so laid back and friendly. Plus, going there makes me think of my brother with all the surfboards hanging on the wall; he would have loved it! Anyways, they are very eco-friendly and healthy and I love being able to customize my lunch. Today I got a baja grilled fish burrito bowl….extra spicy!

In my bowl I had:

grilled mahi mahi
lettuce
extra helping of black beans
jalapenos
cilantro
onions
corn
salsa
guacamole
mexican cheese sprinkled lightly on top

SO GOOD. I saved a ton of fat & calories by opting not to get a tortilla or white rice. But you already knew to do that if you read my article. Of course I doused it with extra hot sauce and shared Ryan’s chips as well! These chips are hot and worth every single calorie. There are some things a girl just should never say no to.

Off to work on Blog Summit stuff then hit the gym for a treadmill run! See you tonight!

© Jenna for Eat, Live, Run, 2009. | Permalink | 44 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Lunch, lunch out, restaurant reviews

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The Great Pitamobile

jenna — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:51:54 +0000

Wowza, Ryan and I had QUITE the workout this morning! I love when we work out together but sadly we don’t get to very often since we belong to different gyms. I go to the health club down the street and Ryan is a member of a golf club with a gym in it right near his office in St.Pete, which makes exercise easy for him because he goes right after work every day. When we work out together we have to go to the gym in our condo complex, which is fine but its rather small.

Anyways, I started out with 35 minutes on the treadmill. I walked the first five minutes then RAN 2 MILES then walked another 10 minutes or so. I was literally grinning the entire time I was running because even though I was going at a rather glacial pace, I had ZERO pain and it just felt so effortless and so great. Afterwards, I pressed down on my shins where if I used to press it would feel like a mega bruise on the bone and today there was nothing. Yay orthotics!!!!!! I’m obviously going to keep my mileage very, very low during the next 3-4 weeks and stay on the treadmill, but I can’t wait until I can get back outside with my Team in Training group! San Francisco here I come!!!!!!!! I still have another $1,200 dollars to raise but I’m feeling pretty confident and have a super fun auction that I’m planning for next week to raise more money.

Question: would you all be interested in helping do another e-cookbook? The dessert e-cookbook was SUCH a success that I thought we could do another. I was thinking this one might be for easy weeknight dinners. What do you think?

While I was chugging away on the treadmill, Ryan was on the stairmaster. I was a super dork and actually brought my laptop upstairs to the gym so we could partake in Jillian’s 30 Day Shred together!!!!!!!!! There was wireless and I connected to the free video off of YouTube and together we did Level 2. I’m sure we looked quite interesting, doing a workout video together in a tiny gym, but luckily no one else came in. I used 5 lb weights and Ryan was a beefcake and used 12 lb weights. And boy, was it ever HARD! I haven’t shredded in awhile and afterwards my legs were total jelly. It felt great though to be able to do the cardio parts without pain though!

Margaret gave me this Nike headband for my birthday after I complimented hers a few weeks ago! I LOVE IT. It doesn’t move at all when you are working out and keeps your hair in place perfectly. A lot of headbands sort of shift when you are running but this did not at all. I think it might be my lucky headband

Since we were going straight to Pita Pit for lunch I didn’t have a snack and instead gulped down the rest of my iced tea from yesterday (combo of decaf green + apricot white). I need to make more of this asap—its the perfect summer drink (other than sangria)!

Ryan, on the other hand, insisted on making a green monster!

He used:

frozen banana
1 scoop wheatgrass
1 scoop Amazing Meal
1 cup chocolate hemp milk (!!)
1 scoop white chocolate wonderful pb

And I quote “it was every bit as good as I could ever imagine”

Who is this guy??!!

Lunch was pita pit, obviously. I had a big veggie pita stuffed with hummus, babaganoush, avocado, lettuce, banana peppers, olives, feta, pickles and hot sauce!

It was delightful, of course. And then when I saw the new pita mobile I just HAD to hop in for a photo op. And yes, they really do drive this car down the street to make deliveries! LOL

And when I came home I may or may not have had a bite of my carrot cake

Tonight we are cooking the fish Ryan caught yesterday (grouper, hogfish and snapper) with his parents, sister and grandma. I think I’m going to try a new marinade……thinking maybe tahini lemon?

The sun just peaked out from behind the clouds—to the pool we go!

© Jenna for Eat, Live, Run, 2009. | Permalink | 57 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Exercise, Lunch, lunch out, musings

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