Another day off tomorrow, GNU review and calorie intake thoughts

Today I thought would be another draggy day but turned out not really. Work wasn’t crazy busy, but more like an okay pace. Heck I even felt the day went by pretty fast. Probably because tomorrow I’ll have another day off? I had to take a day off tomorrow for lab appointment. I had to be fasting, so no drinking or eating 6 hours prior the exam! Gosh! I could handle hunger, but thirst??? That’ll be tough! The appointment is at 2:30 pm but I have to be there at 2:00 pm. Geez, that means I have to stop eating and drinking by 8 am!
*sigh* Also no exercise in the morning. Even though I have a day off, still can’t really sleep in either or else I can’t eat/drink anything until late afternoon!!

Anyway, after my morning workout, I was super hungry so I chugged down this homemade almond milk with 1 scoop of Designer’s Whey Chocolate Protein Powder. Gosh, I couldn’t remember the last time I had this protein drink. To be honest, I don’t really like the taste of protein drink and if you look at the ingredients closely, lots of weird stuff there. I rather get my protein from real foods.

red bean bread bun from Chinese bakery. so fluffy

Had this as my breakfast at work. The red bean was a bit sweet to my taste but thanks to my bitter green tea, it all balanced out.

Unfortunately, that red bean bun didn’t hold my hunger until lunch time. I packed 2 slices ww homemade bread and had those topped w/ PB around late morning. Bad move! I was sooo full that I couldn’t even finish my lunch! I hate it when I wasn’t hungry at my usual meal time.

But I still could finish the fruits! papaya strawberry post lunch and orange peach w/ non fat yogurt as my late afternoon munchies

Btw, I kept forgetting to put my let me review GNU Foods Espresso Chip Bar that I tried last week.


This bar has a strong coffee flavor! I was expecting a semi sweet bar with a hint of coffee flavor, but that wasn’t the case. This bar is seriously for a coffee lover.  I am not quite a coffee drinker so this bar is a bit too strong for my taste. I was going to have it for my late afternoon snack, but after one bite, I decided to save it for the next day’s morning snack instead. I am quite sensitive to caffeine that I rather avoid having it in late afternoon or I’ll have trouble sleeping.

Lots of steamed veggies for dinner!

chinese veggies (Choy sum in Cantonese or chai sim in Mandarin)

steamed egg plant and carrot

nuked frozen edamame

baby carrots dipped with nutritional yeast

Dessert

yogurt with lots of peaches and some vanilla ice cream

Remember the last post when I mentioned I wanted to gain more muscle weight? Well I’d say it’s not quite easy for me to increase my calorie intake. One thing is I can’t eat a lot of foods all at once and on the other hand, somewhere in the back of my mind, there’s still some “fear” that this extra calorie will backfire on me. I know I can always keep it off as long I keep working out regularly, but there’s still that “fear” that my workout can’t keep up with my calorie intake. Sorry, I know I’m not making that much sense, but that’s how I’m feeling now.

 

Family and I, GNU review

I finally took my time and called my mom earlier using Skype! Gosh I know I’m such a bad daughter not calling her for quite a while (last time she was here was around 3 months ago!!)….*sigh* Sometimes I think I am always got too caught up doing my own stuff and keep procrastinate calling her. Felt bad….in some ways. I am always amazed at some people who can call their parents and talk to them everyday. Seriously, what possibly can you talk to them on the phone if you call every single day? Sometimes I hesitate to call my mom because I feel like I have nothing to talk about. Yeah just going to work, come home have dinner, shower and sleep. So majority of the time, my mom talks more about her stuff. My Skype account balance was over, but that wasn’t an excuse for not calling her anytime soon. I’m telling myself that from now on I should AT LEAST call her once a week…or more if I can!

Ok, lets move onto the food part!
This morning, I made another bowl of oats, topped with pb, low fat plain yogurt and some strawberries!!

didn't bother to cut the strawberries in half...I was a bit rush this morning

Cut up fruits for my lunch snacks as well. I’m so glad finally I could have more varieties in there besides orange, peach and papaya.

I knew that the bowl of oatmeal won’t last me until lunch time, so I packed GNU Foods Orange Cranberry Bar as my late morning snack at work.


The first thing that I noticed when opening the package was the strong orange scent. It had a sweet smell, like those orange candy, however, the bar itself wasn’t that sweet! For non sweet tooth person like me, it was tolerable. The bar was a bit chewy but not dense. It was actually considered to be pretty light. I could even taste the wheat flakes and some raisin chunks in between. It had a slight bitter taste though, kind of the bitterness from a fresh squeezed orange juice. Overall, I love this bar, can’t wait to taste the other flavors! For more complete nutritional info, visit their site here.

So today my lunch was consisted of lots of veggies (similar to what I had from last night dinner) plus I brought my nutritional yeast as my dipping. It was super good! Just as an info, nutritional yeast has lots of vitamin B12, thus makes your urine color neon yellow – based on the information that I searched earlier. I was a bit worried when I saw that, thinking I didn’t drink enough water. Usually my urine was colorless because I could drink 8-10 12oz. of water. After I knew it was from the nutritional yeast, I eased up a bit. But I think I’ll go easy on that. Don’t want to overworked my kidney with overloaded vitamin B12 which my body won’t absorb all of it, thus ended up being wasted. That thing wasn’t cheap either!

I was quite full after lunch, even only managed finished one of my fruit snacks, didn’t eat my edamame and yogurt. So those ended up as my dinner, minus the yogurt, along with some boiled green beans and broccoli and 2 whole egg omelets.

For those who live away from their parents, how often do you talk to them? For me, I am trying at least calling once a week. My parents are all the way in Asia so time difference plays some part here. Sometimes I chat with them, mainly my dad, early morning before I go to work, or call my mom in the evening after dinner.

 

More samples came, vegan wannabe

First of all thanks for those who encouraged me about my fitness level, really appreciate it. It’s good to have other’s point of view.
Anyway, this morning was Yoga X and though I wasn’t at my best, I still sweat A LOT, especially for the first 46 minutes.
After showered, refueled with this super thick oatmeal with homemade almond milk, topped with yogurt, pb and a banana.

pb and yogurt are somewhere in there...

Cut up fruits for my afternoon snacks

orange, peach and papaya. The papaya wasn't that ripe..ugh...not sweet at all..but I still finished them

I brought 2 slices of Rudi’s Organic Bakery Honey Sweet Whole Wheat Bread, and a cup of low fat plain yogurt for my second breakfast at work, but didn’t happen. Instead, I ate 1 slice for my late morning without any spread and it was good! Sometimes I enjoy eating a toast without any jam, butter or pb without toasting it. A good bread will taste good even by itself.

On the way home, I had to stop by Costco to get “girls needs” (hint for monthly stuff) and also picked up some other stuff: frozen edamame and strawberries. I start to get tired of only having orange and peach with unripe papaya. I need some more colorful fruits in my plate!

Got home and I got another surprise!

GNU foods flavor and fiber samples!

GNU foods is generous enough to let me sample their seven flavors (Thanks Robyn!) And to top it off, they sent me 2 bars of each flavor! I took a look at their nutritional info and these bars have 12 g fiber serving and only 130-140 calories! That’s so good and we all know we always need a lot of fibers in our diet, right? I can’t wait to sample these and review them!

Also I got a sample from Clif’s newest bar, Clif Crunch Granola Bar. This is one of the 4 flavors, Chocolate Chip. The other three flavors are: Honey Oat, White Chocolate Macadamia Nut, and Peanut Butter.

I wish I can sample the other three but at least I can sample one of them right? Better than nothing.

Dinner was almost raw and vegan style, if I didn’t have 2 bowls of this veggie in chicken broth soup..haha.

Sorry to disappoint vegans/vegetarians, but I have no intention to limit my food choices. I feel I am fortunate enough that I don’t have any food allergies/intolerant like some people. However, that doesn’t mean I will indulge all kinds of meats here and there. I am still conscious enough to make healthy food choices.

So here’s my vegan food part:

nuked edamame with raw tomatoes and carrots

Dipped with hummus-nutritional yeast mixture. Yummy!

With Carrs Water Crackers..delish!

Tomorrow is already Wednesday and this weekend will be a long weekend. Got plans for it? We have NO plans, except we might get that couch or the bar stools that we saw last time. Also I might want to try making Averie’s “Spicy Doritos” Cheezy Dip this coming weekend now that I got my nutritional yeast.