Missy Maintains » vegetables

Getting Back on Track

MissyMaintains — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:11:11 +0000

It seems like ever since I started my new job, I’ve been allowing myself to eat anything and everything that is put in front of me. I used to be chained to my desk so I was forced to bring healthy lunches and snacks every day. Things are much different now. I am able to get up any time of day and grab a cookie from the cafe upstairs or go outside and enjoy pizza with my coworkers. I used to be in my own department so I was not invited to any meetings or birthdays. Now, it seems like there is bagel party or cupcake meeting every week! While some people can eat half of a bagel or just a bite of cake, I am not one of them. In all honesty, my pants have been feeling tight and I just don’t feel great after eating all of these sweets and heavy lunch foods. The other day, I put on my work pants at the gym in the morning and a big hole ripped down my inner thigh. I am grateful that I happened to be wearing my Lululemon pants to the gym that day because I was able to pull them off as work pants! This was a pretty big wake up call for me so I decided that I would use Passover as a way to get back on track with my eating. Part of keeping Kosher for Passover means no bread products, which also means no cake, pizza, or cereal. The holiday came at the perfect time for me.

I got on the scale for the first time this past weekend since the beginning of January. The number confirmed that I did not just shrink my work pants in the dryer the night before; they no longer fit me. I work out almost every day for one to two hours so I know my weight has nothing to do with the amount that I exercise. It is completely about food and having the self-discipline of staying away from all the sugar and huge serving sizes. My friend from intenSati is also struggling with her weight so we worked together for a while on Sunday and planned out our meals for the week while also setting weight loss goals for the month. We’ve been emailing each other our meals each day, along with how we feel after each meal. We are trying to figure out what foods make us crave sweets, make us bloated, make us anxious, or make us want to binge. Sending my meals to a friend is already much more effective for me than just logging them in a journal or on a website. Since Monday, I’ve kept Passover and have been making much smarter food choices. It feels so much better to get through each day without that feeling of guilt after stuffing myself to the point of feeling sick. Yesterday at work, there was a birthday which meant a giant chocolate cake and chocolate chip cookies the size of my head. I simply sung Happy Birthday and walked away. Not only did I feel great for sticking with Passover, I felt like I actually had control over my food choices for once. I have to admit that I felt even better when I heard my coworkers complaining about how stuffed and gross they felt after eating too much cake! I know if I continue on this route, I will get back to the weight I am most happy at and I will feel powerful, strong, and proud.

Since I have to avoid bread products for Passover, I’ve been eating a ton of veggies and protein! I’ve been starting my mornings out with green juices that contain kale, celery, parsley, green apple, ginger, and cucumber.

I am trying to get back in the green juice routine so that my body is not in total shock when I do my 3-day Organic Avenue juice cleanse (happening sometime before my Groupon expires in June, I promise!)

I’ve also been making omelets at home and bringing them to work for breakfast since I can’t eat oatmeal during Passover.

I’ve been bringing vegetables for when I get the mid-afternoon munchies. I was getting into the habit of eating the heavenly red velvet cake or banana cream pie that was always sitting out at work!

I was fighting a fever last night so I made a comforting dinner of eggs with turkey slices and salad.

As for lunch, I’ve been spending $10 on grilled chicken salads from Hale & Hearty each day. That needs to stop before I become poor! Last night, I decided to make a ton of vegetables and chicken to bring for lunch the rest of the week.

I made a big bowl of string beans topped with pepper, garlic powder, and spray butter.

Lots of salad..

I also made balsamic chicken with mushrooms. Look at me cooking!

Check out my fancy dinner! I will admit that it was much more enjoyable than my typical frozen veggie burger dinners.

Some other fun foods I’ve been snacking on this week….

Can you tell I had a fun time in Trader Joe’s last night? I finally feel like a healthy eater again and am committed to staying on track. The only thing that has not improved this week is my gum chewing. I really want to get over that addiction too since it makes me bloated and makes me crave more food. I guess one step at a time though. I am happy with the way things are going.

Do you have a habit or food addiction you are trying to break?

** The winner of the Betty Crocker Mashed Potato and Cookware Giveaway is…

14- Andrea, “most excited for those loaded mashed potaters!!”

Congrats Andrea. Please email me your address and phone number! Have a great day everyone!

City Harvest Winner and Weekend!

MissyMaintains — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 16:54:41 +0000

How’s it going? Today I am going to talk about my productive weekend and announce the winner of the City Harvest Tote and Cookbook Giveaway! Let’s start off with the winner!

The winner is….Kate Strembel! Congrats! Please email me your address so I can get your prize out to you!

Friday

After work, I went to happy hour with my coworkers for our Secret Santa exchange. We went to a cute place in the West Village called Art Bar. I highly recommend this bar if you would like some inexpensive drinks! They have $3.00 glasses of wine, beer, and well drinks from 4pm to 7pm. A $3.00 drink is very hard to find in New York!!

My Secret Santa got me two perfect gifts! She read my blog and noticed that I don’t know how to cook!

I promise I will try to make some of these recipes soon! She also read that I make espresso before my morning workouts.

Perfect!

Saturday

My day started out with an intense Core Fusion Cardio class with Dori! I haven’t been to that class in months but still love it so much! After class, we went to our first bra fitting at Intimacy. Let’s just say that I’ve been wearing bras that do not fit me at all for years! I won’t go into too much detail but I will say that every girl must get a professional fitting! My real size is totally different from what I thought it was! No more Victoria’s Secret for me!

Later that night, I went to 5 Burro with Mari, Mo, and Tiffany from Simply Shakah! Tiffany is in town from North Carolina so we decided to take her out for the best margaritas in Queens!

I started off with a Strawberry Banana margarita. So so good.

I went with the Roasted Vegetable Mexican salad. Delicious as always!!

Blogger in action…

After dinner, we headed to our usual bar for some more drinks.

I enjoyed several shots of Kettle One with Vitamin Water. Best drink ever!

Sunday

My friend from IntenSati Leader Training taught her first class yesterday so of course I had to show my support! She did amazing and inspired me to teach my first one in the next week or two. I am checking out a studio this week and plan on booking the room when I am there! Scary but exciting! I need to just do it instead of talking about it every day!After her class, we headed to Equinox for an intenSati double! Perfect way to end the weekend! Usually I don’t leave my apartment on Sundays so I plan on making this a Sunday tradition!

What was your favorite part of the weekend?

What are you doing for the holidays?

Week of Blog Meetups!

MissyMaintains — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 01:54:08 +0000

Last week was full of great blog meetups!! I got to reunite with Ellie from Inside I’m Still Dancing who was visiting all the way from Scotland. We met about a year ago at Sea Thai restaurant and have been tweeting with each other ever since! I also got to meet Yelena from One Healthy Apple! Yelena tweeted to me, “Are you the official NYC welcoming blogger tour?” I’d say so!

On Wednesday, I met Ellie, Mari, and Monique at Whole Foods!

Poor Ellie injured her foot and was wobbling around Whole Foods on crutches! She has the cutest Scottish accent by the way. I could listen to her talk forever! We told her she needs to start vlogging so we can listen to her all day!

I made a giant salad of course.

It contained beets, carrots, feta cheese, hummus, seaweed salad, string beens, roasted broccoli, asparagus, and brussels sprouts. I swear my salads are always $2 or $3 extra in the winter because of the giant roasted vegetables! Totally worth it though.

As we were eating, Mo let out a loud gasp out of nowhere! We saw 2 guys coming towards our table! She shrieked in excitement, “He’s from… So You Think You Can Dance!!!” We all stared and he totally knew we recognized him. We sat next to Alex Wong in Whole Foods!

source

I am a stalker and took a picture of his butt. He is the one on the left.

We wanted to go up to him and ask him to dance for us but I think that would have been a little creepy!! Instead, we just sat and enjoyed our nice view of his butt.

We also enjoyed some Baked by Melissa cupcakes courtesy of Mo!

I had a Tie-Dye!

And my favorite….Cinnamon!

I love them!! They are the perfect size!

After Whole Foods, we went to Starbucks and chatted for at least an hour with some decaf coffee. Ellie convinced us that we need to have a conference in Scotland so we can play in the castles! I am not a huge fan of blog conferences but I am totally up for going to one inside a castle! It was a great night!!

On Sunday, I had another blog meetup at Spring Street Natural. I met Yelena for the first time and got to see Gabriela from Une Vie Saine again! Mari and I took the subway to Yelena’s hotel and brought her to the restaurant.

Thank you to Gabriela for taking most of these pics. She got nominated to take the pictures since she has a fancy SLR camera!

We started off with delicious bread!

I don’t know if this was pumpkin or carrot bread….but it was amazing!

The 4 of us had a really hard time deciding what to order! The entire menu sounded great! Eventually I went with the Vegetable and Brown Rice platter with tofu, black beans, tahini, and seaweed.

I loved this! I need to start eating with chopsticks more often! I finally took my time eating since I suck at using them.

My lunch was good but Mari’s pumpkin ravioli was out of this world! I want to go back to the restaurant just to order the ravioli!! The service at the restaurant was not so great but that just gave us more time to chit-chat!

Mari and I tried to show Yelena around the Village after but the two of us have absolutely no sense of direction. We ended up walking for over an hour in Tribeca and ended up by the World Trade Center!

We definitely gave Yelena a nice walking tour of New York! It was great meeting her finally!

So…who is coming to New York next? I like visitors…hint hint!

Missy Cooks

MissyMaintains — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 03:27:48 +0000

Guess what? I cooked two nights in a row so far this week! Shocking, right? It all started on Sunday night. I decided to take my time in the supermarket and buy some ingredients to make a fresh, home-cooked meal. I’ve been overeating a lot at night lately and felt that it was time to do something nice for myself. I think my 5-minute meals (hello Amy’s Burritos & Morningstar Farms veggie burgers) might not satisfy me enough. I decided it might help me to take my time preparing and eating my dinner. I went to Key Foods and bought some shrimp, veggies, brown rice, and beer. I don’t really know how to cook but I do know how to make a basic meal taste good.

I started off by defrosting frozen shrimp by running them under cold water. I cooked them on a skillet with mushrooms and olive oil.

I decided to finally make use of my awesome steamer! It’s been collecting dust for about a year now! I do like roasted veggies better than steamed veggies but my fire alarm always goes off when I try to cook anything in the oven. I filled my steamer with some broccoli and asparagus.

I am still very lazy when it comes to cooking so I used Boil-in-a-Bag brown rice. Don’t hate. All I had to do was boil water and throw the bag in for 10 minutes! Can’t get any easier than that!

When I bought the shrimp, I had no idea how I would give it some flavor and make it a little more exciting to eat. Luckily, I have an Asian roommate so I know I can always find delicious sauces and spices in the cabinet! I can’t always read the labels but this time I was able to find some soy sauce and sesame seeds!

I cooked the shrimp in soy sauce and added some sesame seeds to give the shrimp some extra crunch.

Thanks to my cool steamer, my broccoli and asparagus were done in 10 minutes! I sprayed the veggies with Smart Balance butter and added some salt and pepper.

I did the same thing to the brown rice to give it some extra flavor.

My Asian-inspired shrimp, veggies, and brown rice turned out delicious! I felt like I was eating Shrimp Teriyaki straight out of a Japanese restaurant!

This meal only took about 15 minutes and was much more enjoyable to eat than a rushed, frozen dinner.

To top it off, I had plenty of leftovers to bring for lunch on Monday!

Oh yeah, this is why I don’t cook more often….

I miss having a dishwasher! I guess I don’t mind doing dishes that much since I cooked again on Monday night!

I used my leftover broccoli and brown rice to make a Mexican salad! I know you guys missed seeing my Mexican salads on here every week! Maybe not…but I know I missed eating them!

I am very proud of myself for cooking two nights in a row! I just knew I needed to get out of my usual 5-minute meal routine. My cooked meals still only took 10 to 15 minutes to make. I also have to mention that I enjoyed my dinner 100% more since I sat at my dinner table and took my time to savor my meal. Last week, I ate my quick dinners in my bedroom at my computer. First of all, I should not be eating anywhere near my new Macbook Pro!! I tend to break every piece of technology I own. My first week of college, I spilled nail polish remover on my brand new laptop. Insurance does not cover nail polish remover spills. I’ve also spilled water on my GPS, dropped my cell phone in a toilet, and dropped my camera in a pot of boiling water. I should not be allowed to eat dinner near my computer. I also do not focus on my food when eating at my laptop. I am always too busy catching up on blogs and Twitter! From now on, I will eat dinner at my kitchen table and play with you guys after! On that note, I am going to go drink my wine AWAY from my computer. I don’t want to come back tomorrow complaining about spillage…..

1) Do you sit down and only eat dinner or do you eat and do other activities at the same time?

2) What is your favorite dinner to cook right now?:

Hello Boston!

MissyMaintains — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:00:28 +0000

Hope everyone had a nice weekend! I went to Boston for the day on Saturday! It was very spur of the moment but unplanned vacations are always the best! Mari and I had a conversation about going last week so we bought bus tickets Thursday and left early Saturday morning! We took Megabus because it was only $18 on the way there and $13 on the way back! Can’t beat that!

I woke up extra early to do a quick strength DVD and make breakfast. I did about 10 minutes of strength and then decided I better get ready because you never know how the subways are going to run on weekends! I made a nice,filling breakfast since I knew we would be on the bus for 4 hours!

I cooked up an egg white omelet with Laughing Cow cheese and a slice of Rudy’s bread with apple butter. It did the trick and kept me full the entire way there. Luckily the subway ride to the bus was quick so I was able to get a Starbucks Soy Sugar-free Vanilla Latte on the way! I am hooked on those right now!

The bus was nicer than I expected and I managed to get my own seat! The ride was great except for the guy behind Mari! He was eating the ENTIRE bus ride. That would have been fine except for the fact that he happened to be eating the loudest foods ever!! He started off with crackers, then had an apple, then celery! The celery smelled and he was chomping on it so loud!! I think he was doing it on purpose to be extra annoying but who knows. At least it provided us with some bus entertainment! Mari and I pretty much took over Twitter because we were so bored! Never a good idea to put two girls with A.D.D. on a bus together. We made it there around 1:30 and waited outside for the lovely Naomi from One Fit Foodie to pick us up! She told us she had a couple of hours to show us around a bit! We took a few pictures and acted like tourists while waiting.

Like any blind date, I always get a little nervous before meeting a new blogger! I already felt like we were friends though since I’ve been stalking her blog for at least a year now! Naomi pulled up and it really did feel like we were already friends! We decided to head to Newbury street for some lunch and shopping! We got a nice little tour of Boston on the way since driving around there is extremely confusing! Eventually we made it to Newbury Street and decided on a Greek restaurant called Steve’s.

I ordered the Vegetarian Platter with fries. I was so starving by this point that I really needed those fries after seeing someone else eating them. Our waitress was not that greatest and brought me out a veggie wrap with chips on the side. It did not look so good but I felt bad sending it back. Luckily I had 2 foodies with me that convinced me to ask for what I originally ordered! I am glad I did!!

This was delicious! So many veggies along with a feta cheese salad! Perfect lunch!

Mari’s been craving falafel for about a month now so she was a very happy camper when she saw it on the menu.

Perfect lunch choice! Thanks Naomi!

While Mari and I were tweeting on the bus, Ashleigh from Ashleigh’s Slice of Life saw that we were in Boston and tweeted that she lives there too! She decided to come and meet us on Newbury Street! This is why I love Twitter!

Mari, Ashleigh, Naomi, Me

Naomi had to go but dropped us off at Fanueil Hall so we could see the touristy section of Boston.

I snapped some photos during the drive. I had to get a picture of the Cherry Mart for Missy Maintains purposes (my first header had giant cherries in case you are wondering).

We wanted to take a trolly tour (and a duck tour) but did not have enough time! It was a bit cold for a duck tour anyway.

We were going to get dessert from the famous Mike’s Pastry until we saw the line….

Crazy! The line was probably twice as long as what you see in the picture. I guess his pastries really are THAT good!

Cheers!

I went to Boston once before when I was young and eating at Cheers is the only part of the trip I remember!

Naomi had to leave but Ashleigh took over as our tour guide for the day! We shopped and eventually decided we needed to have some beer before we left Boston! We went to a bar called Sissy K’s. They had Bud Light for $1.50!! I have not seen a price like that since college! I realized the Bud Light was so cheap after I ordered my Stella. Oh well! Stella is way better anyway!

I was supposed to see my friend from elementary school too but unfortunately he had to work till 6:00 and our bus was at 7:00. Looks like I will have to come back to Boston soon! Next time I will plan better because there are still so many bloggers I want to meet (ahem MelissaNibbles!!) It is nice to know that it only takes 4 hours to get there!

The entire day, Mari was dying to hear someone talk in a real Boston accent. Naomi warned us that most people there do not have thick accents. She was right! As we were heading back to the bus station, we spotted a fire station. We were taking pictures of the Boston fire trucks and one of the fire fighters opened the gate for us! He invited us in and even gave us his hat to wear! He had a thick Boston accent so Mari was happy! As soon we walked in, the sirens started to go off! All of the sexy fire men started falling out of the ceiling and sliding down the poles! We landed in heaven!!

Most of the firemen left to take care of the fire but we still got to stay and take a few pictures.

Perfect end to our trip!! The bus ride back seemed so much longer than the way there. We decided we would go to our favorite bar in Queens when we got back so I think the anticipation of drinking was killing me! I took a nice hour long nap but there was still 3 hours to go when I woke up. Hate when that happens. Luckily we made it to the bar by midnight!

Mari bought the most perfect shirt! She loves her Green Monstaaahhhhhs.

I got the most perfect beer. I love my Blue Moon!!

We stayed at the bar till 4 in the morning! I still have no idea how I lasted that long! We were awake for 24 hours straight! We also never had dinner since we had a late lunch so we decided to go to the T-Bone Diner after the bar closed. We were famished and needed to soak up the alcohol. Onion rings saved the day!

I was craving a turkey club all night for some reason. Bacon, bread, turkey, fries….exactly what I needed!

I made it to bed by 6:00 in the morning! I’d say it was a very productive 24 hours! It was nice to get away from NYC for the day. Boston is a much smaller and cleaner version of New York. I could definitely get used to being there. It was great to finally meet Naomi and Ashleigh too! My blind date was a success!

Have you ever been to Boston?

What city would you love to visit?