Showing posts with label Overnight Oats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Overnight Oats. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Vegan Challenge - Day Eight

  • Weight: N/A
  • Meals:
    • Breakfast: Overnight Oatmeal (1/2 cup oats, 1/3 cup unsweetened vanilla soy milk, 1 tsp agave nectar, and 1 Tbsp chia seeds; 235 Cal)
    • Lunch: Seaweed Salad and 2 Thai style spring rolls (~250 Cal)
    • Dinner: Vegan Alfredo with Asparagus (see recipe below; ~475 Cal, depending on how much sauce you use, we ended up only using about 2/3 of the sauce)
  • Snacks:
    • Cherries (4 oz, yields, 65 Cal)
    • Peanut Butter (1 Tbsp, 95 Cal)
    • Vegan Oatmeal Cookie Dough with walnuts and craisins (165 Cal, assuming 20 cookies make the whole batch)
  • Drinks:
    • Coffee with Stevia and few Tbsp of unsweetened vanilla soy (~10 Cal)
    • 16 oz Tazo Zen Green Tea (0 Cal)
    • 1 can of Diet Dr. Pepper (0 Cal)
    • 24 oz water + Peach Mango Mio (0 Cal)
  • Multivitamin: Yes (bought more, finally)
  • Exercise(s):
    • Pilates (50 min)
    • Zumba (60 min)
  • Thoughts:
    • The weekend was harder than I anticipated, although I was able to keep to a vegetarian diet.  I just couldn't justify paying $25 for the buffet to only eat a salad... but I was at least still good about not eating any chicken, pork, or beef!  I also was good about only eating one meal with dairy, not all three meals.  Thank goodness I already prefer my Mexican food without meat!  I can easily go without cheese and/or sour cream on my burrito, especially when there's guacamole in there!  Anyhow, that's just a side note since I didn't post all weekend.  The Vegan Alfredo was good.  I didn't care for the smoked paprika in there, I would just do regular next time (it had an overwhelming hot dog flavor which I attribute to the smoked paprika but may have been the nutritional yeast, not sure yet).  For lunch, I had saved a nice can of Progresso Vegetarian Vegetable soup at work in case of an emergency, but on second inspection of the ingredients, the noodles had eggs in them!  So I ran to the store and got a few things from the sushi-deli.  The seaweed salad was yummy and so were the rolls.  I would have liked avocado in them, though!  They had lettuce, cellophane noodles, and tofu wrapped inside rice paper and were served with a peanut dipping sauce.  Pretty delish, for a last minute decision!  I'll be making my next lunch salad series after the farmer's market tomorrow.  I bought myself a can of (acceptable) soup for tomorrow.  When we got back from Reno, we wanted cookies, so made a batch of Vegan Oatmeal Cookies.  They were good baked, but better raw.  And since there's no eggs in the mix, we decided to just plop a cookie sized lump of batter on a tiny plate for dessert! Yum!
 Vegan Alfredo with Asparagus
Makes 2 Servings (560 Cal per serving)

  • 1 Cup Unsweetened Soymilk
  • 1/3 Cup Raw, Unsalted Cashews
  • 1/4 Cup Nutritional Yeast
  • 3 Tbsp Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
  • 2 Tbsp Earth Balance Margarine
  • 1 Tbsp Tahini
  • 1 Tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice
  • 2 tsp Dijon Mustard
  • 1/2 tsp Paprika (smoked is awesome)
  • 1 Pinch Nutmeg
  • 4 Cloves of Garlic, rough chopped or pressed
  • Black pepper, to taste
  • 10 Leaves Fresh Basil, torn
  • Cooking Spray
  • 1 Bunch Asparagus, cut on a diagonal into 1 inch pieces
  • 1/2 Onion, diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
  • 3 oz Whole Wheat Pasta (Spaghetti or Fettuccine)
  1. Cook pasta al dente according to package directions.
  2. While the pasta is cooking, add the first 12 ingredients (up to the Basil) to a blender and blend until smooth.
  3. Sauté the onion in a large skillet sprayed with cooking spray over medium heat for 3 minutes.  Add asparagus and sauté for another 7 minutes. Throw the garlic in for the last 30 seconds to 1 minute.
  4. Drain the pasta and return it to the hot empty panalong with the asparagus mixture.  Pour the sauce over, place on medium heat, and stir until heated through. Serve with lots of fresh cracked black pepper and the torn basil.

    Thursday, June 21, 2012

    Vegan Challenge - Day Three

    • Weight: 148.6 lbs (-3.8 lbs total, probably still equalizing from weekend eating)
    • Meals:
      • Breakfast: Overnight Oatmeal (1/2 cup oats, 1/3 cup unsweetened vanilla soy milk, 1 tsp agave nectar, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and 1 Tbsp chia seeds; 240 Cal-now, that's more like it!)
      • Lunch: Sushi Roll Edamame Salad (using 1/4 cup dry quinoa instead of brown rice today, 402 Cal)
      • Dinner: E2 Veggie Burger on Multi-Grain Sandwich Thin with Sweet Potato Fries (500 Cal)
    • Snacks:
      • Blueberries (2.5 oz, 40 Cal)
      • Cherries (4 oz, yields, 65 Cal)
      • 1 Tbsp Peanut Butter (95 Cal)
      • 1/2 cup Mango Sorbet (120 Cal)
    • Drinks:
      • Coffee with Stevia and few Tbsp of unsweetened vanilla soy (~10 Cal)
      • 16 oz Tazo Passion Tea (0 Cal)
      • 24 oz water + mango-peach Mio (0 Cal)
      • 16 oz water (0 Cal)
    • Multivitamin: Yes
    • Exercise(s):
      • Walk around the block at lunch (25 min)
      • Zumba (50 min)
      • Zumba cool-down (abs+stretching, 10 min)
    • Thoughts:
      • I feel great.  I'm liking the scale numbers, but I'm sure it was just some extra water weight I put on by not paying attention to my diet for a few weeks... ah, summer.  The oats this morning were just the right amount!  I might omit the cinnamon tomorrow and top it off with blueberries instead, more like my yogurt habit but with oats!  Made it to Zumba today, took it easy on my ankle, still pretty purple. Since that wasn't over until 7, dinner was late - too late for my liking. Next Wednesday will have to be planned better. Sweet potato fries were surprisingly delicious!  Especially for having nothing on them!  The veggie burger turned out HUGE, way bigger than that tiny sandwich thin I put it on. Smeared some avocado and some horseradish mustard on the toasted bun and was very satisfied.  Now I have 4 in the freezer ready to eat, so that's nice.  Maybe I'll have that next Wednesday, afterall.  I still need to work on getting my calorie count down to 1200 on this eating plan. As long as I'm going to the gym, I don't so much mind the 1500 Cal/day.  It's hard, with all the carbs... so it's less fat, for sure, but it's more carbs too.  So far, no weird cravings.  I'm expecting those to hit this weekend when I suddenly want CHEESE!  Gotta stay positive!  Until then...

    Wednesday, June 20, 2012

    Vegan Challenge - Day Two

    • Weight: 149.6 lbs (-2.8 lbs, yesterday's weight was likely due to crazy weekend eating?)
    • Meals:
      • Breakfast: Overnight Oatmeal (using mixed berry soy yogurt and unsweetened vanilla soy milk - not the same recipe as yesterday's, 530 Cal-hmmm, might need to change that for tomorrow, that's too many calories for one meal)
      • Lunch: Sushi Roll Edamame Salad (including the edamame this time, 375 Cal)
      • Dinner: Thai Basil Tofu Stir-fry (no oyster sauce) with Red Rice from the Farmer's Market (wild guess based on online search ~400 Cal, hopefully that's an overestimate)
    • Snacks:
      • Coconut Milk Cookies & Cream Ice Cream (140 Cal)
      • Popsicle (45 Cal)
    • Drinks:
      • Coffee with Stevia and few Tbsp of unsweetened vanilla soy (~10 Cal)
      • 24 oz water + black cherry Mio (0 Cal) 
      • Diet Dr. Pepper (0 Cal)
      • 16 oz water (0 Cal)
    • Multivitamin: Yes
    • Exercise(s):
      • Walk around the block at lunch (25 min)
      • Walk to/from Old Navy Project in SF (20 min)
    • Thoughts:
      •  Too much food today.  That breakfast might be better used before or after a weekend workout, but I'm still learning.  I really had my Greek Yogurt breakfast down pat!  Now that I've made it a few times, I can pretty much make my own conconction now, with a more appropriate amount of Calories.  We had an ice cream party at work.  I sat there with my salad while everyone made sundaes that looked nice and cool and refreshing.  Luckily, there were fruit popsicles - a healthier (and lactose free) alternative, so it was ok, really.  Probably saved myself 100 Cal, minimum!  Didn't make it to the gym, my ankle is still a little too purple for my liking.  Zumba is tomorrow, not going to miss that!  Farmer's Market today will also help load me up on some fruit to have as snacks... since we polished off that coconut milk ice cream (and I don't intend to replace it).  Had to go to SF for an Old Navy survey I did where I had to buy some t-shirts and wear and wash them a few times and then blog about any quality issues I found.  Today was the last part of the project, where we came and actually wore the shirts and talked about them with an outside company.  Kinda interesting.  I like Old Navy, so it was a fun project.  PLUS, they gave me $200 for finishing the project (plus an Old Navy gift card, not sure how much is on there).  Reno, here I come!  Anyhow, Ryan went to the Market, since I was in SF.  He brought me home the oyster-sauceless and bell-pepperless Thai food (which was still quite yummy, they doubled up on the green beans YAY!) for my dinner, which I scarfed immediately down over an episode of Game of Thrones (season one, from Netflix-no spoliers please!).  I'm feeling pretty good, overall, but I do feel like I am overloaded with carbs... but I guess that's all you can eat when you're vegan, eh?  I just need to keep track of my portions and it should be fine.  My upcoming Reno trip will be the true test!  I'm thinking veggie sushi and pho and corn on the cob galore!  I will make it work :)

    Monday, June 18, 2012

    Vegan Challenge - Day One

    • Weight: 152.4 lbs (yikes! when did that happen?!?)
    • Meals:
      • Breakfast: Overnight Oatmeal (agave nectar in place of honey, 345 Cal)
        Before putting it in the fridge

        The next day; all milk soaked up
      • Lunch: Sushi Roll Edamame Salad (edamame omitted for today only, forgot to buy it! 325 Cal)
        Salad Dressing,  Green Onion-Miso Vinaigrette ingredients


        Blend well and voila! Yummy dressing!

      • Dinner: E2 Rice & Beans (bell peppers omitted, 485 Cal)
    • Snacks:
      • Coconut Milk Cookies & Cream Ice Cream (140 Cal)
    • Water:
      • 32 oz tea (Green + Mint, unsweetened/plain)
      • 16 oz water
    • Multivitamin: Yes
    • Exercise(s):
      • Walk at lunch (25 min)
    • Thoughts:
      • I can't believe how filling the meals were, I was definitely not left wanting more!  In fact, the rice & beans were almost too hard to finish-even Ryan thought so (although he did add a gruyere cheese and garlic chicken sausage to his bowl).  The oatmeal was better than I thought it would be, I ate it cold and didn't need to add extra milk or anything.  Tonight, I think I will make it with some of the fruit-flavored soy yogurt I picked up instead of the soy milk.  I didn't make it to pilates tonight, I forgot to account for the fact that I was out of gas and had to stop on the way.  It's probably better, I think my ankle was sprained when I twisted it the other day in those crazy shoes.  Hopefully I can make it to the gym in the morning to make up for it.  The swelling has gone down a bit from yesterday and I made sure to wear an ankle brace for most of the day (until it eventually cut my circulation off too much to bear).  The prep time for the meals took longer than I expected, so I'm glad I made the full batch and now have lunch for the next three days.  The oatmeal is quick and painless, so that's easy.  Tomorrow is Farmer's Market day, so new fruits and veggies are on their way!  We'll likely eat there, I need to make sure to ask if what I want is vegan.  I liked the Thai Basil Tofu Stir-fry I had last week, but I am not sure whether it had fish sauce in it.  If not, I'll probably order that again. They also had some really tasty Thai Spring Rolls, if not.  I feel pretty good - full, but not weighted down.  It is going to be hard to not overdo it on the carbs, even though brown rice & beans are possibly the healthiest of carbs I could choose - better than bread, for example.  Got to make sure I keep the protein up, the chia seeds can help with that a little bit.  Beans are the next best thing.  Off to finish watching the Falling Skies premiere, so glad it came back!


    What going vegan looked like after my (~$60) trip to Whole Foods