Banished from the Face of the Earth

Good morning! How goes it?

I got my day started with a quick, yet effective, workout incorporating the treadmill and some free weights:

I upped the number of reps in my free weight circuit from 12 to 15, because the 5lb weights are a little too easy, but the 8lb weights (which is the next heaviest at my gym) are a little too hard right now. I can totally tell the difference when adding those extra three reps in. It was a struggle on my last circuit – but a good struggle, you know? Oh, and let me just tell you, inclines are where it’s at! After 5 minutes at an 8% incline, I was breathing just as hard as my 10  minute run at 7mph! Wheee! Do you ever play around with inclines on the treadmill?

I created a Frankenstein-esque breakfast today by combining two of my favorite things – overnight oats and pumpkin pie yogurt to make one stellar combo: Pumpkin Pie Overnight Oats!

God bless food blogs. I honestly don’t think I would have ever eaten as much of the awesome orange stuff without them to provide so much pumpkin creation inspiration! Between yogurt, pancakes, pie, oatmeal, butter - the pumpkin possibilities are endless, people!

In this morning’s PPOO mix:

Combine all the ingredients, stash in the fridge overnight and devour in the sweet, sweet morning.

Totally loving adding pumpkin to overnight oats, to yogurt, to oatmeal, to…anything! It adds a ton of “girth” without adding a lot of calories. Very nutrient dense, to boot!

This was so yummy and perfect for a post-workout breakfast. Creamy, chewy, VOLUMINOUS and perfectly sweet. We’ve got a repeater on our hands!

Lunch today is a complete mish-mash of items – which happens to be one of my favorite types of lunches. All kinds of textures and flavors…fun.

I’ll be starting with an almond butter and thin bun sandwich. Thin bun? Nice name!

Perfectly swirled with almond butter, obviously.

These “thin buns” go by many names depending on the brand. Thin buns, deli thin, sandwich thin – no matter what they’re called though, they’re all really, really good.

At first glance you might think they’re dry little pathetic excuses for bread or buns – but they’re actually super moist and great for a variety of eats. Ben and I both LOVED them with our BBQ Bacon Burgers last night!

Eek – doesn’t this kind of look like a one eyed rattle snake?!

I also packed some leftover roasted asparagus from last night. Misted with olive oil, sprinkled with garlic salt and roasted for 13 minutes at 400 degrees. Tender and flavorful as can be!

Rounding out the mish-mash is a grape & kiwi salad.

Super summery, no? Kiwis always make me think of fruity, fresh, summery salads – and these babies were 5/$1 at the store this weekend. Sweet!

Mixed with some grapes – this is a perfect little fruit salad.

To be eaten in shifts, for sure. Awesome!  

In other news – I’m fortunate to be the lucky lady featured in Refrigerator Soup’s “Twenty Questions with our Favorite Food Bloggers” feature this week! Refrigerator Soup doles out the yummiest, most delectable food blog creations on the web, all in one place. Super great. Check out my twenty answers if you get a chance!

Have a supah Tuesday!

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Taken from the Twenty Questions feature, because it made me laugh:

If you could banish just one food from the earth, what would it be?

I cheated and banished three: cooked carrots, bell peppers and mushrooms. Iiiiiiiick!

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