Bento #8

I've been sick the last few weeks, so I've been in zombie mode pretty contstantly.
My mouth hurts, due to said illness. It's difficult to talk and it hurts to eat hard, chewy, acidic or spicy foods, so it makes mealtime interesting.
I'm on antibiotics that have to be taken on an empty stomach (1hr before eating or 2hrs after eating.), so I have to pay a lot of attention to when I'm eating.

Brunch was soup.

Lunch/Dinner today is:
2 teriyaki salmon onigiri
1/4 green pepper
1/8 apple pear
Vegetable supreme cup-a-soup
fruit & gelatin cup (peaches in strawberry gelatin - yum!)
Mango juice

The Sun Run clinic has been going well. Today's session requires a 30 min walk - 5min slow warm-up, 20 min brisk walk, 5min slow cool-down. I'm going to leave for work a half-hour early so I can get it in, since I'm working late tonight.

Bento #7

This is from a few days ago.
I randomly decided that I wanted coleslaw, and made my own. I only did a small batch:
1 tsp mayo
1 tsp rice vinegar
1/2 tsp honey
pinch paprika
handfull of coleslaw mix (green and red cabbage, carrots)
4 tart green grapes
toasted sesame seeds.
I mixed the dressing first, then added the rest to the bowl, covered in plastic wrap and gave it a good shake to make sure everything was coated.
It had a nice mild slightly buttery flavour.

The rest of the time, I've been taking the tv-dinners to work.

Yesterday morning I did 30min of yoga, then left an hour early for work, so I could head to the community centre and register for the Vancouver Sun Run walking clinic. The community centre is about a 30min walk from my house.
From there, I could have taken the bus to a skytrain station, but I chose to walk for another 30min to the skytrain station.

This morning I did another 30min of yoga, but I got out of bed later, so no long walk today.
The yoga I'm doing is from the "lets yoga!" video game I bought. It's really good so far - I've just been combining three of the lessons in the first section to make up 30mins. It's onto the next section tomorrow!

Tomorrow, I am re-joining the Burnaby Lake walking group (approx 10k / 2 hours), and then Sunday is the first walking clinic.

The Sun Run itself is 10k, which I know that I can already do, but it will be nice to see how fast I can do it.
Oh, and I can't run for medical reasons. My left knee has been buggered since I was in highschool - my kneecap likes to dislocate if I repeatedly bend my knee, so running and cycling are bad things for me. Walking is okay, and I can manage stairs as long as I haven't already been walking for a long time.

I'm going to be "bad" today and get some fast food for lunch before work - a spicy teriyaki chicken rice box.
There is this little takeout place downtown called Kushi Box they are super cheap, and all they serve is chicken on rice in a takeout box. You can choose from teriyaki, tsukune or karaage - oh, sorry, they do have pork toro as well.

Bento #6

I had oatmeal crisp (triple berry - yum!) for breakfast - 1-1/2 cups with 1/2 cup skim milk (I don't like milk and milk doesn't like me). It was pretty good.

I didn't specifically get to go for my hour walk this morning, but I did get at least an hour of walking done while picking up veggies and cleaning supplies.

I was starved when I got back home, so I had a sandwich (portugese roll, ham, turkey, garlic & herb cream cheese, havarti, lettuce)

Then my bento box this afternoon.
I included an apple bunny, an octodog, carrots, cucumber, snow peas, 3 chicken nuggets (blue label from President's Choice) with homemade jalapeno jelly for dipping (thanks to my grandmother) and I made onigiri stuffed with a bit of tuna salad. Oh, and a toffee for a treat.
The Mister got the same thing, minus the cucumber (he doesn't like it, so I threw in more carrots to compensate) and with an extra nugget. He liked the octodog.

Dinner was a new rice mix I wanted to try - it's also from the blue label line. It's called "Bayou Blend" with 3 kinds of rice, black eyed peas and red beans. I added some cajun spice to add a bit more kick, but it was pretty good. The leftovers are going in the bentos tomorrow.
I served it with maple smoked sausage (1 for me, 1-1/2 for the Mister)

***

When I was at my doctor's today, I was getting a prescription re-filled for migraine medication. She asked how that was going, and I let her know that I pretty much stopped getting them (my prescription had actually expired with several refills left). I used to get them monthly, but hadn't had one for a few months. One hit and it was a doozy, but I've been fine for a few months since.
She asked if I could think of anything that may have changed to cause this, and really, the only thing I can think of is ... my diet and activity level.
Hooray for all around health!

New Year ... let's see if I can do better at this

Some Stats:

I'm back up to 195 - I was down to 189, but gained it back.
I haven't been doing my 10k walks lately due to work and holidays and such. I should be able to fix that though - I work this Saturday but the rest of January is clear.
I haven't been as diligent in my eating habits, but I'm still making good choices for the most part.
Must stop being lazy.

Some Musings:

I've found I'm getting a lot of support from one of my co-workers - she lost a lot of weight a few years ago, so she's got lots of tips - especially for those times where I'm craving something that's bad for me.

I was in the grocery store today and found that I was looking at labels. I never thought I would, but there I was, holding 2 boxes of cereal and comparing calories, fiber, sugar, etc. It felt weird, but good.

My sister-in-law bought me a water bottle belt so I can go for walks without having to carry my water bottle in my hand. I hope that will motivate me!

I've found that when I'm too lazy to make a bento, the President's Choice blue label frozen entrées (Superstore) are really good. I especially like their roasted vegetable lasagna and today I bought one that has seasoned chicken with veggies and barley. They are low calorie, low fat, fast options.

The Mister likes the bentos - I wasn't too sure how he would take to them, but he likes them and enjoys it when I put fun things in (I made salmon teriyaki sushi a few weeks ago). His co-worker and manager are jealous that I make him lunch and apparently often comment on the containers or the different things I include.

***

Purchases to help me out:

I pretty much always have my Nintendo DS with me, so I figured, why not put it to use?

I bought "My Weight Loss Coach" a while ago. It's cute and has fun exercise and food related goals and challenges. It really focuses on the walking - it comes with a pedometer that you can plug into the DS and it keeps track of your 'distance'. The only thing I don't like is the food / activity balance. I can almost never get a "balanced day" because healthy things like vegetables count as "zero energy". The only time I've ever been "balanced" is when I had a really unhealthy food day.

I also bought "Let's Yoga" I haven't used it yet, but I've taken a good look around at the game and it seems like it will be fun. It has 25 "classes" where you learn different poses and routines - the first few are under 10 minutes each, but I'm sure you could fairly easily combine them to do more. Then there is a separate section with different categories like 'chair yoga' and such. It explains how to get into the poses and the avatar does them (you can also look at each pose in a different section and rotate it so you can see it from all angles)

For Christmas, my co-workers gave me a gift card for Daiso, which is where I love to go to get my bento supplies.
I bought a blue bento box for myself and a red one for The Mister - they are from the Nakano Lunch Co. and part of their "URARA" line. The blue one has a dragonfly. The red one was harder to identify - I thought it was a seed of some sort and my husband said it looked like an alien, so I looked it up and it's a rabbit! I can totally see it now that I've looked again.
I also picked up some more 'mayo containers', some short picks and some silicone cups (they all fit together into the shape of a bento box) and an onigiri mold.
There is another set of the silicone cups I want and I'd like to pick up some longer picks and some sushi grass dividers. I'm becoming a bento addict.
I also introduced my mom to the idea, and since my younger sister (16) likes eating small portions of food, my mom thought she'd have fun with it. I picked up a plain pink bento box for her and I'm giving her a few of my accessories as well to get her started.

***

Tomorrow:

I have a doctor's appointment in the morning, and after that I plan on taking at least an hour long walk around the city. I think on the way back from my walk, I will swing by the mall so I can stock up on veggies. Then it's laundry time (ugh), but at least it will keep me busy.

Time to go back into the kitchen to do some cooking for our lunches - the Mister is back to work from the holidays, and I try to pack myself a bento when I go to my grandmother's house for laundry.
I have some leftover sausages from the other day - I think I will make octodogs ... hehehe