dinner

atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: A break?

wp-1678388231052

I missed last night’s workout because my kid needed me. We had a long talk which took up  my running time but it’s completely fine. It’s hard enough being a teenager, much less a trans teenager and I’m glad my kid can come to me if they need to. I “made up” for it today with the desk pedler.

These were the prepped meals for the last couple days, except for the popcorn. And that big bowl lasted three sittings. The Saxenda won’t let me eat so much. I used some of the seasoning packets from the ramen to season the popcorn.

Since the weekend is approaching, I’ll be switching to body weight workouts then starting cardio again on Monday. Part of me is looking forward to it and part of me is already over it. Either way, I still plan to keep up with being as active as possible.

Follow me on BlogLovin.

atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: The Usual Spiel

wp-1678148746160

I spoke to my doctor about my high triglycerides and while she’s not too concerned, we’re gonna keep an eye on it. The very nice (slightly nervous) young man training with her gave me the usual advice of more cardio and take fish oil. I guess it’s a good thing I decided to get back into running. I also noticed my blood pressure creeping up, too. I need to take it easy on the salt.

Today I had steak and bok choy for lunch and a salad for dinner. I’m not usually a breakfast person. I usually just have some coffee since I’m just not that hungry first thing in the morning. I was tempted into having a couple Oreos because there was a little party for a friend of mine who’s leaving for another job but I sincerely doubt two cookies are going to destroy my entire day.

I’m still in the first week of c25k and I took my measurements to track my progress in a way that’s not the scale. We’ll see how things go. I have to be a little careful since I have a new piercing to take care of but it’s ok as long as I don’t let it get all sweaty.

Follow me on BlogLovin.

atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: Replacements and New Meals

wp-1676303832740

My goal for the desk peddler now is to keep above 40 minutes if there’s time for me to do so. My stamina seems pretty good so the plan is to start adding the treadmill at the end of the day.

IMG_20230212_193320_856

Yesterday, I tried to replicate the grilled chicken salad I love to get from this little store by my job. It’s really good but over the years it’s gone from $5.99 to $7.99 to now over $10 and the portion got smaller. So, I got some precooked chicken breast from Butcher Box and put together the salad at home and it was perfect. Exactly like the one from the store. Again, I would love to support small businesses but I just can’t afford to splurge like that on a salad.

IMG_20230213_181035410

While I had more leftovers for lunch, I made this sandwich for dinner. It’s roast beef, red onion, romaine lettuce, a slice of tomato, and avocado on some take and bake garlic bread. Holy shit, this was AMAZING, and about 350 calories! I need to practice building a sandwich that doesn’t fall over and find a way to put this together in a way that I can pack for lunch and it won’t end up soggy. I didn’t have any chips as a side since the garlic butter on the bread was pretty salty (and you know me, I have a salt problem) but this was super filling and a way for me to incorporate avocado without getting put off by the texture and the fact it just tastes like grass to me. Next time, I may add some lemon or red wine vinegar and see how that tastes.

Once I get my new bread maker set up and make some bagels, I’ll make the sandwich with that, too. This is absolutely going to be a repeat in my meal rotation.

Follow me on BlogLovin.

atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: Crashing

wp-1667839640441

For some reason, Zombies Run kept crashing on me during my workout. After the third time, I just gave up and let Google Fit handle it. When I started, my knee was aching but after my warmup I was able to keep a relaxed pace for the rest of the run. The time passed pretty quickly, considering I didn’t have the mission to listen to. I’ll try again later in the week. Maybe they’ll roll out an update.

 Since I had the day off, I decided on beef ribs for lunch. I know people usually make complicated meals with these but, I literally just cook them on my grill pan with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. I don’t eat them often since they’re expensive but I felt like I needed a treat.

The second meal was complicated. Of course the weather randomly decides to get super warm when I need to use the oven for hours… I haven’t made spaghetti and meatballs in a long time and I’ve been meaning to use up the ground beef and pork I have. The portion in that bowl was WAY too much for me and I’m gonna end up finishing it off for lunch tomorrow and I have so much sauce left that dinner is gonna be easy for the rest of the week. I will have to add something green to this. I have some baby broccoli floating around that I bet would go great with this.

Follow me on BlogLovin.

atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: Guess who’s back…

wp-1666633114669

Yup! I’m back on the treadmill and doing Zombies Run! I’m not doing any kind of program or anything; just warming up for 5 minutes, a VERY easy jog for 20 minutes, then 5 minutes to cool down. I know weight loss and getting stronger isn’t all about the cardio but; I enjoy running and I’ll work on getting in more weights. I know I need to get my steps up and this is a really easy way to do it.

wp-1666650430963

Don’t judge my excessive garlic. I like it.

I know my doctor wanted me to take fish oil but I am still trying to eat more fish overall. I baked some salmon and using the seasoning packet from some ramen, I seasoned the fish and the noodles under that fish. I split it between me and the kid so it was less salt and calories overall. I would have had some green veggies with this but my Misfits Market delivery with what veggies I could use never came.

Am I cursed to not get Misfits Market deliveries on days when I’m off work? Because it doesn’t happen often but the two times Misfits Market hasn’t delivered when promised, I’ve been off work…

Anyway, I feel great getting on the treadmill again and enjoying the Zombies Run story. Still trying to figure out how to balance the right amount of cardio and weights around my job and… Everything else. But I’m sure I’ll get there.

Follow me on BlogLovin.

atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: I’m Okay!

wp-1665689754114

More peddler today but the main star is trying out salmon in the electric lunch box.

The last time I tried putting salmon in this thing, I put the salmon in the fridge to marinate, didn’t remember how long I’d had it in there, figured it’d be fine if I cooked it enough, and ended up spending the next day bent over the toilet heaving my guts out. That was years ago and I still was afraid to see how this was going to turn out. But, luckily this was fine. And it was filling and delicious.

I still think beef and chicken are the best for this type of recipe. Maybe lemon would be better with the fish instead of soy sauce but my all time favorite is sliced or cubed beef with broccoli instead of bok choy. The noodles are fun but not necessary. I used Black Garlic Oil ramen but only half the block and half the seasoning because the soy sauce is already salty; I don’t need the ramen seasoning on top of that.

The next few days I’m gonna be taking it easy and enjoying the parts of the weekend I don’t have to work. I’m still pondering if I want to do NaNoWriMo this year or what I would even write about. All the series I have are short stories except for the First Brood series and I already started book 4. That would be cheating to start a challenge with a few thousand words already written. Maybe I’ll have a lightbulb moment over the next couple weeks.

Follow me on BlogLovin.

atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: Hello carbs!

wp-1665596872558

I kinda took it easy on the desk peddler today as I could still feel some soreness from last weekend. For lunch I just had the same salad as last night but I had some fun with dinner.

img_20221012_1814383216500086169367609144

I noticed the diced tomatoes were building up in the fridge so I cooked some tri color vegetable pasta, chopped up garlic and onion, sauteed them in olive oil and added the tomatoes. Simmer for a bit with some of the pasta water and top with some shredded Parmesan! You may feel like those onions aren’t cooked enough but I like my veggies crunchy. I kinda miss the garlic scrapes from Misfits Market but they haven’t had those in stock again.

It’s been awhile since I made pasta at home and it was super filling. I’m glad I split my old portion into two so I have lunch for tomorrow. It’s my late night so, I have to bring two meals. I plan to experiment a little… Cross your fingers I don’t make myself sick… Again.

Follow me on BlogLovin.

atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: This weekend is gonna be interesting…

I took a walk during my lunch break in normal shoes but I also tested out the shoes I’m going to wear with my cosplay this weekend and they’re as comfortable to walk in as one would expect since they’re heels. I anticipated this and I have foot pads and I plan to bring sneakers to wear for the lions share of the walking. I apparently love torture since I walk from Penn to Javitz.

wp-16650898715311497534200952832660

Since I didn’t eat much of anything for lunch (I just ate an apple) I went all out for dinner. There’s some plain ramen noodles under those veggies and ground beef. I might have over done it with the chili crisp but I enjoyed eating this and the kid liked it (with enoki mushrooms, go figure). I like the combination of snow peas and bok choy. It’s crunchy goodness!

Tomorrow is NYCC day one. I won’t be thinking about my diet much since all that walking makes me not want to eat much. I just feel tired and have sore feet.

Follow me on BlogLovin.

atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout and More Electric Lunch Box Food

wp-1663264175987

I felt pretty productive today; finishing off a bunch of books, returning them, clearing away space on my desk, and making sure I have a healthy lunch and prepped what I wanna make for dinner… And I was able to get my heart rate up enough to make me feel like some good calorie burn happened.

Now, I was talking about the electric lunchbox I use at work – where my co-workers get mad it’s not a buffet and don’t bring enough to share – and the steamed meals I make in them.

These are the raw ingredients before I started cooking. Those are small bits of sliced chicken in soy sauce with my usual spices: paprika, cumin and red pepper. I use plain noodles and break the block in half. One pack is over 400 calories, no way I’m eating the whole thing. The greens are bok choy, sliced garlic, white onion, and ginger. I end up having to cook in stages; the chicken first for 15 minutes, add the bok choy in the top section at the 15 minute mark, and the noodles in hot water at the 20 minute mark. At 25 minutes, it’s all done.wp-1663292941402

Sometimes (as in most of the time), I end up over packing the vegetables. I eat what’s cooked and let the rest steam a bit longer. I don’t like my veggies too soggy. I like the crunch. When I do broccoli, I leave the veggies in the entire time since that takes much longer to cook than the bok choy. The water I use to cook the noodles dilutes the soy sauce (I try to use low sodium but that’s not always on sale and I’m a cheap bitch) and the chili crunch is just delicious and fun.

This is a filling dinner that is so satisfying (even though the red pepper makes my nose run, which is gross but worth it). If I get one pack of chicken tenders from Trader Joe’s or Butcher Box, that makes two of these types of meals. I change up the vegetables (I already ranted about my issues with the broccoli from Misfits Market here) and those ramen packs are so cheap when they’re on discount and also last two meals. If I don’t have any noodles, I just add more veggies.

One of these days, I’ll post the version of this I make with lemon chicken and peppers (unless I did that already and fuck it, I’ll do it again) which I have had mixed results adding rice but for that, I just skip the carbs entirely. Rice is hit or miss for me with the electric lunch box. Or at least this kind of electric lunch box because I backed a different one on Kickstarter (yeah, not sponsored or an affiliate for anything I have linked here) that I’ll have to play around with when I get it to see what kinds of meals I can make or if it’s best for just reheating things. Either one would help me out since the microwave can kill food sometimes.

So… I went on a tangent about my food and the geeky products I own. If I put this meal into MyFitnessPal, it’s about 500 calories total; which is good for me since I don’t feel the need to snack at all hours after eating this. If I make this for lunch, I don’t even need dinner. That’s probably the Saxenda as a factor as well but a good workout and getting my steps in burns all this off no problem.

Uhm… I don’t have anything clever to say to end this. I’m tired and going to bed.

Follow me on BlogLovin.

atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout, Flame Con, and Food.

This weekend was Flame Con and even though I usually don’t cook after running around all day in the city, Saturday I had some peppers I didn’t want to go bad so I made sure to cook something fairly simple.

IMG_20220820_203946_099

And of course, I had an amazing time at Flame Con. Everyone at this con is just super nice and polite, accepting and it’s just the most positive vibes I’ve felt in a public setting in a long time. I bought too many books (as is my usual habit) and even had some of them signed!

I’ll be reviewing them for the blog when I get around to them. I have a pile I’m already working through.

After walking around so much all day, I didn’t do any cardio for my workouts. I decided on Sunday to do my body weight apps and some stretching. I did more stretching than just the app because all that walking made me very sore.

This week, I hope to get back to Zombies Run. I decided to try out their 5k training program rather than C25K because I’m very curious about it. And it’s cooled off, so I don’t mind hitting the treadmill. We’ll see how I can handle a faster running pace after taking a break for so long.

Follow me on BlogLovin.