April 04, 2013

Killer cravings

This morning, I got up bright and early at 5:15. I wanted to run and shower before the kids got up. My plan was to run four miles, so I did a mile warm-up and then ran three miles. I'm not sure what to call that pace, because it's faster than an "easy" pace (8:45/mi), but it's slower than a "tempo" pace (8:05/mi). I guess I could call it my "happy pace", because that's where I do most of my running!

I was watching the season three finale of Sons of Anarchy, which was a longer episode than normal, so I knew I wouldn't be able to finish the whole thing. But I ended up running a mile cool down so that I could watch a little more. I'm definitely liking it more now that they are back in California!

I plugged in my ActiveLink after my run, and saw that I was already at 78% of my daily activity goal, and it was only 6:15 AM!

Yesterday was a rest day, and it took me ALL DAY to finally reach 100%--and I was pretty active yesterday. I ran a few errands in the morning, walked on the treadmill while reading a book (which I'm going to review soon), went for a walk outside in the evening, put away laundry and cleaned up the house... the only time I sat down yesterday was to write my blog. I was at 93% when I finally sat down last night with Jerry to watch some of our shows, so I jogged in place during a few commercial breaks just to hit 100%. Some days, I don't even come close to my goal, but when I was that close, I wanted to just finish it out.

I've been having some killer cravings lately for specific food items. Of course, they aren't healthy things; so I've been making substitutes, and they work so well!

The first is pecan pancakes from Cracker Barrel. I looked for a lower-calorie pancake recipe, and I found one for banana pancakes in Hungry Girl's 200 under 200 recipe book. I used whole wheat pastry flour (instead of regular whole wheat), and I added pecans. They were AMAZING! (I put the recipe over on my recipes page). So I've been on a banana pecan pancakes kick for breakfast lately.


Another craving I've had is for this pasta at Olive Garden--I can't remember what it is, but it was penne coated with alfredo sauce and then topped with marinara sauce and cheese. Or something like that! Anyway, I did a VERY simplified version of it a couple of days ago, and it was so good that it killed my craving. I didn't take a picture, because I honestly didn't think it would taste very good using jarred alfredo sauce.

I just cooked gemelli pasta (12 oz dry) and added a whole jar of light alfredo sauce and stirred it together to coat the pasta. Then I topped each serving with a couple of spoonfuls of diced tomatoes, and a Tbsp. of parmesan cheese. I used this seasoning grinder thing that I bought for a quarter on clearance. This stuff is awesome, on all kinds of different foods!
The ingredients are just sea salt, tomatoes, roasted garlic, black peppercorns, sweet basil, dehydrated green bell peppers, and dehydrated red onion.

My biggest craving has been for a Reese's Cup Blizzard--and I haven't thought of a decent way to kill that one! When I took Noah to the Dairy Queen, I ordered one, but it wasn't good. The ice cream place by my house makes REALLY good ones (tons of Reese's) but it would use up all of my PointsPlus for the week, I'm sure.

Tonight, my kids have the task of choosing a winner for the cat food! I've gotten probably about a hundred photos, so it's definitely a difficult job. I think I'll put all the photos into a slide show, so if you want, you can see all the submissions. They're too cute not to share! Here's a picture I just took of Phoebe a few minutes ago...

7 comments:

  1. On the subject of DQ and their blizzards, My Honey liked the Whopper blizzard until they were discontinued. Now we take our own box of whoppers and ask if they'll blend it for us. We get a medium and split it.

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  2. McDonald's has McFlurries, and usually they have a Reese's one. They have a mini size that's a great portion and made with their moderately good-for-you ice cream.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I can tell you! I can tell you! Cut up two bananas into one inch pieces. Freeze them solid. Then take them out and throw them in a food processor. Add peanut butter. Process. Peanut Butter Cup Ice cream! (You can add shaved dark chocolate too if you want!)

    Sarah
    www.thinfluenced.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Those pancakes look amazing!!
    I love Reese's Blizzards, they were always my favorite until I found out doing half Reese's, half Butterfinger is AMAZING.

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  5. They have the tiny blizzard size if that's too big you could throw it in the freezer and savor it for a few days. I had a hankering for bananas fosters... I caramelized a sliced banana with enough butter just to coast the pan an ounce of walnuts and sprinkle of brown sugar and then poured it on top of prepared cream of wheat... it was awesome!

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  6. It's not quite as amazing as a blizzard, but I make a smoothie with a frozen sugar free chocolate pudding cup (Jello brand), PB2 powdered peanut butter, frozen banana, vanilla extract, splenda, and unsweetened almond milk that always kills my Reeses cravings. The less milk you use the thicker (and closer to blizzard consistency) the smoothie will be. I've also read that a little bit of xanthum gum in a smoothie will do the same thing, but I've never tried it myself.

    Ashley @ http://downsizingashley.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  7. When I first read Hundewanderer's comment about the Whopper Blizzard I imagined vanilla ice cream with chunks of Burger King Whoppers. I was like WTF but then remembered the candy, haha.

    ReplyDelete

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