I did 5k! And a single serve cookie recipe.

For those of you who didn't notice, I have a Pinterest page up and Twitter.  I'd love it if you followed me, partially for support, and to get my name out there!
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I have been toying with the idea of making a Facebook page, but I'm going to leave that up in the air for now.  I'd be really embarrassed if I made a page and only a handful of people "liked" it!

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Yesterday my mom and sister decided to come all the way into town just to visit me!  It was fantastic to have some girl talk (And to have extra mouths for all the turkey I made ;D ), and of course we did some shopping!

There is a new store in our mall called Murdawg.  I've been hesitant to go in there because I'm not sure what sizes they sell, I don't want to be "that" fat girl who wanders into a "skinny people store" and looks VERY out of place.  So sometimes I'll take Dan in there as an excuse to look for stuff for him and then casually browse stuff for me too.  Yesterday I showed my mom and sister the store and having them around made me less anxious about looking at stuff for me.  I picked up one shirt and held it up to me and I was kind of surprised to find that it'd probably fit. (They don't have fitting rooms).  I ended up buying 3 shirts!  Beware.. I'm a nerd, so you'll be assaulted with nerdy pictures:

Silly blinking picture ended up being the best looking one!

So have I mentioned that I LOVE Game of Thrones?  I have read all of the books, watched both seasons, I own the card game, and heck, I even have Game of Thrones coffee mugs!  I was pretty excited to find this shirt.  (Also, I look so skinny! Notice my arms go straight down and don't go around my tummy?)

Apparently I was super blinky yesterday!

I also love Big Bang Theory!  This shirt is pretty big on me, so I guess it'll be a lounge shirt!  These are both XL in Unisex sizes (womens babydoll shirts where SO tiny!) and I probably could have/maybe fit into a size Large.  Maybe next time/in 5 more lbs!

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This morning I woke up and I was SO ready to run my first run after finishing c25k!  I was excited and itching to get started.  I waited awhile after breakfast though to go.  I have to wait at least 3 hours after a meal to run, I prefer to wait 4 hours or to workout right before a meal.  I get wicked stomach cramps otherwise, and those are not fun!  I'm glad I waited though, I found out that one of my favourite bloggers was a guest on today's half size me podcast!  So I got to listen to that today on my run!

5 Kilometers!

So I extended my warm up by 5 minutes this morning partially because the podcast was really long and I wanted to listen to the whole thing, and partially to see if a longer warm up would help out with endurance.  So technically I did 5k however that includes my warm up and cool down.  But hey, I'm excited that I hit 5k. It's a first for me!  I extended my run by about 2 minutes also, so I did 32min instead of 30min of running because I was feeling pretty great at the end of 30 minutes.  I know it was only 2 minutes but the front of my left thigh was starting to get tight and the back of my right thigh was getting tight (a very odd sensation while running!) so I decided to just finish up.  I ran at 4.3 mph for the majority of the run.  I also made sure to stretch really well after the run since both of my thighs were a bit tight.

After my run it was lunch time, I had some left over turkey and potatoes plus I made a really delicious salad with Feta cheese! (I LOVE feta, it's yummy and lower in calories than even light cheeses).

 1/2 Orange pepper, 3/4 cup grape tomatoes, 1/4 cup baby spinach, 1 tsp dressing (Ranch), 30g Feta cheese

I like just tossing together whatever veggies I have into a bowl and seeing what I come up with!  Last week I had red pepper, tomatoes, crumbled egg, light cheddar and ranch which was SO good! 

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This afternoon I was craving coffee and something baked.  I looked up biscotti recipies, but I've never made biscotti, so I figured I'd leave that to another day.  I *did* however remember a really amazing recipe that I stumbled upon a few months ago!  Single serve cookies!  Yes, that's right! You make just one cookie at a time in the oven.  I know it sounds silly, but here's why I love it.  First of all, if you're snackish it takes time to prepare.  Not a lot of time, but  you do have to mix ingredients and bake it.  If you take the time making it, it's more likely that you'll be satisfied with it and not be craving something again immediately afterwards.  It takes much more effort than just opening a package of store cookies and wolfing one down. You appreciate the work you put into it.  Next, it's only ONE cookie! It's hard to binge on one cookie!

I made two of them because I had the room in my calorie limit for two.  They're about 130 calories each, and they're pretty big!  The great part is, the recipe is so versatile!  You could add vanilla extract, spices, nuts, whatever!  I sprinkled pumpkin pie spice on them right before they went in the oven (because I forgot to mix it in until I had them on the pan! haha).

Single Serve Cookie:

2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1 tbsp brown sugar (or sweetener to cut back on calories)

1/4 tsp baking powder

2 tsp margarine

1/2 tbsp milk (or unsweetened almond milk to cut calories)

Mix first 3 ingredients together, then cream in margarine.  Mix in milk.

Place on sprayed cookie sheet.  Bake for about 10 min at 350F

Approx. 131 calories

As a note, I'd flatten them down a little so they cook evenly.

Tonight I decided to make a treat for supper.  Since Dan has been working his butt off I wanted to make him something he really enjoys.  I know he loves scalloped potatoes, but I've never made them before.  I did some google-fu and found a recipe that looked both easy to make and easy on the calories.

They turned out fabulous!  I made some boxed Tilapia.  It was Pesto and Basil Tilapia which went really well with the potatoes.  My eyes where bigger than my stomach though, this ended up being a very carb and starch heavy meal and not so much protein!  

I hope Dan likes it, he will be eating it when I'm in bed since he's working late and I have to be up early tomorrow (Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 launches tonight at midnight!) and open the store early.  Between the early launch tomorrow and inventory at the end of the week I will be very busy so I hope that I can keep my posts regular.  If not, now you know why!  I have to be at work for 6am friday and I'm SO not looking forward to it!

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I know this post is photo heavy, but I'm going to leave you with one last one.  It's something I started doing awhile ago and it works out pretty great.

Sometimes I make meals ahead of time and freeze them. A great way to remember the calories is to use some masking tape and put it on the lid of the container and write down your calories.  That way 2 months down the road you don't have to hunt down the recipe to figure it out (and hope you remember what ingredients you used!).  I have a terrible memory so I put this on my scallop potatoes that I intend to eat tomorrow, ha!  I also do this if I break a package into smaller portions and freeze parts of it.  For example I bought breakfast turkey sausages and I used some, but wanted to freeze the rest but I needed to re-package it.  So I tossed the sausages in a freezer bag and wrote on it "2 sausages = 90 cal".  That way I don't have to rely on my memory or my Spark app.