My gym membership expired!  Aaaah!  I decided not to renew yet since the next couple of weeks it will be sketchy for me to get there.  Hope they have another great deal when I renew – last year I joined for only $99! 

In the meantime, I’ll have to settle with my basement equipment and videos.  Today, I did some strength moves – push ups, wall squats (hard), lunges, planks (ridiculous), sit-ups and burpees (super ridiculous and impossible).  Then, a little yoga from yogadownload.com.

I miss the gym already.

Breakfast was NOT the usual for once!  I took a walk on the wild side and tried out some oats again.  If you’ve been reading this blog from the beginning, God bless you for sticking around this long, you know I’m not an oatmeal lover.  I’ve tried it quite a few times.  I know it’s good for me.  I want to like it.  But, I usually don’t.  Until today!

• 1/3 cup old fashioned oats
• 1/3 cup skim milk
• 1/3 cup water
• dash salt
• 2 tsp. powdered egg whites
• 1/2 very ripe banana
• 2 tbsp. PB2
• 1/8 cup. unsweetened dried cherries

I loved it!  One of the reasons why I don’t like oats is consistency, but cooking them stovetop gives it a much better texture than my previous attempts with the microwave.  Another thing that always bothered me about oats is they would never keep me full very long.  The addition of the powdered egg whites, PB2 and skim milk bumped up the protein- staying power and kept me full for about 3 hours.  A record in my oat trying days!  This may become my new “usual”!

And, as always….

I was in need of fruits and veggies, so I took a trip to a nearby orchard that offers lots of organic produce and even organic dry goods and meats!

I got a great stash for $36 – not too bad for this bounty…

Aren’t the colors just beautiful!  I was excited to find Sucanat for a good price, too…

I had to try it out right away with another batch of Clean Eating’s Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.  This time, I swapped out the almond butter for natural peanut butter.  They smelled divine, but I practiced restraint and held off until dessert.

Lunch was leftover Mediterranean Pasta Salad over  mixed greens…

The brown rice pasta held up great, so it’s definitely okay to make this in advance.  Don’t forget ….rinse in cold water after draining!  Are you sick of me harping about that, yet??

Snack was gorgeous farm raspberries…

Even though the heat is pressing on, I felt like making a comfort food dinner.  It was inspired by a recipe for Salisbury Steaks with Rich Brown Gravy from one of my cookbooks – The Most Decadent Diet Ever by Devin Alexander.  I swapped out the ground beef for ground turkey breast, used fresh onion and herbs and chicken broth in place of the beef broth.  It was hearty and very tasty…

Served with a side of sauteed spinach and baked potato wedges…

I resist no longer…

Worth the wait

Have a great day, everyone!

Are you an oatmeal fan?  What is your favorite oatmeal combo?