Never Ask a Woman if She is Pregnant

According to my super-de-duper nice yet non-confidence-inspiring physical therapist (he was the only guy I could get an appointment with this month—apparently there’s an insane need for physical therapists in NYC) I should be up and running in four weeks.

Gah, I was sort of hoping he’d be like, “You regenerate muscle and bone mass quicker than all other humans!”

But he wasn’t.

So yeah, I’m just gonna go ahead and keep doing what I’m doing which is hobble slowly around town.  He did, however, say that I can start using the spin bike conveniently located in my living room again.  Which is nice, because I’m pretty sure I grew another butt and today someone asked me if I was pregnant.

Let me be clear about something Internet and all people who read said Internet, asking a woman if she is pregnant is never a good thing.  If you have to ask, you run the risk of mortally embarrassing everyone in the immediate vicinity.

I’m a little bloated, and by bloated I mean probably not bloated but I’m going with “bloated” to make myself feel better.  Let’s just say healthy meals have been hard to come by for the last few weeks (Passover coupled with an impromptu visit from some of The Fella’s friends from Israel and all the eating out that entailed) has not left me anywhere near bathing suit ready.

As of right now I don’t plan on wearing a bathing suit ever again until August, when I head to Tel Aviv for some beach reading and visiting with The Fella’s family and friends.  But, I would like to once again fit into my pants, because pants are nice and so is self-esteem.

I believe in loving oneself regardless of weight, but I’m broke and can’t afford a new wardrobe.

So, no running, but I can spin.  And spin I shall.  I think I’ll go do that right now.  If you need me I’ll be sitting in the middle of my apartment peddling my beloved bike to nowhere for the next four months…and taking many, many birth control pills.

 

Breakfast

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Whole wheat English muffin with peanut butter
Strawberry yogurt

Lunch

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Grilled cheese and salad

Dinner

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Veggie burger and salad

Kim

Let’s talk about Sex…and Weight

Relationship weight.

Been there?

Done that?

BTW: Sex burns about 300 calories per hour for the average 150 pound adult. More reason to get it on. And if you get it on for an hour at a time…Hey there!

Yeah, we all have. There’s something so tempting about sitting in bed all day, cuddling and eating candy. Mmm, candy cuddling. Some of the biggest weight gains of my life have come from getting comfy in a couple. If you’re female, and have gained the couple poundage, it probably comes from going round-for-round with your guy. It really sucks that guys get to eat so much more than we do. I don’t know about you ladies, but I’m hungry, I like to eat…a lot.

If you’re a guy and you’re gaining, I’m guessing it may come from wining and dining the lady in your life. Or, perhaps it’s an uptick in home cooked meals (not that you don’t cook for yourself, I’m just passing on some of the grumbles I’ve heard from the men-friends in my life).

So far, this go ’round with The Fella I’ve been able to stave off the surge in the scale. This is due in part to the fact that my boyfriend is a personal trainer, and since we’re both far from rolling in dough these days many of our couple-y bonding moments happen as gym dates. While he also happens to be health conscious, it’s still not easy. The Fella really can eat far more than I can, especially because he’s pretty fit. I’m also gym-ing it a lot less these days because I’m working a lot more. This means keeping a tighter rein on my calorie allowance since I’m not burning as much on a daily basis.

I’m also a bit older, and a bit wiser in this relationship than I have been in my past ones. When I was younger I was really afraid to speak up about wanting to watch what I ate and make time for spin class. I didn’t want to seem like the kind of girl that was obsessed with her diet (Let’s face it guys, I’ve been writing a blog about what I eat for four years now–I think we can safely say that the secret is out), and I wanted to be that easy-breezy girl that could hang with the guys. Now that I’m a bit older, I don’t think wanting to take care of myself makes me high-maintenance. I know now that taking care of my needs is a very important part of my relationship. I want to bring my best me to the table, and that only serves to make me happier and more present.

Having said that, I sometimes wonder if I’m going to get the stink eye when The Fella opens his refrigerator to find a big batch of egg-white omelet muffins (below), or cartons of almond milk in his cabinet, or the secondary gym bag I have taking up precious real-estate in his apartment. So far he hasn’t even flinched. We’re planning on moving in together later in the summer or in early fall, and I think this will make the whole food storage issue a bit easier, but in the meantime I’m brown bagging my relationship.

Have you experienced relationship weight? How have you staved off the curse of coupledom?

 

Breakfast


Egg white spinach “muffins”
Clementines

To make these little bundles of protein-y goodines I blended 2 cups of liquid egg whites with a cup of 1% cottage cheese (using an immersion blender). In a muffin pan I put chopped onion and spinach in each cup, then poured the egg white mixture on top. I baked the tray of muffins at 375 degrees for 40 minutes (this totally depends on your oven). When cooled I sorted pairs of muffins in snack bags. I just pop them in the microwave for a minute in the morning. Easy, peasy, portable and portion controlled breakfast.

Lunch


Salad with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onion, kalamata olives, feta and lemon vinaigrette (fresh lemon juice, dash of olive oil, dash of honey)

Dinner



Things just taste better if you can wrap them in foil. For dinner I made “Fauxwarma.” Fake shwarma. I had been craving this New York Street Meat staple for a while now. This morning I whipped up some Tzatziki sauce, combining non-fat yogurt, cucumber, garlic and dill. Come the PM I warmed up some fake chicken strips (MorningStar Farms), tossed it in turmeric, cumin, paprika, and salt. I combined them both with some lettuce, tomato, and hot sauce in a whole wheat flat bread.

I can successfully say that it scratched that food cart itch for about 350 calories.

Exercise: I haven’t gotten to it yet, but I’m hoping to get a DVD in tonight before bed.

Kim

What’s pie is pie

Here’s the thing about the past—it already happened.

You can’t change it.

I’m a dweller. Do you guys dwell?

I dwell, definitely dwell; dwell and fret.

It’s a ridiculous phenomenon, because the only thing we really have any say in is the future. The present is ephemeral, and the past has already happened. Yet, we tend to carry our what-if’s around with us—especially when it comes to our bodies.

What if I’d started losing weight at this time last year?

What if I’d played sports as a child?

What if I hadn’t gone back to the dessert table that second time?

What if I put my head on Jessica Alba’s body?

After spending months working my butt (and thighs, and waist, and jiggly part under my arms) off to prepare for my best friend’s wedding, I’ve been avoiding the scale for the last two weeks. Dwelling on it. Fretting about it. I’ve been in weight loss mindset for so long that the fact that I consciously loosened the reigns a bit for the holiday season made me super nervous. Today I faced my fears: I hopped on the scale and hopped off again with the knowledge that I have gained two pounds. Honestly, I’m relieved. Now I know, so I won’t be reliving every piece of pie (pizza or dessert variety) I’ve had in the last few weeks. It’s already done whatever damage it’s going to do and now I can let it go, and focus on the next holiday party, birthday dinner, or group outing. In the end pie is not the enemy. We have pie. It tastes good. Our thighs get bigger. Worse things have happened.

When you leave parties this season, all the while mentally tallying the caloric totals of the cookies, pigs in blankets, and nog; stop, let it go. It’s the past. And a delicious past it was.

Breakfast


Iced coffee with almond milk
Egg white omelet with broccoli and turkey bacon
Strawberries

Snack


Protein muffin

Lunch


Fruit salad

Vegetable rolls with tofu

Snack


I ate half a protein bar before my workout, half after

Dinner


Faux fried rice. I’m not sure it looks appealing, but it tastes good.
Half cup brown rice, one egg scrambled, 3 oz of chicken diced, 2/3 cup mixed vegetables, cooking spray, garlic powder and soy sauce to taste.

Exercise: Strength-Chest; Cardio-Elliptical, 45-minuts

Kim

Know vs Feel

Anyone else sporting a post-holiday muffin top?

Yes, I believe in body acceptance, a healthy but not extreme lifestyle, and all around gentleness in the way we treat ourselves.  Still, gaining weight sucks.  Fact of life, and I was most definitely not immune over the holidays.

Sure my rational mind says “Don’t worry, be happy, and maybe amp the cardio for a few weeks,” but my emotional mind says “Whaaaaaah.”

Here is what I know: It’s not as much weight as I think it is. Really only a few pounds.

Here is what I feel: Oh dear lord, I’ll never fit in my pants again.

I know: The majority of any weight I gained is water weight.

I feel: Why did I bake three birthday cakes?

I know: A little budunkadunk can be a good thing.

I feel: I’m going to go into hiding, in regard to dating, until I can successfully minimize my birthday/holiday damage.

I know: Easy on, easy off.  It will probably only take me a couple of weeks to get back to a comfortable relationship between me and my jeans.

I feel: That’s it, I should just give up now and resign myself to a life of sweatpants.

This little look into my psyche is just proof that it is totally normal to have a knee-jerk reaction weight gain.  But the key to getting back to my life before muffin top is to stick with what I know.  I’ll try to be slightly more careful with my sugar and alcohol intake in the next few weeks and perhaps take my last month with access to treadmills a bit more seriously.  Hopefully that’ll do the trick, or you know, there’s always Spanx.

Wow, my hair was puffy!

Breakfast

Green Monster: 2 cups spinach, 1 cup almond milk, 1 Tbsp ground flax seed, 1 banana, 1/2 cup frozen mixed berries, 2/3 scoop protein powder

Lunch

Finally done, this was the last of the white been soup!

Dinner

Salad with lettuce, roasted beets (I didn’t realize these were white beets until I peeled them, they really should label these suckers), mandarin orange slices, goat cheese, lemon vinaigrette

I did better on my home fitness resolution today, opting for the ‘Look Better Naked‘ exercise DVD from Rodale Publishing.  Great workout, expect a review sometime next week.

Kim

July Resolutions

Well, hello there July.  Fancy meeting you here.

I would say for the majority of this blogs lifetime it has focused mostly on eating well, eating rationally, exercising for the fun and well being of it—but keeping a moderate distance from anything that would be considered a D-I-E-T.  I am nothing if not an anti-extremist.  That’s why I’m a little nervous about announcing my July resolutions.

I’ve made no bones recently about the fact that my weight gain in the last year has made me more than a little uncomfortable in my skin.  My July resolutions or resolution really, is to focus on making the changes necessary to get back to a happy weight.

Perhaps you’ve noticed an uptick in exercise in posts, and a noticeable increase in the amount of salads rocking my world lately—this resolution has already started for me, and in the last couple of weeks I’ve dropped 5lbs, and am already starting to feel some pleasant changes in my  body and a little relief in my waistband.

With further ado, July:

  1. Sugar free summer: I am proud to say that since my post a few weeks ago regarding my sincere love of gummy worms—I have not had any candy.  In fact, my goal is to get through the summer without adding sugar to my diet that doesn’t come in the form of fruit.  So far so good, let’s see how it goes.
  2. Back to the weight room.  For the last few months my strength training of choice has been in the form of exercise DVDs, P90X to be precise.  The problem now is that it’s really warm, too warm for me to work out at home as my apartment is not exactly superduper ventilated.  So, for July my strength training will come in the form of weight room machines, bootcamp classes, and yoga (I don’t care what people say, yoga is good muscle conditioning).
  3. Practice makes perfect.  In the last month I’ve increased my yoga-cizing from once a week to three times a week.  I really feel like that has had a major impact on my body, and my mental health.  Oh, and did I mention  my handstanding?  This week my goal is to hit up class 2-3 times a week, oh and to get up to “handstand on the wall” without assistance.
  4. Drink/Don’t Drink.  Perhaps I’m just getting old, but I’ve noticed lately when I drink I feel it the next day.  That was definitely not something that was ever a reality for me before.  For one month I’m going to go alcohol free, even though I have a lot of social engagements.  On the flip side, I’m going to increase my water intake, aiming for a gallon day.
  5. Cardio 6-days a week.  Now this is a commitment, but I think this will be the clincher for me regarding shedding those unwanted pounds.  I’m never going to be a “dieter”, but I certainly can increase my calorie burn and coupled with the other small changes I’m making I think this resolution will give me the boost I need in rocking out my July resolutions.

Please know that I’m borderline incapable at this point in my life of dieting, instead I’m just focusing on making healthier changes to my life in hopes that I don’t ever have to give up food.  I <3 food too much to break up with it.

What are you resolving this month?

Kim

Time and place for salad

My mom is right about many things, one being: you shouldn’t wear heavy earings because it will stretch out your lobes.  Another, more appropriate to my blog, being: there are some things you can’t give up.  For her it’s Pepsi and real salad dressing…for me it’s buffalo wings.

Now, it’s not like I binge on buffalo wings on a regular basis.  There are plenty of moments in life that I can choose wings but instead choose a less heart clogging alternative, it’s just that Hooters isn’t one of those moments.  Salad at Hooters is sacrilege. I love Hooters, and while I’m trying to shed the 20 lbs that somehow came into my life over the last year, I refuse to order a salad in the presence of orange hotpants and sports.

I’ve had a date for Hooters planned with my friend Evan for over a month now.  This morning, dreading my poor timing in reservation making I started to look at the menu online in search of healthy opportunities.  I had resolved myself to a dinner of oyster and garden salad, pretty woefully, in my mind.  Somewhere around  four o’clock I decided that was just stupid.  Hooters is one of my favorite things in life, and I only have it (err, maybe 6-12 times a year, okay that sounds like a lot).  I exercise like a fiend and deserve a little hot sauce for my hard work.

So, my traditional Hooters dinner I ate.  It was perfect.  Then I went home and did p90X for over an hour.  Not necessarily Tony Horton approved, but he’s not here.

Breakfast

Whole grain toast with 1% cottage cheese and tomato

Berries!

Snack

Besides Hooters, I had plans for a lunch “out”.  Whenever I’m going to indulge I like to keep it constrained to one day.  We went to Sarabeth’s Kitchen, where I had scrambled eggs, spinach and ham for lunch.

Dinner

Wings.  Tried as I might I couldn’t finish them.

Same with the fries.

Kim

Forgiveness

I saw this quote on The Happiness Project blog today:

“Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.” –  Flannery O’Connor

It hit home for me in a very sore place right now.  Those of you who have read me for a while know that this year has been pretty hard for me, between losing my jobs, getting a new job that I hate, my mother almost dying and having on-going health problems, and having a break-up right after a long anticipated romantic getaway–let’s just say I’ve been rattled.

The wear and tear of the last year has really been a struggle for me emotionally, and when I struggle emotionally I tend to struggle physically.  I’ve definitely put on weight.  That was very much confirmed to me at a doctors appointment last week.

The more I freak out about my weight gain, the more unhealthy my habits become, the less likely I am to hit the gym, the more likely I am to binge on gummy worms at the office (amazing how those little binges never make it on the blog-hmmm), and the more likely I am to shrink away from things I love like nights out on the town or auditions.

Whatever I’m doing now is not healthy.  Perhaps it’s not healthy physically, but honestly I know I can lose weight, what is more important is that whatever I’m doing now is not healthy emotionally.  I think it’s time to live by Flannery O’Connor’s example, and just accept who I am, right now at this weight, hair length, eye color, jobby-job, exercise level, etc.

Stressing about my weight won’t change it.  Blaming myself for being a complete emotional disaster at a time when I had every right to be a complete emotional disaster isn’t going to help me feel any better in my skinny jeans, it’s just going to endanger more gummy worms to a tragic fate.

I haven’t felt the way I do now in a very long time.  I really felt before this little chapter of my life that I had “found the secret”, I ate healthfully because I loved it, I exercised because I craved it, I indulged when I wanted and I felt happy and peaceful in my relationship with my body.  I miss those days.

Hopefully they’re not gone for good.  I’m going to take a page from my old Kim playbook and stop trying so hard to be perfect.  I just don’t think I can handle the stress right now.  Instead, I’ll choose my food based on the way it makes me feel.  And to be honest, as tasty as those gummy worms are, I don’t exactly feel like a rock star when the bag is done.

I think it’s time to just forgive me.  It’s a process, it always is, but just acknowledging that I did the best I could, and that wasn’t perfect, but I’m still here and now there’s more of me to love.

This is my last post for the week.  I’m off first thing in the morning for a weekend wedding.

Breakfast

Corn tortilla topped with black beans, egg, 1/4 avocado
Pineapple

Lunch

Yes, this is the same picture as yesterday.  Same salad, different day.

Snack

Baba Ganouj with carrots and cucumber (again, same picture as yesterday)

Undocumented Bags of Gummy Worms= 1

Dinner

Udon noodle soup with bok choy and shrimp

Kim

Boy vs. Girl

Sometimes I think that there is a gap in understanding between the sexes.  Yesterday, as I spent the day holed up with Achilles in his apartment to wait out the snow storm the conversation turned to weight, weight gain, weight loss, genetics and The Biggest Loser.

While to me weight gain and loss are very complicated things, things that take an emotional toll as well as a physical one, I found it really hard to explain this to Achilles. He sees a personal trainer 3-4 days a week, exercises on his own the other days,  exists solely on eggs, protein powder, yogurt, Trader Joe’s frozen chicken Tikki Masala, and new addition turkey.  His thoughts went something like this “If people are fat why don’t they just stop eating so much.  My trainer says I should only eat turkey and yogurt, then that’s what I’ll eat for the rest of my life.”  Okay, so that’s not a direct quote, but it’s close enough.

I had  a really hard time explaining that for many people, for most people, food is everywhere, it’s tempting, it bombards us in every aspect of society through advertising and availability.  We live in a very tricky society; on one hand we are told in many senses that eating is wrong that we should all eat like Achilles and be happy to do so.  On the other hand, we’ve been sold sugar laden drinks and cereals since birth, food is a part of every major celebration in life, fast food is affordable while fresh fruits and vegetables can put a serious dent in your savings, and being considered a foodie or gourmet is a sign of prestige.  It’s a very confusing world.

I tried to explain that, and also that not everyone is perfectly content to eat the same thing day in and day out (I was so craving a vegetable or fruit yesterday!)  I also tried to explain that some people are just more genetically predisposed to weight gain than others.

We all know people that eat like they’re hording for a long hibernation, only to fit into the same jeans they wore in middle school while the rest of just look at a doughnut and gain weight.  Many people really have to work to lose weight, it’s a life long struggle, it’s work forever.

It always makes me angry when I see comments on websites or on TV when people blatantly say “if you want to lose weight, just stop eating, tubby.”  It’s not so simple to just eat less, it’s life consuming to eat less, to find foods you can eat, to be a normal member of society and just say no to food.  It’s a struggle, and I wish more people understood that.

Having said that, here’s what I ate yesterday, which wasn’t much because Achilles doesn’t have any FOOD!

Breakfast

2 eggs, 1/2 avocado, whole grain bread

Grande soy latte
I have to give the boy credit, he braved a blizzard to bring back Starbucks

Lunch/Dinner

Turkey & whole grain bread

That’s about it.  I did hit his building gym in the evening, I went for a  15-minute run and 30-minutes on the elliptical.  Afterward I took a shower and played guitar hero which was surprisingly a good forearm workout.  You know how I’m always trying to build up my forearms ;)

Kim

Back in fat pants

The other day I reached into my closet and blindly pulled out a pair of jeans.  They were a size six.  I had this overwhelming feeling of shame as I returned them to my closet and looked for something that would actually fit me.

Two months ago, on exactly the same day my mother had surgery (something that would very much effect my life in the coming months), I blogged about how I’d gained 8lbs.  I was okay with that 8lbs. I wasn’t in love with it, but it seemed like a surmountable obstacle to my otherwise healthy lifestyle.  I remembered being that same exact weight on my way down the scale and remembered how happy that number had once made me.  It wasn’t so bad to be back.

Today, after months of no sleep, lots of comfort food and little activity I’m up a bit more than 8lbs.   This time, I’m not so accepting.  My clothes feel uncomfortable and I’ve started feeling self conscious in a way I haven’t in many years.

I had, before this weight gain felt like I’d figured it all out.  Eating healthy wasn’t a problem and exercise was as much a part of my day as brushing my teeth or writing this blog.  To be honest, maintaining my weight was pretty easy.

I have to say, that I’m pretty disappointed in myself that I’ve gained enough weight to make me feel uncomfortable in my own skin.  I could blame many things, long work days and long hospital and post hospital care of my mother, I could blame meetings at work with wee fistfuls of candy at the ready.  I could blame any number of things, but in the end the only thing to blame is myself.  I’ve taken my health for granted.

I feel like I’m back at the drawing board; starting over on a journey I had at one time felt like I’d completed.  There’s so much I’ve learned about myself, and what I’m capable of achieving physically over the last few years.  I know that those lessons are still imbedded somewhere in my psyche.  One of the most important lessons I’ve come to realize is that we only get this one body, and the body we have at this moment is the one that matters.  My body now is what I have to work with.  If I’m going to get over this hurdle I need to stop thinking in the past.  My life is different now-I need to do the best I can with what I have instead of constantly trying to make my square life fit in to the round hole that it once called home.

I am not the heaviest I have ever been, nor am I the leanest, I am exactly what I am right now.  What that is is dissatisfied.  At the end of the day if I don’t like something, it’s up to me to change it.  No one is going to pop on by with Kate Winslet’s body for a little transplanteroo for me.  I’ve got to do this on my own.

Bear with me as I figure this out all over again.  It should make for an interesting ride.

Breakfast

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Oatmeal w/lite sour cream

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Grapefruit

Snack

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Orange (My boss has been sick and has taken it upon herself to hand out vitamin C)

Lunch

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Vegetarian Split Pea Soup
Apple

Snack

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Whole grain toast w/hummus and avocado

Dinner

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Tofu Bahn Mi
Bubble Tea

I had a lovely dinner date with two Brooklyn Foodie Bloggers: Sarah at Pink of Perfection who I mention often because she’s a good friend who also happens to live a block or so away, and Lisa who writes A Dinner Party.  I’m new to Lisa, but think she’s just the loveliest and her blog gets in A+ in food porn.

We decided on Vietnamese sandwiches for dinner over email at about 10am and for the rest of my day I had fantasies about super spicy tofu and sweet and chewy Bubble Tea.  A lovely night  complete with delicious food, spent with two wonderful ladies who are also wonderful writers.  What more can a girl ask for?

That 8lbs will cost you $15

And now it’s time for a two day recap:

Today I got on a scale, which is nothing new, I weigh myself fairly regularly, but this time it was official.  This time it was at a doctors office.  Let’s just say, I took my own advice from Monday’s blog, and put my health first because this body is the only one I’m going to get.

When I stepped on the scale I asked the nurse not to tell me.  She didn’t.  But I took a peak anyway.  Right there on the screen in front of me was my weight from right about the same time last year.  I weighed exactly eight pounds less then than I do now.

And you know what?  It’s just 8lbs.  I think that besides an antibiotic that I very truly needed, going to the doctor today gave me a peace of mind about my body.  While eight pounds may be a dress size, it’s not an insurmountable obstacle.  I remember being so happy with my body at that time, and the fact that the number separating me from that feeling being so small, makes me realize how much of the pressure we put on ourselves to achieve certain numbers is totally in our heads.

A little perspective is worth the $15 copay if you ask me.

Breakfast 9.15.09

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3 Egg whites w/salsa in a whole wheat wrap
Grape Juice

Lunch 9.15.09

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Homemade yogurt w/honey & granola
Grapes

Snack 9.15.09

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Peanut butter pretzel granola bar enjoyed over a spreedsheet

Dinner 9.15.09

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Mango Margarita
Does that count as a fruit serving?

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Cabbage & wanton soup

Breakfast 9.16.09

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Smoothie w/almond milk, whey protien powder, banana and mixed fruit

Lunch 9.16.09

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Turkey sandwich from Subway with all the veggies and lots o’ mustard
Sun chips

Dinner 9.16.09

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Shrimp & Bok Choy Udon Noodle Soup