Dessert For Dinner (WIAW)

 

For this week’s What I Ate Wednesday, let’s talk about what I ate on Sunday.

I didn’t really have dinner.

Well, I sort of had dinner but not the usual type of dinner. It was more like dessert. Dessert for dinner.

Let’s discuss.

Breakfast:

Please forgive me for missing a picture of my breakfast. I promise it was the exact same oatmeal that I have every morning. A small amount when I first wake up and then another bowl after Pure Barre. Even when I don’t run, I still eat two breakfasts as it’s what my body is used to doing!

Lunch:

My son had a hockey game in the morning (around 11:00 am ).  We headed home after the game (because I insist that the kid takes a shower immediately) and then we went straight to the East Bay diner for lunch.

I ordered the Portobello mushroom and avocado salad which is my typical East Bay diner order. We also enjoyed the cole slaw and pickles that they bring you before the food is served.

I love diner life! Long Island diners are at the top of my list of things I would miss if I didn’t live in New York.

Dinner:

All afternoon, I kept noticing this feeling inside of being done with food for the day. It’s really not like me to feel this way but the thought of making dinner or eating dinner food was just not appealing to me.

All I really wanted was an apple with peanut butter and chocolate chips. I toyed with this idea of skipping typical dinner food in favor of dessert for dinner for a while.

It’s been so long since my frozen yogurt for dinner days that I didn’t want to skip a real dinner. I knew better than to skip real dinner in favor of dessert for dinner but I truly didn’t want a real dinner.

I haven’t been eating apples lately so I figured that wanting an apple was a good thing.

With only one honey crisp apple in the house (can you imagine, just ONE APPLE in my house?!),  I diced it up with crunchy peanut butter and a bunch of chocolate chips.

This really hit the spot.

The fact that I was full and satisfied for the night signified to me that I made the right choice.

My son had hockey again at night. When we got home, I had a few baby carrots while giving him dinner but that was it. I wasn’t really hungry at all, didn’t wake up at night hungry and felt back to normal eating by Monday morning.

We always talking about finding balance with our diets but flexibility is key as well. Our cravings and nutrition needs are always changing so it’s important to honor those cues and go with what we are in the mood to eat.

[bctt tweet=”Dessert For Dinner #WIAW #dessert #diner #dinerfood #cravings #dinner” username=”cookiechrunicle”]

Do you have a favorite diner near you? What do you like to order?

What would you miss the most if you were to move from where you currently live?

Are you good at honoring your cravings?

 

Two Long Runs, Two Salads and Off To Philadelphia

 

We won’t discuss that this was one of the last weekends left of summer.

So.

If you recall, my running plan for the weekend was to mimic the Runner’s World Hat Trick which is coming up in October.

Saturday’s Run:

Since the first day of the Hat Trick will be a 5K followed by a 10K, I treated my typical long run morning almost like two separate races in that I stopped at 3.1 miles to go to the bathroom, drink some water and stretch before heading back out for the next 6.2 miles.

I felt like it was important to make the pit stop in between the miles just to do the whole run-stop-run thing.

I don’t really have an issue stopping and then running again after a short distance but I also didn’t stop for as long as the break will probably be on the actual race day.

I ended up running a few steps over ten miles because when I finished both race distances, I slowed my pace to a cool down until I reached my front door.

The best part about any run is knowing what post-run fuel is waiting for me when I finish.

In case you forget what’s always inside – cooked steel-cut/old-fashioned oatmeal served cold mixed with plain greek yogurt, lots of berries, lots of peanut butter and lately, I add Skoop A-Game for the added boost of nutrients (and because I like the taste when it’s all mixed on up).

I liked using this peanut butter jar as my bowl because it was easier to reach around and get all the little bits of peanut butter off of the bottom because it is shorter and wider than the typical Crunch Time jar.

It’s the little things in life that make me happy.

Sunday’s Run:

This run was mentally more difficult simply because I had to keep reminding myself on Saturday that I was running thirteen miles on Sunday.

I am so used to running long on Saturdays and usually just doing a shake out run Sundays with no mileage goal in mind.

Even though I have done a bunch of back-to-back ten-mile runs, I had to stop thinking about the fact that I was doing 13.1 miles because somehow too much thinking about that distance, even though I do it pretty often, was still slowly creeping up on me mentally as if it would be a challenge.

Ten miles are always the easy part of a long run (easy is a relative term here, we know it’s never actually easy) it’s those extra miles past the ten-mile mark where I tend to get tired and I found myself thinking I would get tired sooner since I ran ten miles on Saturday.

I wore my favorite Pro Compression calf sleeves for this run.

Lately I have only been wearing them as recovery (they really do amazing things for you legs after a run) but I decided to wear them as additional mental/physical support.

The mental part that was getting in my way before I ran drifted away as soon as I starting running.

I felt great actually. In fact, I think I felt better overall than I did on Saturday.

Don’t ask me exactly why I think this because I can’t pinpoint a reason. All I know is that I was in a nice groove and found myself running faster in the second half of the run rather than konking out.

I always pop jelly beans starting after mile six but I can’t say if they help or just taste good.

It was as if I didn’t run ten miles the day before which is really something to be happy and actually, proud about.

If you were to have told me two years ago as I was training for the Hershey Park Half Marathon that one day I would be running ten miles on a Saturday and a half marathon distance the next, I would have thought you were crazy.

I used to get all sore and stiff after running long distances and even my shake out runs were a struggle.

It’s really amazing what the body can learn to do and what it can even learn to enjoy.

Speaking of enjoy…

Favorite eats from the weekend:

Red Mango Parfaits are prettiest when the yogurt on top is pink.

I went with strawberry greek yogurt on top because they didn’t have coconut greek which is my favorite. The coconut greek yogurt doesn’t actually taste like coconut. It almost tastes like the original flavor just a bit thicker and creamier.

I had two fantastic salads over the weekend that didn’t come from The Cheesecake Factory.

First, from the East Bay Diner, the Portobello Mushroom and Avocado Salad.

Not the best photo because the lighting was real bad but you get the idea. It was gigantic…until I ate it all and wondered where it went.

And, of course, order a sweet potato on the side.

Diners always bake the best potatoes.

And, another great salad from La Bottega.

What I love about La Bottega is that they will combine all different ingredients from any of their standard salad options to make you what you want.

I rattled off so many ingredients (like every roasted vegetable including butternut squash, eggplant, mushrooms, corn and who knows what else) plus they give you a ton of avocado which just ties it all together so nice.

Totally random, but my son and I are off to Philadelphia for the day. When people ask me why we are going, I say for lunch.

I don’t know, we randomly decided we should head west rather than out east for a day trip this week and we somehow came up with Philadelphia as a destination.

We may see the Liberty Bell but if you know me by now, you know that is totally not our focus.

I had my son research some foodie favorites that have been recognized by Adam Richman (Man vs. Food) and/or seen on episodes of Diner’s, Drive-in’s and Dives.

Our destination in terms of driving directions will land us at the parking garage of the Reading Terminal Market.

I suggest that you read Allison’s post (from the blog, Life’s A Bowl) who just visited the Reading Terminal Market. One look at her photos and you will know why this is the focal point of our excursion rather than some bell.

Be sure to follow along with me on Instagram for all of the Philly fun!

Now, excuse me while I go squeeze in a Pure Barre DVD workout before we leave…

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Have you ever and/or how often do you run back-to-back long runs?

Favorite food to order at a diner?

Ever been to Reading Terminal Market? Favorite food to get from there?