August 5th

It's been an okay week. I had one bad day eating-wise. I've pretty much been hovering around the same weight. Got 197 minutes of exercise in. I'd aimed for more but I skipped one 25-minute workout. 

My anxiety was pretty bad all week. Don't know if it's because of my medication or just me in general. I've had some nasty bouts of nausea too, which I'm blaming the medication for. I almost had to stop my workout yesterday because I thought I was going to puke. My anxiety has diminished slightly now that I am on vacation, which is really nice. I think a big part of it is that I've been sleeping better… I've been having some major insomnia and that makes me unbelievably cranky and irritable. I have the entire week off from work, and I'm going to do my hardest to not even THINK about work. I'm hoping nothing goes wrong or awry so that no one has to call me or text me or e-mail me. I don't want to spend ANY time thinking about it. I just really need some time away from that place. 

Trying to have a productive staycation. Trying to get everything in order these first couple days so I can just relax the next week. Went grocery shopping yesterday and spent the majority of today deep-cleaning my apartment. I still have a lot more cleaning to do (I'm trying to dust/organize everything too.) 

I've got some mild, relaxing plans that I'm looking forward to. I'm planning to go up to Devil's Lake tomorrow, which should be nice. Most of my plans for the week involve hiking or walking around so I'm kind of happy to get that sort of natural, outdoor activity in. I'm getting pretty bored of my workout DVDs. It's been so hot out that I haven't been running in a couple months. I made my favorite light chicken salad for dinner tonight, with a whole-wheat pita, greens, and some carrots, and I'll probably bring that for a picnic lunch tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be great all week.

I also made a DELICIOUS recipe for Trail Mix Balls by one of my favorite food bloggers, Jenna at  Eat, Live, Run. They're calorie-dense but you don't need a lot. I devoured one after dinner because I couldn't even wait for them to chill. I didn't change anything at all in the recipe except that I didn't have quite enough honey so I had to replace about a tablespoon of it with agave nectar instead. I also used mini chocolate chips instead of regular ones. The only thing I think I would change is that I'd chop the dried cherries up a bit so that they are more evenly dispersed. I also might cut down on the chocolate a little bit, but that might be because I used mini chips so it looked like they were everywhere! Jenna says it makes about 14 balls, but I made 12 so it was easier for me to divide up the mixture. There's no nutritional info on the blog but I calculated it myself and for 12 balls, each one has 122 calories, 20g carbs, 4g fat and 3g protein. 

Here's my menu plan and exercise for the week:

SUNDAY

Rosemary chicken salad with whole-wheat pita, greens, and carrots

Step Aerobics - 63 minutes

MONDAY

Spinach and Tofu Enchiladas with Spicy Ancho Chile Sauce (this might get moved to Tuesday depending on how busy I get tomorrow!)

Hike at Devil's Lake - ??? minutes

TUESDAY

Leftovers

Rest day

WEDNESDAY

Vegan burritos with Spanish Rice and Black Beans

Cardio kickbox, 25 minutes, OR a walk at a park… probably the latter?

THURSDAY

Spinach Strudel with goat cheese and mushrooms

SparkPeople Cardio Blast, 35 minutes, OR a walk outside

FRIDAY

Leftovers

Rest Day, or a walk...

SATURDAY

Probably eating at the family reunion… not sure

Not sure about exercise, we'll see how many minutes I have in the week, I don't know how long I'll be at my reunion.