Don’t you just hate that moment when you’re deep in sleep, so cozy and without a care in the world….and then your alarm goes off.
It seems like that feeling of dread and disgust is heightened on Monday mornings. I hit snooze at least 30 times, which is a lot even for me. The cloudy weather we are having here in Las Cruces today didn’t help my motivation to get up any, either. Cloudy days are designated “lazy days” in my mind. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn’t share this view….so off to class and work I went!
Here is what my gloomy Monday looked like:
MONDAY MEALS:
Breakfast:
I had all the ingredients for my usual Blueberry & Yogurt Parfait ready in the fridge, but waking up late meant I didn’t even have time to throw that simple meal together.
Fortunately, last night I had to make cinnamon toast in order to take the picture included in my Week 3 Friday posting. I think it was my Friday posting….
Anyways, I made cinnamon toast Sunday evening, but was full from dinner so I didn’t eat. I didn’t want to just throw it away, so I put it in the fridge. This morning, in my rush I grabbed one of those pieces and ate it in like, 3 seconds. I only had one piece before running out the door for Chem class.
Lunch:
I didn’t have anything prepared over the weekend to have for lunch, so I grabbed another Lean Cuisine Meal. This time I had the Garlic Chicken and Spinach Spring Rolls, which comes with 2 services of 3 rolls each. They are even individually wrapped into each serving, which I found impressive. I had one serving before heading out for my Genetics and Plants class.
When I returned to work after two hours of study, I was hungry again so went ahead and had the second serving, putting my total calorie consumption for lunch at 420 cal. The picture doesn’t look very appetizing, but they were actually pretty yummy.
I also had 1/2 an apple and a handful of blueberries as a snack about 30 minutes prior to making this:
Dinner:
Monday’s are always super busy for me. With class, work, gym time, and homework all demanding my attention, I find it really hard to fit in time to cook a good dinner.
Because of this, I try to use meals that are super simple and take little to no time to prep. Tonight I decided to go with a favorite dish of mine: Spinach tortellini. In the past I would make it with Alfredo sauce, but to make this meal healthier I used extra virgin olive oil instead. I sauteed some mushrooms up to add, then sprinkled Parmesan cheese on top. I wanted to add some protein as well, so I opened a can of black beans to add as well. Delish!
First, I sauteed my mushrooms in a little olive oil and threw in some chives.
Once my pot of water began to boil, I added my Spinach Ravioli. They only take 3-5 minutes before cooked completely.
Once everything was cooked, I drained the pasta and threw everything together!
Desert:
This is a new, and temporary, section to my meal listing….and for you men out there I encourage you to skip this section because it discusses female topics.
For you ladies, I’m sure you can all relate to the intense cravings that come with what I refer to as “Shark Week”. For me, the craving is always the same: chocolate. And not just any chocolate….I’m not a huge candy fan, so chocolate bars won’t do the trick. It is chocolate in the squishy, spongy, cakey form that I cannot live without. Fortunately, Walmart Bakery understands my needs and regularly stock chocolate muffins, which can be purchased in a package of four. I only allow myself this indulgence the week before Shark Week, which is when my PMS reaches it’s height. For four nights, after dinner I allow myself one muffin and a small glass of 1% milk. These things are as chocolate as chocolate can get, and its sooooo good!
So if any of you experience chocolate cravings like I do at this time, try these things! But I should warn you, they are addictive. It is why I only let myself buy them when its lady time, otherwise I’d be about 50 lbs. heavier.
MONDAY WORKOUT:
Normally on Monday’s I go to the gym right after leaving work to get my resistance training in. Today, however, that didn’t happen. I have astigmatism in my right eye, and partially in my left, so my eyes have to work a lot harder than the normal person’s to focus. I have glasses that I’m supposed to wear when I read, but I rarely do that. For the most part it doesn’t affect me, but if I go a long time without wearing them I get really bad headaches and my eyes get irritated super easy.
I noticed this morning when driving to class that I was having to focus a lot harder to look at things. After going all day having to do this, especially since I work in an office on a computer, I started to develop a terrible headache.
I decided to be a big girl and get my workout in regardless, so after getting off I went to the locker room and started getting changed. At this time, two new problems arose. First, the pants I chose to wear were originally purchased at Walmart, which I figured wouldn’t make a difference. Why spend $50 on a pair of super thin name brand workout pants when Walmart has them for $12?? Well I’ll tell you why…..because Walmart workout pants SUCK. It literally felt like I had tiny bugs crawling all over and biting me. It was the worst! I was still going to attempt my Monday workout anyways, but as I was leaving I discovered that I was not wearing underwear appropriate for the activities I had planned. I hadn’t even walked 10 steps before they started to ride up places that no type of underwear should go. My level of discomfort at this point was about 9.5, so I decided to call it quits and go home.
The first thing I did when I arrived was take off those stupid pants and throw them in the trash. If you take one thing away from this posting, let it be that you should never buy workout pants from Walmart. Money, quit literally, in the garbage.
The second thing I did was take an ibuprofen because at this point my headache was making me want to take a drill to my temple to relieve the pressure. I decided to make dinner and get some homework in before attempting to do some home exercises, just so my day wasn’t completely wasted.
It is now 9 o’clock p.m, dinner is made and eaten, homework is halfway completed, and my headache is still here. I will definitely be wearing my glasses tomorrow. I think I’m going to go ahead and throw in the towel for today. I’m extremely disappointed in myself for not doing any of the exercises I had planned.
So this was my Monday. I really let myself down today, but I plan to take this feeling and use it to encourage me to do better in the future.
I hope your Monday went better than mine.
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the journey 