I swear pancakes are the most entertaining meal to make!

With this batch I used 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce, 1 egg, and then blueberries and strawberries! Topped off with pure maple syrup...
Although this is my go-to meal lately, I think I need to put a stop to the pancake madness. It's an obsession! I also am currently grieving over the food baby I'm tied down to - THANKS TO EASTER FREAKIN WEEKEND! Let me tell you somethin' about Easter Weekend, okay?! Exam crunch time and a family get together with lots of food should not be scheduled for the same day. Stressful/emotional eating habits and a thanksgiving eating type of holiday with the family do not compliment eachother at all. I'm upset. Every time I look in the mirror. I turn sideways and see the little monster!!! I look bigger than girls who are already 14 weeks pregnant and know the sex of their baby!!!! NOT OKAY. Food baby... be prepared to be destroyed!!!!!!

Yummy squash!!! It's my favorite vegetable<3

My sis taught me how to make this yummy dish! It's beyond awesome. Thanks Danielle!

I had eaten healthy all day long until I found some naughty little treats in the pantry... If you know me well, you know that peanut butter is my biggest weakness. So naturally Reese's are my favorite. Reese's > Lauren. Winners every time. :( How will I ever get the abs I want for this summer?!?!?! Here's the plan: workout hardcore for at least an hour each day + eat mountains worth of vegetables for calories with no excuses. Wish me luck....??? :/

Tonight's chocolate adventure: Fail. If you click on the picture and enlarge it... you'll notice (excuse my crappy handwriting) that I had an intake of a whopping 2,298 calories. Last time I checked people consumed that amount of calories to gain weight. Woe is me. Tomorrow's a new day!

Webcam

Here I am...

After my workout... gum + purple sports bra + favorite outfit +  lucky necklace

I'm not very sexy when it comes to winking...

on either side for that matter...

So I pull stupid faces to entertain myself & any readers I have...HA!

Playing with gum & taking pictures never gets boring

...apparently.

I'm really proud of myself though. After not having blogged for so long, I came to the realization that sugar and dairy are to blame for my breakouts! Even though I was losing weight, I needed to say goodbye to my cliff bars, dried fruit, and cheese in order to get an acne free complexion. :( But, I'm happy now! My face is clearer and I'm trying new spices and recipes! I've even brought bananas back into my diet because I decided that any fruit and vegetable is fair game... they're all natural, so who cares!!!!!

Just a heads up - I'm still on a blueberry pancake kick. I made them with banana this time! We don't have any plain greek yogurt, so I processed 1/2 cup oatmeal like normal, put in the egg, and then added mashed up banana! Although it cost me extra calories, it isn't dairy... and it adds to my daily fruit intake! Soo win win!

They were awesome and huuuuuuuge. It came to about 360 ish calories and then I topped it off with 50-100 calories worth of maple syrup. I was in heaven to say the least. Here's a picture. I was just way too proud of this moment to not show it off to the world. The top pancake outshined the rest. It MAY LOOK like I had a lot of syrup, but it was only 1-2 tablespoons at the most... promise? O:-) Honestly, I really have no idea how much syrup that is. It was delicious.

Here's a better view of the top pancake...

mmmmmmmmm!

Blueberries<3<3

 Halfway through... it was a MONSTER.

My favorite breakfast is a protein shake now. I saw on someone's blog, can't recall which one, the idea of putting spinach into a shake. So most mornings I put 3 icecubes in the bottom of my cup, add two handfuls of spinach and then cut up about 3 strawberries. I add chocolate protein powder to the mix and then finish it off with a cup of almond milk. It literally tastes like a chocolate milkshake! Sooo gooood.

This is obviously my blueberry version of it. I didn't manage to find a picture of the strawberry one :(

Here's my new goal: posting good things about each day at the end of my blog post.

These are some recent ones that have accumulated over the past few days.

1. Sarah told me that she and her boyfriend think I'm pretty. It made me blush.

2. Abby contacted me to go running with her!

3. All my chemistry buddies and I now have exchanged facebooks/phone numbers/etc to keep in touch for the summer!

4. I've been working out and happy!

5. The weather is getting nicer.

6. Today was absolutely beautiful weather to work out in! Windy... and nice!

7. I wore my favorite outfit today. <3

Lacking energy.

Thursdays are a a$$ whooping. Literally. I wake up at 5:30. I climb stairs all day long from class to class and eat only around 600 calories before I come home around 4. School goes from 7:45-3:45. Ouch. It's longer than the average school day. I'm supposed to make dinner for my sister and I soon, but laying sprawled out on my mom's bed is soooo much better than being in the kitchen. ;)

During chemistry lab today, this nice black guy Raymond started talking about food with Danielle and I; but not just any food: NAUGHTY FOOD. You should have seen the looks on my face and hers. We lit up like never before. It was equally my worst nightmare and happiest dream. I could have cried on the way home... we pass Jet's Pizza on our carride home. Ughhhh...

I did make a yummy treat to go along with my spinach feta cheese omelet for breakfast this morning though! :) Mashed up banana + melted blueberries.

& just a heads up... last night's dinner was such a hit, that I'm making it again tonight. I had leftovers too... so I need to cook up the rest of the raw chicken before it goes bad. 

*A few hours later...*

Okay, so I have a confession to make...

I made another banana treat :) This time... with chocolate and coconut... mmm! :)

The before & after shots! I used 3 dark chocolate kisses like I did with the blueberries before... melted them in the microwave for about a minute, but continued to take them out to stir when needed. I added a tablespoon of unsweetened coconut for texture and about half a banana to compliment it all.

Cliff bars.

These come in all different flavors, but I'm obsessed. I'm literally in love. I ate two today, oooops. At least I can admit to my own mistakes, right?

Most times these run about 240-250 calories... at least the ones I own. They might be a little larger than this. But trust me, once you've tried one - you're immediately hooked.

I prefer both the crunchy peanut butter and chocolate chip ones to the rest. I've also tried the blueberry crisp kind too, but got sick of it quickly.

Try and enjoy my little treat snack :)


This morning I made a different type of oatmeal. Oatmeal has been a big craze for me recently. I added almond milk to the oatmeal, then vanilla extract, and then a small dose of this protein powder we have on hand. It's flavor is peanut butter. So I mixed them all together and topped it off with strawberries.

The lighting this morning in the kitchen was awful, so it doesn't look as good as it tasted, but believe me, it was worth it and stuck with me for the majority of the morning!!

My lunch today: Mac n' Cheese. Mmmmmmmmm=)

I was inspired by the mac and cheese recipe Oh She Glows had posted. The recipe called for butternut squash, paprika, cashews, italian seasoning... the list goes on. I'll add my recipe version later! It was pretty good, but I wish I had cut back on the amount of cashews I put in. It was extra fat and calories that were unnecessary for this dish. I did like it though! Two thumbs up! :)

Dinner: gourmet style.

Do not argue with me on this. This is gourmet and I'm very very proud to say I made this. I did use a recipe from a magazine, but nonetheless it looks professional and delicious! It was by far my most favorite dinner dish I've made. Ever. Definitely try this out! I'll post the recipe sooon!

<3

Success x 4

I successfully made four new recipes. I tweaked a few I was in awe of from some other blogs!

The first dish I made was inspired by Oh she Glows. She prepared an avocado pasta dish, but I wanted to make it healthier substituting noodles for spaghetti squash!

My small 1 serving recipe calls for:

2.8 oz spaghetti squash
1 tsp olive oil
1/8 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp lemon juice

1 oz avocado

Dash of basil leaves

Kosher salt & pepper

This dish was small, and I intentionally made it that way so I could afford calories on other recipes. You may adjust those amounts as you wish. Mine turned out perfectly. This recipe is sweet, yet salty at the same time, so it curbs those annoying cravings.

The next recipe I made up myself. I've seen blogs where they use unsweetened coconut in mixtures, but I wanted to combine oatmeal, almond milk, unsweetened coconut and banana together! Here's what it turned out to look like.

Oatmeal heaven<3<3 This is my second favorite to the applesauce and oatmeal mixture I invented!



I altered the mexican pie recipe from Monica's blog. She has some really interesting flavor sounding recipes, so I was daring enough to try it for myself! This is what the result was...

CHEESEY BEAN HEAVEN.

To make this I used:

1 wheat wrap

1/2 c black beans

1/8 c refried beans

.5 oz pepper jack cheese

2/3 c corn

and salsa!

It was very spicey, but totally worth it! It only cost me 358 calories and I was extremely full afterwards. But I still made room for dessert. I wanted to incorporate some sort of chocolate in a healthy way to today's calorie intake, so I melted three small dark chocolate hershey kisses to a small bowl of blueberries and microwaved it all to create a rich beautiful gormet looking dessert.

 

Blueberry pancakes? whaaaaaaat???

So my twinner suggested I make oatmeal pancakes. To my surprise, it was a success! I just needed the following ingredients: cottage cheese, oats, vanilla, eggs, blueberries and maple syrup to make these tasty pancakes. I definitely enjoyed this a lot. I calculated the calories to be 359, but depending on which products you use and how much - it may differ. Thank you, Danielle! I love you!

I used my food processor to combine 1 egg, 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 tsp of vanilla, 1/4 cup low fat cottage cheese. After mixing that together, I added 1/2 cup blueberries to the batter. I sprayed the pan and put about three decent sized lumps onto it. After it cooked about 2-3 minutes on one side, I flipped them and then proceeded to wait another 3 minutes. I added 1 tablespoon maple syrup to the top of these at the end. Enjoy breakfast/dessert for dinner ;)

And what I do for fun is watch...

Her & her crazy envious lifestyle :)

Shopping harbors all my brain activity.

30% off deals kill me. 212 dollars poorer. I'll post pictures of my beautiful shoes tomorrow!

These are alfani's blush colored pumps I just bought!!! My best friend Erica is proud of me for finally wearing heels. I'm finally growing up and becoming a girl!

After shopping last night, I got a tad bit carried away... I could still smell the jet's cheesey bread on my steering wheel, so I called my mom when I was at an all time low. She calmed me down and convinced me to stop in at Panera for dinner to get a healthy salad. The devil inside me (as Danielle would word it..) agreed, but tricked my mom into believing that I'd be healthy! Mac n' cheese & Bacon Turkey Bravo it is!!!! Yummmmmmmmm!

And guess who was able to add in a treat due to fantastic panera rewards??!?!!?
YES. ME.
I was ecstatic to say the very least. Apple crunch muffin is my favorite and there was only one left on the shelf.

Fate.

Back on track!

.......April fools ;)

I'm just kidding! But hopefully I can take this weight loss game seriously now. I stepped on the scale the other day after a binge...

Let's just say all my work this past summer and past spring went to waste. The 8 pounds I had lost is now all back on. Booooo. But rather than dieting this time around, I'm teaching myself the benefits of incorporating exercise and focusing on what I can have, rather than can't. I've also been experimenting in the kitchen which has been very exciting and rewarding. I discovered my new favorite treat! Strawberries + peanut butter... yummmmmmm.

1 tsp organic peanut butter melted and 4 ounces of strawberries

Icecream and caramel topping??? April foools!!!! :) It's actually...

1/2 cup fage greek yogurt and 1 tbsp agave nectar and .5 ounces of pecans!

This is another personal favorite: my veggie pizza omelet :)

1 egg, 2 egg whites, chopped up carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower and .5 ounces cream cheese.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Good morning to meee :D

Also, I wore my favorite outfit today at work :)

My outfit screams: edgy, trendy, confident, and casual :)

What are healthy treats you allow yourself to have? What does your favorite outfit say about you?

PS......

I'd like to introduce you to my boyfriend, Wretched, the big blue frog. I love him with all my heart. <3 We had a movie day and these pictures were taken sometime last week. We watched the Tourist together. :) The Tourist is definitely a must see. For all of you who love a good love story, see it!