September 8, 2009
It’s back to work and I am lucky to be able to work from home today! With no long commute taking up my morning, I was able to go for a nice walk and do some strength exercises before getting down to business.
My cereal looked fall like and festive today.
I’ve started adding some veggies back in to my diet so the frst thing I wanted for lunch was a hummus and veggie sandwich. I haven’t had one of these in a while!
I also had a bowl of red grapes.
What is your favorite sandwich to eat for lunch?
September 4, 2009
I woke up before the sun this morning! I looked out the window and all I saw was darkness. It was pitch black outside. I was disappointed I had to wait about an hour to go out for a walk until it lightened up a bit. My neighborhood is really safe, but I still don’t like walking when it’s that dark out. At least it gave me time to make lunch and respond to some e-mails while I waited for the sun to wake up!! I finally headed out the door around 6 a.m. for a 2-mile walk. I also snuck in 10 minutes of ab work. What a productive morning already!!
No cereal for me this morning! I couldn’t even think about eating cereal today. I think I had my fill of it, well for now anyway. Instead I toasted up a slice of French bread from Panera.
I had one half with grape jelly
… and the other half with hummus, my peanut butter (allergy!) stand-in 
I almost forgot to snap a pic of my orange juice before I drank it all, oops.
Random Question of the Day: If you choose any decade to live in which would it be?
I would go back to the 20′s or maybe the 50′s. Such a big decision, haha!
Happy Friday
September 3, 2009
What a hectic two days it has been! Work is in its “busiest” season and has been a bit crazy lately. Yesterday I had a meeting over lunch so I couldn’t snap a pic of my EATS. I can tell you what I ate though, which isn’t nearly as exciting as a pic but will have to do! I had a salad (greens, tomato, cucumber and onion) with grilled chicken and light Italian dressing on the side from a local restaurant. A mini bag of microwave popcorn was my afternoon snack.
After work I went to John’s. We made quick egg sandwiches for dinner before doing yet another fantasy football draft. The draft started at 10:30pm and we didn’t finish until midnight so I was pretty tired this morning. It was a lot of fun though and I can’t wait for the season to start!
You can see the draft happening on my computer screen. Everyone gets 1 minute and 30 seconds to make their pick in each round of the draft so I was anxiously awaiting my turn deciding what player to choose.
My draft cheat sheets with the player rankings were a big help!
Oh and of course the egg sandwich. I sliced up a tomato and had some ketchup on mine. I also had some potato chips.
Today’s EATS…
I was running late this morning so this cereal I had in my car came in handy! Does anyone else keep snacks in their cars? I’m always in my car going somewhere so I sometimes keep some snacks in there for days like today. I ate the cereal, but not the rice milk. I just wasn’t in the mood for it!
Lunch was a turkey and hummus sandwich on a potato roll eaten at my desk. I also had some canned peaches that I had at my desk (yes, I keep snacks at my desk too!) and a bag of baked potato chips from the caferteria.
This chip bag was larger than normal, but was only 1/4 filled with about 12 chips in it. When I first opened the bag it looked like someone already ate half of it!
A banana was this afternoon’s snack.
By the time I got home tonight I was exhausted and a little cranky! I didn’t sleep much last night and had a really busy day. I decided to skip the workout I had planned on doing and save it for the morning instead when I’m wide awake with lots of energy!
For dinner I had a hamburger sauteed with onion and mushrooms and sweet potato fries. I went bunless on the burger, but was still hungry after dinner so I toasted up a potato roll and ate it plain. It was still good though and hit the spot!
Dessert was a slice of poundcake with coolwhip on top. I ate it before I could take a photo. Guess I was still hungry!
I’m off to relax now… TGIAF!!!
August 21, 2009
It’s Friday!!
Only a few more hours to go before I can officially start my weekend. I’ll be looking after one of my parents’ dogs this weekend while they are away and want to do some shopping too. Fall is right around the corner and I’m itching to buy some new jeans. Camera shopping is on the list too!
Breakfast was a little strange today. My EATS were an English muffin that I bought at the cafeteria. I topped it with some humus. I always keep a tub of hummus in the fridge at work to add to a snack or to have with lunch. I’m going to save the fruit cup to snack on later. My stomach is still sick so I will just be eating today whatever I think will keep it happy!
It was a late breakfast too. I just finished eating yet another meal at my desk and it’s 10am already! Usually I eat breakfast around 7am on weekdays since I wake up at 5:30am. Then I’ll have a snack (usually fruit) between 9:30 and 10am.
I’m sure you all recognize my keyboard in the background by now!
How soon after waking up do you like to eat breakfast?
August 13, 2009
Lunch was from home today and it was great! I’m glad I was able to pack a lunch because I have been super busy at work all morning so there’s no time to go out. 
I would have had to eat at the caf again.
This morning I whipped up a fresh batch of the bruschetta that I had made earlier in the week. This time I added some cucumber.
The tomato and basil were recently picked from the veggie garden. You can’t get much fresher than that!
I piled the topping on rye bread with hummus. I ate this x 2 for lunch (on a lovely plastic plate from the caf again!)
I also had a piece of poundcake but my camera’s battery went dead after taking the pic above so there’s no photo to show you…
While making this lunch I thought of all the benefits to making your own sandwich to bring to work or school
1. Portion Control. I have found sandwiches bought at deli’s and restaurants to be at least 2x the size of a sandwich you would make for yourself in your own kitchen. And a lot of the time it’s the bread that is bulked up, not the fillings.
2. FRESH veggies! Not all restaurants, delis and cafeterias offer fresh EXTRAS on their sandwiches that you can add to your sandwich. Lettuce, tomato and onion are the ususal toppings. But what about roasted peppers and eggplant, grilled zucchini, spinach, sprouts, mushrooms and cucmbers just to name a few? You can’t beat a homemade sandwich packed with a variety of veggies.
3. No worries if you have allergies. Everytime I eat out I always have to ask if what I am ordering is baked/grilled/sauteed etc. with any fish or seafood and trust that the waiter relays the message to the cook. And even though I say no cheese, I have had plenty of veggie sandwiches come to me with melted cheese. You can’t really take the cheese off if it’s melted between the veggies. It’s just easier to make my own, but sometimes it is nice to let someone else do the cooking!
4. And of course we all know it costs less to make your own lunch than to eat out. It really does add up!
August 12, 2009
…well not quite! After seeing all the great looking food in the movie Julie and Julia this past weekend I couldn’t stop thinking about the bruschetta Julie and her husband ate for dinner the night she decided to cook 524 of Julia Child’s recipes in 365 days! S0 I made my own version for dinner last night…
The Bruschetta
Later in the night I had another piece and added hummus under the bruschetta toppping so it would be more filling. It was getting late so yes that is a paper towel that I ate it on!
I also had some of these black bean chips and used the bruschetta topping as salsa
It was the perfect light meal. A piece of chicken topped with the tomato mixture would have made this a more filling meal. My stomach wasn’t feeling too good yesterday so this was all I felt like eating for dinner.
It was super easy to make too:
Put a couple of slices of Italian bread (or French bread) on a baking sheet. Season with garlic powder and drizzle with oil. Bake at 350 degrees until the bread is toasty. Make sure you flip the bread over so both sides get toasted. (About 4-5 minutes per side depending on the bread you use.)
Chop 4 plum tomatoes and 1/4-1/2 of a red onion (depending on how much onion you like) and combine in a bowl. Next, finely chop 1 clove of garlic and 2-3 fresh basil leaves and add to the tomatoes and onion mixture. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and add 1 tablespoon of EVOO. Mix thoroughly. (This is enough topping for about 6 slices of bread.)
When the bread comes out of the oven cover it with the bruschetta mixture (which is really just a fresh salsa!) and enjoy The fresh basil and garlic really made this dish. The flavoring was strong, but oh so good!
We had quite the rain and lightening storm last night. My camera cord was in the car and I wasn’t brave enough to venture outside so that is why it’s dinner for breakfast on Anna’s Eats this morning!
I ate an EARLY breakfast today, at 6:30!! Work is REALLY busy so I needed to get there extra early. The good news is that my work laptop is back up and running and is no longer randomly crashing on me
My breakfast EATS were chex cereal with a cup of rice milk. I also snacked on an apple this morning.
WORKOUT UPDATE: Since I exercised Sunday and Monday I felt like Tuesday was a good day for a rest. I did end up taking a 15 minutes walk around my office park yesterday afternoon, but I don’t really count that as TRUE exercise since I didn’t work up a sweat. Tonight is swimming class so that will definitely count as 45 minutes of cardio.
Enjoy your Humpday!
What is your favorite day of the week? Mine is Saturday 
August 4, 2009
No, the title of my lunch post is not a typo. I got tired of writing zucchini since I eat it at least once a day now so I looked up how to say it in Italian, but it’s not so different at all!
At least the zucchini in my lunch wasn’t grilled this time. It’s still growing like crazy in the veggie garden. I am surprised though that I’m not sick of it yet!
I layered hummus, tomato and zucchini on two slices of rye bread and ate it as an open faced sandwich. The zucchini was cut into round slices, dipped in egg, breadcrumbs and then baked in the oven until crispy. I warmed up the zucchini and tomato in the microwave. I never warmed up slices of tomato in the microwave before, but it was good! I didn’t want to eat the zucchini cold and thought cold tomato and warm zucchini eaten together would just throw the whole sandwich off It I could eat cheese, a zucchini and tomato pannini would probably taste real good…
I also packed some apple cobbler with my lunch and ate a little before I took the pic
It’s another hot day with no rain in sight (I hope I didn’t just jinx it!) so I ate lunch outside. I got this lunch bag not so long ago to carry my lunch to work in. It’s my small effort to be green and not use a different plastic or paper bag every day
Tonight’s dinner post will be a recap of my car EATS on the way to Philly last week. See you then!
UPDATE: For accountability sake…my snacks this morning and afternoon were a nectarine, some watermelon and a serving of Stacy’s Simply Naked Pita Chips Work is busy today so I didn’t have time to take photos in between meetings.
August 3, 2009
I’m moving right along with my work and I went for another walk during lunch. This puts my mileage today up to 4! It’s really nice outside so I thought why not take advantge of it before the rain returns!?! It’s easier for me to break up my workouts throughout the day since I don’t always have a lot of time in the morning or at night.
Today’s lunch EATS was SOUP. Yes it’s probably one of the hottest days here, but I wasn’t in the mood for a sandwich or salad.
This soup was really tasty and better for you than some other soups I have come across. It’s lower in sodium (480mg per serving which is still high considering each can has about 2 servings, but reduced from some other brands), has no MSG or artificial flavors. It also has a short ingredients list which is always good!
With the soup I had 1/2 and English muffin with hummus.
This morning I had snacked on some watermelon. On Mondays I work from home so my kitchen table is my desk!
I’m off to get more work done and MAYBE start the laundry…
July 29, 2009
I took a quicker than usual lunch break earlier today so I was able to sneak outside for 10 minutes this afternoon to take a short walk with a co-worker. No rain and 85 degrees today:) I think summer may finally be here to stay!!
Before heading outside I snacked on a nectarine and 2 oatmeal cookies at my desk. (This is the last of the oatmeal cookies )
After work I went to the gym for a quick but sweaty WORKOUT!
Eliptical- 15 minutes
Bike- 15 minutes
Bicep curls- 2 sets of 15
Side bends- 15 reps each side with weieghts
Reverse crunches- 2 sets of 20
I ate some grapes on my way to the gym to carry me over until dinner. I hate working out when I feel hungry- I would have just wanted to leave the gym and go home to EAT!
After the gym I headed to John’s. I wasn’t very hungry and neither was he. We just grilled some veggies- zucchini, asparagus and tomato- and ate them with hummus and pita chips.
BEFORE (The veggies were marinated in olive oil, garlic salt and pepper.)
DURING
AFTER
My first plate
I kept picking and had more of everything! It was the perfect summer dinner
What are your favorite veggies to grill? What do you season them with?
July 24, 2009
I like to get out of the office on Fridays for lunch. Today I went to Panera for a salad with grilled chicken.
I was excited to see that this picture came out good! It’s sometimes harder than you think to snap a nice looking food photo! Anyone have tips on taking a good food pic?
Back to lunch… I ate about 1/2 of the chicken and most of the greens and bread.
Today’s snacks were a serving of pretzel goldfish and an apple. (I ate all the pretzels before I realized I didn’t take a pic, oops!)
I was going to dip my pretzels in hummus, but someone left a leaky container of strawberry flavored applesauce in the fridge at work that leaked all over my hummus container I am really allergic to strawberries. If I touch them I get hives! The strawberry applesauce probably didn’t get into my hummus container, but I didn’t even want to touch it never mind eat it! I used some paper towels to remove the hummus from the frigde and threw it away.
I also had 2 oatmeal cookies later on in the afternoon
Anna's Eats
Hello! I'm 31-years-old and living outside of Boston. I try to do something healthy each day, like take a walk or eat a big salad. Sounds easy, right? It can be. But with working a full-time job, spending time with friends and family and all those not so fun tasks you need to do like laundry, taking proper care of yourself both physically and mentally often gets pushed to the bottom of the To-Do list. Hopefully you will find some ideas through Anna's Eats to incorporate into your routine and share your ideas as well no matter what your specific needs are!!
