I’m still having a little bit of trouble sleeping, so my whole schedule is all out of whack. Since I didn’t fall asleep until 5:30am, I didn’t wake up until around 12:30pm. By that time, it was way too late for breakfast, so I just skipped straight to lunch.
I had another one of these awesome turkey sandwiches made with Jennie O shaved turkey breast, tomato, romaine lettuce, mustard, lite mayonnaise, and FiberOne 100% Whole Wheat Bread. It was the perfect lunch 
On my way out the door to a doctor’s appointment at 3pm, I threw together a quick smoothie to take with me for my afternoon snack I knew I’d most definitely need. I didn’t have time to take a picture of it, though, because I was running super late.
But it had THIS watermelon in it!
Strawberry-Watermelon Protein Smoothie
(original recipe)
Ingredients:
1/8 watermelon, cubed (about 2 cups)
1 cup frozen strawberries, diced
1/2 – 1 scoop vanilla protein powder
1/4 cup water (necessary with my blender, maybe not with yours)
Directions:
Blend until fully combined. Add more strawberries if you like a thicker texture.
Enjoy!
After my appointment, I headed over to Target to buy a bunch of crap I don’t really need 
I found this MASSIVE box of fruits snacks. It’s a 50-count! It was only $6.79. That’s a way better deal than paying $2 per 10-count package, which is what they are usually.
Fruit snacks might be made for little kids, but I eat them all the time. Ever since I can remember, I’ve had this problem where I need to be eating something as I’m falling asleep (my freshman year roommate Maria will attest to that! ). Sometimes gum helps, but not always. I’ve tried quitting this horrible habit before, but it always comes back. So that’s where fruit snacks come in – it’s my sort of compromise. Instead of shoving cookies down my throat, I’ll have one of these fruit snacks packages, which is only 80 calories! It’s not enough calories to really impact my weight, but it is enough to placate whatever weird part of my brain is obsessed with eating right before bed.
So, the 50-count box it is
Let’s talk about books! (Are you my friend on Goodreads yet?). I haven’t gone over my lastest reads in forever. I don’t have time to do a full post on book reviews since I’ve been reading so many books lately, but here’s a quick peek at some of the ones in my life right now.
I finally started reading Insurgent! I absolutely loved Divergent, the first one in this series (even more than The Hunger Games!), so I couldn’t wait to get into this one. Normally, I’m not a huge fan of Young Adult literature at all but, like The Hunger Games, this series just swept me up. I can’t get enough of Tris and her world. Now that I’m halfway through this one, I cant wait to go back and read Divergent again.
P.S. Isn’t the cover amazing?! It might be one of my favorite book covers ever. Such beautiful colors.
While I was out today, I also picked up Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, this month’s Peanut Butter Fingers Book Club pick. I’ve never participated before, but this month I thought “why not?” I’m already reading a ton anyway. Look out for my review at the end of the month!
My friend Lauren from Becoming the Odd Duck has been going on and on about how amazing this book Bared to You by Sylvia Day is, so I just had to get it ASAP. I’m probably going to read Gone Girl first, just to make sure I finish it before the end of the month, but I’m chomping at the bit to get started on this one. Apparently it’s supposed to be 50 Shades of Grey-esque, so I’ll let you know how it goes.
While I was at it, I also picked up this Mary Kay Andrews book for a steal at $5.98. I’ve heard good things about her and her novels, so I’m interested to see how it is. Although I do like chick lit, it’s not usually my first choice, so I’m curious to see if I’ll like it or not.
For dinner, I made Brent’s favorite meal – meatloaf. Except I did something a little different this time!
Aren’t they cute?? Meatloaf muffins!
I got this idea from a picture a little while ago and just had to try it out, using my go-to meatloaf recipe. This time, I added in some garlic powder and a little shake of ground mustard, just to switch it up. They came out awesome! Brent and I both liked this version even better than the regular loaf-shape. Because the yummy taste, they cooked more evenly and a lot faster due to their small size. It was a win-win-win!
On the side, I had 8oz of chopped broccoli tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper.
Let’s take a look at how I did today…
Healthy Goals Checklist
- At least 100g of protein. Check! I got a total of 116.5.
- At least 4 servings of fruits/veggies. Check! I had 5.25 today.
- No more than one treat. Check! I had a bowl of Lucky Charms (can’t get enough!) before bed.
- Exercise and/or stretch. Check! I made sure to get my third workout of the week in just under the wire (My checklist week starts on Tuesday and one of my rules is that I have to workout at least 3 times each week – I can’t just only do stretching). I did some ab moves from my favorite ab workout (not all of them, though), shoulder presses, and bicep curls while watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians on my DVR.
Hi! Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog. I'm Miranda, I love books, and I'm more than a little bit obsessed with goats.
I recently graduated with a degree in English from the University of Rhode Island and now I'm working as an editorial assistant at a publishing company, which is pretty much my dream job!
Oh yeah, and I'm also handicapped. But I'm not letting that stop me from doing what I love! Here's what you'll find on my blog -- tons of awesome recipes, stories about my relationship, details on my in-progress weight loss, and so much more! 
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I love those meatloaf muffins! New recipe for me. You had to show watermelon didn’t you, now I crave it. Yet again, when do I not?
Though you admit that eating right before bed is a bad habit, if it is truly something you do every night I think you should really try to make an effort to stop. It might be a good goal to add to your checklist. Habits are hard to break, but it’s do-able, especially if you hold yourself accountable. Eventually your brain will stop thinking about food before bed if you stop giving it food before bed. It may be a myth that eating late at night makes you gain weight, however there is some truth in the idea that we should cut our eating off a couple of hours before we go to bed. “Mindless” eating occurs at night which obviously results in unnecessary calories. The fruit snacks might be low in calories, but I’m guessing they have at least 10g of sugar in that tiny serving. I’ve known several people who have stopped snacking after 7pm and have noticed increased weight loss as a result! Just thought you should consider this….
I didn’t really go into it, because this issue could have made up an entirely different post. I wasn’t able to say all I wanted to say about eating before bed in that short blurb, so I hope this will kind of answer any questions you had.
Ultimately, eliminating my bedtime snack IS my end goal. As I’ve said before, I’ve tried and failed multiple times already to get rid of the habit. Because of that, I decided that I’d try a weaning approach rather than cold turkey. Eating just one fruit snack before bed is already a HUGE step for me, which I’m not sure you quite gave me credit for in your comment. I completely agree with you that bedtime snacks are probably not the best thing for weight loss, even though it’s supposed to be a myth. Right now, I working on slowly getting rid of it until the nighttime snack is gone completely.
One problem I do have with cutting out the snacking is that, because of my boyfriend’s and my schedule, we already don’t eat dinner until at least 8pm every night. So cutting out eating after 7pm is just not going to happen. Also, I have pretty bad insomnia. Some nights it will keep me up until at least 5am or, often, even later. I find that on those nights, it’s kind of ridiculous to try to cut myself off from food after dinner at 8pm until I go to sleep. That’s potentially at least 9 hours of time between dinner and when I fall asleep. Not to mention that, counting the time I would be asleep, that adds up to about 17 hours (if I get a full 8 hours of sleep) before I can eat again. Obviously that’s WAY more unhealthy than having a nighttime snack. I don’t have insomnia every single night, but it happens at least a few times a week.
Right now I’m trying hard to balance all of these issues and make the healthiest choices I can for myself. Because of everything I explained, I don’t think it’s a good idea to add this to the checklist. Hopefully, one day my insomnia won’t be so bad and our schedules won’t be so weird. At that point in time, I’ll definitely be making more of an effort to eliminate the nighttime snacking. But for right now, I’m happy with how I’m doing. Thanks so much for commenting! I really do appreciate your thoughts
I drink a protein smoothie everyday and never thought to try watermelon which I love. Thanks for the recipe.
I read Bared to You and yes it was good but it was so similar to Shades of Grey it was kind of weird. I mean very similar. Regardless, I’ll be reading the next one due to be published in Sept I think.
I was just looking at the Divergent, Insurgent… series last week.
Hmm okay, thanks for the heads up! You should definitely try out Divergent. I just finished Insurgent tonight and I can’t get enough of this series! I don’t know how I’ll be able to wait until Fall 2013 for the next one.