I’m pretty sure I used that title before, but it was an Ace in the Hole kind of a Wednesday yesterday, so I couldn’t resist!

I got up, brewed a pot of coffee, blogged and caught up on a few blogs etc. Before I knew it, it was nearing lunch time and I hadn’t had anything other than coffee!  The perfect solution was to whip up a nice warm and filling bowl of oats (complete with extra toppings!).  And since I’ve overcome my dislike for pumpkin, I was actually looking forward to making pumpkin oats!  I can’t get over how much more filling a bowl of oatmeal is with pumpkin!!

Ta daaaaa:

The Mix:

• 1/3c oats, 1/2c unsweetened vanilla almond breeze, 1/2c water, 1/2 banana in the pot
• 1 tbsp ground sprouted chia, pumpkin pie spice, vanilla, 1/3c pure pumpkin stirred in at the end
• Toppings: sprinkle of unsweetened shredded coconut, 1/2 tbsp mini dark chocolate chips, spoonful of almond-hazelnut butter
• = 8 POINTS

Can you say perfection? It’s incredibly healthy and I was FULL.  I love “brunch” time meals because I can afford to splurge on a few extra POINTS on my first meal because there’s no need for a morning snack.  Loves.it.

Then I decided I was going to take advantage of the beautiful sunlight (since it’s dark when I get home from work) and go for a daylight run outside.  I ended up pumping out 8.5 kms in an hour which I was sooo pumped about.  And well, let me just say that the word “hill” is in the name of our neighbourhood ;-)  The first 2.5 kms included having to control Lucy.  I can’t say I blame her because she’s a dog and she needs to sniff and investigate!  I dropped her off back at the house and I continued on my way.

I felt freaking amazing and I wanted to keep going and make it an even 10 kms, but my knees were telling me a different story. I cannot wait to get the rest of this weight off so that I can alleviate some of that stress on my joints.  I LOVE running!  And quite frankly I cannot even believe that it’s true!!!  Lately I have been remembering when I first tried to run outside.  I think I was still well over 250 lbs and I struggled soooo much to run from just one telephone poll to the next.  Like I mean struggled!  It was a game for me to just “hang on” that long.  I think I’m starting to get all sappy now because I’m watching recorded episodes of the Biggest Loser! lol  Okay okay, snapping out of it now 😉

I got back from my run with a proud 700 calorie burn and fixed myself a healthy and perfectly re-fueling Amazing Grass smoothie:

• 1/2 small frozen banana
• 1c frozen fruit (cantaloupe, melon, watermelon, grapes)
• 1 scoop Pom-Mango Amazing Meal
• 1c unsweetened vanilla almond breeze
• 1 tbsp hazelnut butter
• 1c baby spinach, steamed & chilled
• yogurt whey to thin it out (kept it from making homemade greek yogurt)
• = 7.5 POINTS

It was a homerun and a perfect mix of everything pure that my body needed to re-fuel and repair.  I stretched really well and iced my knees and decided how much of a treat it would be to enjoy a warm bath with my smoothie and read more Twilight!  It was glorious and it was a perfect reward 😉 I truly felt like I treated my body well!

Before long we hit the road over to MILs for supper and had some delicious lasagna.  It was great and I stuck to my POINTS left for the day.  I didn’t fill up on veggies like I normally would, so I ended up getting a little hungry when I got home and I filled the voided with some roasted squash with some feta on top.  I didn’t take any pics but it was yum :-). There may have been some delicious dark chocolate in there too.  I heart dark chocolate.

My journal for the day looked like this:

Another one bites the dust 😉