TJ's — Blog — Fit Foodie Le

the cardio horse is back in her saddle! after a week off from teaching my Lifetime classes, it's great to be BACK. burnout is a lose-lose for the instructor and the members... breaks always re-energize and re-fuel me to teach the best class i possibly can. especially at 530am.

after 1 hr of Total Conditioning, i jumped on my fav elliptical machine and did 45 minutes of fat-burning cardio and called it a day. no more gym for me until tomorrow...maybe even thursday!! no more two a days. for now! until i decide to compete again (i'm sure i will) i'm focusing on maintaining my current weight, give or take a few pounds.

all i could think about was breakfast on my way home as usual.

so i'm back on the clean eating train. as of yesterday. for the most part. i've been adding extra things (for example, the tomatoes and asparagus ) to my meals that i normally couldn't when i was preparing for my show. usually what i add doesn't really affect the total calorie count of the meal anyway. extra veggies is nothing compared to an extra egg or some meat or something, you know?!

second shot of meal 1,

and here's meal 2 so far. i'm sticking with 5-6 small meals a day. my body responds so well to this routine so i'm keeping it going. try it out and see how your body responds!

so, Houston has just become that much cooler.

Sonny and i made it back in time from Jamaica to attend the grand opening extravaganza of Trader Joe's this past Friday, Sept. 21st.

If you are familiar with H-town, then you know that this historic building was once a theater, then a book store for 25 years, and finally the home of our very 1st TJ's! we didn't even go home first- it was that important. to me.

taking pics to pass the time while Sonny finished his phone call.

8 days later and my 'show' hair is already in a pony tail.

walking up- i love that they kept and used the old school marquee.

getting started. the store is not as big as i anticipated, but it was still jam-packed with a ton of cool items. it was lunch time AND the grand opening so space got a little tight. i didn't mind.

Joe's O's for Chiso.

saying a prayer and thanking God for these low sodium rice cakes!!! i used to get the popular Lundberg brown rice cakes, but why have one of those when i can have TWO of Joe's for a 10 cal difference?!

sampling some kinda fresh squeezed juice. and yep, that's my tummy. i left my abs in Jamaica.

i definitely grabbed something off of every isle.

ok people are going absolutely nuts over this stuff and i completely understand. i passed a tower of it on the way to checkout and thought to myself 'man i wonder what that tastes like!!'. i literally looked up and walked right into a store associate shoving a sampling spoon of it right in my face!! of course i'll take some! our cashier told us it's their top-selling item right now and that they will be coming out with a crunchy version for the Christmas holidays. Lord have mercy.

turkey jerky!!!!!!! haven't had this stuff since my Cali trip back in 2010. great high protein, low-fat snack.

what i ended up with- roasted seaweed snacks, popping corn, unsalted pb filled pretzels, unsalted rice cakes, turkey jerky, lite coconut milk, unsweetened apple sauce, Joe's O's (whole grain cereal), lobster rolls, black mission figs, organic pizza sauce, lactose-free milk, fresh sugar snap peas, coconut oil, goat cheese, fat-free feta, egg-plant humus, egg whites, spicy mustard, fig butter, and some fresh fruit. no cookie butter yet!!!

i was expecting to go well over 100, maybe even 150. but i did NOT break the bank. gotta love those reasonable prices for organic, natural, fresh foods. i'm THRILLED that TJ's is finally here and will gladly make the drive to visit.

after buying all that delicious food, what does Sonny want for lunch? Mission Tortilla. because he was a great sport and even came grocery shopping with me i shut my trap right up :shock:

i waited til we got home to fix my lunch. here are some of the items up close for you to look for on your TJ's trip.

the fig butter is AWESOME- and no, there isn't a drop of butter in it. it even says that on the package. "To be a butter, a spread must contain more fruit than sugar.."

whole wheat pita pockets and eggplant humus - only 35 cals per 2 tbsp. serving!

there was no cooked meat (ok fresh cooked meat) in our house since we had been gone for a week, so i made some fig and feta tuna and grilled a whole wheat pita to go with it.

my seasonings for the tuna. i almost ALWAYS add boiled eggs to my tuna, but i was too hungry to wait!

i also spread some of the fig butter and eggplant humus on the pita bread-

DELICIOUS.

what else can you put fig butter on? it's great in wraps too- i made a grilled chicken, kale, tomato, avocado wrap on a whole wheat tortilla for my next meal. the spicy salty mustard and the sweet fig go great together. try it.

what are your favorite must have Trader Joe's items?? and have you tried the cookie butter :lol: