Week in Review

Happy Friday!  I want thank you all for the birthday wishes on my last post!  All the messages were so sweet :)  I kind of went into my birthday feeling a bit meh about it, but I actually had a lovely birthday weekend and a really stellar week.  And I'll tell ya, now that I've been 35 for almost a full week, I feel incredibly older and wiser :/

Here's what's been going on in my life this week...


1.  I think my back is *almost* completely healed!  (I say almost because I don't want to jinx anything!).  I did a high intensity circuit workout that included burpees and pushups, and also lifted weights this week, including free weights for shoulders and tris.  These workouts definitely would not have been possible 2 weeks ago.  Dare I say, I'm BACK baby and I'm looooooooooving every minute of it!


2.  The city of Baltimore is being overrun by foxes.  No, not really.  BUT, the cutest little fox walked right past the window I was standing at at work the other day!  It was probably only 10 feet from where I was standing; I have never seen a fox up that close before.  It looked cute and snuggly and I wanted to take him home.  Do foxes and cats get along?  Prob not.  Oh well.

via morguefile.com

Not my photo - but it looked kind of like this.  SO CUTE!

 

 

3.  Grapes have approximately 5 calories each.  Who knew?  I found this out through an article on Facebook, which I can't locate at the moment.  Good info to know when you are eating the entire bag of approximately 200 grapes!  There goes breakfast and lunch.  I actually always felt like I was kind of on a sugar high when I would overeat grapes and this article stated that they are high in some simple sugar which is known to cause a quick spike in blood sugar. 

 

 

4.  Birthday sushi is the best sushi!

Instagram

 

 

5.  I am possibly one of the only people on the planet not obsessed with the missing plane.  I feel terrible for the families of the passengers aboard but I kinda think the entire world has gone crazy with these black hole/conspiracy/alien theories.  I also didn't learn until today that CNN has now devoted their entire newscast to 24/7 coverage of the plane mystery?!?!?!  How are we supposed to find out what else is going on in the world right now??

 

6.  4 year olds are incredible abstract artists.  Exhibit A: This painting done by my niece that I received in the mail this week, and is now proudly displayed on my refrigerator.

 

 

 

7.  Morningstar Farms black bean burger > Gardenburger black bean burger.  Like x1000.  I am addicted to the Morningstar Farms variety, and I legit had to throw out the Gardenburger ones.  They made me gag.

 

These are the best!

 

 



8.  And last but not least, SPRING IS HERE!!!  I really hope Old Man Winter got the memo and gets the heck out of Dodge.  Winter, if you're reading, you're no longer welcome here.  Move it along.

 

 

The combination of my birthday and Spring's arrival this week just made me feel happy and hopeful!  I hope you all had a wonderful week as well!

 

 

How was your week?  What went down??



 

 

 

 

 

I Tried It: Sunshine Burgers!

As a member of the Sweat Pink and Fit Approach network of bloggers, I was recently given the opportunity to sample a variety of vegan/non meat, organic veggie burgers from a company called Sunshine Burgers.  About a week ago, I got a shipment from Sunshine Burgers that included 6 different varieties of their burgers.  They shipped the burgers in dry ice so they remained fresh until I got home from work that night!  Behold the variety:

 

Although all of the varieties have different unique flavors and whole-food ingredients, they are all organic, contain no GMO ingredients, and are all vegan (score one for Jilly!).  They are also free of many common allergens (like gluten, wheat, soy, corn, oats, dairy, eggs and nuts). 

I was really excited to sample these, because I am always looking for new healthy ways to add protein into my diet.  I do eat meat, and most often get a bulk of my daily protein intake at dinner in the form of lean beef or turkey burgers.  However, more recently, I've been doing a lot of reading and research into factory farming practices, and this has prompted me to reduce my meat intake in favor of more plant-based protein sources.  This opportunity couldn't have come at a better time, because I just started switching out my turkey burgers for some veggie varieties!

In the past week I've tried many of the varieties I was provided by Sunshine Burgers.  The first one I tried was a breakfast sausage replacement  - the "Hemp & Sage" flavor.  I ate this plain between a bun, as one would eat a breakfast sausage sandwich.  In hindsight, I probably should have added an egg in there to make it a real breakfast sammie!  You could definitely taste the sage seasoning in this one, which I liked.  It didn't really taste 'meat-like' to me, because the texture was more grainy than meaty, but I liked the flavor.

My two favorites by far were the spicy varieties!  I loved the "Loco Chipotle" which was a larger, quarter-pound burger, and also loved the "Southwest" version which was a spicy black bean burger.  One night for dinner, I toasted a whole wheat bun, filled it with a Loco Chipotle patty and topped it off with some sprouts and avocado slices.  YUM!  The avocado added some creaminess which offset the spiciness of the burger.  Loved this combo:

 

 

I ate all of my burgers like burgers, but the company has lots of great ideas on their website for crumbling the patties and using them in recipes.  As we all know, I'm not THAT creative in the kitchen, and eating these like burgers was just perfect for me!  They are super easy to prepare because they are already fully cooked (#winning!) so all you have to do is heat them up in the microwave.  BOOM.  Easiest dinner ever.

 

 

If you want to try Sunshine Burgers for yourself, you can check out their website for even more information than I've provided here.  If you're in the Baltimore area, and looking to purchase a box for yourself, they are available at Safeway stores and Whole Foods.  You can also find a store near you on their website.

 

 

*Disclosure:  Sunshine Burgers provided me with the samples for this post, but I was not compensated in any way.  Reviews and opinions are entirely my own!

 

 

How about you?

 

Do you dig veggie burgers? 

 

Have you ever tried Sunshine Burgers?