falaFULL

I am perfectly full from my homemade falafels! It's nice to have the self control now that I didn't have before. Let me set the scene: I'm at my apartment and no one can see how much I am eating, therefor no one is judging what I am eating. Before I would have stuffed myself until I was in pain, but for this meal, and all my meals recently, I am trying to savor the food and the time I take to eat it. I used to wolf food down so fast my body didn't even have a chance to feel I was full, then it would hit me like a ton of bricks!

As far as the falafel sandwich goes, my mom and little sister made whole wheat pitas over the weekend. They kindly let me take them back with me to school and it worked perfect because I had a can of chickpeas in my cabinet that I was dying to make falafels with. After class today, I went to the local small grocery store and picked up some of their prepared baba ghanouj, bulghur tabouli salad, coriander, and a tomato.  I chopped the tomato up, took out the seeds and juice, and sprinkled the tomato with a little salt and pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil. I let that sit while I made everything else. I followed this recipe for the falafels but instead of frying them in 2 inches of oil, I used about a tablespoon of olive oil in a cast iron pan to fry them up.  I layered some tomatoes, tabouli, and baba ghanouj on the homemade pita. Then I topped it with three small falafels. It was a mediterranean experiment that turned out sooo tasty! 

Now let me back up to before dinner.  I skipped tennis class today because I wasn't feeling great and my stomach was being weird so I studied for my sign language test. When I got back from my test, I just wanted to sit on my couch and look at blogs and be lazy. I decided I would rather go work out than see a gain on the scale Wednesday morning, so I got off my lazy butt and got to the gym.  I did 45 minutes on the stairclimber and burned a little more than 600 calories! My t-shirt was soaked in sweat, but it was worth it and I felt so much better afterwards.  The bad news, my toe that's been hurting is now making a clicking noise :(  I can't get into the doctor until sometime in September which is after I start my job, so I'm just gonna keep an eye on it and not push it too much.  Here's the pre-workout, post-class smoothie I made:

It had Silk Almond Milk, half a mango, 3 big strawberries, 5 big blackberries, half a scoop of protein powder, a cup of spinach, and a pinch of xanthan gum to thicken it up.  It wasn't very sweet which was actually a nice change of pace.


After my workout I had to stop at the library because some books I put on hold had come in. As much as I dislike Jillian, I'm interested to see what her books says.  The other two books I need so I can continue to compile healthy recipes for when I move home!

Now I've gotta chug some water and finish Gossip Girl. (How am I about to be a "grownup"???