My graduation stay started with a fire in the basement in my building, but ended with lobster and chocolate fondue. So hey.

• Breakfast: A hurried bowl of Greek yogurt with berries, cereal, and sunbutter
• Lunch: Giant salad, scrambled egg whites, and toast with avocado
• Dinner: a few pieces of a delicious sushi roll, (unpictured) oysters, steamed lobster with broccolini and sauteed spinach, fruit dipped in chocolate fondue, sauvignon blanc

What’s your ultimate celebration meal? 

So yesterday, I talked a little bit about the unexpected. Go figure, this morning, when I’d planned to sleep in and enjoy a leisurely morning at home before doing the cap & gown thing, I woke at 6:15 to the smell of smoke. At least it wasn’t like that time in 2007 when I woke to a big, burly fireman pounding on my door telling me to get out of the building.

Fortunately, the problem had been taken care of by then and by 7:30 the elevators were running again, even if the lights in all the hallways were out.

So much for a relaxing morning! I went and hung out in a Starbucks for a while before doing a free Zumba class at the Athleta store. I kind of love that I spent the morning before graduating with a Masters of Science dancing around in a store window and laughing about my inability to tell my left foot from right.

Another day, another adventure. Happy Monday!

• Lunch with Mom when I was passing through NJ for a doctor’s appointment Saturday
  

  tilapia & funny little salad with lots of picked veggies

• A friend’s Bday dinner here (I will definitely be attempting to recreate the kale caesar salad I had as an appetizer—so good) and drinks here
• Coffee at this new place, which kind of feels like an airport hotel lounge—in a good way
• A surprise Neil Young binge that’s gonna take a few days at least to shake

Tomorrow I’m graduating with my MS in Clinical Nutrition & Dietetics. In some ways, it almost feels like my first day of grad school was last week (it was actually 4 years ago today), but in others, it’s like it was a lifetime ago.

5 years ago, I moved to NYC to be with a guy I’m not even in touch with anymore, thinking I’d do my freelance writing and part time PR job until I found something in publishing. Hah! If someone had told me I’d feel compelled to seek out a job with an alternative health care practice and decide to go back to school to study clinical nutrition because of ghostwriting a Chinese medicine blog, I’d have laughed.

The main lesson I’ve learned is that when you follow your intuition to what feels good and what feels right, it’s hard to go wrong, even if it’s not always easy or doesn’t make sense right away. I can’t lie, it’s been awesome—lots of good surprises along the way. I love what I do, and even on the stressful days, I usually still feel like this: 

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down, ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

—John Lennon

Cheers to that. Thank you, thank you thank, you for all your support and encouragement along the way.

I guess passing out at work a couple times will scare a person for life (though only one time was even remotely related to needing to eat), and I’ve known since I was a teenager that I’m no fun to be around when my blood sugar is low. It’s certainly not conducive to productivity.

Basically the above two paragraphs are me trying not to complain about the food at work. Some days it’s nice to be able to just get a quick salad, but I know I’m going to get sick of chickpeas and hard-boiled eggs and romaine and iceberg lettuce pretty damn fast. After an incident with a pink-inside piece of roasted chicken, it’s going to be a while before I can even think about the hot entrees again. The cooked veggies aren’t so bad at least.

Still, a free lunch is a free lunch and at first I was having some anxiety about not wanting to seem ungrateful or give off the impression that I think I’m too good to eat what’s available, but at the end of the day, I like what I like, and I also like to feel satisfied and energized after I eat instead of still-hungry and/or over-salted.

So what’s a hungry gal to do?

If “bring your own protein” isn’t a thing yet, it is now. I wish I could take credit for the phrase, but someone wrote it to me in an email last week. I kind of love it.

Unfortunately, there’s no fridge, but I do have an insulated lunch bag and ice-packs aplenty (sometime I’ll have to tell you about how I walked smack into a wall last Friday night, only the latest silly injury). The other day I brought a kale salad with quinoa and tempeh from home and just added some salad/sandwich bar stuff to it, but for dressing up cafeteria offerings, I’ve also tried dry-roasted edamame, turkey jerky (good but not a favorite), peanut butter, and even a packet of tuna (not all together, of course!).

Much better

I think the tuna thing is going to become a regular occurrence, especially since I’ve been trying to get back in the habit of eating fish 2-3 times a week. For now, I’m looking at this BYOP as a fun thing to try a few days a week, see what I come up with. For example, I cooked a bunch of black-eyed peas the other night and froze in single servings so I can just grab and go. I also made some into black-eyed pea cakes, which might also be a nice way to top off a salad or even a plate of overcooked veggies.

So we will see…

Do you “bring your own protein” ever? Any BYOP ideas? 

I’m not going to lie and say that grad school has been a piece of cake—there were a lot of late nights, tears, and freak-outs, though fortunately, most of the latter two occurred in 2009 and 10. I don’t talk about it much on the blog, but early on I had to stand up to a lot of naysaying and bust my ass the whole way to get as much as I could out of the education (and you know, not fail chem) and seek out my own learning experiences to fill in the gaps.

So yeah, I can now put MS, RD on those business cards. I’m a little fried but so appreciative. What a long, strange trip indeed. And it’s just the beginning of another one : )

Since this week has been super-busy, here’s What I ate on Mothers’ Day. My mom is ridiculous (and I mean that in the best way possible)—she’s the only person I’ve ever met who wanted to spend her Mothers’ Day cooking for 15 people. Everything was delicious and everyone seemed to have a really nice time. The only problem with afternoon dinners (at least for me) is that I get hungry around my normal dinnertime. It’s rare that I’m able to eat dinner at 3 and make it all the way to bed without my stomach growling. Over time, I’ve learned to just treat the early dinner like it’s a late lunch. Whatever works, you know? Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full. Eat again when you get hungry 6 hours later…

• Breakfast: I’m still on a breakfast jag. You’re probably seeing me post zucchini bread oatmeal on Wednesdays, but I eat it at least 3 or 4 times a week right now.
• Appetizers: Veggies with salsa & spinach dip, tomato & mozzarella
• Linner: Shrimp, ribs, salad (mixed greens and also this lovely pickled beet salad my mom made), asparagus, potato & cheese pierogi; a glass-and-a-half of my favorite sparkling shiraz
• Dessert: Vanilla ice cream with strawberries
• Second Dinner: (unpictured) A salad using up a bunch of leftover veggies; toast with hummus & eggplant

Do you ever need to a eat a “second dinner” after family gatherings? 

I worked late yesterday and came in to work early today so I can be there for all the presentations (required). In typical Jess fashion, I packed plenty of snacks: 

I feel like this photo says a ton about how my eating habits have changed over the past 4 years too! In 2009, I’d have definitely had a few packs of splenda or some kind of artificially-sweetened yogurt, and soy crisps instead of, uh, turkey jerky (awkward name, but hey). There would also have been a giant diet coke involved. Maybe the Gnu bar would have been a Luna Bar. And the sliced green peppers? Ain’t nobody got time for that!

Haha thanks for putting up with some of my delirious posts lately. I see light at the end of the tunnel!

Um, yeah, if by “Happy Mothers’ Day” you mean “die a slow, painful death from complications related to diabetes…”

My uncle pointed out that it’s the same donut they were featuring over Valentine’s Day but with a different name. The blatant marketing of junk food really tweaked me. I know, I know—what do I expect from Dunkin Donuts? But still! Cream-filled, frosting-covered donuts do not equal love! At least not when you consider that some of the ingredients (hello, trans and saturated fats) have been linked to various heart ailments.  It’s like saying, “Here Mom, I wanted to help shorten your lifespan a little.” Besides, naming it “Mom’s Heart” is just too freaking creepy!

I know I may be overreacting, but I am so not okay with stuff like that. Whatever happened to flowers?

What do you think about this Mom’s Heart donut business? 

Thanks for always laughing with me! Love you!

me & my beautiful madre

Off to a BBQ with the fam. Have an awesome day : )

Any good weekend plans?