Fiber-One

So, one of my current favorite companies is Fiber-One. One of the main things that I have been struggling with in the past six months or so is just how expensive it is to eat the way most of the diet books, blogs, tv shows tell you to. Aside from the fact that they all want you to eat lots of fresh fruit and veggies- both of which are not cheap- they all give you these food plans that involve cooking these meals each day that have a whole bunch of ingredients, many of which are not found in most people's kitchens. So, you wind up having to go out and buy all these funky ingredients each week to make these meals. And not only is this expensive, but it takes a lot more time than I have on most nights to make.

As a result, I've been on the hunt for food that is nutritious and inexpensive, while not taking a ton of time to make. For instance, I've gone back to the grade school lunches, which I figure got me through a whole lot of years fairly healthy- the good old peanut butter and jelly, only now, on wheat. But, the company that I love is Fiber-One. They now have Fiber-One pop tarts. Each one is only 180 calories, has 5 grams of fiber and 3 grams of protein which makes them more filling than a regular Pop Tart. Plus, they taste really good. The chocolate fudge actually tastes just as good as a regular Pop Tart, which is shocking to me, because normally when healthy food is available in chocolate, it usually doesn't really taste like chocolate, but this does. My other favorite new product from Fiber-One is their pancake mix. Again, one serving has 5 grams of fiber and 6 grams of protein. Last weekend, I had three pancakes for brunch around 10:30 am and was full until around 6 at night. And one great thing is that Fiber-One has now launched a website where you can find out what products they have available and if you can't find them in your local grocery store, you can order them online. So, hopefully, this will help me eat healthy on a budget.

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about the fact that I will be turning 32 in April. The last couple of years I didn't really want to celebrate my birthday. But, I've come to the decision that if I can get back down to my "fighting weight" (the weight I was when I graduated college), I will be celebrating this coming birthday. So, my bike is on the indoor trainer in my living room and combining the workouts with my new healthy diet, hopefully the pounds will start to come off again. Fingers crossed:)

Fighting Irish

Yesterday I got to fulfill another item from my life's to-do list. I went to South Bend, IN and saw a Notre Dame football game. It all actually came together by chance a couple of months ago. My church's liturgist rode on Team Wendy, the bike team, for the MS 150 this year. My mom drives the team sag wagon and at one rest stop she was talking to him about his summer. He had been taking classes down at Notre Dame. He mentioned that they had offered the summer students the chance to buy tickets to a couple of games, which I guess never happens, so he took advantage and got tickets for him and a friend to one of the games. My mom merely asked if he could get any more- knowing that our whole family are big fans and that while my brother and dad went to a game about 6 years ago, I have never gone. When our liturgist got back to school on Monday, he called my parents and told them he could for sure get two tickets- my dad asked if there was a chance he could get four, and by some miracle, he could. My mom very excitedly called my brother and I and the planning started. 

Now, I my parents and I had to be home for church on Sunday morning and my brother couldn't get both Friday and Saturday off from his bartending job, so we decided to just make a really long day of it. I was up on Saturday morning at 4:15am and my parents picked me up just after 5:30am. We headed to my brother's place and I drove us down to South Bend. The drive down went really well, hardly any traffic to deal with so we made good time getting down there at about 11am est. The non-reserved parking lots are about a 20 minute walk to the stadium area, so they have shuttles that take you to campus. No problem getting to campus at that time of the morning. They dropped us off next to the library- that's the building that has the large "Touchdown Jesus" on the side of it. After a few pics in front of "Touchdown Jesus", our first stop was of course, the bookstore. Man, that place was packed! They must sell at least $100,000 of stuff on home game weekends. I mean, we bought a bunch of stuff, but I saw people there with stacks of stuff- and none of it is cheap. Anyway, from there it was off to the fieldhouse. The second story houses their hall of fame. We got to see the National Championship trophies for all sports. My brother made my dad do the Heisman pose for a picture in front of the Heisman trophies. Very funny stuff:) We then walked across campus to the "main hall" not sure what the official name is, but it's the golden dome building. Very cool to see that up close and of course next door is the church, another gorgeous building. We found the Knights of Columbus building, where they sell awesome steak sandwiches and soda for only $6. Then we headed to the "Irish Green" area which is the only place on campus that you can get beer on game day unless you are tailgating. It was nice to sit down and relax a little bit. However, in retrospect, I should have had more than just the steak sandwhich and I should have had water- I have learned my lesson. Anyway, then we hussled up to the stadium area to see the player walk in for the game- the whole team goes to a private mass before the game and then they walk over to the stadium in their suits. People line up the whole way to cheer them on. We got there to see about half the team- it was pretty cool to see everyone cheering them on lining the whole walk about 3 or so deep. Then it was back towards the golden dome to meet up with the guy that got us the tickets. We thanked him for helping us have an awesome day! 

Our next stop was the Grotto. This is just a beautiful place. Tons of people were down there lighting candles. We got a little chuckle out of the one Washington fan lighting a candle. My brother wondered whether he thought his prayer for his team could beat all of our prayers- we pointed out that maybe he was praying for something else. When space opened up, each of us knelt down for a brief prayer. After the game we were talking about prayers being answered and my mom said she didn't pray for Notre Dame to win. My brother and I laughed and said we both did. I said that I told God thanks for a really great day so far and that it would be even better if Notre Dame could win. My brother said that he just said- make them win. Short, sweet- pretty typical for him. Anyway, from the Grotto, we headed over to see the band perform on the steps of one of the buildings. From there they move to in front of the golden dome. One of the coolest moments of the day came next. The band lines up and starts to play the Victory March and they march to the stadium and the fans file in behind them. Pretty much the band marching across campus with the fans behind them all the way to the stadium. It gave me chills. Oh, a quick comment on the weather. It had been chilly most of the day, with a couple brief showers, but nothing too bad. It actually looked like the weather would hold up for the game. We got into the stadium and found out we were in the south endzone 53 rows up. Not bad at all. We were pretty packed in there, but everyone around us was pretty nice. The game started off kind of rough- while the offense moved the ball well, they couldn't get in the endzone, settling for field goals. People were getting a little upset, which got worse when it started raining. Then the rain got harder. My raincoat went on and the hood went up. At halftime, the game was still close, but it started raining much harder. I was ok, except my coat didn't cover my legs and those were getting soaked. The guy sitting next to me had a poncho on that covered his legs and when he looked over and saw me getting drenched, he offered me his coat to use to cover my legs. A very nice gesture that saved me probably from pneumonia. Things got pretty exciting in the fourth quarter when we made a huge goal-line stance and then we went back and scored a touchdown. We stood for pretty much the whole fourth quarter. Then the game went into overtime and we went nuts. I'm surprised I wasn't hoarse this morning. When Notre Dame won in the first overtime, the place was crazy! 

The only downside to the whole day was that after all of that, I had a raging migraine that was made worse by the over an hour-long wait to get on a shuttle back to the parking lot. I won't go into much detail but it was a rough car ride home that involved me holding a plastic bag in front of my face. I'm feeling much better today and even the rough evening can't ruin an incredible day! The fact that I got to share it with my whole family made it even better.