negative correlation (research, eats)! ~~ New Challenge proposal!

Hello everyone! It's a wonderful Saturday here and I had a fabulous Friday yesterday! ^_^ (you can tell I'm in good mood today, aren't you?) As the title says, whenever I'm productive with work, I'm meh with my eats. It's not my intention and I certainly don't want that happen, but it just happen. But... I'm determined to change this situation. Because I realized that I feel low/stressed out about my work because that's the only thing that I was focusing on, all my emoticons/thoughts relates directly and exclusively to my progress in work, and that's really unhealthy, both mentally and physically. So, I need a CHANGE! As a lot of you challenge yourself with something, I will join you by challenging myself. How? I'm not 100% sure yet, maybe dedicate one hour everyday in prepare a good meal? cook everyday and eat less leftovers? Another thing that I was thinking to do with you guys is some kind of Trying new Exotic foods. Most of us stick to our usual eats, some part of us want to try new things, and some other part say "what if it's not good?"... So, let's challenge our inner "fear" to try new things together, and as this is a food blogger, what a better way to begin to try new food. What do you think? Would you like to participate? Let me know so I can think how to organize to make it doable and with more participants.
Okay. now, back to yesterday. I woke up at 3am!!! (don't worry, it's the exception rather than rules nowadays ^_^). Read a while, snack, read blogs, wrote my post, did a 45 min yoga core, breakfast and finished grading.
Snack: goji-chocolate muffin + almond breezeFor breakfast I wanted to try something new. I tried to use oat bran for pancakes. I used oatbran, almond milk, pumpkin, vanilla/cinnamon and baking powder. But the result was dissapointing. it does not look pancake at all!!!! Just when I was feeling bad about my new experient, I had a first bite and I said "wait a minute, this is really good! it has a very especial texture...not the usual oatbran porridge, not pancake's style either, but a texture between mashed bread and pudding. Really interesting!" I had a pear and GYG with it... and then, played with it and made it a big cookie (a la Gina)I'll definitely work on this combo to make it more presentable so you guys can try it too!
I had to teach at 11am and planned to work in the afternoon. So for lunch I made a warm-salad with broccoli, corns, rice, wheat berries, textured soy protein, baked red peppers and mushroom. It was quite a good combo, I enjoyed it a lot. And 3 muffins for dessert/snack.Work was meh yesterday... I felt terribly asleep by 4pm, so I went home and went straight to bed. Had a 90 min nap (usually my nap can't last longer than 30min) and woke up refreshed. Obviously I couldn't go back to work, so I went to the gym. I run in the treadmill for 35 min (my first run after 2 months) and 30 min on the Ellipticals for some leisure reading. I felt WONDERFUL!!!!!!! oh...how I miss the miracle that cardio workout can do.
oh.... I forgot to mention my afternoon snack was this bar of milk chocolate I found the other day and an orange
It's so smooth, so perfectly sweetned. Love it!
Dinner came alone: sauteed bok choy with mushroom and two Tj's turkey meatball.Kabocha squash fries. I can't believe that being a squash lover, it's my first time making fries with it. Thanks Maggie for showing me how to make them so easy and fast!.
And black rice porridge. Really simple, but really delicious meal!Finally, I had frozen strawberries, wheat berries and Smooth Operator as dessert.HEAVEN!!!
Great great friday in term of eats, workouts and mind. (Boo to the reserach). I will take this weekend off as well.... I think I deserve it! ^_^

Question: related to what I said at the beginning. How often do you try new/exotic food/products? Would you like to join to the challenge that I will organize on trying them out?