What up Wednesday!

I don’t really have a whole lot to say.  It’s been a lot of the same thing every day this week.  Waking up early to bust out an early sweat session…eating healthy meals to stay on the TIU plan…powering through a work day…zooming off to yoga…cooking dinner…trying to chill out…falling asleep.  B-O-R-I-N-G.  😦  Routine is usually what I fall into – be it eating or slogging through the day.  There are so many demands on our every waking minute that you become immune to enjoying life.

I mean who can believe that it’s already February?  I certainly can’t.  I’ve got too much to do at work, for my family, for myself that sometimes I just turn inward.  I retreat into myself – disengaging from everything on the inside while maintaining the outward appearance of full participation.  Is that a protection mechanism?  So I don’t completely drain myself?  Maybe…who knows.  Blah.  That’s usually my statement whenever I don’t want to talk or can’t talk.  🙂

Anyhoo…who signed up to read a decompression session?  Not me – so let’s move on to my favorite topic – EATING!  For all those who think eating healthy is boring and hard – you’re right.  HA!  It can be both of those things if you don’t inject a level of creativity and planning into it.  I do think that healthy eating requires a lot more prep work than not so healthy eating.  That means figuring out what you are going to eat during the week because all that healthy food tends to go bad – certainly doesn’t have the shelf life of say Hamburger Helper.  😀  You also need to cut, pack and organize your healthy eats in an easy to see and grab way.  The easier to grab – the more likely you will eat it.  I’ve learned that the hard way (hard way being throwing out hundreds of dollars of veggies that went bad because I didn’t eat it fast enough – Boot!)

Enough blah blah blahing….  on to the pictorial – Wheee!

Tuesday breakfast. Oh yeah, I eat my pancake with my hands!

Tuesday snack was a juicy pear

Tuesday Lunch – Double wrapping it!

I forgot to take a photo of my super tasty smoothie I had before yoga.  I followed a TIU recipe – Mango, Banana, Almond Milk, Coconut…whir it up and drink. 🙂

After yoga I whipped up a Mexican shrimp sauté and served it along with some lime cilantro rice.  Of course I forgot to take a picture.  More because for some reason we didn’t eat until 730pm…we’re usually done eating and kitchen cleaned by 7pm.  Not sure what happened.  So I was rushing all around and then rushed that food right down my piehole.

Wednesday’s eats were almost an exact duplicate…I think I’m falling into my rut.  Ick.  😦  But it was still tasty – so whatever, right.  🙂

Wednesday Breakfast. What else but a giant ole pancake.

Wednesday Snack: Balls!

For snack I had another pear and 2 of these awesome Apricot-Date balls.  Easy to make, although they are a little sticky to roll into balls.  YUM YUM.

Wednesday Smoothie. Kiwi, berries and spinach.

No photo of lunch…that’s because I was running late to a conference call and had to shove my wrap into my mouth as quickly as I could.  Not the best thing to do.  Also had 2 Cuties along with my lunch.  Sweet treat!

I was smart today and put some ribs in the crockpot for HunBun and the 12yo so that cooked all day and made the house smell SO GOOD!  I put some rice in the rice pot so it’d be ready for them to eat before I got home from yoga since I had to run to CVS to pick up a prescription.

Wednesday Dinner. Chicken and Kale wrap

I may eat a couple Apricot-Date balls as a treat…or have a piece of the Black Bean Brownies I just made.  Hmmmm.  Which would you pick?  😀

See ya later

Cathy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday recap

So I’ve got a few weeks before I’ll be pumping my arms and legs while running over in Disney World….eeeeeee!  I wasn’t that worried, until HunBun says to me while we are brushing our teeth this morning “so, uh, you going to be ready to run in a few weeks?”  Uh, What???  Now I’m thinking- well I haven’t been as consistent with my running since I got this cold and my schedule has been ridiculous; am I ready?   Blah!

Hey what you gonna do right?  Just do the best I can every day – get myself moving every day until we leave then make sure to do some jogs once we get there to get acclimated.  It’s all about having fun on these races so I’m not overly dwelling on it.  Although I will admit I’d love to improve my time from last month’s Tinkerbell.  That was a pooter for me… 😦

A while ago I joined the Tone It Up program…or I should say I bought the program and had not made the full commitment to the program in any type of consistent manner.  So this weekend I made a commitment to myself that I can give the TIU plan 5 days (doing the Beach Body version) to see what it can do for me.  I’m not overweight…I just want to tighten up in some spots and lose that layer of cover over my muscles.  I like my arms and think they’re pretty good – but would love to have Jillian Michaels arms or Linda Hamilton a la Terminator

I mean seriously tight!  I got a little more squish around some of the edges you know.  🙂  I’ve always expended a lot of calories but certainly did not help on the eating side of the matter.  I know, I know…90% of your body is made in the kitchen – or whatever they say.  That’s why I’m doing the TIU plan – to help with my eating approach.

Day 1 on the TIU Beach Babe eating plan

I started my day with a 30 min walk/jog on the treadmill.  Last week sucked – in the way of exercising and with this blasted cold I wanted to ease into my sweat this morning.

TIU touts the wonders of drinking shots of Apple Cider Vinegar.  So the TIU day starts off with some type of drink with an ACV shot.  Today started with a Bombshell spell which is THE BEST way to drink an ACV shot.  Zippy and sweet.  That was followed by a protein pancake – which I always make in a single giant pancake rather than tiny multiples.

I make my protein pancake the way everyone else makes it – but I do change the dry ingredients just a bit.  I do about 3/4 of a scoop of Perfect Fit protein powder, then add 1 Tbsp Decadent Mix Flax & Chia blend and 1 tsp of Maca Powder.  That’s added to a 1/2 a banana and 3 Tbsp egg whites.  Smash or whip as you like (I use the fork I’m going to eat it with – I wash it before eating…  HA!) then pour into a heated sprayed pan.  5-6 minutes later you can eat it.   That was Meal 1…Breakfast.

M2 was 1 cup of blueberries picked at while on a conference call along with 2 cups of hot tea.

M3, Lunch was 3 oz of grilled chicken on 1/4 cup of cooked quinoa and 2 slices of tomato wrapped in a collard green.  I added some fresh cilantro on top – love the freshness of cilantro!

M4, I blended up a “juice” that was more chunky than liquidy.  I haven’t invested in a juicer – and prefer not to until I truly get into the juicing habit.  So I used all the settings I could to get my beet, apples, ginger and lime to a drinkable state.  I had to add some water to get the stuff moving since I could imaging our blender starting to smoke as it tried its darndest to liquefy these things clattering around in that glass jar.  It did get there finally…and I have a photo but apparently didn’t upload it…so that’ll be a bonus photo for tomorrow.  Wheee!  I was kind of worried about the taste but with the addition of the lime (peel and all) it was really fresh and light.  Although the chunk factor makes this one for those with a penchant for healthy eating – and not someone who just came off a milkshake binge.  😀

My afternoon workout was 60 minute Vinyasa Flow at Xplore Yoga.  Love love love this class.  My knees felt really good so I could bend deep into Warrior 1 and side angles.  She worked us on the Chaturanga‘s…but I was able to power through and keep up.  Double Whee!

M5, Dinner was 2 more chicken & quinoa wraps in a collard green leaf along with some roasted brussel sprouts, cauliflower and broccoli.  13yo asked for some roasted veggies too – so I happily spooned some on his plate to eat.  HunBun said “no thanks”.  🙂  That’s not unusual for our table.

I plugged all my food into MyFitnessPal and was told I only ate 1050 calories for the day.  That’s a no-no.  What’s weird is I don’t feel hungry or deprived in any way – it may be because veggies bulk you up more and I also ate about 89 grams of protein – which is 10 more than my daily goal.   Tomorrow I’ll add a smoothie and see what that does for me.

Biggest Loser is almost over…we’ll see if Danny can save Jillian from going off air.

See ya later

Cathy

**Best commercial from Super Bowl Sunday?  Dodge’s “The Farmer” with Paul Harvey.  Awesome!

Friday Morning Wake Up

I will say that when that alarm went off at 5am and it was hecka cold outside of the blanket I needed to take 4 or 5 deep breaths before I stepped out of bed.  But I got into the garage/gym at 5:09am and jumped right on the stationary bike for a quick 5 min warm up.

Why is that riding the stationary bike for 5 min seems like so much less effort and excitement than warming up for that same amount of time on the treadmill?  Could it be that in the 5 min I rode 2.15 miles but only burned 23 calories?!?  Probably.

After the 5 min warm up I did a circuit work out made up of a bunch of different circuits that I’ve been doing…with a few random things thrown in to mix it up.

I used: Fitness Magazine‘s Fierce & Fab in 14 days and pieces of  Tone It Up’s gym free circuits.

Use that 1 minute breather to get your dumbells in easy grabbing position.

I try to focus on form and balance first.  Once it starts feeling too easy I’ll add more reps or change the weight of the dumbell or kettlebell I am using.

After that sweat-fest, I came in to whip up some breakfast.  While my green smoothie (see recipe in yesterday’s post) was whirring away in the blender I made an egg-less protein pancake.  Or attempted to make it into a pancake may be a better way to say it. It was delicious, but in no way would you call it a pancake.  It was more like warmed banana flavored stuff you hoped didn’t fall off your fork.  🙂  I should have used coconut flour or GF flour instead of the ground flax – to offer some binding opportunity.  Oh well.  That’s the nice thing about food experimenting, most of the fails you can still eat.

To make the pancake I replaced my egg whites with 1/2 a cup of unsweetened applesauce, kept in the 1/2 a banana, protein powder, ground flax meal, chia seeds and cinnamon.

The pictures still make it worthwhile.  Drool away…

That’s 2 cups of spinach!

Warmed banana “stuff”

It is so chilly today but the sky is blue and clear.  So here’s to hoping for a warm up in a bit.  Come on Sun!  You can do it.  🙂

See ya later

Cathy

 

 

 

Move it…it’s Monday

**I started writing this whole spiel when I was supposed to be wrapping up my weekend…so instead you’ll read my Monday morning monologue…then get to read the “woah” inducing weekend wrapup after.  You know, just to keep it interesting.  🙂

Honestly I don’t know how daily bloggers do it.  They either lead super exciting jazzy lives or they find more delights in daily living than I give my life credit for.  I mean I guess I could give you a working gal’s play by play of how many conference calls I did…or if I decided to get dressed in something other than sweats and t-shirts and headed into the office…or if I wrote some document or some other super exciting wonky (or work’y) thing like that.

I could write about my Eats…but you’d probably end up saying “didn’t I just read that yesterday?” as I tend to repeat, repeat, repeat what I Eat.  Like the Apple Cider Vinegar drink I start my day with because I read it’s good for your metabolism, followed by a protein pancake (egg whites, protein powder, flax meal, cinnamon, smushed banana) topped with fruit of some sort, a honeycrisp apple (while in season) for snack, followed by sauted veggies (whatever is in the fridge) for lunch, another piece of fruit or a smoothie for the afternoon tide me over (if I remember before it’s time to cook dinner) and finally sauted veggies and a protein for dinner.  Whoo-whee!  I can hardly contain myself with the excitement about all that variety.

ALTHOUGH…I do find the veggie saute quite beautiful in the light of Instagrams Lo-Fi setting.  The colors that nature has blessed food with to not only attract us but to almost define how they will taste in our pieholes is actually one more great mystery to life.  SO TOO…do I find that I have demonstrated some level of creativity as I stare into the open pantry and open refridgerator as I figure out what I’m going to Eat for the requisite feeding time.

AND…I could give updates on my morning Sweats since I’m now including a bunch of body weight circuits into my 5am routines.  PLUS…focusing more on speed workouts to improve my time again for my next half-marathon in January 2013 that could be interesting to some of you out there.

SO…I guess I could write daily if I really put my mind to it.  I guess the questions are: 1. Can I dedicate the time to writing every day?  2.  Can I give myself a break and just write instead of feeling like what I did won’t make the “blog read” cut?  REALLY…it’s all in how I approach this and I meant for this whole blogging adventure to be FUN and a way for me to keep myself honest as I balance healthy living and living healthy with direction and magnitude.

OH.  So I guess that’s why I named my blog that.  🙂

Have a great Monday yourself.

See ya later!

Cathy

 

Weekend Wrap-up

Monday already???  October already????   Jeesh!  Time sure flies.

We had an extra little person this weekend.  Nephew came over so the boys played XBox all night Friday and all day Saturday until he got picked up.   They only took breaks for food and to handle their “business”.  Must be nice to be a kid.

Weekend Eats

Balls of Wonder!

Friday night we had Annie’s Gluten Free Mac & Cheese and hotdogs.  I should clarify that we does not include me.  I scored left over Cobb salad – Whee (said sarcastically)…I love love hotdogs with JUST MUSTARD.  Slurp!  The kids go ape over Mac & Cheese and HunBun gets to enjoy it too now that they have the GF version.  Saturday morning I made scrambled eggs, Open Nature Turkey Bacon and these Balls of Wonder – Trader Joe’s Danish Pancakes.  Simply warm up in microwave and sprinkle with powdered sugar.  Those kids ate these up likedy split.  I had a thin sliced wheat round with Trader’s Speculous Cookie Butter (Oh Man that stuff’s good), since I was going to do my circuit workout and didn’t want a pile of food jouncing around my belly.  I don’t know if any of you have tried this stuff but I highly recommend you get some.  At 90 calories a TBSP it’s actually got less calories than other nut butters…but I haven’t read the rest of the nutrition facts so am not sure how “good for you” this nut butter is.  I can imagine using this to make PB Balls at Christmas time…with the gingerbread taste it would be perfect.  Except HunBun couldn’t eat it because of the biscuit bits inside…I’ll have to come up with an alternative GF version for him.

Saturday Lunch was Turkey, Cheese and Spinach sandwiches or Cookie Butter & Jelly Sandwich (I take orders around here don’t you know), Ruffles Sour Cream & Cheddar chips and apple slices.  Nephew pulled out his spinach, 10yo didn’t eat his apples, 12yo ate it all.  I can’t even remember what I ate..boot. 😦

Saturday Dinner was Sausage & Peppers, Red Potatoes and Zuchinni rounds.  HunBun said “hotdogs again?”,  12yo said “no it’s sausage”  🙂  I had the veggies from the dish and spinach and goat cheese on top.

Sunday Breakfast was “help yourself” as I was in Campbell running with my MeetUp group.  Sunday Lunch was “what’s in the kitchen” as I have been procrastinating the grocery store visit.  Sunday Dinner was crockpot salsa chicken and rice – because I had to come up with something.  I had the chicken on spinach greens, that was tasty.  12yo tried goat cheese and LOVED it…so he put that on his corn tortillas.  Also ate a fruit salad, oranges were super sweet!

Weekend Sweats

I’m clean again…

So after my Trail Hog run my new shoes were like Cinderella…covered in dust with random grass pieces sticking out of the mesh.  So I took a brush and cleaned those kicks till they looked almost new.  I like to use these New Balance sneaks when I do the circuit workouts at home.  The Brooks almost have too much padding or weight that I feel like I lose my balance when I do certain circuit moves.  From this view it looks like I’m totally bow-legged…weird how the camera can put those optical illusions out.  Had my low rider socks on, you can barely see them peeking over the edge of the shoe.  I don’t get how people can wear sneakers with no socks, ick!   I did a lot of body-weight moves on my Saturday workout…felt it in my thighs and calves – BURN!

I wish I had one of those Body Bugs to measure my calorie usage during circuit training – now it looks like I didn’t use any calories when I enter it onto MyFitnessPal.  Fail.  I’m working on those pudgy spots – not to lose weight but more to tighten and tone.  I can feel those ab muscles when I poke my fingers into my tummy…I’d rather see them then have to go on an expedition to find them though.  Am I preaching to the choir or what?!?

Sunday morning I met up with my MeetUp group, Go Far Run over in Campbell for a 6 miler.  Met a new grouper and ran with her as it was her first time in the “real world” and not on a treadmill.  Didn’t meet my pace goals but she really appreciated me sticking with her and pushing her to run a little further.  The one thing about running at Campbell is that you need to decide how far you’re going to run when you start because it’s a “there & back” track – meaning you go half the distance you want to finish at then turn around.  So if you start off wanting to do 6 miles it’s too late to do less after you’ve ran to the 3 mile turn around point.  You’re doing 6 miles no matter what.  🙂

To finish out the weekend I worked in the yard with HunBun then lounged around to decompress before the work week started up again.

See ya later!

Cathy

Breakfast…in 2 parts

Running a little slow this morning…I gotta get back into the “spring outta bed once the alarm rings” mode.  I made my spin on 2-ingredient pancake that has been floating on a lot of other healthy living blogs out there and also made Stuft Mama’s Mocha Smoothie.  SO YUM!  So here are some pictures to make you salivate…and the recipes so you don’t have to hunt them down.

All in the pan!

All on the plate…Yum!

3 Ingredient Pancake (+ Almond Butter)

1 mashed banana, 1/3 cup egg whites (I used Lucerne‘s brand), 1/3 cup of pre-made quinoa with cinnamon for flavor.

Spray pan with cooking spray.  Add quinoa, egg whites and mashed banana to pan.  Swirl it around so all the ingredients get mixed up.  Sprinkle as much cinnamon as you like over the top.  Cook over medium heat (my burner was set at 5.5) and cook slowly.  Once you see the egg whites set up along the edges and the middle starting to firm up you can attempt to flip it over in one piece.  I say attempt because mine ripped down the middle so I flipped the 2 pieces and smooshed it back together to look like a single pancake.

Cook the second side for about 5 more minutes then slide the whole shebang onto a plate.  Ploop whatever nut butter of your choice on top of the pancake – it’ll start to melt from the heat of the hot pancake.  Eats are done!

STUFT Mama’s mocha smoothie

To go along with my pancake I made STUFT Mama’s mocha smoothie.  (I ate part of my pancake before taking 12yo to school, then the rest after I made the smoothie…hence the 2 parts title.)  Pancake & Smoothie were both super easy and super tasty!

STUFT Mama’s Mocha Smoothie

Handful of raw spinach, 1 frozen banana, 1 scoop vanilla protein powder, 2 Tbsp cocoa powder, 1 Tbsp instant espresso, 1 1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk.

Put all the ingredients into your blender hit the button and let it whirl.

Drink up after it’s all combined.

Hope your brekkie’s were as tasty as mine was this morning!

See ya later….

Cathy

What did you have for breakfast this morning?  Something quick and easy like mine or super fancy and complex?