Spring Cleaning, Body edition

So not only is my plan to clean the house from North to South to East to West before Easter (which this year is March 31st!  I know right!!!)  But I am also re-re-committing myself to healthy living.  *I probably should add a couple more re-re’s on there since I’ve committed many times already.  Like I’ve said before I’m not completely unhealthy – but I do like to snack and my snacks are usually in triangular salty form…  Hee hee.

My nemesis…

I mean I can’t help myself…I say they are for HunBun but do you think that HunBun actually eats those Hint of Lime Tostitos?  Heck no…that’s all me!

Anyway.  I’ve renewed my quest for a balance of living healthy and healthy living.  I am really motivated this year to get my 2:00 goal time at my next half marathon (Disneyland in September).  I’ve been working on speed intervals on the treadmill combined with weighted & body weight exercises.  This morning I did 8 sprints at 7.0mph with 5.0mph rests between with a 7.7mph on that last one.  I did each sprint/rest at 1 min each.  My plan is to do that for a week then increase those sprint/rest times to 1.5 min and up and up until I’m running at 7.0mph for long stretches of time.  I think that gradual approach will get me used to turning my feet over faster and keeping that speed consistent.

To support my running/toning plan I’ve returned to my blended approach to eating.  I use the Tone It Up plan for both eating and exercise.  I also refer to a great book I read, S.A.S.S. Yourself Slim by Cynthia Sass, which helps with balancing each meal with healthy elements.  Both are super easy plans and don’t ask you to give up anything – which I like a lot.  Here’s what I’ve been eating the last 2 days (Oh, I didn’t take photos of the 2 handfuls of peanut M&Ms I shoved in my piehole after dinner, HA!).

Protein pancake and fresh fruit

Yesterday’s snack – blueberries & coffee

Bought something new for quick lunches…and Gluten Free to boot!

Rice & Bean Veggie bowl for Lunch

Tuesday’s breakfast. Oh yeah, that is a green pancake.

So I’m doing pretty good and feeling pretty good too.

Later today after work I’ll be doing a crafty project to get all my race bibs out of the drawer and on display.  I’ll post the finished product when it’s all done(hopefully this week  🙂  ).

Crafty project for later

See ya later!

Cathy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 Meals…a photo montage

Just cause I got my act together….here’s a photo montage of my first day on the TIU plan.  It’s food…healthy style.  🙂

Breakfast pancake

Blueberry & tea Snack

Lunch wrap

Its juice…but chunky!

Dinner wraps & roasted veggies

And that was Monday….what’ll today bring…hmmmm   🙂

See ya later

Cathy

Oh yeah…it’s Freedom Friday!!!

Another chilly start to a Bay Area morning.  Brrrr.  38° at 8:10am?  Bleah!

So a Janathon update is in order!  If you don’t know what Janathon is, click on that handy hyperlink up there and check it out.  It’s a super fun way to keep you moving and help with the accountability part (yeah the sucky part).    What you do is you blog (or FB post or Tweet) within 24 hours of completing your daily exercise.  So like I said yesterday I kinda bombed on the 24 hour update on January 1st…but then caught right back up with yesterday’s update.  So I’m here again to be accountable for not sucking.  😀

Last night I headed to XploreYoga for my normal 5-6pm Muscle & Flow class…unfortunately my instructor was out sick so I did another 5-6pm Vinyasa Flex with Elise.  I love the flex class but was hoping for some core and super sweating.  So Elise nicely added in some power yoga sequences to her normal flow.  I’m getting much more confident in my Wheel poses – not as worried I’m going to snap my neck because of my weak arms.  So bonus for me.  😀

Then this morning I dragged myself out of my warm bed…for which I shall thank my overheating body.  I don’t know what’s the deal but I get so hot when I sleep so it’s either on with the covers or off with the covers.  Drives HunBun absolutely nuts.  So I was too hot to stay in bed – which means I got dressed in my warm work out clothes to go freeze in the garage.  At least freeze until I got all warmed up from jumping around.  I did my 30 minute circuit (12 cycles of 1 min on and 10 sec rest for 2 circuits.  I did a bunch of old school calisthenics for the first circuit and focused on arms and squats (lift that butt up!) in the second circuit.  I held my forearm plank for the very last minute – WHOO WHEE!  That was a nice finish!

So Janathon report – Complete!

Thursday, January 3: 1 hour Vinyasa Flex class with Elise

Friday, January 4: 30 minute circuit in the garage!

For breakfast I ate some gluten free overnight oats I made up yesterday.  Super simple: 1/4 cup Oikos greek yogurt, 1/4 cup GF steel cut oats, chopped up apple, chopped up pecans and some pumpkin pie spice.  Stir it up and put in the fridge until you’re ready to eat.  I put it in canning jars with the screw lid to make it easy.   I prefer the GF steel cut oats – gives it more chew.

So that’s it for my Friday morning.  I must say I’m off to a great start!

See ya later!

Cathy

 

Review: NatureBox = Tasty!

NatureBox revealed

So a bit ago I got an email from Molly at NatureBox asking if I’d like to try out their mail order snack boxes.  To which I said “really?  me?  of course? but do you have some gluten free items for HunBun”.  Yes, it was like that – all in one sentence.  Although they didn’t have GF certified items, they did send a variety that did not include GF ingredients but were made in facilities that processed wheat, nuts, etc….   Since HunBun and I got together I have spent more time reading labels on food than at any other point in my life….even when I’m buying “normal” food I’m still reading those labels.  Good habits are hard to break! 😉

Back to the box (hey, my yellow polish matched the packing material – HA!)…  So inside the box was 5 packaged snacking delights and a super cute explainer card.

What’s in the box?

PIstachio Power Clusters

Dried Pears

Lemon Pucker Pistachios

Wild Blueberry Flax Granola

Masa Chips

I LOVED the masa chips!  I love salty & crunchy snacks and these were fantastic.  The little bags are super convenient to travel with too.  I took the masa chips with me on a 2 day business trip and finished the bag up while waiting at the Burbank airport for my flight back to Oakland.  It was so nice not to spend $12 for a darn snack at the aiport – RIDICULOUS!

10yo is eating up the Lemon Pucker Pistachios.  That Pucker is no joke…the lemon flavor is right up in your face and brings a sense of springtime to the pistachio.  It’s a really great flavor combination.  Pistachios are nature’s way of portion control…because you get so tired of opening up those shells that you only take a handful.  Thanks Nature!

Dried fruit is always a winner and these dried pears were no different.  They were nice a chewy and just a tiny bit sweet.  We ate them straight out of the bag, but you could totally use them to top off a nice mixed green salad or on some steaming hot oatmeal.

If you want to try out a NatureBox of your own, lovely Molly and the folks there are offering you sweet readers a promo code that will get you 25% off  your first month’s subscription.  The 25% discount is if you do a month-to-month box order…but if you do a 6 month subscription you’ll get your first month FREE and if you do a 12 month subscription you’ll get three months FREE!

The boxes are seasonal and are a great way to try some new snacks that you may not find at your local grocery or specialty market.  The bags are substantial and offer a lot of snacking opportunity. 🙂  As a bonus, on the back of the snack card is a recipe that uses one of the ingredients.  My card had a recipe for Slow Cooker Tortilla Soup that used the masa crisps as a garnish.

Thanks Molly with NatureBox!

See ya later

Cathy

 

This is a really great idea for people

 

 

 

 

 

Freedom Friday….Wheee!

So all my moaning, in my head, worked!  I’m back on the healthy train…Toot Toot.  Guess it was just the circle of life…right?  A bunch of ups and downs and doldrums every now and again.  Remember The Phantom Tollbooth?

So my little diversion from exercise and healthy Eats was a little doldrum from my normal approach to living.

So here’s a round up of my Eats…then I’ll wow you with my Sweats.  EEEeeee!

Kabocha and some veggies

Kabocha wrap with green olives

Kabocha, Butternut and greens

Today was bananas…Yesterday was blueberries

And then just to let you know I’m still human, got a couple of treats too.

Vanilla Latte from home

These are so good!

How can I deny a discount PB party?

Every now and again I find that I’m an uncontrollable grazer.  But only finger ready food.  Weird-o.

Uh Oh.  Ran out of time this morning.  I’ll need to do a mid-day post with my Sweats.  I know I’m enhancing the drama before the final reveal of how I Sweated it out these last couple days.

See ya later

Cathy

Wednesday already?

This week so far has been unsuccessful in the balancing of healthy living and living healthy.  I have eaten all kinds of random things for breakfast, snacks, lunch and dinner.  Call it laziness or lack of motivation or whatever – I am just not feeling up to it lately.

The thing that sucks about eating crappily?  Is that you feel crappy right after that bite is on its way down after you swallow.  It’s already gone past the point of return and now it’s just on its way to sit heavily in my tummy while I wonder why I am choosing to eat these dumb things.  Good thing there isn’t any Halloween candy in the house anymore (except smarties and tootsie pop lollipops – bleah) otherwise you would only see empty chocolate candy wrappers in the garbage.

I did wake up and exercise Monday and Tuesday morning but last night I was so tired that I fell asleep at 730.  You want to know how I know I fell asleep at 730?  Because my iPad wacked me in the chin at 730!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!  I had fallen asleep scrolling around on Pinterest and that iPad just fell forward and bopped me a good one.

So I put the iPad away and settled in to watch The Voice, falling asleep somewhere in the middle of Christina & Ceelo’s performance…but catching the end…then waking up while Carson took 5 minutes to announce one name of who was still in.  Then finally falling asleep asleep because next thing I knew the alarm went off at 5am today.

I promptly pushed the snooze 3 times…until HunBun comes walking over and asks if I’m getting up.  I said “I don’t know why I’m so tired”.  He said “I know, you were freaking me out, talking in your sleep all night long and snoring”.  Hahahahahahaha!

So I don’t know what’s the deal.  But I do know that I didn’t work out this morning and set an intention to take a quick run at lunch time – so we’ll see if that happens.  I started the day with 4 pieces of cranberry holiday toast with PB on it and 1 giant holiday grape.

The best thing to do with the Holiday Grapes, besides just eating them right off the clump, is to make Holiday Grape Salad.  HGS is a concoction of cream cheese, sour cream, white sugar, vanilla extract, Holiday Grapes all swirled together then topped with a brown sugar & chopped pecan sprinkle.  Oh so good!

photo by run for your life

I usually make a big bowl of this for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We put some aside before everyone starts eating otherwise there is never any leftovers.

How’d I get on this tangent?  So anyhoo… Beats me why I’m off my normal routine.  Might be the holiday slump…where you know the year is ending but can’t believe the year is ending and didn’t do everything you had hoped to do.  Or it might be that I’ve been go-go-go with work, family, exercise and my body is telling me “hold up girl”.  Who knows, I’m no nutritionist, dietician, health expert or Dr.

I guess the only thing to do is look forward and do what I do…bounce back.   I’m sure it’ll get better after this release.  🙂  Thanks Bloggy readers…

See ya later

Cathy

 

 

Starting Saturday off with some Brisky Behavior.

Brrr…it’s chilly beans out there!

That’s at 8am!

Let me finish off my Friday before I get to the brisky behavior.  Get it?  ‘Cause it’s brisk out there?  He he he

Every other Friday I pick up 10yo from school.  He lives with his dad and it’s about a 40-50 min drive over to where they live, depending on traffic.  Lucky for me that on Friday’s 10yo’s school gets out at 1:30pm so that means less traffic that I have to deal with.

I usually eat lunch before I drive out there, but since they just opened a new outlet mall halfway between our house and the school the news has been showing the ridiculousness that is people trying to get there to spend money!

Parking lot to get to the parking lot

So being the smarty that I am I figured I’d leave 40 minutes earlier than normal just in case…which meant I needed a to go lunch.

They make some fancy boxes now

 

Open sesame

I put together a whole wheat wrap with roast beef slices (the new healthy version from Oscar Mayer), hummus, arugula, goat cheese and olive tapenade (I love that stuff).  On the side I had baby carrots and a mix of gluten free crunchy stuff – Blue Diamond Almond crackers, GF pretzels and some cinnamon almonds.  Well the traffic didn’t even exist, so I got to 10yo’s school an hour earlier and sat in front of it like a creepy person eating my lunch.  I did bring my work computer so I got a bunch of stuff I needed to get done – done.  Hoorah for multi-tasking!

10yo and I picked up 12yo from school and we booked it home so I could finish up my work day.  Then while the 2 boys plyaed XBox, HunBun and I dropped my car off at the dealership for a 5K mile service appointment.  It gets so dark now!  It’s like we were on a date – but actually just driving home from Toyota.

I was lazy so for dinner I made everyone GF pancakes.  Wheee!  I used Pure Pantry’s all purpose GF flour and added some vanilla and cinnamon.  This mix makes really nice pancakes that hold their shape – although I am the worst flipper ever.  Kept slapping them against the side of the pan or on the pancake next to it.  Utter ridiculousness.

I like jelly on my cakes

After dinner I spent the rest of the night reading all my bloggedy blogs I subscribe to and cleaning up my email bins.  Since I can’t just sit there, I was also “watching” Tattoo Nightmare followed by InkMaster.  Those tattoo artists are SO TALENTED!!!!  Tattoo Nightmare is one I’d watch again.  They help people who have janky tattoos and turn them into beautiful new ink.  It was crazy how they made the old tattoo just disappear.  Check it out on your boob tube when you get the chance!

Saturday’s brisky behavior

So last night I tell HunBun, “hey lets walk to Starbucks tomorrow morning”.  Well he tells me that he was already going to wake up early and do that since he had more work to get done.  So I, being committed and all, said “oh, well maybe I’ll just run on up there and meet you”.  So that’s what I did.

Rise and Shine

I used my new Timex GPS watch and apparently need to go back and read the manual again.  I kept pressing all the buttons on the side and FINALLY got the GPS on along with the run feature so I could get a move on.  Then off I went….then back home I came after realizing I forgot to take my medicine (I have a hard time remembering I need to take on an empty stomach)…then off I went (take 2).

I should have taken a picture of my cold weather running outfit – fail.  I don’t have long tights, just mid-calf length.  I wore a pair of those with my long sleeve “thumb-hole” Lululemon jacket’y thing and my awesome new Champion beanie I got from Target.  I looked so cute – you’ll just have to take my word for it. 🙂  That hat was the best $10 I ever spent on running clothes.  Kept my ears nice and warm which helped control the speed my nose ran.  HA!

Even with the chilly air wooshing in & out I kept a nice pace of 8:45.  Sweet!  I could see HunBun sitting at a table drinking his Starbucks and pecking away on his laptop.  It was warm when I got in there so I got a cool drink to start.

Chilling with my lady friend

I just read that caption I wrote.  I meant the ‘Bucks mermaid, not the banana.

HunBun and I sat there for a while and then walked back home together.  Grabbed a tall Soy Misto for the road since I had cooled down quite a bit.  Thank goodness I did because it was hecka chilly outside!  Round trip its about 2.5 miles from home to the ‘Bucks.  Nice walk for him and nice run/walk for me (not the true application of Galloway‘s run/walk method 🙂  ).

To close out the morning Sweats I did a bunch of planking….

Not this kind

I started with some Chaturanga then a quick plank flow to engage my abs.

Click the link above to see in action

Here’s my quickie ab routine

Now I’m off to feed my belly as a girl can not live on a banana alone.  🙂

Engage in some “brisky” behavior yourself today!

See ya later

Cathy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Freedom Friday!

Whoohoo!  It’s Friday, the most fantastic day of the week…unless you’re on vacation then every day is fantastic.

Yesterday was a pretty good day.  Even though I didn’t get to Vinyasa class last night because of some late running conference calls (darn that work).  I did great on the eating side of this new commitment.

EATS

I need super fast lunches when I work from home and super packable ones when I go into the office.  I usually do a stir fry at home since I really don’t like to eat cold greens anymore – UNLESS it is a full-on “salad“.  I don’t consider a pile of veggies on a plate to be a salad.  Somehow my brain has to agree that what is on my plate is to be called a salad…then it tells my taste buds it’s a salad…then I’m ok to eat – the salad.  Weird I know.

At least not all the time right?  🙂

So here’s a couple shots of my Eats from yesterday…

Lunch

I didn’t have a mid-morning snack since the protein pancake and green smoothie really filled me up (that and I had conference calls that started at 8am and took me to 11:45am).  I warmed up a zuchinni and sweet baby bell peppers in a pan with Bragg’s Aminos then threw in some spinach to wilt down.  While that was warming up I microwaved a teeny sweet potato.  Trader Joe’s sells a bag of sweet potatos that are the perfect individual size.  On top of the warm veggies I put about a tablespoon of olive tapenade and a slice of goat cheese.

During lunch I had some entertainment. Oh yeah, obliviate that fool Hermione!

I could watch this on repeat!

Dinner

Like my mid-morning snack, my afternoon snack time was wooshed right over by conference calls and actually trying to do some work.  Who doesn’t have those days, huh?  For dinner I made HunBun and 12yo gluten free cheese pizzas.  Schar’s has the best pre-made gluten free pizza crust – that we’ve found – and we’ve tried A LOT of pre-made GF pizza crusts.  I used to make my own, but they are a pain in the patootie to mix up all the different flours and other stuff to make a good crust.  So now I just shell out $7 for 2 crusts and HunBun is happy.

My dinner was a super pretty and filling stir fry, again.  I made some quinoa in the rice cooker earlier in the day and also baked a butternut squash during lunch.  So to put my dinner together all I had to do was wilt up some spinach, toss that onto a bed of organic arugula then topped with butternut squash chunks, quinoa, olive tapenade and goat cheese.  So FULL!

After folding some laundry I decided to make some “balls” for a snack.

Balls of delight!

Date Balls

• 1 cup of chopped up dates
• 1/4 cup of dried cherries
• 1/8 cup of cashews (or whatever nuts you like)

Put the cashews in your food processor and pulse until they are pulverized.  Add in your dried cherries and pulse again until they start to get chopped up.  Pour the cashew/cherry mix into a bowl.  Chop up your dates before putting in the processor.  They are easier to chop up that way and won’t just clump while you still have fully intact dates swirling around.  Once the dates are fully chopped up pour them into the bowl with the cashew/cherry mix.  Now use your fingers to mix up all 3 ingredients and form bite sized balls.  Put them in the fridge for storage or you can eat them all up right after you make them!

**I went a little overboard on the cashew pulverizing on this one.  It was almost to a fine powder stage and I prefer a little more teeny nuts.  Next time I’ll slow my pulse finger down.

At about 745 or so I got a little hungry again so I ate a chocolatey but healthy treat!  Honeycrips and JIF chocolate PB cup!

Chocolatey

That was a pretty good eating day!

I gotta go run the 12yo to school so I’ll post another update today with my morning workout and my breakfast eats.

See ya later!

Cathy