Monthly Archives: March 2010

Hey folks! Half way through the work week! Actually tomorrow is my last day of work as I have Friday off!

I can’t believe I’m going to write this but I think I hurt myself again and this time I have no idea how! I taught cycling this morning and it went great! I had sweat dripping off my nose, nice! I then decided to do some core work. This also went well even though I realized how weak my core has gotten. I got home and made another fabulous smoothie in the new blender.  When I got up from eating breakfast I immediately felt a pain in my back, a bad pain! I thought , “Oh no!” I walked Izzy hoping it would work itself out. It seemed to help. But after sitting at my desk for a few hours this morning it got even worse. Every time I stand up I’m in great pain. I debated going to yoga at noon but thought perhaps it would help. I also knew I could modify the poses so to not irritate my injury. My back actually felt great during yoga. I thought perhaps I had cured myself but alas I’m back at work and it still hurts, BAD! I just can’t seem to figure out how this happened. I didn’t do anything to hurt my back. I did injure my back about 10 years ago lifting something heavy the wrong way so I’m especially prone to injury. This stinks! I have a run scheduled for tomorrow after work. It’s suppose to be beautiful out too! It actually doesn’t hurt when I’m active it’s just from sitting. Ho hum! We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

Even though my camera is being a pain I’m going to bring it along tonight to my work so I can share something very special with you. Yes, I know this is a food/health/fitness blog but tonight’s event involves FOOD! We are having our annual Seder Supper. I’ll explain all about it tomorrow!

Say a little prayer (if that’s your thing) that my back gets better! See you tomorrow!

Hey there! How’s life treating you today? Life is good over here. Pretty basic day at work. I don’t have to teach Zumba tonight like I thought. I do have to go back to work later tonight but it’s just for a short meeting so no biggie.

I had such a DELICOUS lunch yesterday! The star of my lunch was definitely the sweet potato! I LOVE sweet potatoes just baked in the microwave or roasted in the oven. I found a different way to prepare them on Ashley’s blog. I just had to try this. I didn’t think how you roasted a sweet potato would make any difference but let me tell you! These were so delicious! So simple and easy yet they tasted so rich! And pretty too!

  Don’t you love my well used and loved baking pan? Of course I also had my left over Miso dishes from Sunday.

I realized I forgot to show you what the actual Miso looked like.

It’s kind of like paste.

After lunch I headed out to do some shopping. I ordered some new running shoes from Rogan’s. I went to Target to check out some of their summer dresses. None of them really looked good on, the material just didn’t flow nice, kind of cheap. So, what does a foodie spend their money on when they can’t find clothes? Kitchen stuff of course!

I found the Black & Decker blenders on sale. The husband suggested the $24.99 one but the one I bought was just a little nicer and only $9 more! I also bought a silicon whisk to whip my egg whites into my oatmeal and a new 1 cup measuring cup to replace the one I accidentally melted!

As you can also see I stopped by Victoria’s Secret. I had a good coupon that expired yesterday. The sales lady asked if I needed to be measured. I figured why not. The lady said I went up a size from what I was wearing. I totally thought it was a ploy to buy more stuff. So I grabbed the size she said and tried them on. Low and behold they fit! I guess I should be upset that I’m up a size but it is what it is. At least I’m comfortable now! So ladies, get yourself measured no matter where you shop!

I also bought some contact solution that was suppose to fix my camera issue but it didn’t I’m so mad about this! I was just starting to use some of the more advanced features on the camera and learning how to get the pictures to look good for the blog. We can’t really afford a SLR which is what I REALLY want. The other option is to get a 15% discount on a new camera from Kodak. So bummed! Not sure what I’m going to do!

I used the new blender this morning and I LOVED it! Sorry I didn’t take a picture I was running late! I also did the weight training/swimming workout I skipped last week due to my arm injury. I felt pretty good while doing it but I must admit my arm/shoulder is a little sore right now .

I guess that’s all for now! I can’t wait to take my doggie for a walk, it’s almost 70 degrees here! Suppose to be 75 tomorrow!

Hi folks! I’m back! Wow! It feels like a long time since I’ve blogged! Our “secret” adventure this weekend was to The Wilderness Resort in Wisconsin Dells. We went there to surprise my friend who turns 30 this month! She was really surprised. There were 5 couples in all and 4 couples stayed over night in a big condo. We did the indoor waterpark thing all day on Saturday and then just hung out and played games in the condo at night. Sunday we got up packed up and headed out. I managed to get a 40 minute run in on Sunday morning. The indoor gym was pretty crappy! Every time I tried to adjust my speed on the treadmill the whole thing would stop! Very frustrating! I wished I would have brought outdoor running gear since their was a half mile paved paved loop right outside out condo. Oh well! I didn’t take too many pictures as my camera is being a pain. The pictures I did take I was told can not be posted on the web

We got home at about noon which gave me plenty of time to do some experimenting in the kitchen. I bought this book at Christmas time and had yet to make any recipes out of it!

The book is divided into seasons and as it seems spring has sprung I decided to check out some of the spring recipes. I was a little nervous because some of the recipes called for some pretty strange ingreients. Both of the recipes I made yesterday called for miso. From the book,

“Miso is a living food that gives recipes a salty, rich flavor. The darker the miso, the longer it has been fermented.”

I easily found the miso at the local Co-Op

The first recipe I made was Green Goddess Dip. Here are all the ingredients I used.

  I made some modifications from the original recipe. First of all I didn’t want to spend a TON of money on unique foods I might not use again. I also believe the author was trying to create vegan recipes and since I am not vegan I could make some substitutions. Here’s the list of ingredients with my modifications in bold

• 12oz extra firm silken tofu
• 3 scallions chopped
• 3 TBSP of fresh cilantro or parsley chopped (I used cilantro)
• 1 TBSP maple mustard (I had to get creative here. I used 1 1/2 tsp of mustard and 1 1/2 tsp of maple syrup)
• Juice of 1 lemon (I added about a TBSP of bottled juice)
• 1 TBSP brown rice vinegar
• 2 tsp of white, mellow, miso
• 2 tsp of brown rice syrup (I used 2 tsp of honey as brown rice syrup appears to be a vegan option to some type of natural sweet syrup)
• 3 TBSP of extra virgin olive oil

The directions are super easy. Process tofu until smooth (I LOVE my food processor thank Ma Johnson and Julie for the AWESOME Christmas present)

Add the rest of the ingredients and process until smooth. Add water to obtain desired consistency. I kept about half of the mixture really thick and the other half I watered down for dressing.

The result: This was VERY good. Very unique too. I’ve never tasted anything like it. The miso gives it a very sweet and salty flavor. I put some of this on a veggie sub from Subway and it was really good. I also like that it has protein from the tofu.

While I worked I sipped on this new brand of Kombucha I discovered.

It was pretty tasty and a bit cheaper than my regular brand!

The second recipe I made was Cream of Asparagus soup. I LOVE asparagus and anything creamy. I was curious to see how this could be made “healthy.” I cut this recipe in half because a. I didn’t buy enough of some of the ingredients and b. I wasn’t sure  if I would liked it. The ingredient list I’m giving you is for the full 6 servings.

• 2-3 bunches of asparagus (about 6 cups chopped)
• 2 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves minced
• 3 leeks, white parts only, chopped
• 1/2 C of rolled oats
• 3 cups of rice milk or soy milk (I used almond as it was on sale)
• 1/2 tsp of dried dill
• Sea salt and white pepper to taste
• 1 tsp of white mellow miso per serving

Remove tough ends of asparagus. Wash the remaining spears and chop into 2 inch pieces. Set aside

Saute the garlic and leeks in olive oil until soft. Add the asparagus, oats, milk, and dill. Add enough water to cover the asparagus. Bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat an cool slightly.

Puree soup with handheld blender. (I do not have one of these. So I cautiously put the soup in my Magic Bullet and pureed). Season with salt and pepper. Dissolve miso in just enough water to make liquid. Stir into each serving.

Note: Miso is added to each serving rather than to the full pot so you can reheat left over soup without destroying miso’s living enzyme.

This was also very good! I might have pureed it a little too long. It was so thin you could drink it! But it tasted good and filled me up! So there you go! Two healthy and energy giving recipes. I’m hoping that later this week I can make my own granola!

Well, it’s only 11am and I’ve already taught cycling, ran 1 mile, practiced Zumba, cleaned the house and now blogged! I just have to remake the bed. Then I’m going to shower, enjoy some leftovers for lunch and hit up the mall! The husband saw an add for a $24 Black & Decker blender at Target and he said I should buy it! They also had some cute dresses on sale. I’m also going to try and buy something to fix my camera! Have a good week!

Hey! Hey! How’s it going? Hope you’re having a good Friday!

Last night before we went to sleep the husband said,

“Are you getting up early to work out?”

I said, “Yep!” 

“I bet  you’ll sleep in.”

Me, “No! I set my alarm and everything! I signed up for a cycling class. I’m too busy tomorrow to workout any other time and I need to get a bike ride in”

“Okay,” he said doubtfully.

Well, the next thing I know his alarm goes off at 6am, a whole half hour later than I needed to get up!

“I thought you were going to workout?” he said

“I was.” I replied.

“I told you you were going to sleep in!”

Ah! I set the alarm for the wrong time! I decided I would leave work early today and ride my bike outside. I’m afraid it’s going to be a little chilly for that! It’s only 42 degrees out! The winds are 13 miles/hour and the wind chill is 34 degrees! Yikes! I’ll suck it up. It’s only for 30 minutes! This crazy mishap has kind of thrown my whole day off though. I would have liked to get my workout done right away so I didn’t have to worry about it.

Tonight I’m going to see my brother’s play again. Then tomorrow we’re headed out on another adventure. I can’t say what it is just yet since it’s surprise and I’m not sure who reads this blog!

For lunch today I had a CRAZY salad. I thought about taking a picture but my camera has really been acting up lately and it’s just such a pain. My salad had romaine lettuce, 1 carrot, half a tomato, mushrooms, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, chickpeas, and pumpkin seeds. I topped it with my last black bean veggie burger. I know I mentioned that I ate this but I don’t think I gave the recipe. They are so good! I got the recipe here but made the following modifications. I didn’t add the sun dried tomatoes because I didn’t have any and I used spelt flour instead of chick pea flour because that’s what I had. These were so yummy and HUGE!

Tonight I’m making a SUPER EASY salmon recipe. All you do is take 1/4 honey, 1/4 of soy sauce, 2 minced garlic cloves and mix them together in large plastic bag. Add4 salmon fillets to the bag and marinate for at least an hour (mine have been marinating all day). Cook at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. I’ve never made these before so I’ll let you know how they turn out!

Lot’s of healthy eats before our weekend away. I’m still going to try and eat healthy over the weekend. I hate coming home and feeling like sludge or like I have to start all over again!

Hope you have a good weekend!

Hey there! What’s happening on your Thursday afternoon? Not much over here. I get to go to lunch with my dad this afternoon! It’s his birthday today! Happy birthday dad! I have my camera along but I don’t know if I’ll take any pics. I brought it to show him what a pain in the butt it’s being. I brought it to a work event last night and wanted to throw it across the room. It just would not stop turning off and on!

So, I skipped my workout for today. If you check out my Triathlon Training Plan you’ll see that I was suppose to lift weights and swim today. About a week ago I wrote about am awesome run I took with my dog Izzy. Unfortunately I really think I sustained some type of injury from dragging her behind me for 3.5 miles. On Friday when I swam I was in a serious amount of pain from my neck going down my back and shoulder. Saturday it was still a little sore. Sunday  and Monday I had pain in my left arm, I think in my deltoid. I ran Sunday, practiced Zumba, biked, and ran on Monday. I also cleaned my house on Monday. I never realized how much I use my left arm to do every day things. I am left handed but seriously, I do everything with my left side! So I guess I wasn’t really resting it. On Tuesday I decided to skip my Triathlon Training workout since the arm was still sore and I had to teach Zumba. During Zumba I could definitely feel my arm hurting. Yesterday I did yoga, still feeling pain in my arm and ran. My last night the pain had moved up, back into my shoulder and neck. I packed all my stuff for my workout this morning but when that alarm went off I said, “I don’t want to hurt my arm” (I actually said this out loud) and went back to bed. This is probably a good thing. I really need a full day of rest. Today it feels the best it ever has. Still a little sore but not so painful. It’s really hard for me to skip a workout but I have to do what’s best for my body. Fortunately swimming is my strong sport so I’m not too worried about how this will affect my overall training.

In other news, look who I found snuggled in our bed before I even got a chance to make it!

  She’s just so cute!

Hello friends! How’s your Wednesday treating you? Mine is going pretty well! Things are actually slow for me at work these days, I have to to invent things to do!

If you’re interested my Triathlon Training Plan is up! Just click on the links to view both my cardio and strength training plans. You’ll noticed that I got as far as my build phase planning. That’s because I got to the peak phase, started looking at my calendar, and stressed out because I have to teach cycling a TON during this phase of my training. This is bad because I really need time and energy for longer rides outside. The bike is my weakest event by far. I went to yoga at lunch time, calmed down a bit, and put out an email to my fellow cycling instructors to see if they would sub a few of my classes for me. I must have not been teaching as much last spring because I felt like I got a lot of good outdoor rides in.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’m eating now versus what I use to eat when I was in fact super skinny (you can read about this part of my weight loss roller coaster ride here ). Before, for breakfast I would eat a giant bowl of cereal, either Kashi GoLean or shredded wheat, with skim milk, a banana, and coffee. Both the coffee and the cereal would be sweetened heavily with Splenda. Before, for lunch I would eat a bunch of baby carrots, fat free, sugar free yogurt, an apple, and a turkey sandwich made with light bread (tastes like cardboard), and fat free lunch meat. For dinner I would probably eat a frozen meal, or a Boca burger, again with that light bread sprayed heavily with I can’t believe it’s not butter spray. I would eat frozen or canned veggies. My dessert would be fat free sugar free pudding, light ice cream, or some other processed, fat free type of food.

Today for breakfast I had a Green Smoothie with skim milk, spinach, a banana, and frozen berries (no fake sugar for me thank you very much!), 1 whole wheat Arnold’s sandwich thin with 1 TBSP of almond butter and green tea. For lunch I had a homemade black bean and quinoa burger with 1/4 of an avocado on it (I’m really on a an avocado kick right now), 2 whole carrots, an apple, and 1 serving of Stacy’s Pita Chips. Not sure what I’m having for dinner, probably leftovers.

I just can’t believe how much processed food I use to eat especially FAKE sugar. Gross! I was in fact skinny but I was ALWAYS hungry and I didn’t have as much energy. I’m not saying I never eat processed foods now but I’ve certainly cut a lot of them out. I also need to work on eating whole foods in moderation and listening to my hunger signals. I guess that’s why I joined SparkPeople (I’ll be sharing my thought on SP soon!).

Just some random thoughts I had today while making breakfast and putting together my lunch. My how life has changed. I saved my run for this afternoon as it was suppose to be 60 degrees. Right now it’s only 52! I guess I’ll have to deal with it. Enjoy your Wednesday! One step closer to the weekend!

Hi there! I hope you enjoyed part 1 of our adventure in Saint Paul. Check it out if you missed it!

The four of us decided to sleep in on Saturday morning and boy did it feel good! Brian and Shannon cooked us a delicious breakfast

Mmmmmmmm! Bacon!

And french toast with REAL maple syrup

Pretty much the only time I eat bacon or maple syrup for that matter and it was WONDERFUL!

The main goal of this weekend was to watch some hockey. Now, I am not a big hockey fan, in fact this is the only time of year I watch it but hey it’s tradition and it’s fun! The girls (Shannon and I) were going to the 2pm gam and the guys (Brian and Brian) were going to the 7pm game. So, we had some time to kill. We headed off the the St. Paul History Center.

After checking out a few exhibits the guys got antsy and decided to head to a local drinking establishment to watch college basketball. Shannon and I stayed, checked out a few more exhibits and ate lunch at the history center before heading to the game.

Nice picture of the capital from the history center

  The game was pretty exciting. We got to see Wisconsin play the University of Denver. Wisconsin won 6 to 3! Our seats were front row right behind the goal! There were a lot of goals scored on our side and lots of action!

  We met up with the boys at Tom Reid’s Hockey Pub

I tried a new to me beer suggested by the husband, New Castle! It was yummy!

Then the boys took off for their game and the ladies went SHOPPING! Our first stop was a place I have only heard about in the blog world

Yes that’s right! My first visit to Trader Joe’s

I really liked it! It was like a giant Co-Op only with Trader Joe brand products and I thought they had really reasonable prices. I only bought a few items since I didn’t really NEED anything

Almond butter (because it was such a steal!) chocolate covered edamame (because it was unique) and Trader Joe’s Trail Mix Wasabi Wow! (also unique).

We also stopped at a really cool shop called Patina and browsed. We then headed to the Mall of America We actually walked around all three floors of the mall (about one mile per lap!). We stopped in a few stores and looked but didn’t buy any clothes. I did get a birthday present for a friend and a fun gift for myself

A cute Barbie mug! Have I ever mentioned that I love Barbie!

We met the boys at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company Restaurant for one more beer and of course shrimp!

It was almost midnight by the time we got home!

Shannon, her friend Molly, and I met at 8:30am on Sunday and did a 4 mile run around the lake near Shannon and Brian’s house. It was COLD but an awesome run! It’s always helpful when I visit someone who likes to run too! Then we headed out for brunch at the Capital View Cafe 

By this point my camera was really driving me crazy with it’s constant turning on and off again and losing all the settings. That’s why there is a lack of pictures! We hung out with Dave and Amanda and their little girl Erica (Dave is Shannon’s brother and also worked with my Brian). Then we headed for home!

It was a great weekend! It’s always nice to get away to the big city and be with such fun people. We look forward to Shannon and Brian coming to visit us as well as out annual summer trip to the Cities in July!

Well folks, it’s the day I’ve been waiting for. The official start of my triathlon training. Sorry I haven’t been able to get a page up with my training plan. I have it done in Google Docs and can’t figure out how to get it on my blog!

I started my training with not only my first bike ride of the year but also my first brick workout of the year too! In case you don’t know what a brick workout is it is when you do two sports back to back usually biking and running. It’s called a brick workout because you legs feel like bricks! I like that this training plan has you do brick workouts right away. I use to wait until about a month before the triathlon and do brick workouts once a week. I probably should have saved this brick workout for later in the week as the plan called for but time (it’s my day off) and weather (it’s a beautiful 57 degree day here) were on my side. I got my road bike out of the basement, pumped up the tires and took off. I did a nice 52 minute ride, just under 11miles. Then  I transitioned to the run and ran about 10 minutes, a little over a mile. I actually felt really good on the bike and the run was just as I remembered, painful at first but then I got use to it. I got to use the multi sport function on my Garmin which tracked each individual sport as well as my transition time and the total time. It was pretty cool!

Unfortunately training day 2 might not be as successful. I have planned a strength training workout followed by a 30 minute swim. My strange injury that I developed after my run with Izzy is still bothering me. It has moved out of my neck and back and taken up residences in my shoulder/deltoid. It’s less painful than yesterday which is good but I still don’t think I should push it. I don’t want to sustain a injury this early in the game! Not to mention I’m teaching Zumba tomorrow night where I’ll be using it too, I just don’t want to chance it.

I hope you enjoyed the part 1 of my adventure this weekend. They’ll be more to come late tonight!

Howdy! Hope you had a great weekend. We had an AWESOME adventure in St. Paul MN. We got back this evening and are now getting some laundry done and chilling.

We left Friday afternoon. Here’s some road trip snacks I brought along, just in case I got hungry

I brought a pear, a pecan pie Larabar, water, and at the last minute grabbed Stacy’s Pita Chips (big mistake! Too addicting!) Here’s my hubby “The Road Warrior”

On the ride up I got caught up on my magazine reading

About half way to our destination I mentioned to the husband that a fancy coffee sounded like a good idea. He reminded me that there was a Caribou Coffee in Red Wing so we stopped for a break!

  I got a cinnamon roobios tea infused latte with extra cinnamon and vanilla. I was raving for miles about how incredibly delicious it was, then I realized I forgot to ask for skim milk and was probably drinking whole milk for the first time in forever. Opps! Oh well! It was REALLY good and kept me filled up!

We arrived in St. Paul and got settled at our friends Shannon and Brian’s house. Then we headed here for dinner

We had gone to Pizza Luce last year when we visited and I was dying to go back! Cheers to good friends and good food!

Shannon and Brian

  Me and the hubby

Shannon and I shared a fancy foccacia bread topped with pesto, goat cheese, and some other yummy stuff! We also shared a small Mediterranean pizza. The Brian’s had a margarita pizza with added pepperoni and shrimp.

Me and the dinosaur outside the restaurant

  Then we headed back to Brian and Shannon’s house where the boys beat us at euchre (but let’s not talk too much about that).

I learned how to use the white balance setting on my camera!

We won the first game!

  Shenanigans!

For some reason, after this my camera decided that it needed to turn itself off every time I took a picture. Very annoying! I’ll have to figure out what’s going on with that. Stay tuned for the rest of our adventure coming up in future posts! Hope you had a good weekend!

Hey! Happy Friday! Yay! I’m so excited to get out of town for the weekend!

Yesterday I truly felt trapped in my office. It was SOOOOOOO beautiful outside. I felt a twinge of envy every time someone ran by my window. I could NOT wait to get out and run. Unfortunately I had to wait until almost 6pm to actually get out there. BUT it was my first run of the season in shorts (don’t judge the pasty white legs!)

Look who got to come with my for her first run of the year

Before

After

I worked up a pretty good sweat! It was actually pretty hard to run with Izzy. I pretty much had to drag her the whole 3.5miles. She really slowed me down. I’m not sure if I’m getting faster, she’s getting older, or the fact that she had already played pretty hard with my father-in-law before I got home made her tired. Another problem that I think might be caused by my running with Izzy is my left neck and shoulder (the hand I had the leash in) is super sore and really painful this morning. I didn’t notice it when I woke up but when I got in the pool this morning to swim I was in a lot of pain. Me, being an idiot, thought I could swim the soreness away. Nope! It still hurts pretty bad if not worse! Oh well! It was still a good run. I was just glad I got to enjoy the nice weather, today it’s only suppose to get up to 45 (remember a few weeks ago when I thought the 40′s would be GREAT!).

Well, we are headed out of town this weekend and I am supper excited! I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures and bring you along for the adventure. I might not get a post up until Sunday or Monday! Have a great weekend!