Monthly Archives: March 2010

Hi friends! Sorry for not posting yesterday. Work was busy, then right after work we headed out for St. Patty’s day dinner, then I had to head back to work for the evening. I didn’t get home until pretty late and then just wanted to veg!

I taught another AWESOME cycling class yesterday morning, sweat was literally dripping off my nose! When I got home I was SUPER hungry and didn’t think a Green Monster would satisfy my hunger! I needed some egg white oats. But how could I NOT drink a GREEN Monster on St. Patrick’s Day? I made a compromise. I had the same Apple Crisp oats I had the other morning, with 2 added egg whites added in for protein.

Then I whipped up a Green Monster to take with me to work for a pre yoga snack.

I took it to work in this new container I bought just for smoothies

You stick the bottoms half in the freezer and it get icy cold. Then if you want you can add powder in the top part, shake and drink. Pretty cool huh? It worked really well for my purpose, keeping my smoothie nice and cold!

In all my crazy running around yesterday morning I did a very stupid thing!

I melted the bottom of my FAVORITE 1 cup measuring cup! We have a flat top stove. I had my oats in the cup and set it on the stove, ready to pour into my boiling liquid. I didn’t realize however that I turned the wrong burner on! Oh how dumb! Oh well, at least I didn’t set the house on fire!

We went to St. Patrick’s day dinner at Brian’s aunt and uncle’s house. I was totally going to take pictures BUT I just didn’t feel comfortable. I really need to start being less shy with the camera, I’m just not ready yet. We had corn beef, cabbage, carrots, dinner rolls, and red potatoes. It was by far one of the best Irish dinners I’ve had. Nothing was too greasy and the meat was cooked to perfection! For dessert we had key lime pie! I may or may not have indulged in my favorite Irish beer, Smithwicks! It was pretty fun. I was pretty bummed that I had to go back to work, every other night this week I’m free!

It is an incredibly gorgeous day out. It’s suppose to get up 66 degrees…that’s ALMOST 70! I decided to sleep in this morning and save my run for after work so I can enjoy the sunshine. After today we are suppose to be back into the 40 degree range for highs and there is even the possibility of snow! Bummer!

Have I mentioned that we are going away this weekend? I know we are going to have TONS of adventures and I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures!

Have a great day!

Howdy! I have quite the busy day off! Again the weather outside was beautiful!

I started my day bright and early by teaching a 6am cycling class. I did not sleep well because I was afraid that I would miss my alarm and be late for class, with the time change and all.

I then came home and made an energizing green smoothie and walked the doggie. I prepped some food for a lunch I am having with my co-workers tomorrow. Then I cleaned the house top to bottom. I was starvin Marvin all day and had to stop half way through my cleaning for a snack break.

When I was done cleaning I practiced some Zumba moves for tomorrow’s class.  After an hour of practicing I knew I couldn’t make it any longer without lunch and finished up some leftovers. Then I dinked around on the Internet for awhile. I thought about just chilling in front of the TV for the rest of the afternoon BUT it was just too nice out for that. I broke out my “crappy bike” the one I use to buzz around town, and road it downtown to buy this

Yes, in addition to all the other crazy stuff I do I also LOVE to knit! I honestly haven’t been doing it since Christmas. I guess I just got too busy with grad school and getting sucked into the blog world. I just wasn’t really inspired to make anything either. This yarn is for an AWESOME yoga mat bag. I made one for my mom and even though it was quite challenging it turned out to be really cool so I want to make one for myself.

It was so much fun biking around town today. I grew up about 8 miles from town on a country road. You could go left for about 1/2 a mile before you hit a dead end or right about 1/2 a mile before you hit a busy county highway. Needless to say biking into town was just not something we did. Now that I live pretty much in the center of town I love to ride my bike whenever possible. So much fun!

I chilled out at home for awhile watching a DVRed Desperate Housewives and starting my project. Then I had to leave to go volunteer at the Salvation Army for awhile. When I got home I whipped up this lovely meal for dinner.

  This is Spaghetti Squash Pie. Last fall we cooked a bunch of spaghetti squash from out garden and froze it. When I make my homemade spaghetti sauce I make a TON and end up freezing some. To make this pie all you have to do is

• Take the cooked flesh from 1 spaghetti squash and press into the bottom of a glass pie plate to make the “crust”
• Take one egg and 6oz of ricotta cheese and blend together. Layer on top of the squash
• Then add a layer of spaghetti sauce, your own or even canned will work
• Top with mozzarella cheese
• Bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

It actually looks better before it’s cook than after! So delicious and good for you too!

Whew! Well, I’m about done for the day. The hubby said something about going on an errand and then visiting a friend but I think I just want to chill!

Hope you’re having a great start to the week!

, knitting

Hello! Happy Sunday to ya! I don’t know about where you are but it is by far the most gorgeous day we’ve had in a looooooooong time! Right now it’s 62 and sunny! I’ve been stuck inside revising my paper and doing laundry. Oh well. I’m just glad to see winter come to an end. I know we’ll have plenty of more beautiful days like this to come!

Yesterday would have been a better day to stay in and work on my paper, very gloomy an yucky! But I spent some time with my out of town relatives and did my taxes with the hubby and my dad.

I started out the day with a great 5.5mile run. Still loving the Garmin!

It really kept me motivated and even surprised me when my pace dropped below 9 miles/hour. I have yet to download the software on to my computer..must do that soon!

Before my run I had a little snack to fuel myself up

Spelt bread, toasted, with almond butter, a cup of coffee with almond milk in it. The vanilla flavor made it seem like a real treat!

Towards the end of my run it started to drizzle so by the time I was done I was pretty chilled. I warmed up with a hot shower and breakfast #2

   My oatmeal contained:

• 1/2c old fashion oats
• 1/2c almond milk
• 1/2 c water
• 1/2 a jonagold apple

I topped it with

• 1 TBSP of shredded coconut
• 1 TBSP of pecans
• And obviously some cool whip.

Twas like eating apple crisp for breakfast! I finished the other half of the apple off with some almond butter. All I needed was some added egg white for protein but we were all out!

I spent the afternoon hanging out with these two adorable guys

Those are my cousins little guys and my parent’s dog Mosey!

After the relatives left Brian and I got down to business doing our taxes with my dad. About half way through I got pretty hungry and whipped up an appetizer…more guacamole!

You put the pits back in the guac to keep it from turning brown. I guess that only comes into play when you have leftovers and need to refrigerate it, we pretty much devoured it!

After the taxes were done we cooked fish tacos for my parents. I won’t give away the secret fish recipe but I will share with you the special coleslaw we put inside the tacos

You take

• 2 TBSP of sour cream
• 2 TBSP of Lime juice
• 1/4C of Orange Juice
• salt, pepper, and cumin to taste.

Whisk all that together in a large bowl then add

• 1/4 head of red cabbage
• 1/2 C corn kernels (used frozen, thawed)
• 1 jalapeno chopped

Toss with the liquid and let stand for 10 minutes tossing occasionally. Then you just add that to your fish taco. So delicious!

  A word to the wise. When chopping up a jalapeno wear plastic gloves. I didn’t and later rubbed my eye and thought I was going to DIE! The burning was so intense! I rinsed it with water and milk and eventually it felt better. Here’s us being goofy about the whole thing! What a dumb mistake!

Well, I’m off to my favorite Sunday yoga class! Hope you’re having a great weekend!

Morning everyone! Once again I am awake earlier than necessary on a Saturday morning. I just can’t sleep in any more!

Well, I guess I broke my streak of posting every day. I was doing pretty good. I didn’t take any pictures yesterday either.

I was so sore from my work out on Thursday but I decided to hit up an indoor cycling class and wear my Garmin to see what it could do indoors. Apparently it’s a pretty useless item inside. I could still get my heart rate but it’s so small on the screen I had to slow down and squint at the screen. For some reason I thought it based your calories burned on heart rate but I guess it’s based on miles and speed so I didn’t even get a calorie readout. I think I could buy a foot pad for running indoors but I’m pretty sure I’ll be using it outside only. The class was great. I was dripping with sweat by the end and it was kind of fun to see my heart rate change. Cycling is such a good interval workout.

So apparently I can’t count. The husband was telling me about some event we have in May and I looked in my Palm to see how that affected my triathlon training and realized that I DON’T have to start training next week it’s the following week. Here I was getting all psyched up to start on Monday! Oh well, that gives the weather a little more time to warm up I guess. I’m just so excited to make it official! It’s not like I haven’t been swimming, biking, and running I just kind of do it when I feel like it. It’s almost certain that I will be doubling up workouts as I took over the Tuesday night Zumba class. I’m not sure how my body is going to feel about that.

Last night my aunt, two of my cousins, and my cousin’s to little guys came to town to see my brother’s play. We went to the Olive Garden for dinner since it was close to their hotel. I like the Olive Garden but didn’t feel the need to take photos as it’s chain. I like to suggest unique and local restaurants on my blog. At least they had some healthy food to chose from. I had carefully planned what I would eat and stuck to it. But then we went back to the hotel and my cousin, the hubby, and I split a 6 pack of Budlight Lime (2 beers for me). When I got home I was snacky due to the beer so I ate some graham crackers and milk. I definitely went over my SparkPeople calorie goal for the day. Actually I went over on Thursday too when I was super starved from my workout. I’m trying to be okay with this. It helps me to recognize where I need to reign it in. I also realized it’s no one’s fault but my own. I knew how much I should have eaten but didn’t stick with it for whatever reason. It’s these kind of behaviors that get my in trouble.

Oh well, today is a new day. I’m planning on going for a run shortly. Can’t wait to try the Garmin again. Not much else planned for the day except to hang out at my parents house with my relatives and later do the taxes (how fun..not!). I’ll try and take some pics at my parent’s house, it’s so pretty!

Howdy! It’s almost Friday! Yay! I hope life is treating you well this fine day. It’s been raining off and on all day but hey it’s okay! It’s helping to get rid of this snow. Could be worse, could be a few degrees colder and be snowing all day! Yikes!

I had a crazy intense workout this morning and a decadent breakfast to help fill me up. But up first my  run with the Garmin!

It was still pretty yucky out when I got done with work. I knew I would only have a short time to run so planned on a 3 miler. Here I am all ready to face the drizzle.

You can’t see it but I’m checking out the Garmin. And yes I am wearing a bandana. I didn’t want my hair to get too messed up as I had to be back at work by 6:30pm. So off I went! Honestly it was an AWESOME run! I haven’t run in over a week and a half. The last run I had was a glorious 7miler which I can’t believe I didn’t write about! My run yesterday was the first run where I didn’t have to deal with ice or HUGE puddles at every corner. It felt great just to let loose. After I had been running for awhile I thought, “Hey, I think I’ll take a different route then I planned, it will probably be more than 3 miles but oh well.” My route looped me through a quiet residential neighborhood and then up a big hill which according to the Garmin was almost 3/4 of a mile! My actual run with warm up and cool down ended up being a little over 5 miles. See!

It was really fun to see my pace change as well as see what my heart rate was. I’ve never been real big on heart rate but I think I will be now. My only complaint was that the watch itself kept slipping on my wrist and hurting my wrist bone. I’m not sure if I can make it tighter or what. I only used the very basic functions on the Garmin and will try out some of the training features. Over all I give it a thumbs up! (I would have give it 2 thumbs up but my other thumb was holding the camera!)

  Now on to this morning’s madness. So I decided I needed to do a little pretraining, before I start my official triathlon training. The program I am following calls for at least 2 strength training sessions a week and pairs them with thr swim workout. Last week I tried out the strength training session to see what that was like. Today I decided to do the two together to see how long they both took, how the transition from weight room to pool would go, and to see how my body would feel. The strength training session went much better this time. I upped my weight by about 5 lbs for each exercise and even managed to break a sweat. I shaved about 5 minutes off of the previous time, probably because the exercises were more familiar to me. I was able to get my stuff together, go into the locker room, change, and be in pool within 10 minutes. It would have been shorter but I had to wait for a lane to open up (so annoying!). I swam the front crawl for 30 minutes straight. I figured I was already warmed up from the weights and I’ll be swimming the front crawl during the tri any way. I did 1500 meters in those 30 minutes. My arms were a little tired but over all I felt really strong and good! Afterwards however, while I was blow drying my hair I thought my arms were going to fall off! YOWZERS! When I got home I was SO HUNGRY! I decided to whip up a bowl of egg white oat meal. I figured out a good use for that yummy yet slightly high in calorie chocolate “pudding” oatmeal topping! I’ve also been dipping orange slices in it for my evening snack. Here’s my oats for the morning

• 1/2 C Old Fashion Oats
• 1/2 C Rice Milk
• 1/2 C Water
• 2 egg whites whipped in at the end

Toppings

• Mock chocolate pudding
• Banana
• Shredded coconut
• Chopped pecans
• Ground flaxseed

It was DELICIOUS! And very filling. I also had a cup of coffee (I usually drink tea, just felt the need for coffee) with two generous dollops of cool whip on top. It was a nice treat!

Doing the weight/swim combo was okay. I felt good and everything but it took about an hour and forty minutes which means I definitely have to get up early. I also had to pack a lot of stuff to bring with me. Usually when I swim I just wear my suit under the clothes I’m wearing for the day. When I lift weights I just bring along my tennis shoes (because it’s sloppy out we’re asked not to wear out outside shoes in the fitness studio or wellness center). So I had to pack my suit, goggles, hat, and shower shoes. Not to mention my clothes for the day. All my shower stuff including my hair dryer. Plus carry along an extra pair of shoes. Kind of annoying. Maybe once the weather dries out I can eliminate the shoes!

I was feeling really great and energetic this morning but just now a huge wave of tiredness hit me! I feel like I could go back to bed! Must have been the workouts catching up with me! Too bad I work late tonight! Oh well!

Hope you’re having a healthy day!

Hey friends! Hope you’re having a good Wednesday! Minr is going pretty well if I do say so my self, and I do! The weather is pretty gloomy here. Overcast and rainy but I think the showers are going to hold off so that I can take my new toy out for a try!

Yes in deed! My birthday gift came a little early. I read through the manual last night and wow! That little thing sure does a lot! I’m just going to take it out for a basic run this afternoon but you can pace yourself, race yourself, race a computer generated competitor, do intervals, and of course it tracks all your miles, calories, heart rate, and route. I’ll be sure to report back on my experience.

Last night’s Zumba class rocked! I did the same routine I did on Saturday. There were  some people new to Zumba in the class and they seemed to catch on pretty quick so I felt like I did a good job.

When I got home I whipped up some Guacamole with a Twist!

   The key to lightening up this guac is using one avocado and one can of white beans. It gives it the body and texture of guac but without the added fat (although avocados have “good fat”) plus a little protein. I mix together the beans and the avocado first. Then add 1/2 a red onion (soaked in 3 TBSP of lime juice for 15min), 1 Roma tomato, a handful of cilantro, one garlic clove, salt, cumin, and hot sauce and pulse until blended! It was YUMMY but the red onion taste stuck with my for a LOOOONG time, even after multiple brushings, flossing, and mouth washings!

Look what else I picked up at the Y

My Indoor Ironman Challenge T-Shirt. Pretty cool huh? Like I always say, it’s all about the T-Shirt!

As I mentioned before my lower back has been really bothering me lately. I was getting kind of concerned because I start my official triathlon training next week. It didn’t hurt while I was doing Zumba last night but a little bit while we were stretching. Last night while I was sleeping my whole lower back hurt. I went to yoga this afternoon hoping it would help and do you know what? It did! I realized that I normally go to yoga 2 times a week and didn’t go at all last week, which is probably why my back was hurting. I know that I LOVE yoga but I didn’t realize what a benefit it was to my body until I missed a few sessions. I felt so beautiful and strong doing the poses today.

Well, I guess that’s all from me for now. I’ll be back tomorrow with a post about my first run with the Garmin. I’m also going to try a practice strength training session/swim combo in the morning and I’ll let you know how that goes!

If you missed it here’s my guest post on Then Heather Said!

Have a good day!

Hi there! Happy Tuesday! Hey, it’s not Monday right?

I happily sent my paper off to my editor friend last night at about 8pm. I still think the paper is kind of blah but at least it’s mostly done.

In other news FedEx says that my birthday present is in town and out for delivery! I can’t wait to try out my Garmin Forerunner. Unfortunately it’s suppose to be raining all week so I don’t think I’ll go outside for a run. Maybe I can just try out the heart rate monitor for now!

I’m guest posting on Then Heather Said so be sure to check it out. I believe she said it was going up today. Learn about why I think blogging is part of healthy living!

Pretty basic day. At work and then teaching Zumba tonight! Notice the lack of pictures. I’m finding it’s much easier to post pictures when I have my work laptop at home. I just pop the SD card in the slot and away I go. I would really love a personal laptop, so if anyone out there wants to give me one to test out I’ll be sure to blog about it! Only kidding, sort of.

I think I have my triathlon training plan figured out. I will be posting it soon. The only problem is I think I need to set it up week by week. I have a certain number/type of workouts I need to do each week but every week will be different based on my teaching schedule and the weather. I have succumbed to the fact that instead of sleeping in on the mornings I teach Zumba at night I’ll be getting up to do a triathlon workout. Hope the added Zumba workout doesn’t cause injury or hurt my training because I LOVE to teach Zumba!

I guess that’s all for now! Hope you have a great day!

Hey everyone! Guess what I’ve been doing ALLLLLLLLL day?

HOMEWORK! It’s my first REAL day off in about a month and I’m slaving away at the computer. I have a final paper for my grad class due in a week. I like to get them done early so my editor friend (hi Shannon!) can look it over it. This paper is really a pain in the rear right now! We are suppose to synthesize everything we learned into 5-10 pages. I have about 4 pages already written and I’m not too pleased with it. I haven’t even exercised today. My thought was to wait until it got warm and sunny out and hit the road for a run. I have an appointment at 3pm and right now (1:30pm) it doesn’t look too sunny. I haven’t even practiced my Zumba moves! Sigh! It’s probably good that I’ve taken it easy the last couple of days. My lower left back or possibly my gluet has been hurting a lot. Not really sure what that is from but I don’t want to make it worse. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t exercise two days in a row!

I did take a little break and work in the kitchen for a little awhile. I made Jiffy Veggie Spelt Burgers again. I just happened to have all the ingredients available except for an onion which I omitted. I also added some parmesan cheese I had and some hot sauce. Because I didn’t have an onion I only used 1/2 C of spelt flour. Doesn’t that look pretty in the processor?

Here it is all mixed up!

  While those were baking I tried this recipe for mock chocolate pudding. It looks pretty good

and it tasted pretty good BUT I entered the nutritional info into the SparkPeople recipe calculated and it has a TON of (like 800) calories in just that one serving. That is all it made too, so maybe a little pricey for chocolate pudding. I had to use some of my precious almond butter I put it in the fridge for later.

Here’s my burger on a sandwich thin with some lettuce, sprouts, and left over asparagus!

Well, I think maybe I’ll take a long hot shower and hope that it revives me. Ugh! I just want to get that paper done with! Hope you’re having a good Monday!

P.S. Tomorrow I’m guest posting on Then Heather Said. Don’t forget to check it out!