Nov 13, 2011

Who knew carrot juice could be so good?

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So I missed having my smoothies in the morning and have been wanting to go back to them but I wanted to make sure I was giving myself as much nutrition as possible.. okay well not so much that they don’t taste very good. So, in an effort to do just that, i started making my smoothies with carrot juice.

I was REALLY nervous about this before hand because my mom used to “juice” all of the time and the carrot juice turned me off if it wasn’t combined with apple juice too but hey I care about my eye sight haha so I want to drink some carrot juice!

I added in carrot juice, V8 splash, frozen strawberries, frozen bananas, this fiber stuff I put in, a 1/2 cup of non-fat yogurt and I hit BLEND!

It was very orange.

But fit in my cup perfectly and was such a healthy treat on the way to work!

Filed Under: Good Eats and Treats · Tagged: , ,
Sep 7, 2011

No pig with an apple in its mouth… bummer!

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So as if Saturday wasn’t busy enough we made Sunday and Monday even busier! We started off our Sunday morning by sleeping in way more than usual! It was really great to me able to sleep past 8am which is when I have been waking up on the previous weekends. I think we ended up sleeping in past 10am… which felt GREAT! We pretty much have been making this a movie weekend so we have been staying up pretty late. Last night we watched Rain Man which I had seen before but Tim never had! I couldn’t even believe he had never seen  it and I often make weird jokes and references to the movie so it was nice that he could finally understand me!

For breakfast I decided on a smoothie bowl. We were out of eggs so I needed to “eat” something but I couldn’t figure out what I wanted so this was a nice option. It was a delicious smoothie that I would usually put in a glass but instead I pout in a bowl to eat. Something about having to lift the spoon into your mouth makes it more filling?? Who knows if that makes sense- I think it is all just psychological. So in my smoothie I enjoyed ½ cup of fat free plain yogurt, frozen strawberries, frozen bananas, spinach, protein powder, flax seed, and milk. Chop and spin and tada there it is!

Smoothie bowl!

After the smoothie enjoyment Tim and I got ready to head out to Amanda’s families pig roast. Paul and Amanda always seem to have fun activities to go to and I am a big fan of food so needless to say this was right up my alley! I was sort of looking forward to seeing a big huge pig roasting away but they already had that sucker cut up and waiting to be served so unfortunately no piggy with an apple in his mouth. Bummer right? Ha

FOOD COMA was all I thought of when I saw the massive spread they had going on! Everything from the pig to pasta salads to this nutty butter bar dessert to cookies back to baked beans and BBQ sauce. Seriously, anything you wanted they had! I decided on some pig w/ the delicious BBQ sauce, 1 piece of corn on the cob, a small helping of pasta salad, and some fruit. I didn’t actually put any desserts on my plate in hopes of staying away from them but still managed to get Tim to share a few bites of his with me! No idea what it exactly was or the recipe for it but that peanut butter banana nutty butter bar dessert or whatever it is called was sooo good. Tim was practically drooling all over himself as he ate that!

We played corn hole for a bit and we lost. Amanda and her cousin kicked out butts but hey we still had fun (it’s like the lottery you know… odds are you’ll have fun) and then I watched Tim and Paul majorly lose in another game of corn hole. So major they actually have 0 points at the end of the game. But they were good sports about it… see they still look happy?

We love our best man Paul!

On our way home we saw this totally inappropriate but hilarious stop sign. Apparently those kids that live out in the country don’t have much to do…?

After the pig roast we went home and fell asleep on the couch… did I mention food coma? Then we woke up to head out to fireworks at Fairlawn Country Club with Tim’s grandparents, dad, and Karla. Fairlawn does such an amazing job with fireworks so even though I am not a die hard fireworks fan it is still awesome to go watch. We didn’t attend the “big” event but had dinner at the halfway house instead which was AWESOME. Apparently they have delicious burgers there which I had no idea but I ordered one and was not at all disappointed. I stayed away from the regular bun and made myself a lettuce bun instead and topped off the burger with tomato, pickle, and onion. Tim’s dad shared some fries with me too- which were equally tasty! Then the magical fireworks came and they were just beautiful!


Before we left Tim ordered a bite of banana cream pie which I am happy to say I only took 2 bites of (don’t ask me how big that second bite was). Regardless I find it much easier to not eat desserts when they are on someone else plate. That way it is like readily available if I want to taste it but my eyes don’t tell me to keep going because it is on my plate staring at me!

We made out way home to watch ANOTHER old school movie and chose The Graduate this time which I had never seen. Gotta admit- that movie has a lot of hype around it but I thought it was sort of dumb. For it’s time I’m sure it was scandalous and the acting was probably impressive at the time but the whole story line was just odd and weird to me. In my eyes, Rain Man was a much better choice!
So tell me this: What is your favorite older movie??

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Aug 24, 2011

A little inspiration goes a long way

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I have been feeling a little yucky lately. I think it is because I have been letting myself indulge in treats a little more than I have been the last few weeks and I’ll tell you what- it is easy to feel it (hopefully not so easy to see it)! In any case I have been running and eating right for the most but I have been sneaking in a little piece of chocolate here and an extra pack of fruit snacks there. I am going to stop that right now, as I type this, because I know I am taking Peyton to Menchies on Saturday and I want to feel like I can enjoy that frozen yogurt without feeling bad about it. It is all about portion control and moderation right? That may have been more of a pep talk to myself and less of the normal information sharing I do with you but I hope it works!
So let’s focus on running. Let’s see of right now as I type this I have 16 more days available to train for this 5K coming up. Monday morning Tim and I woke up to a pretty cold day and did 2 ½ miles. We started on a new track that we had never done before so I enjoyed that. It was tough in a few areas and had this hill that felt like it was never going to end at about the 1 ¾ mile mark so that was, well, hell but we made it. Since we are recently new home owners (about a year ago) we still really like talking about home construction so our new route was neat because we got to check out some different houses. Most of the time we end up dreaming about what we would like our future home to look like. Here are items that made our list…
  • BIG (we didn’t specify size but we both want a big house- like a you get lost in it big house)
  • Wine Cellar- a definite must
  • Water Feature- besides the beach Tim also is obsessed with water features
  • Jacuzzi tub in the master bathroom
I think that was all of the musts that we talked about but I know there are more. Those are just the ones I can remember.. Hard to hear yourself think when you have all that heavy running breathing going on.
So yea the morning run was good. Mondays are always hard because we are pretty lazy on the weekends when it comes to working out so our bodies kind of panic at the beginning and just aren’t quite sure what to do! In any case we made it through and got home with enough time to eat breakfast before work! Tim made breakfast this morning so I got a delicious “eggle” (egg on a bagel) but we were out of basil so I missed out on that yummy flavor. I did put some spinach on it though to give it some more color and tastiness. When Tim makes me breakfast I get the whole egg rather than an egg white so it is always just a small treat that happens once a week or so. Here I am smiling with my whole egg before heading off to work!

I am usually NOT this happy before I go to work!

And this is why I was so happy!

Work was work and when the clock hit 5 o’clock I was out the door! Monday night is work out night  with the ladies so I had a great time (as usual right?) and I did this crazy workout with Kari that almost killed me made me feel great mom! It was called “Fight Gone Bad” but I called it the “Keep going until you Barf” workout. It consisted of 5 exercises that you do for 1 minute each.
  • Rowing
  • Wall ball (we did not throw the ball at the wall but rather used a heavy ball and threw it up in the air and jumped each time when we caught it)
  • Deadlift High-pull (with the Olympic bar)
  • Box Jumps
  • Push Press (AKA dip drive w/ the Olympic Bar)
I mean this workout was TOUGH. Kari is truly inspiring though and was constantly pushing me to do better, be better, push my body to it’s max so I did just that. You do this based on a score and then each time you complete the workout you try to get a better score than the time before. Kari beat my score by 4 points so next time I’ll have to try to win! My mom didn’t ask me my intensity level that night but if she had I think I would have said an 9 with a few 10 throughout the workout. It was just TOUGH- try it! Take your time and breath through but give it a try. Give yourself 1 point for each calorie burned on the rower and then 1 point for each rep you do within your 1 min for the other exercises… then tell me your score and I’ll tell you mine! We can compete a little bit. Friendly competition is A-OK in my book!
When I got home Tim was already making a delicious dinner for me! He decided on doing Jennie-O’s Turkey Burgers since we hadn’t had them in real form in a while. I do my veggie burgers in the microwave for lunches at work but sometimes it is nice to have a tasty lean turkey burger right off the grill. Loving the idea of lettuce as much as I do I made a seriously killer burger salad. I  had a bed of romaine lettuce as my base and then added in cilantro (of course!), onions, peppers, avocados, spinach, mushrooms and tomatoes and then laid my naked turkey burger on top. I don’t know if you don’t like lettuce or turkey burgers, it is hard to not be impressed by this little number.

The salad

The veggies

The finished product

See? Told you! So tasty. As usual Tim opted for the bun and his looked pretty good but I must say.. .I think my salad looked better! With the turkey burgers Tim and I attempted to make some homemade French Fries. So Tim cut up a few potatoes and popped them in the oven with salt and pepper on them. I don’t think we left them in there long enough and I don’t think we cut them thick enough because they just turned out weird. Casey said there is a great recipe on Skinny Taste so I am gonna try that one and see if we can make it better next time. Regardless of how they tasted it is a hell of a lot better than consuming all of those calories that you would in regular fries.

Tim's not as healthy choice

After a rough but great workout on Monday night I was really nervous to see how I was going to feel on Tuesday morning. Luckily my first thought when my alarm went off was a very inspiring one. Tim told me sometime last week that his friend Mary had run 6 miles one day. He had read at her blog that she just went for a run not worrying about time or distance and finally made it home 6 miles later. She was running because she ENJOYED running… that is my goal! So I told myself in the morning (and literally I said this out loud to myself) put on those tennis shoes and just run. Don’t worry about where you are going, except don’t get hit by a car, and don’t worry about how far it is or how long it will take you… just do it! Well because we had just mapped out our route yesterday I actually knew exactly how far it would take me and about how long it was take but hey I managed to get out there and just RUN. I was feeling great and thought I was doing a pretty good job until I got to that hill… then I felt a little dead. HOWEVER- the important part here is that I did make it the entire way without killing myself and I felt good about it. I think in a few more weeks I will be able to just get out there and run. I seriously cannot wait for the day where I feel a little stressed out or just need a break and decide to go running to clear my head. I also can’t wait to feel like both my legs and breathing want to cooperate on the same day but hey I’ll take what I can get little by little.
After my run and getting ready for work I did make myself a smoothie! I put in strawberries and blueberries along with some protein powder and Almond Breeze Almond milk in it this time. I literally just keep forgetting to add my spinach and my flax seed but I’ll remember next time! I think I should make a “smoothie” section in the new pantry set up so it’s like a one stop shop of everything I need!
Work was just a normal day and I was very finally make it home after round 2 of my allergy shots! My left arm was very itchy but Tim and I headed out to make a quick stop at the grocery store before making dinner. I am doing homemade pizza night with some girls on Wednesday night so I needed to get us the goods to make a delicious dinner! When we got back we realized we hadn’t thawed anything out for dinner and really had no plan. For some reason I had zero taste for salmon so I said no thanks when Tim suggested that. Then somehow we decided on Turkey Hot Dogs… far cry from Salmon right? Tim put these puppies on the grill and I enjoyed Turkey Hot Dogs for dinner! I did them without a bun and added in some cut up hot peppers, onions, and cut up pickles. Ever since I chopped up those pickles when Rose and Adam were visiting I kind of love doing it now. It seems totally pointless and like a waste of time but I just love them! I usually only like to eat hot dogs at sporting events but the Turkey Dogs are delicious and they have far less fat in them than regular hot dogs so they are a nice quick meal to make at  home. On the side with the hot dogs Tim cut up this weird melon thing and also mixed in some Kiwi! I pretty much just picked all of the kiwi out and pretended it was that kiwi strawberry sorbet I had at Menchies the other day. Nothing like dreaming a little bit!

Tim "ballin" his melon ha

After dinner we spent some time watching some TV, catching up on things going on in our lives away from home, and finally went to bed. I am also in this weird habit of sleeping the wrong way on the bed. Like where my feet are supposed to do I put my head and visa versa. The fan is closer to the bottom of the bed and I like it to hit my face so yea I don’t care if that is weird but I like it!
Filed Under: Good Eats and Treats, Primary Menu · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Aug 17, 2011

Oh shucks- It is raining outside!

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What is the best way to get through a long week? Eat good food, run a little bit, and just be happy with the life God gave you! Monday morning Tim and I got up for a run BUT it was raining so we had to stay in bed. I was so freaking happy disappointed by this but hey not every morning is going to be a beautiful one. This moment did make me realize that it is going to get colder here sooner rather than later and the rain will just keep coming so at some point I am going to have to come up with an alternate solution to my running habit! So after an additional 45 min of sleep I got up and got ready for work. I started my day with a smoothie on the way to work that was pretty delicious. My trip to Sam’s Club over the weekend provided me with the opportunity to purchase a very large amount of spinach so I made sure to include that! Nothing like some good healthy greens to start your day.

Four hours of work went by pretty fast so that makes for the beginning of a good week. I had lunch with Renee and had packed some tuna for myself to put on top of lettuce and tomato. I ate some garden salsa sun chips with it and had an apple on the way to my parent’s house for workout class! Rowing/CrossFit class KICKED MY BUTT! It was Angie’s birthday though so we had a ton of fun doing “39 Reps” of everything to help her celebrate! Tim came to class tonight so we really enjoyed working out together since we hadn’t been able to go running in the morning. The only bad part of the workout was that Tim and I had just gotten our allergy shots about an hour and a half before the workout and apparently you are not supposed to workout after those shots so I did take it a little easier than I usually do so I didn’t pass out or anything! Next week I scheduled this shot for Tuesday so this won’t be a problem again. Our workout contained…

  • Rowing 1500 meters
  • 39 Box Jumps
  • 39 Reverse Curls
  • 39 Sit-Ups
  • 39 Plank-Pikes
  • 1500 more meters

It was just enough of a cardio/strength training mix and was just what I needed to get myself geared up for the rest of the week where I will be attending a 3.5 day seminar at work. The best news I got all night was when I stepped on the scale and realized that I had lost about 3-3.5% It was just really nice to feel like my hard work is finally starting to pay off! That great news combined with the running still happening almost every day was enough to put a big smile on my face.

We ended up enjoying some Subway for dinner with my parents and had just a random mix of different kinds of subs my dad had picked up. I stayed away from most of the bread and picked out all of the goodies out with a fork so I didn’t carb overload. After dinner and some great conversation we headed home and made it early to bed knowing we had a tough run cut out for us in the morning.

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