Friday FUNDAY!

It's Friday WAHOO!

I made a tasty French Toast this morning using:

• 2 slices of ezekial bread
• crushed almonds
• 1egg white
• vanilla and cinnamon for seasoning
• drizzle of honey
• crunchy and flavorful

I had a side of my organic strawberries too

I then went to Yoga/Pilates. It was a great pilates workout, I could really feel my abs contracting and my "butt" muscles working during our pilates bridge.

Pre-Yoga Snack: 2 egg whites, 2 spoonfuls of hummus, carrots, Mary's organic crackers.  It's like egg salad...with hummus.  The eggs are hiding under all the yummy crackers.

I then ran to Fresh Market to grab some barney butter, thanks Kath.  Couldn't wait to try this stuff.

Lunch:

Noodle month...an excuse to eat more noodles.  I had the rest of my spinach vegan/macro noodle mixture and a banana with barney butter!

Barney Butter: Creamy (or crunchy) Almond Butter that does not need to be refridgerated.

Review:  This had a strong almond taste, which good... and it is very creamy.  I am a true peanut butter fan and always will be however, this stuff is creamy (and not hard like my all natural peanut butter) so it makes the perfect topping for fruit..oatmeal..toast...ect

Snack: Boomi Bar, Perfect Pumpkin

Review: YUM.  Honestly, couldn't really taste the pumpkin seeds, but the fruit (raisins, cranberries, dates, honey) was very good.  It had a nice flavor and nice consistency- chewy with a little but of crunch from the nuts.

At work, I played catch-up with the boys- got a little workout in.  Although, I kept getting out because they are all so good haha.   They have been so crazy lately.  They literally will not stop touching each other, every time I look over they are punching, pushing or shoving one another.  I can't even begin to tell you how many times the words, "stop" and "keep your hands to yourself" came out of my mouth today.

I felt soo energized after work that on the ride home I decided to go for a run.  I really wanted to zone out and listen to music and run HARD- work up a sweat.  I only ran 2miles but did it in 18:24!  That's good for me, usually I am around 20:30 :) 

Pre-workout Snack: a few almonds to hold me over before dinner

GIRL SCOUTS!!

I bought girl scout cookies. And ate lots of them. And loved every minute of it.  Tagalongs and Thin Mints are my friends.  

Snack:

Hummus, carrots, Handful of Mary's crackers, cheese stick

For din, I stuffed chicken with:

• sauteed spinach
• red peppers
• goat cheese/mozz cheese
• it was yum.

with a sweet potato mashed with:

• pumpkin pie spice
• bourbon vanilla

and broccoli and cauliflower. then LOTS OF COOKIES! YAY!

Might be going out tonight with some girls to dance off the cookies...we shall see.  

Tomorrow is yoga. I am so excited because I feel a little tight from swimming and running.

Happy Noodle Month!

I am sure you are all as excited as I am about this announcement:

HAPPY NOODLE MONTH! I love noodles soo much that my parents actually call me noodles (one of my many nicknames).  

Noodles are my favorite.  All kinds and shapes and flavors.  I even like tofu noodles because they are called, "noodles".

I can thank Hungry Girl for letting me know about noodle month!

In honor of noodle month, I had some delicious Spinach Noodles.  These babies were Macro and Vegan and out-of-this-world good. You can serve them warm or cold.  I like them better warm.  I found that at my friendly Whole Foods (located on 13th and 7th for those in Gville).

I had my NOODLES with plain/ff yogurt with strawberries mixed in and a spinach salad with

• dried cherries
• goat's milk feta
• cucumbers
• tomatos
• pistachios 
• drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper

I like the cherries and goat cheese because the sweet and tart really balance well together.  Plus a few cherries go a long way as does the goat feta (low in fat too :) ) I had another handful of pistachios too :)

While I was swimming, I saw my trainer friend Karlton.  Somehow he talked me into doing a super sprint triathalon March 29th.  Can't wait! 

QUESTION:  Has anyone done a super sprint (250 swim, 4m bike, 2m run)?  If so, do you have any tips?

 

Pre-Swim: Lemon Larabar

Review: Lived up to its name of lemon.  VERY LEMON-Y.  Refreshing. Clean tasting.

Swim Workout (in yards today, the numbers in quotes are the number of times you do it, so (4) 100 means 4 100s):

Warm up: 300 free

    100 back

    100 breast

Kick/Pull:

    (4) 75 alternating between kicking and pulling

     (2) 100  drill (I did back and fly drills)

"Main set": This is called a descending ladder.  I didn't really do it to its full extent because I had already run this morning and didn't want to over use my ankle.

(4) 100s, alternating between back and free.  10-15 seconds rest 

(8) 50s, alternating free/back    5-10 seconds rest

(3) 100s, free/back/im  10-15sec rest

(6) 50s, free/back/im    5-10sec rest

I stopped here, but you would continue with 2 100s, 4 50s, then 1 100 and 2 50s

Warm Down: 100

Total:

2, 500 yards.

And here is a picture of my adorable cat, Kitty.  She is very eco-friendly, hence her choice of grocery bag.

Thursday...One Day Closer to FRIDAYY!!!

I am counting down the days till Friday! Today should move quickly.  Going for a quick, light run (my ankle felt fine yesterday), going to the office to work on some stuff, work, out with my friends!  For those of you that don't know, I run an after school program for middle schoolers in my college town.  I am currently waiting to hear back from grad school about my acceptance into a dual degree program, MA and M.ED, for Teaching French as a Foreign Language YAYA!  Hopefully I will hear soon and be on my way to teaching :) and bettering my French!

Needless to say, I only work about 5 hours a day- from 3pm-6pm at the middle school and for about 1hr-2hr in the morning.  This is a pretty low-key week, no field trips or guest speakers planned.  Although, I had to give them a long speech yesterday about behavior during homework time.  Yes, I have turned into THAT person..ahhhhh!

After stopping by the office...I AM SWIMMIN'! YIPEEEE.  I love swimming. Great arm workout, great core workout, great strengthener for your lower back, for your neck, low impact, high cardio (if you want).  If you currently don't swim, try it.   I am always looking for a swimming buddy, check out Sarah, she swims too!

Breakfast was a little disappointing.  I made my bowl of oats, but added my protein powder. I just didn't care for the consistency of it with the added powder, it had powder chunks in it, yuck.  I might have added it incorrectly but nevertheless, I think i'll leave it out next time.  I had:

• 1/2c oats, 1c water, 1/2 scoop of vanilla protein powder (leave out next time)
• 1/2 sliced banana
• 1/2 tbsp dark chocolate chips (yum)
• sprinkle of unsweetened coconut (couldn't really taste it)
• raisins
• cinnamon
• drizzle of organic honey

I forgot my PB...which is depressing since I love it! I knew something was missing...so I just had a small spoon of pb to make up for it :)

Munchies!

So, my indian dinner was just ok.  I left it in the slow cooker for 4 hours on low, but this was just too long.  It didn't have as much flavor as I had hoped and the chicken was pretty dry.  I am going to try it again, only this time I am going to follow the recipe exactly as it was written!

I ended up adding an apple to my snack, so I had a slice of ezekial toast, natural pb, organic honey and an apple. It hit the spot.

I have been munchy all night long! Today is the first day I have run in a week, maybe that's why?  or boredom. it's probably the latter.  After dinner I was tempted to bake the organic cookies I got but instead grabbed some carrot sticks...and then a few mary's crackers with hummus..and then a few heaping handfuls of fruit and nut trail mix from Nutsonline!.  

Dessert was a double chocolate dream vitatop (so delicious!) and 1/2c of dlites ice cream.  Look at those melty chips!

 

Hopefully I can keep the munching at bay for the rest of the night!

Tomorrow is going to be a productive day, I can feel it already!  Lots of exercise planned and a new recipe to try out 

See you tomorrow

Bollywood

I just put my Indian dinner in the crock pot and I can't wait to eat it when I get home from work! Here is a link to where I found it, Indian Dinner.

I whipped up a salad for lunch with:

• canned salmon, about a 1/4c
• carrots
• dried cherries
• feta made from goat's milk
• cucumbers
• tomato
• spinach
• mushrooms
• red peppers

 

This salad was so flavorful.  You don't even need dressing with it and you can really taste all the ingredients.

I paired it with a side of Northern Bean Soup from Whole Foods.  They list the ingredients right near the soup so you know exactly what's in it.  Pretty much beans, veggies, orzo and broth.

On the Run Tip:

 Love salmon but no time to cook it?  Buy canned salmon.  You get the same great benefits, it's cheaper, tasty and lasts a while.

Snack:

 So indecisive on my snack.  I work everyday from 3:00-6:00, so I have to pack a snack on the go.  I am going to defrost one slice of Ezekial toast, spread some all natural peanut butter on it and maybe a handful of grapes or an apple.  I wanted to try my coconut water, but I think i'll save it for after a work out.

See you later :)

MMMM Whole Foods!

Hi guys and gals!

This morning got off to a great start!  I slept so well last night and woke up at 8am.  I was craving cereal (well really the cold milk that goes with it!) so I had a delicious bowl of mixed cereals:

• 1/4c organic honey o's
• 3/4c flax plus ( I love this cereal by Heritage Path!)
• 1/2c shredded wheatn'bran
• 1/4c bluerberries
• about 3/4c skim milk

I had to run some work errands but after I was planning on heading to Fresh Market to grab ingredients for my Indian Dinner tonight, but instead, I decided to try the market about .2miles from my apartment!  IT WAS A MINI WHOLE FOODS!! WAHOOOOOOOO!!

I got soo many great things that I have seen on other people's blogs like:

• coconut water! thanks Fitnessista
• Boomi Bars, can't wait to try them
• silken tofu for desserts
• organic pasta salads from a place in Tampa
• homemade soup (hello lunch.)
• organic cookie dough- sometimes you just don't have time to make your own!

I also bought some beautiful strawberries for smoothies, cereal, salads, ect.  They were $7.29!!!!!! AHH! But soo worth it, check 'em out...

Snack:                                              

• Chobani Vanilla Yogurt
• 1/4c natural banana granola
• 1/3 of a medium banana
• mix mix mix

Review:

Tasty. The yogurt was really thick and creamy.  I love the peach, but I don't think I would eat the  vanilla alone. I would, however, absolutely use it with mix-ins.  The banana granola was crunchy but not so banana-y when mixed with the yogurt and real bananas. On its own, great. Mixed it, great, just no intense banana flavor.

I just found out I am going to Clearwater on Saturday! YIPPEEE!! I get to see one of my biffles, Steph, who lives in NYC.  SO HAPPY. (That's me with blond hair this summer when we went on a Contiki Tour!)

Off for a run- only 2 miles, slow pace to see how the ankle feels.  It feels normal when I am doing everyday activities, so we shall see...