Updated iPod

Ryan has workshops and meetings all day today for work until 9:30pm, so it’s just me and Lily today! I started the day with the same protein pancakes I made yesterday except I substituted a banana for the blueberries. Bananas are definitely my favorite fruit. I eat one everyday no matter what! But after breakfast Lily and I went on a 2.75 mile walk around our neighborhood while I chatted on the phone to my mom. My mom and I talk at least once a day and somehow always have something to talk about. It’ll be fun to live with her and my stepdad for the next few months before the wedding :).

After our walk I spent some time updating my itunes/iPod. I hate this task because it takes forever, and I always forget a few songs that I want, but I am always so happy once I do it. I look forward to running once I have a new playlist to listen to, and it definitely re-energizes me. I told a good friend of mine that I would let her dog out today since she’s at the same conference as Ryan, so I decided to run there and back since she only lives 1.8 miles from us. I turned on my new playlist and ran over and back in no time. Wednesday is usually my cross-training day so I can take a break from running, but I was in the mood to run, and this was only 3.6 miles total, so I went with it. Plus, the gym is a good 20 minutes away, and I’m not really in the mood to drive there and back. Call me lazy, I don’t blame you.

After my run I ate a quick lunch of leftovers and decided to cut the grass. Now, cutting the grass is a BIG deal at our house. Ryan is the only one who cuts it, and even though I’ve offered a million times to do it, he always say no. I’m guessing it has something to do with the fact that he doesn’t think I would do as good of a job :). But since he has to work late tonight and has something to do tomorrow night, he finally gave in since our yard has started to look abandoned. For some reason, I love the cut the grass. Not only is it a good workout (if you have a push mower like we do), but it’s a monotonous activity that makes it easy to zone out and think. It didn’t take me as long as I thought it would, but I felt super manly and cool and made a point to wave to all of our neighbors so they could see how handy I looked. I’m pretty proud of myself :).

But since Ryan’s working tonight, I’m all alone for dinner. I’m thinking breakfast for dinner… and maybe a frozen yogurt trip. Ok, definitely a frozen yogurt trip.

Blueberry Protein Pancakes

I actually slept in a little bit longer today than I thought I would since I’m so used to getting up early. I woke up around 8:15am and was starving. I couldn’t decide what I wanted until I read Julie’s blog (www.pbfingers.com) and saw that she had pancakes. I love using her pancake recipes, but I had extra time this morning, so I made up my own.

Blueberry Protein Pancakes (this is for ONE serving)

1/4 c. rolled oats

1/4 c. whole wheat flour

1/4 c. milk (I used almond coconut milk)

1 egg white

1 tbsp. of honey

cinnamon (as much as you like…. I tend to be heavy-handed when I use cinnamon)

1 tbsp. of peanut butter or a nut butter of your choice (this is optional)

As many fresh blueberries as you’d like! I think these would also be good with a banana mashed in

Mix all the ingredients together in a medium bowl. Pour contents onto hot skillet. Makes 2-3 pancakes

I love pancakes. They always feel like such a treat when I eat them because I usually only make them on Saturday or Sunday mornings. I especially love to use oats/whole wheat flour in them along with some peanut butter to give them some staying power. I could eat 10 normal pancakes and feel full for about 10 minutes, but these kept me full until lunch!

After breakfast Lily and I went on a 2.5 mile walk. Even though it was only 9:30 or so, it was super humid, so Lily kept running in front of all the sprinklers to cool off. It would be really cute if it didn’t involve her yanking me over with her to stand in strangers’ yards. But after our walk I dropped her off at home and set out to do a long interval run. I am a huge fan of intervals because they are effective without consuming a lot of time. Since I’m not working this week, I set out to do a longer interval run to work on my mile speed. My workout looked like this:

1 mile run

2 minute walk

Repeat 5 times

In the end, I looked like this:

I ended up running 5 miles and walking .70 in between, so in 50 minutes I covered 5.7 miles. Paired with my 2.5 miles of walking with Lily, I did about 8.2 miles of cardio, and I was spent (hence why I’m laying on the floor looking like a sweaty mess). I finished my workout with 25 lunges (each leg), 20 plank toe taps, and 20 push-ups (girly-version, duh). It felt good!

Tonight is trivia night at our favorite bar, so Ryan and I are excited to go out and have some fun! Have a good evening!

Weekend Update

Happy Tuesday! Friday was my last day of work, so I have this entire week off before I head back to school to finish up my Master’s. It is so nice to have a few days to run errands, spend time with Lily, and get in some longer workouts. I’m leaving on Monday after Ryan and I go to Denver this weekend, and I’m not looking forward to it :(. It’s going to be hard to leave Ryan and Lily, but it’s only four months, and then I’m back for good!

But after work on Friday, Ryan and I went to my cousin’s house for a cookout. I brought a pistachio cake for dessert, and I loved it! Ryan was a little weary because it was green, but he liked it which is good enough for me! Here’s a link to the recipe –> http://www.skinnymom.com/2013/05/12/skinny-pistachio-cake/

After the cookout, I woke up early Saturday morning to head to Chicago to go to a Rascal Flatts concert with my best friend Sarah. I got to the city around 10:15am and had a quick bagel breakfast with one of my other best friends from high school, Madeline. Madeline is a tax accountant, so unfortunately, she had to work all weekend, but it was really nice to see her even if it was only for 20 minutes. I headed to Sarah’s apartment around 11, and we spent the rest of the day walking around Chicago and shopping. At 4pm we headed to her friend’s apartment to meet up with the rest of our group. A girl in our group arranged to have a big SUV limo take us to the concert since we had a lot of people, and the venue was almost an hour away. We all brought some appetizers and drinks to enjoy in the car on the way, and I had a good time getting to know some of them. Sarah and I had a blast watching Rascal Flatts (it was my 4th time seeing them!) and just catching up. I miss her!

I woke up super early Sunday morning because my sister was having a birthday party for my niece in the afternoon. So I left Chicago, picked up Ryan at home, and we drove almost three hours to the party. It made for a long day in the car, but I wouldn’t have missed the party for anything. Especially when my niece cracked open the pinata, and 15 kids went diving headfirst onto the ground to get the candy.

Ryan and I drove back home and got back around 8pm. We stopped at Bar Louie for a late dinner, and I loved every bite of my meal. I got the turkey, ham, and brie sandwich, and it was delicious. The sandwich also had jelly and lettuce on it, which made it even better. I love the combination of cheese and jelly, especially brie. We went to bed early, and when I woke up yesterday morning, I was so excited about the fact that I didn’t have anything I had to do all day.

I started the day with a 2.5 mile walk with the pup, and then I tackled a 7 mile run afterwards (a PR for me!). I finished the 7 miles in 58 minutes and 16 seconds, which is a 8:19 pace. My right knee started to hurt a little bit around mile 5, so I’m definitely going to need to pay attention to that. I think I may need new running shoes, but I hate spending so much money on them even though it’s definitely worth it. My running shoe of choice is Mizuno Waveriders, and they are amazing. I would recommend them to everyone. But recently I’ve heard a lot about Reebok’s One Cushion Series, and I’m debating about whether I should try something new or not. We’ll see!

Leftovers

Before we talk about leftovers, let’s back up to this morning. I woke up around 6:20 and got up to get a quick interval workout in. I usually go to Piloxing after work at my gym, but I have family in town visiting my cousin, and we’re having a cookout tonight, so I need to run some errands after work. (sidenote: I’m making pistachio cake for dessert, and it’s my first time making it – recipe to come!) I did a really simple HIIT (high-intensity interval training) workout that looked like this:

5 min. Warm-up jog (8:50 pace)

1 min. Run/Sprint

1 min. Walk

(Repeat for 20 mins)

5 min. Cool-down Jog (8:30 pace)

This 30 minute workout is really easy to do outside if you have a watch or even an ipod. I usually do interval workouts on the treadmill, but I can’t bear to run inside when it’s so nice out, so my phone did the trick for today! I followed up my workout with 20 walking lunges (each leg) and a quick walk with Lily. I made a green monster smoothie to drink on my way to work, and it hit the spot. Looks gross, tastes delicious.

But on to leftovers. I’ve decided that I am the Queen of eating leftovers. It’s rare that I leave them untouched in the fridge (unless it wasn’t that good the first time around which happens a lot if I’m cooking). But I love to eat dinner leftovers for lunch, especially since I go home everyday at lunch to let the pup out. Last night it was Ryan’s turn to make dinner, and he bought shrimp to eat as an appetizer (we’re so fancy). We had some leftover, so I used them to make an open-faced sandwich. I topped two whole wheat English muffin halves with spinach, the shrimp, and some shredded mozzarella before heating the halves in the microwave to melt the cheese. I ate it along with green pepper slices and some blueberries.

I forgot to take a picture until I was halfway done eating; I promise I ate more than 2 pepper slices and 10 blueberries. My plate looks like a plate for a 5- year old, but at least it was delicious. And since I can’t seem to eat lunch without something sweet afterward, I also had a chocolate no-bake cookie. Those are the first cookie I ever learned how to make in middle school Home Ec class, and I’ve been addicted ever since.

I’m really excited to see my family tonight and have a relaxing  cookout! Tomorrow I’m going to Chicago to spend the day with one of my best friends and then go to the Rascal Flatts concert. I’m really excited for some quality girl time!

P.s. Here is a great link that made my day: http://keep0smiling.blogspot.com/2013/08/13-facts-about-mr-rogers-that-will-make.html?m=1

We should all try to be a little bit like Mr. Rogers 🙂

 

10K

Yesterday after work I was determined to run over 6 miles even if I only did 6.01! I want to be able to feel comfortable running 6 miles before I move on to longer runs in my half marathon training. So around 4pm I ate a Luna bar for energy and took Lily on a 30 minute walk as kind of a warm-up since I had been sitting all day at work. After our walk I set out on my run. The weather has been really nice here lately, so it was perfect. Running in the afternoon can be hit or miss for me. I either feel sluggish from sitting all day and staring at a computer screen or weighted down from what I ate for lunch and snack. I like to get my running done first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, but luckily, I felt pretty good yesterday.

I tried to start out slowly to ease my way into it, but when I look down at the app on my phone, I realized that my pace was under 8 minutes. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sustain that for 6 miles, so I slowed down a little bit and tried to find a good pace. For some reason, miles 2-3 are the hardest for me, especially if I start out too fast. Once I get past the 3rd mile, I feel like I’m finally in the groove. Once I hit 5 miles, I felt like I was coasting. I ended up hitting 6 miles and kept going to complete a 10k distance of 6.2 miles. I finished in 50 minutes and 38 seconds (8:10 average pace) and was really, really happy with how I did. I started to get nervous about having an upset stomach because that happens to me sometimes if I eat before a hard run, but once I stretched and drank some water I felt a lot better.

Even though I’m really happy with my time, I know that running more than 6.2 miles will be difficult for me. I’m convinced half of it is mental, but I’ve never pushed my body distance-wise. I’m really excited to have a challenge though. It feels good to be uncomfortable sometimes. Plus, I talked Ryan into going to get frozen yogurt with me after dinner as a reward, so it’s totally worth it :).

Whole Foods

Whole Foods is my playground. I could literally spend hours in there. I attempted to “stop by” there today for lunch and ended up wandering around for 20 minutes before I realized that I needed to stop eating samples and actually buy lunch. I LOVE their salad and prepared food bar (almost as much as their samples). I love to eat salads, but I hate making them. For some reason, I always seem to put too many different ingredients in my salad that never end up going well together. The best advice I ever received about salad making was to pick a theme, like Mexican, Asian, etc. and then pick ingredients that go with your theme. It’s definitely helped me out.

Today I circled the salad bar a few times trying to figure out what my main ingredient was going to be (besides spinach/lettuce, duh). I saw a sign for “Tofu Eggless Salad” and was sold. It was a tofu salad made to taste like egg salad, and it was delicious. I topped my spinach/lettuce mixture with the tofu salad, shredded carrots, shredded zucchini and squash, and onions. I was super impressed with how good this was. I enjoyed my salad with a sample (or two) of a walnut brownie.

(Sorry for the lame picture. I am in desperate need of a real camera).

Other than the samples and salad bar at Whole Foods, I like buying chicken and seafood there. I love knowing that it’s fresh and organic, and a lot of times I’ll buy their pre-made salmon/crab cakes or turkey burgers. I also love to buy a new kind of Greek yogurt every time I go since their selection is so much better than a normal grocery store’s. Lastly, I am a big fan of their dried fruit and trail mixes. If I buy those items, I will immediately go home and measure out individual servings because if not, I will eat an entire bag of dried fruit or nuts, which can add up to hundreds of calories. For trail mix, a good portion is 1/4 cup. For dried fruit I will eat about 1/2 cup. (side note: if you’re going to buy dried fruit, make sure that there are no added ingredients or sugars. It has enough sugar on its own!)

What are your favorite things to buy at Whole Foods?

What I Ate Wednesday

The week is almost over! As soon as Thursday hits I’m a happy girl. Only two more days until the weekend!

I’ve noticed that a lot of bloggers do What I Ate Wednesday, and even though I plan on documenting a lot of what I eat, I think WIAW will be a good way to keep myself accountable for an entire day. So here we go:

Breakfast: For breakfast I wasn’t really feeling anything special, so I had a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios with almond coconut milk and a bunch of blueberries. (Sidenote: can anyone really eat only one serving of cereal?!)

Snack: A nectarine!

Lunch: A green monster smoothie I made with vanilla greek yogurt, 1 frozen banana, 1 tbsp of natural peanut butter, a few cups of fresh spinach, and a little bit of Cocoa Via powder. Oh, and some water to get everything moving in the blender. Smoothies are the best. I think I have a smoothie for lunch 3 times a week.

Snack: 3/4 of a red pepper cut into slices and 5 whole wheat Ritz crackers with a wedge of Laughing Cow Swiss Cheese. It was the perfect combination of veggies, fat, and carbs to fuel my workout

Dinner: Ryan is a HUGE Pittsburgh Pirates fan, and we have friends here who are Cardinals fans, so since they were playing last night, we met up with a bunch of people for dinner and drinks. Luckily, the place we went to has trivia on Wednesday nights, so we played for the first part of the game. I love trivia! I’m terrible, but I love it. Anyways, I worked out right before dinner, so I was starving. Ryan ordered some parmesan shrimp for us as an appetizer while we were waiting for our friends, and it was delicious. I was nervous about ordering shrimp from a bar type of restaurant, but these did not disappoint! For my entree, I ordered steamed veggies and grilled chicken strips with teriyaki sauce for dipping. Then, my friend ordered a huge thing of onion rings, and I just had to try one. It was a great night with good friends :).

But my dinner brings me to my next point: overindulging guilt. Do any of you feel guilty after a night of unhealthy foods and drinks or do you chalk it up to just a fun night with friends? I feel like I fall in the middle. I eat healthy 80% of the time, and I definitely believe in indulging, especially when I’m having a fun night out with friends. I try to keep my main entree healthy (like grilled chicken strips and veggies) so I can have a few beers and part of an appetizer without feeling like I totally went overboard. But I usually reserve overindulging for the weekend, so part of me felt really yucky waking up this morning after last night’s midweek festivities. Then I remembered how much fun I had and how healthy my meals were earlier in the day. I also remembered how good I felt when I did a higher number of reps than normal at the gym that afternoon. It’s really easy for us to get down on ourselves when we eat poorly or skip a workout, which makes it even easier to quit a healthy lifestyle altogether. But I think the most important thing we can remember is that when we have a bad meal, day, week, etc, all we can do is start fresh the next day. It is never too late to get healthy or stay healthy.

How do you handle overindulging?

Brrrr

Good morning! I don’t work out on Wednesday mornings because I take this awesome strength class at my gym after work, so I slept in a little bit and woke up at 6:30 to take Lily on a walk. I rolled over and grabbed my phone to check the weather like I do every morning and about had a heart attack when I saw that it was 48 degrees. 48 degrees?! In August? I thought about hiding in my warm bed instead of taking Lily for a walk, but then I remembered how much better I feel all day even when I just take a walk before work. Plus, how can I resist this face?

Lily and I walked for a little over 30 minutes and arrived home just as Ryan was getting ready to leave for work. I couldn’t decide what I wanted for breakfast, so I went with my old standby: cereal. I top a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios with blueberries and a little bit of almond coconut milk and ate it while reading blogs on my phone. I really wanted something warm like an egg and jelly bagelwich, which I discovered from Julie’s blog http://www.peanutbutterfingers.com, but I didn’t feel like cleaning any dishes. Does that make me lazy?

But despite the cold temperatures this morning, it’s supposed to be 70 by this afternoon, which is my favorite weather. Even though I’m taking a strength training class at the gym after work, I definitely want to do something outside too even if it’s just another walk with Lily. I hope this weather doesn’t mean we’re in for an even colder winter! I’m expecting it to be cold for our December wedding, but at this rate, it’s going to be -10 degrees. Yikes!

Speaking of our wedding, I’m still stuck on what gift to give our guests… I want it to be personal, but I also realize that I am the least crafty person on the planet. Also, since it will be winter, I want it to be appropriate for the season, but I don’t want something Christmas-y like an ornament. I was thinking of making a little care package of hot chocolate for each guest staying at the hotel we blocked off or maybe even some homemade Irish cream since Ryan is Irish. We’ll see! Feel free to give me any good ideas you may have!

I hope you all are having a great day. We’re halfway to the weekend! I can’t wait to see one of my best friends on Saturday!

P.s. I updated the Recipe page!

Morning Workouts

Happy Tuesday! I did not want to get out of bed this morning. I was so sleepy! But I knew that I would feel better after a workout, so I dragged myself out of bed and into my workout clothes. It used to be light out at 6:20am at the beginning of the summer, but it’s been pretty dark when I walk out of the house to start my run at that time. It looks like fall is creeping up on us! Since I did my long run yesterday morning, I decided to do an interval workout that incorporated squats. I started with five minutes of jogging before starting the intervals. After every running segment I did 10 squats before walking for a minute. The squats after running/sprinting were killer!

Even though it’s only 9:30am, I’m already excited for lunch. Last night I made my favorite salmon recipe for me and Ryan, and I’m excited to share it!

Pistachio Encrusted Salmon

2 filets of salmon

1/2 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. shelled pistachios

Cooking Spray or oil/butter

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Put your salmon on a baking sheet lined with foil and spray them with cooking spray or rub a little bit of butter or oil on them. Put your brown sugar and pistachios in a blender or food processor and blend until the pistachios are chopped. Then, spread the mixture on top of your salmon and bake for 15 minutes or until salmon flakes when you scrape a fork across it.

This salmon is so good! I can’t wait to incorporate it into my lunch today. We paired it with roasted zuchinni and garlic bread (for Ryan). Dessert included toasted coconut ice cream from Kilwin’s :). I hope you’re having a great day!

Question: Do you like working out in the morning? Why or why not?

Moving

Good morning!! I am usually not a Monday person. In fact, I loathe them. I love the weekends so much and cherish the time I get to spend with Ryan and our friends/family that Monday always makes me sad. In order to counteract those feelings, I try to think of Monday as a chance to “reset” myself. I let myself indulge over the weekends (think pizza and beer), so I use Monday as an opportunity to get back into my routine of exercise and healthy eating. Whatever works!

Backing up to this weekend, I feel like Ryan and I jammed a ton of things into two days. When I moved in with Ryan in May, I packed up everything in my apartment at IU except my bed, desk, dresser, and a few other odds and ends. So, this weekend was the last possible chance I had to go down there and pick up my furniture and clean my place before management did a move-out inspection. I’ve been dreading this task because moving turns me into a monster. It would probably be safer for everyone if I could just move alone. But since I can’t carry furniture by myself, people are always enlisted to help me, and the day always ends with me apologizing for being a moving Nazi :).

Our plans were to drive down to IU Saturday morning, move all my stuff, and then stay the night at my parents’ house with my sister and niece for fun. Even though Ryan and I had a long day ahead of us on Saturday, we decided to go out with some friends on Friday. We met up with them at a bar downtown for a drink to celebrate our friend’s birthday and ended up staying to eat dinner. We were having an awesome time until some woman at the bar decided to play Sarah McLachlan’s “Arms of the Angel.” I don’t know about you guys, but that is THE most depressing song on the planet. Sarah McLachlan does animal cruelty commercial’s for the ASPCA, which I think is awesome, but the commercials always involve that song playing in the background while pictures of abused animals are being shown. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gspElv1yvc… Watch it at your own risk.

Anyways, the night ended with us stopping by my favorite Irish pub for a beer because there was live music. But the best part of the evening was looking over and recognizing the band Switchfoot next to us.

 

For some reason, I immediately freaked out even though I haven’t listened to Switchfoot since the Walk to Remember soundtrack came out. What  can I say? It was my first celebrity sighting 🙂

The rest of the weekend was not that exciting. We woke up Saturday and drove to my parents’ house to drop off the pup and then made it to Bloomington around 1:30 pm. As the official moving Nazi, you would think that I would have called my apartment ahead of time to figure out how to dispose of my bed and desk, but… I neglected to do so. I just assumed there would be a dumpster at my apartment to throw them out. Oops :). Turns out there is no dumpster, only a trash chute. Luckily, Ryan wasn’t too hard on me (I promised him beer after), so we found someone to take my furniture and were out of my apartment in two hours. After a beer at a local brewery, we headed back to my parents’ house to spend the night with my sister and niece. We woke up Sunday morning, and after a quick tea party with my niece and Lily, Ryan and I went to Crate and Barrel to register for our wedding!

Registering was way harder than I thought it would be. In the words of Ryan, “we are going to eat off of these plates forever! This is a big decision!” Luckily, we made it out of there with some really great stuff on our registry. I can’t wait!!

And that brings us to this morning. I’ve decided to start training for a half-marathon that’s in November, and since I’m a little nervous about it, I’ve already started training even though it’s still 2.5 months away. Since I didn’t get to do my long run yesterday, I woke up early this morning and completed 6 miles in 51 minutes. I think I could have done it in under 50 minutes, but I think I should start eating something before running anything over 5 miles. I started to feel really drained after about 4.5 miles. Lesson learned! But after a quick egg sandwich on a cinnamon bagel thin and a banana, I was out the door to work! It’s my last week of work for the summer, so I better get to it. Happy Monday!