Backing up to yesterday, John and I donated blood in the afternoon, so this affected my workout today, surprisingly. I [...]]]> Snow today and I woke up wondering if I would be able to hit the gym. It had just barely started when I woke up – score! So I slugged some protein and headed out.

Backing up to yesterday, John and I donated blood in the afternoon, so this affected my workout today, surprisingly. I did 1 mile of jogging on the treadmill for a warm up, then lifted. The gym was crowded today. Looks like some new people joined, or at least shifted their hours.

I was feeling a little lightheaded a couple times and lowered my squat reps. The blood donation just made me tired. I know it can sap energy for 5 days afterward, but normally I don’t have too much of a problem. Today was different. So, the plan to run again after lifting was nixed so I could go home and eat.   The car was covered in snow during my workout as it started coming down fast and furious.   I can’t even bear to take another picture of snow.  I was glad to get home.  Especially to this!

The return of pumpkin oats!  One thing that I really miss doing my lower carb experiment is my oats.  Not that I don’t love my other breakfasts, but I uber love the oats.  And what a perfect day to have them.  Snowy!

I received a lovely package from Pubsgal today just because:

It contained some Kona coffee, some kale chips (kinda scared here), a microwave dehydrator tray (my brain is spinning at possibilities) and a little toy for Pixie.  This was so nice it about made me cry!

Pixie tore right into that toy. I didn’t even get the tag off of it.

She will probably disembowel it shortly…

Lunch break included the last of the magic rolls.  These are definitely on my make again soon list.  The one thing I really like about being an omnivore without a real particular food plan or allergies  is that I can try anything – low carb, low fat, vegan, vegetarian, meatitarian, gluten free, gluten filled.  It’s kind of nice.

Anyway, I did a BBQ chicken sandwich with laughing cow on this last bun.  I haven’t had BBQ in a couple weeks and it was tasty!

On an interesting note, yesterday not only did we donate blood, but I went to my mom’s TOPS meeting upon request to talk about my weight loss.  I am not much of a public speaker, although as a former musician I am used to being in front of people, just normally not talking.  I brought in some before pictures and passed them around before I told them how much weight I lost.  That was fun to hear their reactions.  I babbled on about the long journey it took and what I do now to keep it off.  People seemed most interested when I talked about pumpkin oats.  Funny, isn’t it?  We all love the food.

I didn’t really want to tell people what to  specifically eat, since everybody there follows their own plan and everybody is different.  I hope I just got out a message to get rid of processed/fake foods, to exercise, and to not expect perfection all the time.  I think if people just take those 3 things out of it, they really can change their health and attitude for the better.  Public speaking – here I come!

After round 2 of shoveling – I think we are going to approach a foot of snow today , it was time for lattes.  John didn’t want one (what’s up with that?) so I had to make my own.

I paired it with a dark chocolate mint cup.  I adore those things.

Work has been very slow this week, and today was really slow because not many people made it in for their appointments with the snow!  This 2nd job just is not able to be full time for me.  Oh well.  I am assuming I won’t hear from the garden center as she was looking to fill her spot for the transplanting asap.  I would have been good at that, so that is their loss, right?  My resume is getting a few nibbles, so I just have to be patient.

I did work a little later to finish up what there was, so I had a rather uninspired dinner.  Boca Chick’n patty.

Now I have an evening to relax, although I am really wanting to get working on the laundry room.  We picked up more wood, so that is on the agenda for the weekend.  I can’t wait! Dork alert!

Question:  Have you ever spoken to a group about your weight loss or progress?

Why do I look worried in the picture??

I think I may be able to convince some ladies to do free weights!  The Curves in the town closed, so some of those members joined my [...]]]> Happy Friday!  I was up fairly early and had my pre-workout protein drink before heading out to the gym.

Why do I look worried in the picture??

I think I may be able to convince some ladies to do free weights!  The Curves in the town closed, so some of those members joined my gym.  There are 3 ladies in their 60s who now work out at the same time I do, and I keep talking to them about the free weights.    I’ll get them over there…

I rode the stationary for 15 minutes to warm up and the lifted:

• Incline dumbbell bench press:  3 sets of 12 with 20# DBs (40# total)
• Rail squats:  3 sets of 8 at body weight.  Getting easier.
• 1/2 chin ups:  3 sets of 3.
• Reverse crunches:  3 sets of 10 (first time back with these)
• Alternating bent over dumbbell row: 3 sets of 15 (each arm) with 15# DBs (30# total)
• Cable triceps pull down:  3 sets of 15 with 30#
• Arnold press:  3 sets of 12 with 10# DBs (20# total)
• Cable biceps curl:  3 sets of 10 at 30#

It felt good today.  I notice more of a difference today with leg pain, as I am not limping much.  Yay!

Been thinking about pumpkin lately, so I made pumpkin custard oats topped with toasted pecans and maple butter when I got back.

Yum!  It’s the start of my weekend, although I debated working a little bit to make some extra $$ today.  I will probably do that tonight after this post.

After eating breakfast, I puttered around in the garden a little bit.  It’s about time to bring back the Friday What’s Blooming series.  I have more tulips coming up.  I planted early, mid and late tulips, so there is a nice variety.

Queen of the night.  One of my faves:

I forgot the name of this one.

Purty.  Flowers just make me smile

Lunch break was some greek yogurt, all bran cereal, strawberries, and honey.  A classic:

Beautiful weather on tap today, so I wanted to test a longer bike ride.  I decided to go to the library, which is about 6 miles each way.  I snacked on a date with nuttzo before leaving.

You know, I still get calluses, even though I wear gloves when lifting and biking.  There go my career aspirations of being a hand model…

The path is greening up nicely:

Feeling pretty good here!

I felt good after I got to the library.  A little stiffness in my leg, but no back pain.  That’s good.  Progress!  I sat and read at the library for a while.  Ended up getting the 2nd Twilight book out, even though I am not all that impressed with the series so far.  I am finding myself annoyed with it.  Isn’t that weird?  I also got a book on cupcakes

I texted John and he agreed to meet me for a snack.  I biked to Baker’s Dream, a tiny bakery, where I got a small coconut cream puff and a cup of coffee:

One of those 3-bite treats.  The owner of this place is an excellent baker.  I almost thought about asking her for a job LOL!

Then we biked home.  I am still somewhat slower than normal.  I averaged about 10 mph.  I realized that what is missing is my power.  That’s a nerve thing, and only time will bring it back (I hope).  Successful 16 mile bike ride today, and further than I planned.  That means a yogurt bike ride tomorrow is going to happen

By the time we got home, it was dinner time!  John grilled up some pork and I put mine on a sweet potato with laughing cow and more BBQ sauce.

Let’s have a closer look, shall we?

Yum.  John and I eat our potatoes differently.  He does his sweet. I do mine savory.

Other than some work, not much planned for the evening.  I will be  making a pumpkin pie snack later on.  Have a great night!

Question:  Favorite spring time flower?

Since I didn’t post any food or other doin’s yesterday, I thought I would let you know how [...]]]> Thank you all so much for your comments on my Shape Magazine debut!  If it inspired even just one person to never give up, that would make me so happy!  It really is worth all the effort.

Since I didn’t post any food or other doin’s yesterday, I thought I would let you know how the first foray back to the iron went.  Mornings are the hardest time for me right now.  I am not sure why, but maybe I am just super stiff after the night of basically sleeping in one position.  I cannot sleep on my stomach or side yet (my 2 normal sleep positions).  So, I am pretty stiff and sore in the mornings, particularly my hip.  I was a little limpy at the gym, which was noticed by people (I got sternly warned not to over do it )  There are certain moves that I cannot do currently, which include  weighted squats, lunges, full dead lifts, and floor work like push ups and planks.  Those hurt too much, plus I have a little weakness in my knee.  No pull ups, either, as I have to jump up to the bar and drop off of it.  Not chancing that yet.  I am not going to risk reinjuring myself, so don’t worry about that.  My body certainly does tell me, as well.

I rode the recumbent bike for 10 minutes to warm up.  I was going about 7 miles an hour.  This is my first cardio I have done in almost 2 weeks!  It was a little sore, but not painful, so I was pretty happy.  That means regular biking is not far off in the future!

The lifting:

• Straight-leg deadlift: 3 sets of 10 with 45# bar
• Arnold Press:  3 sets of 10 with 15# DBs
• YTWL: 3 sets of 4 (each letter) with 8# DBs
• Nosebreakers:  3 sets of 10 with 30# bar
• Bent over row:  3 sets of 8 with 25# DBs
• Barbell chest press:  3 sets of 10 with 55# bar

Then I did 10 more minutes on the recumbent bike.  That was enough for a first try.  It just felt so good to get back to it, even if it was light and somewhat limited.  At 2 weeks out from the herniated disk, I think I am doing pretty well.

Now back to today!  Breakfast was a fab combo of pumpkin custard oats topped with a few dried cranberries, toasted pecans, and maple cream.

Dang, that was a good bowl of oats.

I got to work early and fast today!  Lots to do, so I put my head down and started busting out lines.  I stopped for a babybel snack.

I am going to actually post yesterday’s lunch, because it was so good (today was yogurt and cereal combo, btw).  I had seen some sweet omelets on the net, and I cannot remember the original blog this was on.

I mixed 1/2 scoop of strawberry protein powder with 2 liquid egg whites and 1 whole egg, plus some cinnamon and blended in the magic bullet.  Then I cooked it like an omelet and sandwiched in a laughing cow wedge and blueberry sauce

D-licious.  Who knew sweet eggs could be so good?  Note to self:  Spray pan with nonstick spray next time….

I finished up work early today, so I went over to the rental house and started some clean up.  I am able to walk around without crutches now – yay!  The closing should happen on this house on Monday, and you had better believe we are going out for a nice dinner to celebrate!

Came back to make some dinner. Everybody say ‘stir fry’!

I am liking the broccoli slaw.  It’s fun and easy, plus it has some nice color.  With precooked brown rice chicken and I had a 10 minute dinner.  I had a kiwi, too, instead of strawberries so my dinner was color coordinated

Headed out to pick up a few things for the rental house:

Hopefully the last money I ever spend on this particular property…..

My sister was also in town tonight, so we met at Starbucks!

I had a tall skim latte:

Plus a bite of oatmeal cookie.  These actually are really good.

Just to show I am not the only ham in the family:

13 years of marriage, people….  At least he bakes good bread

I also got a package today from the Ginger People – I won a drawing and they sent an amazing amount of stuff to me.

I am actually going to review this stuff because it is amazingly good and unusual!

Tomorrow is another lifting day and bagel time!

Question:  Have you ever had a sweet egg dish?

So, [...]]]> Midweek time!  Sometimes I cannot believe how fast time goes by, can you?  Today was run day at the gym.  I have decided that I won’t do speed work on the days that I run longer and do that on lifting days with brief runs.  I think that will be easier on the legs.

So, I treadmilled (hey, I can make it a verb, right?) it for 6 miles today.  It’s funny how I remember last year when doing 5Ks – it felt so far to get to 3 miles, and now that is half way through today’s run and it was pretty easy (the first 3 miles, that is).  You can build up runing pretty fast when you work at it   I have a long way to go to think about doing a 1/2 marathon.

Came home and made some custard oats.  I have seen these floating around the internet and decided to give them a try since I had egg whites on hand.  I was thinking the egg would scramble as soon as it hit the oats, but it didn’t!

• 40 grams oats
• 56 grams egg whites (1/4 cup)
• cinnamon
• 1 mashed banana

I mashed the banana and added it to the pot and brought 1 cup of water to a boil.  I added the oats and cinnamon, then whisked the egg whites in very slowly.  These kind of fluffed up and thickened like pudding:

Very nice.  The egg seemed to mute the banana flavor, but the banana was also not as ripe as I usually like them.  I do like the egg white better than protein powder in oats.

Speaking of protein powder, I will be doing a post on protein powders and how we use them in a day or so to kind of answer all the recent questions in one fell swoop. 

Lunch consisted of the last of the whole wheat crust pizza (I added feta) and a fabulous pear.

Worked fast again today, even with a latte break in there! (unpictured).  I love being able to finish by dinner time.  I had a hankering for a big stir fry for dinner, so I chopped up a carrot, a bunch of broccoli and some chicken and stirfried in a bit of coconut oil with teriyaki sauce and a couple tablespoons of hot sauce (yeah, baby!).

Yum.  That was a fun experiment with the fresh broccoli this week.  Bunch broccoli was on sale for $1 a pound, so I had gotten some.  Looks like broccoli is in season according to this chart that Steve pointed out today. Normally I buy frozen baby broccoli florets, as I prefer the florets only.

Played it old school tonight with a game of scrabble!

John always, always wins.  Always….. sigh.

We had an extra player, though:

Pixie was in charge of the letter tiles.  She wasn’t all that helpful

I started the day with custard, so I decided to end the day with custard!  This is a quick and easy pumpkin custard snack:

• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• cinnamon
• 1 tsp agave nectar (could use honey or brown sugar)
• 1/4 cup egg whites.

Mix really well and put into a microwave safe dish or silicone muffin cup.  Cook for about 2 minutes in the microwave until it puffs up and is uniform in color.  Top as you would like – I used dried cranberries.  For a more pie-like dessert, put a gingersnap or a graham cracker on the bottom of the dish before cooking.

This post was all about the food today LOL.   Don’t forget the giveaway tomorrow!  The post will be up in the morning some time.

Question:  Favorite board game?

Hit the treadmill for 5.2 miles [...]]]> Okay, it’s too cold even for me to run outside at below 30 degrees!  I feel silly going to the gym just to run, but I wanted to have it over and done with.  Had a snacky of dates and almond butter that I made the other day.

Hit the treadmill for 5.2 miles today!  I did a sprint (for me) of the last 1/2 mile at 6.7 mph!  Go me!

I was sta-harving when I came home!  Made another ‘crepe’ with thinned out bisquick.  It worked out really well.  For the filling, I mixed some vanilla greek yogurt with canned pumpkin and spices.  I really could have only used half of the filling, but I was hungry LOL!  Topped with some cranberry sauce.

I proclaim it delicious!

I found this on the washer today:

It’s Pixie’s catnip.  Normally this pot is out of reach for her and we dole out her treat, but I had watered it yesterday and set the pot on the washer so it wouldn’t drip all over everything.  I forgot about it, and someone found it.  I don’t know if it will ever recover.  Pixie even tore some of the roots out of the soil – she is such an addict!

A surprise box arrived for me today from Mezzetta! It had some fixin’s in it for easy holiday entertaining.  One of the jars was this:

I decided to incorporate it into lunch with some savory oats!

Bottom layer of cooked oats, then topped with an egg, some Cabot cheddar and chopped sundried tomatoes.  I stuck it under the broiler.  My first time with savory oats and they were really good!  I liked the seasoning of the tomatoes, too, with garlic, herbs, and spices.

Here is the first ornament feature from our tree:

It’s a french horn, which is the instrument I used to play (and have college degrees in).  I began collecting horn ornaments I think since high school maybe?  This one combines my love of all things sparkly and glass.  Amazing that is hasn’t broken over all these years.

We futzed around trying to decide what to have for dinner.  No protein thawed out.  John wanted to go out for his football dinner tonight, but he either wanted Chinese or the fish fry cafe.  I really, really did not want either of those 2 things for dinner, so we stayed home and will try again later in the week LOL!  So, I microwaved a sweet potato and topped it with pan fried broccoli and a bit of cheese.  It was pretty tasty, and quite a departure for me.

Kind of missed more protein, though.  Today ended up being an accidental vegetarian day

Hot 100 update:

1. Duathlon.  DONE!!!
2. Limit the number of eggnog lattes this year to 2 or 3.   I have had 1 so far.  Doing good.
3. Keep a redline of weight in mind to not go over during the holidays.  I am at redline now, which is down from last update.
4. Complete the New Rules of Lifting for Women.  DONE!!!!

5. Enjoy time with family during the holidays.  Spent Thanksgiving with family
6.  Better organization of time to be productive.  Not so great here.

7.  Do some freelance writing.  Lame

8.  Run at least 2 more official 5K races this year.  1 down, 1 to go – it’s December 5th or bust!