Category Archives: Pumpkin

Running and custard x2

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?

5-miler and kitty in the catnip.

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.

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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.

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I proclaim it delicious!

I found this on the washer today:

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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:

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

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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:

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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.

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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!

NROLW and shortages

The last workout from New Rules of Lifting!

  • Barbell dead lifts:  2 sets of 8 at 75 pounds
  • Dumbbell squats (heel lifted): 4 sets of 15 with 20 pound dumbbells
  • Overhead dumbbell press: 4 sets of 15 with 15 pound dumbbells
  • Stepups:  4 sets of 15 with 25 pound dumbbells
  • Underhand grip lat pull down: 4 sets of 15 at 60 pounds

After the last pulldown, I was kind of expecting some confetti or something to come from the ceiling 😀  It was actually very quiet.  I was the only one in the gym at this time (I think the rain kept people away), so I just gave myself a few claps and got on the treadmill for some walking!  I am going to do a post this weekend on NROLW, as I feel it deserves some thought after 6 months of hard workouts!

Came home and wanted something different for breakfast, so I made a psuedo crepe with pumpkin/ricotta filling!

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To make the crepe, I used 30 grams of Bisquick heartsmart mixed with a generous 1/8th cup of milk, then added water to make a thin batter (I also mixed in pumpkin pie spice.  I poured in into a large skillet at rolled the pan around to spread the batter, then cooked up like a pancake.  It is a cross between crepe and pancake.

  • The filling was:
  • 1/2 cup of fresh pumpkin puree
  • 1/4 cup of ricotta cheese
  • pumpkin pie spice
  • 2 tsp of agave nectar.

Mix well and heat in the microwave to warm up.  I actually had too much filling, so I put some on top!  (And a tiny drizzle of dulce du leche)

This brings up the pumpkin shortage.  There was one last year, and pickings were really slim around here.  I was excited to find pumpkin again this fall, and now it seems as it will disappear again!  Is this a ploy?  Maybe some of the other smaller companies will step up.  I don’t really want to buy organic pumpkin.  Heck, I don’t know if it’s even around here!

Keeping in the shortage theme, I had a waffle sandwich with lunch.  Turkey, laughing cow, and apple butter.

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We noticed a lot of missing waffles in our stores the last couple weeks, particularly the nutrigrain brand.  Turns out Kellogg’s has some problems at 2 of their plants creating a shortage of waffles.  (Waffle iron officially on Christmas list).  They are rationing where the waffles go, so you know small upstate NY isn’t getting any!

Lunch also included broccoli for a switch up!

Pixie wants some catnip:

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My mother and I went out to a craft show and shopped around a little bit.  It was a good show with a wide variety of things.  They also served food there, and since it was late afternoon  – we decided to get a snack/early dinner.  I had a bowl of chili and a mini cheesecake.  The cheesecakes were 2 for 50 cents.  Can you believe that?  I don’t know why they didn’t just give them away.

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I think I embarrassed my mom taking this picture since I stood up to do it.  😆  I did get 1 christmas gift and a couple things for me.

Tonight involves some ornament making:

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Question:  Have you noticed the waffle or pumpkin shortages in your area?

NROLW, omelets, and pumpkins, oh my!

Packed a lot into today!  I tried to sleep in a little later and managed to sleep until about 7, which was good.  I needed to wait until it was light enough outside to bike to the gym.  Temps were upper 40s this morning, so definitely doable.

NROLW Stage 6 A:  last workout!

  • Negative chinups:  3 sets of 1
  • Wide grip lat pulldown with slow release:  1o sets of 2 at 70 pounds
  • Barbell split squats:  3 sets of 6 at 70 pounds
  • Pushups:  3 sets of 6 with feet elevated.

I was encouraged on the chinups today.  The first one I hopped up to the bar and held myself up for quite a while, much longer than when I first started.  The other 2 were the usual length.   I think given a few months, I could progress to actual chinups.

John met me at the gym and we biked 5 miles to Maude’s Kitchen for my football meal!

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This place is cute as a button inside!  It’s like from the 50s:

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The breakfast menu is made up of dishes that Maude’s children loved.  I think she had something like 9 kids.  I got the biggest kick out of this one:

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I had an omelet with home fries, and John had oatmeal with a side of ham and toast.  Switcheroo for us!

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A most excellent breakfast and I could watch them cook it at the griddle, so it was all fresh!  This spread for the 2 of us was $13.  Can’t beat that!  I was so hungry after the workout and bike ride and ate all but about 1/2 the potatoes.

Pink item of the day at our table:

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Pumpkin shopping time at the garden center after I got home (and showered 😀  )

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They also had Christmas lawn stuff out for sale.  Looks like the reindeer got into Santa’s eggnog again:

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I spent about 5 minutes giggling over this outside. 😀

Lunch was pretty delayed and just a Zone bar because of the big breakfast.  I so have Maude’s on my list to revisit.  I spent a good deal of time picking out my pumpkin pattern and contemplating a new career in dentistry 😉

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I used a pattern for a scary clown:

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John did a free form, sort of alien thing:

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Dinner was almost pizza, but then we decided we could cook up shrimp and grits really quickly and it was delicious!

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We just sauteed a bit of lean bacon with some chopped onion, sprinkled flour over it and some vegetable broth, then added the shrimp.  Served over grits. Yum!

We are running a 5K tomorrow on Halloween!  Provided it isn’t pouring rain, but weather looks okay for now.  I am going to try to dress as a bee using yellow duct tape over a black outfit.  I have the antennae made with a headband (which Pixie found to be quite fascinating). It should be interesting at any rate.

Question:  Do you have your pumpkins carved before Halloween?

NROLW and camera is here!

No biking to bagels this morning.  My eyes popped open at 6:30 and wouldn’t go back to sleep.  It was raining, so I just drove to the gym in the dark since I didn’t have to wait for it to get light like I do biking.

New Rules of Lifting: Stage 6 Workout B:

  • Reverse lunge, one dumbbell on shoulder:  3 x 6 at 25 pounds
  • Dumbbell 2-point row:  3 x 6 at 30 pounds
  • Dumbbell push press: 1 x 6 at 15 pounds, 2 x 6 at 20 pounds
  • Back extension:  3 x 8 at 100 pounds
  • Incline reverse crunch: 3 x 8

Assessment:  Increased the dumbbell weights on all  of the first 3 exercises!  20 pound dumbbells on the push press was hard, though, and unwieldly.  Also, the lunge with more weight is hard on the balance, which I guess is good.

Picked John up and off we went to bagels!  Delicious warm coffee on a cold and drizzly day:

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Plus numminess….

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My replacement camera arrived today!  Hello beautiful –

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And hello camera 😉

The camera and I are both pink items in this picture!

I proceeded to take a 1000 macro shots of everything.  How I missed my in-your-face food shots LOL!    Even Pixie was getting annoyed with my picture taking.

pix1028Can’t you just hear her saying “Enough already, I’m trying to nap here for goodness sake!”

I had a chill all morning and decided on breakfast for lunch:

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Pumpkin cream of wheat with the last of the cranberry sauce and some dulce de leche.  It’s all flecked with vanilla bean goodness.  Yum!

I had some snackage problems today.

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Plus some unpictured cereal. Not sure if it was the blood donation or something else.  I need to nix cereal from the house.  I never actually eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast.  It is pretty much only for having on yogurt, but I have found that I really love to snack on it.  It has become red light for me, so off to the dungeon it goes for a while.  Will I never learn???

Shaking it up for dinner:

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You don’t see that on my plate very often!  Little cheese raviolis.  So good and they really hit the spot tonight.  I don’t have pasta too often because of the small amount of food for the calories.  Although with mini cheese raviolis, it looks like you get more.  A serving of these is 240 calories, which isn’t too bad.

More soapmaking in progress as I type this.  Tonight’s menu is gardenia, applejack, and coconut.

Stay tuned tomorrow for one of my thinking posts!

Gearing up for the duathlon!

Don’t you love those days where you actually can sleep in, but can’t actually do it?  I was up before 7 am this morning.  Still dark out and I was all snuggly in the flannel sheets.  So, I just lounged a bit and woke John up to talk to him.  Poor guy.  Normally I pop out of bed and hit the gym while he sleeps in every day.

Nice weather here today, I really wish it would be this way tomorrow, but the forecast is looking dimmer and dimmer.  I won’t cancel the race unless it is snowing, and that’s just for safety of biking on snowy roads.  I might whine a lot, though!

I took a little more time for breakfast primping after being inspired by Susan doing that yesterday.  Plus the banana was a larger one, so I saved some to put on top.

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We went to a museum today to view a Degas exhibit.

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I really wish I could have taken pictures in there.  The great thing is that it did not focus on the ballerina pictures that he is most famous for, but all the music background shots.  Pretty neat!

I also  tried my hand at making pumpkin butter from Danica’s site, and substituted honey for the agave.  Simple and delicious.

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Spread some warm on a gingersnap (these are now hidden up high, thank you).

Pink item for the day spotted at Lowe’s!

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Then we stopped for coffee where I did a little carb loading  😉  (right??)

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Apple cinnamon scone.

So, check list for Sunday’s transition bag:

  • coconut water
  • balance bar
  • water bottle
  • bike gloves and stretch gloves
  • running hat
  • cell phone
  • tissues (runny nose from cold, I’m sure)
  • spare bike tire tube and CO2 filler and wrenches (hope I don’t need!)

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This is all going into my front bike bag (except I will be wearing the gloves.)

Planned outfit will be compression shorts and my long workout pants, technical turtleneck, workout jacket and fleece jacket.  I probably won’t wear the fleece for the run, but will need it for the bike.  I will be totally mismatched, but hopefully warm.  Colors include black, light blue, bright red, pink, and dark blue-grey.

Bike tires are all filled up and checked, and chain lubed up.

Here is a link to the race course

I am pretty excited, although starting to get panicky about the weather.  It’s going to be a smaller field.  About 80 preregistered.  Not sure how many will show up tomorrow and register with crappy and cold weather forecasted.  I am okay with coming in near the bottom.  I think the field will be more hardcore than the triathlon was.

Okay everyone!  I will post an update after the duathlon tomorrow when I get thawed out and back home after we go out for something warm and yummy when I am finished!

See you on the flip side…..

7-miler and views of myself

After last night’s Reeses throwdown (which I lost), I knew I needed a little extra boost on the exercise front today.  Not to mention my football dinner 😀

I wanted to go at least 6 miles.  Had a Zone Fudge Graham bar to start with.  Bars and bagels really and truly are the best preworkout fuel, although yogurt smoothies come in a close 2nd.  I did a daisy loop around the house.  A newly mapped 2 mile run, which turned out to be way more hilly than I thought.  I was a little tired from that, probably because of yesterday’s workout.  I wound back to home, drank some H2O and did a 3 mile loop.  For whatever reason, around mile 4.5 I got an energy boost.  Back at home for more water and then another 2 mile loop.  7+ total today.  I didn’t wear my watch.  I have decided that on long runs where I have a set distance to go, I don’t want to know the time.  It’s depressing to look down and see 20 minutes and know that I have more than 45 minutes left, you know?  I figure I will be done when I am done.

In the spirit of Operation Beautiful – I am showing that I am beautiful when I am sweaty!

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Had super delicious oats when I returned.  John cooked up one of the pie pumpkins last night in the pressure cooker and here is some fresh pumpkin!

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Take *that* Libby’s!!

Added to my oats with a tsp of brown sugar and cinnamon and topped with cranberry preserves.

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So fresh tasting and yummy!

I am trying to think of ways to organize my blog into more helpful posts other than just me blabbing on about food and fitness of my own.  I am not sure if 2 posts a day is better or just 1.  I don’t like to overwhelm readers and I am not sure if it is better to have 2 shorter posts or 1 really long one as I am doing currently.  Any thoughts on this?

Yesterday I was talking with John over breakfast about the view I have of myself.  I had looked through some old pictures the other day and it is so weird seeing myself at 250 pounds in photos.  I almost don’t recognize myself in them.  However, I also look at photos of me now and think “Do I really look like that?”.  When I see myself in the mirror or look down at my legs, I have that sort of mix of still feeling heavy, yet feeling smaller.  I don’t know if I can describe it and not sure if any of you get what I mean.  Maybe it’s a feeling that is magnified by how much weight one has lost.  I said something to John about being chubby, and he said I wasn’t chubby at all.  In fact he called me a healthy dynamo, which kind of made me laugh.  Makes me think of this:

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John asked how long it would be before I saw myself as I really am, and I don’t know.  It’s like not seeing myself as an athlete, but I think I am a bit of one.  Certainly not of a professional caliber, but one nonetheless.  I really don’t know how to correct that way of thinking, either.  I don’t view myself in any negative light and actually tend to be kind of clinical in how I look at the areas that I think need improvement. Maybe that isn’t really a bad way to think, I don’t know.

I spent the majority of 40 years being overweight and maybe it will take 40 before I get used to seeing me as I am LOL!

Well – it was my football winning dinner tonight!  Decided on downtown Glens Falls and stopped at Prima.  Yum.  They normally aren’t open for dinner on Thursdays, but tonight was a special night.

I had a delicious panini made on artisan wheat bread, turkey, brie, sprouts, and cranberry chutney.  So good!

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After dinner we walked around downtown.  Prima was open because it was opening night of balloon fest weekend!  (Guess you know what kind of pictures are coming up in a day or so 😀  ).

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They let us walk inside this balloon.  Here is a view from the inside out!

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That was fun!

PSA – Another first time triathlete coming up this weekend!  Give PubsGal some love!

I’m off to do a little more work and indulge in my guilty pleasure of Project Runway!

Beautiful bowl of oatbran and giant feet.

Normally Friday is the start of my weekend, but it was so slow on Sunday that I am picking up some work today.  Not a full day, but just doing bits here and there.  I went for another foggy run this morning.  The temp was perfect – mid 50s.   Dates and nutbutter fuel.  I ate the last of the dates this morning.  Dates are a food I never knew I loved so much!

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I decided on a 4 mile go around.   Felt quite good, although the first mile my legs were pretty stiff from yesterday’s workout.  Finished in 43:36.  My standard pace.  I have not been all that motivated to push the tempo that much.  Guess I should have made that my September challenge 😀

Feeling like fall a bit, and John ate the last banana, so I opened up the big can of pumpkin (be warned there may be a lot of pumpkin items coming up!).  This bowl just screams fall and deserves a large photo:

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  • 40 grams of oat bran
  • 1 tsp brown sugar
  • cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup pumpkin
  • 10 grams craisins
  • 18 white chocolate chips

So good.  Foodgasm.

Oh, and my nice muscular thighs?  Turns out they could be my key to long life!

Picked up Pixie today – so happy to have her home.  I thought her feet looked big before, but they are swollen today and are like clubs!

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Doesn’t this look like some kind of alien being? LOL.  Poor kitty.

Cold mornings, but the days have been warming up beautifully.  I did work outside including mowing the lawn and string trimming.  It was hard to make myself sit inside and do work, so I haven’t done a whole lot.  We were trying to decided whether to bike for yogurt or dinner, and dinner won out!  That meant lattes at home:

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We went the back way around the bike trails, since the pizza place isn’t too far from our house and we wanted a longer ride.  Of course, the back way includes some really long hills.  Good thing I have those big thighs – they help immensely!

Arrived at Arthurs after going 6 miles where I had a side salad:

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And the most wonderful pizza.  It’s like a pan pizza, but the dough is not oily at all, soft inside and crispy outside.

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John and I shared a small cheese with feta.  These pieces look bigger than they are in real life.  I ate my half – I was so hungry from all the exercise today!

On a whim, we biked to visit my parents, as they are only a mile or so from Arthurs.  I didn’t realize I would get way laid by chocolate chip cookies!  Oops.  They were good, though.  😀  Thanks Mom!

Relaxing tonight.  I am a little tired from all the calorie burn today.  We are trying to decide on a hike or a bike ride tomorrow.  Weather is going to be mid to upper 70s and sunny.  Could it be more perfect?  I think not!

September challengers – have a great weekend!  Weekends can be hard, but stick to your plan!

Question:  Favorite pizza?

My personal pumpkin pie


This was so good!
I took 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1 tsp brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
Mixed really well.

In a large jumbo silicone muffin cup, I pressed in 1 tablespoon of almond meal. Put the pumpkin mixture on top and microwaved for a few minutes.
Topped with a dollop of cranberry sauce.

You can even see the little crust on the bottom after I took it out of the muffin cup. Yummy and filling!

* Note to self: Doing yoga before bedtime is a really good idea! Slept really well last night.

Pumpkin Love

So, you all know I have had to banish the granola for awhile. This was my new breakfast today, and I am in love!!

Rich and creamy tasting, and packed with lots of good, healthy stuff!
Pumpkin Oatmeal

Ingredients:

1/2 cup milk (I use 2%)
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup (40 grams) rolled oats
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
5 grams protein powder
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
10 grams Craisins, chopped
drizzle of honey

Prepare the oats on the stove top using the milk and water. I added the protein powder with the oatmeal and spices and let them cook together. No lumps, so that was good. When the oats were done cooking, I turned off the heat and stirred in the pumpkin to let it warm through.
Put it into my bowl (which I thought might be too small!), sprinkled with chopped craisins and drizzled with honey.
Yum! This is not a sweet breakfast, so those of you that like that might want to add splenda, stevia or whatever sweetener you use.

Stats with my ingredients.
Calories: 308
Fat: 6
Carbs: 50
Fiber: 10
Protein: 16