Category Archives: starbucks

Working for the weekend.

Rainy overnight and the morning was humid, but cloudy, so I decided to run at the track.  Pixie and I were messing around with photos this morning while I waited for my snack to settle a little bit.  Best of all the pics below 😀

Pixie looks like she is saying “You didn’t shower yet, did you?”

I also could not believe my hair looked like this when I got up.

Normally you see me in a hat for a reason….  Can I also say that I am loving my shoulders right now??  It’s taken a couple years of dedicated lifting, but I am really starting to see good things.

I wasn’t really sure how far I wanted to go, I was thinking just 2 miles, but then after 2 miles I just decided to go one more.  I was in a groove with my tunes.  Listening to Hot Club of Detroit.  I need to get their new album!  I love running with music.  I never, ever bike with headphones on for safety reasons, but I love to run that way.

I was all waffle ready when I got home.  I actually added crystallized ginger chips to the waffle batter and it was yum!

Topped with the banana maple mash.  *Snort* and it was gone.

Showered and right to work.  I worked a long day yesterday.  Too long.  Can’t wait for the weekend.  So, regarding the trip – we are headed up to Montreal for the weekend!  It’s only about 3 hours away.  We are going to stay at a B&B (with WiFi) and bring the bikes along.  Hopefully the weather will be nice for riding.  On a side note, if there are any Montreal readers (do I have any?) who want to meet up for a bagel or something please shoot me an email!

Lunch time.  Since it is hot and humid, I decided on a cool and refreshing lunch:

I actually sat and ate this while *not* working.   I wanted to enjoy it.

Also – I see that Shape Magazine has my story from the May issue on their website now!  Yippee!!  😀  Fame without the fortune, gotta love it…

I had a couple snacks today.  Running makes me hungry!

Balance Bare bar:

Delicious – have you had these?  Sweet and salty and protein!

Dark chocolate snack:

No latte today as we are going out later, plus I was feeling a little too warm to want one.

Mr. and Ms. Goldfinch were snacking today as well.

I was beat by the time dinner came around.  My brain gets really tired from transcription.  When tired, go for the standard for dinner:

Beverage tonight was seltzer mixed with a little POM juice.  Yum!

I had to work more after dinner.  I am so glad I don’t have a commute because I would be working 12 hour days with it.  It’s already long enough right now.

John and I needed a date night tonight for coffee when I finished.  Both of us working very hard right now.  I am posting from Starbies.

Skim latte, but not decaf.   Oops.  Will see what happens later.  Lifting move of the week coming up tomorrow!

Question:  Music while you run or no?

A wee bit of lifting

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?

Dead lifts and tofu = nofu

Hello from Rainville.  It has been so wet this week!

We are supposed to get a big warm up later in the week and I am sure the garden is going to go gangbusters after all this rain!  This weather meant indoor running today.  I don’t like running in the rain (or doing much in the rain, really).  So, hopped on to the gym and did my requisite 4 miles.  I really should start doing some speed work, as we have a race coming up in April.  I know my time has slowed since last fall.

After running, I came back to absolutely no coffee in the house ready to go.  That is complete panic!  John forgot to mention to me that he used the last bit yesterday afternoon for lattes, or I would have roasted some up last night.  So, that was what I was doing instead of eating – roasting coffee in the popcorn popper 😡   Although, it does not get any fresher than that!

I made a different topping for my protein waffles today:

This is 1/2 cup of frozen raspberries, 1 tsp of honey, cinnamon, and 1/4 cup of FF ricotta cheese all mashed together and heated up.  It was quite good and a nice change from blueberries.

Went to an old standby for lunch:

This is a chicken sandwich with laughing cow and some strawberry jam!  I love this combo.  However, I found out that the Arnold Sandwich thins now are now made with sucralose (I am positive they were not before).  Yuck!!!!

I want to show you all how lifting heavy does not make you bulky.  I did dead lifts at 95# yesterday (and they were hard).  Check out the tiny lady doing 100# dead lifts (a million of them) and making it look like snap.  Strong does not equal bulky!  This is a full deadlift.  Sometimes called sumo, I think.  Different than stiff/straight leg dead lift.  Probably the 2nd best full body exercise next to  barbell squats.

I bet she felt those the next day….

Afternoon snack was a little protein powder and fluff pudding. New PP today sweetened with Stevia. It’s pretty strong stuff!  I thought I took a picture, but I guess I didn’t.  😳

I finished up work early today!  Yay!  Love those days, especially after a rough day yesterday.

Dinner time involved something new for me:

I had the brilliant idea that this would taste good if pan sauteed with some ginger sesame sauce.  My plate:

With roasted sweet potato chips and brussel sprouts.

2 things were eaten off that plate and I will give you 2 guesses.  Somebody swapped out  a can of tuna for the tofu to get the protein because I didn’t feel like getting anything else ready.  Epic fail on the tofu.  It wasn’t the taste so much (there wasn’t any), but the texture was just awful, awful, awful.  Mushy and gelatinous in the middle.  And this was the firm stuff!  I may try blending the rest up in a shake or something to not waste it, but never again.

After dinner, John and I hit the town for a little shopping.  John needs shoes.  Didn’t score on any foot wear, but we did stop for some R&R:

Tall decaf latte with a shot of protein.  I didn’t realize Starbies still did the protein shot, so I asked – and they did!  Go me!

Hopefully tomorrow will be a biking to bagel day if the rain stops overnight.

Question: Is it rainy where you are?

Hello spring??

I love all your habits of excellence from yesterday’s post!  Any excellent habit doesn’t have to be physical either, it can be anything at all! 😀

Woke up this morning to go to the gym and I see this:

😯  What happened to spring??  It is bitter cold and windy, too.  Brrrrr………  Not to mention I had to scrape ice off the car to go to the gym 👿 I grabbed one of my protein cookies and munched before leaving.

Good workout this morning.  It was tiring, though.  Fridays are always hard.

  • Chin ups:  3 sets of 2
  • Barbell deadlift/row combo: 3 sets of 8 at 65#

Superset:

  • Prone Cuban Snatch: 3 sets of 8 with 10# DBs
  • Dumbbell pliet squat:  3 sets of 10 with 40# DB

Superset:

  • Dumbbell pullover: 3 sets of 8 with 30# DB
  • Lying flat chest fly:  3 sets of 8 with 20# DBs

Giant set:

  • Decline sit ups:  3 sets of 15
  • Ahnold press:  3 sets of 6 with 20# DBs
  • Nosebreakers:  3 sets of 10 with 30# bar

Then finished with some leg lifts and then treadmill walking.  Whew!  John walked to the gym ( ~ 2 miles) to meet me and we went out for bagels!  Hee hee – on my weekend!

Oat bran bagel with some cheddar bacon cream cheese (I know!!).  It was okay.  We keep trying this place and it is just m’eh.  I miss Ridge Street.

Just a lot of goofing around today.  I couldn’t get much more productive than vacuuming and reading blogs!  I was hungry for an early lunch:

Last of the bagel thins.  Those won’t be coming back anytime soon.

Decided to go out and do shopping.  My sister’s birthday is next weekend, so it’s a good excuse to go shopping, right?  Then I stopped at Starbucks and relaxed:

And then got my hairs cut:

All neat and tidy again!  I keep getting it a bit shorter each time.  By the end of summer it will be really short.

Dinner was pretty standard.

We need to get some meat.  I haven’t had chicken in weeks!  The freezer is empty enough now that we can go back to the smokehouse.

I still wanted to eat after this.

My appetite has been horrible today!  It’s bad when you snack on plain mini shredded wheat out of the box…

Think we have a netflix movie planned tonight, or possibly going out for a snack (that appetite again…).  Tomorrow we are going to tour some maple syrup farms that are open for sugar weekend!

Anyone have fun plans this weekend?

Fruit and veggie challenge:

F: pear, strawberries

V: carrots,  1 cup broccoli  (a little lame today)

Finger Lickin’ Good.

* Oatmeal bar giveaway – don’t forget!*

Another rainy, drizzly day today.  Hit the gym for a nice 4-mile run on the treadmill.  It felt quite good today.  Must be because I haven’t done a run in a week.  Biking does the legs some good! 🙂

John met me part way and we decided to partake in the Starbucks free pastry day for breakfast.  I had a skim latte (drizzled with honey):

And the reduced fat berry coffee cake.

It was fresh and pretty good, although still a little institutional tasting.  But thank you Starbucks!  Mucho appreciated!

Standard work day today.  Pixie kept me company for a while.

This girl really knows how to sleep.

Lunch was good today.  I made up an egg/egg white omelet (hot sauce? Yes please) and roasted up some cauliflower in the toaster oven with some Chinese 5-spice powder.

I think I would like the cauliflower to be a little more roasty than this.  The spices made it looks more toasty that it really was.

Glad you liked my post earlier on how I build my meals.  It is such a habit now that I don’t think too much about it.  I used to always want some kind of carb thing with dinner, but then I realized that could be fruit and not bread!

John made up lattes today, and I left out the protein powder, but there was a square of this (x2)!

A package arrive for me today containing this I ordered:

Of course, I had to open it up and stick my finger in there:

Then I did this:

Think I liked it?  So good.  Little crunchy toffee bits and peanuty goodness.  Hellooooo oatmeal!!  I need to try to make some more different kinds of nut butter like this.  I’d start a business if there wasn’t already a local nut butter seller!

I think I might be safe in telling you all that I have an offer on the rental property!  That was my one goal in March – to sell it, and I got a good offer a couple weeks ago.  Last week were the 2 biggies from my end, which were the inspection and the appraisal.  Both went well, so that is all I can do from my end.  Now we just need their concrete mortgage finalized and closing will be in late April.  I was leaping around on Friday after the inspection came back in the clear!  This will be a *huge* stress off my back once the sale is done.  Now I probably jinxed it by saying something about it :mrgreen:

Dinner time:

This looks small, but there was a cup of broccoli in there 3 oz of shrimp, plus a little bit of the rice John cooked yesterday.

I even have a more appetizing snack for tonight:

My first time trying the mini babybels.  Have you had them?  If it is cheese anything, I will like it….

Tally of fruits and veggies today:

F: 2 clementines, strawberries, 1 pear

V:  1 cup cauliflower, 1 cup broccoli

Question:  How is your veggie challenge going this week? Getting in any extra?

Au revoir 2009!

Here it is, the last day of 2009.  The year was full of ups and downs.  Overall, I have to say that I hope 2010 goes more smoothly!  I’ll post my goals for the new year on the first.

So I went to run this morning.  It felt so much better than the other day. In fact, I went further than planned!

I slowly increased my pace by 1/1oth mile each minute until I was cruising at 5.5 mph.  I stayed there until 2.5 miles.  Then I increased by 1/10th each minute to get up to 6 mph, where I stayed until I finished mile 3.

Then came the challenge!  I increased speed again 1/1oth of a mile each minute until I was at 6.5 mph and stayed there for 5 minutes or so.  Super challenge was going up to 7 mph (8:34 pace), which I just bumped up to because I didn’t think I could do it incrementally.  I stayed there for 3 minutes!  Then I backed down to 6 mph again.  That felt so good to get back to that pace and my heart rate came down enough that I decided to go for an extra mile!  I ran 6 miles today :mrgreen:   I was a puddle when I finished, but a happy puddle.

I was roaring hungry when I got home.  The pre run Balance bar only lasts so long!  Made protein waffles and taking Susan’s tip, I set the machine on high and cooked them longer.  They were a thing of beauty!

Topped with a banana mashed with a tablespoon of maple syrup and a sprinkle of granola. My tummy was the most happy of campers after this.

It’s been quiet on the work front today.  Got some shoveling in since we got an inch of snow today.  As if 6 miles of cardio weren’t enough 🙄

Had a hughjass BBQ chicken salad for lunch.  Nom, nom.

John won the football pics again this week.  I made real pity picks of the Raiders and Lions, so it serves me right.  He chose Steve’s Place for dinner (where you can get breakfast all day!).

So that’s what I had!

Have I mentioned how much I love breakfast lately??  Eggbeaters and cheese on a toasted english muffin and home fries.  It’s hard to mess up breakfast foods, and this was tasty!  I also had 1/2 a cantaloupe on the side.

John wanted dessert, so we stopped at Starbies where I got a tall skim cappuccino with honey drizzle.

And had a bite of his cupcake:

It was fresh and good. 😀

Now it’s down time, movie time, and trying to stay up to midnight!

———————————————————-

Last Hot 100 update:  Overall review.

1. Duathlon.  DONE!!! (Oct)  I am so proud of this one.
2. Limit the number of eggnog lattes this year to 2 or 3.   I had 2 at Starbucks this year.  Did have a couple at home, but those are not as caloric as the cafe’s.
3. Keep a redline of weight in mind to not go over during the holidays.  I popped 1 pound above redline after Christmas, but that will go away.  I did pretty well maintaining this holiday season.
4. Complete the New Rules of Lifting for Women.  DONE!!!! (Nov) Another achievement I am very proud of.

5. Enjoy time with family during the holidays.  Love my family! I don’t know if I spent enough time with them, but I tried.


6.  Better organization of time to be productive.  I did so-so with this.  Some days were better than others.

7.  Do some freelance writing.  Lame LOL

8.  Run at least 2 more official 5K races this year.  DONE!  I seem to have no problem hitting my fitness goals.

Thank you to Steve for challenging us to end the year well!

If any of you want a new challenge for the New Year, Steve is hosting another one.  Check it out here: Perfect 10

Have a happy and safe New Year’s Eve!  See you on the flip side of the decade 😀

Sloppy run and snack free!

Lots of great tips on the giveaway thread!  And ‘hi’ to the new peeps visiting!  😀  I need to do a giveaway open to everyone soon.  Need to see who I can hit up what I can arrange.

With the weirdness at the gym yesterday, I wasn’t feeling like going there and running on the dreadmill.  Luckily, it was not precipitating and I saw snow dripping, which meant it was above freezing.  Good enough!  I didn’t check the temp.  Sometimes it is best not to know these things….  I bundled up and headed on out.  It was not the greatest of runs.  The sidewalks were a bit sloppy.  I also really felt like I was slogging for the first mile or so.  Then around mile 2, I went through some slush that was hiding a deep puddle. (insert profanity here).  Problem with mesh top shoes is that if water gets on top, water goes in.  Then it happened again with the other foot! (insert profanity here). I saw a 3rd puddle and leaped over it, thinking I was oh-so-smart, but when I landed my mp3 player popped out of my pocket, detached from my earphones and smacked into the pavement (insert even more profanity here). I thought it was broken because it was skipping and I could not turn it off!  I actually had to take out the battery and hold my breath while I put it back in.  Seems okay now, though.  Yay!   I ended up doing 5 miles.  Turns out it was 34 degrees out, too.  See my wet feet?

socks1215

I was worried about getting blisters with wet shoes, but that didn’t happen.  I do see that I have a new hole in this pair of socks, though 🙄

Hangry at this point!  I was thinking about these during the last couple of miles:

cakes1215

Nom, nom!  Wymans – I love you!

So my goals today were to keep snacking under control again and spend some time cleaning.  30 minutes instead of 15.  Snacking was quite good, although I had about a tablespoon of peanuts while I was making lunch.  Speaking of, I had another hit of vitamin S!  You might want to look away, though – it’s not attractive:

smoothie1215

  • 3 big handfuls of spinach
  • 1 small banana
  • 5 grams of cocoa powder
  • 1 tablespoon cashew butter
  • 1 scoop vanilla protein powder
  • ice and water.

The color is nasty from the cocoa powder.  Wish I had thought of that beforehand.  It tasted really good, though!  Like a chocolate banana.  I won’t add nut butter to any more of these, as I think it is wasted and I would rather just eat it off a spoon 🙂

John made some awesome lowfat gingerbread cookies to send to his family.  These are amazingly chewy and super gingery because there is chopped up candied ginger in them!  I’ll get the recipe up sometime this week.  You would never guess they are lowfat.  I had 1/2 a cookie (he makes them big) with my afternoon latte:

cookie1215

Work has been busy still.  Usually it slows down in the MT world at this time, but it hasn’t yet.  I’m glad for that!

Dinner was simple.  I tried to make an omelet with broccoli and feta cheese, but I had so much broccoli that the omelet could not hold its integrity!  Looks ugly, but very tasty.  Looks aren’t everything!

din1215

We took some relaxation time tonight.  Needed to renew my library card today  to renew the books that were due tomorrow!  So we chanced a quick run to Target to get some protein powder and I picked up a pack of socks for myself :mrgreen:

Then it was to Starbies, where I had some decaf coffee and a bite of that coffee cake in the background.

starb1215

One nice thing about our business is that we build up a ton of rewards points on the card paying for inventory each month.  So, we turn those points in for gift cards to Starbucks.   That’s a money saving way to be able to go out and not spend extra money!

Ornament of the day:

PC110017

Keeping in the horn theme from yesterday.  This is one of those scroll cut brass ornaments.  It’s very ornate and is 3-D, although this picture doesn’t take advantage of that.  Maybe I need to hire a new photographer…..

Question:  Do you use reward points?

6-miler and surprise beauty in fall

(I forgot to hit ‘publish’ last night 😳  )

Today was a run day.  Too cold to go in the upper 20s when I first got up, so I had breakfast first 🙂

cakes1117

I worked for a while until the temp hit 39 degrees and headed out.  Pre run fuel:

zone1117

The addiction is still alive and well 😳

It was sunny and beautiful (if cold!)  I did a 3.2 mile loop, came back to the house and drank from my water bottle (and shed my gloves), then did another 3.2 mile loop.  2nd loop was the hill run.  If I had though about it, I would have done the hill loop first…..

Here is my GoWear fit today:

gsf

Can you guess where the run is in the graph??

Had the most wonderful lunch today.  John cooked up some pie pumpkins yesterday, so we have fresh pumpkin!  I mixed some with greek yogurt, pumpkin pie spice, cranberry sauce and some Hemp Plus granola.

lunch1117

Tasty!

When I was outside today, I saw one of my roses actually had a bloom on it!

rose1117

Even with the frost and everything lately, and the beauty bloomed!  Very fragrant and I was so happy to see this.  I don’t know if the other 2 buds there will open or not, but it’s possible!

Decided on a burger for dinner.  I don’t bother with the lean ground beef anymore because it’s just too dry.  I don’t eat ground beef very often, so I like to get the good stuff.  The trade off is the tiny burger:

din1117

Where’s the beef???  Good, though.

Last stop on tonight’s agenda was Starbucks!  We went with my mom.  I would have loved a gingerbread latte, but decided on a decaf skim latte.  I actually got almost 8 hours of sleep last night!  I hope to repeat that tonight.

latte1117

This last pic was taken with my mom’s Easy Share by Kodak.  She is actually trusting me with her new digital camera until mine comes back!  😀

Have a super night!

Another on plan day.

Provided I get through the next few hours without raiding the fridge, another clean eating day with a good workout under my belt.
Tried to stay lower calorie again (1350). I will do well tomorrow until dinner, we are going out and I don’t know where yet – so that could present a bit of a challenge.

Breakfast will be out at Starbucks, and I am going to have the perfect oatmeal again. That will make me happy, even though it isn’t a bagel!

It just seems like there are oceans of food out there right now through the rest of the year. Platoons of cookies, special treats at the coffee shop (Cranberry Bliss bar, I am looking in your direction), hearty cream soups, eggnog. It’s kind of hard to decide which of those things to plan in, and which won’t be. I guess eggnog something is in, because that only comes around for a short time (thank goodness), except we do actually make nog, so I suppose we could do that anytime.

I was just thinking this morning that if I actually lost 4 pounds during the holiday season (which is feasible) I would be at goal for the beginning of the year. Now how about that for a New Year’s Resolution LOL. Kind of ironic to get to goal the time of year when you are supposed to be setting a goal.

Bracing for winter…. brrrrr….

We normally go out for bagels on Sunday morning for breakfast. There are various places we go to, but decided to go to Starbucks for something different. Being early in the morning, the pastry case was chocked full of goodies like donuts, muffins, and Pumpkin scones. I wavered a tiny bit, but then got the Perfect Oatmeal with brown sugar topping. 190 calories and pretty good. Can’t believe I went out and bought oatmeal, but it was a better alternative than even the low fat coffee cakes (and I really wanted a Pumpkin Scone). Victory there, although I do have a bit of craving for a bagel LOL!

We are getting a big blast of cold air this week. I toughed it out today for a jog, despite the cold and wind. Low 40s and very blustery, but this is the best looking day for the next 7 days! So I had to run while I had the chance. The wind blew so hard at times that it made my eyes water, but the rest of me wasn’t cold, since I had bought a new technical shirt, turtleneck to keep me warm. I just kept thinking of burning 300 calories, and that was enough motivation for me to keep going. Temps for the rest of the week are going to be low 30s with snow and yucky precipitation.
I don’t necessarily love the running itself, but I am totally addicted to the feeling of accomplishment after I finish.

So I made it through the weekend eating pretty well. I really want those 130s.