Category Archives: superfoods

Double dip ride and super foods!

Thursday is the new bagel day!  John plays poker on Tuesday nights and can’t get his butt out of bed, so we moved bagel day from Wed to Thurs.  It actually works a little better for me because I am not biking after a strength workout.  I had a protein drink and then we headed out at a nice clip today.  Breakfast outside, even though it was a little muggy!

I just could never give up my bagels.

Good ride home and I pushed it for the last mile going 20-21 mph.  We average 13.7 mph on the way home, which is pretty good.  When you don’t have road bikes, you can’t get huge amounts of speed.  John threw the gauntlet down when we got home that he was never going to wait for me again since I obviously have my speed back.  Guess I can’t nurse an injury excuse anymore. :mrgreen:

Just an FYI on that, I feel pretty good, and my left thigh is getting bigger again.  Now  it is only 1/2 an inch smaller than the right thigh.  I still have skin numbness over my knee, which I am beginning to think is permanent, but the knee itself is fine.  The only thing that bothers me anymore is running.

Worked job #1 for a while.  This job really sucks the life out of me.  The atmosphere is just not good.  If someone makes a mistake, they send out a blanket email to everyone to stop doing it, so we get multiple messages a day on what we are doing wrong, so you just doubt everything that you do.  I keep wondering if I am making these mistakes and it got my confidence down a little.  So when I got taken off QA after a week at job #2, that really justified that I am competent, thank you very much.

Lunch time!  Nothing too exciting, Just tuna salad and Wheat Thins Fiber Select (veggie flavor)

After lunch, I moved up to the bedroom and worked in there with the AC on rather than trying to cool the whole downstairs.  John made me a latte after a while.  I was thinking how decadent it was to work propped up in bed with a latte!  There are some benefits to working at home :mrgreen:

I had an email asking about the superfoods term that I use a lot, so I will do a refresher on those.  You see that term bandied about a lot, but I am referring to the book SuperFoods Rx by Dr. Steve Pratt.  These foods are nutritional powerhouses.  You can click on each on below to see more about each one’s benefits.  Each of these foods also have ‘sidekicks’ which are related, but not quite as good as the original.  Bolded ones are in my diet a *lot*.

Apples (pears)
Avocado
Beans
Blueberries (strawberries, cranberries, cherries)
Broccoli (brussels, cauliflower, kale)
Cinnamon
Dark Chocolate
Dried SuperFruits
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Garlic
Honey
Kiwi (pineapple)
Low Fat Yogurt
Oats (brown rice, quinoa)
Onions
Oranges
Pomegranates
Pumpkin (carrots, sweet potatoes)
Soy
Spinach
Tea
Tomatoes
Turkey (chicken)
Walnuts (almonds, cashews, peanuts)
Wild Salmon (tuna, clams)
I think I might try to address each of these foods with a recipe – that would be kind of fun.  Or at least the ones I eat.  Avocados will not enter my house!
Speaking of super foods – I filled my dinner with them!
Quick stir fry in coconut oil of chicken with broccoli, brown rice and ginger sauce.  With a side of blues!
I was really hangry for dinner.  Another successful no snacking pre dinner, either.  That made me pretty cranky, actually, as I was really hungry.  I hope it gets easier.
Done with job #1 for the week.  Yippee!  I wanted to do something, so what better than to hop on the bike for yogurt.  Double ride today.  At least I burn off some of the calories of the things I am going out to eat 😀
Rice pudding flavor yogurt topped with raspberry sauce.  Tell me you don’t want to lick the screen?
Ended up biking 25 miles today.  Good stuff.

Question:  What is your favorite superfood (or sidekick)?

Flashback Friday kitchen edition!

I decided to take today off from exercise, since it is the start of my weekend and I ran 6+ miles yesterday.  I am rethinking how much I run a little bit.  So, it was a lazy morning at home, and I used the rest of the sweet potato I cooked yesterday to make some sweet potato muffins!  I used fresh cranberries, too.

These came out almost more like biscuits.  Very dense and heavy, but tasty.  I think they would be a great snack for after a workout.  I’ll post the recipe this weekend.

I got a new ingredient to try this week call glucomannan (konyaku?).  It is recommended in a book I am reading by Cassandra Forsythe Women’s Health Perfect Body Diet .She is one of the coauthors for NROLW, so I wanted to read her book.  It is a fibrous thickener and I used it in a green smoothie:

That got super, super thick!  I actually ended up putting it in a bowl and eating it with a spoon.  It was just like pudding.  Gives me some fun ideas to try.  1 tsp of this stuff will gel 1 cup of liquid, so I think I used too much for my smoothie.  It has no taste, unlike the shiratake noodles made from the same stuff.

When I was baking this morning, I was remembering how our kitchen looked when we moved into this house 3 years ago.  Fun fact – do you know that I never stepped foot in this house before we bought it?  Since we were purchasing long distance (IL to NY), each of us came out and looked at places separately.  We ended up buying a house John found on his trip, and I only had pictures to go on.  Guess that means I trust John knows my taste enough 🙂

I don’t mind a rehab challenge (I have renovated 2 houses doing most of the work myself), so I was okay with seeing this as the kitchen:

Note there were no upper cupboards! And that floor was not wood or even laminate.  It was vinyl and not even secured down, so it would bunch up under your feet or when you moved something.  We won’t even talk about the stove that would set off the smoke alarm any time you baked something, or the fridge that kept food around 50 degrees 😯  The price was right, though.  For a few months, we had dishes stacked on the counter in wooden crates.  Martha Stewart would have popped a blood vessel if she visited us.

We bought unfinished cabinets for the top and painted them white, then we painted the lower ones as well.  Got a new stove and fridge, painted the hood over the stove white to match (and moved it).  Painted the walls. Then we put down vinyl tile on the floor.  Would have loved ceramic, but not in the budget.

We did not spend a lot on this kitchen, probably about $1500 including the appliance, but we brought the value up dramatically just by a little sweat equity!  It’s funny that I absolutely hated the countertops (you see the tile in most food pictures), because I think it is floor tile.  But once the rest of the kitchen was done, I am okay with living with the counters for a while.

Are you tired of seeing the BBQ chicken salad for dinner?  Hope not, cause that is what I had!

All in all, I had a very good day.  We got the bikes down and I think we might go for a ride tomorrow!  Have to bundle up, but I am so itching to get on my bike.   I have missed my friend for the last few months.

Tomorrow I will be running my own 5K virtually with Shelley for blogger run day!

Pixie wishes all of you a good weekend!  She says “Relax a little…”

Green eggs, Sam I am

The last day of my work week – yay!  I woke up this morning and decided I could not do the treadmill when the sidewalks were clear.  I had a banana and walnut butter for a pre run snack.

This was a tiny nanner!

Then I hit the road. It was colder than I was expecting outside.  I keep forgetting that the daily high for the day does not occur at 7 a.m. (duh).  It was about 25 when I went out.  Nice thing about the cold is that I don’t sweat as much as indoors.  I did a 5K loop twice around, so it ended up about 6.4 miles.  I was doing fine until the last 1/2 mile or so, and I really had to slog it out to finish.  I was tired by that point.  Not used to running outside anymore!  And no more bananas for a workout.  They make me burp!  What is up with that?

Since it was so cold out, I felt kind of fall inspired with my oats and brought out a can of pumpkin from the stash, plus another freezer stash item!

Cooked these up into pumpkin custard oats.  Topped with 1 tbsp of walnut butter.  I was so happy eating this breakfast.  I love food! :mrgreen:

Confession time – remember how I said we had an embarrassing amount of oat products?  Here is the shelf! 😳

I have had a chill all day.  Can’t seem to get rid of it even after a warm breakfast, hot shower, and being dressed in a sweatshirt and turtleneck today!

I experimented with lunch.  I wanted warmth – so a wrap was out.  I decided to put some broccoli in the magic bullet with an egg and some egg whites and blend it up.  Then I used the GT express to make omelets out of it, with some laughing cow tucked inside.  Check it out – green eggs!

Should have saved this for St. Patty’s Day……

So, the cereal box in the house experiment has turned into a big fail.  I snacked on that a lot today.  And it was Kashi, so my tummy is paying me back for that.  I was okay with the box in the house until I actually opened it.  D’oh!

Another FAQ, since this ingredient is in Kashi:

I saw flax seeds in your store and know I can sprinkle them on oatmeal and just about everything else. I take it you are supposed to grind them first? What’s the difference between golden and brown flax seeds (and others)? Do you have any recommendations for a newbie just starting out with flax?

Flax really needs to be ground for your body to digest it, otherwise it just passes on through.  There seems to be conflicting views on whether there really is much difference between golden and brown flax, but brown is the most easy to find in stores.  Both kinds will give you Omega 3 and alpha linoleic acid.  Just buy it whole and grind it in a coffee grinder.  Once ground, it is best to store in the fridge.  Flax is the basis for the 1-minute muffin, too!

Dinner time was more experimenting.  I cooked up a sweet potato (and saved half for another day).  Topped it with some cooked chicken, BBQ sauce, and cabot reduced fat cheddar.

This was good!  Sounds funny, but it was a nice mix of flavors.  I have gotten in some good superfoods today.

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News around the internets:

Interesting post on good food versus bad at Healthy Foodie

Added some handmade soap to my Open Sky store.

** Important Food Recall – If you eat vegetarian meat analogs or use dip mixes, please check the FDA website here for product recalls on these products**

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Question: Are you ready for spring?

The colors of food

Finished up my work week! Yes!  Now it’s relaxing time.  Sort of.  Lots to do this weekend.  Don’t forget to enter the book giveaway if you haven’t!

Started off the morning with a good run.  While I truly miss my biking since it is winter, I am actually enjoying just concentrating on running.  Over the summer and fall I was doing NROLW, and training for a triathlon and duathlon, so I couldn’t focus on just one thing.  So this has been fun.  I did my speedwork yesterday, so today I put on something from jogtunes and went to town (or rather went on the hamster wheel…).  I varied the speed a little according to the music, but pretty much averaged 5.5 to 5.7 mph.  I did 6 miles today.  It really felt good.  I’m not sure if the runner’s high is real or not, maybe it is just feeling good running that far LOL!  Put me in a really good mood all day long.

Came home and had some steel cut oats cooked with a nana, and topped with those itty bitty mini chips.  I love how 1 serving looks like a billion chips (hello bulk eater).

Plus some delicious cafe au lait:

Everything was so hot.  I was practically dancing around waiting for it to be cool enough to eat or drink 😯

One of the reasons I love  working from home is because I get to work like this:

At least I was showered and dressed, though :mrgreen:

Lunch was a hughjass salad with bbq chicken and feta cheese.  I am addicted to this mixture.  This picture doesn’t even show how big the bowl of salad mix was.  Probably 3 cups or more.

This is such a pretty and colorful lunch.  I used the 50/50 spring salad mix from Salad Express.  Gotta love salad in a bag!

Had an interesting phone conference today.  It involves the blog, so I hope some good things come out of it.   Only time will tell.

Afternoon caffeinated necessity:

Breezed through the afternoon of work.  I won the football picks this week, and almost thought about dinner out tonight, but I am leaning more towards breakfast or possibly lunch!  Go me!  😀  So instead, I kind of wanted some extra carbs (6 mile run will do that, I guess…).  I wanted a sweet potato, laughing cow,and some brussel sprouts, but also needed protein.  I decided on some lentils.  The idea was to put everything on the potato, but it was too small to hold the sprouts.  Ooops!

The lighting isn’t great, but the plate was very colorful while I was eating it 😀  I love laughing cow on a sweet potato!  Who knew.  Funny thing during dinner.  John was kind of looking at my plate a little funny.  He then said that this plate was representative of how much I have changed.  Almost like we were in an alternate reality LOL!  Tastes really can change.

Think I might go out and buy some new walking shoes with a gift certificate I got from work (Christmas bonus).  Mine are pretty  much the worse for wear and I need something to walk around N’awlins and during the cruise!

Question:  What is one thing that you ate now that you would never have imagined you would eat?

Blood donation day and new things!

Thanks for the comments on my 2009 wrap up post!  Funny how the year looked better on paper than it felt sometimes, know what I mean?

Lots of new goodies to blog about today, but first I must write about my workout!  😀

The gym was pretty crowded this morning (for my gym, anyway).  I think a lot of people must have today off.   Hit the weights today:

  • Chin up:  2 sets of 2
  • Barbell squats:  3 sets of 8 at 85 pounds
  • Widegrip lat pull down:  3 sets of 8 at 60 pounds
  • Pushups:  3 sets of 10
  • Static lunge:  3 sets of 10 with 25 pound plate
  • Prone Cuban snatch:  3 sets of 10 with 10 pound dumbbells.
  • Incline reverse crunch: 3 sets of 10.

I challenged again with 30 second rest periods.  That’s kind of hard, but in a good way.  Then it was 40 minutes walking on the t-mill.  All during the walk, I was thinking about breakfast!  We got a new toy with one of our gift cards:

A waffle maker!  Woo Hoo!  Take that Kellogs and your waffle shortage!  I was dying to try my protein pancake recipe to see how they came out:

Worked pretty well!  I think I am going to try the heat on high to see if I can get them to crisp up a bit.  I am never buying a waffle again, although I do have a few to use up 😉

Snow today.  It was just starting to snow when I left for the gym this morning, and by late morning it looked like this outside:

Sloppy wet stuff.  So, I bundled up for work in the Broncos snuggie my parents got for me for Christmas 😀

Too bad my team stinks this year….  This is my usual work spot, too.  I like it because I can look out the window at the birdfeeder.

Yearly HIPAA training this morning, then break time for lunch, where I tried another new item:

My stocking starfruit!  It turned a nice yellow shade over the last couple days, so it was time to eat.  Served with some tuna salad and FSTG chips:

The starfruit was not really sweet.  It was kind of a cross between a grape and a cucumber.  Quite interesting and quite juicy.  It was a fun food, though.

After more work and a latte snack, it was time for the last blood donation of the year.

It was incredibly crowded.  We were very surprised at the long line waiting.  It actually took almost 2 hours from start to finish, which is double the normal time.  I was pleased that my iron levels were 14.1, again higher than John’s LOL!  Go broccoli!  The tech had a little trouble with my vein, which was annoying because it is very large and visible, but I am pretty sure he was new.  We got a nice t-shirt and I decided on another iron powerhouse for my post donation snack – raisins.

I decided against Lorna Doones today because I got into the Christmas cookies yesterday in a big way.

It was well past dinner time, and I was so hungry, even after the raisins.  I wanted a quick dinner that was warm and came up with a grilled wrap made with chicken, laughing cow cheese, and cranberry sauce – plus the standby broccoli and a clementine.  T’was yummy.

I had to flex hours to donate blood, so I have to get back to work tonight.  Hope the receiver of my blood appreciates that 😆   Picture me in the snuggie again with the laptop and a cup of tea and you’ll have the right image for my evening.

Question:  Do you waffle – be it frozen or homemade?

Sore and protein power!

I took a Tylenol PM last night both for the back and the pain at the Broncos loss last night. 😡   I slept really well for almost 8 hours (go me!!).  Opened my eyes and took inventory:

Sore legs? check

Sore butt?  check

Sore arms, sides and chest?  Check, check, and check.

My back injury actually felt pretty much gone, just a tiny twinge.  I was slow getting out of bed and John commented on how weird it was to see me moving so slow.   I guess it does happen on occasion LOL!

Only went for a walk today as I decided to let my body rest up since I have NROLW on Wednesday to do.  I also decided to stock up on protein for repair.

Protein pancakes for breakfast!

cakes

Along with cafe au lait (I use 1 cup of milk to make 2 drinks for breakfast).

Without a workout, I got right down to typing and worked steadily.  Sometimes I can get distracted by things, and I had some trouble focusing today watching my squirrel buddy right outside my window.

pixie1110

Pixie was really enamored of him, too!  She chatters, which is so funny!

I made a fabulous protein packed superfood  lunch!

lunch1110

  • 1 container of french vanilla Oikos
  • 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder
  • 1/2 cup pumpkin
  • cinnamon
  • cranberry sauce
  • 1 packet of teddy grahams (into the pool!)

It was so delicious.

John made lattes and brought me a little treat with it.

latte

Candy corn kisses!  These actually remind me more of a canned frosting than candy corn, but I love the look of them.  Another thing hidden up high.  I should take a picture of what is hidden away from me – it is quite a lot of stuff LOL.

Took a walk before dinner.  It feels so funny just to walk.  I hardly ever do that anymore since I normally run or bike.  I kept catching myself wanting to start jogging.  Come on Lori – gotta relax!!

Dinner was more protein in the form of chicken.  I brushed some mustard on the chicken breast and coated it with almond meal and sauteed in a pan.

dinner1110

Super tasty, although the coating fell off.  Yummy.  And roasted brussel sprouts for a change.

Done with work, so that means the evening is free for something, although not sure what yet 😀

Tomorrow we are going to attempt a morning ride to bagels.  Upper 30s, so at least it will be above freezing!

Question:  What is your favorite way to get protein?

Super Foods

I have been reading the SuperFoodsRX books recently. Trying to formulate an eating plan that I can do for the rest of my life. I am interested in these books because I found out I already eat a lot of the super foods anyway (even on those days I eat Nutrisystem foods).
The super foods include:
blueberries
broccoli
oats
yogurt
salmon
green tea
walnuts
soy
spinach
tomatoes
pumpkin
dark chocolate
apples
pomegranates

And more in there, I would have to look up the other few. I like that the diet plan does not contain recipes made with sugar substitute, since I can’t tolerate that stuff.

Anyway, it’s interesting stuff!
Family weekend coming up. Will be a bit of a challenge staying on plan 🙂