Tag Archives: challenge

July goals and being mindful

Wow was it cold overnight!  It was 48 degrees 😯   What a way to start July!  I decided to try to sleep in as much as I was able to and got up around 7.  I was going to go for a run, but with a high of 70 or so, I figured I would go later and enjoy.  That meant brekkie time!

Custard style banana cream of wheat topped with almond butter and preserves.

Since it was so cold, this bowl was extra yummy!   I then got an early start with work as I like to do on Thursdays.

Pubsgal asked yesterday how long it takes me to do my strength workouts.  While you all know how much I love my lifting, I don’t want to spend all day at the gym.  My strength workouts generally run between 35-45 minutes.  Yesterday was 45 because of the planks.  Those just add time to workouts because of the long hold times.  I rest for about a minute between sets and don’t dillydally around too much.

Lunch break was tuna with lemon pepper and a veggie egg roll (Kahiki brand and only 70 calories!).

And a golden kiwi!

I’ve never had one of these before.  It was sweet and almost tasted like a banana.  The texture was softer as well.  I definitely prefer the regular old kiwi, but this was fun.

Yesterday I did my wrapup for June and did pretty well for the month.  Here is what I have on tap for July:

  • Continue with at least 1 no-added sugar day a week.  This actually isn’t that hard, I have to say.
  • An 80-mile bike ride.  Gonna do at least that one, and likely finish out the 100 as well.  Kind of need to get that done so we can get back to normal biking 😀  Eeeep!!
  • Big challenge – I am not going to step on the scale for 30 days.  I weighed myself this morning and that is it for the month.  This goes along with the next item.
  • Really practice mindful eating and mindful being.  Funny how I like that term better than intuitive eating, and I listened to the 2 fit chicks podcast today and they called it the same thing!  Of course, I need my Lori rules for it, and I will explore those over the course of the month.  I am going to track calories, but more from the ‘what I ate’ standpoint than planning it out.

I have this book out to read as well:

So, those should be fun 😀  I am going to do a separate post on the whole IE/ mindful eating thing.  I started writing it in this post, but it really needs its own (and then people who are just here for food pics can skip that one!).

Snack time!  I had a latte and a couple dates:

After finishing up work, I decided to go out for a run.  I had half of a Luna bar to get a little extra fuel.

Even though I wasn’t hungry, I knew that I would need something to have enough energy for the run.  Still not sure how that really fits in with honoring one’s hunger, but that’s another post.

My run was really good.  This is about the most comfortable I have felt since before I hurt my back.  I don’t know why, but I’ll take it.  I did 3 miles and have no idea of the pace because I had walked to the post office before hitting the track and didn’t bring a watch.

Pretty happy when finished.  It was so breezy that my hair didn’t get totally matted with sweat, which is always a bonus.

I was hungry at that point, so I finished the other half of the Luna bar while fixing dinner:

In a mindful eating mode, I decided to only start with half a pear, as I thought a whole one might be too much since I had a sweet potato (topped with chicken and BBQ sauce).  I was correct about that – so go me!

It’s a chilly evening.  I am blogging from the front porch and John made cafe au lait for us.  We both have jackets on.  Is it really July??

More what’s blooming tomorrow, and probably an extra post on IE/ME.

Question:  Have you ever stepped away from the scale?

Banana soft serve and protein power!

Starting off the post with dessert!  I did the banana soft serve last night.  I think this started on Choosing Raw?  Anyway, I put 2 frozen bananas in the food processor.  One was more ripe than the other, as you can see.

It did make a difference.  Dumped some cinnamon in there as well. Turned on the processor and let run.  I had to push down the more ripe banana a few times, and it was a little icier.  Mental note to self on that.

Lookie what came out!

Creamy and fluffy.  I served John his with chocolate syrup.  Mine had a tsp of peanut butter on top.

Verdict?  Quite good, although I could see getting tired of banana flavor pretty quickly.  Certainly won’t put a stop to my Only 8 obsession. I have some egg white protein powder on order from True Protein, so I am going to try this next week with protein powder in it for power ice cream!

The heat finally broke last night with thunderstorms.  Really loud, too.  I woke up to a huge crack that got my heart pounding.  Don’t you hate that?  Feels good today, though.  I, however, do not.  I am very physically tired.  I think I should have given myself 1 more day of rest after the 60-mile bike ride.  I had Sunday off, but then did my usual schedule during the week.  That and the heat tapped me out, and my thighs are sore (unusual), so I am taking  a rest day today, even though I really want to ride in this nice weather.  Rest days are super important, especially if your body is telling you it needs one.

That meant an early breakfast:

Oh yeah!  This is an easy no sugar breakfast for me since I have it this way all the time.  Can’t go wrong with protein waffles and blueberries :mrgreen:

Pixie is airing out after all that heat.  Look at that tummy!

Lunch time came and I decided on a shake for something different.  Because I feel so tired, I decided to up the protein today for repair.  Into the bullet blender went 1/4 cup of plain greek yogurt (all we had), 1/2 cup pumpkin, 1 scoop strawberry protein powder, cinnamon, ice and a little water.  I was going to mix in some PB, but I ended up just licking it out of the spoon instead of blending it in and having it get lost.

Tasted pretty good, surprisingly.  I didn’t think the strawberry would mix, but it did pretty well.

I drained the juice from the mandarin orange slices as well.  One thing I am really missing lately is crispy crunch.  Whether that is crunch from granola or crackers, I miss it.  I cannot replace that with nuts, or I will go overboard.  I’ll be glad when tomorrow gets here and my experiment is ovah.

Latte snack and then some cheese (not eaten together).

Glad to see so many of you do the plank! It is funny how it looks so easy and yet turns out to be so hard.  I actually have to say that I felt a little more self-conscious than usual posting that picture.  I am feeling kind of chubby right now.  You know how that feeling comes and goes for all of us.  I am not a fitness model, but I think it is important to *me* to post photos of myself walking the talk (planking the plank??) and to help keep me motivated.  I said this before, but it also really helps to see what you look like when you are doing these moves.  I have never seen myself do a plank because there is no floor level mirror at the gym (that I can do the plank near anyway), so I really had no idea of what I looked like.  I have taken some shots/videos of myself with other moves and really see how I need to work on my form or slow down (probably my biggest issue).  It’s been very helpful.  Mirrors are good to look in when working out, but also a 3rd person shot where you aren’t looking at yourself, so to speak, gives a whole new perspective.

Dinna time!

That red pear was amazing tonight, too.  Sometimes they are just extra good and I wish there was a way you could see it from the outside.

I took a nice 2-mile walk tonight in this now gorgeous weather!  Then it was time for evening snack.  I made it look pretty.  This is my faux cheesecake mix of ricotta, strawberry protein powder, cinnamon, and a little water.

The strawberries really make this dish. Protein success today.  I had a whopping 139 grams today!  A little heavier on the protein powder than normal for me, but that’s okay.  Eat up muscles! 🙂

Question:  Are you good about rest days?

Strength training move of the week and worst fast foods.

Still more hot weather, will it ever end??  It was already pretty warm when I biked to the gym.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Chin ups 2 set of 2, 3 sets of 1 Upper body
Good mornings 3 sets of 10 with 45# bar Hammies and low back
Incline chest fly 3 sets of 12 with 15# DBs (30# total) Chest
Plank 3 sets of 1-minute holds Core
Cable squat to row 3 sets of 10 at 50# Back and legs
Upright row 3 sets of 12 with 25# bar Shoulders
Cable triceps pulldown 3 sets of 15 at 30# Triceps

Loved the combo moves today to make best use of my time!

Strength training move of the week.

No video today because it is the plank! No need for video, because that would be pretty boring.

(This is the spare bedroom in my house) The plank is a fabulous core exercise, and quite difficult when performed correctly.  You want to keep in as straight a line as possible here.  Don’t let your hips pop up (cause they will want to), and keep your abs pulled in so your middle doesn’t sag.  Work on increasing your hold times.  Before I hurt my back, I was able to do a 2-minute plank, although I think I saw through time near the end of that.  Today, I did 1-minute holds.  The fun part of the plank is being able to feel the loose skin of your thighs and tummy hanging there….  For an added challenge, you can do the plank on your side.

I love how some guy (who has been a bit chatty with me of late) came up today while I was doing the plank and said “So, working your core, huh?”  I didn’t want to be rude, but it is very hard to talk while doing a plank, so I kind of grunted out a ‘yes’.  Not sure if he thought I was practicing to be a coffee table or what. 🙄

John met me at the gym and we biked to Cool Beans today.  The outdoor patio was set up, so we ate outside.  Forgot our travel coffee cups, so I grabbed the big cup.

Now that is what I’m talkin’ about!  It’s even labeled magnum LOL!  Whole wheat bagel with plain cream cheese – so no added sugar there.

Bike ride today was 13 miles.  We were pretty sweaty when we got back and it was only 9:30.  Temps reached 91 today.

It was so hot that the  kitty broke!

(How come she doesn’t herniate her disk??? Not fair.)

Lunch time and I decided to put the rest of that stuffed pepper filling on top of some scrambled eggs.  It was really good!

The carrots, on the other hand, were pretty lame.  On the old side and the end of that bag, thank goodness.

Buzzed right through work today.  Had a latte:

and one of my favorite snackies!

I was reading an article today about the worst fast food meals:

The top 10 deadliest fast food meals:

1. Wendy’s Baconator Triple, 1330 calories and 38 grams of saturated fat
2. Sonic’s SuperSonic Cheeseburger, 980 calories and 24 grams of saturated fat
3. Burger King’s BK Quad Stacker, 930 calories and 28 grams of saturated fat
4. Domino’s Bread Bowl Pizza, 670 calories and 22 grams of saturated fat
5. In & Out Burger’s Double Double With Onion, 670 calories and 18 grams of saturated fat
6. Arby’s Large Beef n’ Cheddar, 650 calories and 11 grams of saturated fat
7. Popeye’s Breast-Leg-Biscuit, 640 calories and 15.5 grams of saturated fat
8. Taco Bell’s Chipotle Steak Taco Salad, 900 calories and 11 grams of saturated fat
9. White Castle’s Sack of 4 Cheeseburgers, 680 calories and 16 grams of saturated fat
10. Jack in the Box’s Jumbo Jack With Cheese, 620 calories, 15 grams of fat

Okay.  Let’s get real people.  Is there anyone on earth that would get the baconator and be concerned about calories??   And do you care about fat if you are buying a sack of cheeseburgers?  Don’t give us the info on meals like this.  Make a point to list calories of things we *think* should be good, but aren’t, like fast food salads.  You know, the stuff that sneaks up on you.  Let the people who want to eat their quad stackers eat in peace.

Okay, rant over.  I snacked on some nuts while roasting up some sweet potato for dinner.

Something I need to be careful with this week is the nut snacking.  It’s taking the place of the other nibbles I would have had like ginger chews or cereal or crackers.

Dinner was some lemon pepper shrimp with the roasted sweet potato chips (gotta love toaster ovens in the heat!).

Tonight I have bananas in the fridge to make the banana soft serve.  I’m wanting something sweet today, so need to try that.  I’ll let you know how it comes out!

Question:  Have you tried the plank yet?

Riding and curry chicken salad.

Another hot day on tap today!  Since it was about 90 degrees today, I decided to bike this morning to get in some exercise before it got too hot.  I had a protein drink and hit the trails.  My legs felt somewhat tired.  I think the heat just saps out so much energy.  Not to mention that I felt like puffer fish this morning from it 😀

Some beautiful morning views on the trail.

It was already about 60 degrees at 7am, and just a nice morning to ride.  I did 16 miles today.  On rides this this, I just go out and back with no breaks other than stopping for traffic and a drink.  Came back ready to eat!

I made some pumpkin custard cream of wheat.  Normally I sweeten this with a little brown sugar when cooking, but with the no-sugar rule for the next couple days, I decided to sweeten with some prune puree.

This was just some prunes I soaked in hot water and blended up until smooth.  Kind of tastes like raisins, although prunes always feel kind of elderly to me :mrgreen:   Marisa did this with dates, and I might give that a try as well.

Busy work day today and lunch time came quick.  I made a chicken curry salad.  I am so in love with 4-5 ingredient meals.

This was:

  • 2.5 ounces of cooked chicken, chopped
  • 1 tbsp (15 g) of reduced fat mayo
  • 1/2 of an apple, chopped
  • 1/4 tsp curry powder
  • 1 tbsp of sliced almonds.

Mix all together and top on greens!  It’s delicious.  You know this would be BBQ normally, but no refined sugar again!  Of course, you can all see that I won’t be doing this forever.  Not gonna give up the BBQ sauce 😀

After lunch, it was back to the dentist for me for the filling repair and the new filling.

Me in the chair and kinda nervous.  (Fran – this is for you).

I laughed when I saw how nervous I looked! I am a total wuss with pain.

Again, I love my dentist!  He asked me if it was alright if he gave me some novacaine.  So polite 😀   No pain at all for the drilling.  Sometimes it is the fear of pain that is worse than the pain itself, you know?

After the feeling came back in my mouth, it was latte time! Snack with the latte:

I am pleased that these have lasted since Friday LOL!

I got a chance to do the stuffed pepper for dinner.

It’s basically just ground beef, brown rice, and tomato sauce stuffed into the pepper.  I grated a little cheese on it and baked.

I really liked the filling, but I didn’t care for the pepper that much, so I only ate about 1/3 of it.  I really liked the filling on the brussel sprouts, though!

Still good on the no refined sugar front.  Looking back, I don’t have a lot of sugary stuff regularly other than fluff, honey, chocolate, frozen yogurt, and nut butter.  I had to make some unsweetened peanut butter today, because I miss that!  I don’t know if it is cheating to make something like a fruit puree or not.  But, my challenge and my rules, right? :mrgreen:  I found myself wanting frozen yogurt today because of the heat, but that will have to wait!

I admire those of you giving up the caffeine.  Like Miz – I could never do that!  I did for several days before my mammogram last fall and was not a happy camper.  Guess this shows where my true heart-of-hearts addiction really is.

Speaking of addictions – it’s bagel day tomorrow!  Note I said reduced bread this week, not no bread 😉

Question:  Are you affected by heat or do you love it?

No refined sugar day 1!

I tossed and turned all night last night from the heat and I had restless legs, so I got very little sleep.  I had 1/2 a mind to skip the gym this morning because I was so tired, but that is just not me, so I sucked it up and got up.

Had a protein drink and biked there.  Really nice morning, actually!  Fairly standard routine today:

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell Deadlifts 3 sets of 10 at 55# Lower body
Chin ups 2 set of 2, 3 sets of 1 Upper body
Wide grip lat pulldown 3 sets of 15 at 50# Back
Pushups 3 sets of 10 Chest
Decline sit ups 3 sets of 10 Abs
Dumbbell Squats 3 sets of 10 with 12# DBs (24# total) Lower body
Arnold Press 3 sets of 12 with 12# DBs (24# total) Shoulders
Bench dips 3 sets of 10 with body weight Triceps

One of the guys that is usually in the gym when I work out actually said to me that I looked tired today.  I have never cared for that comment, really, because someone usually says that when I feel chipper, but it was truthful today.

Then I got on the treadmill and jogged for a mile. Speed at 4.5 mph. Speed walkers would be passing me, that’s for sure….

On with the no refined sugar thing, so I decided on custard cream of wheat for breakfast made with a banana.  Of course, that is nothing new, and a great way to sweeten the bowl without adding sugar.  However, I normally top with jam, which I didn’t today.  Just toasted pecans.

Quite tasty!

Work started out completely dead, which is not uncommon for a Monday, so I got out and roasted coffee and did a little weeding and cooked up some brown rice.  Temps of mid 80s today, so getting that done early helped a lot.

The scale showed a big bump up today, which is kind of funny.  Normally I see that the day after a long bike ride from water retention, but I did not – so I think I must have been pretty dehydrated, which is why the gain is here today.  It’s frustrating, though.  Funny how it can drift down for weeks and then in one day pop back up again.  Sometimes I feel like I will never get this last bit of weight off.  I don’t suppose it matters much in the long run as I feel in pretty good shape, but it would be nice.

Lunch time:  1 egg and 2 egg white omelet with a wedge of laughing cow tucked in there.

I think I am done with kiwis for a while.  They have had a funny texture as of late.  Maybe out of season?

The afternoon latte minus any honey or chocolate drizzle on top.

Still pretty tasty because I know the coffee roaster :mrgreen:

Plus a date square.

Did you see the post with the recipe?

I also ate about an ounce of peanuts, which are not pictured.  That was good because the fat kept me full.

I worked later because of the late start.  I had visions of making a stuffed pepper with brown rice and ground beef for dinner, but it was too late to start that.  So, I fell back on my standby trifecta of clean eating!

I haven’t missed any sugar yet, but that is because I had fruit today and the date balls.  I also made some prune puree to use if I want it on oats or something.

Evening snack:

This is the strawberry protein powder mixed with water and cinnamon.  And a couple blackberries.  I stuck it in the freezer for 20 minutes to get it really chilled, which makes it better.  This protein powder is sweetened with Ace K, which doesn’t thrill me, but we have a ton of it left.

So far so good and pretty clean eats today for me.  Will see how soon I start to miss the chocolate 😀

Bagels and longer injury update.

Thanks for the congrats on 60-mile ride yesterday!  We do take a lot of breaks, so it isn’t like we plow through our long rides all at once, as it is for enjoyment and not a race.  John also thoughtfully pointed out that it wasn’t quite a metric century, since that was about 62.5 miles.  Whatever…

My legs feel pretty good today, just a wee bit tired, so we decided on a rest day and did not bike to breakfast.  Panera Bread bound, though!  It is Sunday after all (aka bagel day).

Blueberry.  And lots of coffee.  I have been drinking water like crazy.  Ins and outs did not match yesterday and I think I woke up dehydrated.

I have mentioned bits about the injury progress as it goes, but I thought I would give you all a more detailed progress report on what has been going on.  If you are tired of reading about it, skip the next few paragraphs. :mrgreen:  For those that are new (or just missed it), I herniated a disk in my back about 6-1/2 weeks ago, which presses on my sciatic nerve.  This caused sciatica symptoms (aka agony) and put me flat out for a few days and slow progress after that.  I keep writing about the problems with my leg, but as John likes to point out, my leg actually is not injured, it is the sciatic nerve pain from the disk pressure and it just seems like it is in my leg.  Again, whatever… 🙄  It created a deep pain in my thigh and knee, plus a burning sensation at times (underneath the numbness).  Lots of fun!  This was chronic for weeks, too.  Chronic pain sucks.

Interestingly, the disk itself cannot feel pain, so my back actually felt much better after a few days, but the sciatica was the problem.  I also had numbness in my knee and into my calf.  This numbness is still present today along with accompanying weakness.  I have also made a rather alarming discovery that my thighs are now 2 different sizes.  My right thigh is a full inch bigger around than my left.  I noticed that my pants felt kind of odd with several different pairs, so I measured and found that out. You can actually see the difference, too.  Probably some atrophy of the left leg and over compensation on the right.  The problem is that the nerve compression just won’t let the muscles fire in my left leg, no matter what I do, so they are weakening.  You can’t force that either, although it is coming back slowly.  It is going to take time, if the feeling even actually completely comes back all the way, which could be a possibility.  Obviously I can bike, but the main reason for that is that both legs work together.  When walking or running, there are points of time where the body is supported by one leg at a time, and that is why running and walking have been slow to return for me and still causes some pain.

So, that is where I am at currently.  I would say 95% back at this point both physically and mentally.  It seems like this injury has consumed so much of my thoughts and feelings for the last month and a half.  If I don’t have sensation back in my knee/calf after 8 weeks, then it is time for further evaluation.  So, I have had to re-evalute my race season this year and just take it week by week.

Anyway, back to the eats!  Blackberries were on sale, so I had some with lunch with my egg sandwich.  Also restocked with hot sauce, I might add 😀

Alas, it was back to work for me today. It was quite steady and went by pretty fast.  John spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen making stuff today.  He is turning into quite the chef!

Dinner time was a quick stir fry using this sauce:

4 ingredient stir fry:  Frozen broccoli florets, shrimp, coconut oil, and stir fry sauce.  How easy is that?  Not to mention tasty!

After dinner, we took a stroll to keep the legs loose.  It was quite warm today, too.  80 degrees.

One of the things John made today was a Queen Elizabeth cake as a test to see if I wanted this for my birthday in a couple weeks.  He made a half batch of it in a loaf pan to test:

It was really, really good.  Not sure if it is birthday cake material, so I have to think about that.

I also need to stay out of the rest of this.  I am challenging myself through at least Thursday to eat really clean (or the cleanest I tend to eat at any rate).  I am going to try to have as little sugar as possible other than fruit sugar.  That means no fluff, no honey, no chocolate syrup on lattes.  I will allow myself protein powder, as I need that prior to work outs.  Also, really limited bread, as in no bread or wraps or crackers.  It’s been a long time since I have done something like this, so it should be fun!

Question:  Are you challenging yourself to anything this week?

Cold eats

Kind of a gray day today and a little chilly.  We headed out to Panera so I could get my Sunday bagel fix!

Sorry for the flash.  The lighting at Panera Bread is terrible!

John had one of the new strawberry scones.  It was pretty good, may have to try it myself instead of a bagel sometime (gasp!).

I will tell you that yesterday was a horrible eating day for me.  I had 1 fruit and no veggies all day.  So, that was one day of my veggie challenge that doesn’t pass LOL!  I really need to give myself a little tough love on weekends.  Or a lot of tough love.  Maybe that will be my challenge for this week.

So today, bring on the protein and the produce.

Lunch was pretty orange!

I mixed some cottage cheese with strawberry protein powder and filled the cantaloupe.  This was good, but cold.  I had a serious chill after lunch.  Sat there in a blanket while I worked with some tea!

The only hot thing I had today besides tea was this latte:

Dinner was more cold stuff.  I am so happy to have chicken back!  We stopped at the smokehouse yesterday and got a plethora of meat for the freezer.

This salad had 4 cups of spring mix!  Now that is a lot of veggies :mrgreen:

With strawberries.  Look at this berry – I wonder if it was grown near 3-mile island?

Tonight’s snack? I mixed up 1/2 cup of water with a 1/2 scoop of protein powder, 1 tsp of cocoa powder (for richness) and some konjac powder.  Let it sit for a while and I got a pudding out of it.

Check it out!  Topped with a little marshmallow fluff – oh yes.  This stuff is crazy!  I might try some of those noodles, but I am a little scared.

Work is done and it is laundry time!

Produce challenge:

F:  1/2 cantaloupe, strawberries

V:  baby carrots, 4 cups of spring mix.

Practice excellence

I wanted to start this day off with a quote for you all:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle

Isn’t that cool?  Practice happy, be happy!  Keep working and become fit.

Got an early start to my workday today, as the weather is nice outside for today warmth wise and I wanted to take advantage of that. Let me tell you, my butt is sore from those walking lunges yesterday. (drop seating, anyone?) Definitely keeping those in rotation. Also my shoulder on top from the military presses. I cannot remember the last time my shoulders were sore.

Made up a yummer breakfast of banana oats topped with the new Naturally Nutty PB!

So good.  There are too many flavors they have that I want to try!  I need to be very careful to keep the spoon out of this jar 😳

Started work early while waiting for it to warm up some. I had a mid morning protein snack of strawberry protein powder and a tsp of nutbutter.

John asked me if I wanted to bike today – of course!! However, just in case it rains earlier than predicted, I went out for a quick 2-mile jog before lunch.  That was to ensure the rain stayed away.

Worked a little more, then lunch time! Something different today:

This was 2 oz of ground beef cooked with 3 egg whites and topped with some 50% reduced fat Cabot cheese (the only low fat brand I like) on top of a corn tortilla. And the requisite hot sauce! Brussels as my lunch veggie today. This was pretty filling, think it was the fat in the meat that did it (80% lean).

A note on the chin ups, because I have gotten some questions about them. There is a difference between chin ups and pull ups.  With chin ups you grasp the bar with your palms facing you. Pull ups use the overhand grip. Pull ups are much, much harder than chins. It took me months to build up strength to do these, and I started with negative chins, where you start with your chin over the bar (standing on a box or bench, obviously), then bend your legs so you are hanging and slowly lower yourself down. Rinse and repeat. I did those for a while before trying the real thing. Then I started with partially bent arms before going to a full hang.  Practice, practice, practice.  Strength building takes time.  It would be easier if I were lighter, too 😛

Pre ride snack of latte and some chocolate!

We then took the back path around.  We don’t take this one often because we usually have a destination to do, and this loops back behind where we normally go to.  It starts with a big downhill, and then it is up, up, up!  Here is a shot from the top of the hill:

Those mountains way off in the distance? That’s actually Vermont!  The Green Mountains, although they don’t look very green now.  We went out for a little more than 8 miles today.

Came back for some dinner.  I decided to have a different veggie for dinner:

(John even commented about the lack of broccoli). This is a baked crab cake (from frozen).

Done with work for the week. Yay!  :mrgreen:   I decided to hang out in the kitchen tonight and make up some protein cookies for a snack using oat bran and strawberry protein powder.

They came out pretty good.  I topped mine with a couple tsp of cream cheese, as they are pretty sweet.  I’ll post the recipe tomorrow.

Produce challenge:

F: 1 banana, 1 kiwi, strawberries

V: brussel sprouts, carrots

Question: What is your most excellent habit that you practice?

Waffle Wednesday!

** Oatmeal on The Go giveaway ends tomorrow! *

It’s Wednesday!  Almost done with the work week, yay 😀  Too cold to bike, so I drove out to the gym for the requisite lifting session!  I warmed up on the treadmill and then hit the weights:

  • Dumbbell walking lunges:  3 sets of 8 (each leg) with 20# DBs
  • Barbell chest press:  3 sets of 8 at 55#
  • Chin ups:  3 sets of 2 (Woo Hoo!!)
  • Barbell squats:  3 sets of 8 at 85#
  • Military Press:  1 set of 10 with 15# DBs, 2 sets of 8 with 20# DBs
  • Seated Row:  3 sets of 8 at 70#
  • Bench Dips:  3 sets of 10
  • Reverse crunches:  3 sets of 15
  • 1-arm Dumbbell snatch:  1 set of 10 with 15# DB, 2 sets of 8 with 20# DB
  • Good Mornings:  3 sets of 10 with 35# bar

Note that I did the chin ups out of normal order because someone was at the squat cage.  Well, wouldn’t you know it- I was able to do 3 sets of 2!  I don’t know if it was the delay or what.  Normally I like to do those first because they are very hard and I need all my strength to do them.  Of course on the last one, I said “Come on!” which probably helped me (and made people look 😀 )

As you know, Wednesday is traditionally bagel day, but since we went out yesterday, we stayed home today.  So, I decided to have Waffle Wednesday a la Susan:

There was a comment question yesterday that I thought warranted a longer answer:

Just curious — is this what you ate when you were trying to lose weight, or were you at a lower calorie amount then? In other words, did you have to go lower to lose? I actually am trying to lose weight right now.   😳  A couple years ago, I was at a  low calorie count of around 1200 per day.  I lost weight, but I was not exercising like I do now.  There is no way I could eat that 1200 calories these days and still have an arm attached to my body by the next day because I would eat it in my sleep.  I increased my calories as I increased my exercise, and still lost.  Now, the scale sits there, but part of that is just due to over snacking on nuts!  (The nuts have been put up high, so you haven’t seen them in pictures as of late.)  I have been somewhat hesitant about putting concrete calories up anymore, because the amount of calories a person needs to lose is really personal, and the amount I eat may be too much for one person and not enough for another.  Plus, not every single things gets documented, particularly if I snack after posting. I am still trying to figure that part out as I have become more athletic over the past year.  Becoming fit doesn’t always go hand in hand with weight loss on the scale.  If I had the funds, I would consult a sports nutritionist.

Lunch time!

Have another look:

What is that, you ask?  It’s plain greek yogurt mixed with protein powder, apple sauce, cinnamon, 1/4 cup of cooked rice topped with almonds.  This was quite good and had some nice texture differences in it.

Afternoon latte was paired with this:

Country Choice Organics soft baked cookie.  100 calories!  This plus my latte is a good example of a 210 calorie snack.  Perfect for mid afternoons.

Using up the rest of the pork we cooked the other day.  Pretty much done now (good thing, because I want something else LOL).  With BBQ sauce.  Cantaloupes were on sale, so I got one and it was good.

It turned out to be quite nice today, although a little windy, so I took a post prandial walk.  Here is my spring flag that I put outside.

Purty.  1/4 mile from our house is an ice cream shop.  I spied the opening date today:

Surprisingly, we don’t go here too much because they don’t have the yogurt that I love.

Here is tonight’s protein powder/ricotta snack that I made up ahead of time.  Almost like a cheesecake with the graham cracker.

Fruit and veggie challenge today:

F:  1 serving of blueberries, 1/2 cup applesauce, 1 cup cantaloupe

V: 1 serving of carrots, 1 cup of broccoli

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?