Tag Archives: oats

Tulips and Dragon training

*blink*blink*

Was there a weekend that just went by? I need another one.  I am beat today! Rest day on tap with only walking. We actually had to turn our furnace on. The house got down to 62 degrees, so we caved in and turned it on. With the new windows we got last year, the sun doesn’t warm up the house because we got the e-glass for efficiency.

I made up some warm banana custard oats today topped with pecans and some really yummy apple butter I got from my jam swap partner!

Tasty and nice on a cold morning.

I hope I am officially done with the flat tires. This is not even close to a normal happening. I went 5 years with no flats, then I had 1 each of the last 2 years and now the crazy amount this year. Of course, I have put over 2500 miles on this bike since I got it last August, but I also learned to not use regular tires on my bike trainer in the winter.  Using the trainer will cause the tire to become square and have problems.  So, I saved the old tire to put on the back when the bike comes inside in a couple months.  Or I can ride the trainer without the resistance wheel and just use my gears, which is more likely to happen because I really hate taking the tires off.

Lunch break!

BBQ chicken and some organic grapes. I don’t usually go out of my way to buy organic fruit, but organic grapes were on sale for $1.99 a pound!!

Another beautiful day here.  Good thing because after work I have to plant these:

More bulbs.  I only got 33 bulbs this year.  I was smart and mapped out my garden a couple weeks ago on graph paper and looked at my photos from the spring to see where I had bulbs and marked where space was available for new ones.  I actually am on the ball this year! It only took me 5 years to to this…

Latte break. Giving my approval to John’s barista skilz.

On the work front, I decided to go ahead and buy the speech recognition software to do echo dictation rather than straight typing and see if I can save my hands and wrists.  I have been having arthritis pains in my hands and since I type for 6.5 hours a day just for work (not counting blogging and emails and general stuff), I am trying to be proactive.  I bought Dragon Naturally Speaking, so I am now training my Dragon to love me and my speech patterns.

I am going to try to have it write my blog posts starting tomorrow and hopefully be on board with work at the end of the week. There is a lot of medical terminology that Dragon needs help with (cholodochojejunostomy anyone?).

It’s actually pretty amazing at how accurate it is right out of the box.

I wasn’t sure what to have for dinner tonight, but as I went into the kitchen, John had the popcorn fish out  and I knew that was what I wanted!

Then John and I took a nice long walk.  Cool evening, but nice.  Now it is time to work with Dragon  and Monday Night Football!

Question: Do you purchase organic regularly?

What’s Ballooning!

Another week has flown by. And the rain is out of here – thank you!  Everything is so waterlogged.  I was glad to get on my bike again this morning.  I haven’t ridden since last Saturday, can you believe it?  I did a quick 8 miles before breakfast and it felt great!

Friday has turned into oats day around here.  That was what I made this morning.  I did custard oats (just the egg whites whisked in, no banana) and topped with coconut butter and the blueberry jam I made for the jam swap (which are ready to mail).

So good.  I looked at the bowl this morning and said “Coconut butter, where have you been all my life??”  This worried John.  😆

Lots of work to do today, but not a great day on the production front.  Lori no like days like that.  Too many little short reports and it is hard to get the line count up per hour.  That’s when working on production stinks.

I stopped for a lunch break:

BBQ chicken and laughing cow.  And our last pear.  I will have to eat something else on tomorrow’s bike ride.

I had a lovely box arrive today!  Plants!

I have a rose bush to move and put 3 of these plants in place of that, and the others will go on the small strip  of garden where buddha sits and needs work.

I told Pixie to stay out of the plants, and then John calls to me that she is eating them.  D’oh!

Bad kitteh…

Afternoon break time.

The sun is out today and it just feels so much more cheerful.  Don’t you agree?

This weekend is full of happenings.  Well, the whole fall is full of stuff to do around here.  It is the start of festival season.  On tap for tonight is the Sunkiss Balloon Festival.  The balloons launch in the late afternoon, so I had to put off dinner and have a couple slices of dried pineapple to tide me over.

Off for ballooning!

This felt hot to stand near:

This balloon was new this year and one of my favorites:

Giant shaped balloons:

An as a kind of a ceremonial 9/11 tribute, the American Flag balloon:

I really love the balloons.  They will be floating all weekend as well.

My mother and I went out for dinner afterwards to O’Tooles.  I was pretty hangry!  I ordered the bangers and mash:

Tasty – and gahlicky!  Hello dragon breath!  All in all a good night.  Tomorrow we need to decide what to do.  There are quite a few events in the area.  Choices, choices!  We will be biking whatever we decide to do.

Have a super weekend!

Grain-free challenge done!

Well, we made it through Irene.  Lots of rain. Lots and lots of rain! Plus wind  There  is flooding in our area and poor Vermont is just heartbreaking.  The water levels will continue to rise for the next day or so.  Cleanup starts today.  Power outages in the area, but luckily our power stayed on. Not sure how we managed that.  My sister was without power for most of yesterday.  My garden bed came through pretty well.  Just the asters have problems and those were the ones I thought would get bent like this because they were at the leading edge of the wind.

Also one coneflower went over.

So thankful that is all the damage we had.

I also made it through my 21 days grain-free challenge!  It went by fast.  I will talk more in detail in a couple days when I do my monthly wrap up.  Now, I am not going to dive into a grain silo or anything.  I am introducing 1 serving of grain back a day and actually will continue with some grain-free days.  My grain to come back to?

Pumpkin oats!  Helen was right.

It was a very chilly morning at 53 degrees, so I put oats on the menu.  These were quite good!  It was definitely weird eating oats after 3 weeks without.

I was surprised to be able to log into work this morning.  The company I work for is in Lake George, and they had flooding yesterday.  My beloved lake! Hopefully that is better now.

Moving on to lunch…Lunch included some tuna.  I bought a couple cans not knowing if we were going to have power or not, so may as well eat them up.

Pixie did fine during Irene. She didn’t like when the wind was really blowing hard in gusts and that got her antsy, but slept through a lot of it.  It’s cold today so she is heat seeking again.  I got up for lunch and came back to find her stealing my seat.

She’s so funny – I just use 2 hands to scoop her out of the seat in this position and move her to the couch.  She doesn’t care and falls right back asleep.

My favorite time of day!

I should paint my nails.  I think I am the only woman in blogland that doesn’t paint her nails.

Finished up work really early today – yay!  So, I joined John for a walk to the post office.  We had a lot of boxes going out.  It is about 3/4 of a mile to the post office from our house.  While there, we checked out the river downtown.

It’s very high.  I wonder if it was over the bank yesterday?

We came back to make dinner.  I had roasted up a chicken yesterday so that we could snack on it all week.  Hope you like chicken, because you will be seeing it this week!

I also raided John’s chocolate stash for dessert:

It’s annoying that each little miniature has 42 calories.  I could scarf 10 with no problem (and have).

On tonight’s agenda?  Getting some frozen stuff.  We did not buy any in case we lost power, so I am almost out of broccoli (noooooooo!!!!), and I need my Wyman’s blueberries.

Might be sneaking in a decaf coffee, too :mrgreen:

Thoughts on vegetarian week

So glad you enjoyed the tulip photos!  It would have been ideal if we had actually gone this week after the festival was over and avoided the crowds.

I headed to the gym this morning. I did not go yesterday. I checked my log and I put 114 miles on the bike since last Tuesday and I was tired. That is a lot of miles for me.  😯  Needed a break!  So I lifted today instead.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Stiff-legged dead lift 3 sets of 10 at 70# Lower body
Wide Grip lat pull down 3 set of 10 at 60# Back
Lying Leg Press 3 sets of 10 at 100# Lower body
Barbell Chest Press 3 sets of 10 at 55# Chest
Horizontal Wood Chop 3 sets of 10 each side at 30# Core
Calf raise 3 sets of 12 at 110# Calves
Face Pull 3 sets of 12 at 30# Shoulders
Bench Dips 3 sets of 10 Triceps
EZ curls 3 sets of 10 with 25# EZ curl bar Biceps

This was a very good workout.  I biked home and cooked up some banana custard oats.  I am also increasing my carbs a bit now with all this riding.


So, I completed my 7 days of a vegetarian diet.  I wasn’t really all that hard.  I did have some really yummy food, like palak chole and my cheese souffle!  I did have a hard time getting in enough protein for my preference.  I couldn’t get it in without the carbs that come with veggie proteins.  I didn’t want to just rely on more of my whey protein powder, which I could have have done, and I did not want to get veggie burgers because I did not want to eat a fake meat food just to get in the protein since I gave up meat analogues a while ago.  Funny how there is the perception that vegan and vegetarian eating is totally 100% healthy, but it is just as easy to eat crap and processed food on those diets as it is an omnivorous one.

Another interesting thing? I ate no salads!  I always like meat on my salads and without the meat, I had absolutely no desire to have a salad.

I have no interest at all in being a vegetarian.  Not that I need to eat meat every day, and I have no problem going without meat for a day.  Personally, I need the specific amino acids and vitamins that come with eating meat.  It makes me feel better.  I just want to know where my meat comes from.  We are trying to make sure we either buy local or from farms that are certified humane. Not always successful, but I try to be mindful of where it comes from.

Lunch time included some chicken in the form of sweet apple chicken sausages.  These are from the Nature’s Place brand at our local Hannaford.  I emailed them and got the info on the farms they purchase from for this particular brand and they are certified humane, which is good.  Plus the sausages themselves are good. :mrgreen:   Only 100 calories a piece!

Work was quite busy today.  Sometimes it slows down in the mid afternoon, but not today.  Pixie saw me so intently working that she just had to get in my lap to make it harder to type:

Her look says, “Less working, more petting.”

Afternoon latte break with a dark chocolate mint cup.  I bought those again.

Then before dinner my tummy was growling, so I had some peanuts.

Both John and I have been really hungry the last few days.  I am getting in enough calories.  Actually, it seems it would be more than enough calories, but something is going on.  That is another reason I am upping the carbs a bit, to see if I might be glycogen depleted or something.

With the gorgeous weather, it was grilling time for chicken.  And since I am eating meat again, time for a salad LOL!

Working on the project tonight.  I was going to ride more, but it is pretty windy out.  I am turning into such a wuss.  The project is down to the little bits.  We put up the privacy film on the window and caulked the edges of the tile.  Now all that needs to be done really is some paint and wall touch ups and installing the doors.  We are coating the doors with poly, so that will take a couple days.  I am so excited!

What snack goes well with caulking?

Mmmm…. chocolate!

Soaked Oats

Friday is here! Funny how a lot of comments on my injuriversary post from yesterday were about how it couldn’t be a year. Just doesn’t seem like a year because of how much I babbled about the injury over the course of the last year.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Split-legged squat 3 sets of 10 at 55# Lower Body
Dumbbell 2-point row 3 sets of 12 at 20# Back
Incline Chest Fly 3 sets of 12 with 10# DBs (20# total) Chest
Captain Chair 3 sets of 10 Core
Good Mornings 3 sets 10 with 55# bar Hammies and low back
Arnold Press 3 sets of 12 with 10# DBs (20# total) Shoulders
Seated calf raise 3 sets of 12 at 140# Calves
Low Back Extension 3 sets 15 at 80# bar Low back

I kept it easy today because we are long riding tomorrow!  I came back home for Friday Oat Day.

I followed the Nourishing Traditions grain soaking technique last night.

Of course, I split this by 4 for one serving.  I have soaked in plain water overnight, but this method calls for acidulated water to help break down phytic acid that occurs in grains and can make them harder to digest.  I used buttermilk.

So it was 40 grams of oats, 1/4 cup of water and 1.5 teaspoons of buttermilk.

Nighty night oats!  I left them on the counter overnight (covered – no cat hair please).

This morning, the oats were quite soft.

I then cooked them up.  They actually didn’t seem to cook much quicker (not like soaking steel cuts).

I added pumpkin and egg whites as usual (topped with coconut butter and honey). The texture is super porridge-like.  Quite interesting.  The bowl was huge, too.  It is amazing how much liquid oats can soak up.  I don’t know as this is really worth it for rolled oats, but I will be doing this with steel cut oats.  I didn’t not taste any buttermilk, btw.  I think there just isn’t enough to alter the taste.

Slacker cat alert!

Looks like I should rename her Hangover Cat who has just returned from a catnip bender :mrgreen:

Busy day of work today, which is always good.  I stopped for lunch break with a coconut flour biscuit topped with chicken and BBQ.

Plums are very good right now!

I had an afternoon latte paired with the last of the chocolate crisps.  Booo….

Need to petition Trader Joes to open up a shop up here in Tiny Town.

Dinner called and I answered with a pork burger plus a nice pear.  More carbs today because of long ride tomorrow.  Yes, a cupcake ride tomorrow, hopefully. 😀

I spent time cleaning out the garden bed tonight.  More things are peeking out including my sedum and more tulips.  Blooms by Easter, maybe?  I totally forgot what I planted last year for bulbs.  I do that every year and have to try to find my packing list to see what I bought.  I am pretty sure I got some daffodils.  It’s kind of fun not knowing, though.

We were going to walk up the street for ice cream, but it is a little chilly and I changed my mind.  Guess that means coffee instead!

Have a great weekend. We are planning lots of biking, so Sunday will have a ton of that in the post!

Hooray for Friday!

I couldn’t think of a better title than this :mrgreen: It was warm enough to bike to the gym this morning, too bad it was too dark. It’s coming, though!
The gym was quiet today and had better music. I like Journey (okay, I love Journey). So I rocked on while lifting today!

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell Squat 3 sets of 12 at 45# Lower Body
Seated Lat Row 3 sets of 12 at 45# Back
Plank 3 sets of 70-second holds Core
Seated Calf Raise 3 sets of 15 at 140# Calves
Low Back Extension 3 sets of 15 at 80# Low back
Lying Chest Fly 3 sets of 12 with 10# DBs (20# total) Chest
Single-leg deadlifts 3 sets of 10 (each leg) with 35# Bar Hammies and balance
Face Pull 3 sets of 15 at 30# Shoulders

It felt good today. I have to remind myself to slow down because the tendency when I lower the weight is to increase the speed!

I made a whomping huge bowl of oat this morning for breakfast!  I soaked regular rolls oats overnight (normally I do that just with steel cut).  I wanted to see what they were like.  They got voluminous!

I cooked a mashed banana with these and whisked in egg whites.  Topped with coconut butter and some strawberry jam.  Hello carbolicious breakfast.  I probably did not need this whole bowl, but I ate it all.  Then I went up and rode the bike trainer for 8 miles since I had a carb high going on LOL!

Today was such a beautiful, beautiful day!  It approached 60 degrees!  Funny how spring coming changes my mood dramatically.  I felt a case of full-blown radiance today!  I just kept smiling and I practically skipped down the street to do my laundry.

Certainly made it hard to work today, that is for sure!  The wind really picked up, though.  Otherwise I would have unhooked the bike and taken it outside.

I know all of you think my cat is sweet and innocent. Here is Pixie being bad.  I got up to get some coffee and I looked right at her and said, “Stay out of my chair.”  I had to take this picture because I can almost read her mind.  She is thinking, “That spot looks warm!”

I came back with said coffee and see this:

🙄

Lunchtime salad.  Chicken with feta and dressing, plus 5 crumbled pecans.

Tasty!

John made up lattes, which I had with some of my chocolate stash.

It’s like they are floating in the air!

My afternoon took on an interesting twist. I received a call from my current job this afternoon from the owner of the company.  Apparently she was forwarded my letter of resignation that I turned in and they made me an interesting offer than I need to seriously think about this weekend. Hard choices!

It wasn’t a hard choice for dinner, though.  I wanted popcorn fish!

I can’t figure out why I like these so much when I generally don’t care for fish.  Maybe it is because they are chunks of fish and not pressed and formed minced fish?

Tonight we are doing it up right by working on our half bath!  We sure know how to party 😀

Plus a couple dates and nutbutter snacks:

Have a great weekend!

Snow and surprises and public speaking

Snow today and I woke up wondering if I would be able to hit the gym. It had just barely started when I woke up – score! So I slugged some protein and headed out.

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

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Seated Lat Row 1 sets of 12 at 40#

1 set of 10 at 55#

1 set of 8 at 60#

1 set of 6 at 70#

1 set of 4 at 75#

 Back
Barbell Squats 3 sets of 8 at 75# Lower body
Decline Situps 3 set of 10 Core
Pushups 3 sets of 10 Chest
Single-leg Deadlifts 3 sets of 10 each leg with 20# DBs (40# total) Hammies and balance
Calf Raise 3 sets of 10 at 170# Calves
Face Pull 3 sets of 10 at 30# Shoulders
Lower Back Extension 3 sets of 10 at 100# Low Back

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

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

I received a lovely package from Pubsgal today just because:

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

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

She will probably disembowel it shortly…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Busta move

Tuesday lifting day.  I have had all kinds of schedule changes lately.  I am going to do full body workouts Tuesdays and Fridays, possibly alternating with Mondays and Thursdays.  It had already begun to snow when I got up, so I made haste and got to the gym.   Icky roads.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell Deadlift 1 set of 10 at 45#

1 set of 10 at 65#

1 set of 8 at 75#

1 set of 6 at 85#

1 set of 6 at 95#

 Lower body
Wide Grip Lat Pull Down 3 sets of 8 at 60# Back
Horizontal Woodchop 3 sets of 10 (each side) at 30# Core
Reverse Lunge/Forward Reach 3 sets of 10 with 8# DBs (16# total) Full Body
Incline Chest Fly 3 sets of 10 with 15# DBs (30# total) Chest
Upright Row 3 set of 10 at 30# Shoulders
Calf Raise 3 sets of 10 at 170# <— increase Calves
Bench Dip 3 sets of 10 Triceps
Low Back Extension 3 sets of 10 at 100# Low Back

The gym emptied out halfway through my workout (presumably because of snow). My poor car all by itself:

With it empty, I was able to do a circuit with the last 4 exercises. I just did a set and moved right to the next one. Then I rested after the 4 exercises and repeated. Good way to keep the heart rate up.

For those new yahoo readers to the blog – here is a video of the deadlift.  I don’t want you all thinking I workout at the undertaker’s or something.

Squat is king, deadlift is queen!

A snowy morning was the perfect setup for pumpkin custard oats!  So tasty.  I am out of the eggnog honey now, though, which makes me a little sad.  That was some tasty stuff.

Did more shoveling of fresh fallen snow.  Good thing, too, because then it turned to sleet.  This is one of those times when I am very glad I work from home other than getting to wear slippers all day.

After getting some more work done, it was time for lunch!  Baked clam strips.  I love these things.

And yes!  Blueberries on sale again!

I get asked about these fairly often, so here is picture of the package.

12 minutes in the toaster oven and you are good to go.

Since I have been so serious the last couple of days, let’s lighten up a bit, shall we?  What is a good thing to do when it looks like this outside?

Go shopping for plants!  I had a gift certificate to Bluestone Perennials, which is my go-to place for plants I can’t get locally.

On order are some specialty coneflowers:

Green Jewel:

and Tiki Torch

(image source)

Plus Red Hot Poker, which for some reason makes John and I snicker in a juvenile way.

Plus I got some seeds.  Are you as excited as I am?  I cannot wait to do the What’s Blooming series again!!!  Sigh – the plants won’t even get here until the end of April and then a few months to bloom.  Mustn’t get ahead of myself!

Afternoon latte time!

I did have a dark mint cup while waiting for the barista John to finish up the lattes. Helen – here are how the cups come:

It’s just a store brand, but I have seen this exact thing in other stores.

Today really went by fast, I have to say.  It was time to make dinner and I cooked up some lentils and tossed in some of that brown rice (still have a lot of that!) with caramelized onions.

Dang that was good.  Plus sauteed brussels in the back there.  3 foods on this plate I never would have touched 10 years ago (heck, even 5 years ago)- brussel sprouts, lentils, caramelized onions.  And yet this meal was so yummy to me!

Tonight’s agenda? Work, shoveling, snack, and writing up the recipe post for the peanut flour waffles, which I was remiss on getting done for today 😀

That will be up tomorrow, I promise.

Question: What is a food you eat now that surprises you?

Recipe Tuesday – Almond Joy Oats

This is one of my favorite breakfasts to have on a no-added sugar day because it is only sweetened by banana!

Ingredients:

  • 1 small banana (about 6 inches)
  • 1 cup of water
  • 40 grams of rolled oats
  • 5 grams of cocoa powder
  • 1/4 cup liquid egg whites
  • 1 tablespoon of slivered almonds (toasted if you like)
  • 1 tablespoon of unsweetened coconut (toasted if you like)

Really mash the banana into a small pot.  Mash it this much:

Add one cup of water to this and bring to a boil over medium high heat.

Measure out the oats and cocoa powder so it is ready to go:

When the water/banana mixture comes to a boil, add the oats and cocoa powder and then turn the heat to medium.  Simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring well.  I find the more I stir, the creamier the oats get – so don’t just let it sit and boil.  Make friends with your breakfast!  It’s worth it.

After about 3 minutes of cooking, now is the time to temper in the egg whites.  Slowly drizzle in the eggs with one hand while stirring constantly with the other.  For this reason, I really like the liquid egg whites because you don’t get ‘blops’ of egg going in like if you use fresh separated eggs.

You want to stir constantly and go slow in order to avoid cooking the egg white into chunks.  The first time you do this, you can always take the pot off the heat just to get the hang of it.  Once the egg whites are incorporated, cook until the mixture comes back to bubbling and thickens up.  Maybe 30 seconds.

Pour into a bowl and top with the coconut and almonds:

Voila – Almond Joy Oats!

The riper the banana, the sweeter your bowl will be.  Also, the bigger the banana, the more sweet it will be.   Of course, you don’t have to use unsweetened coconut.  I just happen to like it.  You can certainly sweeten this bowl as your tastebuds desire.

This entire bowl is about 360 calories with a good amount of protein and fiber.

Cookin’ on the hob.

Sunday was a complete rest day for me and it felt really good. I biked in cold weather to the gym this morning. I think the days of shorts for the gym are over, at least on days I bike.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell Deadlifts 3 sets of 10 at 80# Lower body
Dumbbell Pulloever 3 set of 15 with 20# DB Back
Push ups 3 sets of 10 Chest
Captain Chair 3 sets of 12 Core
Seated Calf Raise 3 sets of 10 at 110# Calves
Cable Squat to Row 3 sets of 10 at 50# Full body
Lower Back Extension 3 sets of 10 at 100# Low back
Prone Cuban Snatch 3 sets of 10 with 8# DBs (16# total) Shoulders
Cable Triceps Pulldown 3 sets of 15 at 30# Triceps

Then I biked on home. It was a little warmer because the sun was out at that point, but still pretty chilly. I think around 40? There is another frost advisory tonight. 😯

I was all excited to try my Irish porridge! Assuming a hob is the stove –

How quaint. Looks kind of like quick cook oats.

There are raisins, papaya, and pineapple bits in this, with no sugar.  Stats are the same as rolled oats, pretty much.

Of course, I had to make it my way with a mashed banana and custard style.

Creamiest bowl ever!  These were good and very smooth.  Sort of like pudding almost.  A nice change up from more chewy oats.  Ah oats, is there anything they cannot do?

I really have been indulging a lot on weekends lately.  Yes, I have been doing long rides, but I think I need to get my balance pendulum swinging on a smaller arc than it has been.  Especially with the holiday season coming up shortly.   With that in mind, I am going to participate in Steve’s Hot 100 challenge that starts later this week (to coincide with the last 100 days of the year).  You can join if you like!  I need to firm up what I am going to set for goals for myself and post that by the 23rd.

Lunch time!  I made up an interesting carrot salad and will post the recipe tomorrow.  It’s got yogurt and cinnamon and raisins in it.  Sort of Morrocan flare to it, I think.

Paired with the last little tuna can.  Tuna is out again for a while.  It just officially flipped over to the “I’m tired of it” list.

Work was very steady with both jobs and then totally died in the early afternoon, just before I was all finished with my lines for the day.  Booo…. that means evening work during the Saints game tonight.  However, I was able to go out and help John with the biz, as that is really ramping up as per usual in the fall.

Made up a protein latte today.  I have to say that I am really liking the whey protein isolate.  It is a little more expensive than regular whey, but it mixes easier and has hardly any taste to it, other than maybe a little milky (that is as close as I can think for a description).  It’s pretty much pure protein as 28 grams has 27 g of protein in it.  Sweet.  I buy mine from True Protein.

Now I have a latte with 15 grams of protein (including that in the milk).  And a delicious bowl of grapes to go with.

Pixie says, “Can we go outside and play?”

Sorry kitty! No more outdoors for you.

I sure am getting in the fruits and veggies today.  They dwarfed my pork burger for dinner.

Think I went a little overboard on the strawberries 😳   They were pretty tasty, though!

Evening walk in store, plus more work.  And this snack all the way from Canada via Suzi:

Tomorrow is a brick workout.  Just not sure if I am going to do run/bike or bike/run.

Question:  Do you eat any import food?