Moving to Wordpress

I've decided to make the move to Wordpress. If anyone out there still has me in their Google Readers, please make the appropriate change!

http://fithealthyfun.wordpress.com/

Itching to Blog

Maybe it's the two days I've spent snowed in at home and the cabin fever I've developed, but I really have been thinking a lot about getting back into the blog. I really do enjoy blogging and think it keeps me accountable for my diet and exercise. I think, when I first started the blog (over the summer when I was off from work) I had some unrealistic expectations for myself. I'm not a writer, I work full time and I'm just not an established blogger. Posting all of my meals and exercise is just NOT a format that works for me. It's too much pressure and makes having a blog seem like work. While that is awesome for some bloggers (and I'm grateful because it keeps my Google reader pumped up with awesomeness), it's just not for me.

So new format. I will post food. But I will only post new and interesting or delicious things that I eat and feel I must share.

I will post exercise. But this is not my workout log.

On to regularly scheduled blogging...

I am glad to say that I've just begun training for my first half marathon. I'm almost done with week one!

I hopped on the treadmill this afternoon to complete my scheduled three miles, but had a lot of pain in my back. I'm not sure if it's from trying to pick up the pace in yesterday's 2 miles, tons of snow shoveling or a combination of both, but I couldn't make it happen. I did some yoga download "Yoga for Backs" (30 minutes) to ease the pain and plan on making up the run tomorrow or Saturday. You can take a peek of my plan below:

It just so happens that I also had some pretty epic eats today.

I nuked a small golden delicious apple with cinnamon and brown sugar and topped it with whipped banana oats with flax and more cinnamon.

Dinner was also a new and tasty creation:

Tilapia dredged in almond meal with chu chu cheetahs and baby arugula and tomato drizzled with lemon juice and olive oil. The tilapia went a little like this:

TJ's ground almond meal

Egg whites

Dredging

I heated 1 1/2 tablespoons of canola oil in a nonstick pan and let it do its thing.

Delish.

Well there we go. Don't know when you'll hear from me next and I like it that way! ;)

Back on Track

It’s been almost a month since my last post! I can’t believe it!

I’ve been a little busy with my friend’s wedding

and planning my high school reunion,

which are both now over and were successes – hooray! In the time period of November 10 – December 2 there was also a race run by yours truly. It was a 5 mile turkey trot on Thanksgiving day.

Now it’s on to Christmas hustle and bustle. Before that, though, it’s time to get back on track. Last night I finally felt better after battling a disgusting cold and cough. I decided to lace up the sneaks and get moving. I did the ab exercises from Angela’s Whittle My Middle challenge. I did not get on board with this challenge right away, but I’m LOVING these moves. My abs are nice and sore this morning. Just how I like it.

I also hopped on the treadmill and did 5 minute alternating intervals of walking at 4.0 at a 12% incline (my treadmill’s max) and jogging at 6.0 at 2%. I did about 30 minutes…not wanting to over-do it since there’s still a trace of icky cough down in my lungs. It did feel GREAT to break a sweat and get moving though!

Here is how I am getting back on track with food:

Dinner: Meet Hugh (middle name Jass, last name salad). I mixed up some organic herb greens, baby spinach, a chopped carrot, baby heirloom tomatoes, crumbled goat cheese, sliced almonds, a sesame flatbread and some Annie’s balsamic. YUM!

I reunited with an old friend for breakfast:

There’s nothing like it…

• tons of organic baby spinach
• 1 cup almond milk
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 T Amazing Meal
• 1 T almond butter
• 1 T ground flax

My body is saying thank you. Then I packed my lunch for today:

Homemade lentil soup (organic pink lentils, carrot, onion, celery, garlic, diced tomatoes, organic chicken broth and water) – I made a Hugh Jass pot of this on Monday night when I felt like death. I also packed a stoneground whole wheat dinner roll and an apple. I also plan on snacking on some baby carrots and hummus in my fridge at work.

I shall throw in a CLIF Zbar for good measure as a morning snack as well.

Well that is it, ladies and gentlemen! I’m on my way back to my healthy self!

Hiatus Complete

 

Last week I was feeling sleepy, grumpy and quite frankly, a little dopey.  Hence the appearance of those midgets.

I don’t know if it was the time change, the late night stop at White Castle (first time in my 28 years) on Halloween, or disgusting germs circulating my school…perhaps a combo platter of all three.  I was toast.  But now I’m back and ready to go!

I won’t bore you by catching you up to last week.  It involved lots of food, one run, three yoga sessions and lots of early nights to bed.

Monday:

Breakfast:

AB+J Oats – In the mix:

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup each water and almond milk
• 1/2 mashed banana
• pumpkin pie spice
• topped with raspberry fruit spread and almond butter

Snack:  Mini CLIF bar- PB crunch

Lunch:

Morningstar Farms vegan griller burger on a Pepperidge Farm whole wheat Deli Thin (I like these better than Arnold’s Sandwich Thins) with some TJ’s organic ketchup, carrot sticks and hummus and an orange.  Why did I never think to bring a veggie burger to work?  It was awesome!

Snack:

Cinnamon Puffins with almond milk

Dinner:

Oven baked chicken parm and salad.

Last night (I say night because it' was 5 pm, but dark as midnight) was a brisk run. 

Distance:  3.3 miles
Time:  30:27
Avg. Pace:  9:17/mile

I was quite pleased, especially since I walked a few times.  And hooray for a new route.

Speaking of new…

Have you used Gmap Pedometer?  It is fab!  I am usually a big fan of mapmyrun.com, but this is even better!  Check it out!

Have a great Tuesday.  Hooray for Veteran’s Day tomorrow!

Opinions Needed!

If you don’t care what I ate yesterday and just want to know why I need your help, scroll down.

Breakfast:

Pumpkin pie oats – In the mix:

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup each water and almond milk
• 1/2 mashed nana
• vanilla extract
• pumpkin pie spice
• pumpkin butter
• topped with cinnamon raisin swirl PB

Snack:  Chocolate brownie CLIF Zbar

Lunch:

This is a pic from the other day, but my lunch was exactly the same.  I added 1/2 cup strawberries today because I am obsessed with vitamin C.

Dinner:

I ate in two shifts because I was hungry and didn’t want to wait to eat my salad!  I had organic baby spinach with sliced grape tomatoes drizzled with Annie’s balsamic vinaigrette.

The main event was shrimp and quinoa…totally lacking color without that salad!

I marinated the shrimp in olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and red pepper flakes and served it with quinoa cooked in organic, low sodium chicken broth.

I was a bottomless pit last night and ate some “Fig Newmans” and then stole some of Hubber’s Starbursts. 

For a little exercise last night, I did about 20-25 minutes of P90X Yoga X dvd.  I remembered that Hubbers had this when I saw it on Angela’s blog yesterday.  I dug it out and popped that bad boy in.  It was definitely challenging.  I really enjoyed it and will be doing it again in the near future.

I think that my running sneakers (purchased the other day – find out about them here) might be too big.  I did the stupid thing and went online to read reviews and many of the reviews said that the toe box was too wide, especially for narrow feet.  Well my feet are quite narrow and now I’m feeling like they’re no good.  I’m going to try to run in them again today and see what I think.  I can exchange this weekend if I’m not happy, which is great.

Ok…now I need some help.

I have a friend’s bachelorette party coming up.  I bought a skirt last weekend and have the top, shoes and accessories all picked out.  I’m just having trouble with the tights situation. 

Option 1:  no tights…just legs Option 2:  Zig Zag tights    Close-up.  I know they’re crooked on my right leg…I didn’t care enough to fix them. Option 3:  Opaque tights

I would NOT wear these stirrup tights.  These are just an example of black opaque.  I look enough like a ballerina without stirrups.  These tights are a little infamous…holla if you know them!

So that’s all blog readers.  I know you’re out there (my sitemeter tells me so) so it’s time to come out of the wood work and help a sista out.  Which do you like best?  Leave a comment and let me know!

On the Edge

Good morning!  I have to say that I think I’ve been on the edge of a really nasty cold for a few days, but have been successfully fighting it off with this little cocktail:

A multi-vitamin and Emergen-C.  Is 1200 mg in supplemental vitamin C too much?  I think I’m od-ing a little bit.  The other pill is grapeseed extract, which has nothing to do with colds, but does have to do with a beautiful complexion ;)

I just googled too much vitamin C and read an article from the Mayo clinic.  I am definitely od-ing.  Especially since I get a good amount of vitamin C from my diet.  Oh well…a few more days won’t hurt I guess.  I’ll just have Emergen-pee (no?)

Monday was hot yoga day.  I think it was hotter than usual though.  I definitely felt like I might puke once or twice.  A few others in the class said the same.  I took Tuesday off due to aforementioned “almost-cold.”

Here’s a peek at some eaties:

Sunday Dinner:

At Momma’s house… roasted chicken (no skin), green beans, mashed taters, butternut squash, stuffing and cranberry sauce.  It was a veritable feast and I was STUFFED!

Monday:

Breakfast:

Oats in a jar…a jar that really had a little too much left to be used for this purpose!  My oats contained: 

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup almond milk/water
• cinnamon
• mashed naner

Snack:  CLIF ZBar

Lunch:

Lentil vegetable soup, whole wheat pita and an apple.

Snack:

Peach-flavored Chobani

Dinner:

We ordered takeout since my yoga class started and ended a little later than usual and I didn’t get home until 7.  I picked up this beauty on the way:

tomato, mozzarella, basil and balsamic panini.  Heaven.

Tuesday:

Breakfast:

Cranberry apple oats – In the mix;

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup almond milk/water
• mashed nana
• cranberry apple butter
• craisins
• topped with Mighty Maple PB

Snack:  CLIF ZBar

Lunch:

Black bean soup, a grapefruit and…

 

oh former students and your birthdays…you will be the end of me!  I couldn’t resist this donut.  I was hangry.  It was tasty.  I was good and didn’t eat my whole wheat pita with my soup.  That’s a good substitution, right?

Snack:

     Honeycrisp with PB

Dinner:    Penne with turkey meat sauce and roasted Brussels sprouts

 

Well it’s class trip day to the news studio.  It’s rainy and gross.  Lucky us…

A Beautiful, Happy Sunday

Before departing on our little journey, I snacked on a honeycrisp apple with cinnamon raisin swirl PB. The jar is almost empty and is screaming to be used for oats in a jar!

Hubbers, poochie and I headed into the city for a little shoe shopping. The girl who helped me at Jack Rabbit told me I needed a neutral shoe. I wound up with some Saucony’s. As I dreaded, they are a size 10. Just call me big foot :( They’re muy comfy though!

The weather was beautiful! We hung out in Union Square for a bit. Hubbers took a pic of me with my new kicks, but I deleted it by mistake on the way home.

Two little stud muffins

We perused some art,

watched this guy do a little sand art,

grabbed a Starbies soy chai latte and hit up this joint…

mmmmm hmmmmm…

Feast your eyes!

When I got home, I immediately laced up my new kicks and took them for a spin!

Comfy and cute!

And which PB did I choose? How could a girl go home with only one?

So many possibilities! Oats better watch out!

I took my new sneakies for a 5K spin.

Distance: 3.10
Time: 27:35
Avg. Pace: 8:53/mile

Thanks, new shoes! Also, I am happy to say that I’m groin pain free! My shoe consultant said it was most likely just from worn out shoes. Hip-hip-hooray! (pun intended)

I just ate a warm little bowl of chili and now am off to clean this casa.

The Yankees and the Giants are playing tonight. This requires us going to a bar to watch because we require more than one television. We’re meeting up with friends for sports and brewskis! Mom offered to have us over for dinner, so I’m good to go for the night.

I leave you with this because it is making me giddy. Yes, I am 28 years old.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!