Foodie Penpal

I follow/ read many a food and exercise blog. I secretly envy all of the well organized foodie bloggers who have such yummy, creative recipes, great pictures and who have much more interesting and fun ideas than my boring self.

One of my favorite blogs is by Lindsay from The Lean Greenbean
She has a great balance between fitness and food and I have tried many of her recipes.

So I decided that I really wanted to participate in her foodie penpal event this month.
If you do not feel like clicking to learn more, the general idea is you get assigned a person to send a food package to and someone else is assigned to send one to you.

I sent a package to a sweet young woman named Maggie, who is a college athlete. She was kind enough to write about the package she recieved. I am going to post that after my own post.



The package I recieved was from a fellow blogger named Emily from More than Just Dessert.
I was overjoyed when I saw all of the yummy stuff she included. Se was so thoughtful and she even researched my blog to try and find ideas on things I might like.

Here's the stash

Trader Joes Tricolored quinoa: We eat a good amount of quinoa, but I had yet to try the tricolored, so I am super excited to give it a shot.

She also sent some other yummy Trader Joes sweet treats like yogurt colored almonds, chocolate covered cranberries, banana chips, fruit leathers and almond butter. These are all so good and the kids and I were so psyched  to take some of them on our road trip to Vermont. Thank goodness I passed my glucose test the day I got the box so I could sample the goodies myself. The almonds were so good that both my husband and I could not stop eating them.

My FAVE thing of all was this baby right here......




Emily had noticed that I like to make my own pizza and she was so sweet to send me her favorite pizza spice. Let's just say I LOVE my pizza and this spice is really good.

So all and all I had a great penpal experience. The hardest part was deciding what I could send to Maggie. It is really hard to pick things that are good and that might be new to the person recieving it. I would like to do it again, but I might wait until the baby is born because I don't want to end up not being able to get a package to someone as I get closer to my due date.You do not need to be a blogger to participate (Maggie does not have a blog) so check it out!

Here is Maggie's post about the package she recieved from me.

Hi I am Maggie. This was my first time participating in the Foodie Penpal and let’s just say I am hooked now. It was like Caroline knew exactly what I liked or have always thought of trying but never have. Check out all the goodies I received:

 I received the following:

1)      Back to Nature Chocolate Delight Granola. This is my absolute favorite brand of granola to buy and I love this flavor.

2)      Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Larabar. I have never tried this flavor because I wasn’t sure how it would taste since I love my cookie dough. After trying it, I fell in love. It is pretty high up there on my list of favorite Larabar’s now.

3)      Trader Joe’s Sweet, Savory, & Tart Trial Mix Granola Bars. These were so good and make for the perfect morning or afternoon snack to hold you over. I love eating a granola bar right before I work out and these bars were the perfect size for a pre-workout snack

4)      Mestemacher Three Grain Bread. I have yet to try this yet, but I am very anxious too. I love my carbs and love trying new breads out.

5)      Trader Joe’s Orange Flavored Cranberries. I had never tried these before until I got them in the package. I have had blueberry and cherry flavored cranberries, but let me tell you, the orange flavored cranberries make an awesome addition to oatmeal or vanilla ice cream.

6)      Extra Dessert Delights Strawberry Shortcake gum and Sweetriot Dark Chocolate. Let me just say the gum is a perfect lifesaver if you are craving something sweet, but don’t really have anything at your fingertips.  As for the chocolate, this was a very brand of dark chocolate and can definitely see myself buying some more of it in the future.

7)      Trader Joe’s Jasmine Pearls Tea. I haven’t gotten a chance to try this yet, but it sounds like it would be a great flavor.

8)      Clean Eating Magazine. I am a sucker for food magazines and was so excited when I saw this in the package. I love finding new recipes to try!

I would just like to thank Caroline again for the awesome package and if you haven’t signed up yet for the March Foodie penpal, you should definitely consider it. It was a fun experience and one I will be participating in again!

Let's talk food (and water) again...finally!

Alright, I admit..this used to be a food blog and now it is totally NOT.

There is something about morning sickness and pregnancy fatigue that prevents a gal from wanting to talk food. However, I am still taking what I eat very seriously and once I stopped feeling sick I really did start eating better.

I do "cheat" a lot more now. By cheat I mean if I really want something, I get it. I love food and it is nice to give into pregnancy cravings when it is worth it. But I also learned the hard way that if you use pregnancy as an excuse to eat like crap, your body will look MUCH worse post-partum. So I eat as healthy as I can most of the time, and I don't feel to bad if I get a burrito on a random Wednesday night (like say, last night).

So what have I been eating.

Here's a sample pregnancy menu from today:

Breakfast
-Wake up, drink 12 ounces of water (baby and mama feel MUCH better when hydrated)
-Smoothie: scoop of natural whey protein, 1/2 banana, 1/2 cup frozen blueberries, strawberries and raspberries, scoop of natural pnut butter with flax and ice
-1 cup of french vanilla coffee w/ skim milk and 2 tsp turbinado sugar (yes, I drink caffeine while pregnant, judge away if you would like)

Lots of water before work

Mid-morning snack
Low fat string cheese
apple
water, water and more water

Lunch
handful of almonds and handful of dried cranberries
dinner leftovers of taco fixings (chicken, brown rice, black beans and salsa)
water

Late afternoon snack
Rice crispy treat

Dinner
Wild mushroom cous-cous topped with
Sauteed mushrooms, red peppers and garlic topped with black pepper and feta cheese
2 large water with lemon

Late night snack
Chobani Lemon Greek yogurt with chopped pecans mixed in and topped with a squirt of whipped cream
2-4 large glasses of water

And chances are, I will have another rice crispy treat.

This is pretty typical for me. Pregnant or not, I eat a lot of the same things. In my non-preggo world I probably would not have a second crispy treat, or whipped cream on my yogurt...but otherwise pretty typical.

Tomorrow I am having just about the same, except lunch will be leftover mushrooms and couscous and dinner will be homeade spimach, tomato and mushroom pizza on whole wheat crust (one of the family favs)

You might be wondering why I am mentioning ALL the damn water I drink. Well obviously we know water is important, BUT it is especially important to this pregnant chick. I am almost always dehydrated if I don't make a concious effort to drink a TON of water. If I get dehydrated I get day long headaches. My water intake really effects my ability to function. So yeah, that's what's with the water.

I love food and I especially love cooking with as many fresh veggies as possible. I look forward to getting back into clean eating and blogging about my post-pregnancy body stuff.

But until then...I will continue to grow a healthy little baby and hope my butt doesn't grow as fast as my belly.

A health and fitness post to kick off the New Year

I started this blog a little over a year ago. At that time it had a heavy focus on my journey through post pregnancy weight loss, healthy eating and lifting weights/ fitness. Then by the summer I had reached my goal. We were eating clean. I was exercising and lifting heavy and I was down to my lowest weight since my very early 20's.

In August I stopped nursing my daughter, put back on about 5lbs, which was probably a more realistic weight for my body and kept up my routine for another month. In September we were shocked to find out I was pregnant. We were sort of trying, but I hadn't even got my period back from nursing.

Fast forward a few weeks and enter morning sickness...or better yet, ALL DAY sickness. It was bad, really bad. I had constant migraines and was literally on the verge of puking ALL day. I stopped eating my usual healthy, veggie rich diet and ate whatever I could keep down. For a few days that was plain noodles. It was tough because I felt horrible and knew I was taking steps backwards in all I had accomplished.

As I entered the 2nd trimester things went back to almost normal. I haven't been eating AS healthy but I am at least getting more variety. I have been pretty exhausted and that leads to less cooking, but I am hoping that might change.

The one bright spot in the early pregnancy woes is that I was pretty good about getting to the gym. I believe I had one really bad week where I only made it once, but otherwise I have gone at least 3 days a week. Sure, it isn't as good as the 5 I was going before, but I am okay with that at this point. Now that I am feeling much better I have been going 4 days. It helps me keep a balance, 3 mornings of "sleeping in" (which means 6;6:30) and 4 morning of early wake-ups and fitness.

So that is where I am at right now. I am just ending a nice, long vacation and I feel well-rested. My husband is back to wanting to eat as clean as possible and so I am hoping with his encouragement we can do a bit better in our diet through this second half of pregnancy.

I have tried to keep my workouts to at least two days of strength training, so what does that look like for me? Here's what I did this morning:

-20 minutes, high intensity intervals on the elliptical (I find I need a longer warm-up to get this preggo body going)

-3x's 10 of romanian deadlifts

Alternating sets of
 One leg, leg presses on press machine (3x's 12) 40 lbs
Lat pull downs (3x's 10) 50 lbs

Alternating sets of
Free weight shoulder press (3x's 10)
Squats on reebok core bored w/ 20 lb kettlebell raises (3x's 12)

Alternating sets of
Kettle bell oblique sidebends (15 lbs in each hand x's 3 sets)
Various ab work with 10 lb medicine ball (3x's 15)

End with stretching with foam roller (hurts go good)

As you can see, it is nothing too crazy, but hopefully will keep me strong enough that I will not have to start at square one after delivering this little girl.

Dear 2012, be good to us.....

It's New Years Eve. Christmas has come and gone and that is always bitter sweet. It is such a wonderful time of year, but dang does it involve lots of work and clean up.

Of course it is all worth it for these two peanuts:

                                                    Reading with daddy on Christmas Eve

                                                      The loot on Christmas morning

                                              The Village Green all decorated for Christmas.                  

                                           Charlotte is proud that she can explore on her own.

And of course, Mama and her babies dreaming about Santa.

So we say goodbye to Christmas. We also said goodbye to our family who came to stay with us. The kids had a blast playing with their cousins and it was fun to have a house full of craziness.

Now I have a few days to relax, even though it is oddly quiet around here.

Tonight we will have a New Years Eve pajama party with some close friends who have kiddos who are the same age as ours. It is perfect for us. We make lots of good food, let the kiddos play, and usually don't make it even close to midnight. It is nice to hang out with people who get the fact that having little ones is not conducive to staying up late and partying.

In the spirit of New Year, I need to make my resolutions.

Here is my resolution from last year: NYE

We did pretty damn good with this one until about 2 months ago. As the pregnancy exhaustion set in, clean eating suddenly became less clean, I was easily tempted by Dunkin Donuts trips and pizza takeout sounded so easy and tempting.

This vacation is helping me get back on track and is a great time for resolutions. I do feel like I should give myself positive credit. I started this blog in December of last year, 6 months post baby and 154 lbs. I weigh less than that now at 21 weeks pregnant but more importantly I feel much better about how I am living my life. I still make exercise and eating healthy and priority and although staying healthy while pregnant is not easy, and I have my slip ups, I do feel like I have made some very positive, permanent changes in my life.

I am looking forward to going back to using myfitnesspal.com, working out harder and getting back to my best shape (135 lbs and muscular) after the baby is born.

So with all of that in mind, here are my resolutions for 2012:

No dunkin donuts coffee (unless we are on a road trip or someone brings it to me) and using the Kuerig instead.

Try more clean eating recipes

Get the kids to eat healthier and make better food choices on their own

Spend more time on simple pleasures that don't cost (knitting, long walks, etc)

Flirt with my husband more: It is really hard to keep the spark alive when you have a honeymoon baby followed by two more babies, all in a less than 5 years. As our 5 year anniversary approaches and I am finally done with pregnancy and eventually nursing, we need to work on that spark.

Go back to following New Rules of Lifting for Women

Start working out (slowly) 2-3 weeks after baby as long as I have a normal delivery.

Start to really accept and enjoy where I live and stop investigating moves to other places

Get to the beach on almost every nice day this summer, even though it will be next to impossible with 3 kids

Have a better garden with more variety

Get more chicks and merge them successfully with the rest of the flock

Actually finish some knitting projects.

Happy New Year. I wish you all great joy, health and lots of love in 2012!

I must stop eating

My eating was out of control the last few day. I am hungry all the time and I need to get my crap under control. As much as I would love to be a stay at home mom, I would most certainly have trouble keeping my self out of the fridge. I need a schedule to maintain my healthy eating patterns.

Today I made a major Trader Joes trip and scheduled my meal plan for the week. So if I stick to it and stop grazing, I will be good.

here's a brief outline for the week:
Tonight: large Greek salad with lots of veggies and almond slices
Tomorrow: Spinach and mozzarella stuffed turkey loaf over caper and lemon brown rice
Tuesday: Seafood stir fry with wheat lo-mein and broccoli
Wednesday- Turkey meatballs over homemade tomato/ veggie sauce over pasta
Thursday: Lemon pepper chicken over quinoa with peppered Brussel sprouts
Friday: Burritos with chicken, tomatoes, cheddar, black beans and avocado on lo carb wraps
Saturday- Pizza from our favorite pizza joint, because I can't be THAT good while I have hormones ragging!

I'd like to believe the baby is having a growth spurt, but I think I am just looking for an excuse to keep eating.

At least I went to the gym a lot this week. That's one thing to feel good about. I simply cannot go without meal planning EVER..it's a disaster waiting to happen.

I'm 16 weeks preggo this week and other than my over-eating, I am feeling good. Sometimes though, I'd really love a nap. I remember when I was pregs with my first child and I could nap all freaking weekend. I haven't had a nap (other than one that was a remedy for a migraine) in years. I miss sleep. Sleep is glorious And on that note I am off to bed at 8pm because I am old, sleep-deprived, pregnant and I must go to the gym in the morning.

Joe is my hero

Joe, of Trader Joe's is my secret lover...

I'm pretty sure he is not a real person, so I think it's okay to say this.

I made the treck to the big city of Hyannis. If you don't know Cape Cod, this is kind of a joke. Hyannis is not a big city, however it is the only place on the Cape with a mall and is where you have to go if you really need to buy anything. It also is home to a lot of trashtasticness, so I try to avoid it. BUT they do have a Trader Joe's....so I have to take a trip every few weeks.

Why to I love TJ's so much? Well back when I was a fat a$$ less healthy person, I loved it because I was lazy and they have great frozen food and premade stuff. Now I like it because you can get several clean eating staples for a fraction of the cost of other places.

I have blogged abou this before and don't want to restate everything I buy there.

However, I will mention a few things that are a bargain:
1. sesame seed oil
2. precut stirfry veggies (you get a lot of variety for the price)
3. preseasoned brussel sprouts (seriously, give them a try..I promise they are not what you think) a recipe will come later this week
4. whole wheat flour
5. premade, fresh salsa
6. organic apples
7. organic whole wheat pasta
8. organic, free range chicken breast
9. light organic string cheese
10. extra firm tofu
11. Raw Almonds and dreied fruit (VERY good price)

Good prices, healthy food and excellent-non-trashy employees= who wouldn't love this place?

Food, Work, Life

Before I say anything, let me start with some pictures of  recipes I have tried in the past week:


Sweet Potatoe and spinach Hash with Turkey Bacon, Poached Eggs and Cheddar Cheese



Grilled portabella mushrooms in balsamic topped with slices of tomatoe, mozerella and basil




Broiled Salmon with tomatoes and feta on top of Greek quinoa (quinoa, garlic, spinach, red peppers and greek olives)



Tilapia fish tacos with greek yogurt chipoltle


 I LOVE food. If you would like any of these recipes, just let me know and I will post. Someday maybe I will get a good camera so these pics don't look so bad. I have not posted in forever for two main reasons- 1) I started back at work.2) We live near the cost, which means we prepared for the hurricane (which was a bad tropical storm here) and we lost power and then the internet/ cable for a few days.  Starting a new school year is exhausting. I am going to have to really be disciplined if I am going to keep cooking and working out. So far so good. I am on workout sets 7 of NROLFW and I haven't slacked on that at all, which I do MWF.  The summer is over for me, but it was a good one. I am trying not to get down on myself about all the things I didn't accomplish during my weeks off, like the million lessons I should have planned, all the cabinets I didn't clean out and a less than stellar garden. Instead I will reflect on what I did accomplish: 1.A killer tan2. An amazing trip out West 3. Logging serious time in my beach chair4. Getting Liam to love the ocean water.5. Celebrating my baby girls first birthday.6. Celebrating the engagment and wedding of great friends.7. Growing some nice fresh herbs and tomatoes8. Cleaning out my closet and donating 2 lawn bags full of clothes.9. Teaching my son how to recognize letters.10. And most importantly, spending some quality time as a stay at home mom. Who cares if I never got to the bank to deal with our bank accounts? I had LOTS OF FUN! 

Tofu stir fry: because I need more meatless dishes

This is sort of my own recipe, but I do confess That it is really a mix of many recipes and based on what I had in the cabinet.

If you check in with me on the regular then you know that I don't really measure anything out, so this is all estimates.

What you need:
1 block extra firm tofu drained. I like to take mine out in the morning, layer paper towels on a plate and put more on top and leave it in the fridge so the liquid all comes out. Cut tofu into 1 inch blocks.

Honey
Low sodium soy sauce
Red pepper flakes
Sesame seeds
2 tablespoons sesame seed oil
Any mix of stir fry veggies that you like. Trader Joes makes a nice prepackaged mix.
Soba, or other stir fry friendly pasta of choice. I used wheat spaghetti because it was all I had. Soba noodles would have been better.

In a large bowl mix 1/2 cup soy sauce and a few sprinkles of pepper flakes, honey to taste, the sesame seed oil and sesame seeds.You want enough mixture to coat tofu and have extra to put in veggies. I kept tasting it until it was good.


Add tofu to mixture and mix to coat
Put bowl in fridge to marinate for about 30 minutes

Heat oven to 375
Place tofu on sprayed pan and bake for 15 minutes, turn tofu and bake for another 15,or until Golden

While tofu is cooking, boil pasta..but only cook it 3/4 of the way

Stir fry veggies in a little bit of sesame oil

Mix in noodles and the remainder of the marinade and cook for 2more minutes.

Mix everything together and enjoy.

Here what it looked like:









- Posted using BlogPress from my




Another one of my goals is to improve my blogging. Now that I have an ipad, picture taking for the blog is much easier. This is my practice post.

P.s. If you really hate tofu, you could make the same marinade for chicken. Tofu is something I have learned to love and this recipe makes it sort of crunchy, which is how I like it best.




iPadp

NROLFW and other stuff

I just returned from the gym and my official day one of the New Rules of Lifting for Women program. I will now refer to the program as NROLFW because it is easier and because it makes me sound hip and exercise savvy.

Day one was pretty easy, but I am really getting why it will help build muscle. Originally I considered skipping level one, because I had been lifting a lot and thought it might be too easy. But after really thinking about the program I realized that since it is about lifting heavier weights, not how much you exercise, that I had better start at the bottom. This was good because I had also spent the last two weeks eating road food, sitting on my butt in an RV and NOT lifting anything more than my two crazy kids.

So here is what level one, workout A involved:
 15 minutes warmup on arc trainer (not part of the program, but required when your body is still asleep at 5am)
2 sets of 15 squats with squat bar, 10 lbs on each side

Alternating sets of:
Pushups, 2 sets of 15...Did I ever mention that I SUCK at pushups and even 30 girly pushups is seriously hard for me?

Seated Rows, 2 sets of 15 with 40 lbs

Alternating sets of:
Step ups, 2 sets of 15 with 15 lb dumbells. I used a aerobics step with 4 extensions on each side.

Jackknife prones, 2 sets of 8. If you do not know what these are, I seriously suggest you youtube these are try them. They are freaking killer in a burn sooo good kind of way.

And that was it. Now so bad right? If you get the book you will know that the stress is quality, not quantity. You are only supposed to lift every other day, so tomorrow I will be doing intervals on the arc trainer or I'll go for a long hike or something. I will continue to check in and let you know how I am doing. Day 1 is DONE.

Now on to even more important things like EATING. I am going to try and post my weekly menus here when possible. It helps me stay on track and maybe, just maybe someone out there cares about what I am eating. So here is this week's. There isn't anything too new, so I doubt I will do any recipes:

Monday-
Spicy Grilled chicken with veggies kabobs (cherry tomatoes and squash). Sadly I will not be eating this, as I have a funeral to go to and will most likely have a subway sandwich...but it is what I am preparing for the family.

Tuesday-
Ground turkey meatloaf stuffed with light mozzarella, peppers and spinach...served with broccolini

Wednesday-
Tofu stiryfry with toasted tofu and mixed veggies (peppers, mushrooms, baby corn, bok choy, etc.) on brown rice

Thursday-
Spicy shrimp bowl found here

Friday-
Fish tacos, found here

Saturday-
Veggie pizza on whole wheat crust and Greek salad.

Sounds good right? I love to eat, and eating healthy can be good eating.

My babies and when health backfires

I just have to brag about my kids here for a second. i just love them to pieces (as all mama's do) and I think they are just so great. Despite the infrequent melt-downs (like the one my son had at the fair last night) they are so sweet and kind. My son has such great manners and listens to others. He shares with other kids and I love that I can let him be when we are with other families and not worry that he is going to hurt someone or be unkind.

I think of them when I am at the gym or feeling lazy. I want them to live healthy, active lives and I know I need to lead by example. I make a TON of mistakes when it comes to parenting my babies. It is seriously freaking hard work. I get down on myself about it a lot...but all in all I have some pretty fabulous kids so I must be doing something right.

Here they are:

Sorry...I was just in the mood to brag about them.

Now onto my health backfiring.

 Last night we went to the County Fair. I am not going to lie, I LOVE me some fair food. I could seriously eat my face off at those things. I knew I needed to get some dinner and I tried my best to be good. I decided on a steak tip/ veggies and rice platter. Now this was probably hugely high in calories and fat. I know for sure the veggies were cooked in tons of oil. But I also knew I would be getting some nutritional value, as the plate did have a good balance of veggies and protein. I also knew it would fill me up so I didn't cave to all the sweet and fried treats.

Well on my third bite of the steak I coughed and sucked a huge piece of steak into my throat. My husband had to give me the Heimlich in front of a huge crowd  of people and some of our friends. I totally drooled on the table and everything. After a few seconds it came up. Holy scary! I should have just got the damn fried dough like I really wanted.

Happy to be alive today.

.

Recipe, Depressing Music and Vacations

I am feeling a bit random lately, and so is this entry;

After gaining a few lbs the last week or so, I was careful to clean up my diet again and decided to try out a few new recipes.

The one I am sharing is not my own. It is from Fitness Magazine. It can be found HERE.

It is for Fish Tacos.
I have never been too big into fish tacos, but my husband LOVES them. He seriously orders them whenever he can. I really liked these. They had so many different flavors going on and were fresh and fun.
The only modifications I made were that I added extra Tabasco to the sauce and I used less mayonnaise. I also used canned corn because I didn't have frozen. The key is to be sure you do NOT cook the corn or black beans. I also added fresh cilantro because we have a ton on hand. I used he bagged coleslaw mix because it had a few more veggies in it and I got low-carb/ calorie tortillas. I also sprinkled on a small amount of cheddar cheese
I tripled the recipe and we both had 3 tacos. 1-lb of Tilapia was more than enough for 6 tacos and a little bit left for the kids. My guess is that for 3 tacos I ate about 700-800 very fulfilling calories.

This morning my daughter decided to wake up at 4am to eat. I fed her and put her back to sleep and decided it was pointless to go back to bed for 30 minutes, so I downloaded some new music before heading to the gym. As I listened to my playlist I realized that I have a tendency to depress myself with music. The majority of my songs have some sort of depressing theme. I don't consider myself a sad person, so I started thinking about what draws me to this type of music. My theory is that I like reflecting on my past, and somehow depressing music pulls out the raw emotions I have experienced over the years. Somehow this converts into adrenaline. For example, if I am listening to a song that makes me think of what a jerk an old ex-boyfriend is, it pushes me to workout harder. Interesting? I think so, but as you can see I am big of being reflective.

Some of my favorite depressing songs:
Third Eye Blind: How's it Gonna be
Limp Bizkit: Break Stuff
Keith Urban: Stupid Boy
Justin Timberlake: Cry me a River
Linkin Park: In the End
Jay-Z: Young Forever (probably not depressing, but makes me sad)
Christina Perri: Jar of Hearts
Garbage: I'm Only Happy When it Rains

And of course the King and depressing hip hop: Eminem. I like many of his songs, but I REALLY love Love The Way You Lie.

Now you may want to try and psycho-analyze me based on the fact that my favorite song is about an abusive relationship....but I assure you there isn't much to it. I just like this type of music. I must be a weirdo. I do however have several other upbeat songs going for myself..but you might judge me even more if I told you about my booty shaking playlist..that's a whole other post.

Now onto the subject of vacation. In 10 days we are leaving for Montana!!! Wohoo. I am so excited. We are going for TWO WHOLE WEEKS. I love, love, love long vacations. This one will be filled with hikes in the woods, sitting by one of the most beautiful lakes in the country, early morning sunrise with coffee, boats, fishing, RV's, rodeos with real cowboys.sState fairs, four wheeling, laughing with my dad, driving around aimlessly and just a lot of laid back fun. So I will be spending the next ten days packing and preparing, because that's what mama's do. Here is where we are going:

I cannot wait.

Summer Clean Eating

I love summer cooking because it is light, easy, and the grill just makes things so good. Plus it is a great excuse to make the husband (a.k.a grillman) help with the cooking.

Here is one of my favorite clean eating summer dinners. Sadly, I prepped this meal tonight and remembered at the last second my son had a karate lesson and had to stuff my face in the car with a Subway sandwich instead. But this will be tomorrow night's dinner:

Pineapple and Red Pepper with Soysauce chicken:

What you need:
A chicken breast for each person you need to feed
1 minced clove garlic per breast
fresh ground ginger to taste (I love ginger and use a lot)
Low sodium soy sauce. I use 1/2 cup for 4 chicken breasts..so adjust accordingly
Sliced pineapple
Sliced Red Peppers..I use one whole
3-4 scallion or green onions

In zip lock bag or container cover chicken breast with soy sauce, garlic and ginger, seal and set in fridge for several hours (the longer the better but 1-2 hours will do)

On med/ high heat grill chicken breast, pineapple and red pepper. It helps to coat grill with a high heat oil.
Serve over brown rice and topped with chopped up green onions or scallions.

Easy and good. I have also added papaya on the grill..which is very good too.

Slave to the scale

There are so many resons why you should not weight yourself every day. Of course I am not very good at following this advice.

I do like to weigh myself to motivate me and to be sure I am staying on track. However, daily weigh ins are silly because you can swing several pounds in a matter of a day.

Water retention, how hydrated you are, bathroom cycles, salt intake, etc....all play into what the number on the scale says.

Two days ago I weighed myself and I was 130lbs. This morning I weighed in and was 135! Now, clearly I did not gain 5 lbs of fat in just two days (even though I did eat some nasty fair food at the fireworks). However, it is still a horrible feeling to see a bigger number from one day to the next.

Here is something to keep in mind when the numbers on the scale are not what you expect:

One pound of fat = 3500 calories. So unless you are eating an extra 350 calories 10 days in a row, you are not gaining a full pound of fat.

This tells you two things:

1. Unless you pig out on 3500 EXTRA calories in a day (that is some serious indulgence) then there is no way you can have gained one-two lbs of fat in a day. This means those numbers on the scale that jump from one day to the next, are most likley a result of being constipated or bloated (lovely!)

2. If you are gaining lots of weight it means you are eating way too much. When I think about why I weighed 10 lbs more for the past few years, it sort of grosses me out because I know I was eating too many empty calories.

So, I am taking a break from the scale for a few days. I am also trying to get back on track with my water drinking. Drinking tons of water seems to help keep my numbers low because it reduces water retention and keeps my digestion regular.

A recipe...finally

I have been way too lazy to type up a new recipe, but I liked this so I will share.

Greek veggies with wheat cous-cous

What you need:
1 medium eggplant, washed and peeled and thinly sliced
1 bunch of asparagus with ends snapped off
1 cup whole wheat cous-cous, cooked according to directions (I sub maragrine with olive oil)
1/4 cup sundried tomtaoes (the kind that is NOT packed in oil) diced into small pieces)
1/2 cup feta cheese

Brush veggies with a very small amount of olive oil and add your favorite seasoning. I just used some fresh herbs and a tiny bit of sea salt.

1. Grill eggplant and asparagus for a few minutes on each side
2. In a sprayed glass baking dish , spread out cous-cous all over the bottom
3. Sprinkle 1/2 of the feta over cous-cous
4. Spread out grilled veggies and sundried tomatoes over feta
5. Add remainder of feta
6. Bake in 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes.

YUMMY! This is a great side dish for your grilled meat and is clean eating.

Health check in

My brother in law and nephew are staying with us this week, which is great...except for the fact that my eating was OUT OF CONTROL yesterday. They brought home pizza, I arrived home from work starving and I ate my face off.

I seriously felt sooo sick this morning. It felt like I had a bad hangover. Since we started eating clean I am not used to the extra sodium and carbs. It was so bad that I didn't make it to the gym..which isn't a good thing after a night of binging.

However, for the most part we have stuck to our healthy eating. We still go for frozen yogurt too much, but otherwise we are doing well.

I am holding strong at about 132lbs and hitting the gym at least 4 days a week. I feel stronger lately and have been lifting heavier weights. I even did some real (not girly) pushups the other day and I could NEVER do those.

I will be attempting to stop nursing my daughter in the next few weeks. My plan is to go back to calorie counting for a little while. Especially since the stopping of nursing coincides with me being done with work for the summer. I know I will need some help staying on track. I am going to do myfitnesspal.com and see if I can keep my weight where it is. I will also try to workout getting to the gym at least 5 days a week.

We are going on a 2 week vacation in the middle of the summer and I know I need to go into it in really good shape so I don't fall totally off track.

Only other big healthy/ life related factor is that we need to face the decision of if we want to have a 3rd child...GULP. I am the worst at making huge decisions. We always said we wanted 3 kids...but the thought of doing this all over again scares me. Hmmmm...........................

Clean Eats

I just haven't felt like talking food in a while, but I do still work pretty hard at clean eating. I still follow a weekly meal plan and am getting very excited for fresh veggie season. We will be planting our garden in the next week or so.

Here are some things I have been diggin' on lately-

Whole wheat cous-cous from Trader Joes. I love cous-cous, but hadn't found a whole wheat version. This one is good. What I like about cous-cous is that it picks up the flavor of all the veggies you put in it.

Natural Chunk Peanut Butter, the 365 brand from Whole foods
This is the best natural peanut butter yet. It only contains peanuts and salt. I love it melted on a mini-wheat bagel. I also melt it and dip frozen fruit in it.

Fresh Basil
I really could eat basil every day. I love it with tomatoes and mozerella, in any pasta dish and especially in pesto. Good thing I have some growing so I can eat it right off the plant

Speaking of pesto
If you take a head of broccoli, put it in the food processor, add some pine nuts and a few cloves of garlic, some basil and a little bit of olive oil..you have an ever better for you version of pesto that is fabulous as a pasta sauce.

Cranberries
I eat dried cranberries with a handful of raw almonds almost everyday. They are like grown-up fruit snacks.

-C

Best dieting advice ever

Is to eat!

Seriously. This is something someone neglected to tell me in my early 20's. The best way to keep your metabolism healthy and active is to eat several small meals in a day and to never let yourself feel hungry.

Why do woman feel like starving themselves is ever going to lead to a healthy weight? Eating lots of good, healthy food is working for me. I wish someone had mentioned this to me 10 years ago. They also probably should have mentioned that vodka and Bucsh light is not a food group.

Live and learn.

Interesting clean eats

First I must report on my gym goings: It is FABULOUS and I am really enjoying it. I went Mon, Wed, Fri and Sunday and every workout was pretty good. Every muscle in my body hurts and it was great to have some me time.

On the clean eating front, we are still doing pretty well. I did endulge in a bag of whole wheat tortilla chips and have been eating it with a fabulous raspberry salsa,  and my neighbor did bring over warm chocolate chips cookies of which I ate 3...but otherwise we haven't cheated much.

My lovely and talented sister in-law has been trying some new recipes and she just shared an interesting one with me. I tried it tonight and it was pretty good.

I'll call in Fake Alfredo

If you like Alfredo sauce, but hate the HORRIBLE fat content and the stomachache it gives you to eat straight up cream..this is an inteersting substitute.

The original recipe was:

IngredientsTofu, firm, 1 block Do NOT drain!
Parmesan Cheese, grated, 1/2 cup
*Onion powder, 1 tbsp
Garlic powder, 1 tbsp

Directions
DO NOT DRAIN TOFU! Puree all ingredients together in a blender until well mixed. Add additional water to mixture to reach desired consistency. Let sit about 2 hours to absorb flavors. Heat over low heat in a heavy saucepan until warm. Serve over favorite pasta.

**Upon my sister inlaws suggestion I sauteed fresh galic and onions instead of powder and added more than suggested.
I also added some seasalt, black pepper and some ground red pepper.

It was really good. It didn't have the richness that real alfredo has...but it was tasty. I really liked adding the red pepper, but we like spicy.

My sister inlaw also suggested a VERY clean idea of putting it on spaghetti squash instead of pasta. I thought this was brilliant. I used to eat spaghetti squah as a pasta sub. all the time and had sort of forgot about it.

I love spaghetti squash because it has a lot of great vitamins AND you can cook it in the microwave.

I served my fake pasta and fake alfredo with a nice piece of haddock to which I added lemon, pepper and  a light coating of wheat bread crumbs.

Not a bad combination. My only complaint is that I was still very hungry afterwards. I think I didn't have enough calories today. So I had a banana with melted peanut butter...YUM!

Clean Eats

It's been a while since I talked food...I haven't made too many new things. But tonight's dish was fab.

I think I'll call it Italian Scallops.

I warn you. I don't actually measure out anything unless I am baking. So my measurements are always a guesstimate.

What you need:
2 plum tomatoes, diced
6 ounces spinach, chopped
4-5 leaves of fresh oregano
2 gloves minced garlic
1/4 cup shaved parmesan or asiago
10-12 large scallops
olive oil
pasta of choice (I used left over soba noodle and it was YUMMY)

Heat about two full swirls of olive oil on med/high heat
add garlic and oregano
add scallops and brown one side
Flip scallops and add tomatoes and spinach on top
Continue to stir until scallops are almost done. (3-5 minutes)
Add a few sprinkles of cheese and stir until cheese blends
Divide pasta and top pasta with remaining cheese.
Divide scallops and sauce onto pasta to serve.

YUUUUUMMMY. I cannot even believe I ever ate sauce from a jar. GROSS!!!!!

P.S. Trader Joes sells a great fresh parmesan, romano, asiago shaved blend.

Menu Planning

Do you do it?

This is so important for me for 2 reasons:
1. I am not as tempted to stray from healthy eating
2. I save money and am prepared.

I try to plan our menu on Sunday. The last 2 weeks were pretty crazy. I had a late class on a few nights and then we went away, so menu planning was sporatic.

Now I am back on a regular schedule and am glad to have my menu planned through Saturday.

Here is this week's clean eats:

Monday-
Soba noodles with:
garlic, mushrooms, red peppers, feta cheese and green onions

Tuesday:
Spinach and pepper Fritatas with sweet potatoe hash browns

Wednesday:
brown rice topped with  ground turkey, tomatoes and spinach

Thursday:
Asian rice bowl with spicy chili chicken, cucumbers, carrots, avacado, ginger and toasted sesame seeds

Friday:
wheat wrap flank steak burritos with black beans, veggies and cheese

Saturday:
Turkey and veggie lasagna with brown rice noodles (best recipe ever) Find it here

No cheating this week. I got this!