Fit Healthy Fun

Stress Relief

I’ve been under a LOT of stress at work lately.  Stress is no fun, but it’s definitely helping me get my mileage in!  Here’s some runs from this week.  I’ll work backwards with Sunday’s long run.  I had scheduled 7 miles, but took a wrong turn on my route somewhere and wound up doing 9.  It was cold, windy and rainy.  It wasn’t pleasant.  But I did it!  I reset the Garmin after 7 miles since I paced for 7 and was pretty tired toward the end.  The good news is that if I can run 9 miles, I can do 13.1.  Even better news is that I did it under my half marathon goal time!  Here are the stats from my Garmin:

Miles 8 and 9:

Here’s Thursdays’s 4 miles:

A pretty delish lunch on Saturday – salad with romaine, red onion, beets and a half slice of sicilian pizza on a paper towel plate.  Klassy.

Dinner tonight was pretty fantastic.  I marinated shrimp in olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic, S + P and red pepper flakes for about 15 minutes and then threw them on the grill.  I served the shrimp over Israeli couscous mixed with broccoli and grape tomatoes and flavored it with garlic powder, olive oil and two slices of lemon.  ‘Twas tasty.

I was hungry for a sweet snack.  AKA it was BALL TIME!  I whipped up a batch of Averie’s chocolate cherry balls.  These were EPIC!  Totally delish.

It’s time to drink some peppermint tea, snuggle with the husbo and hit the hay early – daylight savings always takes a few days to get used to for me!

A Long(er) Run

My training plan called for 5 miles on Sunday, but I ran 5 miles last Sunday and was ready for a little more.  So 6 miles it was.  It felt great to be outside, running in the sunshine.  The husbo came along on his bike, which was great because he took a water bottle and gave me the two glorious sips I needed to get me through.  Here are the stats from my Garmin:

I’m pretty proud of my mile splits.  It was a great run!  (Check out those max paces – weeee!)

Before my run, I had a delicious breakfast.

TJ’s French toast with some maple syrup and cinnamon and a green smoothie light style – spinach, almond milk, a banana and some ice.

Post run was a little tasting plate:

Two carrots, sugar snap peas, mini whole wheat pitas with spinach and artichoke hummus and some leftover sweet potato cheetahs from the other night.  Cheetahs and ketchup were eaten first and ketchup was removed from the plate promptly.  I have issues.

Dinner tonight was pretty fantastic.

TJ’s lobster ravis with salad and creamy tomato sauce.  I found the recipe in this month’s Fitness magazine.  It was two cups of marinara sauce with a little less than a cup of fat free Greek yogurt.  Delish!

Creamy goodness.

After dinner I made this lovely creation.  Brown rice/chia pudding.  You’ll have to stay tuned for the recipe.  It’s a winner!

I did tomorrow’s scheduled 4 miler today since I’m volunteering at a fundraiser tomorrow after work and have a meeting before work.  I must say, I now understand why people take ice baths.  My legs were feeling heavy and achey when I was through.  I did some may-jah stretching and iced my knees for about 25 minutes.  Good thing I have a day of rest tomorrow and only two miles scheduled for Wednesday!

Give Me Back My Filet o’ Fish

Last night, I made a tasty new recipe:

Lime-Scented Orange Roughy from Cooking Light.  TJ’s was out of orange roughy, so I went with tilapia.  White fishes are usually interchangeable, right?

Baby spinach and carrots sauteed in a little olive oil and garlic – put them on your sheet of foil.

Add your filet o’ fish and top with your tasty liquid mixture.

Fold your foil into a packet and bake for 20 minutes at 400* and out comes that tasty little dinner.  Dump your sauce on top and you’re ready to go.

In other eating activities,

I created one of the most delicious desserts ever:

Frozen berries, a scoop and a half of vanilla bean coconut ice “cream” and a drizzle of TJ’s Midnight Moo organic chocolate syrup.

mmmmmmmmmm.

Tonight’s dinner was a turkey burger, whole wheat bun, cheetah sweet potatoes and a salad of romaine, spinach, grape tomatoes carrot and red onion.

Delish!

Snuggling up with my snuggie and my hubbie and watching Jim and Pam’s baby come tonight…who’s excited?

Three cheers for Friday tomorrow!  I got some great news at work today, so I’m going into my weekend a happy camper.  I’m taking a day off from working out tonight since I did two speedy runs in a row.  So tomorrow is a run and yoga moves to Saturday.  Now that I’ve explained that to you… here is some bloggy house-keeping.

Danica is hosting a great giveaway from her Open Sky store and One Fit Foodie is giving away some tea!  Check them out!

Mucho March-o

Happy March!  March brings lots of things that make me excited:

1. Daylight savings time – I don’t love losing an hour of sleep, but I love longer hours of sunshine!
2. SPRING – I am so done with winter and cannot wait for the milder temperatures and flowers blooming!
3. Spring Training – The games don’t count, but I love when a little major league baseball is being played.
4. St. Patrick’s Day – I’m an Irish girl.  Loves me some bagpipes and pints.
5. Spring Break – Yes, another vacation!  Hopefully I’ll get to visit my brother in LA.

So there you have it, my top five reasons I’m giddy about March.

I just finished a kick butt workout on the treadmill.  Funny that the nights when I don’t really feel like working out turn out to be my best workouts!

After that sequence, I repeated these speeds and inclines until I hit 2.5 miles.  Then I started switching speeds based on miles since I didn’t want to go back down to the slower intervals:

The whole 3.5 miles took me 31:19 to complete – a pace of 8:56 per mile.  Weeeeeee!  I was blasting tunes to keep me moving and finished my workout with a half mile of brisk walking to cool down.

Here are some beautiful eats from the past few days:

Chocolate-covered Strawberry Shake (a take on the cherry bomb without cherries)

• 1.5 cups almond milk
• a hefty handful of baby spinach
• 1 cup frozen strawberries
• 1 banana
• 2 T cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup vanilla hemp protein powder

Verdict?  Not as good as the chocolate cherry bomb, but an acceptable substitute.

The return of soup!  I had TJ’s Lentil Vegetable.  I’ve been steering away from soup ever since I heard about potential BPA in cans.  I checked TJ’s and the lining of the can looks like it doesn’t contain the BPA, but is simple aluminum.  I hope I’m right!

Next up on the weekend goodies?  Averie’s Raw Vegan Cheesecake.  Click that link for the recipe.  It’s pretty darn tasty.

Husbo’s reaction to these little nuts – “Why are there cashews swimming in the kitchen?”  It was a legit question.

Creamy deliciousness.

I have to say, this dessert didn’t taste like cheesecake to me.  It is delicious and I’ll definitely make it again, but I just can’t call it a substitute for cheesecake.  I’m not even cheesecake’s biggest fan, so this tasty treat does just fine for me!

What about March makes you excited?  What’s your favorite healthy dessert substitution?

I’m How Old?

This morning I was browsing through my Google reader after my delish breakfast (more on that in a second) and I came across Angela’s post about a real age test she took.  I was instantly interested and filled out the questionnaire to figure out my real age.

I’ll start by telling you that my calendar age is 28.6 according to the test.  Curious about my “Real Age?”

Glad to be younger than older of course.  I’ll take a 4+ year difference!  You can find the Real Age test online here.  It’s a little lengthy, but interesting for sure.

I completed my scheduled 3.5 miles on the ‘mill.  I have to do something to keep myself into it when I’m running on the treadmill sometimes.  Just running at a consistent pace or incline is not interesting enough for me.  Here’s a look at my run:

I repeated that sequence until the 3.5 miles was complete at a 1.5% incline  – three times through and a little push at the end as opposed to the 4.5 mph.  I wound up finishing the 3.5 miles in 31:23, averaging a pace of 8:58/mile.  Not too shabby.

After my run I did a 60-minute podcast from Yoga Download since my usual afternoon Hot Yoga class was cancelled due to weather.  I chose “Yoga for Runners.”  It was appropriate and included some nice core work as well as some much-needed hip-openers.

On to this morning’s aforementioned breakfast:

Another Cherry Chocolate BOMB shake!  Same modifications as yesterday, but this time I added spinach for a dose of veggies.  I’ve seen this around the blog world and gave it a whirl.  It did not disappoint!

I had a tasty mid-morning snack as well.  The husbo had some of this for breakfast this morning:

It smelled so darn good that I had to try some for myself.  I topped mine with organic frozen strawberries thawed in the micro.

DELISH!

We’re having sushi tonight for dinner and then going out for a few drinks to celebrate a friend’s birthday.  Yay weekend!

By the way…

Averie is hosting a NUTTY giveaway!

Snow Day…again

Today I’m off from work again due to snow.  It’s been a very bloggy day of eating so far!

Last night, I made Averie’s (almost) Raw Vegan Cookie Dough Balls:

All I can say is DANG!  These balls rocked my world.  They taste exactly like raw cookie dough!  I ate a whole bunch already.  I know Averie says they will last for a while in the fridge, but seriously?  As if they ever will stay in my fridge!

Next up…breakfast.  Today’s was a smoothie that has been popping up all over the blog world…

Cherry Chocolate Bomb Shake!

Holy. Moly.  I followed Kristen’s recipe but left out the hemp seeds (didn’t have any) and subbed almond milk for water.  I also used TJ’s Very Cherry Berry frozen cherry, blackberry, raspberry and blueberry mix as opposed to just cherries.  I cannot believe how delicious this shake is!  I will definitely be making this shake part of my regular smoothie rotation.

A shot of the scene I woke up to today!

After my smoothie, I had a snack of a small blood orange and about 3 cookie dough balls.

Next on the agenda was lunch.  It was time for pancake roll-ups.  The motivation to make these definitely came from the pancake roll-up challenge from Katie’s blog.  I decided to create Pumpkin Cheesecake Pancake Roll-Ups!

Here’s the breakdown of my tasty creation:

The cast of characters:  Arrowhead Mills organic buckwheat pancake mix, almond milk, agave, liquid egg whites, Tofutti cream cheese, Fage and pumpkin butter.

I prepared the pancake mix with almond milk, egg whites and agave.  I thinned it out a little more than usual with water.

The filling was made from Tofutti, pumpkin butter and a little Fage mixed in the Magic Bullet.

I topped them with a little more filling and some cinnamon.  The verdict?  Pancakes too small…filling too runny.  Time for take 2:

Aaah, much better.  A bigger, thinner pancake filled and topped with maple syrup and cinnamon.

Check out that deliciousness!

Thanks for the idea and the contest, Katie!  I’m about to get my run on and then clean the casa.  Have a great Friday! 🙂

A Tale of Two Cities

Happy Monday!  I’m back to the grind after a week off from work.  It was good to see the kiddos today and get back into the groove.

Let us go back to the weekend for a hot minute.  The husbo was out of town on Saturday night, so I had my two besties over for dinner, girl talk and lots of wine.  I definitely indulged a bit more than I’m proud of, but it was all in the name of fun.  I did make a delicious dinner of grilled shrimp and angel hair with pesto with salad.  At least we had some healthy eats.

Anyway, my scheduled four miles did NOT happen on Sunday.  I just couldn’t pull it together.  I wasn’t feeling at the top of my game and my body told me to rest.  Plus, these guys were on E! all day:

I mean, would you leave them?  It wound up working out because I had a great run this evening after work.  I ran my 4 miles between my town and the next town over.  Two cities and some pretty sweet negative splits:

Mile 1 – 9:46
Mile 2 – 9:39
Mile 3 – 9:07 (woo!)
Mile 4 – 9:05 (woooooo!)
4 Miles – 37:20

I was very pleased with my run.

I’m cozied up with some tea and my snuggie watching the Bachelor.  I love when “The Women Tell All.”

I’ll leave you with some yummy eats from the past few days:

Fage, diced pear, TJ’s High Fiber cereal and a crumbled dark chocolate almond chip cookie

Whipped banana oatbran with flax, dried cherries and Better’n’PB

Ezekiel with Earth Balance and cinnamon with a sliced pear and chai tea

GREEN MONSTER!!

Veggie wrap with hummus, spinach, red pepper and sprouts

Banana whipped oat bran with flax, Better’n’PB and chocolate chips

Cherry chocolate oat bran – winner winner, oatmeal dinner breakfast

Here’s what was in the mix in this delicious bowl so you can make it yourself…which you should…

• 1/2 cup oat bran
• 3/4 cup water
• 3/4 cup almond milk
• 1 T flax
• 2 T dried cherries
• 1 T chocolate chips
• 1/2 sliced bananas whipped into the oats

Until we meet again!

Baby Give it Up

“Tis the season to be giving things up.  For this Lent I will be giving up my favorite sweet treat – COOKIES.  I am a cookie monster.  There is always a tub of TJ’s dark chocolate chip almond cookies in my house.  I will not eat one for 40 days.

Go.

Here’s some cute Japanimation video of the song that was playing in my head as I wrote this little postie.

Cleaning – Naturally

It’s definitely important to eat healthfully and watch what you put into your body.  But it’s also important to pay attention to the products we use around the house.  Conventional cleaning products are filled with toxic ingredients.

When I first decided to go au naturale with the cleaners, I was a little nervous.  I used to be a straight up bleach girl.  I actually loved the smell of bleach and felt it was the only thing that got things truly “clean.”  Meanwhile, I was inhaling toxic chemicals and dousing the surfaces of my home with poison.  I still keep a canister of disinfectant wipes under the sink to wipe down the counter tops after preparing poultry because I fear salmonella.  However, the rest of my cleaners are pretty green and they either have nice smells or even better yet, no smells at all.  Bonus?  They get the job done!

(Click the pictures for the company websites)

First up is the cleaner I use most:

Mrs. Meyers All Purpose Cleaner in Lemon Verbena

I LOVE this stuff.  A bottle lasts forever because it’s super concentrated.  I just mix a quarter cup of cleaner into a quart spray bottle of water and clean away.  I use it on everything.  Here’s a quick list:

• glass
• windows
• bathroom surfaces
• counter tops
• bathroom floor
• toilet (outside and seat)

Mrs. Meyer’s Dish Soap – Geranium Scent

This stuff smells heavenly.  Obviously I use it for dish cleaning.

Bon Ami

This is basically an Earth-friendly version of Comet.  It’s all natural and does a great job for the dirty jobs.  Here’s how I use it:

• scrub the sinks (kitchen and bathroom)
• scrub the tub
• scrub tile grout (with a toothbrush – Cinderella style)

Seventh Generation Toilet Bowl Cleaner

This is an all-natural toilet bowl cleaner that is used for scrubbing the bowl.

Method Daily Shower Cleaner

I do a quick spritz of this stuff after every shower – walls and shower curtain.

Method Tub-N-Tile Cleaner

After scrubbing the tub with Bon Ami, I wipe down the tile shower walls with this spray.   It smells minty and fresh.  I love it!

Distilled White Vinegar

Good old fashioned cleaning and disinfecting…without chemicals.  Click the picture above for a list of uses for cleaning with vinegar.  I use it mostly to clean the hardwood floors that make up most of my casa.  I just take a bucket, a gallon of hot water and 1/2 cup of vinegar.  I dunk an old hand towel, ring it out and wash dirt and grime away.  (Of course I sweep and Swiffer first to remove all loose dirt and dust).  I like to kneel on a beach towel and use the ends to dry as I go (working from back far corner out).

So there you have it.  A list of all-natural cleaning products that will get your house squeaky clean.

V-Day Hooray

Happy Valentine’s Day!  I’m a day late, but yesterday was a busy one.  V-Day started out with some tasty oats.

Almond Chocolate Kiss Oats

In the mix:

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 cup water
• 1 T flax
• 1/2 mashed banana
• dash of vanilla
• 1 Hershey’s kiss melted in

Toppings:

• Almond butter
• Hershey’s kiss

‘Twas delicious.

Next on the agenda was a trip to IKEA.  We wanted to turn a bare little corner of our den to a cozy nook.

We picked up a chair and a floor lamp.  I am curled up right now blogging away in my cozy corner.

We then stopped at Target where I got a new camera case.

Then to Trader Joe’s.  Hilights of the shop:

Fun with boxes ensued…

Monday morning breakfast – buckwheat pancakes using this mix:

I added some vanilla, cinnamon and a mashed banana to the mix.  Mine were topped with blueberries and the husbo’s had some chocolate chips baked in.

For a snack, I had a sliced organic Fugi apple with Better ‘n PB.  This stuff rocks my socks.  It’s delicious and low cal/low fat.

It’s off to start my week’s vacation goal…deep cleaning every room in the casa and then do some yoga.

Stay tuned for a post on natural cleaning products.

And in other news, I have officially completed my first week of half marathon training 🙂