Next Up: 12 Miles

Well, once again I let the week get away from me! It’s been busy at work, but busy in a good way. I’ve finally found a job that is both challenging and enjoyable. How refreshing! I just wish I lived a little closer. 100 miles roundtrip is tough! Maybe in the near future…

I’ve been battling some pretty serious knee soreness this week, so I took today completely off from exercising. I haven’t done that in quite a while. Even though I didn’t exercise today, I made sure I fueled up with some good quality carbs and protein. I’ve got a 12-mile run on the agenda for tomorrow. Eeeek! Hopefully my knee holds up. My training plan actually calls for 11 miles tomorrow and 12 miles next Saturday, but I’ll be out of town next Saturday and I’m not sure I’ll have time for that long of a run before my flight in the morning.

Per my usual MO, I only captured breakfast (my favorite meal of the day) on camera.

A deliciously perfect combination of carbs, protein, and fat:

• 1/3 cup of oat bran
• 1 mashed banana
• 1 Tbs of ground flaxseed
• ~1Tbs of raisins
• cinnamon
• vanilla
• 2 Tbs vanilla rice protein powder
• 1 Tbs of drizzly PB

So yummy, and so filling! This kept my hunger at bay for several hours.

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Off to map out my 12-miler on MapMyRun.com. I’ll recap my run later in the weekend. Wish me luck!

Running question of the day: How many miles or months do you use your running shoes? How do you know when it’s time to replace them? I’m still new at this…

Oh-oh-overnight Oats!

Just popping in quickly to share my overnight oats success! 🙂

Over the past couple months, I’ve dabbled with overnight oats. I first tried them out of taste and texture curiosity. But now, when I make them, it’s more for time-saving reasons. The other few times that I’ve made overnight oats, I’ve used regular plain yogurt. While the oats weren’t horrible, they weren’t fabulous. It left me wondering what all the hype was about. They were just ok.

Well – I think I’ve found the secret. You must, must, must use Greek yogurt!!

Knowing I was getting up early this morning for a workout, I prepped my breakfast last night. Into the bowl went:

• 1 mashed banana
• 1/2 cup of old fashioned oats
• 1/2 cup of almond milk
• 1 container of plain Oikos [I typically buy Chobani, but I had a store coupon for Oikos. I forgot how amazingly creamy Oikos is! It’s a shame it’s so much more expensive…]
• 1 tbs of raisins
• cinnamon
• vanilla
• 1 packet of stevia
• 2 tbs of walnuts (added in the morning)

It may not look very pretty, but it tasted phenomenal!

 This was so creamy and delicious! I didn’t heat it up at all; just ate it right out of the fridge. I was trying my hardest not to inhale the whole bowl all at once! I highly recommend this combo, if you haven’t tried it.

I do have a little confession though – I ate my breakfast in the bathroom, by the sink, while I put on my makeup! Always multi-tasking!

What’s the “craziest” thing you’ve done recently in the name of multi-tasking? (Hopefully you don’t say something that was unsafe… ;-))

10 Things I Learned on My 10-Mile Run

Hey all! Sorry for my absence. I have been enjoying the holiday weekend, as I hope you all have, too!

Saturday morning, I ran 10 miles for the first time ever! Here are some things I learned along the way…

1. I must be a morning person… because I got up at 4:45 a.m. on a Saturday raring to go! I used to be a morning person way back when, before there was baby. Maybe setting a goal and training to reach that goal is motivating me to get out of bed!
2. It takes me about 2-3 miles to get warmed up. I wasn’t uncomfortable running, per se, but it really wasn’t until about 3 miles that I felt like I hit my stride.
3. There are a lot of skunks in my neighborhood! Ok – not run-related, but damn! I must’ve passed a dead skunk or a skunky smell every 2 miles.
4. My knees can only withstand about 7 miles. That’s about when they start hurting – the right one in particular. In fact, all of the joints on my right leg were killing me. Hip, knee, ankle…
5. I’m much more “hardcore” than I thought! For better or worse, I pushed through the pain and completed my run!
6. Having a time-goal in mind pushes me to run harder. I left the house with a goal of running 10 miles in 1:35:00 – a 9:30/mile pace. Once I passed the 1-hour mark, I was worried I wasn’t going to make my goal time. I wasn’t sure how far I had run (no Garmin here – yet), so I started to pick up the pace. Low and behold, I got back to my front door in 1:33:03 – roughly a 9:18/mile pace! Woohoo!
7. The girl who couldn’t run a mile in the allotted 10 minutes in gym class (aka ME) is looooong gone! ‘Nuff said.
8. I have made amazing progress since I decided to start running back in May. Just 4 short months ago, I was running a 12:30/mile pace. I have shaved 3+ minutes off that time. Go me!
9. I can run 10 miles! Despite the fact that I prove to myself week in and week out that I can push myself farther and farther, I was still a bit doubtful that I could run 10 miles without stopping. But I did it! Watch out half marathon – I’m coming for you! 🙂
10. Breakfast tastes even more delicious after burning nearly 1000 calories! When I got home, I refueled with this glorious mix of carbs, protein, and fat.

Proving time and time again that I am no photographer!

• 1/2 cup of old fashioned oats
• 1 mashed ripe-beyond-belief banana
• cinnamon
• vanilla
• raisins
• 1/2 cup of almond milk (+ 1/2 cup of water)
• 1 Tbs ground flaxseed
• 2 Tbs vanilla brown rice protein powder
• 1 Tbs peanut butter (which I later mixed in)

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm!

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I continue to learn more and more about myself the farther and farther I run.

What are some things you’ve learned about yourself through exercise?

The Breakfast Diaries…?

So I’m considering changing the name of my blog to The Breakfast Diaries because I seem to only manage to photograph breakfast each day! [Could it be the makings of a spin-off blog?!] Perhaps it’s because it’s my favorite meal of the day. Or maybe because 6 a.m. (just before hubby and baby get up) is the only time of the day that I’m not running around like a crazy woman. Hmmm…mixture of both I think!

Monday’s breakfast:

Poorly photographed French Toast!

French toast made with 2 slices of Martin’s whole wheat potato bread, topped with Smart Balance Light and ~1/2 a tablespoon of Trader Joe’s maple/agave syrup blend. (I also ate a banana with some almond butter while this was cooking….) This whole wheat potato bread is one of my new foodie favorites! It’s delicious and has phenomenal nutritional states: 70 calories, 1 gram of fat, 14 carbs, 4 grams of fiber, and 6 grams of protein per slice. Low cal, low carb, high fiber, high protein. Does it get any better than that?!

Tuesday breakfast:

Oat bran with banana, raisins, flax, a little bit of yogurt, and some honey almond butter drizzled on top. The 2 tablespoons of yogurt I stirred in added just a touch of creaminess. To pump up the protein, I also had some scrambled egg whites on the side.

Monday Fitness:

I had planned to go for a run in the morning before work, but I screwed up my alarm clock and overslept a bit. So I headed out at 8 p.m for a 3.5-miler. Running in the dark at night is scary…and dangerous. But it kept me running quickly!

Side note: I registered for another half marathon on Monday! So I’ll be running my first on October 10 and my second 4 weeks later on November 7! So excited.

Tuesday Fitness:

Today was an off day from running, so I had strength training on my agenda. Unfortunately it is ungodly hot today. I still worked out in my living room, but not for very long. The heat is making me ill!

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So in all seriousness, now that I’m getting back to blogging, I feel like my blog may be taking a slightly different direction. When I first started it, I was a brand new mommy, working at home, and then later unemployed. [Read: I had a lot more time on my hands.] The goals behind my blog still hold true, but I feel that, given my new time constraints (exciting career with a long commute) and my new interests (running and fueling before and after my runs), my posts are going to be focused on other things…

Thoughts???

Ch-ch-ch-changes (and a winner!)

Hey everyone! Well, looks like I have some work to do building my readership back up… Not too many entries for the giveaway. Good news for those who entered though!

And the winner is…Leianna! Congrats! E-mail me your address and I’ll make sure your prize gets sent out ASAP: healthyfitmama@yahoo.com.

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So, when I posted yesterday I forgot one of the most interesting parts of my day (second only to my 8-mile run!). I chopped my hair off! I had about 8 inches in total length taken off. I decided that with all the other changes I’ve been through recently (new job, etc.) it was time to make a change to my appearance. Plus, I was looking back at photos from high school and I realized I looked exactly the same – same long hair. So, without further ado, here’s the new hairdo:

Thoughts?

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Food:

I only photographed one meal today – breakfast, of course. My favorite meal of the day! Today, I tried something new-to-me. Chobani on top of my oatmeal! I believe I first saw the idea of “yoatgurt” on Janetha’s blog.

• 1/2 cup of oats
• 1 mashed banana
• cinnamon
• vanilla
• a few raisins
• 1 Tbs of vanilla rice protein powder
• 1 Tbs of PB mixed in
• ~4 oz of vanilla Chobani Greek yogurt

It was good! Didn’t rock my world, but I did kind of like having something cold on top to counteract the hot oatmeal. It sure was filling too!

Let me just take a moment to profess my love for Chobani! I definitely think I should be their “spokesmommy.” The people in the grocery store look at me like I have a serious problem when I’m at the checkout every Saturday with a large tub of Chobani, several individual cups, and a pack of Chobani Champions for the little one. I’ve tried several Greek yogurts out there, and Chobani is by far my favorite! So thick and creamy, packed with protein, and oh so filling. I may or may not have eaten two servings today… 🙂

Chobani – If you ever need a mommy & daughter pair to hawk your yogurt, give me a call. You can pay me in yogurt!

Fitness:

My workout was pretty lame today. It was about 90 degrees today, so it was well over 90 in our shoebox of an apartment. I tried to get a workout in without over exerting myself. I did an at-home weight routine from the newest issue of Self.

The hotter-than-usual temps this summer have defintely affected my workouts. I’ve definitely not worked out as hard. It’s supposed to be back up in the 90s here all week, so I plan to do all my half marathon training in the morning before work. Getting up at 5 a.m. will be worth it so I can work out in bearable temperatures!

How do you adjust your workout schedule/routine in the heat?

My First Maranatha…and Time-Saving Tips

It’s Thursday! You know what that means? Tomorrow’s Friday! 😀

Today was not a good day for me at all, so I’m just going to focus on a product review and a time-saving tip or two.

Have you entered my giveaway yet???? You have until Saturday at 11:59 p.m. ET. And if you win, you’ll get (among other things) a jar of this:

I have read rave reviews on many a food blog about Maranatha No Stir Creamy Peanut Butter, so I was pretty pumped to try this.

I typically eat regular, all natural peanut butter made with nothing but peanuts and salt. This peanut butter has added palm oil and cane juice. After an intial stir and some time in the fridge, the consistency is much like that of shelf-stabel peanut butters, like Skippy and Jif.

Being the classy lady that I am, I taste-tested this with my right index finger. My reaction? Eh, it’s ok. Don’t get me wrong – I’ll eat it all, eventually. But after eating peanut butter with nothing added other than salt for so long, this didn’t even really taste like peanuts to me. If you grew up on Skippy and still miss the taste of it, then you will love this. I wouldn’t buy it for myself, personally, though.

I’ll review the final few products in the giveaway tomorrow and Saturday. Check back in!

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Now that I’m training for a half marathon, I have to save time however I can. Training takes up a lot of time! My training schedule called for 5 miles on Wednesday. I had been doing my runs in the evening after my baby girl went to bed, but it’s starting to get dark earlier and earlier. So I decided on Tuesday night that I would get up at 4:45 a.m. and run before work. I’d rather run when it’s dark, but getting lighter instead of when it’s light, but getting darker!

Getting up that early to run took some planning ahead. Here are a few things that helped me save time in the morning (and make sure I had no excuses NOT to run!):

1. Packed my lunch the night before. I typically do this anyway, but I can’t stress enough how much time this saves me in the morning. I hem and haw sor far too long about what I want to pack for lunch. I would spend my whole morning trying to decide!
2. Laid out my workout clothes. This eliminated any fumbling around in the dark. I laid out my gear, including shoes and iPod, right next to the bed. That way they were staring me in the face when my alarm went off at the ungodly time of 4:45! No excuses.
   

   Look what just came in the mail!!!

3. Prepped my breakfast the night before. Until I discovered the world of food blogs, I never would have thought to do this. What a time-saver! I tend to eat a pretty extravagant breakfast, spending about 15-20 minutes making it in the morning. Tuesday night, I made Overnight Protein Oats.

This bowl contained:

• 1/2 cup of old-fashioned oats
• 1/2 cup of unsweetened almond milk
• 1/2 cup of plain, nonfat yogurt
• 1 mashed banana
• cinnamon
• vanilla
• 2 Tbs of Nutribiotic vanilla rice protein powder

In the morning, I popped it in the micro for 1 minute (I have eaten it cold before though). I topped it with a few raisins, some walnuts, and a drizzle of TJ’s maple/agave blend.

This bowl didn’t satisfy as much as a piping hot bowl of protein oats, but it did the trick – and saved me a ton of time in the morning.

What’s your best time-saving tip??

Rainy Days and Mondays

Anyone up on their ’70s music? Did you catch the Carpenters reference in my title?? [I actually despise ’70s music, but I have a soft spot for the Carpenters…] 

Moving on. 

Today was both a rainy day and a Monday. Blah. It definitely called for a pancake! Perfect comfort food. I have finally perfected my protein pancake recipe. These are the 2 stars of the show: 

 

Here’s my recipe: 

• 2 heaping Tbs of Instabake
• 2 heaping Tbs of Nutribiotic vanilla rice protein powder
• cinnamon to taste
• 1/2 cup of egg whites
• 1 Tbs of wheat germ
• 2 Tbs of nonfat plain yogurt
• splash of almond milk (or soy milk)

Here’s the end result, topped with some Smart Balance Light and 1/2 Tbs of Trader Joe’s maple syrup/agave blend: 

 

Deeeeeelish! I like to pour all my batter into one pan, but this makes enough that you could make 2-3 smaller pancakes. I do one pan because I’m too impatient and too busy to wait for several pancakes to cook! No griddle here; just a skillet. 

I forgot to snap a pic of my lunch before I headed out to work today. I brought a La Tortilla Factory whole wheat wrap with Trader Joe’s raw almond butter, sliced banana, and raisins, along with a plain Chobani. Mmmmmm. 

Time-saving tip: I always pack my lunch the night before. Saves me time in the morning and keeps me from buying something instead of packing something! 

Dinner was unspectacular and definitely not photogenic, so I will skip ahead! 

It was hubby’s turn to put baby to bed tonight. (By the way, my little girl is now 17 months. Growing up so fast!) We still alternate putting her to bed, which works out great with my half marathon training plan. I headed out at 7:40 p.m. for a dark and rainy 3.4 mile run. I killed it! I ran a 9:08 min. mile pace. My fastest yet! 😀 

And now, a couple product reviews: 

Earth’s Best Sesame Street® Organic Snackin’ Fruit Hearts 

There they are - front and center.

 

I’m a huge fan of Earth’s Best Organic snacks. I buy them for my daughter all the time and she loves them. So I knew these wouldn’t last long! I was right, too! She gobbled these up in no time flat. She did share a few with me though. They were really yummy – great blueberry flavor. And what I love most is that they are made with whole grains and don’t have much sugar – just 5g in one serving. I would definitely buy these! 

Garden of Eatin’® Popped Tortillas 

Clearly I opened these long before taking a picture!

I’m not a big chip eater, but I love to try new things. These chips were very light and airy. I immediately loved that you can see the whole flaxseeds in the chips. 

 

These were a bit salty for me when I ate them by themselves. But when dipped in hummus – heaven! Not sure I would buy these,  but they are a nice treat. I especially love that there are 20 chips to a serving, for only 110 calories. And one serving delivers 3g of fiber. 

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Stay tuned… I will review the rest of the products as the week goes on. 

Want to try these products for yourself? Don’t forget to enter my giveaway! You have until Saturday night! Be sure to visit www.TakeAHealthyBite.com too and register for the Family Fitness Fun Challenge!

Branching Out

Hey friends! Sorry I’ve been away so long again.

So, one of the greatest things about my new mostly-vegetarian lifestyle is that it has really forced me to branch out and try new recipes. You can’t just eat sauteed veggies every night, right?!

Tonight I tried this great recipe for Southwestern Quinoa with Black Beans. I used red quinoa and a mix of orange and red peppers. For a protein boost, I had some Trader Joe’s chickenless pulled “chicken” with it.

These two went quite well together! The quinoa was delightfully spicy, but not too hot; and substantial, but not too heavy. What a nice change from veggie burgers and sweet potatoes (not that I don’t love that combo!). I will be making this again, for sure.

Do you like quinoa? What’s your favoite way to eat it?

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I have to admit, I’ve been a little – make that A LOT – bored with my Spinning bike lately. I’d much prefer to do a circuit training DVD than ride my bike for 45 minutes. I do need to give my muscles a break from strength training sometimes though. So I forced myself onto my bike tonight. Surprisingly, I really go into it! I think the key was the music. I put on some great music and focused on it – and sang! It was great! 45 minutes was over before I knew it.

How do you keep your workouts fresh?

Mediterranean Pasta Toss

Hey! Nice to see some newcomers to the blog! Keep the comments coming. There’s still time to enter my Wellness Kit giveaway!

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I recently began eating a mostly vegetarian diet – which you can read more about here. Since adopting this new vegetarian lifestyle, I have been forced to become a little more creative in the kitchen. (Who wants to eat veggie burgers every night of the week?!) I’ve also had to really overcome my fear of carbs.

Before I get into more detail about my kitchen creativity, let me just tell you that I used to be seriously carb-a-phobic – like, wouldn’t touch a slice of bread with a 10-foot-pole. After much reading of nutrition books, I realized that there is no reason to fear carbs! Carbs fuel us. Carbs are good for us – provided we are eating the right kind of carbs.

Ok, back to the kitchen… I had a jar of artichoke hearts, a jar of roasted red peppers, a bag of spinach, and a bottle of aged balsamic vinegar on hand. I spent an entire day at working thinking about how I coul possibly put all these things together to make a meal. Then I remembered I had also recently bought a bag of whole grain penne pasta at Trader Joe’s. I had an “a-ha” moment – and the result was this delicious dish that I have dubbed the Mediterranean Pasta Toss.

While my penne pasta was boiling, I wilted some fresh spinach in some olive oil and garlic. I tossed in some quartered artichoke hearts and sliced roasted red peppers to heat them up. When the pasta was cooked, I added that to the pot with the spinach/artichoke/pepper mixture, then drizzled aged balsamic vinegar over the whole mess.

OH.MY.GOD. Delicious!!! The aged balsamic vinegar is key, since it’s sweeter and more syrup-y in consistency. It coated everything very well. This was so very filling too! Who needs meat?!

This is definitely my new favorite pasta entree!

What’s your favorite healthy pasta dish?

March Madness!

Wow – I soooo did not mean to be away for so long! The month of March has been crazy busy so far – both personally and professionally. Because of all the craziness, I haven’t been very good at all about photographing my eats. 😦 I plan to get back in the swing of blogging this week.

I did recently try a new recipe, though, that I managed to capture on camera – 5 Factor Lasagna from the 5 Factor Diet book. (I’ve mentioned this before, but one of my hobbies is reading diet/nutrition books, although I don’t follow any one of them.)

This had layers of roasted eggplant, fat free ricotta cheese, sliced roma tomatoes, fresh basil, tomato sauce, and mozzarella on top.

Not the prettiest presentation, but it tasted great! The only problem was that it got kind of watery. I think it’s because I put it together a couple hours early and stuck it in the fridge until I was ready to cook it. I don’t recommend that!

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In other news, I’ve been doing great sticking to a mostly vegetarian diet. I eat chicken maybe once a week now (only organic, antibiotic-free chicken) and occasionally have fish. I’m finding that I really don’t miss having poultry at lunch and dinner. There are so many great vegetarian recipes out there!

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Sorry for the quick and relatively uninteresting post! I promise I’ll be back to more frequent blogging this week. Stayed tuned tomorrow for a review of some fabulous coffee!