I did it!

So the other day when as I was riding the subway to work, I read in my new Women\'s Health Magazine about way to pick up your pace in cardio workouts. I’m not one to really feel “the need for speed” if you know what I mean. But lately, I’ve found that the only way to really gain anything from my workouts is by really challenging myself. After running my third marathon in June, I began to get bored running at my usual pace for long periods of time. While slow and steady may win the race sometimes, it will not help zip up my skinny jeans.

Running the marathon

I’ve always known that the body is a master adapter. Once it gets used to a routine it becomes more efficient in “helping” you and using less energy. For the longest time I wondered why, if I ran for an hour at a 6.0 pace, I wasn’t seeing any changes in my body. Then, one day… like 2 years later…I decided to try interval training. This meant just switching it up and running quick sprints in between my even tempo pace. And I saw a difference right away!! Bottom line, it’s always good to change things up every now and then!

Anyway, today I tried what is called tempos. The magazine said, “if there’s one workout worth adding to your routine, most coaches would say it should be tempos (maintaining a comfortably hard pace for a sustained period of time).” They also called tempos “the little black dress of running,” meaning that they are classic and benefit everyone. Well, that’s all it took for me to be on board!

The workout goes as follows:
Run a 10 minute warm-up.
Increase your pace and hold it for 15-20 minutes.
Finish with a 10 minute cool down.

If 15-20 min. is too hard, do 5 min. at a time, repeating till you get to 20.
What you want to keep in mind with this when you pick up the pace for the 15-20 min. you want to be at your “happy pace.” So on a scale of 1-10 (1 easy, 10 hard) you want to be at about a 7 or 8.

For my workout tonight it looked liked this:
10 min – 6.5 pace
15 min – 8.0 pace
5 min. – incline walking at 15.0
5 min – 7.0 run

I was so happy that I did this!! Because last time I tried it didn’t go so well. I rounded out my workout with 15 min. on the elliptical, some weights, and my favorite ab workout.

This ab workout always kills me, I don’t know why…it’s fine the first time through, but they want you to do it 3 times through! By the 3rd time I could care less about a flat stomach and just want to roll into a little ball and cry like a baby. I guess that is exaggerating – but it’s rough. Don’t let their cuteness fool you.

Also! Before I sign off – I want to post a picture of my tofu and brussel sprout dinner last night. It ended up being SO tasty too! Ian actually wasn’t here for this dinner because he worked late, but he tried some cold tofu today and agreed that it wasn’t awful 🙂 mission accomplished! haha. Although I don’t see tofu in his near future.

Brussel Sprouts and Tofu

All I did with the tofu was pan fry it with a little olive oil, then cook it on medium low heat for about 20 min. I added garlic powder, salt and some teriyaki sauce. I had to keep flipping the pieces of tofu so they wouldn’t brown too much – but I wanted them to be a little crispy. Yum!

Ok, off to enjoy some dinner … and yes it is 10 o’clock already… welcome to life in New York! Well, mine and Ian’s life anyway 🙂

Weddings Galore!

Long time, no write. What a busy and fun weekend I had! Yesterday seemed to kind of fly by – so there is lots of catching up to do!

Wedding season continued this weekend with the ceremony of my good friend Diana and her now husband, Mario.  The festivities took place out in Long Island – on a perfectly beautiful day.

Here are a few highlights and re-caps of the day 🙂

Me and Ian along with some co-workers & significant others.  We are a pretty close crowd at work and so a good group of us went to the wedding.  I love seeing everyone all un-workified though!

Table 11. The Fun Group!

My dress was actually one I had ordered online from Lulus.com – I was so nervous about how it might fit or how the color would really look compared to the picture, but it was actually perfect! I was so happy with this purchase.

lulus navy blue dress

Ian decided to go with a power tie. (RED) We joked that we were very patriotic that night…or political if you think of it that way too 😉

power couple! haha

Now, important things, like the cake! I’m going way out of order here. But the cake is one of my favorite parts and it’s a good picture of the happy couple too. If you notice in the left corner are miss piggy and kermit. The Bride is probably the biggest miss piggy fan I have ever met and so she had to be included in the wedding. For someone who loves pigs, I loved the tribute!

Cutting the Cake

I kind of forgot to take pictures of a lot of the food – and I actually stole this photo from a friend. BUT, my favorite dish of the night was the 2nd course. Lasagna and lobster! Ian actually let me eat some of his lobster…how lucky am I??? All that cream you see around it…butter! Oh it was heavenly. I could eat buttered lobster all day.

I could eat this everyday

Here is another photo of the group of girls from work with the Bride 🙂

And my good friend Matt – who let us stay with him for the weekend at his parent’s place…Ian and I would not survive without him – what a good family. Can’t say enough good things about them.

Matty Matt Matt

Guess who caught the bouquet??? That’s right…ME! I was not even pushy about it – I actually didn’t catch it, it fell on the floor behind all of us and an older lady got to it first.  The announcer said I was closest though and I felt kind of bad taking it away from the lady…but I realized why a younger girl was picked…

Turns out this is wedding tradition! The guy who caught the garter puts it on my leg! It was supposed to be rigged for Ian to catch it…but things didn’t quite go as planned. This guy put on quite a show. I was nervous and in all the pictures my dress looks awfully short – oh my!!!

Moving on…the night concluded with MORE dessert! There was an ice cream sundae bar and a chocolate fountain to dip fruit and other goodies. It was like heaven.

Can I have this every night??

It was amazing.  Good food, good drinks, good company and one great new married couple who I wish the best for.  So lucky to have been apart of that wedding.

 

 

 

 

Good Girl, Bad Girl

I’m beginning to realize that my habit of writing posts close to midnight each night might be confusing when I say “Happy Wednesday!” when in fact it is Thursday for most people already. SO, Happy Thursday! Or Happy Day of the Week closer to the weekend 🙂

Let me kick things off with a few words on Lunch today.

Lunch

Chopped Veggie Quinoa Salad

This salad has been my go-to for the past week or so, and I see it popping up much more in my future!  I usually avoid salads in the middle of the day because they tend to upset my stomach, but this one has been just right. I try to use a good portion sized container that helps me with my portion size for lunch.  This one is pretty small – I will have to figure out exactly the size. (don’t mind the work keyboard in back)

Into the Mix:

Quinoa

Chopped Tomato

unsalted sunflower seeds

ripped up lettuce

Veggie Turkey patty chopped up

Olive oil and Balsamic Vinegar for dressing

I usually add cucumber too, but I ran out of that yesterday 😦 A little feta cheese is also a nice addition sometimes.

And Dinner

Stuffed Pita

Half a garlic pita with hummus, slice of Muenster cheese, 2 turkey slices, some lettuce and tomato.

Asparagus

And a side of Asparagus – Pan Fried.

Workout

Today’s workout was 20 min. of cardio split between the elliptical and treadmill machines.  I then did my leg strength training routine, which includes something I would like to call the “Good Girl, Bad Girl.” – dubbed by BF (best friend boyfriend) Denise 🙂 She called it that in college and it’s stuck every since!

It is the Hip Abductor Machine!

Can you tell which is which?

Good Girl – works your inner thighs

Bad Girl – works your outer thighs

🙂

The Good Girl, Bad Girl Machine is one of the most awkward things to do at the gym – but it works!

haha – I get a kick out of this every time.

Alright, it’s officially Thursday for me now too, off to bed …. or 30 Rock episodes with Ian since he just got home! (at midnight – wahhh!)

Tis’ the Season!

For eating lots and lots of wedding cake!

Butter + Sugar = pure bliss

This past weekend was spent traveling… a LOT. As much as I love living in Manhattan it is always such a trek to travel out of the city.  First of all, prices for renting a car in the city are NOT CHEAP. So this leaves us with one option, to travel long distances to rent cars. This involves a subway, train, and bus ride all to get the the car! I never thought I would be so happy to be on the road finally – safe and sound in our rental car 🙂

Wedding Fun

The wedding we went to was beautiful.  It was in Rochester, NY and celebrated the marriage of my good friend and co-worker Brian and his now wife Anne! The personal touches that were put into this wedding definitely made it one to remember.

These colorful little fans were my favorite! There were all sorts of colors to pick from and I found one that matched my dress 😉

The Bride’s dress was so original as well – the bottom had all colorful frills! It matched perfectly with all the other colorful details in the wedding.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend trip!

Back to Reality 

Today was a normal Monday.  It started off with a Gym workout of 30 min. on the elliptical – I went back after work with Ian to do a weights workout.  I did a weights workout for the arms from my favorite girls at Tone it Up! It was amazing and easy to remember – so I can definitely see myself adding this to my usual routine.

 

Dinner tonight included a newbie! I tried Carba Nada pasta for the first time! I had read about it time and time again over at Peanut Butter Fingers and was so excited to see it finally pop up in a grocery store by me!

The pasta included ground turkey (99% Lean) and pasta sauce with some broccoli and cauliflower mixed in.

Not bad for a low-carb pasta….who even knew “low carb” and “pasta” could go together in the same sentence!!

Dessert was some leftover from the Wedding Candy Bar! Did I forget to mention that??

The assortment was made up of the candy’s that were the favorites of members of the wedding party…it ranged from Reese’s to Sky Bars!

Question: Ian and I were trying to figure out what our favorite candy would be if we had to pick one for a wedding like this…I knew my choice right away –  Candy Corn!  Ian was too torn and could not choose…tough decision!  If you got to pick one candy what would it be??

 

 

 

4 Reasons to Love Quinoa

Well, First things first, the overnight oats from last night turned out pretty well!  They were basically like cold oatmeal…but the bites with more peanut butter were my favorite.  My only suggestion for the overnight oats would be to add a little fruit or something to add some sweetness.

I still think that this would be great with some chocolate chips or maybe some chopped nuts…or even topped with a little sprinkle of granola for some crunch!

From breakfast to dinner…

Dinner tonight was chicken with a side of roasted Kale chips and quinoa pilaf.

Quick Side-note – REASONS TO LOVE QUINOA: 

1. Gluten Free – so those of you with Celiac or on gluten free diets, quinoa is your grain!

2. Complete Protein –  Quinoa contains all 9 essential amino acids that are required by the body as building blocks for muscles.

3. Hi levels of Magnesium, Fiber, Maganese and Copper – Basically contains vital nutrients your body needs and helps eliminate the bad stuff! It has also been shown to have higher nutrient value than wheat, barley or corn.

4. Superfood! Quinoa is considered a superfood. Quinoa is full of phytonutrients, antioxidants AND can even help balance your blood sugar.

Now on to dinner 🙂

Roasted Kale:

rinse and thoroughly dry kale leaves.

rip apart leaves and de-stem

mix together leaves with a little olive oil – salt – and garlic powder

place on baking sheet covered in foil and bake!

Bake at 375 for about 10 – 12 minutes.

I feel like these taste more like chips because of the crunchiness when they are done, but a healthier version!

Quinoa Pilaf:

Cook one cup Quinoa separate from other ingredients

While Quinoa is cooking – grate 2 medium zucchini ( 1/2 a large one) and slice one garlic clove

Heat 2 Tbsp. olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat

Add 1/2 cup chopped walnuts to the heated skillet

One walnuts are toasted (about 2 min) add the sliced garlic and stir until golden (about 1 min)

Stir in grated zucchini along with 1 tsp. fresh thyme leaves. add 1/2 tsp. salt and pinch of pepper

Cook and stir until zucchini is tender and other ingredients are well stirred in with walnuts

Remove from heat and combine with cooked quinoa in serving dish

ENJOY!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chicken:

4 chicken breast cutlets

Cook over medium heat in skillet with a little olive oil

salt and pepper and season with whatever is handy

The chicken is actually the easiest part I think! This was a great dinner and we had plenty of leftover Quinoa that I think will be great as part of lunch tomorrow. 🙂

Time for bed now 🙂 Good night!

Somedays just call for it…

Hi all! When I left you last I had just finished an awesome workout and was getting ready to enjoy the rest of my day.  I ended up getting in a shower and eating some lunch — and then got called into work 😦  SOO, when I finally was on my way home, I called Ian and asked him how he would feel about still enjoying what was left of our Saturday night (about an hour) with a beer and pizza…. Somedays just call for it 🙂

Lucky me, he was up for it! Not too hard of an offer I suppose. We stopped by CVS because it was the closest thing to the subway station and picked up some Sam Adams light beer and some Lean Pockets as a substitution for pizza…hey we tried to be a little healthy.

Believe it or not, this was my first time eating a Lean Pocket. I usually try to avoid these frozen foods at all costs…but like I said before, somedays just call for it.

Not bad after all!

It was just what we needed.  Not a bad Saturday night after all 🙂

This morning, Ian and I tried to keep things healthy once again, and instead of ordering brunch to the apartment (always so tempting in NY ) we saved a little money and kept things simple with egg sandwiches at home!

Sandwich Includes: One egg, slice of turkey bacon, slice of swiss cheese, a little bit of hummus (my go to for flavor) all on a 100 calorie English muffin. 🙂 YUM!!!

These sandwiches are much more filling than one would expect.  Of course, egg seems to stick with me longer than most other foods anyway.

I’m thinking today calls for some reading and lounging around.  Ian and I both have some things we want to work on so it might be a nice day to just relax and not do too much! mom, this means I can call you.

Happy Sunday Everyone!

 

 

 

Healthified Turkey Burgers

Happy Hump Day!

Things have been a little busy this week – so the writing has been a little slow.  I am naturally running behind this morning as well! But, I wanted to share this recipe for turkey burgers that I made last night for dinner.

cookin up the burgers

I read a little while ago in a Cooking Light magazine about The 22 Biggest Cooking Mistakes and how to avoid them.  I was curious to see what I might be doing wrong that I could change.

One thing I learned that stuck with me was “Trading ground turkey for beef in recipes to save fat.”  Ground Turkey has always been a go-to meat for me because it is SO EASY to cook with.  I learned that depending on the kind of turkey meat one buys it might not be saving me much in the fat department!

“A Quarter pound of regular ground turkey contains 3G sat fat. Compare that to only 2.5g in sirloin.”

When buying ground turkey make sure to look for LEAN and white meat if possible.  For awhile I bought one that was more mixed dark meat and found this has more fat. If you get the good kind of lean turkey it tends to have only half a gram of sat. fat. – which is a big time fat cutter!

So, here is the recipe I used for healthified turkey burgers:

Turkey Burgers: 

16 oz Ground Lean Turkey (1 pound)

1 Cup shredded spinach

Add whatever spices you want!

I added:

salt

pepper

garlic powder

Adobo mixed spice

chili powder

Mix up all together again in the bowl. I used my hands to really get it all sticking together.

Begin to form into balls – I made 6 of them.  Stuff the balls with pieces of cheese. I used 2 String Cheese sticks (jalapeno cheddar ones) all together.  I find that using String Cheese really helps with portions!

Put a little olive oil in a pan over medium heat and cook up the burgers! They cook pretty fast – I didn’t time exactly but it was probably about 12 minutes…I always cut one in half toward the end to check.  You could also bbq these if you are lucky enough to have a bbq!

I put my turkey burger over a salad of spinach, tomato, 1/4c avocado, and garbanzo beans.  Dressing was a little olive oil and balsamic.

a big mess of a plate

 

on the side I also had a little roasted cauliflower, which I had cooked up more for Ian to have on the side.  He used two turkey patties and made himself a real burger 🙂

Alright, time to get to that work thing 😉

Have a good day!

 

 

 

Stuck in a food rut

I love chicken – but I am sick of eating it.  Lately, I have felt so boring in my food choices and find myself eating chicken, rice and some form of vegetable a few nights a week.  I know this is not the biggest problem I could have, but I have found that lately I have been so busy in other parts of life that food kind of takes a back seat.

The usual.

I really want to be able to take more time out of my day to plan my meals better — so I am going to make an honest effort to re-work my routine to fit this in.  I honestly hate being so rushed in the morning to barely throw together a decent lunch, and most the time i’m running so behind that I end up buying something later at work, which defeats the whole point of bringing food to save money! Then, when I get home I worry about what to make for dinner, and by the time dinner is done and eaten its usually close to 11 pm at night…and at that point I have no energy to make lunch for the next day!

Organization needs to happen!! So, I am going to try a new strategy next week to help streamline my meals and hopefully help eliminate stress! Here are some things I am going to work on :

Getting out of a Food Rut: 

1. Plan Ahead. Plan a few lunch and dinner ideas before the week starts. – This will be helpful in trying new things besides the standby of chicken and rice!

2. Write it down. Make an extensive grocery list on the weekend taking into account food that we already have and what needs to be added. This way I won’t be stopping by the store every night to pick up one or two ingredients, but can come straight home and not worry.

3. Think Big. Buy in bulk…this means not just buying a few yogurts for a few days, but yogurt for every day of the week…because as much as I think I might like a change, I never do.

4. Fill ‘er Up! Fill my work water bottle the night before. This is always such an annoying task in the morning before work and can easily be taken care of before heading to bed.

5. Make mornings easy. Set the coffee maker the night before. I seriously think I could make coffee in my sleep – but having to just push one button in the morning is in fact one of the small things that will make life easier.

6. Flexible with Budget. Budget ahead of time for a few coffee trips or snack breaks at work – chances are I will get hungry or tired and this will happen, so I may as well budget for it and not feel guilty every time I make a coffee run, as long as I am not doing this every day of the week.

PHEW! Ok, lists bigger than 5-6 items and I feel that stress start creeping back, so I think I can stick to this one! Making this list already has me feeling better. It’s amazing what sorting things out can do!

Hopefully this will be helpful and I can stick to it! Go Breezy go!

How do parents manage to feed themselves and others without going crazy? I think this is a big challenge esp. when trying to create healthy food options that aren’t crazy expensive and that are also quick and easy!  Maybe it’s easier living outside NYC… what do you all think?

Ok, off to bed to daydream about these shoes…

buy me...

Thinking of buying them for some weddings coming up — but that will severely cut into the budget I mentioned above. Hmmm, food or shoes…these are the things that keep me up at night.

The Post-Holiday Blues

Hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July weekends!

Is it just me, or did the weekend go by way too fast once again? The first day back to work today was a rough one.  I’m not sure if it was from being in vacation mode or from drinking too many mimosas yesterday, but I was definitely brain dead today.  Here’s to 3 more work days that hopefully fly by…because I’m ready for the weekend again!

Dear Friday, where are you??

The one thing I did look forward to today was being back on my work week eating routine.  Goodbye pancakes and mimosas…hello coffee and yogurt! Seeing as to how I was still in semi-vacation mode though, I skipped the gym tonight (also getting home at 9 didn’t help) and opted for a decently easy dinner! Tonight’s meal was my take on something called a “Bitchin’ Bowl.”  I heard about this at a Farmer’s market in San Diego, where this man actually sold a “Bitchin Sauce” to go in his “Bitchin Bowls” and well you get the point…

My version included some extra veggies and a garlic hummus.  The result looks like this fine mess of food below:

My version of a Bitchin' Bowl

Into the bowl went:

Apx. 1/2 Cup of Brown Rice

1/2 of a cooked chicken breast

3/4  Cup oven roasted brussel sprouts and cauliflower mixed

1/4 C. chopped tomato

1/4 C. avocado

About 2 tablespoons garlic hummus on top

This meal hit-the-spot! I have always been a fan of mixing my foods together to combine the flavors, and this bowl was perfect for that! Ian is the opposite and is actually a very compartmentalized eater, but he has been loving these “Bitchin’ Bowls” lately as well! I think the brown rice really ties it all together well.

For those curious: The brussel sprouts I make by first cutting off the stem part of the sprouts, then cutting them in half.  I then put chopped sprouts in a bowl and toss with a little olive oil + garlic powder and salt (garlic salt also is fine I just don’t own that because my lovely grocery store charges about $5 more for that).   The same goes for the cauliflower — I cut it up, then toss in olive oil and garlic salt.  I then put veggies on a foiled baking sheet and bake for 20 min. at 400 degrees, flipping halfway through.

Ok, off to do some reading before bed! It’s already past one in the morning! Talk about the city that never sleeps…

I’m currently reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  I started reading this awhile ago, then stopped…read about 5 other books… and have re-started this one.  I’m struggling to get into it still, but am going to power through it! I’ve heard only positive reviews and so I want to give it a fair shot.

Wish me luck! Good night everyone!

Easy Peasy

Hello all!!! …. what a long day!! I just sat down for dinner as I write this…and let me tell you, it was easy peasy to make! I usually get home close to 9 at night and sometimes head to the gym before dinner.  Tonight was one of those nights.  So after a quick workout of 20 minutes on the elliptical and then a 15 minute run (by that time the gym was closing anyway) I came home pretty darn hungry.  Without any time to stop at the grocery store on my way home – I made do with ingredients I had at available and this is what I came up with!

I guess I could call it the “My Boyfriend works late pasta salad”

I started off throwing some tomatoes, avocado and cauliflower in a bowl –

oooo la la

While I did that I put some whole wheat pasta on the stove to cook — Believe it or not, boiling pasta has taken me a full year to learn to make without constantly checking the directions on the box… confidence building at it’s finest.

I also steamed some broccoli in the microwave (I don’t really like this process of microwaving, but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do)

When the pasta and broccoli were done I added them to the bowl – along with a 35 calorie laughing cow cheese wedge… it honestly adds lots of flavor without having to use sauce or anything.

the cheese actually melts nicely onto the pasta.

Put it all together, and mix it all up – That’s what it’s all about! (anyone else singing the hokey pokey?)

In the end it looked like this:

Nom Nom

To be honest, this wasn’t super exciting… so I ended up heating up a veggie pattie and throwing it in there too – it added some extra flavor and protein 🙂

And that my friends is an easy peasy, “My Boyfriend works late” Pasta salad.  Hope it helps give some good ideas!

Question of the night: Do you enjoy cooking nice meals for yourself? Or do you prefer to cook for someone else? I personally put less effort into my dinners for just myself…but if I will be cooking for Ian too then I am more willing to actually “cook” 

Off to eat some cookies and relax! Check back tomorrow for an awesome

oatmeal chocolate chip toffee cookies recipe! (Maybe I can shorten that name huh?)

Night!