hmmmm. Maybe it’s spring fever!

I guess I’m going to start this entry by saying that I think I’ve been in a funk.  Not sure why… I just feel like I’m going through my daily routines but there’s not much, I don’t know, excitement? Maybe excitement isn’t the right word.  I just feel kind of blah all of the time.  There are periods of un-blah-ness, like when I’m at the gym taking class, or running.  So I’m not completely blah! Maybe it’s just spring fever?  That’s probably it.

It helped today that the temperature in the Atlanta area hit 71 degrees.  It was fantastic, the sun was out, I took Biscuit for a walk, sat out on the deck…and prepared myself for the next five days of rain...:(

Biscuit training.

Breakfast this morning consisted of my usual standby on Tuesday BodyAttack class days…protein oatmeal.  Bob Marley oats this morning, with lots to sustain me through an entire class.   Oatmeal, vanilla protein powder, pineapple, coconut, raw cashews.  It was so good.  I hadn’t had it in a while!  I opted to not put any natural sugars in it this morning, and I’ll tell you why in a bit… (and the recipe for the original is under the recipe tab)…

Yesterday I was thinking about going for another run but I had some inflammation issues where the bursitis is in my left hip from the run the day before, so I decided that it would be better if I didn’t run again today.  Wow, I just made myself feel old. (The bursitis was caused by a hip stress fracture I had months ago.)  Plus, sometimes what happens is that if I exercise the day before my classes, I can’t give 100% during class.  I hate when I can’t give 100% in my workout, because what’s the point then?

I really, really wish I had my heart rate monitor back.  I use it as a sort of guide, I can tell how hard I need to push myself if I glance at my heart rate every once in a while  (wanting to throw up means I’m doing fine, LOL).  Anyone out there who’s a “cardio junky” like myself knows what I’m talking about, for sure )

So instead I went grocery shopping at Walmart.   After I got home from Walmart I was hungry so I ate another Luna bar (and I must say, I think I’m going to stop eating them….that started a whole sugar craving that lasted the rest of the day).  Then I decided that I needed tuna fish:

That is tuna fish, in a little bit of Wegmans Santa Fe Marinade, with a slice of mozzarella cheese on homemade french bread.  It was really good!  Thing was, about an hour later, I was hungry again, and wanted more spice:

That mess on a plate is cottage cheese with the salsa that Jeremy got for me some time ago:

Yummy, and all completely clean.  I had cut up a bunch of peppers which seem to be my go-to vegetable for this week.

Please don’t be surprised if you see them in everything I cook this week, LOL!

Since I wasn’t headed to the gym tonight I made dinner…two dinners, because I didn’t want to eat what everyone else was having, a common occurrence.  Sophia was in the kitchen with me and since I always have my camera handy to take pictures of food I told her to take some pictures.  It occupied her for a couple of minutes, so maybe we have a future photographer in the house? LMAO!

Future photographer? Or maybe not

She did manage to catch me cooking:

No, I’m not stepping on Biscuit.  Biscuit loves to sit there when I cook.

And Sophia even took a picture of what I was cooking:

That was Macaroni Grill boxed chicken alfredo or something similar (not sure what the exact name is).  That wasn’t my dinner (oh, and it goes over pasta).

This was my dinner:

Grilled chicken, broiled cauliflower with garlic salt and real parmesan cheese, and homemade bread with a little butter toasted.  It was fantastic. Bread x2.

So I have a confession, which is about sugar…it started with the Luna bar and morphed into a brownie and several Oreo-like cookies…all unclean and full of yuck   and I’m wondering if the sugar isn’t causing my ho-hum mood, or vice versa (my ho-hum mood causing the cravings) at any rate, tomorrow will have no sugar! No Luna bars, for sure.  One thing I do know is I’m looking forward to working out tomorrow.  I hate “off-days”.

My fave class above pic

Hope you all have a fantastic Tuesday!  I can’t wait!

Jessica xoxo

The good along with the not great…where good reigns :)

I know I said it yesterday, but this week seemed especially long.  I think for me it was due to a couple of reasons:  I inadvertently over-trained this week, resulting in aches that I don’t normally have to endure, the kids went back to school after being off for February break, (sleep deprivation) and my relatively new heart rate monitor (about 6 months old or so!) isn’t working properly.  (uh, it got stuck on 175 today in BodyStep, LOL).  It gets “stuck” all of the time!  Giving it back to get it fixed (hopefully).  In case you are wondering, I changed the battery. It didn’t help.

There were also some good points to the week: The kids went back to school,   My heart rate monitor is getting fixed, and I scored some samples of POM Pomegranate Juice  from the POM Wonderful people! (Thanks, Ryan!)  I can’t wait to try it, reviews to come in the next couple of days! Also, I went to the eye doctor and I don’t need glasses to see! Whoo-hoo!

I decided I wanted to try a different protein powder with my oatmeal this morning, and I bought this at the health food store the other day:

Pina Colada!

I added it to my Bob Marley Oats…so pineapple, coconut, and some cashews.  It just didn’t taste good to me, it tasted sweet but was lacking in flavor. I was so disappointed, because I’d heard good things about this brand in the blog world.  Maybe because it was an unusual flavor?  I have one more flavor to try, so it gets a second chance.

The following is a not-great picture of my Bob Marley Oats, it looks very white:

It normally looks like this:

Well, maybe there’s not much of a difference, after all!

After I got out of class this morning (I believe I burned about 500 calories…for what DID register on my HRM), I ate a LemonZest Luna Bar:

and then came home and ate lunch.  I was starving again about an hour later!  Helloooo cottage cheese, homemade Southwest Chipotle Hummus, and veggies.

There was a cheese stick and some more dark chocolate:

Dinner was some leftover, some new.  I want to discuss the carrots that I cooked first, though:

They were a bit charred. Completely not edible, and I was really looking forward to eating them!  (No, I can’t cook, and I’m ok with that! )  The sweet potato turned out fantastic, though!

Sweeeet!

I put the peanut sauce that I made yesterday on my sweet potato and it went from mediocre to fantastic in an instant!

Peanut Sauce

Along with the wondrous, peanutty sweet potato was, of course, turkey (which I have coming out of my ears!!) and some mixed veggies:

It was really good, I must admit

About 3 hours later I was hungry again, so I made a snack:

I know you’re wondering why there’s frosting on my homemade bread and blueberry jam toast. It’s not frosting, it’s Artisana Coconut Butter! I looooove coconut butter.  It is frosting like, smooth, coco-nutty, creamy goodness.  It cost $12 and was worth every penny.  You don’t need a lot, either!  That was probably less then a teaspoon on the toast!

Well, it’s been fun, but I’m exhausted and in need of some sleep.  See you tomorrow, and I hope you have a warm and cozy night

Jessica xoxo

Friday “date night” :)

Hello lovlies!  Sorry about the delay of the bloggy, but last night we dropped the kids off at the gym for “date night” (it’s 3 hours…rolled into my membership and cheap) and went out to dinner.  We hadn’t done that in a loooong time, so it was a wonderful treat.

I started my morning with Bob Marley Oatmeal because I knew I was in for a run, no matter how long.

Bob Marley Oats

Jillian Micheal’s vanilla protein powder, fresh pineapple, raw cashews, coconut and maple syrup.

So let’s get down to it and talk about the run.

I have issues sometimes going in to my gym to workout, because I have a lot of friends there.  And I start to chit-chat.  I was late as it was, and I had to bring Sophia with me, so I only had a certain length of time to finish 7 miles.  Well, suffice it to say, I only ran 4.5.  Approximately 20 minutes was spent chit-chatting.

Something this run did make me realize, though, is that I have not properly trained to run a half marathon at this point. There is less than a month of training left.  So, unfortunately, I am going to pass on the ING on the 21st of March and aim for a different one down the road.  This was a hard decision, but I think in the end it will be better.  As soon as I find a new one, I will let y’all know what the new date is!

OK, enough running talk.  When I got home from my run it was late and I knew we were going to date night, so I didn’t want to eat a heavy lunch and decided on my current staple:

Wheat Berry Salad

I love wheat berry salad, as I’ve said before, so I won’t bore you with any more salad talk.

Let’s get down to it with dinner.  We ate at a fantastic Italian restaurant by our house.   They brought out buttery garlic rolls:

Then salads (I had my dressing on the side…it was the House dressing, a balsamic vinaigrette):

Salad.

Sorry about the lighting…but I had to take the pictures with my phone, and it was dark in the restaurant!

Then for my main dish:

Lasagna!

I tried to eat only half:

But who was I kidding? I ate the rest when I got home!

I would like to point out, that all the things that I ate were freshly made.  I doubt any of it had preservatives or the like.  So even though none of my selections were not low-fat, that does not mean that they weren’t clean!

I did have some dessert, and dessert is not normally a clean food, on account of the sugar.  I could not pass up some tiramisu and cappuccino, which I did not eat all of (I promise)!

Oh, it was heavenly.  And I still have half  the slice in my fridge!

There was some wine...

Who can eat Italian food without having a nice cabernet to go along with the meal?  Unheard of, LOL!

I am going to let you go now, as I want to go out and run a couple of miles for fun.  I think I was putting too much pressure on myself to increase mileage, and I started losing my zest for running.  I got it back today though, on account that there is no more pressure for the time being!

Have a fantastic Saturday!  It’s supposed to be 60 degrees here in the ATL today…can’t wait to get outside!

Jessica xoxo

Pitching a Fit Saturday

A lot of blogs that I read always shows their kids happy and angelic.  Sometimes I wonder if their kids are ever “fit pitchers”!  I wish I had a picture of Sophia, it was a real doozy.  It was all over wanting candy at 9:30 am.  Um, no! I really don’t need you all sugared up before lunch!   Now I am “not her best friend”, “not the boss of her” and “doesn’t love me anymore”.  All over chocolate. I love me some chocolate, but at least I can control myself (mostly.)

Before all of the fit pitching, I made an awesome breakfast.  I made Bob Marley Oatmeal (formerly Jamaican Oatmeal).  Drizzle of coconut butter, some coconut, raw cashews, pineapple and maple syrup flakes.  It was fantastic and a great way to add some sunshine to my day, since the sun is not shining outside my window.

Fresh Pineapple.

The new and improved Bob Marley Oatmeal

Yesterday I ate more Mexican (what is up with that?) Honestly, I could eat it every day!!  I stuck to only 3 times this week, LOL   I forgot to take pictures, it must’ve been the 2 pomegranate margaritas that I drank.  I had a huge grilled chicken quesadilla…one really large flour tortilla filled with chicken and cheese sauce.  Oh it was sooo good!  There was also a side of guacamole. YUM!  I’m not used to eating a lot of cheese, so it made me super thirsty and I drank tons of this later at night:

Water!  Did you know that our bodies are made up mostly of water? In men that percentage is about 60% and in women the percentage is about 55%.  [source]  Another fact about water: most people don’t drink enough and are perpetually dehydrated.  Thirst can sometimes be mistaken for hunger, also, resulting in over-eating.  Just another reason to stay hydrated.  I’ve heard many different “experts” say that if you’re thirsty, then you are already dehydrated.  Personally, I shoot for about 40 ounces each day, and even more if I am exercising.  It is different for each person, there isn’t a “set amount” (for example, 8 glasses a day) that you should be drinking.  That is only a guideline. You just need to figure out what feels good for you.

My meals were slightly off because of the gigantic quesdadilla so I did not eat until maybe 8:00 pm, and by that time, I was famished yet again.  Looking for something quick to eat, and tired of the same ole’ thing, I found this in my freezer:

I love this kind of pizza.  They are almost clean – there’s some evaporated cane juice.  I hate to say it, but I ate the majority of the pizza.  It was really good. You don’t even miss the cheese!

That's not cheese. That's artichokes

I attempted to make whole grain bread in my bread machine again:

Uhhh. It happened again!

So, I followed the directions/recipe exactly. My husband seems to think I got a bad batch of yeast so I am going to try again today, with different yeast, and proof the yeast before adding it in to get it going.  Good thing flour is cheap, because I’m going through it like water!  I would like to point out, once again, that it tasted yummy!  It just, well, it was like a brick.

I also made some of Averie’s Raw Chocolate Cookie Dough Balls.  I couldn’t manage the balls, so I made Raw Cookie Dough Blobs.  You can find all of her wonderful raw treats (healthy!) vegan recipes here.

And a closer view of the balls blobs:

I think I did ok

I leave all of you today with a picture of Sophia yesterday actually sitting with Biscuit instead of yelling and screaming at her:

I have to remember, she’s only 4

Have a great day. Be healthy, eat clean, and drink your water!

Jessica xoxo