Photo compliments of my boyfriend Charles

The Holiday season is upon us  and that means that there are going to be a lot of dinner parties, but that does not mean that your waist line has to suffer. Yes the Holidays are meant for a little indulging, but you have to remember not to over do it. You can eat anything this season, just remember to do it in moderation.

However do not forget your little green friends vegetables. Try to always have a green side with every meal. This is a recipe that we make all the time, we actually made it tonight, along with halibut. He made the halibut with watermelon, lime juice, onions, lemons and a tad bit of butter. It was pretty tasty! Although it was a fresh summer recipe, and its winter in Buffalo, it was still amazing.

Baked Asparagus:

Take cleaned and cut asparagus and place on a foiled baking sheet. Brush with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake for 15 min at 350

Baking instead of steaming makes the asparagus crispy instead of soggy

Enjoy!

Jen, Me, Trish and Melissa

Happy Thanksgiving a day late! I hope you all ate a lot of turkey and spent some good quality time with family and friends. I had the 117th Annual YMCA Turkey Trot. I have done the oldest standing footrace in America like 5 times, but this time I didn’t really train for it, so it was a little difficult. It is a 8K and my goal was to finish without stopping, but my secret goal was to finish within an hour. I succeeded, but just barely, I came in at 58:09 and that was with walking for like 2 tenths of a mile. At the end of mile 3 my left knee started to throb, so I had to stop and walk a little but then I saw the mile 4 marker and I rallied and started up again.

I was listening to Girl Talk the whole time and while I was rounding Niagara Square the “Shout” song came on and in Buffalo that is like our anthem, so that gave me the motivation and energy I needed to get to the finish line 🙂

One of my favorite parts of this race is the party after. Although I was slightly dehydrated that did not stop me from having a few beers after!

Today, however I am regretting not training for this because I am still super sore and it hurts to walk, it hurts to go up and down stairs and it even hurts to stand.

Until the next race….

I have been so unmotivated lately that I needed to turn to music to try and gain some of that motivation back. So these are some of the songs I’ve been listening to to try and keep the motivation up!

1. Conor Maynard – Vegas Girl

2. Bridgit Mendler – Ready or Not

3. P!nk – Blow me one last kiss

So all of these songs are popish and teenie bopper but they all make me want to dance and workout 🙂

My yummy salad from Moe’s

If you are anything like me you like the convenience of fast food, but hate fast food. I have found an awesome salad at Moes Southwest Grill, the Personal Trainer, for starters it has a awesome name, right? But basically it is a veggie salad and you can choose the veggies you want on it.

For example I have lettuce, black beans, black olives, cucumbers, guac and salsa on this one. I went to Moes.com and looked up the nutritional facts and this came in at 252, now to be fair this had a very large dollop of guac on it but I still believe that it was under 400.

See it is possible to eat healthy and make good decisions when out and at a fast food chain. And this thing totally filled me up, I did not even finish it.

Welcome to Moes!

So I have to come clean – I did not finish this week long challenge. It came to an abrupt ending Friday at work. I was getting really excited for the weekend and wanted to go out for dinner and drinks, and I ended up eating my friends leftover quesadillas from lunch. From that point on it was not worth trying to salvage the diet, because  I knew I would end up cheating again at some point over the weekend. I ended up going out to dinner Friday night and had Mexican and a margarita 🙂

Although I did not finish, I still enjoyed the cleanse and would like to give it a try again sometime. Maybe after the Holidays 🙂 And I have developed a taste for those smoothies, and I plan on still having those for the occasional meal. So it was not a complete loss after all

Green Smoothie Challenge: 1; Me: 0

My delicious green smoothie

While searching others blogs, I found this Green Smoothie Challenge posted. So I decided to try it. Check it out if you are not familiar, I highly recommend it! It basically includes drinking 2 smoothies a day made out of water, spinach, a banana and frozen fruit, then a salad or some kind of whole veggies for dinner. No wheat, sugars, dairy, ect. I am on day 4. It has been challenging – but this is a summary of my experience so far.

Day 1 – I almost quit before I was even started! I was making the morning and afternoon smoothies and the bananas I bought were not ripe yet and the smoothies were disgusting – so bitter! I couldn’t even finish the breakfast one and then I broke down and used a packet of Equal for the lunch one.  Then dinner was horrible, I am not a salad person, I could only eat a little bit. I ended throwing most of it out and just going to bed. I also want to point out that I decided to cut out coffee this week too. Which is probably why it was so hard?

Day 2 – I decided to jump back on the horse and give it the old college try. The smoothies (with ripe bananas) were SO much better. I was super busy during the day and ended up eating lunch late and with snacking on veggies during the day I did not even eat dinner because I was so full. By the way, I felt amazing by the end of the day.

Veggies/Beans used for the soup I made

All Veggie Soup

Day 3 – This day my entire attitude about the challenge had changed. I felt great, and had energy! I decided to make one of the approved soups for dinners. I grabbed a crockpot and had the soup cook while I was at work, came home and it smelled great. Got myself a big bowl and it was disgusting. Ok disgusting is a harsh word, it was just bland, and basically it was vegetable broth and chopped up vegetables and beans. I just wish there was more flavor.

Day 4 – Woke up feeling great and happily made my smoothies for today. I decided to switch it up today; I had some leftover soup for lunch, which did not hit the spot and left me hungry an hour later. So I ended up breaking down and cheating, I ate some Pirates Booty Corn/Rice Puffs. They were in my desk drawer and just looked so tasty! I’m going to refer to that as the “incident” from now on. So the “incident” happened only an hour ago, and I feel better and a little more satisfied and fortunately it did not lead to any additional snacking.

That is my progress so far, excluding the “incident” I am pretty proud of myself for sticking it out this long. Usually I would have given it 2 days and made up some excuse to quit. So far I have not! But I have thought about it 🙂

Update to Weight Loss Contests at work

Today we had one of our progress weigh ins, and my team is down 20 lbs – which isn’t that good for a team of 8 people

But slow and steady always wins the race – right?

I am down 2 lbs

But I have to say I feel pretty good an it feels like I have lost more

Hopefully by the next weigh in we are down a lot more!

Stay tuned……..

Just enjoying a Blue Moon

So today is my birthday and I have turned 28, and I am laying in bed SO hungover. You would think that I was either a 17 year old girl who just had her first drink, or that I am an old lady that can’t drink like she used to. I just wanted to go out with a few of my friends for a couple of drinks! I blame this on the shots that I was forced to take……Damn you alcohol!

I am going to nurse this hangover with some Gatorade and Advil. And I am pretty certain that there probably won’t be much working out happening this weekend. I have at least learned my lesson for now and will not be drinking for awhile 🙂

Also I gotta get ready for the 117th annual YMCA Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving day, if you are not familiar it is the oldest road race in America!

From the website (because I am lazy and copy and pasting is SO much easier than paraphrasing)

“Established in 1896, this 8K race will mark its 117th start on Thanksgiving morning, making it the oldest continually running footrace in North America (even older than the Boston Marathon)!”

So I have been doing this race on and off for the last 5 years, being that it is on Thanksgiving day it usually conflicts with going out to the bars the night before. So sometimes I don’t always make it. Also the weather is always a toss up, living in Buffalo you don’t know if you will have sunny skies or a blizzard. But since I am NEVER DRINKING AGAIN, I do not think I’ll have a problem making it this year.

Ok I’m going back to bed…I’m going to enjoy a Harry Potter marathon 🙂

Love this little shake as a meal replacement

Protein and Meal Replacement Shakes, there are so many choices but what is the best option? Are they even good for you?

I’m a little weary of Protein shake, because the first thing that comes to mind are body builders and bulking up for muscle. That is something I do not want to do! I am looking to add some muscle and tone up, but not add a ton of muscle.

I’m still using the My Fitness Pal App and if i look at my daily/weekly intake I am not getting enough protein, so  I think this will be a very effective way to get some more protein. So I have decided to use a protein shake as a meal replacement.

So this is the recipe I have been using:

1 scoop whey protein

1 cup milk (either skim or soy – depends on what I have on hand)

1/3 cup oatmeal (uncooked)

1 banana or 1 cup frozen berries

Based on my calculations this is how many calories this shake has: 445 calories – which is pretty good for a meal replacement shake and it definitely fills me up until its time for a snack or dinner

Also I would recommend getting a personal blender that you can take the cup with you. I have the Oster personal blender, you can find it on Amazon – its not that expensive and is super convenient.

Yesterday I completed my first run with my new sneakers, well I do not know if you can call it an actual run, it was more like 1 mile of complete misery.

This is a play by play of what happened:

1. Got to the gym and put the sneakers on (they were tight but I was feeling good about them)

2. Stepped on the treadmill and started to warm up with a brisk walk

3. Thought I would take it slow and put the treadmill on 5.0 instead of my regular 5.5

4. 3 tenths of a mile in, my right arch started to throb

5. I quickly finished a mile (not sure how…my foot hurt so bad)

6. Got off the treadmill and limped back to the locker room to take that sneaker off as quickly as possible and put my boots back on (which ps was the best feeling in the world)

So basically it was like the worst jog I have ever had, no new sneakers have ever done that to me before, I do not know if maybe I just should not be wearing minimalist sneakers or my technique is wrong. But I was in pain and until I know how to wear them I will be wearing my old Brooks for awhile. I am just glad that I was not outside like miles away from my car.

I think how the heel is designed has something to do with it – if you take a look at the photos below you see how my old sneakers have a solid heel and the new ones have like a rounded heel. I think when I run my heel hits first. Not really sure if this is right?

New Shoe

Old Shoe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is there a correct technique? I need help!?!?!