Tag: exercising in winter

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo, Uncategorized

Sunday Recap

heather

Wow. What a week.  I thought the week before last was busy, but this week put it to shame.  First of all, an update on the topics discussed last week:

  • Meals
    • I DID make the Crockpot Coffee Ancho Chile Short Ribs.  I think they turned out fine, but I wasn’t blown away by them, which was really too bad because Tim has been knocked out by a severe stomach issue for the past 7-10 days, so I had to eat all 4 pounds of this by myself.  It was tasty at first, but after about the 5th meal of ribs and sauerkraut (which Tim made and which turned out SUPER awesome), I was very much over it.
    • I made Heavenly Paleo Meatloaf, leaving out the onions, red pepper, and cayenne to protect Teeeeeeem’s tummy.  It still turned out really good.  It seemed to sit well with Tim, too, who got all creative and made meatloaf and sauerkraut soup with some homemade chicken broth (recipe from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman).  The meatloaf recipe can no longer be found online, but if you want a copy, let me know in the comments.
    • Paleo Fudgy Brownies.  A large portion of my favorite recipes are from Health-Bent; however, this one did not turn out well for me.  I baked the brownies for 18 minutes as indicated in the recipe.  They still looked very under-done when I took them out, but I didn’t take the time to really test them.  I waited for them to cool and realized that they were still completely doughy in the middle.  I refrigerated them and was then able to scoop out bars and microwave them for about a minute (they burn something fierce if you microwave them for 2 minutes, fyi).  They get a little more cooked that way.  The flavor is pretty good – but very nutty.  These won’t stay in my dessert rotation, especially since they call for 1 cup of almond butter.  These are some EXPENSIVE brownies.  In fact, after failing this recipe, I went through my recipe binder and tore out all the recipes calling for full cups of nut butter.  I’m trying to be more thrifty with my cooking.  More on that in a later blog post.
    • I didn’t get around to making the Cowboy Breakfast Skillet, but that’s on the docket for this week.  Since I’m trying to be more frugal, I didn’t plan many official meals this week; we are just going to scrounge around and eat what’s here.  That means we’ll have a lot of scrambles, stir fries, and tomato soup.  If I can get our monthly food spend below $700, I’ll be happy!

And to tie up some more loose ends from last week:

  • My water kefir turned out!!!  YAY!!!  I’m so excited.  I did a double ferment which means I fermented the water for 2 days, then transferred it to a flip-top bottle, added 1/4 cup of organic cherry juice, and let it sit for 6 days.  When I opened it up on Thursday, it shot carbonated water 6 inches into the air! Out came fizzy pink, delicious water kefir.  The flavor was great.  The only disappointment is that the kefir didn’t stay very carbonated after I transferred it to a regular mason jar.  Maybe I have to keep it in the flip-top bottle for it to stay carbonated.  I need to get some more of those bottles.  The single-fermented water kefir is way too sweet for me, so I’m going to have to double ferment everything.  I’m so excited that this turned out.
  • Yoga – We didn’t go on Monday, but we did make it on Wednesday.  There was a different teacher this time, and instead of telling you exactly what to do, she allowed you to make it “your workout.”  That meant that she described several variations of what you could be doing at any point in time.  It was very confusing to me.  I just want to be told to do one thing, so I can look at the teacher or the other students and figure out exactly what I should be doing.  We are trying a different class with a different teacher on Tuesday to see if we can find something more our style.
  • Swimming – We actually made it to the pool yesterday!  We went to the Y at 9AM, and had no trouble finding a lane.  The water was tortuously cold though!
  • CBRC Chili Chase – The 4 mile run last Sunday was an adventure!  The sun was out, but the temp was only about 20 degrees.  The course was damn hilly too!  The finish line is at the TOP of a hill, which is just so painful and cruel. I probably would have stopped and walked if there wouldn’t have been so many people watching the finish line.  As it was, out of 123 female runners, I came in 39th, which means I got a free CBRC coffee mug! It’s the first time I’ve won any award for a race, so that kind of made up for being extremely cold while simultaneously hot and sweaty and generally miserable.   This was our first CBRC run, and it was actually, all told, a really fun time.  The crowd was in good spirits, very supportive, and they gave us beer afterwards.  🙂

So there’s my update!  This week looks to be another busy week – yoga on Tuesday, drinks with coworkers on Wednesday, Wine & Art at the Figge on Thursday with my Mammacita, and then a trip to Monticello to visit the folks.  HOW do people regularly exercise and/or take exercise classes in the evening??  It seems impossible to get anything else done (like making supper).  I can’t wait until the weather warms up so I can start running in the AM again.  It makes me feel so much better all day, and then my evening is free.

Wow, this is kind of a long post.  Maybe I should start writing more than once/week.

I want to thank the new subscribers to my blog – thank you for reading!  I’m used to my blog only being read by my Mom, husband, best friend, and occasionally one or two of my brothers.  While I’m sure they are always RIVETED by the content, I realize they are bound by love and duty to read this; whereas, you are not.  So thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the posts and find them useful.

Have a great week!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Uncategorized

Primal Challenge – Day 2

heather

Here’s the detes for the day.  I started tracking my food on MyFitnessPal, per the recommendation of a friend.  I know it’s not 100% accurate (partially because I estimate the amount of food and partially because you can’t always find exact matches), but it will at least give me an idea of where I am getting most of my calories.  Today I’m at 67% fat, 23% protein, and 10% carbs (it was a heavy bacon day).  I’m at 1719 calories for the day, which I think would be low for me in the summer but is probably pretty accurate for me in the winter time.  I’ll keep using this for a few days and see how it works.

  • Did 30 minutes of yoga.
  • Breakfast
    • 2 cups of coffee with 1/2 teaspoon of coconut oil.
    • Sauteed broccoli, red bell pepper, and kale in bacon fat, 2 pieces of bacon
  • Lunch
    • Salad with mushrooms, sardines, cucumbers, walnuts, red bell pepper, and olive oil and ACV
  • Supper
    • Grilled eggs with chorizo with 1/2 an avocado
    • I think the Fitness tracker probably WAY overestimated the fat & salt in the chorizo, because I used homemade chorizo.
  • Snacks
    • 2 slices of bacon, 2 carrots, handful of walnuts
  • Drinks – all day long lots of herbal tea.
  • No improvement yet in allergies/joint pain.
  • Verdict for the day:  Success!  I resisted 20th anniversary cupcakes, a veiled insinuation that I should go out for drinks after work, and a counter-top full of toffee and peanut butter cups.  So far I haven’t been seriously tempted, but that’s probably more hormonal than anything.  You girls know what I mean.  🙂

Our gym membership lapsed in December.  We really only need a gym Feb – May, so we can train for the triathlon (pool).  We were going to save some cash and sign up next month, but we are already going stir crazy.  I know the primal community is not big on running, but Tim and I miss it.  We can run when it’s 30 outside, but not when it’s 30 below.  We’re going to have to join up somewhere so we can get our bodies moving again.

Life is ramping up to be busy again.  I start a new class at Iowa State on Monday. It’s a programming class, and I have NO programming experience.  I just read the syllabus, and we have a GROUP project.  Bah!!  That’s going to be no fun.  Hopefully I’ll get lucky and group up with a brilliant programmer.

So between projects at work, school, meal planning and cooking, ramping up training for the tri, and crocheting a scarf (which is turning out super cute, btw), I’m going to be one busy Hlo.  But happiness is growth right??  Hlo in June is going to be happy that Hlo in January was miserable.  You are welcome, future self.