It's amazing what a good run will do....

for one's mood! It's gonna be a quick one tonight, I just popped Bride Wars into the DVD player and am going to watch that. I'm a single lady until Saturday, gotta enjoy my time! I went to dinner tonight with one of my BFF's, Michelle. We did Indian. Yum yum, split an order of vegetable samosas, and I had baigan bharta and roti. Sooo yum. I wanted to lick the little dish clean.

Did a run with the 'skid' today. Temps are sooo much lower than last week. Last Wednesday our high was 103 in Seattle, today it was barely 70. My body was in heaven, I even ran in a long sleeved shirt today because the 62 at noon was FREEZING to me. I loved that we did negative splits, what a great workout.

For lunch I had mongolian grill leftovers from last night (brown rice, chicken, tofu, a million veggies).

One of my fave stores just started carrying Chobani, I picked up a couple of things of it last night and will be sure to give my opinion. I'm a total Fage girl out of necessity so we'll see how it compares. My mom said she much prefers Fage to Chobani so we'll see what I think.

Okay, I'm going to kick back and watch this movie. :)

Happy Birthday to Me

So today is my 31st birthday...I don't feel any older, and quite frankly feel younger than I did when I was 21. I'm in a lot better shape, y'all I wish I had my old pics somewhere. I think around 2001 I gave up on dropping the weight and trashed all my old pictures. I'm glad I didn't give up, I don't know when it hit but in May of 2006 was when I had my weight loss epiphany. I never thought I could control my portion sizes...one day I said 'f' it and started going to 5-6 smaller meals a day. That did the trick for me, I stopped feeling hungry and overindulging. At the peak I know that I weighed 178lbs, this was in 2000. I could have weighed more but that is the highest I ever knew of. In 2001 I got down to 155lbs with exercise alone. But I couldn't ever break the plateau. Between 2001 and 2006 I hovered between 155 and 165lbs. On May 14, 2006 I weighed 165lbs. By late Summer 2006 I was down to 145lbs. PORTION CONTROL was my friend. In the Fall I got engaged to the hubs but I was feeling a plateau, I had lifted weights a lot in high school so I started adding weight training back into my routine.

By the time we were married I'd gotten down to 135lbs and felt great. I don't really consider myself to be in a 'maintenance' mode. I honestly don't want to necessarily lose weight. I want to get stronger. I want my muscles stronger for lifting and running. I want my mind stronger for learning. I try hard to keep my nutrition in line because I straight up feel better when I eat better. I know that the number hasn't really changed on the scale over the last 2.5 years but I see the differences, I feel the differences in my performance.

So yeah, that was one big useless tangent. LOL. I guess it was just a recap of where I am today...

For breakfast this morning I had a big Green Monster. Same ingredients as yesterday. I have a small sample of PB2, how should I use it? I was thinking in a Green Monster, or maybe mixed with some greek yogurt and puffins? Any ideas?

For my snack I had greek yogurt, pb puffins, kashi heart to heart, and strawberries.

For my lunch I am going to eat leftovers of the delicious cheesy chicken shells from last night.

I have an amazing workout planned for after work, I wrote it all out even! Here it is, obvi weights could change.

Cardio: 5 minute warm up on tread (varied speeds)

Dip assist machine 3x10 @ 30lbs
DB Shoulder press 3x10 @ 25lb dbs

Cardio: 5 minutes gradually increasing incline @ 7.0mph

Leaning lateral raises 3x10 @ 10lb db
Supine chest press 3x10 @ 25lb dbs

Cardio: 5 minutes of speed intervals (7.0 for 40 seconds/9.0 for 20 seconds repeat)

Frog crunches 3x15
Bicycle crunches 3x25

Cardio: 15 or 20 minutes of moderate running (7.0mph or so). Depending on how much time I have and how I feel.

I almost forgot! I have a couple of new songs on my little iPod Shuffle too, I love when a new song comes on. Here are my new faves:

• El Gitano Del Amor by Latin Soul Syndicate
• Love, Sex, and Magic by Ciara (feat. Justin Timberlake - yum)
• Whatcha Think About That by The Pussycat Dolls (feat. Missy Elliott)
  

Okay I'm going to go make my lunch in a few! Have a good afternoon all!

Happy Rest Day

So I've been doing a 3 on, 1 off rotation with working out lately. I think this is best for my body, after that 3rd day of exercise I need to rest my legs. I didn't do a dang thing today and loved it. I had this rather scary looking Green Monster this morning.

Don't fear, it was delicious. I bought a huge thing of Strawberries at Costco yesterday so we are eating a lot of them right now. In the GM was:

1 cup of Cow's milk 1 scoop Optimum Nutrition vanilla whey protein powder 1 TB Trader Joe's raw creamy Almond butter 5 strawberries 1/2 frozen banana 4c spinach 1/2c frozen blueberries 1.5c crushed ice

I just haven't really been feeling like taking pics of my food, I think it makes me self conscious. Maybe more than 4 people would read my blog if I took more pics, what do you all think? Though, I eat the same stuff most every day so it really isn't exciting. I'm much better about workout blogging than food, which is true to form because I'm a good exerciser but am pretty lax about my nutrition.

For my morning snack the strawberries made another appearance....

1/2c Fage 0%
1/2c Peanut Butter Puffins
1/2 Kashi Heart to Heart cereal
6 sliced strawberries

I was starvin marvin' by lunch time...

photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Lunch was a wrap:
Morningstar Farms tomato basil pizza burger
1 Flat Out wrap
1c spinach
1/2 tomato
1 Laughing Cow Light Swiss

All grilled up because it sounded freaking good...served along side a handful of riceworks sweet chili brown rice chips.

Afternoon snack was a Kashi Honey Almond Flax bar (my least fave of the Costco variety pack, but DH won't touch 'em so someone has to eat them while he gets the nummy Trail mix ones...how is THAT fair?) and a big juicy peach.

For dinner I tried something new, I went out on a limb that the 'skid' would eat it but he isn't a super picky eater so I wasn't too worried (DH said he thought he'd eat it). Thanks to Danica for this delicious recipe! I only had a 10oz package of frozen spinach so I went double chicken (DH is a huge carnivore and I need the extra protein on my rest day). OMG, so delicious. I ate two of the shells along with about a cup of steamed broccoli and cauliflower. The 'skid' actually said (unprompted) 'This is really good!'. So two thumbs up for Danica's recipe. I used Newman's Own marinara since I haven't been to Trader Joe's in a few weeks.

I plan to eat a serving of Dreyer's Tart Honey froyo later. I picked up a tub last week because all Dreyer's was $2.99 at Safeway. I really like this but I don't like that the honey is a swirl, I wish it was more mixed in. There's definitely a tart lemon taste (which isn't suprising because there is lemon juice concentrate in the ingredient list). It doesn't compare to my fave froyo with coconut but it will do for a treat, it's a lot cheaper.

picture courtesy of Dreyer's

Okay I'm off to get some laundry done and to read some more of the latest Stephanie Plum novel, Finger Lickin' Fifteen. It's hilarious!

Quick Sunday post!

Last night was really fun, DH and I went out to dinner and to the theatre. We saw Catch Me if You Can, I've never seen the movie or read the book so it was all new viewing for me. Overall we both really liked it.

Dinner was amazing, we went to Palisade. I hadn't been there in YEARS. It was just as good as I remembered (if not better). I forgot my camera, which bummed me out because the restaurant is beautiful. We started with drinks, a lilikoi mojito for me and a mai tai for DH. Then we split a calamari appetizer, unlike a lot of restaurants they use big strips of calamari. They soak it in buttermilk and then do a very light breading. I loved the wasabi aioli they served for dipping, even DH liked it (and he isn't a fan of wasabi). After that we made the fatal mistake and went for the seafood chowder. It was delicious but soooo rich. For entrees DH had a big NY strip steak with mushrooms, mashed Yukon Gold potatoes, and asparagas. I had crab and mac nut stuffed prawns. They served it over summer veggies (delicious) and mashed potatoes (I had like 3 bites). The prawns were so much bigger than I thought they would be, I think there were six and I was able to eat 4.5 (and all of my veggies). This is so rare for me to feel full like that, I'm normally the bottomless pit. I think the richness of the food just did me in, I don't normally eat really rich foods. Sooo delicious though!

After dinner we had time before we had to head downtown to go for a walk around the marina, I think this really helped me digest so I didn't fall asleep during the show!

This morning I got up for a good workout. It was already hot and I didn't want to deal with it so I did a treadmill workout.

I did a variation of this workout from Fitness magazine.

Minutes	Pace
0:00–10:00	Warm-up jog; worked my way up from 3.5mph to 6.5mph gradually.
10:00–10:20	Sprint at 9.5 mph
10:20–11:20	Jog at 6.5 mph
11:20–14:00	Repeat minutes 10:00–11:20 twice
14:00–17:00	Jog at 6.5 mph
17:00–27:00	Run at 7.5 mph
27:00–31:00	Jog at 6.5 mph
31:00–35:00	Run at 7.5 mph
35:00–39:00	Jog at 6.5 mph
39:00–55:00	Repeat minutes 31:00–39:00 twice
55:00–60:00	Gradually slow pace to cool down at jog/walk

This ended up burning 700 calories for me with the cooldown, I varied incline between 1.0% and 2.5%.

After that I had to go to Costco to get more spinach. YUM!

Saturday....

Ugh, I woke up with a pounding ass headache this morning. I tried to get it to go away naturally but it just wouldn't go. I ended up heading out for my run, which quite frankly sucked (I slept later than I wanted and it was already hot in the sun plus the headache). Here are the stats, I'm too lazy to upload and quite frankly it is one of my slowest runs in 5 years. I originally wanted to do a 6.75 mile loop but knew my headache would prevent that.

Time: 41:04
Distance: 4.5miles
Calories Burned: 478
Best Pace: 7:38
Avg. Pace: 9:07

I came home and treated myself to a huge Green Monster and shower. LOL.

I then went for a much needed pedicure and manicure. I'm now back home eating some lunch. I had some leftover Sloppy Joe's (without a bun, just the meat and veggies) and some sweet potato discs. I finally gave in and turned on the oven, I had to have them. Seasoned with some Johnny's Seasoning Salt and cayenne pepper.

I'm just relaxing and enjoying a little Beverly Hills 90210 on the SOAP network.

Happy Friday!

This Friday is extra happy, our temperatures have finally cooled off. Yesterday was a busy day for me at work and then I met my mom after work to see Jewel at Zoo Tunes. Zoo Tunes was a lot of fun, plus it benefits the Zoo...what is not to love? I would definitely go again, even if it wasn't someone I was super interested in seeing. It's a small venue, all general admission lawn seating. I was afraid that we weren't going to get any shade so it would be super hot (it was 93 when we got out of the car). Fortunately the entire West side of the lawn area has trees so we weren't in the sun for long (maybe 5 minutes).

Here is a picture of Cooper trying to stay cool! So he really only stayed like this for a few minutes before he got up. One thing I found about him is that he doesn't mind water (or maybe he was so hot he didn't care?). I would wring a towel out on him and wet him down. He also liked me putting a frozen bottle of water (wrapped in a towel) in his little cat house with him.


I'm currently enjoying a delicious Green Monster.


I have to work super late tonight for our quarterly server updates so I'm going to hit the gym for a long lunch (and take a long dinner break LOL).

Here is the workout I have planned (weights are all estimates):

Cardio: 10 minutes on treadmill
Bicep curl 3x10 @ 20lb dbs
Lat pulldown 3x10 @ 75lbs
Cable hammer curl with rope attachment 3x10 @ 40lbs
Two arm dumbbell row 3x10 @ 15 or 20lbs
Stability ball back extension
Cardio: Run on treadmill probably 2.5 miles (20 minutes) plus 5 minute cool down.

Okay, time to get to work!!!

More Hotness

I've been a bad blogger, actually I've just been straight up lazy. It is so hot outside and Seattle just isn't equipped for this shiz. Today was the hottest day EVER in Seattle. We did eventually hit 103 at my house...in the shade. I really wasn't wanting to workout at all today, the 'skid' and I got our portable AC (usually lives in our bedroom) downstairs to try to keep the living room cool. Fortunately the temp stayed steady down here all day, so it worked. However my work laptop has a steaming pile of ish for a wireless network card so I kept getting dumped offline all day and got next to nothing accomplished. I finally found a solution around 1:30pm and got an old USB wireless card I had working on it and just disabled my crappy POS internal card. Whew.

I was frustrated with it all so I went to the gym at lunch. I was trying to be super quick so my workout was much abbreviated (I figured something is better than nothing). Here are my stats:

Cardio: 20 minute run (2.61 miles). Plus five minute cooldown.

Box Step Ups with dumbbells 3x10 @ 17.5lb dbs


Calf raises on the step with dbs 3x15 @ 17.5lb dbs (superset)


Seated Oblique Twists w/ medicine ball 3x15 @ 10lb ball


Wall squat with stability ball 3x15


Stability ball crunches 3x25


Hamstring curls 3x10 @ 60lbs

I had a Green Monster for lunch as my appetite was finally a little off from the hotness. It also turns out that Cooper doesn't mind water, he let me wet him down to cool off. I even placed a frozen towel over him and he didn't mind. My sweet boy.

The 'skid' and I went to Starbucks when I finished work just to enjoy some AC (and iced drinks). I had a venti iced americano with caramel and the 'skid' had the strawberry banana smoothie. He said it was really good, and the nutritionals weren't horrible (although I'm sure there is added sugar in the strawberry puree they add).

For dinner we all went to a new Mongolian Grill tonight. It was so delicious! They had a great selection of veggies, I went with mushrooms, spinach, zucchini, broccoli, onions, celery, tofu, chicken, and brown rice with their mongolian sauce. I had tons leftover (I did the one bowl option while the 'skid' and DH did the all you can eat option). So I got to bring my leftovers home. :) They also gave us a sample of their tart frozen yogurt...I loved it but DH wasn't a fan (I ate both of ours lol).

Hopefully the pic I posted works...I'm using a different computer than usual (and IE 6) and it's not showing up in my Compose screen...I added it via HTML code so hopefully it will work. Note: yeah it didn't work and I don't have the patience to deal with it...so I'll post it tomorrow from my other computer.