Two Day Food Diary.

Day One:

Breakfast: Banana-Straw Oatcakes!

Carrots w/ 1 Tbs Hummus

Lunch: 1 Cup Butternut Squash Soup w/ Salad

 A few almonds and a plum!

All this goodness =

This!

Apple w/ Almond Butter

Dinner: Salmon Burger with Lemony Broccoli

Dessert: Half a banana split!
Instead of ice cream
I put half a banana
1 tablespoon almond butter
in the food processor and froze!
Topped the other half with the mix
and some apricot preserves/coconut dates/strawberry goodness!

 Day Two:

Whipped Banana Oatmeal w/ Chia seeds and half a grapefruit 

Greek Yogurt with puffed rice and strawberries

Lunch: Veggie Salad & an Open Egg Sandwich

Almond Butter w/ Apple

Dinner: Spinach Salad w/ Tuna hard boiled egg potato and a spelt english muffin

Better than a bowl of ice cream!
Puffed rice w/ NF Milk and a banana

I'd say this was quite the experiment! For one thing It took me more time to prepare my food for the photos! I was more conscious of my choices and besides this I didn't graze at all! Still I snack way too much! Did I mention that I gave up chocolate for lent? All I really wanted to do all day was to grab some chocolate covered espresso beans and a chocolate chip cookie for dessert! I'm staying strong though! I recently read an article that said you can become addicted to certain foods. The article also said that the memory of that food doesn't get out of your body for at least three days, which is why it is so easy to eat a cookie the day after you ate a doughnut. Natural sugar can be just as bad, which is one of my issues, I eat a lot of fruit which equals a lot of sugar! At least it comes along with some filling fiber! I think I will continue this little experiment for the rest of the week to see how I do over the long run!

B-A-N-A-N-A-S... Eating Seasonally.

Once upon a time if you lived up here in the Pacific Northwest you weren't able to eat bananas all twelve months out of the year. Thats because Bananas aren't native (I'm guessing you knew that one!), but today we have the ability to eat fruits from around the world at anytime of the year. For someone like me who is fruit obsessed this is amazing! But as farmer's market time rolls around once again it gets me to thinking about eating local and what it means to eat foods that aren't in season and aren't local.

One great thing about getting recipes out of magazines is that they usually feature foods that are seasonal! Usually when you buy a cookbook it is organized by category rather than seasonally. This means that half the time when I find a delicious looking recipe I find that an ingredient is out of season so I either have to fork out a ton of money or find something else to prepare. The other day I got a cookbook called "Clean Food" by Terry Walters. This book is organized by seasons! This is a vegetarian cookbook so there are so many great (and different) veggies included in the recipes! I'm really excited to try some from the spring section, but it is going to be hard not to flip through to Summer and Fall!

I can't really say that I'm willing to give up my banana a day habit, but thinking about eating seasonally is a little food for thought!

For the past seven months I have been writing down the foods that I eat in a day. It keeps me aware of calorie intake and how well I'm eating. What I've found is that I am a snacker. Not a grazer who doesn't eat big meals, I'm a big meal eating snacker! My snacks are for the most part extremely healthy, but there can be too much of a good thing. So recently I've been thinking, what if I were to take pictures of everything I ate? Would it make me more conscious of that handful of trailmix, that second banana of the day? So here is a challenge for my week: Make a food plan and snap a shot to share on here of EVERYTHING I'm eating! (side note challenge: make sleep a priority!)

Breakfast: Strawberry-Banana Oatcakes!

With half a grapefruit and strawberries on the side!

Every single time I make these, my pancake flipping technique is challenged! It looks like a mess, but it still tastes yummy! Here is the recipe for one Oatcake! (note: these take a little bit of time so they are good for a lazy morning!)

Combine:

1/3 Cup Quick Oats

1/3 Cup Egg Whites

1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 teaspoon Vanilla extract

Add:

Mashed Fruit/Veggie of your choice! probably about 1/2 Cups worth

I love a half a banana, today I added a strawberry.

Using a big skillet on medium heat pour the mix on and smooth till its kinda flat.

When its kinda brown... attempt to flip! The oats don't keep it together as easily as a regular pancake.

Even if you over cook these babies they are still delicious.

This picture gives an idea of how big they are in a pan.

Now for the best part! The topping!!!!

Mash up the other half of that banana add 1/2 teaspoon maple syrup!

I also added a bit of strawberries today!

I will never go back to dumping syrup on my pancakes! This is just sweet enough, and pretty darn healthy! This recipe is great for people who have sensitivity to gluten and sugar!! And it is super filling! I wish I could say that I came up with this recipe, but I didn't! A fellow blogger did! She has a lot of great low-fat delicious ideas! Source: KathEats

Running with Book Updates.

Its the middle of March and I've only read SIX books! When I wrote my post for March 13th 2010 I had just finished book number 21! I'm finding that lately I've been reading a ton of magazines. Mostly periodicals that fit with my most recent obsessions. I've been reading a lot of running, gardening, cooking, home improvement, and traveling magazines.

I was reading through a running magazine the other day and found a random side note that mentioned that running on a treadmill can cause shin issues! Hello! I have shin issues! I've been searching the internet for info on shin-splints and had never heard that one! Apparently when your foot smacks down on the revolving belt it tends to shift the belt a miniscule amount to the side. That tiny shift can actually be enough to cause stress on your shins. Since it has been so darn cold outside I've been primarily running on a treadmill. Thankfully it is starting to warm up a little bit cause I'm going to have to change that routine!

It may be getting warmer, but it isn't getting any drier out there! Carly, Callen, and I braved the elements yesterday to run the St. Paddy's day 5k in Tacoma!

(Post race! Its a shame I couldn't find anything green to wear!)

This was actually my first ever race! Maybe a little silly cause I'm signed up to run a 13 mile race in 84 days?! Yeah well it made me a touch nervous that I would hate running with so many people then end up dread my half-marathon. But I loved it! We had a blast (even with the downpour)! I also found that I might be a little more competitive than I originally thought I was!

My stats from the race: I finished 792 out of 1607 with a time of 32:21 and a pace of 10:26. I was hoping to keep it a little bit closer to ten minutes but it gives me a better idea of how to pace myself in the future. The 5k length felt good, I ran the entire way without too much difficultly, but adding another ten miles on there is kind of intimidating! There is a lot of hard work ahead for me!

(Callen, Me, Carly: Pre-race!)

This is the next 5k Carly and I are thinking about doing: YMCA Y Run for Kids. Then I will be running in the Viking Fest 5 mile Road Race. I think those are the only official races I'll be doing until my big one, they are just too expensive!

Almost everyday for the past three weeks has been what I consider the perfect reading day. A perfect reading day is made up of many factors including: Grey-cold-never-ending-rainy-weather, the lack of motivation to do anything productive, and a really good book to read.

I feel like I've been holding out on you! I've been blabbering on about other resolutions while there are books that I read in January that I haven't updated you on! So here goes!

Update Book 04: The Reef by Nora Roberts

There is nothing better than a really good romance novel to read on vacation! Especially when you are reading that book on a beach and the book takes place in a tropical location! "The Reef," is classic Nora Roberts. I'd even go so far to say that it is Nora Roberts at her best. There is a little bit of mystery, a little bit of adventure, and a love story. I really liked this book and I was really glad that I had run out of books that I had paked so that I had to pick this one up off the lend me pile in our condo, something that wouldn't have happened if I would have had my Nook!

Recipes and a Ski Adventure

Lately I've been obsessed with cooking, baking, and recipe finding. I'm trying to make it a point to actually put my collection of cookbooks to use! Take a look-see:

In a perfect world I would create a meal plan for my week on Sunday and do all my grocery shopping on that same day. When I say meal plan, I mean breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, dessert. I figure if I can figure all that out I can save money by not wasting food and save time by not sitting around deciding what to eat for dinner. It really is just such a shame I don't live in a perfect world... most of the time! Last week I was actually ab

le to figure out a bit of a meal plan! It was great! I work most morning at 6 am so figuring out lunch the night before is a must. This week a meal plan didn't happen, but hopefully it is something that I will be able to do most weeks.

The best part about challenging myself to do this is that it makes me go through both old and new cookbooks! I've found some great recipes! Lately I've been baking a lot of gluten-free goodies for my Mamma. For the most part I've been pleasantly surprised by how yummy and SOMETIMES how healthy these treats turn out to be! I found a great cookbook called Babycakes that is vegan, sorta gluten-free, sorta low-fat, but so far all delicious recipes!

(delicious spelt raspberry scone!)

Yesterday I went skiing for the first time in about six years! It was very last minute, I had to reconfigure my work schedule (thanks for picking up my shift Hayley!) but it was worth it! We had soooooo much fun! The wonderful thing about the weather being craptastic down at sea level is that it means snow at Steven's Pass!

I was very surprised and proud of how well I managed to do! Considering how long it had been I was fully anticipating being on my bum all day long! Thankfully that didn't happen! I did have a few little falls as well as a beautiful face-plant but where is the fun in staying on your feet all day (I know Carly and my Dad had a good time laughing at me!)

The last run of the day was the coldest, my Dad had already headed down to the car but Carly and I felt like we had one last run in us! We met up with my brother and his bestie Steve at the Skyline lift. Lets just say that I had to use my mantra (Conquer it!) the entire way down! There was a point where Carly and I hit thick powder on a flat and came to a dead stop! After a day of skiing our legs were jello and we had to give it all we had to make it through! I love how much different of a workout I get from skiing. I'm hoping we will figure out a way to make it up there again this year! I don't ever want to go so long in between again! It was such a good time!

This year I think I have had almost every single one of my muscles sore! Either from skiing, hiking, running, elliptical, or kettlebells! I love getting outside and adventuring!

I finished my first ever Nook Book! Can't wait to review it for ya!

Balance.

I have a friend who studied nutrition in college. After she chose this as her major, anytime I had a food related question she was the one I would ask. Most of these questions went a little something like this... "So, can I drink diet soda?" or "Is Taco Bell bad for me?" or "Does soy really give you breast cancer?" And I always got a version of the same answer.... "Not if you consume it in Moderation." Moderation?! NOT the answer I was looking for! (7 diet sodas a day isn't moderate?) I always gave her a hard time that that is basically a copout of an answer. I really just wanted her to tell me that it was ok for me to eat and drink whatever I wanted and that life would be butterflies and rainbows.

A couple of weeks ago when I was just getting into eating clean I was chatting with her about it and I said something along the lines of... "I'm just trying to find a balance between all of the foods I am eating.... blah blah blah I want to be healthy and energized." After hearing me say this, she exclaimed something along the lines of, "That's what I've been telling you! It is all about MODERATION!" But for me, its not. For me, its about balance. Moderation is a restrictive word, it makes me feel like I'm missing out on half of the good stuff. It can't be about moderation because that word holds so much negativity for me. Balance on the other hand is something I understand and can practice in my life. Everything needs to work together to make yourself whole.

Very zen thought process right there.... this post is getting kinda heavy. Basically what I'm saying is that I have a goal set of the woman I want to be and to get there I need every aspect of my life to work together. I think that is where all these resolutions really come from. Food, activity, friendship, knowledge, I want my life to be full of all of it!

An update on the reading:

I am reading what I want, when I want, with no clear schedule! I'm loving the book "Born to Run." I'm savoring it! I don't want it to end. A year ago I would have blown through it! I love reading with meaning rather than reading for the sake of reading a ridiculous number of books! I also must admit that I am really liking my Nook. I can't say if it is better, worse or comparable to other e-readers, but I can say that it is pretty neat. I can also say that I've missed being able to flip back easily to a page, or to really feel how far you have left before the end. I'm not a complete convert, but I am in a stage of acceptance. I also learned last night that my local library supports the Nook! I can borrow book on it! I'm so excited to save some mullah!

In a Relationship.

"You are in a relationship with running. A love/hate relationship.

Running kicks you out of a warm cozy bed and into a cold hard world.

Everyday with running is a question of your commitment and running is not afraid to ask.

Yes my friend it is a constant balance.

A balance between joy and pain, work and play.... LOVE AND HATE!"

This is a quote from a Nike commercial from a few years back. I wrote it down and stuck it on my wall as inspiration. I didn't start out running because I loved it, in fact running was really tough for me in the beginning. Now most of the time I do love it and in a weird way this saying motivates me to stick with it. I think comparing running to a boyfriend is kind of silly, but in a strange way true. Running gives and it takes. I spend a lot of time with running, I'm always thinking about running, I have to schedule time for running, running makes me happy, and sometimes running makes me sad. In some ways my relationship with running is more satisfying than some of the relationships I've had with guys!

The shoes that make this relationship possible!

Time for an upgrade.. something with more stability and support I think!

100 days from today I will be running 13.1 miles... on purpose. 100 days seems pretty far away right now, but I know it is creeping up and will be here before I know it!

Training is going pretty well for the most part. But I'm not going to lie, there have been setbacks, which happens in most relationships. Running and I get along pretty well for the most part, but recently its been kind of a pain in my butt. Well not literally, more like a pain in my shins and feet! I'm working through some blisters right now and my shins have been warning me that they will revolt at any moment. I'm taking this as my body telling me to go a little easier on it. Its important that I gradually increase my miles so my bones and muscles get stronger together (we don't want them having a bad breakup!). So I need to listen to those aches and pains and rest when my body tells me I need to.

Week four is coming to a close and I feel pretty good about it! The weekends are always my long runs though..... Sunday I'm scheduled to run between 45-60 minutes (running at a at least a ten-minute-mile pace). I hope that the temperature gets warmer so that I can do it outside, anything over 40 minutes on the treadmill is pretty rough (boredom kicks in). think I need to revamp my workout mix before I tackle that one!

Roasting and Freezing.

Baby, it is more than just cold outside! Today was a day of overcoming fears and learning, mostly because of this lovely cold snap we have been having. It all started when my car wouldn't start this morning... Not fun when it is 20 degrees outside and five in the morning! I was saved from having to walk the slick sidewalk in the frigid cold by a coworker, but I was a little nervous for the tone my bad luck had set for my day. Thankfully everything improved except the weather!

My Dad came to the rescue (he's always there for me!) and swapped out my old battery for a new one! I can blame this one completely on the weather! Apparently when it gets really cold out an already weak battery will go kaput overnight.

I got off early today to go on a little coffeeshop sponsored field trip! The owner of the coffeeshop I work for took me, the other manager and another barista out to our coffee roaster! It was so neat to see the facility, ask questions, and watch the process! The owner of our roaster is an awesome lady.

I love that all of our coffee is blended uniquely for us, fresh every week! It is also Fair trade and Organic!

The beans go into the roaster green and come out looking like the beans we are used to seeing in our cupboards! Temperature and time play a huge factor in the roasting process, these beans are getting cooled down!

Fun coffee fact #1: The average espresso shot is made up of around 50 beans.

Fun coffee fact #2: The darker the coffee beans are roasted the less caffeine they actually contain! So if you are looking for the biggest bang for your buck go for a mild or medium roast!

So you may be wondering what sort of fears I overcame today... Well, you know that white stuff that falls from the sky? Well I love it up in the mountains, I love it on Christmas day, I love it when I can just stay home and sip on a hot toddy and play board games all day long, but love driving in it. After one close call six years ago I simply refused! I love my life, my car, and the trees that I would hit too much to risk it! But this year I decided to man up. I've been holding back one of my resolutions....

#6 Learn to Drive in the Snow!

I thought I was in the clear, the only snow we have gotten in 2011 was when I was sitting on a beach in Hawaii! Then the weatherman gave me the bad news that it was heading our way. There was only a little on the roads this morning when I woke up but I was determined (chanting my mantra "Conquer it!) to get to work. But there was a little bit of divine intervention with my battery dying. But this afternoon my half-marathon training schedule said "RUN!" so I hopped in my car with my brand new battery and headed straight for the mountain (ok its just a hill, but still!) that my parents live on (also where I have access to a free treadmill). Their driveway consists of three hills consecutively getting steeper. I made it up the first two, but only 3/4 of the way up hill numero tres. this isn't just a straight up hill, it is a curving tree-lined hill. What were my options?! Well for me being the novice snow driver that I am, the only one was to slip into reverse, try to steer as best I could while my car slid backwards at around 80 mph (OK maybe a bit of an overstatement... more like 8 mph). Pulled a Carrie Underwood (Jesus Take the Wheel!) I hit nothing! But my adrenaline sure was pumping! Completely amped me up for my run that is for sure!

Everyone always tells me that Honda Civics are great in snow and that it is obviously operator error that is causing my scary moments, but I was vindicated when I left my parents house. After walking back down to my car I reversed it onto their driveway once more... Only to get stuck immediately (I hadn't even gone forward yet)! My Dad and Brother came down to rescue my distressed damsel butt, Pops hopped into my car and my brother followed in his own. My vindication came when my Dad had to make more than one attempt to make it up the hill! When we got to the dry road he said, "Your car doesn't go very well in the snow." DUH! Thank You!

So I think i get some points for part of the way completing this resolution.... just trying was an experience!

Time to go read my Nook Book! ;)