Note to self: Don’t buy granola!

I can’t believe it is already 9:40!!! Today has flown by.  I definitely didn’t get everything done that I wanted to, but I made a pretty good dent in my to-do list.  I think that is really all I was striving for.  The only thing that I didn’t do was start packing up my house.  I will get to that sometime this week!!

This afternoon I did laundry and headed to Target.  Luckily at Target I didn’t go too crazy.  Only like 7 things that weren’t on the list.   But they had those Kashi Go Lean Cereal Bars that I have been looking for and well….I always end up buying more than I attend to buy.  After getting home, I was REALLY hungry and I knew I was going to the gym, so I wanted something fairly substantial.

I took about 1/4 cup of soy milk and 1/2 cup of regular milk and mixed it with maybe 1/4 cup of puree pumpkin.  I added 1 tsp of brown sugar and some salt and pepper to create a cold pumpkin soup.  Creamy and delicious.  (This picture is into a standard coffee mug)

Then I decided I wanted some of the granola I bought (Quaker Oats 100% all natural granola: Oats, honey, raisins) with a bit of graham cracker.

Well after having a little bit of this yummy goodiness, I had to have more. (I put in some frosted mini wheats to take up some space other than granola.)

This could be dangerous having a whole box of this stuff.  I never buy granola because I know that such a small amount adds up quickly with the calories.  GRRR…this stuff will be my arch nemesis until it is gone, I can already tell!

Workout #2
I headed to the gym to lift and really had no idea how my body would respond after a hard ride this morning.  It was great!  I was able to increase my weights on a lot of my exercises.

Exercise	Weight	Reps/Sets
Bench Press	50 lbs (40 bar 10 weights)	8/3
Shoulder Press	2 25lb weights	6/3
Bicep Curls	2 20lb weights	6/3
Tricep Kick backs	1 20lb weight per arm	8/3 per arm
Seated Rows	15lb L arm, 17.5 lbs R arm	8/3
Dead Lifts	2 20lb weights	10/3
Pushups	medicine ball under 1 hand, switched hand and then bosu ball for the last set	10/3
Upright rows	2 15lb weights	10/3
Lat Pulldown	70lbs	8/3
Front Delts/Flies	40lbs	8/3
Tricep assist	Machine set to 30lbs	8/3
Bicep assist	Machine set to 50lbs	6/3

This took about 50 minutes and then I went and did a little more than 10 minutes of abs (Ab workout 3 out of 6 by Friday night).  I used the incline bench, the incline bench with a weight and then a bunch of mat exercises.

I had this on the way home from the gym: 

A little baby G2 bottle (40 cals)

Before I left to go to the gym, I made some ground chicken breast into meatballs and had set them to simmer on the stove with spaghetti sauce.  I took a few pictures during the process of making these and I am aiming to post the recipe later this week.  Anyway, while I was at the gym, I kept dreaming of a meatball sub.  I don’t know the last time I had a meatball sub.  People who are hardcore calorie counters typically don’t eat meatball subs, so it obviously had been years for me. 

Dinner
I got home and toasted half a rosemary roll (140 cals) and then spooned in 3 meatballs (about 3/4 ounce each of meat) and some spaghetti sauce.  Then I put a light laughing cow cheese wedge on top (35) and put it under the broiler for a few minutes. 

The results were incredible.  It lived up to every dream I was having at the gym. 

On the side I had a salad of arugula, carrots, tomatoes, cucumber, a little red bell pepper and about 1T of this mango coconut dressing (30 cals).

Even though I am not really counting calories, 4 ounces of ground chicken breast has 130 calories and I didn’t have quite 4 ounces in this sub.  And the recipe I created for the meatballs didn’t have really any added calories (100 calorie slice of bread and 1 egg mixed throughout the entire pound of meat.) and the sauce was Newman’s Own all Natural Pasta Sauce.  Hehe, I think I just wrote all that to justify to myself that this sandwich wasn’t that bad for me, despite how shameful it tasted.

And because I couldn’t resist having more:

Just a slice of whole wheat bread (50cals) and 1 and 1/2 meatballs and sauce.

So so so very good.

Okay–despite writing all those calories out in this message, I have in no way added up my calories today and I am not even sure why I wrote them in this post.  I think it is because I am feeling guilty right now and if I see that the numbers aren’t that bad, then I can feel a little less guilty.  I know this dinner was healthy (I keep feeling guilty about that second piece of bread/meatballs) and I worked out A LOT today.  My body needed some nourishment. Okay, time for me to head to bed.

I hope everyone had a great weekend, because I know I surely did!! Blah, and when I post again, it will be Monday.

Waiting out the major thunderstorm

Hope you all are having a great weekend!!!  I love those weekends that are so calm and nice that you are actually able to enjoy the summer.  It seems like so many times in life that time goes so quickly that you enjoy it, but only a meager amount.  I really appreciate those times in life where you actually are able to take a step back, take a deep breath and think, “Wow, I really am enjoying myself.”

Time to work through a weekend recap because I have definitely gotten a lot done!!!

Workout

The ride yesterday….was miserable at best.  I don’t know what went wrong but I hurt.  I hurt very badly.  I started out with my back being tight but it only got worse and worse.  It seemed form knots on top of knots as I kept riding.  Then my IT band on my right leg decided to join in on the pain party.  Needless to say, every part of the ride was a major struggle.  I finished but definitely not quickly.  We ended up going about 14 or so miles in an hour.  There were some hills and they nearly killed me.  I don’t know if I didn’t eat enough before I rode, if I hadn’t stretched enough or if my body is simply tired after all the workouts, but it hurt.

On the way home after our ride, we stopped by the local Farmer’s Market.  Nothing feels better after a pain ride than walking around in bike shows (sheer sarcasm there!).  We got some peaches, tomatoes, lots of corn, and some all natural cranberry orange bread.  We were very late getting to the market (because it took me forever to get through my ride) so everyone was closing up. We got enough to get us through the week.

I got home and decided I probably should eat as soon as possible and all those tomatoes REALLY wanted to be in my stomach.   So I decided to make a tomato sandwich on a slice of all natural honey whole wheat bread with some mayo and big tomato slices.  And because we got about 8 ears of corn, I figured I should make something with those.  I just cut the corn off the cob and sautéed it with a spray of soybean oil, then mixed it with chopped avocado, tomatoes, red pepper, onion and cilantro.  Lastly, I had some cottage cheese with blueberries to try and get some protein into my body.

(look at my pathetic cat all stretched out on the porch in the top of that picture.)

After I finished this, I laid on the floor and stretched and watched the Tour de France.  After about an hour, I decided that I still was hungry (that or I just had the munches)

This is just half a banana, some blueberries and some chocolate chips.  Also, I have these individual, all natural chocolate chip cookies in dough form in the fridge and I decided I wanted to eat one raw.  (it is 70 cals) and it was mmmm.

We got motivated to run around town and get some errands and just little things done that we have wanted time to do lately. (Warning: I failed miserable at the aim of not spending a lot of money!)

Then Justin wanted to go get new bike tubes and look for new soccer cleats, so we went to a sport’s store.  I bought a new swim cap (which I needed) and then also a bathing suit cover up and a cute pair of North Face Shorts on sale.  Oooops! 

Lastly, we went into Marshall’s to because I wanted to look for a new bathing suit for next week.  Well, I didn’t find a bathing suit but I found a cute hoodie that I wanted (ooops!)

Finally we headed over to Tyson’s where I went into Macy’s and found a great Quicksilver suit on major sale (only minor oops I guess).

While we were running around town, I ate half a clif bar

and I got this yummy thing (have you noticed I am addicted to slurpee’s yet?) It is a small crystal light flavor–tangerine lime.

We finally headed to dinner around 7:00 and we wanted to try this new Mexican restaurant, La Sandria.  It ended up being very tasty, but expensive!

Started with the typical chips (I tried not to have many and this was all I ate)

And I decided I needed a tasty beverage, so I got a Caipirinha (sugarcane distilled rum, lime, a little sugar)  It was strong and not too sweet.  Just like I like them!

Their menu had some great choices, but I went with my trusty–veggies fajitas.  I thought about switching it up but theirs had squash, corn, and mushrooms.  I couldn’t turn that down!  Look at the MASSIVE plate they brought me (it had corn tortillas on the side)

Close up of all those yummy veggies

I ate all of the veggies, 2 corn tortillas, maybe 25% of the beans, maybe 50% of the lettuce/guacamole and none of the rice or the sour cream and other salsas.  I was definitely full after this and we had a while before the movie, so we walked around the mall to try and get our bodies to digest a little before sitting down to a long movie.  While wandering around the mall, we stopped into a favorite pre-movie store (Candy Heaven) and filled up some bags of candy to sneak into the movies.  Just. and I may go to 3 movies a year, so this is always something fun and something I really enjoy doing.

I ate all the yogurt covered pretzels and raisins, all of the chocolate covered raisins, 1 pineapple slice, and a few pieces of licorice.  I now have a bag of orange slices, licorice and jelly beans sitting in my house calling my name.

I won’t go into details for the Dark Knight just because I know so many people still are waiting to see it.  I definitely was glad I bought out tickets on Thursday because all the showings last night were sold out!  The movie was fabulous.  It lived up to all its hype and it was definitely CREEPIER than I ever expected.  It was totally worth paying to see in the theatre (and I think Christian Bale is simply dreamy.)

Sunday

Woke up this morning knowing we were going to go for another ride and I also knew that I did not want a repeat of yesterday, so I came upstairs and did a 10 minute AM Yoga session from Exercise TV.  Then I stretched for at least another 10 minutes while watching the start of the last stage of the Tour.  Then I drank a ton of water and decided to get some food into me.  Some frosted mini wheats, a slice of the cranberry, orange bread from the market and half a banana with 2tsp of natural peanut butter spread on it.

I don’t like eating a lot before working out but I also knew I couldn’t have a repeat of yesterday!  So I decided to have a little more to eat.  I had some more frosted mini wheats with another teaspoon of peanut butter.

 

Workout

I wanted to specifically write about today’s workout because it was such an amazing ride.  It wasn’t amazing because it was easy but because I had to work so hard.  I started out with my right hip/IT band still tight and I was really worried how it was going to hold up.  We had decided to go a different route than normal which is VERY hilly.  Actually, it seems like the whole thing is up hill both ways.  I told myself to just ride.  Ride as hard as felt decent and if it started to act up, then I could pull back and go slowly.  I just didn’t want to be real tentative worried about what if my back flairs up like yesterday.  This was the best decision I could have made.  I some how worked through all the pain and felt pretty normal.  I got into a great rhythm at one point on the way out and I was some how in the lead of a group of maybe 10 riders all together.  We were going between 20-25 mph.  It felt great and I felt so strong (and I liked that I was riding hard enough to lead all these strangers).  Then I turned around to find Just and I didn’t see his red jersey any where in the group, so I pulled over and let everyone pass.  Still no Just.  I turned around and started riding back and found him about half a mile later on the side of the road…bleeding.  A guy on one of those recumbent bikes lost his balance and started swerving around.  Just tried to pass him but the guy apparently was totally out of control and knocked Justin off his bike and into the woods.  And Justin said the guy never even stopped or said anything.  So Just.’s bike was pretty banged up and he was dirty and bleeding from his hand.  We were almost nine miles from home.  Those are some miserable moments when you are out riding.  Justin was such a trooper though.  He just clipped in and started cranking the way home.  We probably almost kept up the same speed on the return trip.  I was amazed, because I probably would have been upset or complained about the dripping blood down my hand.  We got back and cleaned up the bikes and Justin’s bike (and Just) seem fine.

Justin wore his heart rate monitor while we rode, and it said he burned 1010 calories.  I usually burn about 60-75% of what he burns, so that isn’t too bad!!

Right when we got home and Just wanted to wash off the bikes, I decided to run to the grocery store really quickly because I wanted a smoothie and we had no milk (soy or regular) so I made the world’s fastest grocery store trip.  I knew I was going to forget some things!

Lunch

I basically just took yesterday’s sandwich and put a twist on it.  I simply toasted one piece of honey whole wheat bread and put some hummus on it.  Then added some sliced cucs, tomatoes and about 1/5 of an avocado.

 

Then I made that smoothie I was craving.  I used a little bit of kefir, some soy milk, a bunch of ice, about 1/8 of a packet of carnation chocolate no-sugar added instant breakfast (Justin used the rest in his smoothie) and then some blueberries and about 1T of shredded coconut.  It was perfection!!

I have a few chores I want to get done today–Target trip (Aim to not buy everything in that fabulous store!), finish up some laundry and go to the gym to lift this evening.

Enjoy your Sunday afternoon.  It is pouring down rain and thundering/lighting here.  Hopefully this will pass soon so I can head out. 

And the Tour is over:( but it was great getting to watch Christian Vande Velde do so so well!!  And because I am a total dork, Shark Week starts today…which also intrigues me.  Then I go to the Dominican Republic for a week (I need to explain this trip to you guys soon–Justin, me and my mom…it’ll be interesting.  More details on that in a shorter post) and then the Olympics start.  I am not a big TV person but I love sports and well, I am terrified of sharks, so hence why I have a strange obsession with shark week.