Lean and Green

We all have things we have tried because we read food/healthy living blogs right? How many of us ate oatmeal with such zeal before KERF came along? And I certainly didn't eat Fage, Larabars, flat out wraps, or goat cheese.



One thing i've seen around the blogosphere is the "green" smoothie for breakfast. There is only one thing that can make a smoothie that green.....VEGGIES! Well..I suppose green food coloring...

Anyway...I had decided I was not going to try this. A) it sounded disgusting and B) my blender sucks.

Well..I finally gave in yesterday. I realized that I had WAY too much spinach to eat before I go out of town tomorrow, and that left to his own devices..my husband won't eat the spinach. Spinach at all three meals!

My smoothie included:
1 cup milk
1/2 a banana
2 handfuls spinach
and aprox. 6 pieces of frozen fruit (a dole, frozen fruit medley) I think I had melon, pineapple, mango, strawberries.

The Verdict:AMAZING!
Super good, and such a freaking cool color! Plus, who doesn't love the benefits of spinach for breakfast?

I rounded out the meal with peanutbutter toast...cause I need more than 200 calories for breakfast.

like a record...

I wrote this post on Tuesday, and finally have the time to post it!!!

Things are still crazy busy here on the western front, but I wanted to do a quick post…..

This past weekend was my birthday. My Husband and I went out to this great little locally owned fondue restaurant. I think fondue is officially my new favorite food. Hello….I get to eat carbs dipped in melted cheese? Heaven!

Unfortunately my husband came down with bronchitis earlier in the week, so he was a trooper through my birthday dinner, but the rest of the weekend he was curled up on the couch.

Last night I arrived home to find him making me dinner. He had a glass of red wine ready and told me to “take my wine, and go relax.” And he made a healthy dinner!
He made, Baked sweet potato fries (and bless his heart, he bought an actual sweet potato, instead of a yam….which we all call sweet potatoes!), fresh fruit salad (from the store with raspberries, kiwi, black berries, and blue berries. Delish), spinach salad, and lemon pepper chicken breasts.

I was seriously touched. The last time he called to tell me he wanted to make dinner I came home to bratwursts, Doritos and bloody Mary’s. Which is a deliciously sinful meal in it’s own right. I thought he was so sweet to a) make me dinner as a surprise and b) make a healthy dinner full of things I love.

We’ve been taking our dog to dog training, and the first two weeks of class you aren’t supposed to take your dog on a normal walk. Taking them on walks before they have been properly trained to heel and be obedient, un-does all of the work for dog training. This has been throwing off my morning routine, as I had gotten into a pretty solid routine of walking the dog and doing jogging intervals on MWF and then getting up earlier to walk the dog and shred or strength train on Tuesday and Thursdays.
Routine is key for me to continue to work out, the minute I get out of routine I have habit of careening of the healthy path into the great beyond.
I also start to feel it. I’ve still been going exercises with the dog, practicing the dog training is hard work! But I’ve let my strength training slip a little bit. I only did one day last week, and by yesterday I was just feeling a little soft(er) than usual.
This morning I decided I didn’t feel like jumping around in the shred, so after our dog training practice as a warm-up I did levels 2 and 3 of Biggest Loser Weight Loss Yoga
I had done level two before, but not level three.
Loved it! I loved that level three-used Yoga foundational poses and added weights.
Do you like the picture I drew? That is me in warrior two, doing bicep curls. There is my TV in the background. The stick figure with the bulging biceps is Alli Vincent. Holy crap I want my arms to look like that womans.
I can see how, if you did all three levels of this tape in one sitting you would be SORE! My shoulders are sore from just the second two levels. I’d like my Saturday mornings to include all three levels…..

Well…that’s all folks. See you next time I have a minute! Take care!

Look before you leap

Oh man.
Lent is not going well.
I cut out dessert, and now all I think about is dessert. Seriously.
In the past year and half, since getting on this path to health, I’ve never restricted my self. I still ate pizza and desserts and chips and everything, but I did it in moderation, and I never really felt deprived.

I am feeling deprived. Seriously deprived. It’s all mental. And this is such age old ‘why diets don’t work” kind of stuff. Once you tell yourself you can’t have something, it is all you want, and you think about it, and your mind tricks your body into thinking it needs whatever is being withheld more than anything, and then you cave. And when you cave, you cave good. I do anyway. For the past month, as I’ve tried to retrain my focus on healthy eating habits, I’ve been having dessert probably about 3 times a week. And on the nights that I didn’t have it, I didn’t think about it too much.
But now…it’s bad.

And I’m a little scared.

Many of you know that I used to be a binger. I didn’t purge, just ate. And ate sugar. And I hid it. I have a distinct memory of taking a box of girl scout cookies out of our families stash and hiding it under my bed, and eating it in secrecy in like two days. The fact that I can now have an open box of cookies in my pantry and eat them like a normal person is a big step for me.
But, with this Lent deal..I find myself thinking about how I can sneak the food.
Uh oh.
Each month we celebrate the birthdays in our office with a cake during our once a month all staff meeting. Well…like I’ve said previously, the spirit of competition is high around here for the wellness competition, and when I didn’t have a piece of cake, my male co-workers (who are all on a team together) were ribbing me and trying to get me to eat a piece of cake.
I didn’t eat the cake, and when I sat back down at my desk, I seriously planned on how I could have a piece of cake, I would just have to sneak it so that no one would notice.

This is not good.
I did some thinking this afternoon, and I think I have to give up, giving up dessert foods for Lent. It triggers my binge eating/sneaking food behaviors. The most important thing in my healthy journey is learning to have a healthy relationship with food, and I can’t compromise that.

I gave it up

So, I am giving something up for Lent. I don’t normally give things up for Lent. Infact, the whole practice of Lent wasn’t really ever a huge deal in my house growing up (it wasn’t stressed in my church, like it is in Catholic Churches).But, mostly I don’t give things up for Lent, because I never follow through.

I think it’s a similar affliction that I have with New Years Resolutions. I start out strong, and either forget about my resolution, or I fall of the wagon, and don’t hop back on again.

So, I hadn’t given much thought to giving up something for Lent, until my Husband announced a few weeks ago, that he is giving up Beer for lent. I thought he was kidding at first. He wasn’t. Beer is his chocolate. The man could go the rest of his life with out ever eating a dessert again, and he wouldn’t notice. But Beer? This is truly a sacrifice for him. Now, I’m making him sound like he is an alcoholic, he isn’t. He just enjoys a few beers on Fridays, and Saturdays. And Maybe a Tuesday.

Anyway….so I decided that I wanted to give up something to. I’m such a follower! I’ve thought and thought about this…and I thought of all the things I could give up that I probably do too much, or consume too much of, I could give up Facebook, I could give up gum, or coffee, or splenda (woops already did that, I haven’t had Splenda in a week! I don’t miss it really.). But really, none of those things would be a true sacrifice for me. A true sacrifice would be giving up desserts. Candy, Cookies, Ice Cream, Brownies, Cake, Pies….you get the idea. I have never given up sweets for Lent before, because I didn’t think I could do it.

Well…I know I can do it. It’s going to be hard. I think I will still eat “dessert” in that I will allow my self to have a small “treat” after dinner. But it can’t be any of the following items: candy, cookies, ice cream, brownies, cake, chocolate chips, etc. It can be; fruit, granola and yogurt, uh…fruit. Fruit. Fruit.

I am interested to see where this goes. I’m curious if it will add to my weight loss, or how it will make me feel.

Oh yeah, I should add…one thing I always do during Lent (and I’m better about this than the sacrifice thing) is to add something to my life that helps others. Like holding open the door for whoever is coming through it next, every time I go through a door. Or praying for a particular person for those forty days…..

Happy Friday Everyone!

Monday Musings

Well Christmas is over…whew. I had a fantastic Christmas at my parents house in Reno. My brother was able to come home ( I haven’t seen him in 18 months) and it was a great time. Last year he was in Iraq. He is in the Marine Corps, he is currently in a program called MECEP (or some other crazy acronym that the armed forces use) I don’t know what it stands for, but basically he was enlisted for four years, he is still enlisted, but now his “Military Occupation Skill” is “student” and he is going to school at the University of South Carolina to finish his degree and then he will be commissioned as an officer. Right….the point of my post wasn’t my brother. Anyway…it was a great week…here are some highlights of Christmas Day..

I am crying in this picture. My parents printed and framed a copy of the blessing my dad used in his toast at our wedding, along with one of our wedding pictures..aww...
Here is my brother holding up the gift we got him, a solid steel name plate...

Our Christmas table...it was just the five of us this year...nice and quiet and sooo. much. food.

At each place setting we had this little "christmas crackers" they each had little toys and paper crowns in them. My dad wore his all through dinner and through the dish washing extravaganza afterwards....silly dad!

I could not get Scott to take a serious picture with me. He made us pose for this one.....

What a dork!

Anyway, it was a great relaxing trip. As for as being "healthy" I didn't get it ANY workouts (the snow sort of prevented the walks I was going to take, at least that is what I am going to tell myself) but I don't feel like I overindulged in food. Yes I was stuffed by the end of Christmas dinner, but thankfully, my parents don't keep alot of Christmas treats in the house and I didn't spend four days snacking on junk, as i would have in the past.

Today I am back to the grind at work (even though I get off early on Wednesday, we are closed on Thursday and am taking vacay again on Friday) so it's a mini grind? But..I'm comitted to getting down to the employee workout room for good sweatbreaks all three days! Got to start the new year off right!