Best way to start the day…

and sleeping in until 7:15 since the daughters were off from school!

Upon waking, I debated about going to the gym for a run.  It was teeming rain and my head was saying “skip it.”  With the daughters home and the husband sick with the bubonic plague, I had all the right excuses. 

I pondered it some more while eating breakfast…

This yogurt bowl mix was 1 cup nonfat Chobani yogurt, 1/2 cup canned organic pineapple and 1/2 banana.  Delish

I finally decided that missing the gym would be okay, but missing exercise would just be plain lazy.  So, I wrangled the daughters into doing this with me…

I got this 10 Minute Solution Ultimate Boot Camp DVD at Fitbloggin back in March.  I confess, I’ve been scared of it.  Just the words “ultimate” and “boot camp” had me nervous.  Yeah, the instructor looks all cute, nice and inviting.  Not as badass as Jillian .  But, somehow I just knew it was a sham.  Those cutesy “come on and give it a try” looks are always deceiving

The daughters and I studied the back to determine which butt-whooping we were going to choose of our own free will…

Big daughter wanted Six Pack Ab Attack and little daughter chose Fat Fighting Skills & Drills.  Notice how we steered clear of the “Ultimate” ones.  Ultimate = Cry Like A Baby While Exercising.  Yeah, who needs it.

So each routine is broken into 10 minute segments to make the torture not seem as endless.  We started off  with the Six Pack Ab Attack.  Bad move.  See, we forgot to notice the word “Attack.”  Cutesy Jessica had us flipping from lying on the floor to planks, twisting and turning.  Screaming and hurting.  It wasn’t nice.  She’s not so cute.  I knew it was a sham.  I actually had to stop midway because my vertigo acted up from all this excitement.

After an eternal 10 minutes, we moved on to Fat Fighting Skills & Drills.  I loved this one!  No, serious.  There was a lot of jumping, jogging and obstacle-course type work.  It was high energy, not complicated and sweaty.  Okay and I might even say…fun.

The good times didn’t stop there.  Next, I broke out the Power Yoga DVD and we did the endurance level of that for another 10 minutes.  I really enjoy yoga.  The daughters…not so much.  They were spent from all this early morning huffing and puffing. 

That’s what they get for having off today

***

My hunger has subsided a bit today.  I haven’t been as ravenous, but just in case, I made a very dense and filling lunch.  I was craving brown rice (huh??), so I put together a Chili Rice Bowl with some pre-cooked brown rice that I had waiting in the fridge and Trader Joe’s Organic Vegetarian Chili…

In the bowl…

• 1 cup cooked brown rice
• 1/2 can Trader Joe’s Organic Vegetarian Chili
• 2 tbsp. salsa
• 3 tbsp. leftover corn

Easy and super filling…

Later, I ate a reasonable snack since I wasn’t starving like yesterday!  It was so nice.    A gala apple and PB2…

I even got to play with my food since I wasn’t shoveling it down like there’s no tomorrow.  I made little apple sandwiches…

I know.  Get a job, lady.

Dinner was easy and light – Trader Joe’s Vegetable Masala Burgers and Raita Creamed Spinach…

I added raita to spinach sauteed in garlic and oil to make this Indian-inspired take on creamed spinach…

It was very tasty and a nice change from my usual spinach saute.  Even the daughters ate it!   Like good little soldiers

Have a great day, everyone!

Today’s the last day for my Amazing Grass Giveaway!  Click here to enter

Have you ever done a Boot Camp class? 

Can you believe that my stomach was growling about an hour after my smoothie last night?!  Either my metabolism is stoked right now or I have ingested some bizarre-o parasite. 

My luck…it’s option B 

I started off with coffee and a bowl of shredded wheat with strawberries and skim milk…

Why do people eat shredded wheat?  Especially the non-frosted kind?

Oh Sorry. Did I write that out loud?  These are the questions I have during breakfast sometimes…

After my delicious bowl of cardboard fiber, I headed to the gym for a stint on the elliptical.  I’ve been a little hesitant to do the elliptical or the Arc Trainer on my off-run days.  Seems when I ramped up with running, doing both things started to affect my hip more.  But, I think I found a solution.  I did the elliptical pedaling backward instead of forward and my hip didn’t bother me at all!  I knocked out 35 sweaty-good minutes.

Home again and hungry!  I sort of expected that with my less-than stellar breakfast.  I decided if my stomach is playing this hungry trick on me the past two days, I am going to make my snacks consist of fruits and/or vegetables. 

This post-workout snack brought back an old friend…

My PB2 shipment finally came last week!  It was on backorder for so long and seemed to have gotten a makeover while it was away.  Although it has a new look, it’s still the same wonderful stuff that I remember (well, maybe a tiny bit sweeter than I remember) !

And just perfect with a Gala…

Not long after, it was time for lunch.  Seriously?!  Yes, seriously. <—- that was my stomach answering.

I wanted a big sandwich and that’s exactly what I made.  A triple-decker!!  I had this idea after noticing that my Ezekiel hamburger bun top was really thick.  After toasting it, I cut the top in half to give me three pieces total.  I layered on tomato and basil hummus dip, baby spinach and Applegate Farms Roasted Turkey….

It was ginormous!  And very fun to eat

I paired it with carrots and sweet watermelon…

Good eats!

Two hours later…

Heeeelllllloooooo!!!!

Yes, stomach.  Is that you again?

Yeah.  Feed me, Seymour.

Okay, you’re really getting on my nerves!

There.  Look what you made me do! I was supposed to only eat fruits or vegetables.   Happy now!?!

Yeah.  When’s dinner?

***

In an effort to not eat the entire bag of corn chips, I changed up my original chicken dinner plan and got creative using the chips as breading.

First, I had to crush the chips.  My weapon of choice…

The children ran. 

I had a great time beating the crap crushing the corn chips to smithereens, then got started dipping the chicken in egg seasoned with taco spice…

and into the crushed corn chips…

I pan-fried the chicken in a tablespoon of oil until golden on both sides…

To bring this Corn Tortilla Chip Crusted Chicken over the top, I topped it with lite shredded cheese, salsa and guacamole…

and served it with steamed asparagus and corn…

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

If you’ve been wanting to try Amazing Grass, don’t forget to enter my giveaway!  Click here !

Have a great day, everyone!

What is your favorite chicken dish?

Happy Monday!  Did you all have a nice weekend?  Things were relax to the max ‘round here so not much doin’.

I did get out bright and early for a run Sunday morning.  Things went okay.  I wasn’t feeling this run and basically wussed out at 2.9 miles instead of the 5 that I intended on.  But, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t wuss out on Tuesday’s run no matter what!  I don’t like that feeling of disappointment when I know I could have done better but, didn’t push myself. 

In the interest of time (and the fact that if I didn’t leave the house immediately, I wasn’t going anywhere!), I just grabbed a handful of almonds to fuel me for the run…

When I got home, I was starvin’ marvin’.  I whipped up some scrambled eggs topped with lite cheese, salsa and guacamole…

Yumm!

That lasted about a minute in my stomach.  I was hungry every 2 hours!  Really stomach-growling hungry.  I hate those days!

I put off lunch as long as possible.  Then, I had at it.  The quickest thing that caught my eye was this new find I picked up at Trader Joe’s…

I went bun-less because I wanted a big heap of Lauren’s Creamy Potato Salad…

Lauren posted this and I haven’t stopped thinking about it!  I made it on Saturday and it was even better the next day!  I love that it’s made without mayo – just a mix of hummus and greek yogurt.  What’s not to love?

I topped the burger (which was meh) with raita …

and had an apple for “dessert”…

It all went down toooo fast

Later, I had to take little daughter to her dance rehearsal and I knew that it would go late into the evening, so I threw together a “whatever’s in the fridge” dinner for myself before we headed out.

In the dish…

• 1 cup cooked brown rice
• 1/2 cup Trader Joe’s Giant White Beans 
• 1/3 cup leftover cooked ground beef
• 5 button mushrooms
• 1 tomato

It was delicious!  And much better than grabbing the candy bars or soft pretzels at the rehearsal!

And when we finally made it home, my stomach was growling   It’s a bottomless pit!

I fed it a blueberry banana smoothie…

and told it to knock it off already

Have a great day, everyone!

In case you missed it, here’s your chance to try Amazing Grass!  Click here to enter my giveaway!

Did you have a busy or relaxing weekend?  Exhausting or fun?