Beans Beans Good For Your Heart

Happy hump day everyone! It's What I Ate Wednesday! 

I had no idea, but apparently one of my summer staples is beans. Lots and lots of beans. I was going through what I ate this past week and I'm finding them in at least one of my meals a day. Here are some of the things I've been eating lately:

An new breakfast idea from Peanut Butter Fingers, geek yogurt pancakes.  Two of my favorite things put together in one dish.

Blueberry Chobani, 2 egg whites and 1/2 cup oatmeal all blended up and made into 4 pancakes.

For lunch today I had a big salad...with a black bean salsa on top!

For dinners this week I made this bbq bean and chicken sausage dish.

In the mix: 4 links of chicken sausage chopped, two cans of cannellini beans rinsed and drained, several handfuls of chopped kale, bbq sauce!  This dish was delish! I've been having it for lunches throughout the week as well.

I also had some frozen chicken and bean chili in the fridge from a few weeks ago.

I think this is when I started to realize that the bean thing was starting to get out of hand.  But that's not where it ended. We also need beans for dinner! 

I finally tried chocolate covere's katie's chocolate chip blondies.  I've been eyeing these babies up for a while. And the reason why is the main ingredient: chickpeas!!

Ingredients:

1 can chickpeas rinsed and drained

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/8 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup ground flax

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients except chocolate chips in a food processor until smooth.  Fold in chocolate chips.  Spread in a greased 8x8 and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.  The results...amazing. No joke these are delicious.

I myself would never be able to tell that these were made with beans.  But, then again I don't have the most sophisticated taste buds. If it has chocolate in it, I will probably be eating it haha.

Workout wise I have been trucking away this week! I ran 4.5 miles on Monday and 3.25 miles on Tuesday.  Today we had a double header at volleyball and I am wiped out.

From my run yesterday:

Tomorrow I'll do 3 more and some abs and arms work and I'm hoping to get in either 9 or 10 miles on Saturday.  Matt and I arre also thinking of driving into philly to check out the race route if we have time.  We'll see.



Early Morning Run

This morning I woke up at the crack of dawn, literally.  I was up at 5am to fit in my 3 mile run before work.  I had looked at the weather the day before trying to figure out if I should run before work or after work, knowing that I could not do another treadmill run after my 7.  Well the morning was about 20 degrees cooler than the 100 degree afternoon, so it was a prety easy decision. The hard part was waking up, but I did it.

Miserable haha.  Even though it was 5am, it was horribly humid outside and I came back drenched. I stood in front of the rotating fan for about 10 minutes trying to stop sweating before I got in the shower.

Splits:

Mile 1: 10.01

Mile 2: 9.27

Mile 3: 9.20

Now that my run is out of the way, it's What I Ate Wednesday!

Breakfast:

I added a little more substance to my usual overnight oats by adding 1/2 scoop of protein powder and 1/3 cup oats instead of 1/4 cup. I had a busy morning at work and really needed this to last.

Snack:

Blurry KIND bar. Too busy shoving it into my mouth!

Lunch:

Spinach salad with....celery, broccoli, carrots, blueberries, strawberries, craisins, blue cheese, hummus and black beans.  YUM.  I also had a peice of a CLIF Builders protein bar.

Snack:

Before I left work I ate an apple and some whole wheat pretzels. 

Dinner:

Wrap with slow cooker buffalo chicken, blue cheese mixture (blue cheese, greek yogurt and white vinegar) and spinach leaves. With some Summer Black Bean and Corn Salad on the side.

Snack:

Mini Cookie Dough Blizzard. I love the mini blizzards at DQ. They are the perfect size!

Fitness:

Monday: 7 miles (check)

Tuesday: Abs/Arms weights with light leg work (check)

Wednesday: 3 miles (check)

Thursday: Rest
Friday: 4 miles on the beach

Saturday: 3 miles on the beach

Sunday: Rest

Matt and I leave for OBX tomorrow afternoon! Hoping to fit in the rest of my week of half marathon training while we are there. Love running on the beach! I'm hoping I can convince my sister to run with me!