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.



A Weekend In Workouts

This was such a great weekend, I'm sad to see it come to and end.

This is how the weekend started:

Drinks at the Chesapeake Inn.

And this is how it ended:

My first instagram! haha.  Watching the olympics with the boys.

And there was a lot of fitness going on in between.  Saturday morning my plan was to wake up at 6am, eat a small breakfast and head to the park for my long run of 8 miles. In some sort of miracle I woke up 8 minutes before my alarm was about to go off and snuck out of the bedroom without waking up my super light sleeper of a husband. I should have known this would be a good day right from the start. I ate a peice of whole wheat toast with almond butter and craisins on top and headed out the door. I also ate one of these on my ride to the park:

LOVE these. They saved my life on my run.  I also brought with me one bottle filled with water, and one frozen bottle filled with half water and half coconut water.

I started my run and felt really good after the first lap (2.6 miles). I stopped and grabbed some water and started on my second lap.  After number 2 was done I still felt really good. I grabbed another Gu Chomp and started my third lap.  My legs were getting stiff, but nothing compared to last weekend. I had 8 miles on my schedule, but thought to myself, I can do this. I can do 9! So...I went for it!  I ran 9 miles!!!! This is the first run where I have felt totally comfortable and confidant that I can  actually finish this race in Septmeber!

10.04 pace!!

Part of the reason I felt so great I chalk up to the sun not coming out until an hour after I finished.  How did I  luck out with that?

I went out and got a foam roller on Thursday night. I rolled out my IT band on Thursday and Friday and man did it hurt! I had huge knots in both of my legs and managed to get them out.  This helped me big time on my run.  I also foam rolled after my run on Saturday and felt 10x better after doing this.

Sweaty hot mess. When I got home, I looked down at my shorts and it looked like I had peed my pants I was sweating so much. 

My legs didn't feel half bad the rest of the day and on Sunday morning I woke up feeling great. I found this great Medacine Ball workout on Blonde Ponytail. 

I did this workout at home and used Matt's 12lb medacine ball. It may have been a bit too heavy for me, but I finished!  I had to take a couple breaks though during the pushups, thrusters and plank holds.  I think an 8 or 10lb ball would have been perfect for me.  I can already feel my legs starting to get sore. OUCH. Hurst so good though. 

I'm so happy I had a good weekend of workouts and am excited that I am almost into the double digits for running. Either this coming weekend or next weekend I'll hope to hit 10 miles!!



WIAW! Protein Packed Edition!

Happy What I Ate Wednesday!  Once again I haven't followed an entire day of eats, just have pictured some of my favorite foods over the past couple of days.

On Saturday after my 8 mile run I decided to try a new protein packed breakfast. I've been wanting to try Tina's Oatmeal Minus The Oats for a while and decided this would be the perfect time. 

Ingredients:

3/4 cup liquid egg whites

1/2 cup coconut almond milk

1 banana mashed

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp flaxseed meal

1 tsp cinnamon

Mix all ingredients and cook on the stovetop until the right consistency for you is reached. It wasn't bad....but it wasn't my favorite thing in the world. I think next time I will make less because I couldn't even finish it.  But I was glad to get a good post run meal in full of protein.

Other meals I've been loving:

two of my favorite things together: almonds and chocolate

hummus, veggie and cheese wrap

Last night's dinner was also really good:

Turkey Taco Pasta  I followed this recipe, but cut it in half and used turkey instead of chicken. I also used only greek yogurt instead of greek yogurt and cream cheese to thicken the sauce.

In the pan cooking before I added the pasta and greek yogurt

YUM  get in my belly. This recipe is a keeper.

I've also been keeping up with my half marathon training schedule. I ran 4 miles outside yesterday after work and it actually wasn't horribly hot out!

Today I am "off" meaning Matt and I have volleyball tonight.  Tomorrow I have 3 plus strength on the agenda and Saturday I will be trying for 8 miles again. 



Long Time No See

Let's see...where did I leave off??  I actually completed the entire week of my fourth week of training for my half marathong. Last week I had 3, 3, 4, and 8 miles to do.  I was pretty scared to run the 8, but I thought I was ready for the run.  I woke up eraly on Saturday, we are talking like 6:15.  I got to the park by 7 and thought this would help me beat the heat of the impending 90 degree day. Well I guess I was wrong. I felt pretty good the first 5 miles and then I started to crash and burn. I was sweating like wooo and having trouble handling the humidity.  You can really tell from my splits:

Mile 1: 10.27 (warm up)

Mile 2: 9.59

Mile 3: 9.52

Mile 4: 9.1

Mile 5: 9.55

Mile 6: 10.17

Mile 7: 10.11

Mile 8: 10.27 (about to have a nervous breakdown haha)

I have 8 as my long run this week again and am hoping that it goes better than last week.  I took some really awesome pictures of myself after my run, but then Matt and I  went and got new IPHONES!!!! Welcome to 2012

When I got home from my run there was a lot of icing:

A lot of rolling:

My hips were really sore all day and I had issues sitting for long periods of time without getting up to stretch.  My favorite part about the long run was refueling afterwards. Matt and I went to Moe's Southwest Grill to grab a quick dinner before we babysat for our friends.  My meal hit the spot. A giant tofu borrito bowl!!!

AMAZING!!

Sunday I woke up feeling surprisingly good. My hips still hurt a bit, but nothing compared to Saturday.  I did a short strength workout focusing on abs and arms before I ate lunch.  I worked out in my new top from Old Navy.

I love these workout tops! I got two of them on Saturday and am obsessed. So comfy. 

Wow that was a bit of a tangent.  Well....anyways, the rest of the weekend was spent watching the olympics and hanging with friends, and this little man.

He got a flower stuck in his mouth when he was outside and it was cracking me up! Such a cute little man. 

This morning I decided to wake up extra early to get my run out of the way. I got up at 5am to run my quick 3 miles.

It was nice to be able to pick up the pace a bit:

Mile 1: 9.30

Mile 2: 9.27

Mile 3: 9.17

I was so glad that I ran this morning so that I could come home and get some things done around the house.  I did some cleaning, cooking and took champ for a walk.  Just what I needed!



Week of Food and Workouts

Hey everyone! Sorry I've been MIA. I've realized in the past couple of weeks that this summer has been super busy. I'll probably cut down on the blogging a bit, but still provide recaps of my eats and workouts! With that said it's WIAW!

I didn't end up doing a whole day of eats, just some highlights from the week so far.  Starting off with the love of my life...greek yogurt (sorry matt).

I've been loving avocado lately, so I decided to mix my tuna salad in guacamole instead of my usual yogurt:

yummy lunch but it left me with some kickin breath

Last night I made some yummy sandwiches using my george forman as a panini press.  Why have I not done this before??? Matt baked a chicken breast for me while I was at the gym.  When I got home all I had to do was shred it, mix it with pesto and slap it on a sammy with some mozzarella cheese, cherry tomatoes and spinach.

Today for lunch I had one of my favorite Morningstar Veggie Patties. I'm not joking, these are better than regular burgers. So good.

Tonight Matt and I had volleyball which means one thing...a quick dinner. We stopped at wawa and I got one of their pre-made salads.  When I got home I mixed in some extra goodies in the fridge:

YUM. Factoid about me: I love eggs, but when they are hard boiled I can't eat the yolk. Something about the texture just grosses me out. The only way I can eat the yolk is if it's scrambled in.

Fitness:

I've been continuing my half marathon training plan with week 4! Monday I ran 4 miles in 38.44. It was horribly hot out and I kind of hit the wall after mile 3, but I finished! Yesterday I decided to keep my workout indoors. I had 3 miles on my schedule and also wanted to get in some strength work. When I first got to the gym completed this workout of supersets:

Complete exercises in each superset one after the other with no rest in between. Complete 3 sets of each superset resting 20 seconds in between.

Superset 1:

Plank Row (15lb dumbbells)

Decline Bench Press (12lb dumbbells)

Superset 2:

Bicep Curl (10lb dumbbells)

Diamond Pushup

Superset 3:

Sumo Squat with Twist (25lbs)

Dumbbell Deadlift (15lb dumbbells)

After my strength workout I hopped on the treadmill and ran an easy 3 miles in 29.15. My legs and arms are sore today, so I guess it worked!

I have another 3 miles on the sched tomorrow and it looks like I'll be heading to the gym again :(  I miss running in the fall/spring so much.



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!



7 MILES!!!

Today after work I ran 7 miles for the first time in my life!  The whole day I was going back and forth about if I should run outside or not. When I got out of work the heat index was around 96 degrees.  It was so humid out today and I was honestly worried about passing out if I had to run for over an hour in the heat. I opted for the....dreadmill instead.  I definitely wasn't the most pleasant experience, but I finished, and that's all that really matters.

I finished 7 miles in 1 hour 8 minutes and 45 seconds (9.49 pace).  This was a bit slower than I wanted to go, but I had to stop and walk for a couple seconds at mile 5.5 because I was getting a cramp in my side. I brought a water bottle mixed with half water and half coconut water to drink while I was running.

Love this stuff!!

When I got home I was starving.  I whipped up the quickest high protein meal I could think of. I cooked 2 eggs with some cheddar cheese in the middle.  Put that on top of half a deli flat with hummus. I also made a smoothie with half a scoop of protein powder, strawberries, half a banana, handful of spinach, coconut milk and a spoonfull of cottage cheese. Yea that's a lot for a little smoothie haha.

Simple dinner but it hit the spot.

After dinner I showered off and was looking at all my war wounds from the warrior dash. The right side of my body got beat up.

The one on the right side of my knee is going to be a doosy when it comes in all the way.  Don't judge our blue blue bathroom haha. Can't wait to remodel that thing!

I'm off to watch some of the crossfit games with Matt.  The one thing that the warrior dash made me want to do even more is CrossFit!!! After we are done our half marathon I think we are going to give it a try.  It's on the fitness bucketlist!