Blogging my life away with a dumbbell in one hand and a frosty mug in the other…
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Thanks again for stopping by the blog. I hope you can make it to the new site!
Walnuts & Cinnamon = Mmmmmmm
My Fav 2 Teas
Veg Bowl
Non-Pink "Pink Lady" Apple
Delicious Veggies n' Eggs
For my salt cravings...
Click on the Image to See the Video on FitSugar
Kitties Distract Me
Last Night's Dinner
I’m sorry for the ugly header image. I was trying new things, but I’ve got something else in the works. Prepare for another change!
I love October! I don’t know if I could narrow down a favorite month, but this one is definitely up on my list. Leaves start to change color, and Kev & I have our anniversary this month. It’s also worth noting that I thoroughly enjoy Oktoberfest/Märzen beers.
Beer Advocate states:
Before refrigeration, it was nearly impossible to brew beer in the summer due to the hot weather and bacterial infections. Brewing ended with the coming of spring, and began again in the fall. Most were brewed in March (Märzen). These brews were kept in cold storage over the spring and summer months, or brewed at a higher gravity, so theyd keep. Märzenbier is full-bodied, rich, toasty, typically dark copper in color with a medium to high alcohol content.
They are mild but flavorful, and most importantly, they’re delicious! Kevin and I bought a small keg of local Oktoberfest beer on Friday night. We invited some friends over Saturday to drink it and watch the Clemson game. (On a side note – Go Tigers!)
I made pulled pork bbq, fruit salad, and purchased some Pringles.
BBQ = Mmmmmm
Our friends brought lots of other goodies too.
Chicken Chili, Salsa, Pimiento Cheese, & Buffalo Dip
We had so much food! I also baked Angela’s carrot cake loaf (sans glaze) again for some of our sleepover guests to have in the morning. Yum!
Love This Loaf
As you can see, I had a great weekend. I wrapped it up with grocery shopping and a healthy Sunday dinner.
Roast Brussels Sprouts & Dr. Praeger's Spinach Pancakes
What was the best thing you did this weekend? Do you like hosting company as much as I do?
As you all may remember, blisters kept me out of the gym all week. Bummer! Luckily, they had healed well enough for me to go for a run yesterday. I completed 2.5 miles before completing a 10-minute ExerciseTV workout and my at-home lower body routine.
Lean Leg Routine (It’s cool because it rhymes.)
This week, my workouts were something like this…
I also tried out one of my EAS goodies in a new way. I am going to save the rest of them for on-the-go moments, but I wanted to see how they’d taste in a smoothie.
In goes the spinach…
Mix with a bit of strawberry (or chocolate) Myoplex Carb Control shake – add more (but not quite all) of the shake with a frozen banana…
And get a huge bowl of frothy, smooth goodness! You can’t taste much strawberry, and you can’t taste any spinach. It’s banana with a hint of berry. As stated, I probably won’t be making this again, but it was quite tasty. Not to mention, my ingredients made waaaaay bigger smoothie than I thought they would (especially because of it’s extra froth volume)!
I need to walk with Kev and work to do around the house before we have guests over tonight, so I better get going. Have a great weekend!
Happy Friday! Are you as happy as I am that the weekend is upon us? Of course you are. What a silly question!
As you know, I received goodies from EAS recently, and I’ve finally had a chance to try them all. Here are the three types that I received.
All three tasted great. The chocolate ones reminded me of chocolate milk, yet I still think I preferred the strawberry.
The strawberry flavor I received is the EAS Myoplex Carb Control shake. The body recovers most effectively when a post-workout meal or snack contains both protein and carbohydrates. The shake gave me lots of protein, and the apple gave me the fibrous carbohydrates to keep me full and repair my muscles. Not to mention both pack very easily!
By the way, here are two articles (Road Runner Sports & Fitness Magazine) about carbs and protein for recovery.
The shake that was best for me, however, was the EAS Myoplex Nutrition Shake. This one has a screw cap that allows me to only have half at a time. Refueling within thirty minutes of your workout yields the best results, but I usually wait 1 hr and 45 minutes due to my shower time and commute to work. I can have half of this bottle right after my workout, seal it, and have the rest of it with oats or a piece of fruit when I get to the office.
Here’s the breakdown on my goodies:
| Nutrient Data | Myoplex Carb Control Ready-To-Drink | AdvantEDGE Carb Control Ready-To-Drink |
Myoplex Strength Formula Ready-To-Drink |
| Calories | 150 | 110 | 210 |
| Cal from Fat | 30 | 25 | 25 |
| Fat | 3.5 | 3 | 2.5 |
| Saturated Fat | 0 | 0.5 | 0.5 |
| Trans Fat | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Cholesterol | 15 | 25 | 20 |
| Sodium | 430 | 340 | 280 |
| Potassium | 490 | 470 | 440 |
| Carbohydrate | 5 | 4 | 23 |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Sugars | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| Protein | 25 | 17 | 25 |
As you can see, the AdvantEDGE Carb Control shake has only 110 calories and 0 sugars for its 17 g of protein. Sweet.
As my regular readers know, I try to stick with “real” foods when possible, but I think these are great on-the-go helpers to keep me on track. If you have time, I recommend their website. I checked it out earlier and was pleased at the amount of helpful articles, product descriptions, and even demonstrated strength exercises.
Have you tried EAS products? Do you have a favorite go-to protein?
I feel that I should mention that I skipped yesterday’s workout, and I had a hunk of cake for snack. Wow. This has not been the best week for me!
Luckily, my blisters are healing really well, and I am going for a run today. Hopefully I’ll run myself right back on track with my workouts and eating. K, out the door now!
Have a great weekend! Check back tomorrow for a recipe and a workout!
Happy Friday Eve! See, when it’s one of those weeks when I can’t believe it’s only Thursday, I like to refer to the day as Friday Eve instead. It sounds better, doesn’t it?
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I have a few opinionated tips for you all today. The post is really pretty scatter-written because I’m scatter-brained right now. Bear with me.
1. When swinging weights or kettle bells around “at tempo” during a workout, don’t hit yourself in the knee. It bruises. It hurts.
It's not a crazy one, but it's big for me!
2. If you must go for a frozen meal, but an Evol dish. I had my first one yesterday, and it was quite tasty.
Teriyaki Chicken Bowl
They’re healthy, gluten-free, and even the ingredients are attractive!
Sorry for Soy Haters
3. If you’re doing one-legged dead lifts, be sure to count how many you do. I definitely overdid it on Tuesday, and it felt like I got kidney punched on both sides. I was sore all day yesterday!
Thanks for the pic, Women's Health Magazine!
4. Have a backup plan. On Monday, I gave into office pressure and had Mayfield Mint Chocolate Chip Select ice cream. It was awesome. Yesterday, I refused soft, fresh, delicious-smelling cookies. Instead of grabbing a cookie, I had decaf vanilla chai tea. Was it as good as a cookie? Not even close. Did I feel a lot better about myself (especially a lot better than Monday)? Heck yes. Thank goodness for backup plans!
It's tasty tea, but I later saw that it's artificially flavored. (Bummer!)
5. Don’t stress! I’m busy and a little stressed at the moment with work and my friends’ inability to plan. I’m also frustrated that I can’t find the answers I want for the blog. I’d hoped to be self hosting by now with a slightly different look. As you can see… I am not.
Thanks for reading. I hope you took away at least one useful tidbit of knowledge!
What’s the best frozen or pre-prepared grocery meal you’ve had lately?
This WIAW is brought to you by the leftovers in my fridge, and by the letter W (Actually, by the letters W-I-A-W, for What I Ate Wednesday).
First breakfast has been a slice of 100-calorie whole wheat bread. As much as I love Trader Joe’s, I have to admit – I dislike their bread. No. I despise their bread. It’s awful. I woke up very hungry yesterday, so my slice also included a glob of peeb (peanut butter). Yup – the bread tasted much better!
Sorry – No Pic!
Second breakfast all week will be an EAS shake and an apple. I like to think it’s a very-repairing and easily-packable, post-workout breakfast.
Lunch is just about as lazy as that breakfast. For three days, I’m having Applegate Farms deli turkey with flavorless TJs bread. I go out of my way to make it special by adding a little lettuce and Dijon mustard. I know, I know – I shouldn’t work myself so hard. ::wink:: I am eating a daily veggie along with my sandwich.
For snack, I’m eating logs all week. (I guess ants on a log are just logs without the ants, right?) Actually, I had a bit of ice cream Monday, but for the rest of the week, it is celery and peeb. (Stupid office treats got the best of me!)
Monday and Tuesday’s dinner was a taco-fajita-thing. It consisted of spices, bell pepper, onion, green chilies, salsa, and lean ground turkey (browned and drained). Kevin had his with fat-free refried beans and tortillas. I threw mine atop lettuce. Both versions were incredibly quick and easy.
On Tuesday, I did put a tortilla with my salad too - Yum!
Tonight’s dinner will be fish, rice and spinach. I’m actually kind of excited about it. My evening snack has been popcorn every night so far, but I think I’ll throw some tea into the mix tonight.
Be sure to check out Peas & Crayons for more fun meal ideas!
What’s the best thing you’ve eaten this week?
This past weekend, I wore my boots instead of heels for tailgating. It sounded like a great idea at the time, especially because Kevin and I do so much walking on game days.
However… that didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. I now have 2 enormous craters blisters on my heels, and they hurt like crazy. The blisters drastically changed my workout plan for the week. Instead of finishing up one more week of the Tearin’ It Up workout, I will be doing at-home workouts that can be completed barefoot.
I’ve found a couple good workouts online, but please let me know if you know of any other good ones I can try. I’ll share all my findings with you at the end of the week.
I wanted to share these 5 things that have been making me smile lately.
1. Monkey Socks with Penguin Shorts
Kev’s one lucky guy seeing this at night...
2. Nutritional Yeast: I didn’t like it on broccoli, but it’s a winner on spaghetti squash! I’m glad I gave it another shot.
Yummy Bowl of Squash
3. Funny Search Terms: I’m not sure who found my blog by searching for “sweaty pizza unicorn,” but I hope you found something useful here.
4. Packages: EAS sent me goodies recently. I can’t wait to try all the stuff and give a thorough and honest review.
5. Neck Wrap
I don’t talk about general wellness here, probably because I think I’m already living my life pretty darn well as it is. I still can’t deny that broad and overall wellness is important. Stress reduction is a big part of that, and with this busy week, I need a little extra stress reduction in my life. That’s where the awesome neck wrap comes into play. It’s warm, smells of soothing lavender, and goes really well with my hot mug of decaf chai tea.
What are you loving lately? Any fun, new products worth mentioning?
Did anyone catch the Clemson game? If you missed it, I’ll summarize by saying Clemson won! Woohoo! (I’m sorry to any FSU fans. I’ll quit talking about football now.)
On Friday, Kevin and I stayed home and went to bed early. We got up at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday to get a start on the day. I went for a quick run before we hit the road for Tiger Town. See how early we left??? It was still dark outside!
Sweaty 2 Squeaky Clean
I tried to keep the day somewhat healthy. I had light beer and a wheat babaganoush pita for lunch.
Walking to the tailgate + Pita love
But after a couple more beers, Kevin thought chili cheese fries were a good idea. Fail. I had a veggie burger for dinner, and I kept from eating all of my fries. Un-fail? After a couple more beers, we got some incredibly delicious cheese pizza. Hmmm… that’d be another fail. At least it was good!
Cheese Fries n' Veggie Burger
Luckily, after all of these indulgences, I managed to keep my daily average calories at 1645. Not too shabby. [FYI, I am not listing all this food to encourage noshing on junk. I’d feel awful telling you all how healthy my weekly meals are but hiding my shameful weekend treats.]
We even made it back Sunday in time for my friend’s baby shower. I wrapped up the weekend with Kevin, the kitties, and Shrek. Whew – now I think I need a weekend to relax from my weekend!
Kev & Leia
Did you have a good weekend? What was the best thing you did?
Love, Sweat, and Beers 