Tag: Exercise

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep

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9.5 hours!!!

Yes, that is how much sleep I got last night! 10:45 pm to 8:15 am.  Normally, I am up at 7 am with the sun, but the eye mask helped me get through that last hour (thanks, John!). I felt SO well-rested when I opened my eyes. After a bit of blog-reading, I launched a surprise breakfast attack through the rose branches:

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My breakfast inspiration came from SnackFace during the morning’s blog catch-up session. She’s been going wild with pumpkin yogurt the past couple of days. Reading her posts motivated me to pull myself out of bed and whip up some of my own.

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My mix included 1/3 cup of yogurt, 1/3 cup of pumpkin, 1/2 cup chopped grapes, and a sprinkle of Kashi GoLean Crunch!

I also had 1/3 of a toasted (burnt) wheat bagel with 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1 chopped date, and a sprinkle of cinnamon:

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I like to eat my bagels in thirds. This is kind of a leftover habit from childhood — the slots in my toaster growing up were too skinny for a full 1/2 bagel. A third at a time is still my preference now, even though I’m sure I could easily fit 1/2 in the toaster. Vani commented on this bagel-style recently, and I thought I’d share my response with everyone! The smaller 1/3 portion not only allows me more flexibility to mix and match the bagel with other foods; it also creates a higher ratio of crunchy surface area to doughy inside. Also, because these bagels are refugees from a work event, I only have a limitied amount. Eating 1/3 bagel at a time makes them last longer. How do you like to eat your bagels?

On the side, I had soymilky decaf sweet coconut thai chai. And fun with matching dishware:

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Kate came over a little after 11 for our 8-mile run, and we just couldn’t WAIT to get started (that’s sarcasm). But I found us a charming route on mapmyrun that took us through all of the best Brooklyn neighborhoods — Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights — and the weather was perfect, so our run was quite enjoyable! Stats: 1 hour and 22 minutes, 653 calories, average heart rate 151, max 161. I got home and did my favorite post-run stretch: 20 minutes of Gentle Hatha Yoga.

Lunch was fun to assemble, thanks to last night’s leftovers. I made the cut again and split the salad down the middle (how exciting that the $8 I spent at dinner gave me enough food for three meals!):

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To reassemble the salad for today, I pulled all the salad greens out of the mix, including the side salad I swiped from Emily’s plate last night after she packed up her leftover wrap. (Side note: I don’t normally take food off the plates of people I am meeting for the first time, but an added benefit of blogger dinner was that my food companions already knew about my waste-nothing obsession!).

The greens went on a plate to wait. I separated and toasted the tortilla strips in a dry skillet to crisp them up again. While the chips were crisping, I also threw the salad in a pan to heat because quinoa, corn, and beans take kindly to warmth. I added some leftover Chinese food broccoli (after a quick roast to kill off any unsavory lurking bacteria) that my supervisor Heather rescued for me while carrying out her fridge-cleaning duties at work yesterday :-). Once heated, the salad went on top of the greens, and the tortilla strips went on top of everything:

(with water and more tea in the background)

(with water and more tea in the background)

Yum, this salad made excellent leftovers. And I still have more!

And of course, the afternoon also involved lunch dessert:

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I had 1/2 of each of mom’s treats that arrived on Thursday, heated in the oven to get the chocolate all melty:
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Along with more pumpkin yogurt that I mixed with 1/2 of this banana yogurt, also rescued from the work fridge. The sell-by date was Jan. 13, but unopened individually packaged yogurts seem to last forever. This one passed the sniff test. I topped the yogurt with a mountain of Italian cookie crumbs (still left from the work Valentine’s lunch), a piece of Blogger Secret Cupid hazelnut chocolate, and two conversation hearts:

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I know there was still sugar in all of that, but it was very controlled sugar instead of random snacking. I think this may be because, according to SweetiePie‘s comment here, I have sent the sugar monster to her house! Whoops! So sorry SP, but thank you for taking him off my hands :-D.

And now, it’s back to the great blog-catch-up of 2009! I also need to go back out at some point to buy kale so I can figure out what the heck I’m doing for
Beadie’s BSI. Back later!

The best mornings start with pb

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But before breakfast, I continued my quest for pumped up workout intensity. I did arms and steps this morning, using higher weights on the arms like I did Wednesday. I went back to the “fat burner” program on the StairMaster (it actually has more speed and resistance variety than the “speed intervals” program), but I increased the level from 9 to 11. I certainly felt like I was working harder, but my HRM didn’t show as drastic of a change as I had expected: 1 hour and 10 minutes, 404 calories, 124 average heart rate, 178 max. I’ll keep working on it …

After the gym, I ate another overnight concoction of sorts. Last night, I mixed the last cup of “pumpkin plus” puree with 1/4 cup dry steel-cut oats. This morning, I put it in the oven for 30 minutes while I got ready and then topped it with 2/3 cooked apple, 1/4 cup yogurt (because the puree already had ricotta in it), 2 crumbled graham sticks, 1 spoon pb, cinnamon, and nutmeg:

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Sometimes I like my oats more pudding-y — like when I do them in the crockpot — but overnight steel-cut oats have a very satisfying chewiness to them:

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I had the oatmeal with a tall mug of black tea with soymilk and a tall glass of agua:

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Be back tonight with the rest of today’s food! Are you happy it’s Friday?

One can dream …

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Last night, I actually dreamed that I had free time. I was very disappointed when I woke up! So I dragged myself out of bed for a loop around the park. That almost felt like free time because I got to watch the sun rise over the lake as I ran by. Stats: 4 miles, 42 minutes, 333 calories, 146 average hr, 162 max.

Breakfast preview:

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I got home and did the 20-minute Gentle Hatha #1 from yogadownload.com . And then I ate:

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All the talk on Carrots ‘N’ Cake yesterday about overnight oats got me thinking about another one of my favorites: overnight Kashi GoLean Crunch! Before I went to bed last night, I mixed 1/4 cup of the crunch with 1/2 cup yogurt and a chopped date. I was looking forward to it all through my run this morning. I added 1/3 chopped apple for crunch and a sprinkle of cinnamon because I can’t live without it:

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I didn’t heat the overnight crunch because I didn’t want to kill off the good bacteria in the yogurt. So for heat and more crunch, I had 1/3 toasted seedy bagel with 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1 chopped date, and a sprinkle of cinnamon (again, because i can’t live without it):

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Mmmm, I love peanut butter in the mornings.

I don’t quite know what the rest of the day will be like. Class until 1:00 followed by a mandatory workshop about who knows what at Hunter. They would only give the start time for the workshop — can you believe it?? End time is not available. All I know is that it will be “longer than 2 hours.” SO inconsiderate. I’m packing lunch and snacks, so we’ll see what happens with those later.

Do you dream when you sleep? And do you ever dream about things that are so close to being possible that you think they’re real … until you wake up? What’s the best trick a dream has played on you?

Step by step

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I tried to step it up this morning at the gym with my arm weights on the step + Stairmaster routine (thanks for all your suggestions last week!) by increasing the weights and switching from the “fat burner” to the “speed intervals” setting. It worked a little bit, but I think I need to up the Stairmaster level even more next time. Stats: 1 hour and 11 minutes, 378 calories, average heart rate 120, max 151.

My breakfast titles are getting longer and longer. Today, I had peanut butter chocolate strawberry cheesecake ice cream oatmeal:

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Along with 3/4 cup of the oatmeal mxture and the usual crumbled graham sticks and 1/3 cup cream cheese icing, I added 1 tsp peanut butter and one chopped square of the Lindt chocolate hazelnut bar I got from blogger secret cupid 🙂

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I obviously don’t need to tell you how good it tasted.

On the side I had 1/2 an orange and soymilky black tea (very soymilky — probably 1/2 cup because there was more left in the carton than I expected):

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Lunch and snacks today should be nearly identical to what I ate yesterday, but I’ll be back tonight with an update, as usual. In the meantime, go enter the BSI!

Happy Wed-nes-day!

Socialize for your health

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I love when I can combine a good workout with quality friend time, and I’ve been able to do it twice this weekend! Yesterday, Kate, Gina, and I did our 5-mile waffle + ice cream bRUNch, and today my friend Sarah (but I call her “Ting”) is in town and we did another 3.5 around Prospect Park. Our run was so pleasant because it wasn’t part of any sort of training or obligation; it was just a fun thing to do together. Ting’s a bit of a speed demon — I had to work hard to keep up with her, and the stats show it: 34 minutes, 331 calories, average heart rate 166, max 181.

Before the run, I had a quick mid-morning snack of 1/2 grapefruit and a tsp of peanut butter:

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Post-run, I made us a yummy brunch of leftovers and cleared five containers from the fridge in the process. Yay for streamlining!

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I sauteed the Dominican rice I brought home from Friday’s work party in a tsp canola with 1/2 green pepper, 1/4 onion, and the rest of my green beans. The little ramekin has the last of Belkis’ habichuelas (about 1/3 cup each) with a couple spoonfuls of brown basmati rice, and I also fried two eggs in a tsp of olive oil (one for each of us). Ting poured hot sauce all over her egg :-). Sooooo good.

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For dessert, we had the last crumbles of the Orange-Cranberrry Dark Chocolate Heart Tart, also left over from Friday’s work party:

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So sad this is all gone now. It was amazing!

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We also each had one of the dark chocolate Adora calcium disks that Tina sent in my Valentine’s package. These tasted just like straight delicious dark chocolate — hard to believe they pack such a calcium punch!

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Next up: more errands. The list never ever ends, but I am getting through it! It sounds like there are a lot of you who do NOT have tomorrow off. It’s the worst to have to drag yourself somewhere when you know that everyone else is relaxing. Hope you’re getting some quality weekend time in now!