I’m Doing Something Right.

Long and I went to the dentist today for a check-up and teeth cleaning. Both of us left without any discovered cavities or any work needing to be done. Our dentist also measured our gums—good news in that department as well. He basically told me to keep doing whatever I’m doing. I’m doing something right in the teeth department. Hooray!

Dinner

Tonight we stopped by Chai Thai noodle. Long ordered Curry. I ordered a tofu and basil dish. I forgot to ask for brown rice.

Dessert

What I was really looking forward to was the fried bananas and coconut ice cream topped with peanuts! (Mmm!!) Normally we don’t have dessert, but you know we both deserved it especially since we left with such a good review from our dentist.

10K-Training

A couple of hours after dinner I went on a run. Before the run I completed my strength training routine and in addition to Pilates. I am really focusing on my hips and thighs because I am trying to not only improve my running speed, but my bicycling performance as well. I saw an improvement with it the last time I went biking. Hopefully I see another improvement this coming Saturday again.

I’m off to do some more lunges and stretching. After that shower and call it a night!

See you at Breakfast!

5 Days.

Wednesday, january 19th

Breakfast:

1 slice of sprouted whole grain bread topped with Barney Butter and apple slices. I don’t know about you guys, but the Barney Butter craze has dwindled down for me. My palate has adapted to other brands and types of nut butters. I have a bottle of BB that still needs to be emptied. To tell you the truth, I can’t wait until it’s gone.

I had a cup of coffee to go with my breakfast this morning. I had planned on eating the blueberry yogurt, but got full and am saving it for lunch later.

Lunch:

I actually ate the yogurt for lunch instead…

along with a piece of naan bread dipped into hummus.

I practically swiped the container clean!

Dinner:

A little unhealthy. I only had two slices and don’t feel too good. Too much cheese and grease for me.

Tuesday, January 18th

 

Breakfast:

Oatmeal cooked over the stovetop with cow’s milk. Topped it off with AB, banana and mini chocolate chips along with a drizzle of agave nectar.

Around 1 pm I went for a run with my sister. We ran along the Great Hwy in S.F. We started running on the pavement, but then ended up on the running beach. The walk back was also super nice as well. I love the bay.

Afterwards I had a Gu:

Lunch:

Then we headed over toa sushi restaurant called Toyo Sushi in SF. We initially wanted to go to the Silver Spoon in Westlake, but they were closed for dinner. It was ok though we still enjoyed each other’s company.

I ordered the Avocado roll and had a few bits of cucumber roll as well.

Dinner:

I was too tired to cook anything, so I had a wrap full of cherry tomatoes, cucumber, quinoa, hummus and a lil bit of mayo

Monday, January 17th

Today was a strength training and stretching day. I did some random yoga stretches after my strength training workout. I made sure to focus on the areas that were particularly sore and utilized a lot. Those areas were mainly my legs and upper back and arms.

Breakfast:

I love creamy oatmeal with a hot cup of coffee. So comforting!

Lunch:

was just a mumbo jumbo of leftover ingredients: quinoa, carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, evoo, sesame seed oil and nori. Class is starting up again on the 24th. Going through my books. Micro…. yikes!

Dinner:

ok I know I said no more deep frying. It’s just so tempting though! Another night where I was too lazy to cook. I opted for ramen noodles and deep fried tortilla chips dipped in greek yogurt and hummus.

Sunday, January 16th

6 AM Loomis had to be rushed to the Emergency Pet hospital again. We thought that he had another infection with his surgery. Turns out he just pulled a muscle! It was good news that cost us $326.00.

Breakfast:

we were waiting for soOoo long at the pet hospital. I tried using their coffee machine, but it was broken. I then decided to take a quick run to Peet’s coffee. I had a cup of black coffee with a Bear Claw.

Lunch:

Then I got home and had a protein smoothie.

Later I went running with my sister, felt like I was about to crash the whole way. I also felt like I just HAD to finish the run. I stuck with the program. Success! Afterwards I had a Tri-berry Gu with some water. Felt instantly better!

I surprised my sister with a bag of healthy goodies for her birthday. It included an array of Primal Strips flavors, bulk Quinoa, a bag of Bob’s Red Mill’s Steel Cut Oats, 1 Banana, 1 Apple, a snack bag of Ginger-Mango Chimes Chews, 1 broken Almond Biscotti, and one squeeze bottle of Agave nectar.

I think she really liked it. Oh, and I also made us an Espresso Frappe—one of her favorites! I had old cups of Peet’s coffee in the cupboard. After I poured the drinks into the cups, it looked like we just came back from a trip to Peet’s. The only exception, the contents of the cups were insanely delicious! 10x better than their Freddos.

Creamy deliciousness!

 

Dinner

 

One of our friends invited us to her house for dinner. We had a great time eating great food, chatting, laughing and making fun of people. Thanks for cooking Val!

Started off with Salad and bread dipped in olive oil. The entree was a dish made of Polenta, tomatoes, and tofurky sausages. I went back for seconds!

I ate SO MUCH food that I had to stand up. LOL! Tip: don’t eat so much that you don’t have enough room for dessert.

Saturday, January 15th

Breakfast:

Old faithful.

After breakfast: we went on a 40 mile bike ride that lasted about 4 hours. There was so many hills—I almost died! Luckily we took frequent breaks and had emergency Gu on hand.

Sorry no photos. I didn’t want to bring any cameras with me while riding.

Lunch:

at Baja Fresh. I ordered a Grilled Veggie burrito. I chose to have Pinto beans with sour cream and guacamole.

Dinner:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 days worth of eats in one post. That’s a new record.

Favorite Repeats and Preparing for Tmw’s Ride

Breakfast:

• Steel cut oats
• splash of soymilk
• ‘bout 1/4 cup of NF greek yogurt
• 1 banana
• Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Granola Bars (The recipe uses PB, but I opted for AB instead). This was my baking session, didn’t get a pic of it. Don’t fret there’s more baking to come!
• coconut flakes

 

Lunch:

I have been lovin’ these quinoa/hummus salad wraps!

The green bean looky thingies are lentils. I added some leftovers in there as well.

Snack:

Before dinner, I munched on these old favorites with TJ salsa.

 

Dinner:

I had another dinner planned, but we got home kind of late, so I whipped up a quick chana masala with leftover quinoa and TJ’s naan.

Preparing for Tomorrow’s Bike Ride:

Long and I are meeting up with his friends tomorrow go on another bike ride. This will be my third one to date. My first ride was 36 miles. My second ride was 40 miles. And this next one is going to be about 50 miles. I’m excited. I never knew how much I would enjoy biking.

As I’m packing/prepping my clothes for tomorrow, Miss Dottie comes over to see what the ruckus was all about.

  Can’t forget these guys: Garmin, Heart Rate Monitor, Face mask just in case it gets cold. 

Sadly, after purchasing this mask and brining it home, I realized that the ski mask type (balaclava) would be better for me. I’m going to see if I have time to exchange it tomorrow morning.

The last ride we went on was super cold. Long and I were worried that our toes were frostbitten (yeah it was THAT cold). So just in case the weather gets too cool again, we’re prepared. Side note: I was super excited when we found this at Sports Basement!

This time I’m packing lots of Gu. My favorite is Expresso Love. I’m trying out two different flavors: Tri-Berry and Razz by Cliff. I’m also trying out Gu Chomps. I also have a Larabar in one of my bags. Sweet!

More in Long’s bag.

Need to rest up for tomorrow!

As for the 10k-training for today. It was a REST day.

Take 2!

I got most of the things on my to-do list done. Now, I get to bake. My favorite part. But, before I show you my baked goodies in my next post, here’s what I had for tonight.

Dinner:

I recreated last night’s dinner, but this time making sure to cook the lentils ahead of time. On the side I had a bed of fluffy quinoa and shreds of Hickory Smoked Primal strips. The last time I had primal strips was way back in May 2008!! It’s addition only made take 2 more perfect!

If you’re looking for a no fail quinoa recipe just remember the ratio is 2:1. 2 cups of water to 1 cup of quinoa. I don’t cook mine in the rice cooker because it comes out too soggy. Besides, the stovetop method I use only takes 15 minutes (+ 10 minutes of cooling).

Here’s what you do:

Rinse 3/4 cup (this was all I had left) of quinoa in cold water. Drain. Add 1.5 cups of cold water. Bring to a boil in a medium sauce pan. Once boiling, put lid on, then reduce heat to medium-low simmer. Cook for 15 minutes. When timer goes off, do not remove lid. Instead, set the timer for another 10-15 minutes and let your quinoa sit covered. Then fluff with a fork. Viola perfectly fluffy quinoa. It’s like cooking brown rice.

If you have leftovers, let the quinoa cool and store in an air tight container for later use.

I was craving a cup of iced cafe au lait (half coffee and half milk).  

10-Training

I didn’t manage to get into Body Pump, but I did get in a good strength training session in. I did an old routine from Self’s Magazine. I did two sets of the following:

• 20 Squats
• 20 3-point prone bridge
• 12 Static Lunge with overhead press*
• 12 Static Lunge with lateral raise*
• 20 Bent-over raise*
• 20 Bent-over row*
• 20 Toe Reach
• 20 Criss Cross

*5 pound weights.

Run: 2 miles exactly with the pups in the misty rain.

The city and the outdoors

10k-Training

The run tonight around the lake was nice. The weather was warmer than usual with a faint breeze. I loved the naturalistic view of the lake along with the busyness of the city. It’s like living in the city, but getting the benefits of the outdoors. The dogs also got to socialize with other dogs passing by (good for Lulla). Long and I got our workout for the day in. And I was able to use my Garmin!

Dinner:

Spice Market Lentil Packets. See recipe here at Vegetarian Times. FYI: cook the lentils ahead of time. I neglected to read the “cooked” part, so it took a little while longer for dinner to come around for us tonight. I also ate the leftovers from Spicy Tofu Bento Bowl that was made for yesterday’s dinner.

Finishing the night off with this blog post, a cup of decaf earl grey tea in white chocolate milk.

Weight gain woes

I’ve gained weight! It has only been a week and a half since I’ve began the 10k training and I’ve already gained 4 pounds! I have not been particularly eating any more food. In fact, I’ve been eating less junk food since the holidays AND I have been dramatically more active lately. My clothes seem to fit the same…then again I haven’t really been paying attention. I do notice that my calves and abs are toner than they have been these past couple of months. I guess the only reasonable explanation for the weight gain that I can think of is that I gained muscle mass. I should probably measure my body fat % again just to be sure.

The last time I checked my numbers was last December 10th (a month a couple of days ago). My body fat % back then was 21.8% and my weight was 130 lbs.

Could it be possible with just a week and a half’s time to gain so much muscle mass? Or did I really gain that much weight in one month? Or am I doing something wrong here. Any ideas?

Wednesday, January 12th:

Breakfast:

Oatmeal, splash of soy milk, banana, a drizzle of agave nectar, coconut flakes and coffee.

Lunch:

Sandwich: tofurky slices, mixed greens, mayo, tomato and cucumber slices. I added a couple of swabs of vegetable garden cream cheese. Delish.

Tuesday, January 11th:

Breakfast

I’ve been enjoying my mini tiramisu cakes (1 and a half mini slices to be exact) my sis’ got for me for my birthday last Sunday. They go great with a hot cup of coffee. I only wish I had more!

Lunches: Sandwiches.

This sandwich was from last Monday. It’s stuffed with Hickory Smoked Tofurky deli slices, mixed greens, tomato, mayo and a side of yellow gold fishies.

A whole sandwich (I ate the first half while the potatoes were cooking in the deep fryer). Must stop deep frying…. The deep fryer may be one huge contributing factor to my weight gain!

Sandwich ingredients were the same as mentioned above. Maybe a bit more mayo this time around.

Dinner:

Spicy Tofu Bento Bowl. It was torture some for me to follow the recipe exactly, but I did it (minus the avocado. Didn’t feel like paying $1.50 for just one). Spicy as promised… however, the dish was WAY too salty! Next time, I’m reducing the 1/2 cup of soy sauce called for in the recipe to 2 Tbsp. or 1/4 cup.

It looks so delicious. I would have given it a perfect 10 if it wasn’t so salty. We could have been great together. I could also have water weight as well. Note to self: drink more water!

The recipe called for soy sauce in the salad dressing. I was very reluctant to add soy sauce into a salad dressing. I mentioned it to Long and he made a face. Then I also made a face. We both made a face. We weren’t feeling the massive amount and awkward use of soy sauce…I mean I’ve heard of adding fish sauce or even vegetarian fish sauce, which has soy sauce as one of many ingredients, but straight up PURE soy sauce in a salad dressing!? We love soy sauce, but NOT THIS MUCH. If you’re going to make this recipe, I’d stick to the balsamic vinaigrette dressings. Then again, it’s always interesting to try anything once.

Random Photos:

on the drive to South Lake Tahoe

My birthday night. The scenery somehow reminds me of Nigella Lawson’s kitchen.

Loomis has the balloon tied to his collar. He was SO CUTE walking around with it. He kept looking up at it with confused expressions.

Oh and I never got to post about this lovely waffle from The Red Hut Cafe at South Lake Tahoe. The pecans were actually in the batter. Must recreate this!

 

 

 

10k-Training

January 10th:

Jillian Michael’s 2011 Jumpstart Diet Yoga Toners. If you haven’t tried these moves yet, you must do it soon! Getting in a good stretch while toning up. I love workout routines that multitask with your muscles.

January 11th:

30 min x-training with Just Dance 2. Today was raining, so I swapped today’s 2.5 mi run with tomorrow’s 30 min x-training.

January 12th:

Planned a 2.5 mi run easy run around the lake with the pups when Long gets off work.