Weekend Round Up Oct 13

This past week was sooo busy I forgot to post anything during the week! Here is the Weekend Roundup from last week.......

This weekend was another spent at home. This summer we traveled every other weekend with regularity, but lately we've been staying home more. I actually don't mind; I am liking the breaks on the weekends since work has been so busy.

On Saturday I went for a 4 mile run with the dogs and then Adam and I did the Legs and Back P90X video. We hadn't done that one in a while because I'd been having knee troubles, but it was actually totally fine. I thought that video had more jumping but it was mostly a lot of lunges which were no problem. At noon I went to get a massage because my back and neck were hurting so badly...it was amazing! I will be doing that again soon. That afternoon I cleaned house and then we went to my parents' for dinner which was fun. My mom made an amazing baked pasta dish with ground beef (we never cook pasta at home so it was a total treat) and they even had mint cookie ice cream on hand for dessert!

Sunday Adam and I were both sooooore from the legs workout! Ouch. We went on an easy 4 mile run with the dogs, and then did the Chest and Back P90X video and the Ab video. We shortened both a bit so the whole thing took about an hour. I think the lunges in Sunday's workout also worked our abs...we were were dying during the core portion of the workout.

For lunch we made cream cheese salmon spread and ate it with veggies and Wasa crackers. The salmon spread was just made up as we went and included low fat cream cheese, greek yogurt, canned salmon (from Costco, I really like it on salads or with steamed veggies), dry onion, lemon, salt and pepper.

I had my cracker with salmon spread and pickle relish on it. (I am a pickle lover.)

Sunday afternoon we did some reading, I mowed the lawn, and talked about our plans for next weekend (yeah we plan ahead occasionally!). We have been talking a lot about eating better quality food (not the as-cheap-as-possible bonus pack of chicken breasts..), so we decided to go check out two different butcher shops in Berkeley. We went to the Rockridge Market and to Ver Brugge, a meat, fish and poultry market. We bought some chicken breasts and chicken sausage from Ver Brugge. We also walked up College Ave to Ici, a local shop that has interesting flavors of delicious ice cream, but there was a long slow moving line so we decided to skip that.

Rockridge Market

On the way home we stopped to get ginger beer...my most favorite non-water drink (currently).
The best one I've had so far is Fentiman's...sooo spicy!! The best. Plus there's a dog on their label.

For dinner Adam made apple stuffed chicken breasts. They were so good! We used sherry instead of white wine and parmesan instead of cheddar because that's what we had on hand. I made a quick green salad, baked acorn squash, and used our rice cooker to make brown rice cooked in chicken broth. It was a very good dinner, and we have enough chicken for three more meals for both of us (leftover rice and squash too).

Leftovers packaged up for Monday lunch. Chicken, squash, rice and sauce. 

Last Week Wrap Up and Meals + Workouts Week of Oct 15

Well, we did pretty well last week with our workouts and meals.

I did make the meatballs, butternut squash soup, and grilled chicken. I still never made the black bean cakes! The soup was really good and great with the chicken. The meatballs were also very tasty, but we thought they had too much onion so next time I'll probably half the onion. We ate the meatballs with salads.

Salad prep Monday night.

The week ended up looking like what I planned exercise-wise.

Everyday before work: Run 2+ miles with the dogs plus "extra" exercises as referenced in previous posts.
Monday: Grocery shop and cook
Tuesday: Back and Biceps P90X + Abs
Wednesday: Cardio X P90X video
Thursday: Run - I got 4 miles in with the dogs. Not much but better than nothing!
Friday: Relax

Other that eating and exercising, I had a busy week because my coworker was out of town and I was manning the office solo (which I don't mind but I'll be glad to have her back!). That lead to less time in the evenings (got home late) but I still managed to work out--I needed it because I was sitting all day long and my back was really hurting by Friday.

I know lots of folks say you shouldn't treat yourself with food...but I do it anyway. After my long/rough week I got myself a hot chocolate and a chocolate croissant from Panera on the way home. TOTALLY WORTH EVERY CALORIE. So good.

This upcoming week I am planning to make:

Meals:
Apple stuffed chicken breasts
Cajun chicken sausages (purchased from local butcher)
Seasame-soy broccoli
Beet oven fries (just roast beet fries we cup up using our mandolin in the oven with a little olive oil and S+P)
Wheat berry salad
And one more meat item to be determined after seeing what's on sale at the grocery store.


And workouts will hopefully look like this:

Everyday before work: Run 2+ miles with the dogs plus "extra" exercises as referenced in previous posts.
Monday: Grocery shop and cook
Tuesday: Plyometrics P90X video
Wednesday: Shoulders and Arms P90X video
Thursday: Run
Friday: Relax

Monday morning is coming too soon! Got to go to sleep soon! 

Week Wrap-Up

Each week I'm going to post a week plan (with workouts and meals) and then at the end of the week I'll do a reality check to tell you how it actually went down!

The plan for this past week can be found here.

For the Menu, I did make three of the four meals.

The Chicken with Garbanzos, Tomatoes and Apricots was quite good. We had it for dinner and there was enough left over for one lunch. I put extra chicken in it than the recipe called for. 

With the remaining chicken from the "bonus pack" I bought for that first recipe, I grilled those pieces that night and we ate them on salads for lunches and dinner. 

Working lunch at the farm.

I also made the Citrus Tilapia. It was edible, but I won't be making it again. I'm not sure if it's the type of fish, or the sauce, or both, but it had a definite bitter taste. Because I didn't like it very much I was never inspired to take a picture!

I am going try to make the Black Bean Patties and Zucchini tots this coming week.

Workouts: 

With my commute, life is very crunched in the evenings. Usually I can pull three workotus but this week it just didn't happen. We ended up skipping the Legs and Back workout because both of us have sensitive knees and I've been doing a lot of running so didn't want to exacerbate anything by doing too much impact in one week. So here's what happened:

Everyday: Morning 2+ mile run with the dogs, plus these exercises before and after the run (I mix up the ab exercises and don't usually do plain crunches).

Evenings:

Monday: Grocery shopping and cooking

Tuesday: Kenpo X P90X video

Wednesday: Core Synergistics video

Thursday: Visited family

Friday: Got home late/relaxed and Adam left for a weekend trip

Those two workouts definitely got me sore, so I know I did something good! And I'm having an active weekend so I'm not turning into a blob too quickly.

I took this picture on Friday after a stressful day at work. The dogs and I took a walk before driving home. Only one more week with water in the canals, so we are enjoying the views before they dry up!

Meals+Workouts Week of Oct 1

Hi All! Tomorrow is October--hard to believe. We are already considering our plans for next weekend, and looking forward to our Fall vacation later this season.

This weekend was spent relaxing, a little exercise, and household chores. It was awesome. I even took a nap today! YES.

Really old photo of baby Bruce and Spencer, back before Bruce was allowed outside off leash. 

This week on the Menu:
Chicken with Garbanzos, Tomatoes, and Apricots
Seasoned grilled chicken with salad
Citrus tilapia with salad and zucchini tots
Black bean patties with eggs and salad

This weekend I made:
Slow cooker pork roast
Slow cooker french dip sandwiches (I made a version close to Jenny's on that page, with low sodium ingredients)
Zucchini whole wheat rolls (using all whole wheat flour, no lemon, and the "dough" cycle and then forming them into buns and baking in the oven)

And those will be had for lunches this week.

Another old kitten picture. Post-workout snuggles. 

Workouts:
Everyday before work: 2+ mile run with dogs + this before/after

What I hope to accomplish in the evenings--(may not happen in this order)
Tuesday: Legs and Back P90X video+Abs
Wednesday: Road bike ride (~28 mile loop)--hoping to get in one or two more after work bike rides before it gets dark too early!
Thursday: Kenpo P90X video+Abs

Work should be busy this week! I look forward to going when everyday is a blur of business.

Week Roundup: Workouts and Menu

This past week was really busy and just flew by. It's the busy season at my work, which is my favorite time of year. Never a dull moment!

I just really like this picture. Milkweed (Aslcepias) seed pod.

Here was my schedule (with workouts) for the week before/after work:

Monday: Before: Run 2 mi with the dogs, After: Grocery shop and food prep, clean house

Tuesday: Before: Run 2 mi and incorporated this workout into my morning routine (doing the non-running exercises before and after the run), After: Cooking and finish cleaning house

Wednesday: Before: Same as Tues, After: Chest and Back + Abs P90X workouts, cook

Thursday: Before: Same as Tues, After: Plyometrics P90X workout, cook

Friday: Before: Same is Tues, After: Yard work and then reeellaxxx

Saturday (today!): Ran 6 miles with Adam then 2 miles with the dogs, then did the Shoulders and Arms + Abs P90X dvd plus a ton of yard work

Here was the dinner menu: 

Monday: Chicken soup with biscuits (similar to this but I made biscuits separately and used boneless/skinless chicken breasts in the soup with more veggies)

Tuesday: Sloppy Joes (similar to this but less sugar)

Wednesday: Grilled chicken with salad

Thursday: Eggs with salad

Friday: Snacked and made green monster muffins (not sure how I feel about them yet. They are like baked oatmeal. But green and peanut buttery.)

Saturday: slow cooker pork with veggies or salad

Lunches are always leftovers.


After my workouts this morning, I made myself a smoothie. I just recently started adding spinach to my smoothies. My go-to recipe is (all measurements are approximate):

1 frozen banana, chopped into pieces before freezing
1/2 cup nonfat plain greek yogurt
2/3 cup nonfat milk
1-2 tbsp natural peanut butter
1/4 cup water
Handful of fresh spinach

And sometimes (pending on my mood, exercise, etc)

Ice
Chocolate ovaltine
Plain whey protein powder
Frozen berries

Put into blender and blend until super smooth and creamy! So good. This morning I added ovaltine and protein powder because I'd been working out for over 2 hours beforehand.

Here's a bad picture of it before it was blended:

I've been lusting after a Vitamix blender, but honestly this cheap-o old blender I have does the trick well enough.