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.

P90X Protein Bar Recipe

Update: I added a second recipe. There are now Chocolate Chip Bars and Oatmeal Raisin Bars. My husband and I both agree, better to underbake these than overbake. We much prefer gooey to dried out.  Dried out/overbaked bars are pretty much inedible, and the line between "gooey" and "brick" is a fine one.

Update 2: We got a dehydrator and now usually dehydrate these on the "fruit leather" sheets in the dehydrator. We like the texture better (since we don't like the cooked edges in the baked version). Either way--oven or dehydrator--works!

Frequently it's really easy to make homemade version of pre-packaged foods. This goes for P90X protein bars. We looked up the nutrition facts of their bars, and then made our own version. Here's how:

First, we pulled up the label on a P90X bar. The stats are like this:

Calories: 260-270

Fat: ~7 g

Carbohydrates: ~32 g

Protein: ~20 g

Then I made a chart showing the stats for each of the ingredients I planned to use. Amounts of protein, fat, carb, and protein are per cup of ingredient. 

		Calories	Fat	Carb	Protein
Peanut butter	PER CUP	1600	120	56	72
Honey	PER CUP	1024		272
Oats	PER CUP	307	5	56	11
Cereal	PER CUP	172.9	3.325	34.58	2.66
Protein	PER CUP (80g)	322.4	5.2	7.8	65
Chocolate Chips	PER CUP	1280	64	160	16

Then I made another chart to alter the amount of each ingredient to change the ratios to match the P90X nutrition stats. 

Here's what we got: (This does not include addition of water!)

	RECIPE!	Calories	Fat	Carb	Protein
Peanut butter	0.8 cup	1280	96	44.8	57.6
Honey	0.75 cup	768	0	204	0
Oats	1.75 cup	537.25	8.75	98	19.25
Cereal	1.75 cup	302.575	5.81875	60.515	4.655
Protein	4 cups	1289.6	20.8	31.2	260
Chocolate Chips	0.5 cup	640	32	80	8
	TOTAL	4817.425	163.36875	518.515	349.505
	TOTAL PER BAR (20 BARS)	268	9	29	19

So, the ending recipe is....

P90X Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bars!

0.8 cup peanut butter (all natural, ours was creamy Costco brand)

0.75 cup honey

1.75 cup rolled oats

1.75 cup honey bunches of oats cereal

4 cups protein powder (ours is whey unflavored--Nutra Bio brand)

0.5 cup chocolate chips (ours were trader joe's)

~1.5 cups water (maybe more maybe less)

Mix the dry ingredients together. Put honey and peanut butter in a bowl and microwave ~30 seconds to soften/liquify. Add the peanut butter/honey and dry ingredients together, and add water until the mixture is very thick and pour-able. Scrape into a lightly greased 9x13" pan and bake for ~15-20 minutes at 350 (the edges should be slightly brown but the center will still be gooey). Cool on counter until near room temp, then put into fridge until hardened up. Cut into 20 bars. 

Update: I find that if you like really gooey bars, then it is great to use the 9x13" pan. If you prefer less gooey bars, use two 8 or 9" square pans. (You'll get a more even bake in the smaller pans, unlike the large pan, where the edges will overbake and the center will stay gooey.)

----------------------

By the way, P90X is going really well. It's tiring, but we can definitely see the difference. For one, I am VERY glad to have changed to a higher protein lower carb diet. I have the most sensitive stomach EVER (generally plagued by problems) and have found that many fewer carbs have helped a lot!). We have finished three weeks, so are just starting our recovery week (well, that is, after our 109 mi bike ride tomorrow..then we will "recover").


UPDATE!! 

I created another recipe! This one is oatmeal-raisin. 

Here's the chart:

RAISIN RECIPE!
	RECIPE!	Calories	Fat	Carb	Protein
Peanut butter	1 cup	1600	128	48	56
Honey	0.75 cup	768	0	204	0
Oats	2 cup	614	10	112	22
Cereal - Grape Nuts	1 cup	400	2	96	12
Protein	4.5 cups	1451	23	35	293
Raisins	0.75 cup	390	0	93	3
	TOTAL	5223	163	588	386
	TOTAL PER BAR (20 BARS)	261	8	29	19

And here's the user-friendly recipe!

P90X Oatmeal Raisin Protein Bars! 
1 cup peanut butter
0.75 cup honey
2 cups oats
1 cup grape nuts
4.5 cups protein powder (ours is whey unflavored)
0.75 cup raisins
1 tsp cinnamon (or your preferred spices. I might use more than a tsp)
~0.5-1 cup water

See instructions for the chocolate chip recipe above.

WHEY PROTEIN POWDER INFO!
This is the one we buy.  Yes, we are serious about protein powder--that's a 5 gallon bucket in the pictures below. A little ridiculous. **If you order from Nutra Bio, be sure to check their "$6.95 Shipping" link at the top of the page--otherwise the shipping will be super expensive. When I looked the coupon code was SAVE4.

P90X!

Just a little update to say that we have decided to try out P90X. We bought it on Amazon "used" (though it appeared to have never been opened, with all materials intact) for $90.

For those of you that don't know, P90X is a 90 day at-home workout plan. Six days a week you do one of their workout videos (in a certain order, which changes over the course of the ninety days). There is also a diet plan (high protein, low carb) that goes along with the workouts.

We started it on Thursday, and even though it's only been a couple of days, we really like it! Before P90X, we'd been having a hard time fitting in workouts during the week. When we lived in the Valley, we both commuted by bike a couple days a week which was a great way to get in some extra workouts, but we have never been good at doing strength training (despite the fact that we own a full set of professional type dumbells...). So--we think this is really going to work for us. It also helps that we both are motivated to do it (most of the time) so when one person isn't feeling it, the other person can make it happen!

I love exercising, so it's easy for me to do the workouts, especially since they are something new. Eating fewer carbs--that is hard! So far, so good. Proteins we have utilized so far: 0% plain Greek yogurt, fat free cottage cheese, tuna, chicken, beef tri-tip, eggs, milk, whey protein powder. P90X definitely has lots of marketing to go with it, so they include their own protein bars and drinks in their nutrition plan. I did some research and made our own protein bars and found that chocolate milk has the same protein/carb ratio as their drink, so we don't have to spend extra money on those items. Makes me realize how I really ate probably 60-70% carbohydrates in my old diet, and now we're aiming for just 20%. Yum, more chicken!

And yes, we did take "before" pictures and measurements--but I'm not going to post those until I have great "after" pictures to go with them! And, on top of P90X I am still doing running (current goal of my next half marathon in June, with another in Sept, and maybe a full marathon after that) and road biking (we're doing a century ride in May). Adam also just recently built me a mountain bike so I'll be doing that on the side as well! So I'm hoping for some good results (namely, less flab around the midsection and overall increased muscle tone). We'll keep you updated....


Non-related bonus photos:
Tonight Adam got some exercise weed wacking our huge yard (and, for the record, I mowed and edged the lawn areas of our yard which is also no quick task...):
(He is wayyyy back behind that orange tree in the middle of the photo, you can't see him)

(And here's a close up of his face--lots of greenery flying everywhere!)