Challenges « Healthy and Sane

Entries Tagged as 'Challenges'

I am enough

December 17th, 2009 · 17 Comments · Ellie Krieger, Holiday bootie buster challenge, chicken

I forgot to mention this on my blog, I joined the Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge (HBBC) a little while back. I actually did it last year and found really fun ways to sneak in exercise to rack up those points. This year I wasn’t going to get crazy, trying to lose weight, so I decided to just have fun and aim for 25 points a week… a challenging yet doable goal. Well, it’s been over 3 weeks and I haven’t yet made this goal. It’s been stressing me out!! I feel like I’m not good enough, trying to achieve my own goals… not to mention compares to some of the other participants… Anyway, today I decided to just stop stressing out about it. I’m doing everything I can. I love exercise, and I do it because I love it (and of course because it’s good for me too). I love challenging myself and I AM doing that, even if I’m not at the gym for hours a day, running an obscene amount of miles a week (since I’m not training for a race right now) or even getting a workout every single day. I am enough, and that’s ok!

This little message refers to my eats too. We had a pizza party at work, so I had pizza… and cake! No need to worry about. I’m going with the flow, and I like it

BREAKFAST

Holey Donuts jumbo reduced fat cinnamon bun

I’ve been ordering a few boxes once in a while, when there is a free shipping promotion. It’s such a fun “treat” breakfast!

MID-AFTERNOON SNACKS

Pretty self-explanatory, I think

LUNCH

A little of this…

And a little of that…

I am proud to say that I had 2 slices of pizza and only 1 piece of cake. I could have had more, but I didn’t embrace the “screw it, I’m already being bad so might as well be really bad” mentality and consumed treat foods in reasonable portions. Yay me!

DINNER

Dinner was SO delicious today! As part of CEiMB, I made Ellie Krieger’s recipe for maple mustard chicken thighs, which this week was hosted by Handle the Heat (Tessa has amazing pictures!!). Every review I read about this recipe said it was great, so I had high expectations. I’m happy to report they were more than met!

We very rarely eat chicken thighs since they are higher in fat than white meat in the chicken breasts, so this was a bit of a treat. I made sure to trim all visible fat and kept the portions at bay. The whole grain mustard added such a fun texture – the little grains just popped in your mouth! Some high quality maple syrup balanced the spiciness of the mustard perfectly. Delicious!

As a side dish, I made some haricots verts by following this recipe from Cooking Light. The mustard based vinaigrette tied the beans perfectly with the mustardy chicken (Btw, I used 1/2 balsamic vinegar and 1/2 red wine vinegar instead of sherry vinegar and subbed pepitas for sliced almonds). Awesome, awesome dinner!! Adam and I had a hard time not going for seconds and polishing everything off.

Uh-oh… caught red handed (kinda ). Enjoying some dark chocolate with almonds while blogging… I can’t go to bed without a little dessert!

So yeah, no exercise today. There was just not enough time in the day today, and I’m cool with it.

How do you feel about all the challenges going on in the blog world? Love them, hate them? Do they motivate you or discourage you? I keep flip-flopping on that one.

If you missed my somersaults giveaway, make sure to click here. Yum! Oh and please follow me on Twitter (my twitter name is healthyandsane). I just joined and I feel lonely there all by myself!!!

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I have a confession

July 8th, 2009 · 12 Comments · Cleaner Life, pork, sandwich

I have a confession – I am totally “over” the Cleaner Life Challenge (or CLC, as I’ve been lovingly referring to it lately ). Although the reasons for doing the challenge made a lot of sense when I originally decided to do it, I’m tired of meticulously looking through labels to find a CLC compliant item. I realized that I eat a lot of chocolate/chocolate related stuff, but I already knew that. That was partially the reason for doing the challenge. But I also realized that I try to eat clean most of the time anyway, so despite being fun at the beginning, now the challenge is a huge chore. Today, for example, I planned on making some sandwiches for dinner (see below) but I couldn’t use the Ezekiel sprouted grain bread we have in the freezer because it has soy lechitin. So I had to go to Whole Foods to buy some CLC compliant bread. Guess what? Every single loaf of bread (except for 1 which I finally found at the end after a loooong search) has either sugar, some not whole wheat flour or soy in some form. Yup, even organic sprouted grain breads. Does that mean that every single bread (except for the 1 I picked up) is unhealthy or “unclean?” I think the answer is no. Now my sugar addiction is a whole other story, but that’s a whole different post. And you’ve kind of heard a lot about it already so I’ll spare you

With that said, I AM sticking to the challenge as planned until July 15th (right after the cake is gone!). It continues to be a learning experience and I appreciate that part of the challenge. I just wish I could continue learning while eating chocolate Anyways, onto…

TODAY’S EATS

I was short on time this morning and wanted something warm and sweet. I reached into the freezer for a Food for Life sprouted grain english muffin (which I planned on having with some melty Barney Butter) but then I saw 3 boxes of Holey Donuts in the freezer. Mmm, yum! I went this morning with the jumbo blueberry cinnamon bun. I’ll refer to it as heaven going forward Made my fingers nice and sticky, but tasted oh so good with a huge mug of coffee.

[388 calories, incl. coffee]

Sun-maid, I think I love you

[130 calories]

Leftover summer squash gratin:

[389 calories]

[160 calories]

nectarine

[60 calories]

Dinner was the above referenced sandwich. We had some ham in the fridge that needed to be used up, so I made a croque monsier by following Kath’s recipe.

[389 calories]

The sandwich was pretty good. A little too much egg, so it got slightly soggy. It was also NOTHING like the Croque Madame from Shiller’s. That’s pretty much the best thing ever. Not healthy though, so you know, I’m not about to pour a bag of shredded cheese over my fried sandwich to replicate that beau.

And then there was MORE WEDDING CAKE! I honestly don’t even feel guilty over it. I feel like I should be, but I don’t. I promise this is the last time you’re seeing it though. The boys we are hosting at our house tonight did not finish it, so I’m bringing the rest to work tomorrow. Say good bye to the best wedding cake ever. Oh I’m going to miss you, cake, but my hips won’t

Total calories consumed today: 1711 (includes unpictured sweet cherries and AK MAK crackers) + CAKE

How was your Wednesday? I’m in a fantastic mood despite work being crazy. I “blame” some exercise endorphins for this… gotta love ‘em!

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Chocolate withdrawals

July 2nd, 2009 · 18 Comments · Cleaner Life, yogurt

I’m having major chocolate withdrawals. I knew I loved chocolate. I knew how much I depended on chocolate. That’s why I decided to do the CLC. No white sugar in general eliminates 99% of chocolate and baked good treats, both of which also happen to be my diet downfalls. I try so hard to exercise and eat healthy, and then these 2 bad boys ruin it all. Oh chocolate, I love you and I hate you.

I can’t decide how I feel about the challenge. As expected, it’s teaching me a lot. It’s also prevented me from randomly shoving sweets into my mouth during a busy time at work. Very good. I really like that part of the challenge, but sometimes this girl just needs some good old fashioned chocolate. Just a little piece… pretty please? The lesson here is that a chocolate free life is just not for me, but I did discover that medjool dates and turkish dried apricots taste like candy Oh yeah, and then there is this beauty (my new favorite nighttime treat)… 1/2 Food for Life english muffin with cacao bliss:

1/2 FFL english muffin with cacao bliss

Chocolatey coconuty goodness. Oh yes, life is good again I’m currently enjoying it with yogi green tea

[129 calories]

How else have I been keeping my sweet tooth at bay? With some roasted beets and raisins! Yep, you heard me right!

Kelly, does this look familiar? I asked you guys in this post what to do with some root veggies I got at the farmers market the other day, and you gave me so many yummy ideas. The common thread was to roast them, and then have them with some goat cheese. Oh yeah, I think you really can’t beat that combo! Kelly recommended trying a recipe she just recently sampled: swiss chard with beets, goat cheese and raisins. I followed the link to the recipe from her blog, and after browsing through it realized I even had all the ingredients on hand! Awesome! Adam was NOT excited for this one, but I had high hopes that I could turn his beet hating ways around with this one. It just sounded amazing, and we had plan B for him – a frozen burrito. Yup, that’s how we roll (it’s organic at least! haha). Take a peak inside

I used the leaves from the beets instead of swiss chard, omitted the onions and only used 1T of EVOO (although the rest of the proportions were kind of random too – 1/3 of the raisins, 1/2 of the beet leaves, 1/3-1/2 of the beets… I couldn’t remember how much they weighed and I mistakenly threw away the piece of paper where I wrote it down). I also added some sliced ham to make it a little more man-friendly. Adam hasn’t been too happy with my meals this week. I’ve been pushing his envelope a little too far with my vegetarian creations Long story short, he LOVED IT!!!!!!! I of course loved it, but that was no surprise, but my husband loving a dish centered around beets and beet greens and goat cheese (something he just recently started liking) is pretty amazing. He made me so happy. I love beets. Hope that means they can become a more frequent ingredient in our kitchen. I’m making beet chips next!

OTHER EATS

Oikos, 1/2 mango, pb puffins, turkish dried apricots (seriously these taste like candy!!!) + raw almonds. I love you yogurt (not as much as chocolate but I can’t live without you either!)… what’s up with me talking to my food today?

[356 calories]

+ 2 unpictured AK MAK crackers = 107 calories (I didn’t eat the whole apple… it was a little soft for my liking)

Leftover ww pasta with pistachio basil pesto + cauliflower, laughing cow cheese (awesome addition! – made everything super creamy) + pistachios:

[394 calories]

[220 calories - ended up eating the whole thing... it's just too yummy ]

Today was a really great food day! They’re not always this good, but today was noteworthy. I like note-worthy food days! Total calories eaten: 1546

I also took an abs class, then a spin class and finished off by solid 5 minutes of jump rope. A great workout! ~550 calories burnt. I haven’t sweat like this in forever! I think it made everything better. I feel cleansed

I’m off to relax with the new issue of Self magazine I picked up yesterday. I hope Jillian can inspire me to be a better me

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Bloggers rule + I have a new food love

June 30th, 2009 · 14 Comments · Cleaner Life, breakfast, chicken, pasta, salad, sandwich, snacks, turkey, yogurt

How was everyone’s Monday? I find it that it’s always hard to get going in the morning, but by the end of the day I’m very well adjusted and ready to face the week I’ve been eating lots of delicious (undocumented) foods over the past few days, so today I wanted to do another multiple day recap. Let’s start with some highlights, shall we?

1. Zesty’s chicken asparagus pesto quesadilla made for a great easy lunch

2. Lara sent me this recipe for wheat germ whole-wheat buttermilk pancakes after reading my post on Clinton St. Baking Co pancakes. These made for a healthy CLC-approved Saturday morning breakfast. Fresh raspberries from the farmers market (picked just the day before!) + yogurt and maple syrup made for amazing topping

These are great as a snack with my new love (see below)

3. When I saw Lauren’s veggie stromboli, I couldn’t wait to make it! Some farmer’s market broccoli wanted to be the star of the show, so I used lots of it + some chicken in this recipe. I also used TJ’s ww pizza dough (it had some soybean oil but I still bought it), added some spinach to the broccoli when steaming it, and used 0.75 cups of organic part skim mozzarella. This was such a fun alternative to pizza, although I’ve decided that after the challenge I’m going to start buying white pizza dough – it just tastes more like the real thing

My top 3 foods (and many others below) were all inspired by bloggers. Bloggers rule! My food would be so much more boring without you

4. I had some beautiful basil from the farmers market smelling up my apartment, so on Saturday afternoon when Adam was out, I decided to combine it with a few other random things in my fridge: ww couscous, fresh tomato (also from the farmers market… I told you I went to town on my last trip! ), black olives, pine nuts, hummus + goat cheese. I warmed up the couscous and then just threw the rest of the ingredients into the bowl, and finished it off with a few ribbons of the fresh basil. The result was a mediteranian inspired creamy and delicious dish! I’d definitely recommend recreating this

5. And that’s my new food love – Artisana Cacao Bliss! OMG – SO good! It tastes like coconut infused chocolate and I just can’t get enough of this stuff! It goes great on ww english muffins, pancakes (see above), ww tortillas, and straight out of the jar Speaking of straight out of the jar, looking at the picture below makes me realize I’ve had a little too much of it lately (the picture was taken late last week and my jar does not look like this today), but it’s SO GOOD!!

An all natural (sugar free) ingredients list:

So these are my top 5! Now let’s get to the rest of the eats…

Happy Tuesday

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Celebrity sighting

June 29th, 2009 · 16 Comments · Cleaner Life

Thank you all for your sweet comments on my previous post. I am back on the CLC wagon and am looking forward to the rest of the ride. Somehow the day got away from me so I didn’t get a chance to work out yesterday, but I’ll make up for it today

What I did have a chance to do, though, is check out Boston’s Health and Fitness Expo yesterday. I’ve been reading about these types of events on blogs for what seems like ages now. I was imagining larabar and goo samples everywhere, polar and garmin coupons and I don’t know what else… maybe booths with fancy performance socks or something Unfortunately, this particular event was kind of lame (just lots of hospitals and a few ghetto products sprinkled in)… until Katy spotted the Biggest Loser guys. Where? Oh yeah… that’s Mike and Ron!!! I am a HUGE fan of the show, and seeing those guys (ok Mike) kind of brought the 16 year old in me. I really wanted to talk to him, but there was a huge line to do just that and I had to get to work. Boo to adult responsibilities I did get a chance to snap a few photos (from a weird angle)… here is the best one:

Mike + Ron from the Biggest Loser

They looked just like on the show! So so cool. Helen was there earlier, but I don’t really like her much so I’m not upset I missed her. Some lady told us that Mike’s brother lost 60 lbs already. That’s so great. Maybe they should bring him in for the next season. Ok ok, I’m done rambling. Maybe this is only exciting for me. I went back to work, and once in a while was thinking about this little celebrity sighting. I was thinking about what I’d say to them if I did stand in that line? I think I’d want to ask them if they were hungry standing there for hours? Are you a fan of the Biggest Loser? What would you say to Mike and Ron if you met them?

Yesterday’s eats included some vegan berry pie for breakfast, and then this…

Egg white omelet with mushroom, spinach, canadian bacon, light on the cheese, light on the oil + dry whole wheat toast at the Trident Cafe:

The Healthy Chocolate at the Expo (just acai berries – no sugar)… yeah, tasted like fake chocolate. No surprise there.

For dinner I made an amazing summer squash gratin from 101 cookbooks. This was pretty labor intensive (it took me probably close to an hour to slice and dice everything, make the breadcrumbs, make the sauce) but it was worth it in my opinion. I used fresh basil to make the sauce, halved the amount of oil (and added a little bit of water to the sauce instead) and only used 1.5 T of butter for the breadcrumbs instead of 4. So many complex flavors. I really loved it! Can’t wait to have it for lunch today again. Unfortunately Adam said there was too much squash there for his liking so I froze his leftovers for a dinner in the future. We’ll see how it keeps

I also ate my last chocolate macaroon

Perfect way to end the weekend (ha, that’s lobsters on the tv – we were watching food shows)!

Oh wait, last question… I went crazy buying everything in sight at the farmers market on Friday and now have a whole bunch of root vegetables (beets, turnips). I went through lots of old Cooking Light and Eating Well magazines for inspiration on how to use these up but the best I could come up with was just roasting these babies and adding them to sandwiches, salads or over some ww grains. Any ideas from you guys? Thanks!

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Entries Tagged as 'Challenges'

I am enough

December 17th, 2009 · 17 Comments · Ellie Krieger, Holiday bootie buster challenge, chicken

I have a confession

July 8th, 2009 · 12 Comments · Cleaner Life, pork, sandwich

Chocolate withdrawals

July 2nd, 2009 · 18 Comments · Cleaner Life, yogurt

Bloggers rule + I have a new food love

June 30th, 2009 · 14 Comments · Cleaner Life, breakfast, chicken, pasta, salad, sandwich, snacks, turkey, yogurt

Celebrity sighting

June 29th, 2009 · 16 Comments · Cleaner Life

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