Healthy and Sane

Entries Tagged as 'Holiday bootie buster challenge'

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! :D

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

IMG_9500

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 :)

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IMG_9634

LUNCH

A little of this…

IMG_9635

And a little of that…

IMG_9637

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! :mrgreen:

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!

IMG_9638

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! :grin:

IMG_9640

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!

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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!!! :lol:

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Last day of HBBC

January 4th, 2009 · 14 Comments · Holiday bootie buster challenge, breakfast, pasta, snacks, tofu, turkey

The Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge (HBBC) is over today.  I am both excited and sad.  After slacking off from exercise for a week before Christmas, I decided to kick it into high gear to make up for lost time.  I really wanted to get to 100 points (originally I wanted to get to 112 but that was definitely not happening after me being a bad girl!).  Since Christmas day, I went from 39.8 points to 97.9.  I didn’t get to 100 but I definitely haven’t worked out this much in years and it felt good to really step it up!  I also discovered on demand exercises offered for free by our cable company, which I think will be utilized more in the future.  Yay for finding more ways to burn calories and get into a better shape! :D

More about today’s “last chance workout” in a bit… let’s get to today’s eats :)

BREAKFAST

I have some grape tomatoes that are on their last leg, so I put them to good use, together with some light feta and avocado.  This is a really delicious omelet combo!  I used 1 egg and 2 egg whites and it made for a beast of an omelet.  I ate every bite though :)

feta tom and avocado omelet

The perfect bite, with everything on one fork :D

omelet bite

I then finalized our food menu for the week and off we went grocery shopping!

SNACKS

Is it just us, or does grocery shopping take forever in your household too?  We went to 3 different stores: TJ’s, Whole Foods and Shaw’s (a local supermarket chain) and it seriously took hours.  I was starving by the time we got home and actually ate 1/2 of this 18 Rabbits bar before putting the groceries away.

rabbits-bar

I found this bar on my most recent trip to New York. It’s handmade in San Francisco and I really like supporting local producers (even if they’re not local to me, but they’re still micro-producers in the US).  They had many flavors but the Funky Figs and Cherries especially caught my eye.  I could not wait to give this baby a try!

Here is what it looks like on the inside:

rabbits-bar-inside

Lots of oats, that’s for sure!  I have to tell you, I was a bit disappointed!  It just tasted like chewy oats… I really felt like a rabbit!  This bar was also $3, which is mighty expensive.  Have any of you tried this company’s products before?  I don’t think I’ve ever seen it on other blogs…

There was an interesting message on the package though – they explain how they try to make it as close to 100% organic as possible but were only able to get to 83%.  Sourcing 100% of the organic ingredients would have entailed going outside the state or even the country and they prefer to work with local farmers in California only.  I really appreciated this explanation and wonder what means larger companies go to in order to produce a 100% organic product.

Anyways, enough on this bar, I also had an apricot :)

apricot

I was planning on working out after grocery shopping but this whole hunger thing really threw me off.  Even after inhaling the snacks above I was hungry.  I didn’t know what to do.  I let the food digest a little and decided to break up my exercise.  I went to my new favorite thing for a fun workout, our cable box.

WORKOUT PART I

I took the Thighs and Buns Yoga, which took 20 minutes and then the ABSolutely Amazing 10 minute abs class.  I won’t bore you with the stats, but I did burn 88 calories and my heart rate shot up to 202 when I was holding a plank! –> 1 HBBC point

Then I made LUNCH

I didn’t really plan anything so I threw together stuff we had in the fridge: wild rice, avocado, grape tomatoes, deli turkey and a dollop of pesto sauce. It was really really good!

wild rice pesto, veg and turkey combo

And a baby apple for dessert:

apple

About 20 minutes later I had some real dessert :D

G&B espresso chocolate

After about an hour I was ready for part deux of my workout, the real deal!

WORKOUT – PART II

I started with a 5 mile run that went like this:

  • 0.15 mile warmup walk at 4.3 mph
  • 0.35 mile warmup run at 6.5 mph
  • 8 x 0.15 mile intervals at 8.0, 8.5, 9.0, 9.5, 9.5, 9.5, 9.0, 9.2 with 8 x 0.15 mile recovery intervals at 6.1-6.3 mph – Phew!
  • Ran until I hit 5 miles, starting at 6.2 mph, increasing by 0.1 mph every 0.15 miles.  

Complicated enough? :lol: I really just made it up as I went – I just knew I wanted to complete the 8 intervals and run for about 5 miles.

Then I did 15 minutes on the stationary bike and another 30 minutes on the elliptical.

Second workout’s stats:

  • Duration: 1:29
  • Calories burnt: 844
  • Ave HR:155, Max HR: 181 (funny how a plank gets my heart rate higher than a run at 9.5 mph!)

Total HBBC points at they gym: 8, total for the challenge 97.9

DINNER

I used this recipe for Slurp-tastic herb noodles.  With a name like that, how could I not add it to the “to-make” list?!  All the ingredients sounded amazing and after finding some great looking fresh spinach at Whole Foods for a little over a $1, I was even more excited!  I doubled the recipe to make 4 servings.  Here is the final product, a.k.a my bowl:

slurptastic noodles

I was hoping for something a lot thicker – not sure why.  It was nice but not knock-your-socks off amazing.  My husband didn’t care for it, which made me sad.  We’re both taking the leftovers to work, though.  I’m not too upset about it, but there was a bit of kicking and screaming on his part (a slight exaggeration :) )

And now I’m beat!  Hope you all had a nice and relaxing weekend!

Total calories for the day: 1343

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Good beginning of a new year

January 1st, 2009 · 6 Comments · Holiday bootie buster challenge, chicken, dessert, sandwich, snacks, yogurt

Hi bloggies!

New Year’s Day was kind of weird, food wise.  I woke up to a very messy, post-party apartment.  The weather was nasty so I just wanted to stay in my house clothes and do a whole lot of nothing.  I did make a delicious breakfast: a yogurt parfait, my favorite! :lol:

mango yogurt parfait

This is about 1/2 of a mango, 3/4 cup of TJ’s nonfat European style yogurt, a handful of Kashi Golean cereal and 2/3 of the TJ’s nutty trek mix.  Soo good!  There was also a large cup of coffee with skim milk and 1 tsp of agave nectar, of course!

Then the munchies hit a little bit.  It was just dreary and some of the food we didn’t put away last night was still on the table.  I grabbed a few small pita chips (unphotographed) and this cookie:

rollup cookie

It had a date filling.  Multiply this picture by 2 and then another similar one with the cherry filling. :oops:

I proceeded doing a whole lot of Food Network watching.  It was fun to just relax with my husband (he was even watching the shows with me!) but I was feeling a little guilty about not exercising.  The couch was just oh so comfy!

Eventually I got hungry watching other people make/eat delicious food, so I made a buffalo chicken dip sandwich with some baby carrots on the side.  No calorie counting today, but I was still trying to be reasonable with my eating and not overeat for no reason (that’s no way of starting the year!).  This dip isn’t so bad for you – I made it with boiled/then shredded chicken, reduced fat cream cheese, 2% shredded cheese and low fat ranch dressing.  Don’t get me wrong, this is no health food, but still – not that bad. 

buffalo chicken dip on english muffin with baby carrots

buffalo chicken dip sandwich closeup

And for dessert, I had a sweet sloop.  Ok, I had 2 sweet sloops :razz:

sweet sloop

And a little later I was hungry again, so I had an apple:

apple

And then I wanted more food!  Since I wanted it to be satisfying physically and mentally, I made a nice cup of tea and made one of my favorite snacks: a banana/nut butter wrap.  I used some Dark Chocolate Dreams pb mixed with plain chunky pb, 1/2 banana on a TJ’s low carb wrap.  This was then topped with some berry fruit spread after I decided it still needed a little something :)  I should have just had it with Barney Butter… I don’t know why I fight it sometimes :D

assembling banana/pb wrap

banana/pb wrap

See what I mean about weird eating?  Very very snacky today…

At around 8pm, I still haven’t gone to the gym!  I knew I’d feel 2000% better if I did, so I put away my laptop, put on some gym clothes, grabbed my new toy HRM and went downstairs to the gym in my apartment building.  Oh, I grabbed the 3s and 5s treadmill workout printout.  I was actually excited to get off my butt and move a little!

So here is what I did today: 45 min 3s and 5s workout (like last time, I increased my speed by 0.3 mph and ran the recovery intervals at 6.3 mph instead of walking) = 5.15 miles + 30 min ET + 15 min stationary bike = 8.15 HBBC points.  Here are my stats (now that I have my lovely HRM I can share them with you :) )

  • Duration: 1 hour 31 minutes
  • Calories burnt: 879 (amazing!)
  • Maximum HR: 174, Average HR: 154

Going back a few days since I haven’t posted my workouts since last Saturday (there were only 2 of them… yeah yeah I was bad again!) here is a quick recap since we’re counting HBBC points here.

Sun: 45 min circuit training (one of the workouts from Jillian Michael’s Winning by Losing book) + 15 min ET = 4 points

Tue: 15 min abs (0.5 points), 30 minute bootcamp class (2 points), 10 min stretching (0.33 points), 45 min pilates (3 points), 0.75 mile run (0.75 points) = 6.58 ~ 6.6

So total HBBC points for the entire challenge are 77.55.  I would still really love to get to 100, but I’m not sure if it’s possible.  I really enjoy challenging myself so I’ll definitely do my best to try to squeeze in a little extra exercise over the next 3 days so I can get there!

SO HAPPY I went to the gym after all.  I had an amazing workout and to think that I almost missed it!

Anyways, it was past 10pm when I got back so I just had another snack instead of dinner.  I kept it simple but delicious: sweet cherries + crackers with a laughing cow wedge.

cherries and crackers

Yay, the workout definitely turned this day around!  Hopefully you enjoyed your New Year’s Day, whatever you did!

Oh, and I decided to take tomorrow off so I can extend this lovely weekend feeling.  I wanted to start the new year on the right foot, but since I did a little too much relaxing today, tomorrow I will try to be more productive (although relaxing is still very much on the agenda!) :D  That means definitely a blog post tomorrow since I’ll have plenty of time on my hands… and of course another (longer) workout!

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Finishing strong

December 28th, 2008 · 9 Comments · December No Mindless Munching Streaking Challenge, Holiday bootie buster challenge, breakfast, chicken, dessert, pasta, sandwich, snacks, soups, yogurt

I’m trying to finish this year on a strong note.  2008 was a great year for me… I got married (!!!!), discovered my passion for cooking and started my own blog.  These are just a few things, but they will definitely mark this year as a memorable one (especially the getting married part :D )  This past month was full of indulgences (yeah, I know, ’tis the season) but I didn’t want to start 2009 feeling bloated and fat.  So on Christmas Day I decided to amp up my time at the gym (just a little bit) and restart cleaner eating.  It’s only been 3 days, but seriously I can feel the difference in my mood and even my body.  Lots of deliciousness was consumed so let’s get to it…

BREAKFASTS

TJ’s nonfat yogurt, banana, Bear Naked Hundred Mile Medley trail mix (cashews, dark chocolate chips, cherries, almonds and granola), some pb puffins and shredded coconut.  This trail mix is just ok (the granola part is kind of dry and the nuts are not roasted)…

Omelet with light feta, grape tomatoes and avocado (made with 1 egg and 1 egg white) + 1/2 pita:

Similar yogurt to the above (I was planning on using a different trail mix and only realized I used the same one after polishing off this bowl :P )… nonfat yogurt, 1/2 banana, Bear Naked hundred mile medley and some homemade cranberry sauce + a massive cup of coffee.

LUNCHES

This was a genius creation: ww pita with bbq chicken, avocado, laughing cow wedge and grape tomatoes.  Seriously, amazing!

I was stuck at home (nasty weather) with a limited food supply, so I reheated some frozen lentil soup.  Yum!

 

DINNERS

Turkey burger with cranberry sauce alla Meghann.  Sounds funky but it was really really good (I actually wish I added even more cranberry sauce!).  I added some laughing cow cheese for creaminess and used a ww english muffin instead of a bun + some sweet potato fries.  Perfect Friday night dinner!

Ww pasta shells with ground lean turkey, diced tomatoes and garlic.  Pretty delicious :)

SNACKS

There were many snacks, but none of them mindless!  That’s how I like ‘em :D

Two ak-mac crackers with a packet of Barney Butter and 2 prunes.   I really love this combo (and the sesame seeds on the crackers)!

I was only going to have 1/2…

But the other half was calling my name so I ate it too :oops: Honestly though, this was not the best brownie I’ve had, shocking given my love for everything peanut butter and Baked brownies’ reputation.

Something from my stocking… :D

I was able to only eat 1/2 of this guy (as planned)… at first it seemed a bit bitter, but once the sweet chocolate chip taste kicked in, it was quite tasty :)

A sweet sloop (sailboat shaped almond butter crunch, a mainsail and a jib of white chocolate floating in rich dark chocolate with pecan spindrift washing her sides):

I’ve been craving cheesecake lately so I bought a box of frozen 100 calorie cheesecakes the other day.  Man, these are tiny!  I topped this baby with some cherry preserve.  It did take care of my cheesecake craving! :razz:

And there were a few glasses of vino… a glass of Shiraz at Great Bay (that place is awesome!):

And a Cotes du Rhone something rather at Eastern Standard (that place was hopping!!!):

I didn’t finish either one of those glasses, but it was fun to “bar/restaurant hop” :D

WORKOUTS

I totally slacked off on exercise in the last week.  In fact, I did not work out for a whole 7 days, and I wasn’t even sick!!!  Just lazy… not a good excuse.  So starting on Christmas day, with my new HRM toy that my husband bought me, I’ve kicked it up a notch and it’s been awesome.  I already posted my stats from Thursday.  On Friday I did 55 minutes circuit training + 35 minutes ET (=6 HBBC points) and last night I did 4.5 miles on the treadmill, 10 minutes on the bike + 12.5 minutes on the ET (it was so freaking boring I had to get off after getting to a round number)… yesterday’s workout also totaled 6 HBBC points.  So to-date I’ve accumulated 58.8… can I get to 100 by January 4th??  Probably not, but I’ll keep trying :D

So yeah, 3 days of NMSC so far.  I’ve been able to stay away from office cookies on Friday and didn’t order any food in my slightly tipsy state last night (I knew I didn’t really need it!).  Tomorrow there will be more challenges at the office because more people will be back and I’m sure many of them will want to bring their cookies to the office so they stop eating them themselves.  I think I’m finally at the right mindset though… 2009 here I come, stronger (and leaner :) ) than ever!!

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Christmas Day 2008

December 25th, 2008 · 9 Comments · December No Mindless Munching Streaking Challenge, Holiday bootie buster challenge, chicken, dessert, pizza, rice, snacks, tofu, yogurt

Merry Christmas everybody (or those who celebrate it :D )!!!  I’ve taken a few fun pics over this holiday season that I’d like to start with.  We’ll move on to food and fitness after that :)

Before we got our Christmas tree, I stopped by an art gallery store to check out their ornament selection.  There were so many unique and absolutely gorgeous ornaments that I just had to take pictures of them.  Unfortunately they were outrageously expensive so I didn’t get any.  Maybe if I win the lottery one day :P

Aren’t these amazing?!

And these are some giant ornaments in my office lobby.  There a bunch of them all over the Prudential Mall in Boston.  So cool! :cool:

And here is my husband cutting the protective plastic around our first Christmas tree ever :D  

And our tree all lit up.  It looks really pathetic in this picture, but actually it’s really cute and made the last few weeks very festive :)

Ok, onto food and fitness…

I woke up this morning ready to be super healthy.  I was so excited about it!  So today I’m happy to report was so so good.  I just love being healthy!  It makes me feel a billion times better than stuffing my face!!!

BREAKFAST

After opening some gifts from my husband (I got a brand new camera and an HRM – yay!!!!!!) while drinking coffee, I made one my lovely yogurt parfaits.  It’s been what seems like ages since I’ve had one.

In this beautiful bowl (picture still taken with the old camera – not bad) was about 3/4 cup of yogurt, 1/2 banana, some strawberries and blueberries and a serving of Bear Naked Continental Divide Blend trail mix (banana chips, chocolate chips, walnuts, almonds and chocolate granola).  Yum yum yum.

Here is the package of the trail mix.  I liked it a lot!

WORKOUT

After digesting my breakfast for a few hours, I head to the gym in our building.  It is so convenient having it right there… I really have no excuse of ever skipping workouts!  I used my new HRM, so I have some workout stats… I love knowing exactly how many calories I burn!  The HRM was about 25% below what the treadmill and elliptical showed!

I like having a plan before I go to the gym, so today I came with a printout of this 3s and 5s treadmill challenge.  I looked at Melissa’s speeds and thought they were at about my fitness level so I started following her numbers exactly but after the first set, realized I could kick it up a notch without jeopardizing my ability to finish the run so I increased everything by 0.3 mph, oh and I also ran all the recovery intervals at 6.3 mph.  This was so much fun… I’ll definitely do this again.  Hopefully I can increase my speed and add some inclines over time!

After 45 minutes on the treadmill (or exactly 5 miles), I jumped on the elliptical and did another 30 minutes there.  I think the elliptical is just so boring… it took a lot of convincing to stay on for the full 30, but I did it!  Here are my stats:

Duration: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Calories burnt: 701

Ave heart rate: 151 (I think that’s a bit low but this thing is new so I’m still figuring it out)

Max heart rate: 198 (whoa)

HBBC points today: 7

Total HBBC points: 46.8 

SNACKS

I wasn’t too hungry after my workout so I just had a snack before making lunch.  I’ve decided to give Meghann’s orange + pb combo a try. I gave it a little twist by using Peanut Butter and Co.’s Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter.  This is about 1/2 orange with 1/2T of pb:

It’s official, peanut butter goes with everything… including orange!!  The juicy orange was actually a nice contrast to the creaminess and heaviness of the peanut butter.  De.licious!

Another snack later in the afternoon… a Harry & David pear.  I grabbed one from a goodie basket at work yesterday, so it got a little bruised on its commute home.  It was still juicy and delicious.  Harry & David pears are definitely the best (honestly I wouldn’t be able to justify the price though)!

LUNCH

For lunch I planned on making a salad since my husband was eating the leftover calzone (I usually try to eat salads or other “funky” foods he wouldn’t be interested in when he’s on his own with food).  We had a pretty pathetic amount of mixed greens, though, so I brainstormed and came up with this “salad.”

This looks just like a pile of food, but here is what you really see:

  • mixed greens dressed in 1 teaspoon of Annie’s organic goddess dressing
  • 1/4 avocado
  • grape tomatoes
  • small handful of macadamia nuts
  • 1/2 block of baked tofu (sprinkled in chili powder and salt, baked at 375* for 35 minutes)

This made me so full!  I think it was the fat from the avocado and the nuts.  This was about 300 calories but I was seriously stuffed for hours (almost in an uncomfortable kind of stuffed).

DINNER

My husband was craving buffalo chicken, so I suggested making little pita pizzas with buffalo chicken.  They came out super delicious!  Un-pocketing the ww pita makes for a great base for TWO individual pizzas… so efficient :P

Here is my plate with 2 large carrots on the side for some veg:

Close-up of the pizza:

Oh, I used Trader Joe’s pizza sauce (it’s really great!) and 2% Italian shredded cheese (1 oz worth).  I burnt it a little but it was still super yummy!  I will definitely remember this idea when I’m craving a greasy slice – this one was enjoyed 100% guilt free!

And after blogging, I’m going to make some tea and have this baby:

This guy was in my stocking this morning.  The snowman is so cute :razz:

All in all, I am so happy about getting back on track.  I just feel so happy!  I’m restarting my No Mindless Snacking Challenge (NMSC).  Today was Day 1 (of a second streak attempt).  I home to make to the end of December (and then I’ll start the January NMSC).

Merry Christmas to everyone again!  I hope you are having a wonderful day, whether you celebrate it or not (you probably still got the day off :D )

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