I Am A Dark Chocolate Addict
Posted: June 12, 2013 Filed under: cardio, crossfit, daily, dinners, recipes, strength, workouts | Tags: cardio, crossfit, daily, dinners, recipes, strength, workouts 2 Comments »You know what’s dangerous? Hiding chocolate from yourself.
I think I could go without any and all junk food for the rest of my life and feel perfectly fulfilled… except dark chocolate. Seriously. I think I have a problem.
The other day, I remembered that I’d bought a dark chocolate pound plus bar from Trader Joe’s and stashed it in my freezer, and it was like remembering you’d buried gold in your backyard. I’m not kidding; I was so excited.
The problem was that a couple of days ago, I ate way too much sugar before bed and didn’t sleep a wink. When you don’t have sugar or caffeine very often, a little goes a long way. Especially when you’re already sensitive to it. (My mom didn’t let me drink Mountain Dew as a kid because I’d be up for days after just one can.) Anyways, after that happened, I swore to myself I wouldn’t go eating a bunch of sugary crap before bed again. But wouldn’t you know, that promise just so happened to coincide with my dark chocolate discovery. So there went that!
Hopefully I’ll remember the feeling of caffeine and sugar pumping through my veins when I’m trying to go to sleep next time I get the urge to break off a chunk. (Or maybe I’ll just have to start eating it for breakfast instead.) We’ll see…
Luckily, the rest of my meals this week have been quite healthy and substantial. They’ve also been quite repetitive; I had almost exactly the same meals Monday and Tuesday and didn’t even realize it until I got to dinner.
Breakfast: Roasted chicken and broccoli
Lunch: Turkey meatballs with peppers, spinach, and carrots
Afternoon snack: Pear slices and homemade almond butter (recipe coming soon!)
For dinner, I did get a little wild and switch things up a bit. Monday was steak with asparagus (yummy but boring) and Tuesday was leftover bacon meatloaf and green beans.
Evening snack: Banana bread muffins toasted with butter and berries
Dessert: A little too much of the aforementioned dark chocolate…
Workouts this week have been much more variable than food has been… which is pretty much the norm. I don’t mind eating the same thing every day, but if I have to do the same thing in the gym everyday, I get bored really fast.
Monday’s workout looked like this:
- Warm-Up + Stretch
- Back squats:
- 15 @ 45#
- 12 @ 95#
- 10 @ 135 #
- 8 @ 155#
- 5 @ 175#
- 3 @ 195#
- 1 @ 205#
- 5×5 @ 155#
- 10×10 Overhead squats @ 35#
- Workout (21-15-9, run 1 lap before and after each round):
- Push presses @ 55#
- Step-ups @ 25#
- Burpee box jumps
- 5x:
- 10 Hanging knee lifts
- 5 Handstand push-ups
- Cool-down walk
Those burpee box jumps? Killer!
And Tuesday’s workout looked like this:
- Warm-up & stretch
- Push presses:
- 15 @ 35#
- 10 @ 55#
- 8 @ 85#
- 5×5 @ 105# > New PR!
- 5×5 @ 85#
- Workout (8 20-second tabata intervals (as many reps as you can) of each exercise with 10 seconds of rest in between each one):
- Wall balls
- Hollow rocks
- Push-ups
- Run one mile
- Cool down
Push press day continues to be my favorite day in the gym, and I cleaned and pressed more weight this week than I ever have before. It’s definitely not all I can do though, so I’m already looking forward to working on them again.
This week is flying by, and I’ve got quite a few fun things scheduled over the next few days, so I’m looking forward to it. I hope your week is going well also!
Questions:
What one food could you not live without?
What thing could you never do the same very single day? What don’t you mind doing the same every day?
Cauliflower Crust Pizza
Posted: June 11, 2013 Filed under: dinners, recipes | Tags: dinners, recipes 7 Comments »For a while now, I’d been hearing about cauliflower crust pizza, and I’d always really wanted to try it. It seemed like a lot of work, so I’d never quite gotten around to it, but when the craving for pizza hit on Saturday and I had a little extra time, I decided to give it a shot.
And I’m really glad I did.
Not only was it not nearly as much work as I thought it’d be, but the results were absolutely awesome. It wasn’t quite as doughy as a traditional pizza dough, but it didn’t taste like cauliflower at all. The edges were crispy, the middle was chewy and, well… it tasted like pizza! And that’s exactly what I was going for.
I used this recipe as a guide, but I modified it a bit, and I couldn’t have been happier with how it came out. I hate soggy pizza, and although I was a little nervous this might turn out that way, it didn’t at all. I even heated up the leftovers the next day in the toaster oven, and they were just as good the second time. I couldn’t imagine how it would stick together and hold up, but somehow, it managed to!
The only trouble I did have was with the crust sticking to the pan, but luckily that’s an easy fix. If I had used a nonstick pan, a pizza stone, or coasted the pan with a little cornmeal, I think it would’ve been fine. (All I own is a crappy old set of cookies sheets that everything sticks to and I’m way too cheap to go out and buy parchment paper.) My mom has a pizza stone though, so I’m definitely going to try this one again the next time I’m at her house. I can’t wait to have her try it either because I honestly don’t think you would have any idea what it was made of if I didn’t tell you.
And what better way to justify eating a big cheesy pizza than to have it be made with a vegetable crust?!
Ingredients:
- 1 medium head of cauliflower
- 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon almond flour
- Spices to taste – Oregano, basil, crushed red pepper, garlic
- Toppings
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 450*F and place cookie sheet or pizza stone in oven to warm.
- Cut cauliflower into pieces, removing stems and leaves.
- Pulse cauliflower in food processor until it’s in tiny little pieces – the smaller, the better.
- Place the cauliflower in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 4-5 minutes.
- Dump cooked cauliflower onto a clean towel and allow to cool until it is able to be handled.
- Once cool, use the towel to ring out as much water as possible. (The more you can get out, the better, so you might have to work at it!)
- Dump the cauliflower into a mixing bowl and add all other ingredients. Mix well using a fork or your hands.
- Once “dough” is mixed, pull the hot pan/pizza stone out of the oven and coat it in a little bit of olive oil all over. (Some people use parchment paper here, but I didn’t have time for all that and mine worked out just fine without it, besides the aforementioned stickage.)
- Shape the “dough” into your desired shape on your cookie sheet/pizza stone. Pat it down so it’s about 1/2” thick in all spots.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, until it starts to turn golden brown.
- Remove crust from the oven and add your desired topping. For my toppings, I used sauce, mozzarella cheese, peppers, and spices. (I wanted to also add chicken and spinach but apparently I was too excited about the crust actually working out that I forgot.) I made the sauce by mixing tomato paste (from a can, with one ingredient: tomatoes), water, and Italian seasonings.
- Put pizza back into the oven and bake for another 5-10 minutes, depending how crispy you like it.
- Once finished baking, remove from oven and let cool for several minutes.
- Slice with a pizza cutter and enjoy!
Give it a try and let me know what works for you and what doesn’t because this is one recipe that I definitely want to master!
It’s Monday Already?
Posted: June 10, 2013 Filed under: breakfast, cardio, crossfit, daily, dinners, groceries, meal prep, recipes, sides, snacks, strength, workouts | Tags: breakfasts, cardio, crossfit, daily, desserts, dinners, groceries, meal prep, recipes, sides, snacks, strength, workouts Leave a comment »This weekend was a little bit backwards from how my weekends normally go – mostly because of the weather. Saturday started off cloudy and rainy, and I had to go into work for a few hours in the morning, so I decided to get all my weekly chores out of the way right off the bat.
After work, I headed straight to the gym to get in one more workout for the week. Being at the Y on a Saturday morning between 9 and 11 is really not fun to me because of how crowded it gets, but luckily by the time I was finishing up, it was clearing out.
Despite the crowds, I do love Saturday workouts because they often mean I can spend as long as I want in the gym. I can move slower, spend more time on things I want to work on, and practically get as much in as I feel like with nothing pressing to rush off to. That’s definitely how it went this weekend, and it was good to spend some extra time stretching and working on some new moves that I’ve been trying to master.
Here’s what my Saturday workout looked like:
- Warm-up + stretch
- Back squats:
- 12 @ 95#; 10 @ 105#; 8 @ 135#; 5 @ 155#
- 5×3: 185#; 155#; 135#; 105#; 95#
- 15×3 @ 35#:
- Shoulder press
- Upright rows
- Front squats: 5×5 @ 95#
- 1 Snatch + 5 Overhead squats x10 @ 55#
- Squat cleans: 5×5 @ 553
- Sumo deadlift high pulls: 5×5 @ 55#
- RDLs: 5×5 @ 55#
- Snatch drills
After my long workout, I headed home to clean my apartment and do my laundry, stopping for lunch in between. I wanted Mexican, so I cooked up chicken and peppers in a pan on the stove with chili powder and cumin, and had some chips and salsa on the side.
The rest of the day was spent shopping for new workout pants (found a pair at TJ Maxx) and running errands. And while I was out… all I was thinking about was pizza. I haven’t had pizza in quite a while, so I was thinking about stopping to pick one up, when the idea hit me: cauliflower crust pizza. I’d been wanting to try it out for a while, and with some time to kill and a craving for pizza, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. It came out absolutely wonderful too, so I’ll definitely be sharing the recipe later this week.
I woke up early on Sunday and started the day off with a big batch of extra-green spinach banana pancakes with syrup, berries, and bacon. I’m not quite sure what went wrong this time, but they all stuck to the pan and it was rather devastating. Luckily they were still delicious (even if they weren’t that pretty), but I think it might be time to buy a new, non-burnt pan…
After breakfast, I hurried off to meet up with a couple friends to hike Mt. Monadnock. It was the absolute perfect day for a hike – sunny and warm but not brutally hot.
Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea as we did because the parking lot was packed, but luckily the trail didn’t feel crowded at all. We took a trail I’d never done before, which seemed far less-traveled than the main one, and we only passed by a few other groups the entire time.
The clear skies made for picturesque views all around, and I took it all in from the top. I’m severely directionally-challenged, but on a clear day, they say you can see Boston from the summit.
How lucky am I to live in such a beautiful place?! (The correct answer would be: pretty dang lucky.) I absolutely love it here.
Once we made it back to the base, I headed home and spent a couple hours out lounging by the pool at my apartment. It wasn’t quite warm enough for me to want to take a dip, but it was nice to get a little sun.
And the last stop of the day was the kitchen for some meal prep. Since I did groceries on Friday, my fridge is absolutely filled to the brim with food… Chicken, steak, eggs, fruits, and veggies galore!
This week, I decided to take the easy route and make one batch of meatloaf filling and turn it into two different types of meals. Sometimes I make a meatloaf that lasts me practically an entire week, but I’m so sick of it after a few days that I’m shoving it in just to keep from wasting it.
To avoid that, I combined a pound of ground turkey, two plum tomatoes, one green pepper, one egg, about 1/4 cup of almond flour, and a couple tablespoons of tomato paste (ingredients: tomatoes), to make the base. Then, I put half of it into a loaf pan and topped it with bacon, and made half of it into meatballs. I baked both in the oven, cooked up some green beans to go with the meatloaf, and peppers to go with the meatballs (I’ll probably add fresh spinach when I actually eat them), and voila – two very different meals.
I don’t usually add tomato paste to my meatloaf, but I tried it out for dinner last night, and I think it was a great choice. I had it leftover from Saturday’s pizza, and it definitely gave the meatloaf an extra kick and made it nice and moist.
I also had quite a few bananas laying around, so I made a batch of banana bread muffins using three bananas, six eggs, about 1/3 cup (maybe?) of almond flour, a big tablespoon of coconut flower, a pinch of baking soda and baking powder, four teaspoons of coconut oil, and a crapload of cinnamon. (I’m so precise, I know.) Since the loaf pan was occupied with the meatloaf, I used my individual brownie pan, and they came out wonderful. It made six pretty large muffins, which would be perfect for either breakfast or dessert!
So between working and spending too much time at the gym and shopping and cooking and hiking and napping by the pool… this weekend certainly flew by. Sometimes though – like in this case – that’s the sign of a really good weekend, so you won’t hear me complaining. We’ve only got so many summer weekends to enjoy, and I think I’m off to a good start!
Questions:
What did you meal prep for this week?
What did you do this weekend?
Do you like hiking?
Summer Salads
Posted: June 1, 2013 Filed under: cardio, crossfit, daily, dinners, strength, workouts | Tags: cardio, crossfit, daily, dinners, strength, workouts 5 Comments »I don’t know about you, but as the weather gets warmer, it gets harder and harder for me to want to spend time in the kitchen. Not only does the heat zap all of my energy, but my kitchen is a total hot box, with no windows and very poor ventilation.
Enter: salads.
The aversion to cooking in the summer is one thing, but another reason salads are perfect for this time of year is the abundance of fresh produce. Fruits and veggies are more plentiful and of better quality, and there are way more options for what you can make salads out of. I often think of salads as just being about vegetables (cold, raw veggies, at that), but fruit, nuts, and even cooked vegetables like zucchini and summer squash make awesome additions as well.
On Thursday, I was scrolling through Instagram when I came across my friend’s picture of her lunch. (Good to know I’m not the only one taking pictures of her food…) It was a green salad with chicken and strawberries that totally made my mouth water, and it made it pretty easy for me to determine what was for dinner that night.
I started by prepping the salad, cutting up lettuce, spinach, strawberries, and blueberries and then throwing it back in the fridge to stay cool.
Next up, I diced a chicken breast into large chunks and threw it in a pan on the stove to cook with a little bit of olive oil. I flipped it around while it was cooking to get all of the sides good and done, and then I chopped it up into even smaller slices.
One of the downsides of living in an apartment is not having a grill, but I make the best of it with what I’ve got. Luckily, my cheap, ancient frying pan is pretty much burnt to a crisp, so it sort of functions as the grates on a grill anyway, giving my foods that char-broiled flavor on the outside but leaving the insides nice and moist. Convenient, right? My other friend even saw a picture of my dinner later on and swore I’d made it on a grill. Ha, fooled ya!
Once the chicken was done, I threw it on top of the salad, along with some sliced almonds and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Balsamic vinegar alone makes a great dressing – without all of the sugar and additives that can sometimes accompany balsamic vinaigrette dressings out of a bottle.
I’m not sure which was warmer – the inside of my apartment or the air outside – but it was nice to eat out on my deck anyway!
After dinner, my friend invited me over to hang out and go for a walk with her and her pup. We strolled around her neighborhood a few times checking out all the houses (she’s looking to do some projects on her house and I’m thinking about buying something eventually), and it was the perfect way to let dinner digest and get some fresh air while we caught up.
It was quite warm out though, and I think someone was pretty wiped out by the time we got back home…
Luckily she had the strength to move from the grass to the kitchen floor on her own though because I don’t think we could’ve carried her!
A couple of times this week in the gym, I’ve pretty much wanted to do the exact same thing as Lima – meaning lay on the floor and die. My workouts have all been really fun this week – but tough! I’ve been doing different things, like combining two mini workouts, or starting off with a workout and ending with strength, and it definitely ups the challenge (and the fun) when you switch things around on yourself.
Thursday’s workout looked like this:
- Warm-up: 5 minute walk
- Front squats:
- Warm-up
- 5×5 @ 105#
- 2×5 @ 135#
- 10×5 Wide stance back squats @ 95#
- Workout (5x):
- 3 Snatch @ 55#
- 5 Deadlifts @ 55#
- 20-15-10-5 @ 55#:
- Shoulder presses
- Back squats
- Plus run 1-2-3-4 laps
- 50 RDLs
- 100 Crunches
- 25 Pull-ups
And on Friday I decided to do my planned workout first and then joined a few other people on the workout they were doing later:
- Warm-up: 5-10 minute walk
- Workout 1:
- Row 2000M
- 50 Thrusters @ 65#
- 25 Deadlifts @ 135#
- 10×4 Bent over rows @ 35#
- 12×4 Bent over front raises @ 35#
- 12×4 Upright rows @ 35#
- Workout 2 (4x):
- Farmer’s carry @ 70#
- 20 sit-ups
- 30 air squats
- Farmer’s carry @ 70#
- 10 box jumps
- 25 pull-ups assisted @ 50#
- Cool-down: 5-10 minute walk
After having Memorial Day weekend snow in New Hampshire, we are now dealing with an extreme heat wave of 90+ degree weather… How’s that for keeping it interesting? I’m spending the weekend at home helping with my family’s huge yard sale, so it should be interesting to see how long we all survive out there in the heat today.
Have a good one! 
Keeping It Interesting
Posted: May 25, 2013 Filed under: breakfast, cardio, crossfit, daily, dinners, fitness, meal prep, nutrition, paleo, recipes, strength, workouts | Tags: breakfasts, cardio, crossfit, daily, dinners, fitness, meal prep, nutrition, paleo, recipes, strength, workouts Leave a comment »One of the best ways to keep life interesting when it comes to food is to mix things up. I often use many of the same basic ingredients and use spices to change the flavors of certain dishes, but alternating what kinds of meats, vegetables, and textures you use are also great ways to create variety.
Because I’m still trying to figure out my new schedule, this week was full of repeats for me, but it wasn’t boring at all. At the beginning of the week, I made some spinach turkey meatballs, chicken, roasted vegetables, and cauliflower rice to have on hand as a base of foods, but the rest of the stuff I just whipped up as the week went along and I figured out what I specifically wanted each day.
A few of my breakfasts this week consisted of plain Chobani with cinnamon and berries mixed in, but other variations on these ingredients could be overnight oats, smoothies, or yogurt mixed with other kinds of fruits, like pineapple, pears, apples, peaches, or plums.
Another common breakfast this week was egg scrambles, like this one made with red peppers and spinach, with pineapple on the side. Customization options for egg breakfasts are endless, including egg sandwiches, fried eggs, omelets, or egg scrambles filled with any of your favorite vegetables. My favorite things to add to egg scrambles are tomatoes, peppers, and spinach, but you might also like onions, mushrooms, ham, bacon, or cheese.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect out of the cauliflower rice, but I used it a couple of times this week, and I was absolutely thrilled with the addition.
Here, I sautéed zucchini, tomatoes, chicken, and spices ahead of time and stored it in the fridge. When I was ready to eat it, I threw it all back into a pan with some olive oil and the cauliflower rice and let it cook together for a few minutes. The cauliflower was almost like a couscous, and I thought it was a fantastic change. The texture added a whole new dimension to the usual chicken, tomatoes, and zucchini that I eat frequently, and I was very pleased.
Another day, I cooked up some peppers and then tossed them, a few spinach turkey meatballs, some sliced tomatoes, and spinach in a pan to heat it all up. It was good, but I’d been-there-done-that before.
So on another day, I tossed meatballs, tomatoes, and peppers in a pan with the cauliflower rice and a bit of olive oil like before, and then threw it all over a handful of spinach. Again, the rice added a really great texture change, and even though I ate meatballs with spinach, peppers, and tomatoes three times this week, this time felt totally different!
Like with my food, I really try to switch up my workouts in order to keep them interesting too. You’ve probably caught on to my basic template by now (unless you just skip over the workout parts of my posts, which is totally fine too), but here’s what it generally looks like:
- Warm-up
- Strength
- Workout
- Other random stuff – Legs/arms/skill/mobility/etc.
- Core
- Cool-down
So even though the format – or the basic ingredients – are pretty much the same each day, what keeps it fun and interesting are the little changes I’m constantly making.
Here’s what some of the variety has looked like this week:
Wednesday:
- Warm-up
- Deadlifts:
- 15 @ 85#, 12 @ 105#, 8 @ 125#, 5 @ 145#
- {5 @ 165#} x3, 5 @ 145#
- Workout (10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1): @ 55#
- Squat clean, Shoulder press, OH squats
- Run 1 mile
- 100 Crunches
- Cool-down
Thursday:
- Warm-up
- Front squats:
- Warm-up
- 5 @ 135, 3 @ 155, 1 @ 175, 2 @ 155, 5 @ 135
- {7 @ 95} x5
- Workout: Prowler pushes to opposite wall between each of the following exercises:
- 25 Push-ups; 25 Ball slams; 25 Crunches; 25 DB swings; 25 Air squats; 25 Box jumps
- 200 Jump ropes
- @ 35lbs:
- 20-15-10-5 Shoulder presses + Bent over rows
- 20-15-10-5 RDLs + Upright rows
- 50 Back squats
- 100 Swiss ball crunches; 100 Weighted side bends
- Cool down
Friday:
- Warm-up
- Strength:
- 12×4 Bent over rows + 12 Bench presses @ 55lbs
- 12×4 Back extensions @ 10lbs + 20 Obliques
- 12×4 Bent over front raises + 12 Upright rows @ 35lbs
- 12×4 Chest flies + Close-grip bench presses @ 20lbs
- Workout (15min AMRAP – 8 rounds @ 35lbs):
- 10 Thrusters
- 15 Front box jump overs
- 100 Crunches
- Cool-down: 5-10 minute walk
As you can see, it’s constantly varying! And in a life where things seem to always be the same (eat, sleep, work, gym, repeat), it’s the little things that keep it interesting.
Questions:
What little things do you do to keep life from becoming too routine?
How do you spice up your meals and workouts?
