Kickboxing night!

I've been lazy and slacking in the kickboxing department lately. I love going and I'm always glad afterwards, it's just hard to get motivated to show up.  The class is at 6:30 which also happens to be my dinner time.  I'm a grumpy beast when I'm hungry!  So I snacked on a Think Thin bite.  I don't really like the fakey ingredients but  for 100 calories and 8 grams of protein I'll take it.

Surprisingly this held me over through class, dinner preparation, and a shower!  These are also gluten free.  Always a plus!

Dinner was baked chicken legs, breaded with Hol Grain gluten free breading mix,  homemade cinnamon apple sauce, and steamed green beans.  Easy and delicious! :) 

As for dessert, I had my most favorite chocolate candies.  While visiting with my cousin in Ohio I visited a Malley's chocolate shop.  On an impulse I grabbed a box of  Himalayan Pink Salt caramels.  I don't usually care for caramels but the pink salt lured me in!  Well they are the best EVER!  Sadly they were a limited time only and could not be ordered online.  So my fabulous cousin went back and got me seven more boxes.  I did give a couple away to avoid temptation.  I've got to savor the rest for as long as possible.  I limited myself to two this evening! 

Dinner=Epic Fail!

Today was one of those days where things just don't go quite right!  First off the batteries in my camera died.  I mean the picture quality on my camera is bad enough but breakfast and lunch pictures are taken on my way subpar cellphone camera!  Anyhow breakfast was two more of the Clean Eating Coco Cran Nut muffins and pumpkin yogurt.  I mixed 2/3 cup Fage 2%, a couple of spoonfuls of pumpkin, spices, a few chopped pecans, and a pack of Sun Crystals.  The pumpkin yogurt really seemed to creep out a co-worker.  You'd think I ate bugs or something like that guy on the Travel Channel to hear this lady talk!

 Lunch was leftover stir-fry with a carrot and some grape tomatoes.  Surprisingly filling!  I did have an afternoon snack of some grapes but honestly I didn't even need my usual pre-kickboxing snack bar today!  As for kickboxing.  My goodness it was so hot in there.  I don't know why since the A/C was on and it's cold outside.  I felt like I could spontaneously combust!  It was a tough class to get through.  Plus it was abs night and my abs are still super sore from my 1 hour ab class last night!  Oh well!  I hung in there and got it done!

  After class I was starved.  I snacked on some Food Should Taste Good Olive chips (wonderful!!!) and Sabra hummus.  Then I started on dinner but had a huge mishap.  I was making a recipe from one of the South Beach cookbooks called Indian Chicken.  Things started out good, brown the chicken pieces.  Put them on a plate while you cook some garlic, ginger, curry powder, veggies, and coconut milk.  Then add the chicken back.  Except I added the step of drop all but one piece of chicken in the floor!  So I threw some chickpeas in the pot instead.  My husband wasn't keen on a vegetarian entree and since he was out and about anyhow he got some chicken from Krogers Deli!

I had a small piece.  I took the skin with the smokey barbeque coating off before I ate it though.  With my Indian (not) Chicken I served quinoa.  I've eaten it many times but never cooked it.  I decided to use low sodium chicken broth instead of water.  Then I added a touch of curry powder and a few spritz of Bragg's seasoning.  Very tasty! I think I will be making quinoa more often!

For tonight's yoga I did a 10 minute Yoga legs workout.  Now I'm ready for bed and reading.  Starting this coming Monday I am going to a once a week bible study thing.  We are to be reading Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible.  I have to read the first two chapters by Monday.  Not a problem since I read quite fast.  I have never been to any sort of bible study before so I'm a little nervous.  Seeing as I have quite a few tattoos I don't fit in at a lot of churches!  Luckily I am friendly with girl hosting and my best friend is going to be going too so it should be fine!

I have to get a filling tomorrow and get fitted for my mouth guard!  I hate going to the dentist!  I'm actually almost excited about the mouth guard because I'm a terrible teeth grinder and now my jaw is snapping and popping like crazy! 

Taco Thursday!

I started the day out with another pumpkin concoction.  This one is no-cook oats featuring non-fat plain yogurt, pumpkin, oats, cinammon, pumpkin pie spice, and truvia.  Quite tasty!  It looks a bit gross though.  I've gone almost the whole week without my Sweet n' Low!  I'm getting used to the Sun Crystals.  One thing that has helped is using just half of the packet per cup of tea.  They are very small but wow are they sweet! 

Lunch was of course leftovers from last night. Also some carrot sticks and grapes.  Very tasty and filling.  I didn't even get hungry for my 4 o'clock snack!  One of the ladies at work insists that I must order lunch with her tomorrow because I've done good all week and "I deserve it".  No one seems to understand that I like packing my lunch!  I really do enjoy what I bring and look forward to it!  Plus if I don't eat the leftovers for lunch then they go to waste and I don't like to waste if I can help it!

Tonight was kickboxing night.  I was not feeling it as my back/hip is still hurting but I drug my behind in there anyhow!  Glad I did, I burned 520 calories!  For my before gym snack I had my favorite Larabar, Key Lime...after class I had to go to the pharmacy so naturally I had to get a tall soy latte from Starbucks!  My dad likes to tell me that just because the sign says drive thru it doesn't mean I have to drive thru! lol!  For dinner I tried something new!  My husband loves tacos but the regular kinds are so bad with tons of sodium and strange chemicals...so I got this Garden of Eatin' from the healthy section of Krogers.

  These were so good!  The shells were delicious.  My husband ate 6 shells...3 without fillings he liked them so well!  The seasoning was a lot lower in sodium plus I only used half the pack and that was plenty!  I made these with ground chicken and topped them with 2% cheddar cheese and reduced fat sour cream.  Corn as our side.  A little carb heavy but I love white corn!  I will definately buy this again!  After dinner I watched The Office, it's one of my favorite shows and then did my relaxation yoga.  Now I'm ready to seriously relax until morning! :)

Soup weather!

Woke up this morning in the freezing cold.  Seems that during the night winter decided not to give fall it's turn!  I had a breakfast cookie waiting in the fridge but it appeared that a hungry husband had been snacking on it!  So I found a pack of instant oatmeal to eat with my banana and yogurt.  This oatmeal isn't bad.  I'm sure it has more sugar than I need but at least it's organic sugar. 

Speaking of sweetners. I am trying to break my Sweet N' Low habit.  I just hate the thought of drinking calories.  I like to eat way too much for that!  Also I cannot tolerate the taste of Splenda.  I don't know why the rest of the world likes it so much.  I makes me literally sick sometimes.  So I go old school and tempt bladder cancer with the pink stuff.  In my quest for natural calorie free sweetners I've tried 4 varieties of stevia.  This is the only one I halfway enjoy.  It's a mix of stevia and cane sugar.  It has 5 calories per pack.  I still taste a licorice taste (not as bad as with Truvia or Sweet Leaf) that I'm not fond of but I'm forcing myself to drink it all week to see if I can adapt to it.  Wish me luck.

 

Lunch was leftover sheperd's pie and a V8.  I also ate an apple for dessert but I didn't get a picture of it.  I love leftovers. 

Tuesday is kickboxing night so I knew dinner wouldn't be until 8.  I needed a substantial snack so I had my absolute favorite Cliff Bar.  The peanut butter and jelly Mojo.  It's heaven in bar form.  It has pretzel pieces in it.  Yumtastic. By the way kickboxing was great.  It was leg night.  I love leg night.  Lots of kicking, squats, and lunges.  I especially like the kicking/squat combos.  They really get my heart rate up.  I burned 588 calories!

For dinner I decided to make a soup mix I got at the store this weekend.  I looked at all the bean soups and kept seeing those nasty powdered flavoring packets that I call the sodium packet and I knew I didn't want that.  Then I found this one the top shelf practically out of reach.  It's beans, pasta, herbs, and spices.  Nothing else.  Not even salt! 

To make it into this lovely soup I sauteed garlic, carrots, and mushrooms in olive oil, added canned diced tomatoes, beef stock, water, and the soup and herbs.  I simmered it while kickboxing and then added the pasta when I got home.  In a few short minutes we were ready to eat.  I served it with my homemade bread and some butter.  I sprinkled some parmesan on it too.  It's a great soup for a cold night!

For dessert I had half of a chocolate ganache cupcake and half of a key lime. I'm glad to say they have all been given away or eaten now so they will no longer be calling my name!

Kick my butt kickboxing class, awesome water bottle, and more!

Since I missed posting last night I will move backward in time and start with today's breakfast.   
Cinnamon Raisin bread with all natural peanut butter, blueberries and a Carbmaster yogurt. 

I really like these yogurts despite the artificial sweetners.  My absolute favorite yogurts are Greek yogurts but these cost $0.44 as opposed to $1.99 for the Greek.  They still have 12 grams of protein and protein content is what I like best about the Greek yogurt.

Today I am drinking from my awesomely beautiful reusable water bottle. While I of course care about the environment, the biggest appeal to reusable water bottles is that they are so flipping cute! :P  Plus since my tap is filtered it saves money too! Plus this particular bottle was at TJMaxx for $5.99!  It was a steal!

Last night after kickboxing I had beef stew waiting in the crockpot! It was so good!  Quick and easy too.  Basically the contents were 3 chopped potatoes, 3 chopped carrots, two handfulls of mushrooms, a very lean roast,  seasonings, and a can of golden mushroom soup with some water.  Cooked on low for about 9 hours.  Turned out perfect!  I have always loved the crockpot but I hate cleaning it.  I've started buying those plastic liners and now it's effortless!

As for my kickboxing class!  Whew it kicked my butt.  This was one of the highest energy classes we've had in awhile.  I was sweating something fierce!  After the kicking, punching, kneeing, and elbowing portion of class we had a 10 minute torture session the instructor refers to as "J-Lo abs".  It's a series of crazy hard ab moves with a stability ball. To prepare for the workout I had my favorite snack...a Larabar.  These are so good.  They are bit pricey so I have to limit myself to about 3 per week.  Everyone in the house knows not to touch them!  They are all natural, raw, vegan, no added sugar.  I feel like there should be a way in which I could make something similar.  I might take that project on one day soon.

As a final note I saw the coolest thing while browsing the web this morning! A Buddha pear!  Apparantly after much experimenting with growing the pears in molds this is the result.  I love it!

8 kinds of excited about my new gloves!

Today was Tuesday which means kickboxing day! Last week I purchased new gloves after class and have been eager to use them ever since! Just look at these big mommas! What a difference! I am used to using the wimpy fingerless gloves and these babies are 16 oz. a piece. I think this really enhanced my workout!

I'm proud to say that I've had a YMCA membership since January and have used it consistently since then! Go me! :P The past couple of months have been rough because I had mono so I did slack there for a month or so but I'm back in business now. In addition to kickboxing I have a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with spinning and I love weight lifting. I recently completed the program outlined in the book The New Rules of Lifting for Women and I highly recommend it. I'm inbetween programs now but am leaning towards starting P90x. More on that later!

Well guess I better call it a night!