FitFeat

Posts Tagged Larabar

Out of Practice

Sep 15

Posted by Shari B. in Adventures in Dehydrating, Adventures in Home Gardening, Keeping Fit | 3 Comments

Hey blog buds!  Happy “JERSDAY”! (New Jersey Shore episode tonight, woot woot!)

I am happily feeling yesterday’s workout.  I did a quick but effective Tabata workout consisting of:

I love the effect that the windmills have on my shoulders.  It’s a total body move that utilizes a lot of core and stabilization, but the light soreness I get after doing them is mostly in my shoulders and upper back.  LOVE that move!  It’s a “new to me” exercise in the last month, so I’m starting with light weights when I do it.  Currently using just a 5 lb DB and STILL feel it!

I took a very chilly 30 minute power walk right after my workout too.

I had 1/2 of a Larabar before my workout.

I hit up Target to look for a travel iron and while I was there I had a decaf soy caffe misto.  I always forget about the misto, which is less expensive (and less caloric) than a latte.  My tall misto was 70 calories and $2.20 or so.  It’s basically equal parts coffee and steamed milk (or in my case, soy milk… still awaiting the arrival of almond milk at local SBUX stores).  So in Italy this concoction is called Caffe Misto while in France it’s Cafe au Lait.

I realized yesterday as I was driving away from Target how out of practice I am at snapping a pic of EVERY thing that crosses my lips, like I did when I first started logging my food on the blog.  It just doesn’t occur to me sometimes like it used to!  So I don’t have a picture of my misto to share!

I also don’t have a picture of my soup and salad lunch that I had at the Whole Foods.  I met a good friend there to grab a bit at noon and I had a kale salad with olive oil, pepitas, dried cranberries and grape tomatoes with a cup of their vegan savory quinoa soup.  It was delicious!

Dinner was completely out of character and not the cleanest…  I think my mind is already in vacation mode, because all I wanted was pizza.  And rather than make a pita pizza at home, I went out to pick up a single slice from a local pizza joint that I’d never tried called Big Bill’s NY Pizza.  Topped with eggplant and mushrooms.

I had intended to add a bunch of stuff to it when I got home, like sliced black olives, spinach, tomatoes – but I was FULL ON lazy last night.  I’m so not loving the dreary weather!  I feel like I need to eat “hibernation” foods!  :D

I do appreciate that I can go somewhere to purchase just a single slice.  This is all strategy on my part.  If I were to order a full pizza, I’d eat too much of it.  It’s not a food I can easily stop eating when I’m full and because I know this I find a workaround.  If I just get a slice and bring it home, that’s all there is.  (I use this strategy with desserts as well, which is why you don’t see me write much about making desserts at home.  It’s better for me to go pick up a single mini-cupcake or cookie than make a whole batch at home.)

Other than lunch, the rest of my day yesterday was pretty lacking in greens and fresh food so I’m making up for it today.

“Sunrise”  juice with carrots, broccoli stem, kale, cucumber, celery and a bit of lemon:

Then I mixed up the pulp and am attempting a raw bread in the dehydrator.  If it works out, I’ll put a recipe out here for it.

And I also have a batch of kale chips in the dehydrator.

This is kale from my garden.  And I refer to it as BABY KALE because the leaves are pretty tiny.  And it’s getting cold so fast here now that I feel like I need to keep harvesting because I think the growth might slow WAY down soon.  It’s getting into the 40s at night and right now as I type this at 9:32 AM it’s still only 52 degrees.  Record breaking heat at the beginning of the month and now I’m digging out mittens for my walks and runs.  WOW.

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CHECK IT OUT

Now, for something fun if you like giveaways, head over to the Brooklyn Fit Chick blog where she is giving away a copy of Bethenny Frankel’s latest yoga workout DVD.  Of course I entered!  And you should too!  (Who doesn’t love to win a blog giveaway AND get a new workout to do in the process?)  I really enjoy the BFC blog, especially her “What Have We Learned This Month” posts which recap what you’ll find in magazines each month, like SELF, Prevention, More, Oxygen, etc.

Have a great day friends!  I’ll see you tomorrow for the FINAL day of our 3 weeks of cleaner eating!  I’m going to have a STRONG FINISH today and tomorrow!  How ’bout you?

– Shari B. =)

 

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The Poor Example

Aug 31

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 4 Comments

Good morning friends!

WOW it’s Wednesday.  I am glad – I need a break from yesterday and get to work on some errands this morning.  Tuesday was a crazy busy day full of appointments and a good amount of time on the road.  You’ll be able to tell how crazy it was when you see my food recap – it’s a little scary.

I did get in a good leg workout yesterday morning between appointments.

Reverse Lunge Ladder – 100 reps per leg

Single Leg Straight-Leg Deadlift Ladder (with a kettlebell) – 100 reps per leg

Ball Squats - 3 sets of 33, 33, 34

Back Extensions on the Ball – 3 sets of 20, 20, 20

It doesn’t look like much but I had squiggle legs after the first two exercises.  The first exercise alone took 12 minutes to get through going up and down the whole ladder to and from 10, and it gets your heart rate going. The whole thing with warm-up was 40 minutes.

Since my upper body is still pretty sore from Monday’s workout and I just did legs yesterday, this morning we just did a 45 minute hilly walk right as the sun was coming up.  That was plenty.  I’ll call this my active recovery.  :D

So on to my bizarre food day.  It literally consisted of all snacks and not a single “meal”.  It started like any other, with some half caff before my early morning client:

I was running a little behind for my client’s session so I just had a scoop of greens powder mixed with water:

After her session and before my own workout, I had a piece of toasted Ezekial with miso, almond butter and a drizzle of raw honey so that I’d have a little bit of energy for my workout:

After my workout I had a scoop of egg protein powder mixed with almond milk, 1/3 banana and a squeeze of hemp oil:

I had a lot of documentation to work on yesterday before my next appointment and just wasn’t really hungry so when it came time to hop in the car for my long trek, I figured I’d just have a Larabar as I was running out the door.  But it tasted ‘off’ so I only ate about 2 bites (I’ve been running into this issue lately with Larabars, anyone else having that problem?):

I’d packed a Kombucha tea in a cooler to drink after my appointment to tide me over till dinner, but didn’t end up drinking it.  So it went back in the fridge when I got home.  I didn’t want to eat anything too substantial to keep from messing up my appetite for dinner, so I just had some Mary’s flax crackers, a little raw goat cheese and some olives.

But when dinnertime came around, I ended up not really being hungry and I didn’t want to feel ‘full’ for my last appointment of the day.  Unfortunately that appointment ran WAY longer than planned, so by the time I got home late in the evening my blood sugar was low, I was super cranky and ate food to soothe my nerves rather than based on what was the most healthful option.  Veggies just didn’t sound appetizing right before bed.  So I had a small bowl of Mom’s Best Organic Toasted O’s sprinkled with protein powder and topped with almond milk.

Overall this was a less than ideal food day – no salad, no green smoothie, my calories were too low.  Basically, an example of how NOT to eat!

I bet you know what I started today off with right?

A jumbo 30 oz green smoothie!

Ahh, that’s better!

– Shari B. =)

 

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Natural Chef Culinary School Recap: Breakfast, Eggs and KIDS!

Nov 1

Posted by Shari B. in Natural Chef Culinary School | 3 Comments

Hi blog buds!

Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween.  I put out a post last night about my Halloween costume, in case you missed it, as well as our Pumpkin Carving adventures.

One of our school days last week focused on Breakfast and Eggs.  Of all things to be assigned, I was given the Improv Bar and Smoothie.  (Our improv recipes are where we are given a list of ingredients we are allowed to use, and no others.)

Well, of course I thought that would be a piece of cake because I do smoothies all the time.  Nothing to it, right???  Not so fast…

I started on the “bar” first.  I decided I wanted my bar to be something raw and along the lines of a Larabar, with dates, coconut butter, coconut flakes, pepitas, dried fruit, etc.   My intention was that I’d throw them in the freezer for a few minutes before serving in order to allow coconut butter to harden a bit.  Messing around with ingredients in order to get the right consistency, while not following a recipe, was taking up all of my allotted time and the clock was ticking.  Finally I got them formed and into the freezer, and moved on to the smoothie.

With only a few minutes to spare, I threw some protein powder, frozen berries, mint and kefir into the VitaMix and blended.  By the time I searched high and low to track down enough small glasses to put them in and try to get them evenly poured, I was out of time for any more tweaking or testing, let alone garnish for all of them.  I figured I’d just slice a quick orange slice for our ‘single serve’ plate and what do I do?  SLICE MY FINGER!!!  Dag-nabbit! Here I go again with the Glove of Shame.  This is what I hate about having to rush!

In my defense, look at this knife.  It just LOOKS mean, doesn’t it?  It has a blood thirsty gleam if you ask me.  ;)

And since I keep hitting the same spot, I now have a little permanent divot out of the tip of my finger.

Yes, it appears small.  But I think I’ve lost more blood on these three cuts than I would had I donated blood!

All in all, the bars were well received, but the smoothie… not so much.  It really was an epic fail.  Way too much kefir, too chalky from the protein powder, and nothing like the smoothies I make in my own kitchen.

Here is my single serve plate – the bars are dusted with coconut flakes and topped with goji berries:

And our whole breakfast buffet, including freshly made almond milk, granola from scratch, fresh juices, unpictured eggs en cocotte, unpictured goat cheese souffles (they were still cooking):

It was one of those days where I went home a little dejected, feeling I could have done a much better job.

Later on at home, since I didn’t get to even TOUCH an egg in class on EGG day (don’t even get me started on that), I decided to make my own poached egg, using one of the techniques that our instructor demonstrated.

My poached egg turned out beautifully (a win for the day, wahoo!) and tasted great as well:

(If you guys are interested, I’ll write a separate post on the different techniques for poaching eggs.  We learned a few in class, and I know of a few others.  Let me know in the comments section if that’s something you’d like to see as a post topic.)

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One of the highlights of this week:  I was able to do some externship hours with my instructor, Christine, for the Growe Foundation. Their tagline is “Educating Children about Eating and the Environment.”   This session was with a group of 4th and 5th graders.  They are divided into two groups and each group has an assigned “Head Chef” that wears a big chef’s hat.  They all get aprons too!  The “Head Chef” sends their respective teams to gather ingredients and equipment.  The recipes for the day I was there were Quesadillas with Scallions & Red Peppers and a “slaw” of Jicama, Carrots and Apples.  They cut and prep all the food, cook it, and then serve it up on plates. (And then I wash the dishes, LOL!)  :)

I love the idea of this, because I remember how inspired I was by Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.  This felt along the same vein, showing kids how quick and easy it can be to prepare their own healthy meals and snacks, using fresh ingredients.  And maybe with some of them it will stick – and possibly even rub off on their parents at home.

I will definitely be back for more externship hours if they’ll have me.

Do you know if any foundations or programs in your local schools that do something similar with kids?

OK, friends – have a MAGNIFICENT Monday and I’ll see you next time!

– Shari B. =)

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What’s The Best Healthy Meal You’ve Had Lately?

Aug 17

Posted by Shari B. in Cooking | 12 Comments

Hi blog buds!  Hope your week is off to a great start!

First off, absolutely awesome comments from the Shopping with Shari post!  Thank you so much for participating!  I’m glad to know that my grocery bill isn’t completely out of whack!  I will confess that I DID go back into a grocery store on Sunday, but it was innocent – when I shopped the prior Tuesday they were out of the refrigerated almond milk that MSP likes, so I went back in to get some before we were completely out, along with a dozen eggs.  :)   So I didn’t make it a FULL week, but because I knew I’d need to come report it here I was much more aware of trying to AVOID the store and use what I have.

I’m tellin’ ya folks, if you ever want to hold yourself accountable for anything, start a blog!  ;)   It’ll keep ya honest for sure!

It’s been a while since I’ve done a post featuring my actual EATS, so I thought I’d share some of my recent adventures in food.

I’ll start with this morning’s post-workout smoothie because it was DELICIOUS with my most favorite fruit ever, MANGO!  No greens this time, just one mango, a scoop of Jay Robb brown rice protein powder and a tablespoon of raw pepitas for a tiny boost of iron and healthy fat (and 8 oz water).  There’s nothing like a five mile, five-fingered run before you drink your smoothie to make seem like the best thing you’ve ever tasted.

Mmmm mangolicious!

I also recently tried one of the new Larabar flavors, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.  It was so good, I’d eaten the whole thing before I could take a picture.  So all you get here is the wrapper!

I figured that would be my new favorite – that is, until I tried Chocolate Chip Brownie.  While I don’t consider this on the same ‘healthy level’ as I do most of the other Larabars, I will say that this bar will come in handy when  you feel like you want to stuff your face full of chocolate cake.  Because of the chocolate, this isn’t one I’d recommend eating every day (as I would with some of the fruit flavors like Apple Pie and Lemon Bar) but it IS an amazing treat that will keep you from needing to eat actual brownies.

On the dinner front, I’d attempted to make a Fish Taco that ended up being a better photo op than it was a meal.  I think the fish was in the freezer too long (it couldn’t POSSIBLY have been the cook’s fault!)  ;)   The rice is lime cilantro basmati, in case you were wondering – and it ended up being the star of this meal.

A quinoa salad stuffed red pepper (in an attempt to mimic the delicious quinoa I’d eaten at BOP restaurant).  Served with a light sprinkle of goat cheese and a side of massaged kale salad:

A “Wrap Panini” – we’ve been on a kick lately of putting our wraps on the George Foreman grill and using it like a panini press.  This one has some marinated spicy tempeh, sliced tomato and some melted Daiya dairy-free cheese.  If you are bored with your wraps, put them on your Foreman grill.  You’ll be in love all over again!

And while on the spicy tempeh theme, this was sauteed with a little Mrs. Dash Fiesta Lime seasoning, the placed on a bed of romained and chopped veggies, garnished with a little salsa, a dollop of greek yogurt and some toasted pepitas.  AMAZING!  I love it when “thrown-together” meals taste way better than those that take hours to make!

I’ve tried two different recipes recently for a Cold Carrot Avocado Soup.  Not a fan of either attempt, I’m afraid.  It’s definitely a cool and refreshing soup, but I like this better as a dressing (on a salad.)  Or maybe as a soup “shot” appetizer.  A bowlful is too much of a strong flavor.

Last but not least was the Sesame Stir-Fry we made from last Tuesday’s grocery trip.  MSP’s is made with lean ground beef (on the right) and mine is made with spicy tempeh (again with the tempeh, I know!  I’m loving it lately!).  We followed the recipe from Eating for Life, which we usually LOVE recipes from.  This wasn’t bad, but it didn’t WOW us, so I’ll need to do some tinkering with the seasoning.  We added a squeeze of lime at the end to give it some zing.

I figured I’d better share some of what I’ve been eating lately, lest you think I’ve fallen off the healthy wagon!  ;)   Of everything above, hands down my favorite was the spicy tempeh grilled wrap.  Next time I make it, I’ll be sure to write down the ingredients and steps so that I can share the ‘build a meal’ process.

Have you put together a healthy meal lately that knocked your socks off?  What was it?

Make it a GREAT and FIT day friends!

– Shari B. =)

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One Way to Trick Yourself into Exercising

Jun 22

Posted by Shari B. in Hiking | 7 Comments

Hi friends!

If you’re a reader from the early days, you may remember that hiking is probably my all-time favorite type of exercise.  You get a heart-pounding cardio workout (especially if you run the downhills), you get strength work on your legs and core, and the muscles that stabilize your lower body joints get a lot of attention (especially the ankle joint) from the uneven terrain.  Best of all, it doesn’t feel like exercise when you have gorgeous scenery to admire.  So if you feel like you haven’t been as motivated lately to get out and move the ol’ bod, just plan a couple of hilly hikes and you’ll be able to “trick yourself” into exercising!  :)

We tried out a new hiking trail, this time in the foothills outside of Boulder.  And during the hike, it became apparent how the town of Boulder got its name…

The uphill portion of the hike (90 minutes) had my heart rate in the upper 170s most of the time with plenty of high step-up movements on to big rocks along the way.  Coming down (60 minutes) it was around 115.  Total change in elevation was about 2,400′.

Before 8:00 AM the trailhead parking lot was already full:

Gentlemen, start your engines… err… GPS watches!

An old lodge tucked in the trees along the way:

So much is green this time of year!

The upper portion of the trail got really steep – check out the trees as a vertical reference point:

Steep enough that we were doing a 29 minute mile pace!!  S-l-o-w

But slow going allows for great viewing!

At the “summit” of this hike (approx 8,159′):

On the top of the stack of rocks is a plaque that shows you which mountain peaks you can see from this amazing vantage point.

Unfortunately about 6 minutes before we hit the top, the clouds rolled in and this was our view from the plaque:

And of course the sun came out again on the way down!

That just gives us a reason to go back again soon though, which is OK by me!

So while the hike itself only ended up totalling 4.75 miles, the calorie expenditure was much higher (somewhere around 720 for me) from the uphill portion alone.  On the way down our legs started to get wobbly and we were making sloppy steps, so it was time to sit and share a Larabar.

And a touristy photo op.  :D

Are you convinced yet?  Hiking is a FABULOUS workout. If you live anywhere near some hills, I encourage you to get out this coming weekend.  Just promise you’ll share the pictures with us!

Random tip for GARMIN FORERUNNER users: if you find that your Garmin is charged but won’t power on, press and hold the MODE and RESET buttons simultaneously and then try the power button (while holding the other two still).  Release all three and it should come on just fine.  It took me two tries to get it going again and let me tell you, my heart sank when it wouldn’t power on at first.  I’d be lost without my Forerunner (quite possibly LITERALLY lost too!)  ;)

Make it a GREAT and FIT day friends!

– Shari B. =)

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The 10 Commandments of FitFeat

Mar 4

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 14 Comments

Hi Fit Peeps!

As I mentioned in the last post, since I started training for the marathon a little over 6 weeks ago, my appetite has been a bear and I’ve also allowed more sugary items to creep back in.  Part of that is thanks to the season of Cadbury Caramel Cream Eggs which I love, love, love!  Part of it is the increased expenditure of energy from the long runs, yes, but not nearly as much as you may think.  (The rest of my week has LESS exercise in it than it used to because I spend a day or two ‘recovering’ from the long runs and then minimize leg work as I gear up for the next run.)  So my weekly calorie expenditure isn’t that much more than it was when I wasn’t training for this event.

I’ve been working at such a high heart rate in every run that I’ve been burning mostly sugar as fuel and not much fat.  This leads to a cycle of craving carbs, burning carbs, craving carbs, etc.   When our bodies feel wiped, we crave foods that will give us instant bursts of energy.  And unless you are planning to be running sprints in the next couple of hours, you know right where that sugar’s gonna go:  to your trouble spots!

I eat for weight maintenance.  Over the course of a lot of trials and many errors, I found what works best for me to feel healthy and satisfied, with the added bonus of fitting into my skinny jeans! :)   Enter an endurance sport, and my ‘natural rhythm’ gets thrown a bit off balance.

From a speed perspective I have a target weight in mind that I would like to race at on May 16.  For every 5% of weight you lose, you gain about 5% in speed.  If I want to increase my speed by 30 seconds per mile, I’ll need to get a bit lower than what my ‘summer maintenance weight’ is.

Here’s what I’m NOT going to do:  be obsessive or restrictive about it.  If I make it, great.  If not, I’ll just be 14 minutes slower over the 26 miles.

Here’s what I AM going to do:  get back to the basics of what I know works for me, both from a nutrition standpoint and an exercise standpoint.

With that said I thought I’d share the basics I follow (and coach my clients on) for losing (or maintaining weight) and healthy living in general:

10 Commandments of FitFeat

1.) Eat when hungry, stop when full. Never walk away from a meal feeling stuffed.

2.) Eat a green smoothie every day.

3.) If hungry between meals, choose natural (and preferably raw) snacks.

4.) Eat a HUGE salad every day, chock full of veggies and fun things like dulse, nutritional yeast and healthy fats.

5.) Chew every bite until it’s practically liquefied – good digestion starts in the mouth!

6.) Eliminate (or greatly reduce) foods that cause nutritional stress (primarily refined flours, refined sugars, trans-fatty acids, artificial chemical additives).

7.) Plan, plan and plan some more.  If you don’t have the right foods within your reach, it’s much to easy to grab the WRONG ones.

8.) Save and Savor: SAVE the once-in-a-blue-moon foods for special occasions (like birthday cake and wedding cake) and when you do treat yourself to these indulgences, SAVOR it. And maybe have some fun with it.  ;)   For the not-so-special occasions where you need a treat, pick those that have some nutritional value like red wine and dairy-free dark chocolate.

9.) Choose exercise that energizes you and that you enjoy doing.  Let each workout leave you wanting to come back again the next time.

10.) Love yourself and your body.  Appreciate what it does for you and treat it with respect.  When you put that thought first, the choices you make will come naturally.

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Today’s discussion:  how many of these 10 commandments do you already ‘obey’?  If there are some you don’t, which will you implement first?

– Shari B. =)

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Hot and Cold Salad

Feb 23

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 8 Comments

Hi blog buds!

I am SO tickled that you are enjoying the Marathon Monday posts.  I can’t THANK YOU all enough for that.  When it’s icky outside or I’m facing a long run, you have no idea how much it helps to know that YOU are right there with me!  Because I pay more attention when I know I get to write about it for you each time!

Oh the healthy eats I have to share with you today… makes me hungry just thinking about it!  But FEATS first then EATS, since I owe you some recaps.  Otherwise you might start thinking that all I do is EAT and only exercise on the weekends.  :D

Sunday we had even SNOWIER weather than we’d had for the Saturday run.  So MSP and I bundled up in our snow gear and took off for a little ‘snow hike’ on the hills around our house.  The view out the window:

Ultimately we only ended up with 3.75 miles, but it seemed so much longer trudging around in the snow.  We had such a good time.  It was so peaceful – no one was out.  The perfect start to our Sunday.

For Monday’s exercise I did more weight training Tabata-style.

  • 5 min warmup on TM
  • Squats with Overhead Press 4 minutes
  • Chest Flyes with tubing 4 minutes
  • Rear Lunge off Low Step PLUS Bicep Curls 4 minutes (alternating legs each set)
  • 45° Upright Row 2 minutes
  • 2-Arm Bent DB Row 2 minutes
  • Glute Bridges on Ball 4 minutes  (Can you say OUCHIE??)
  • Triceps Pressdown 4 minutes
  • Ball Crunches 4 minutes

I am crazy about my Tabata timer (the one I use is an app on my iPhone).  I LOVE working out this way. I’m NEVER bored and it ALWAYS burns!

Now about those EATS!

A tasty snack on Sunday:  baked kale chips with a small side of Buffalo chips and a few slivers of raw goat cheddar.

Sunday night snack (because I was itching to try this Artisana Coconut Butter).  Ezekial Cinnamon Raisin Toast + Coconut Butter = DREAMY.

Monday morning after my workout I had my daily green smoothie!  Mmm I love when I have avocado and pumpkin seeds (pepitas) for my smoothies – they end up SO creamy.

A mid-morning Larabar while at my desk – the awesome “Chocolate Coconut Chew” that to me tastes like a brownie with nuts in it.

Now let me just preface my lunch a bit here.  When it is cold out for days, like it has been, I find it a bit of a challenge to want to eat my usual humongous salads because COLD GREENS are refreshing and when I’m chilly ‘refreshing’ is not on the top of my list. All I want is something warm (and often full of carbs.)  Here’s what I’ve been doing lately that has really helped keep  my salad intake up. I’m topping my salads with ROASTED VEGGIES.  I took the time Sunday to pre-roast some stuff I could use during the week (kale, mixed veggies, squash) and have available to take to work.

I packed a large spinach salad in one container topped with sundried tomatoes, a few kalamata olives, nutritional yeast, dulse and balsamic vinegar with a teaspoon of olive oil for dressing.  In another container were my roasted veggies:  red pepper, zucchini and mushrooms with balsamic.  I reheated the roasted veggies and plated them next to my salad.  After I took the picture, I mixed them all up.  And it was LIP-SMACKIN’ GOOD.  The HOT veggies + the COLD spinach makes a really delicious meal.

It looks a bit small in the picture, but this was one HUGE dinner plate.

For my mid-afternoon snack I had half of a “Go Raw” pumpkin seed bar.  This was my first try with this brand and I LOVE it.  I’ll be getting this one again for sure!  I’ve already been looking for them online to order in bulk.

Dinner wanted in on the fun veggie action too.  Another find while at Sprouts:  Golden Flax “roll-ups”, made with flax flour and soy flour.  It seems to be a cross between a flatbread and a tortilla.

So I made this with it:

Lightly ‘grilled’ in a pan to give it a panini feel.  Inside was Tofutti (non-dairy cream ‘cheese’ spread), avocado, tomato, clover sprouts and a bit of romaine.  The rest of the romaine went into my side salad.  Then I poured a little Annie’s Lite Honey Mustard Vinaigrette on the side as a ‘dipping sauce’ for the wrap.

It was really a finger-lickin’ good kind of day.  Mondays can be rough, but not when I have tasty (not to mention ultra-healthy) meals like these to look forward to!

Wow writing this post made me hungry.  I think I need a snack! Do you mix your hot and cold veggies?  Any favorite combos to share?

Have a terrific day!

– Shari B. =)

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Yays and Nays

Feb 16

Posted by Shari B. in Product Review | 9 Comments

Good morning friends!

It’s a great Tuesday morning – the sun is shining and the sky is blue!  Chilly, but pretty to look at while tucked inside my toasty home office!  Yesterday, I was able to get my dogs out for about 3 miles which they REALLY appreciated.  They just don’t get out much when it’s cold outside!  And of course, one of them came home bloody.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’m getting closer and closer to not wanting to let them outside the confines of our yard because one of them always gets hurt!  :) If you started reading the blog after October, we had quite the fun time with Riley poking her eye on a bush during a hike.

This time it was Rascal.  He’s fine though, can’t you tell?  Happy as can be, snoozin’ in the sunshine!  (He takes after me in his love for sunshine!)

So today I want to share a few YAYS and NAYS with you.  As in “found this new food that I love – YAY!”

A big YAY for a new (to me) flavor of Amy’s Organic Soups.  This one is the Southwestern Black Bean Chili.  It’s the first time I’ve tried it and I am in LOVE.  I don’t know that I will ever take a bunch of time to make homemade vegetarian chili again when this one is so delicious.

In the bowl with some nutritional yeast on it:

The sodium is a bit high, but most soups that taste good have a higher sodium content.  The plus is that the sodium comes from organic sea salt, so I’m not terribly concerned.  I have crazy low blood pressure so I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about my personal sodium intake unless I’m trying to make weight for something.  ;)

***

Unfortunately in the same line of products, I’m giving a NAY to her No Chicken Noodle.  This should almost be called onion soup, as the onion flavor is incredibly overpowering.  This one won’t make back into my pantry again.  Unless I’m suffering from a really bad flu or cold and in desperate need of a vegetarian ‘chicken’ noodle soup.  If you love onions, you may love this.

***

I found a new corn chip to which I think I am addicted.  The name of the company?  Food Should Taste Good.  Hmm what a concept!  These chips have amazing flavors (Cinnamon, Lime, Buffalo, CHOCOLATE even!)  So far I have tried Olive, Sweet Potato and Lime.  All three were AMAZING!

They also have a great website that tells what dips go great with which flavors of chips, and they have a lot of recipes too!  The only downside to this amazing chip is that they taste SO good, I had a tough time keeping my mitts out of the bag.  So I will have to purchase them for special occasions until I can control myself around them!  I think I will try the chocolate next.  I’m so curious what a chocolate corn chip tastes like!  :)

***

The last item on today’s list is a big fat NAY.  I had very high hopes for this item, as I’d read about the founders and read good things about the products.  It was Gardein’s Santa Fe Good Stuff. I don’t know if it’s that I’m so far removed from wanting to eat chicken that the TEXTURE threw me off or what.

I plated it up nicely:

But I just couldn’t finish it.  I took about two small bites and just couldn’t hack it and it had to be tossed.  Probably just as well that I didn’t care for this, because I don’t like to eat a lot of processed products made from soy anyway.  But I’d thought maybe it would be a good thing to throw in my lunchbox when I’m in a huge hurry.  Nope, this one’s not for me.

***

I’d love to hear from you if you have a favorite healthy (and maybe vegetarian) product to share. You all know I love my LARABARS and my SUNSHINE ‘burgers’ (made from sunflower seeds.)  Not to mention Ezekial sprouted grain products (bread, pita, cereal, English muffins!)   What are some of yours?

Have a terrific Tuesday!  And don’t leave me hanging on Flex-It Friday:  Abs!  Pics are due to shari at fitfeat dot com by Thursday evening! Yes, it’s a tough time of year to uncover our WINTER ABS but then we can do a SUMMER version to compare our progress too!  Think of it as good motivation!

– Shari B. =)

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A note about items/books/food I review here on the site: To date, I do not receive any compensation from the companies who make any of the products I review on this blog.  (And if I could get companies to send me FREE stuff to review and/or giveaway that’d be GREAT but so far, not having a lot of luck with that!)  I just want to reiterate that I mention products that I purchase and that I try on my own.  If I love them I want to let you know.  If they are terrible, I want to let you know that too.  If I love them and I find that they are available on Amazon, then I might add them to the FitFeat Favorites store.  Items purchased directly from the FitFeat store can result in a small commission.

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Accidental Dressing

Feb 2

Posted by Shari B. in Cooking | 7 Comments

Hi friends!  WOW, what a collection of RUNNERS and GOALS we have here at FitFeat!  It was so fun to read all of your comments to yesterday’s post!  Thank you all for contributing to the friendly community we have going here!

Monday turned out to be a great start to the week.  On the fitness front, the day began with a Physique 57 session.   On the food front, I had felt a definite lack of veggies in my Sunday meals so I was anxious to get back to my weekday routine.  Sometimes the weekends are so jam-packed that our eating schedules get a bit out of whack.  MSP and I end up with opposite hunger signals on the weekends:  when he’s hungry I’m not and vice versa.  As a result I think we tend to snack more and not focus on mealtimes.

My post-exercise meal was a GLORIOUS giant green smoothie.

Many of the usual ingredients went into the blender:

  • small banana
  • 3/4 leftover orange
  • 1 clemetine
  • huge handful of spinach
  • 2 scoops of hemp powder (equates to only about 7g of protein)
  • 1/2 avocado
  • 1 small scoop Amazing Greens
  • large stalk of celery
  • 1/2 large cucumber
  • small handful of sunflower sprouts
  • 8 oz water

Around 10:00 AM it was time for my daily Larabar:  Coconut Cream Pie.  Mmmm.  A little taste of paradise in a tiny package!

For lunch I heated up about 1/3 of a Chipotle vegetarian bowl (rice, black beans, peppers, onions, two salsas, and a small dollop of guac) and put it on top of a bed of spinach to make a southwest salad of sorts.  It was fantastic!  I’ll eat my Chipotle that way again for sure!  Unfortunately I don’t seem to have a pic – I thought I took one on my phone, but it has apparently gone into hiding.

For my afternoon snack, I have to give a shout out to Fallon.  When I posted the “favorite cracker” question last week, she said she toasts up some Ezekial Sprouted Grain Tortillas and used those as crackers.  Well this past weekend while I was making some dinner in the over, I tossed the rest of my Ezekial tortillas in there too and HOLY tasty cracker, she wasn’t kidding!  They did remind me of Mary’s Crackers but not SO hard that your teeth felt in danger – which I appreciate!  These went perfectly with hummus – so thank you Fallon for the great tip!

I’m still a hummus-holic.  LOVE..LOVE..LOVE the hummus.

For dinner, I was feeling like making some sort of stir-fry.  I was freshly stocked on veggies from the weekend grocery shopping trip.  So I hopped on to Allrecipes.com and searched for “stir-fry sauce”.  You will never guess what happened…!  A recipe came up for which I actually had EVERY ingredient on hand to make the sauce!  Light coconut milk, cilantro, one lime, agave nectar, minced ginger root and minced garlic! That NEVER happens! I’m almost always subbing something to make up for a lack of one ingredient or another!  (I better run out and get a lottery ticket today!)

I can’t reprint the recipe as it is copyrighted material, but I’ll link here to the full recipe.  I only used the Cilantro Lime Coconut Sauce portion. They had a bean and mango stir-fry, while I was just using veggies.

I whipped out the spiralizer and ribboned 3/4 zucchini, sliced up an orange bell pepper and the rest of the veggies came from a bag of broccoli slaw:

I stir-fried all the veggies in just a bit of coconut oil until they were about tender (about 10 minutes).

During that time I blended up the sauce:

When the veggies were done, I added some sauce just as I turned off the burner and served.

Here’s the thing.  This sauce was not stellar as a stir-fry.  Once you added the veggies, the flavor of the sauce seemed to get lost.  So I ended up doctoring my plate ever so slightly with a sprinkle of red pepper flakes and a tsp of tahini.  NOW dinner was ready.  And tasty!

However, I have about half of the sauce left and I tried it alone.  By itself it is really, really good.   It will make a FANTASTIC salad dressing! So you can bet I’ll be pouring some on my spinach and veggies for lunch!

Have you ever started out with a recipe for one thing and realized it might work better as something else? This seems to happen to me on a regular occasion in my kitchen!

Have a TERRIFIC Tuesday!  Oh and I almost forgot:  Happy Groundhog Day!  I can handle 6 more weeks till spring – especially if they are as pretty as today!  Clear blue skies with a 50 degree forecast!

– Shari B. =)

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In with the Good, Out with the Bad

Jan 27

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 8 Comments

Good morning blog buds!

As seems to be the case lately, Tuesdays are complete madness and as such, no exercise was to be had.  So this morning I’m hoping to do some cardio AND some yoga because I’m feeling the need for both.  A little calorie burnin’ plus some Gumby-inducing moves.  :)

***

I tried a new-to me raw (mostly) bar that I wanted to share with you.  (As you can tell it was eaten at work, due to the horrible iPhone shot…)

Coconut Acai flavor ingredients: Organic Almond Butter, Organic Agave Nectar, Organic Date Paste, Organic Dried Coconut, Organic Almonds, Organic Raisins, Organic Puffed Amaranth, Organic Acai Dry Powder, Sea Salt

This was sensational!  I loved it.  I will definitely be trying other flavors of PranaBar.  You all know I LOVE my Larabars so don’t think they’ve been knocked out of my daily food plan.  From a price point perspective Larabars can’t be beat, because I buy them when they are on sale for $1 at my local grocery store.  The Prana bars are more in the $2 range, so it will be an occasional treat.  But if you are in the mood for something different, give PranaBar a try.

***

I pulled up a saved link today to an MSN slide show that I wanted to share with you about food additives to avoid. Some of the items on this list are common sense (like avoiding refined white sugar and excess salt) but learning that potential carcinogens BHA/BHT could be in your breakfast cereal (or your kids’ cereal) may not be so common.  Click this link to view:  12 Food Additives to Avoid

Today’s Discussion Question: Do you have any particular additives or foods that you specifically avoid in addition to this list? Please share with us in the comments section. In addition to the additives and artificial sweeteners listed in the article, I try to avoid ALL artificial sweeteners, and made the move to Stevia instead of Splenda for my coffee back in April.  I also ended my love affair with diet soda (and ALL sodas now for that matter).

Make it a WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY friends!

– Shari B. =)

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