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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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. 

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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Hi Fit Peeps!  It’s Friday-EVE!

The sun is shining and supposedly it’s going to hit 60 degrees today.  I can’t even describe how happy that makes me!  Spring is just around the corner! You all know I run on solar power, right? 

I took the day off from working out yesterday.  I want to get past this mini-bug as quickly as possible, so I’m saving my body’s energy for immunity rather than for recovering from exercise.  I’ll have to take a trip to Whole Foods today and pick up some Kombucha tea and maybe some of the other cool supplement ideas you all suggested for me this week!  (Thank you for all the great ideas!)

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 preferrably 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.

***

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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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. 

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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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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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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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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Noooooo…. I’m not ready for the long holiday weekend to be over!!!  This is always my favorite weekend of the year!  Do we HAVE to go back to work? 

If I was the type of person who called in sick (but I’m not), today would be the day for it because somehow I managed to hobble myself yesterday.  During a workout, of all things.  I’m not even sure what movement did it, but it has something to do with my hip flexors.  I stretched off and on all day yesterday, did some yoga, all to no avail.  I have yet to pop an ibuprofen though.  That is the absolute last resort.  I know, I’m weird.  But once you get all that garbage out of your system, it’s a tough choice to put it back in.  Since April 1, I’ve had two Advil and that’s IT.

It’s a little better this morning so I’ll take the morning off of working out, and soak in the tub instead to see if that loosens anything up.  I exercised all 4 days of my long holiday weekend.  Tomorrow is my planned ‘rest day’ so I’ll just flip-flop my days.  This is my cue that I NEED more core strengthening work if a few days of core DVDs cripples me!  Ha!

Yesterday was a nice, normal veggie-filled food day.  A 30 oz. green smoothie in the morning:

A Banana Bread Larabar during the 10:00 a.m. showing of “Sherlock Holmes”:

A super-sized Shari salad in the 11″ bowl (I’ve missed my big bowl…) with spinach, dulse, roma tomatoes, spiralized zucchini, nutritional yeast, chia seeds and topped with 1 tbsp of Annie’s Goddess dressing.

With a side of baked kale (that looks burnt, but it’s not).  It’s red kale so it has a deep purple/red color:

An easy, early “dinner” of Ezekial toast with almond butter and raw honey drizzle, with a side of decaf  (the Broncos game was still on and I didn’t want to miss anything making a meal):

And an evening snack of two Wasa light rye crackers smeared with Tofutti (the ‘un-cream cheese’) and sprinkled with cumin and Mrs. Dash:

It was a fiber-licious day to be sure!

Riley got a dose of fiber too (of the synthetic variety) thanks to ripping her Christmas gift to shreds.  Poor stuffed squirrel.  Riley was too tired to even flee from the crime scene:

I, on the other hand, take much better care of MY Christmas gifts. 

As mentioned I have a bunch of them to tell you about (because I am incredibly blessed to have received so many great gifts from my family).  One of which is a new set of AWESOME knives from my mom. When I was visiting her back in September, I was crazy for her RADA knives and utensils.  I had two small RADA knives that I’d received as gifts back in 1991 and they LOOK like they’ve been used a TON.  My mom had the cool extras like a tomato knife, a peeler, and all sorts of other neat knives.  So I was thrilled when I opened a wrapped gift containing a whole SET of these cool tools.  It’s hard to see through the curtain of hair here but there’s a silly grin on my face (and apparently Riley and Rascal are just as excited about my gift):

They are SHARP!!!  I guess all of my other knives must need sharpening, because I forgot how nice it is to slice through food like it’s “BUTTAH” 

The potato peeler worked like a charm peeling this mango:

If you have a foodie in your life, I highly recommend gifting them with something from RADA.  I’m so impressed.  And I can tell you that these will be used every single day in this house!  I even rearranged my knife drawer so that I can keep them in their gift box and have easy access to them as I’m prepping veggies every day.  And I just noticed that they are available through Amazon.com so you can bet I’ll be adding these to the FitFeat “Favorite Things” Store!

Thanks for the GREAT gift, Mom!  PERFECT!

Today’s question:  Do you have a favorite brand of knife or prep utensil that you use daily? Drop a comment to share with us!

Have yourself a MARVELOUS Monday, friends!  I’m off to hit the tub and then to work!  See you next time!

– Shari B. =)

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Hello and happy Saturday!  I’ve another busy day on tap to get the remainder of my Christmas shopping done.  Getting there, but very slowly.  I really can’t believe that Christmas is less than 2 weeks away!

Friday’s weight training workout was good!  I did 40 minutes of the Cathe Friedrich “Legs and Glutes” DVD which is always a killer workout.  Once my legs felt like jello sufficiently worked, I switched off the DVD and spent the final 20 minutes working my back muscles with some lat pulldowns, one-arm DB rows and angled high-pulls.  I made the mistake of putting on that great Lady GaGa station again and almost got caught up in some cardio boogie-ing… but was able to restrain myself lest be late for work!

What I did NOT do yesterday was take pics of my food! (say what???)  I was rushing around and completely spaced!  But I know what I had so here’s the list for those of you who like to see my crazy eats:

• Post Workout / Breakfast:  a green smoothie with added rice protein and an acai frozen pack, plus turnip greens, spinach, cucumber, sprouts and a clementine
• Mid-Morning Snack: ginger snap Larabar (thank you to my new boss who picked up some Larabars for me to snack on at the office – that was super cool!)
• Lunch:  had brought soup but was busy so instead had two sliced of toasted Ezekial bread with raw almond butter alongside a cup of green tea
• Afternoon Snack:  few slices of raw goat cheddar with 2 thick wheat crackers
• Dinner with our wonderful friends Brett & Allison:  Allison made a FANTASTIC spinach salad with avocado, red pepper and pine nuts.  I had two helpings of that tasty salad alongside a slice & a half of thin crust “deLITE” Herbed Mediterranean pizza (minus the chicken).  It was a wonderful time chatting and catching up, and delicious meal.  Thanks so much for having us over!
• Bedtime Snack:  When we got home, it was late and we were “snacky” so MSP and I each had two of our leftover ginger cookies that I’d made on Sunday. I certainly don’t like to make it a habit to have high carbs or sweets right before bed.  But sometimes you just have to do what feels fun!

This morning we went out for a 4.75 mile snowy hike.  I was bundled up with hat, scarf, mittens, down jacket.  But my beloved SUN was shining and I HAD to get out there.  It was truly gorgeous.  The clouds have moved on and the sky was so clear that it made for spectacular mountain views.

When we returned our tummies were growling somethin’ fierce so we make breakfast sandwiches.  Mine used a flourless sprouted grain Ezekial muffin, with one egg, a slice of tomato, and a bit of raw goat cheddar.  It was warm and perfect after being outside. 

But I still felt that I needed some greens to go with breakfast so I also had this stack of baby spinach on the side with some Annie’s Goddess dressing.

I think this may be the first time ever I’ve had a SALAD for breakfast!  Unless you count green smoothies or the “innerds” of a veggie omelet! 

Today’s question has to do with winter sports:  we’ve discussed in past posts what our favorite winter activities are.  Since the entire nation (with the exception of lucky Florida) seems to have been in a deep freeze lately, have any of you gotten in any winter sports yet, like skiing, snow shoeing, snow hiking, etc?  Today would probably be the closest thing to my first “winter activity” (unless you count snow blowing and shoveling!!)  I do wish that I had put my Yak Trax on my shoes though because I had NO traction on my hiking shoes in the hard packed snow trail.  I bought them a long time ago for a snowy 8 mile trail race and they were an awesome purchase, worth their weight in gold I think!  (For any of you that are outdoor runners or hikers in snow pack, these can slip right over your running shoes, in the same way you add snow chains to your tires.)

Well friends, I’m off to battle the crowds of crazed shoppers!  Enjoy your weekend!  Go get your FIT on! 

– Shari B. =)

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What’s new FitFeat friends?  Happy December 1st!  Hope your Monday after the long holiday weekend is off to a great start!  I think weeks after a long holiday always tend to go very slowly.

I figured what better way to get back into the full swing of things than to start with a TABATA upper body workout!  

Weight Training:  Tabata Upper Body

• 5 Minute WarmUp on TM, followed by arm circles and light upper movements
• DB Bench Press 4 min 
• Bent DB Row 4 min
• Side Lateral Raise 4 min
• Triceps Pushdown 4 min
• DB Bicep Curl 4 min

This style of workout never fails to do the trick – I end up getting in 80-96 reps of each exercise.  It was a fast and effective and this morning my upper body is feeling the pain love. 

Monday Eats

Post-workout was a green smoothie.  And I do mean GREEN.  I used two fists of spinach this time, so it was extra bright.  I forgot to add my rice protein to this one, but I did remember chia seeds.    Along with 2 stalks of celery, sprouts, a pear, and a clementine.

A piece of Ezekial toast with almond butter served as my mid-morning snack.  When one wakes up at 4:00 AM, “mid-morning” is 8:00 AM.   

I packed my lunch and afternoon snack since I was headed in to work.  In the white container is my leftover Tokyo Joe’s brown rice with tofu and steamed veggies.  I ate the Larabar for an afternoon snack (Tropical Fruit Tart, be still my heart!!)  The apple was neglected unfortunately, so he may become smoothie food later today. 

Dinner was a colorful salad of spinach, red cabbage, zucchini disks, sun dried tomatoes, and home-roasted seeds (from the acorn squash you see on the side there.)  This was my first acorn squash… WOW!  Love it!  It has a wonderful nutty flavor.  The serving shown here is about 1/4 acorn squash.

Evening snack was a cup of decaf coffee and a Nana’s NO’s cookie bite:

And then I was having trouble keeping my eyes open during “House” which airs here from 7:00 to 8:00.  Again, waking at 4:00 AM means “bedtime” often wants to come at 7:30 PM!

***

As mentioned above, yep, it’s DECEMBER!  Can you believe it?  I’ve been blogging since August!  Time flies when you are having fun! 

Today’s challenge is to make your “Old Year(end) Resolutions“.  If you are someone who starts resolutions on January 1, why not move it up a month to December 1 and get a head-start?  Just think of what you can accomplish in 30 days when you put your mind to it.  If weight loss is your goal, you can easily be 5 pounds down in the next 30 days, rather than 5 pounds UP like many will experience over the holidays.  If you want to quit smoking, DO IT NOW!  Why wait?  (And if you DO smoke, please please quit.  You know how bad it is for you!) 

The time is now!  Drop me a comment and let me know what your “Old Year(end) Resolution” will be for the next 30 days!

One of my resolutions for the next 30 days is to get some of the exercise instruction posts put out here, as Cindy had suggested back when I asked for reader input.  Cindy, I haven’t forgotten you!  I actually have had one in the works since then, just have had other topics taking over it seems! 

Enjoy your Tuesday friends!  See you next time!

– Shari B. =)

***

If you know someone embarking on their own fitness journey for the new year, please feel free to send them my way. I offer fitness consulting by phone nationwide.  Visit my Coaching/Training and About Shari pages for more info.

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