Gear!

Hooray!  I got paid yesterday, and it feels excellent.  I paid my parents back some of the money I owe them, sent a significant amount to Sallie Mae for my student loans, and put some into my savings account.  I registered both Kevin and myself for a Halloween-themed 5K coming up in a couple of weeks, and then I went out and grabbed myself some running goodies from Runners Hi in Aiea.

Top priority was a new pair of shoes.  The ones I've been using so far are about 3 years old, and even though I haven't really been keeping track of the miles on them I feel like they're probably at least approaching 500.  So I got some new ones!  These are Brooks Adrenaline, which apparently are the most popular shoe Runners Hi sells.  They're comfy and fit well, and I can't wait to start training in them on Monday.  I also picked up a set of bungee thingos that are supposed to replace my laces and make my shoes into slip-ons.  I'm still thinking about whether or not I'll use them, but it might be nice to not have to worry about my laces coming untied.

I also grabbed a couple of energy gels.  Now that I'm starting to get into higher mileage on my long runs, whatever I eat for breakfast beforehand (usually a Kashi waffle with peanut butter and banana, btw) doesn't always carry me all the way through.  I've never had either of these brands before, but I was interested in the Ignite ones because they're all-natural and made of easily-identifyable ingredients, such as fig paste and juice concentrate.  I got them in wildberry, blackberry blueberry, and raspberry pomegranate flavors.  I got the Honey Stinger ones completely because they're pink lemonade flavor.

Body Glide!  A runner's best friend.  I still have a scar from a chafe welt I got during my first marathon.  Hopefully we can avoid those this time around.

I'm so excited for this one!  It's a Nathan brand hydration backpack.  I'm starting to get to the point where I need to drink during my runs.  Today I was able to stop at a 7-11 and grab a Powerade, but I know that won't always be possible.  This thing will hold 2L of water, plus it has pockets where I can stick some energy gels and my ID and housekeys and whatnot.  The design of the water container is such that it opens completely at the bottom, making it easy to fill and clean.  It was expensive, about $85, so I had to think about it before I bought it but I'm glad I did.

In other news, I just finished week 5 of marathon training.  Today's run was 11 miles, which for me was noticeably harder than last week's 10-miler.  This might be related to the fact that I only got about 5.5 hours of sleep last night, though.  It's also seeming like the longer runs, the ones that are 10 miles or more, take a lot more out of me than expected.  I almost always sleep for a couple of hours afterwards, which eats up most of my Saturday.  I'm going to have to start planning for this and making room in my schedule for nap time :).

Chocolate Blender Pudding and An Update

So, I know that I said before that I didn't like pudding.  After today, however, I'm thinking what I probably meant was that I don't like Jello pudding or whatever.  Even with my usual pudding ambivalence, when I saw this recipe for Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Blender Pudding on Always Order Dessert, I had to try it right away.  It just sounded so great!  And, as it turns out, it is pretty great.

I did change a few thing from the original recipe.  The biggest change was leaving out the peanut butter, since Kevin doesn't like it and I wanted to share.  I also used semisweet chips instead of bittersweet since that's what they had in the store, and a combination of half and half and 1% milk instead of whole milk since that's what I had in my house.  I also halved the recipe since I only needed to feed pudding to the boy and myself.

You start out by combining the chocolate chips, vanilla, and egg in your blender.

My blender is by no means awesome, it's one of those little personal sized one, but it handled the chocolate chips well enough.  Blend until the chocolate is chopped up into tiny pieces.

It will look like sludge, but it will smell like delicious.  While you're blending away, you can also start heating up your milk in a saucepan.

Give it a stir every now and then to keep a skin from forming on top and to keep the bottom from scorching. Once it starts bubbling slightly, pour it into your blender on top of your chocolate mixture.

Blend until the heat of the milk melts the chocolate.  The original recipe says to go for about 3 minutes, so that's what I did.  Also apparently the heat of the milk will also cook the egg, so that's good to know.  At the end of my 3 minutes, this is what I had:

It was kind of the consistency of thick hot chocolate, but nowhere near as thick as Alejandra's pictures on Always Order Dessert indicated.  I'm thinking this may have been because I omitted the peanut butter.  But, Alejandra said that the pudding would thicken upon cooling, so I divided the mixture into 2 cups, covered them with foil, and stuck them in the refrigerator.

The original recipe says to let the pudding chill for 30 minutes in the fridge.  However, I found that I needed to let mine chill for WAAAAAY longer.  I pretty much had to let it sit overnight before it reached anything like pudding consistency.  Again, I'm assuming this was a function of the lack of peanut butter.

Finally it was eating time!  The one thing I noticed right away was that, although it had thickened considerably in the refrigerator, it still wasn't really pudding texture.  It was very light and airy, almost like a chocolate mousse.  Again I'm blaming this on the absent peanut butter - not that I'm complaining.  Chocolate mousse is the bomb and I was more than happy to eat it.

The other thing I'll say is that while it was delicious, it was very rich and eating my entire portion gave me a little bit of a stomach ache.  The original recipe says it serves 4-6; I would probably say that aiming for 6 would result in more manageable portion sizes.

Also!  A little while ago I made a promise to myself and the universe that I would lose 4 lbs by September 23rd.  I am happy to report that not only did I surpass that number, I almost doubled it!  My next goal is to lose another 10 lbs by Halloween (to accomplish this I will probably have to not eat so much pudding...).  I'll be back with another update when the time comes :).

Five Things "Friday"

Happy weekend!  Clearly I was supposed to to do this post yesterday, but I got way too distracted (by #5 on my list) and before I knew it I was half asleep.  Sorry!  You can have it now, though.  In no particular order, here's what I'm excited about this week:

1) My new FitBit

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 I first heard about this product on Sensual Appeal, and then it was recommended in Chalene Johnson's book, Push.  Chalene also recommends the Body Bugg, but after looking at a few online comparisons of the two products I decided the FitBit would work better for me.  I was really impressed with how fast the FitBit came once I placed my order on the website.  I ordered it on Sunday evening, and it was in my mailbox by the time I came home from work on Thursday.  I started using it yesterday, and so far I really like it.  I chose to hook it on the front of my bra, and that placement seems to really work for me.  I couldn't feel it or see it from the outside at all, and I actually would forget it was there unless I happened to look down my own shirt and catch a glimpse of it.  Once I got home, all the data it had collected over the day was wirelessly transmitted to the dock plugged into my computer, and then I could log into my online account and see my stats for the day.  Because my job is pretty sedentary I only got in about a third of the recommended 10,000 steps per day; also, yesterday was a rest day so I didn't go running.  Many of the reviews I read said that wearing the FitBit inspired the writers to be more active in their days to try to reach the goal number of steps, and I feel like it may start have this effect on me as well.  

2) Unexpectedly awesome runs

Thursdays can sometimes be tough, just because I have both TRX and a marathon training run to do.  Normally I prefer to run before work (if I can; it's not always possible, especially for the longer runs), but this time I had plans to meet up with a friend at about 6pm to do the 3-miler together.  So, what this meant was that I was going to be in TRX from 3:30-4:30, shower and go back to work for like 10 minutes, go home, get back into workout clothes, and immediately go out for the run.  The only deviation from this plan was when, shortly after arriving home, I got a text from my friend saying she had gotten stuck at work and couldn't make the run.

So, I went out by myself.  Almost immediately the muscles in my legs started complaining, and I could feel that my pace wasn't as quick as I had hoped it would be.  Every uphill stretch felt extremely difficult.  I also knew that without the motivation of my friend running with me I wouldn't go as fast as if she had been there.  At first I was a little disappointed, but then I had a conversation with myself.  I reminded myself that during this training process there were going to be off-days and times when I wouldn't do my absolute best, but I shouldn't let these days bother me.  I decided that yes, my pace for this run was going to be slower but that was okay, and I wasn't going to stress about it.  Instead of increasing my pace, the goal of the run just because finishing it without stopping.

Given this pep-talk, you can imagine my surprise when, after getting back home and stretching, I finally looked at the stopwatch on my heart rate monitor and discovered that I had actually completed the run a minute faster than I had when I did the same run three days earlier.  It had taken me about 35 minutes (which I realize in the grand scheme of things isn't that fast, but it's pretty fast for me).  Not only is this a minute faster than Monday, but it's about 5 minutes faster than last week's 3-miler.  After preparing myself and coming to terms with a slower time, seeing a faster one was really exciting and motivating for me :).


3) Our first anniversary!

Kevin and me at the High Line Park in New York City last April.

Tomorrow marks a whole year of dating my wonderful guy :).  I almost can't believe it, it's gone by so fast!  The plan so far is we're going to go to the zoo, because that's where we were on date #5 when he asked me to be his girlfriend, and then we'll go to dinner somewhere fancy :).

4)  My new slow-cooker

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My kitchen woes are a post for another day; for now let's just say that I'm finding my lack of oven difficult.  When we first moved here I really thought not having one would be fine, but I find myself increasingly more sad about it.  I finally bought a slow cooker and cookbook at Target and I'm really excited to start using it, especially when I remembered that apparently you can bake things in one!  I might also start giving Kevin some more dinner-making responsibility, which will be nice :).

5) Once Upon A Time

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I am so beyond obsessed with this TV show.  I want to watch it all the time, and when I'm not watching it I'm thinking about watching it.  In fact, I probably would have gotten this post up last night if I hadn't been too busy watching 4 episodes of Once Upon A Time in a row on Netflix.  I love fairy tales, and I especially love re-tellings of fairy tales, so this show is perfect for me.  For anyone who doesn't know, the premise of the show is that all of the famous story book characters are put under a curse that separates all of them from the things they love.  They are trapped in time, unable to remember who they were, until a hero comes to save them - the catch here is that the hero isn't sure she believes in fairy tales.  It's got mystery and romance and murder and intrigue and awesome costumes and all that good stuff.  I also think that the way they approach each story is really interesting and clever.  The first 22 episodes are up on Nexflix (I think I'm on like #18 or something, I don't know what I'm going to do when I run out!).  Watch it!  It's so good!

WIAW #2!

So, I missed the last two What I Ate Wednesday sessions.  Both times I had the same lame excuse: I forgot to take pictures of most (if not all) of my food for the day.  But!  This time a miracle happened and I managed to plan ahead.  I took pictures of my meals yesterday, so today although I yet again failed to take even one picture, I can still jump in on this WIAW thing.  I know, I amaze even myself sometimes.  I guess we can make this somewhat relevant by saying I'm falling into the good habit of getting my act together.  Or something.

But anyhow, here's what I ate on Tuesday:

Breakfast: Oatmeal

My one confession is that I did forget to take a picture of my breakfast, so this is actually an older picture.  But, you know, it's oatmeal; how different could it actually look?  Yesterday's blend had protein powder, PB2, a chopped banana, a little maple syrup, and cinnamon.


Sort of snack: Good Earth Sweet & Spicy Blend tea

I wasn't hungry, but it was SUPER cold in the office so I did the tea thing.

Lunch:  Warm tomato, basil, and mozzarella sandwich

At home, I took a sandwich thin and drizzled a teaspoon of olive oil on each half, then sprinkled them with salt, pepper, and onion powder and stuck two basil leaves inside.  I packed the mozzarella cheese and tomato slices separately.  At work I melted the cheese onto the bread in the microwave then added the tomatoes.  It was one of the more lovely sandwiches I've had in recent memory, and it will definitely be happening again sometime soon.  I also had some grapes, although I forgot to photograph them...I guess that's confession number 2?

 After-lunch snack:  White Rabbit candy

I remember getting these from the Chinese food restaurant in the town where I grew up.  I loved them, but I hadn't seen them again until I found them in the local convenience store out here.  I was so excited to buy them!  Kevin isn't a huge fan, but I've been enjoying a few with my lunch for the last couple of days (Confession #3:  I totally just took this picture in my kitchen 5 minutes ago).

Pre/Post workout snack:  PureFit bar

I ate half of it before I went to TRX and the other half after.  This flavor is Granola Crunch.  I thought it tasted a fair amount like peanut butter, so I was kind of surprised not to see any peanut butter or peanuts in the ingredients list.


Dinner:  Huevos rancheros

This is like my favorite dinner ever.  I first saw the recipe on Smitten Kitchen last winter, and since then I've made them so often that I've completely memorized the recipe (not that it's a particularly complicated recipe, but, you know.  Gotta enjoy the small things.).  Whenever I don't know what I want for dinner, huevos rancheros is usually the answer.  This time I topped them with chopped turkey bacon (so it was kind of like breakfast for dinner, which I also love), black beans, salsa, avocado, and ranch dressing.  It was so, so delicious, and I wish I had more right now.

Dessert:  Strawberry Yasso Greek yogurt bar

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Confession #4:  I totally forgot to take a picture of this too, and I'm too lazy to go take one now, so I grabbed this off the interwebs.  But hooray for more fro yo!  These bars also come in blueberry and raspberry flavors, but I think strawberry is the best.



Well...obviously I wasn't the best at remembering to take pictures this week.  But, I was certainly better than last week, so...improvement!  Onwards and upwards!

Update!

Hi!  I haven't written in like a week because I've been that unhelpful combination of both really busy and really lazy.  I planned to make something like 5 posts, and none of them happened, and now I feel the best thing to do is to throw all my random thoughts down here and then move on.

So.  Here's what I've been up to since the last time I wrote:

1) Eating all of the goat cheese.  So far I've mixed it with mayo, Greek yogurt, and smoked paprika for the dressing on some cranberry pecan chicken salad, stuck it in an omelette with some chives, onion powder, and imitation crab, and used it in the sauce for this awesome Taco Pasta:

I added frozen veggies to the pasta water right before the pasta finished cooking, then combined the goat cheese with Greek yogurt, salsa, and taco seasoning for the sauce.  It was pretty great :).


2) Eating fro-yo like it's my job.  The boyf and I (but mostly I) decided that outings to Yogurt Mama should be a weekly thing.  We're doing it on Monday nights so that instead of being all like, "Aww, tomorrow's Monday..." on Sunday evenings, we'll go, "Hooray, tomorrow's Monday!" instead.  Yes, I play mind games with myself.  It's fine.

Last night's fro yo was cookies and cream flavor with Cap'n Crunch, strawberries, caramel sauce, and marshmallow sauce.  It was good but not great.  I think next week I'll either go back to Salted Caramel flavor or try the pineapple flavor.

The night before, Kevin and I split a pint of mango frozen kefir, and we just had some Yasso frozen Greek yogurt bars.  Those are delish, b-t-dubs.  Strawberry flavor is the best :).

3) Studying for the GRE.  I took the test the first time about 4 years ago, and it got me into my Master's program well enough, but my math score really wasn't all that great.  My thinking is that if I can pull that score up, I might have a better chance of getting into a PhD program when I apply this fall (I figure every little bit counts, yeah?).  I'm re-taking this bad boy on October 13th, so I've got like 3 weeks to re-learn all the math I've forgotten since high school.  Math isn't really my strong point...this could either be a good idea or a terrible one depending on how it all goes down.  We'll see in October, I guess.  

4) Trying out protein pancakes.

I got the recipe from Meals and Moves and used the scaled-down version she suggests; the one change I made was adding a full scoop of protein powder even though I had decreased the amounts of all the other ingredients.  I topped it with some PB2 mixed with water and maple syrup.  They were good and I'll definitely make them again.  Next time I add some sugar or syrup to the batter, though.  I had thought that the sweetness from the protein powder combined with the maple syrup in the topping would be enough, but it wasn't, at least not for me.  Maybe next time I'll leave the syrup out of the topping and put it into the batter instead.

5) Marathon training!  I just finished the first month of training, so I'm 25% done!  Last week's long run was 8 miles, which I did with my friend Michelle.  For the most part we did it all without stopping (just here and there to wait for street lights to change and once to make sure we were going in the right direction) and we finished in 1 hour and 48 minutes.  I know this time isn't particularly fast, but I felt good about it.  The last time I remember running 8 miles was 4 years ago and I think it took me at least 2 hours, so at least Saturday's run was an improvement on that!

Anyway, that's about it.  Tomorrow's Wednesday so (in theory) I'll be back to let you know what I ate :).

I Promise

This is going to be an exercise in reaching goals.  I'm currently on Day 24 of the book PUSH: 30 Days to Turbocharged Habits, a Bangin' Body, and the Life You Deserve! by Chalene Johnson, the person who created the workout programs Turbo Jam, Turbo Fire, and ChaLEAN Extreme, to name a few.  The purpose of the book is to help people become successful in reaching their goals by teaching them how to figure out what their priorities are, how to build their goals around those priorities, and how to create new habits and become more organized so that reaching their goals is guaranteed.  Part I of the book is broken down into 30 days, with a chapter covering a different topic for each day.  In Part II Chalene shares her exercise plan, and in Part III she gives some recipes.  I'm going through the book day by day, so I'm still in Part I.

The focus of today's chapter is accountability.  I'm sure this won't come as breaking news to anyone, but if you tell someone about whatever you're trying to accomplish, you're more likely to actually do it.  However, Chalene wants people to take it one step further and actually make a promise to someone.  Family, friends, co-workers, vague acquaintances, anyone who may for any reason be interested in your success.  Her reasoning is that people don't like breaking promises.  If you promise someone you'll do something, especially someone who is important to you, you will more likely than not do whatever you can to avoid breaking it.

But even beyond this, Chalene wants you to take your promise, and go public with it.  As we all know, once something's out on the internet it's pretty much permanent.  So, even though fully zero people read this blog right now, I felt like this would be a fitting place to make my public declaration.  Here you go:


1.  I promise, barring illness or injury, I will run the Honolulu Marathon in under 6 hours.  (This one is kind of tricky, since my training guide says that setting a time limit for yourself may not be helpful and finishing should really be your only objective, but I do have a time goal and I promise to do my absolute best to stick to it).

2.  I promise to lose 5% of my body weight by September 23, 2012 (Kevin's and my 1st anniversary!).  For me, 5% of my weight is 9 lbs.  As of now I still have 4 lbs to go.

So that's it!  I will make the appropriate updates at the appropriate times so you can see how things have gone :).

Five Things Friday!

Hooray!  It's Friday!  I'm pretty sure I first saw this type of post at A Life to Bragg About, although it could have been Sensual Appeal.  Either way, I like Fridays and I like lists of things (on which there may or may not be five items), and what better way to combine the two than a Five Things Friday post!

So, here's what I've been loving this week:


1) Oatmeal for breakfast

I have eaten oatmeal for breakfast every day this week.  I somehow don't get tired of it, probably because it's so easy to switch up the flavor.  I usually add a scoop of protein powder, but other than that I try to be creative about what I throw in.  Once I even had salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese oatmeal, which was interesting but not my favorite.  Today's bowl had protein powder, a chopped apple, PB2, a little brown sugar, and a lot of pumpkin pie spice.


2) Fro-yo for dinner

I'm only marginally ashamed to say that this happened multiple days in a row this week.  The picture above is from a place in Kailua called Yogurt Mama, which is so excellent, btw.  I got a combination of Salted Caramel and Cake Batter flavors, topped with kiwi, mango, blueberries, and Cap'n Crunch :).

 
3) My new car!

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So, this isn't a picture of my actual car.  I meant to take one, but then I forgot, and now it's dark, so...sorry.  But mine looks pretty much exactly the same, so it's fine, probably.  While I didn't love the fact that it started having mechanical problems a mere 48 hour after I bought it (which was SO LAME), I got it back from the mechanic this afternoon and it seems to be running fine.  This is my first car, believe it or not, so it's pretty exciting.  Also, I'm really happy to not have to pay for a rental anymore.


4) TRX classes

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I started taking a TRX circuit class at the gym near my job about a month ago, and I seriously love it.  TRX is a bodyweight training program that uses straps attached to an anchor.  The class I take alternates strenth-training TRX exercises with intervals of cardio, like burpees, sprints, or jump rope.  I know I said it 3 sentences ago, but I LOVE my TRX class.  All of the exercises are easy to modify for your fitness level, and the straps make it easy to transition from one move to another, or to perform compound exercises.  I go twice a week, and I have so much fun and get a great workout.  I'm always really excited to go to class, and pretty much look forward to it all day.  I can't wait for next Tuesday so I can go again!  I'm also seriously considering buying the kit so I can do TRX on my own at home.


5) Cheesy Awesome 80's music on the radio

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This morning on my way to work, 'You Spin Me Round' by Dead or Alive came on the radio.  Who doesn't love that song?  I was rocking out in my car and it was so excellent.  The people in the car next to me probably though I was crazy, but I was having a great time.  My favorite part: "I want your looooooOOooOOooOOOOOOOOve!"  (Right?!)  And THEN, later in the afternoon 'She Drives Me Crazy' by Fine Young Cannibals came on, and I was equally happy :).

So, there's my five things for this week.  Hooray for the weekend!

Pudding for breakfast

I don't really like pudding.  I know several people who find this inexplicable, but were you to ask me what I wanted at any given moment the answer would never be pudding.  With that said, I was pretty pleased with my choice of this fro-yo pudding concoction for breakfast this morning.  Maybe it was the illicit thrill of eating something dessert-like so early in the morning (you know...I live a quiet life).

I found this recipe for Frozen Greek Yogurt Pudding on the Women's Health website.  I think it's supposed to be for dessert, but based on the ingredients (Greek yogurt, peanut butter, banana, honey) I could see no reason not to eat it for breakfast.  The recipe makes 4 servings but my boyfriend doesn't like peanut butter, somehow, so I halved the recipe.  I also omitted the chocolate chunks (mainly because I didn't have any) but added a decent amount of cinnamon.  It only needs to freeze for about 2 hours but I ended up letting it freeze overnight.

Right out of the freezer it was very hard, too hard to really eat:

I left it on the counter for about a half an hour (or however long it took me to remember I had pulled it out of the freezer :p).  At that point it had thawed around the edges, and after mixing it all together the texture was more pudding-like:

The consistency of the pudding was a little thicker after being frozen and thawed a bit than it had been straight out of the blender prior to freezing, but I'm sure you could skip the freezing step if you wanted to.

All in all, this was pretty tasty.  One serving is just over 200 calories (although this will vary based on the fat content of the yogurt and peanut butter you use).  It didn't completely fill me up on it's own, but with the addition of a cinnamon raisin bagel thin it made a nice breakfast.  I might try throwing in a scoop of protein powder next time, and maybe even some chocolate chunks :).