JCore Day 12

Omgyesit'stheweekend!

The Workout: Release

I actually don’t know if I can really categorize Release as a workout, exactly.  It was more of a stretching session; it was very slow-paced, and included a fair amount of yoga moves.  I didn’t really get sweaty at all.  My legs and arms were a little tired this morning, probably from TRX, so holding some of the poses was a little difficult, but nothing too bad.  My favorite part?  Jay saying (repeatedly), “Let go of that stress!  It’s just you and I, nobody else.”  A) You and me.  B) Clearly there are two other people in the video with you, so I’d say no, it’s not just you and me.

The Food

Today starts the first day of Phase 2 of the nutrition plan, which means no cheese or bread, and only one serving of fruit.

Breakfast: Oatmeal applesauce pancakes with Justin’s honey almond butter.

This is the last of the batch I made last weekend.  I'm not sure yet if I'll make more this weekend or not; now that I've dropped down to 1500 calories a day, ~ 600 calories is a lot for breakfast (about 380 for 3 pancakes + another 190-200 for the almond butter, depending on the flavor).

Lunch: Slow-cooker pork with green beans and butternut squash.

I super love this pork, and it goes so well with butternut squash.

Same as yesterday, pretty much.

Snack:  Tortilla chips and guacamole.

This guac is kind of a weird color, I know.  While making it, Kevin declared that it was "too green" and added  salsa until he achieved the desired hue...which was pea soup color, apparently.

Someone from work brought me a giant avocado from a tree in his yard.  I’m sorry I didn’t take a picture, because it was seriously huge, about the size of a large mango.  I brought it home, and Kevin immediately wanted to make guacamole with it.  So we did!  I do have to say that it’s kind of fake guacamole – made by mashing the avocado and mixing it with store-brought salsa, onion powder, lemon juice, and salt.  But!  It still tastes delicious, and I’m happy to eat it. 

Dinner: Taco salad! 

We don't have any bowls that are an appropriate size for salad, so I had to use this giant mixing bowl instead.  Instead of ground beef I used ground pork, and the dressing was a combination of salsa and Greek yogurt.


This afternoon the Whole Foods in my neighborhood was hosting a Local Product Fair, so Kevin and I went to check it out.  There were booths for all sorts of local businesses, selling things like ice cream, raw honey, jewelry, produce, and bath products, to name a few.  I definitely like to support local businesses when I can, so I was happy to be able to pick up a few things.  One booth was selling different types of fruit, most of which I had never eaten or even seen before.  I grabbed a few that looked interesting to me:

I remember that the yellow fruit is called an egg fruit, but I don't remember what the brown and purple/green ones are, other than that they taste like a "brown sugar pear" and need to be cut open and eaten with a spoon, respectively.  The pineapple is a particular species called a Honey Cream pineapple, and was recommended to us by another customer at the booth.  It's supposed to be sweeter and lower in acidity, and the other customer told us that the tops had been removed because the species is patented (you can totally grow a new pineapple plant by cutting out the top and part of the core and planting it).

Allow me to geek out for a second, if you will.  The Hawaiian name for the Honey Cream pineapple is Meli Kalima.  The first thing I noticed about this is that the Hawaiian word for honey, 'meli,' is very similar to the Latin word for honey, 'mel mellis.'  This surprised me, because I didn't think that Hawaiian was a Latin-based language.  I did some Googling, and found a book excerpt that was very long and convoluted and confusing, but it may have said something about how Polynesian languages might maybe be able to be traced back to Sanscrit, as can Latin, possibly.  Maybe.  I really don't know.  If anyone has any ideas I would be interested.

Okay, now that we're done with that tangent, the other thing we found at the Local Product Fair was a booth for a company called Chic Naturals.  They make roasted chickpea snacks in a bunch of different flavors.  I've always been interested in trying roasted chickpeas, so I was happy to see that the booth had free samples of the different flavors that they sell.

The little sign on the table is letting us know that these products are gluten and nut free!

All of the flavors were really, really good.  They're also a good source of protein and fiber, as well as being relatively low in fat.  A serving size is an ounce, which is usually about a quarter of a cup.  After trying all the flavors, Kevin and I decided to get 4 bags:

The flavors we got were: Spicy Barbecue, Hawaiian Sea Salt & Herb, Maui Mocha, and Sweet Citrus.

We got two savory flavors and two sweet ones.  The only flavor we didn't get was the chocolate-covered ones.  Not to say they weren't good - they totally are.  But, as you may imagine, I don't really need to have chocolate-covered things in the house right now.  The sweet flavors are (obviously) much higher in sugar and consequently much higher in calories than the other flavors (about 130 calories per serving vs. around 100 calories for the savory flavors), and the Mocha flavor in particular is higher in fat than the others (about 4.6g compared to 2.3g).  I might wait until I'm done with JCore to have those two.  But, the savory flavors are fair game.  My personal favorite (besides the chocolate ones) is the Hawaii Sea Salt flavor, which according to the guy at the booth is their best selling flavor.  I seriously can't wait to snack on these guys!