Just the basics

I’m starting to feel like I’m talking to myself here. I think I need to be a little more proactive in advertising my blog. Hello to anyone who stops by.

Part of my problem is that I’m not really sure what I want to be talking about yet and I’m having a hard time working out how to maximize my blogging time. I feel weird asking people to read my blog when I’m not sure it’s what I want it to be yet. But I may as well get into the habit anyway.

Yesterday’s post-yoga dinner was a quick but fun number.

Some nori rolls made with leftover brown rice mashed with miso, cucumber and avocado. Soy sauce and wasabi for dipping. And a guac salad – just spinach/arugula topped with guac & tomatoes.

I did a lovely bike workout at the gym today. I was supposed to do some strength work as well but I was still super sore from my long run/yoga yesterday so I tried to lift a few weights but finally decided to call it quits so as not to make my muscles worse. Instead I got on the bike and rode my heart out.

Time: 37:00

Distance: 17.00 km

I’m really happy with this time. My goal is to achieve a 2min/km pace for my races next summer, specifically I want to ride a 3hr Half Ironman bike leg. This time included a warm up and cool down so I’m right on track for pace. Now I just have to do 5 times this distance

I had another spelt pizza crust leftover from Monday so I whipped up another pizza tonight. It was beyond fabulous.

I stuck with a really basic formula – pesto sauce, sliced tomato, sundried tomatoes, and a little goat gouda. This was mind-numbingly awesome. I had a salad on the side – spinach/arugula, black kale, carrot, cucumber, sunflower seeds and a dressing made with cilantro, hummus, lemon juice and a little water. Perfection.

I thought I’d share my lunch today as well because I haven’t yet and I’m mildly obsessed with my lunchbox.

It’s from Laptop Lunches and I’ve used it every single workday since I bought it about a year ago. I work nights so I don’t really have a choice about bringing a lunch – there’s nothing open except 7-11 – but I never mind because this lunchbox brings me incomparable joy. It’s the perfect portion size for me and usually allows me 2 snacks and one meal per work day. I almost always fill the yellow square with fruit, the green square with a fun snack (nuts & dried fruit, a muffin, crackers, etc.) and the purple and red usually house leftovers from dinner.

Today I had:

Yellow: Grapes and apple

Purple: Leftover pesto pizza

Red: Oatgurt with simple raspberry sauce (raspberries, agave & apple juice, smushed together) & flax

Green: Pumpkin Spice Roasted Chickpeas, Medjool date with almond butter, and a piece of Zazubean Ego (goji berries & matcha) chocolate.

I probably won’t share my lunch very often because it’s often just a replay of other meals but it makes me happy so if it’s an interesting mix I might feel compelled to share.

Chili & Sweaty

Bah. My instructor wasn’t in today and I don’t tend to like the style of the others so I just did my own thing instead.

I’m working on following the plan in The New Rules of Lifting for Women, but only partly since I don’t have it in my schedule to do the full 3x/wk. Here’s what I did:

5 min warm-up on the rower (such an underrated machine)

Squats: 3 x 8 reps @ 95lbs

Seated Row: 3 x 8 reps @ 60lbs (for some reason the last few weeks I’ve gotten progressively weaker at this one)

Step Ups: 3 x 8 reps @ 25lbs per hand

Prone Jackknifes: 3 x 15 reps

Push ups: 3 x 20 reps (on knees – I’m still a push up weakling)

Medicine Ball Obliques: 2 x 20 reps @ 5lbs

21 min Bike Interval workout: 3min WU, 5 x (1min @ 100 RPM, 2min @ 85 RPM), 3 min CD

I love, love, love doing bike intervals. It might make me weird but I think it’s so much fun and my legs were so sore after just 20 minutes today, although that could have been because of my long run yesterday (Oh, I forgot to mention my long run! I ran 19.5km yesterday in 2 hrs flat. Right on pace. There, mentioned).

I swear I sweat more than anyone else at my gym, especially during intervals. I literally make little pools of sweat under the bike. It’s kind of ridiculous and sometimes people stare.

After the gym I came home and made some scrumptious raw chili. I won’t give a recipe since it was based of a recipe in Everyday Raw, but I’ll give an ingredient rundown.

Carrot and soaked almonds, chopped in the food processor. To which I added finely chopped crimini mushrooms, red onion and cabbage. Then doused it all in a lovely, spicy sun-dried tomato sauce.

I thought it would be ironic to use my oven-safe french onion soup bowls for the chili, ’cause it’s raw, get it? But I did end up throwing it in the toaster oven at 150F for about 3 minutes, just to get it a little warm. I served it with Buffalo flavoured Food Should Taste Good chips (good, indeed).

(segue)

Can we stop a moment and just talk about how damn good these chips are? We just got them in my local health food store a couple weeks ago and I literally squealed with delight when I saw them (I do this a lot, I think the employees are starting to get scared of me). Anyway, I’ve tried a bunch of flavours and they’ve all been fantastic. I try not to buy processed foods too much but it’s hard when they’re this good and on sale 2 for $5 to boot. So far my favourite flavour has been The Works, but they haven’t had the Lime in stock yet and I’m pretty sure that’ll win in the end. I also haven’t had Chocolate, Cinnamon, or Yellow Corn. I’m sure that will be rectified before too long.

(/segue)

Back on topic – this chili is also a food that tastes good. A lot like regular chili, but crunchier Raw food make me happy. What can I say? I like to experiment.

Meghann actually posted recently about what it means to be a foodie, and that’s what it’s about for me. The love of food in all its forms and the willingness and desire to seek out new and wonderful ways to appreciate it. I think I’d do a post in more detail soon because this is a topic that’s close to my heart.