Thursday, January 28, 2010

Another Random Mom Thought

So back to the toothbrushes - If there are 4 of us in the house, and there are 7 toothbrushes on the bathroom sink, and only 1 of them is mine, then why did mine taste like "Sparkle Fun" toothpaste this morning?

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Tasty Tuesday - Beef Cauliflower Casserole

This recipe was pretty much made up on the spot, but it tasted really good. When I was a kid, my favorite dish was tater tot casserole. For some reason, this reminded me of that - it was just a big plate of comfort food. I didn't know what to call it, hence the really generic name! Anyone have any better ideas?

Beef Cauliflower Casserole

4 oz lean ground beef
1/4 cup (dry) long grain brown rice
1 + 1/3 cup (170g) frozen cauliflower
1/4 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 cup + about 3/4 cup water, divided
salt and pepper
garam masala (optional)
cinnamon (optional)

1. In a sauce pan with a lid, place rice and 1/2 cup water. As the water level decreases, add up to 3/4 cup more water to the pan about 1/4 cup at a time.

2. In a skillet, place the 1 teaspoon olive oil. Add the onions and cook for a couple minutes. Add the garlic and cook for a minute more. Add the ground beef and cook until no pink remains.

3. During the last 10 minutes of the rice cooking, add the cauliflower to the saucepan. Add a little more water if the rice is dry.

4. To the skillet, add a little water to deglaze the pan. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Also consider adding a sprinkle each of cinnamon and garam masala. Cook until the water is gone.

5. When the rice/cauliflower is done, add the beef mixture to the pan. Mix and serve. Or just put the rice/cauliflower on your plate and put the meat on top.

Sorry about the bad picture. I think it looks a little foggy because it was still steaming hot when I took the picture!


As one serving, this has approximately:

406 calories
29.6g protein
13.7g fat
43.6g carbs
5.4g fiber

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Week 4 In Review - Oh. My. Goodness.

I have sore muscles that I didn't even know existed! One of the reasons is certainly from doing exercises that I've never done before and using machines that I've never used before. For example, this week I used the rear delt machine, which I've never used. I tend to stay away from machines, but this program uses just a couple. I decided that if I was going to use this program, I would use the machines. The only exception is the lying leg curl. The last time I used that machine (years ago), I threw out my back. So I won't use that one again.

Workouts went really well. I began Phase 2, which is made up of supersets. The supersets use the same muscle groups, with lower weight/higher reps for the first exercise and higher weight/lower reps for the second exercise. I can tell that I have gained muscle, which is pretty cool. Even though I have gained some fat as well.

Today I ran for 7.25 miles. I didn't try to break any records; I just picked a pace that felt good and stuck with it for most of the run. The first mile went well, but at the end of the second mile it started to mist and I was running against the wind. After I turned around, the wind was behind me and it stopped misting. Around the fourth mile, I turned a corner (literally, not figuratively) and the wind was coming at me from the side. I got a little chilly because the wind was blowing right across all my sweat and was making me cold. During the fifth mile it started to mist again and during the sixth mile I turned back into the wind. Between the wind and the rain and me being warm, my glasses were so foggy and water-spotted that I could hardly see through them. The start of the last mile was tough because it felt like I was in a wind tunnel. I finished in 1:19:42 (about an 11:00 pace).

Nutrition this week was hit and miss. I would do really well, and then fall off the wagon. One day I ate an entire bag of trail mix, another day I reacquainted myself with the peanut butter jar.

I saw a really great bumper sticker this week - If you believe you can tell me what to think, then I believe I can tell you where to go. :)

Next week will be similar to this week workout-wise; I will be adding another set to each superset and the reps will be slightly less, so I should be able to raise the weight on some of the exercises.

Have a great week!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Random Mom Thought

If there are only FOUR of us living in this house, why are there SEVEN toothbrushes on the bathroom sink? Only ONE of them is mine. :)

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Tasty Tuesday - Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

The other day the kids were asking for cookies and I thought oatmeal raisin sounded good. I checked out the recipe that comes on the canister of oatmeal and the first ingredient was 2 sticks of butter. I decided I was going to try something different. I based my recipe off of a couple different recipes. Here's what I came up with - the kids gave them 2 thumbs up! :)

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Dry Ingredients
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1.25 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup raisins (I used 4 "fun size" boxes)

Wet Ingredients
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/4 cup egg whites (about 1-2 egg whites)
1/4 cup pancake syrup (I used sugar free)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla


1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Except for the raisins, mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl, and mix the wet ingredients in another bowl.

3. Pour the wet into the dry and mix until just blended. Stir in the raisins.

4. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto a baking sheet that has been lined with parchment paper. I used a small scoop.

5. Bake for 10 minutes.


I made 21 small cookies, each with approximately:

46 calories
2g protein
0.4g fat
8.7g carbs
1.3g fiber

Sunday, January 17, 2010

End of Week 3 - Phase One Complete!

Phase 1 of my new workout program finished this week. It was fun! It had different techniques that I have never done before (like peak double contractions). Phase 2 starts this week and it's more standard supersets, but they are "pre-fatigue" supersets - I will be doing more reps of the first exercise with lower weights and fewer reps of the second exercise with heavier weights.

Overall, workouts this week went well. The reps were low for most exercises so I added more weight. I was still sore a few days after the workouts, so I was happy because I knew I was working hard and my muscles were not adapting to the workout.

Yesterday, I ran 6.5 miles outside. Whoo-hoo! Because of the really cold weather I had been running at the gym, so that was a nice change. It was icy in a number of places so I had to slow down, but the run felt really good. My time was 1:07:40 (about a 10:25 pace) and I was thrilled with that. It was still pretty cold out, though. When I got home, my legs were numb. When I took off my hat, I discovered there was "snow" on it. It wasn't snowing so I couldn't figure out how snow got on my hat until I realized that it was sweat that had frozen! :) Today I am going to go out and run an easy 2 mile recovery run. Yesterday my hips really started hurting during the 5th mile, so I want to try and run a little more during the week, instead of just one day.

My big change this past week with nutrition was to eat breakfast immediately post-workout (about 6:30am), and then have a snack at work around 9:15am. Prior to last week, I would eat a snack post-workout and then eat breakfast at work at about 8:30am. I'm not so sure I liked the larger post-workout meal - time is short in the morning and a quick snack is easier.

This week I will be back to more of a snack post-workout (e.g., a scoop of whey and a banana) and then I plan to eat about every 2 hours, consuming between 200-250 calories each meal. Even during my most zealous calorie-counting days, I never counted calories for individual meals, only for the entire day. However, I don't plan on using fitday for my counting; I'm just going to estimate calories for the most part. So my day will look like this:

6:30am - meal one
8:30am - meal two
10:30am - meal three
12:30pm - meal four
2:30pm - meal five
5:30pm - meal six
7:30pm - meal seven

If I stay between 200 and 250 calories per meal on average, my calorie range should be between 1400 and 1750, which is just right for me for fat loss. I've gained about 10 lbs since I finished my last TT contest. Since I was using a muscle-building program, I hadn't been counting calories at all, just trying to eat clean foods. However, even though phases 2 and 3 are still considered muscle-building, I'm going to start watching calories so I don't gain too much more weight. I'm hoping some of this is muscle! :)

If you are interested, here's the link to this week's TT Call -> Weekly Fat Loss Call. A few of the things Craig talks about this week are his Transformation Tip of the Week, updates to the TT2K4 workout, and the Bodyweight 200.

Have a great week!

Disclosure: This post does not contain an affiliate link. I just think the calls are fun to listen to. :)

Thursday, January 14, 2010

A Random Thursday

Heheh....so Recipe day was supposed to move to Tuesday this week. But that was before I had to call the vet to come out and visit my sick kitty. He's having some thyroid problems and potentially some liver trouble. My kitty that is, not the vet. :) The vet has to come back in about a week so we'll find out more then. The vet coming to the house prompted a giant house cleaning party on Tuesday night. :)

Also, I just bought a new book, The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half, and I had to share my shopping success this week! I went to a local drugstore and by combining all the deals and coupons I had, I saved $32.95! My total before tax was $54.39 and after deals and coupons my subtotal was $21.44. I thought I was pretty good with coupons, but I did learn a few tricks from this book.

And, in my last post, I mentioned that I like to air drum while running at the gym. :) Out of curiosity, I went to YouTube to see if my favorite song to listen to was there, and it was! It's the song d_letion by Abigail's Ghost. The whole album is awesome, but d_letion is my favorite song, particularly while running. The movie goes for about 8 minutes, but the song is only 5 minutes. There's a few minutes of blank space after the song ends. The movie is just a picture of the album cover while the song plays. Enjoy! And don't forget to drum along. ;)





Monday, January 11, 2010

Week 2 Review - Manic Monday

I really wanted to post my Week-In-Review this weekend, but it seemed like it was so busy. And then when I did have a little time, I felt guilty turning my back to the kids while I typed on the computer. So...I decided to spend some time with the kids. :)

BUT.....I also felt like I should be posting something. It made me a little stressed and I think that's why my eating this weekend wasn't the best it could be. Blogging should be fun; it shouldn't cause anxiety!

Otherwise my nutrition during Week 2 was great! I felt awesome all week. I tried something new this week - a "Greens" supplement. It doesn't taste fantastic, but my energy was really UP all week. However, it might just be because I was eating well, and not from the Greens supplement at all. But I'll keep trying it for now.

Workouts this week went great. Saturday I ran about 5 miles on the treadmill and my hips were so sore later that night! I hadn't run much during the previous week and I was surprised at how much my hips hurt. By Sunday they felt much better.

After Monday's leg workout, I wasn't quite as sore as last week, although I could still feel it on Wednesday!

All the rest of the workouts this week went well. I raised the weight on a lot of exercises (lower reps) and wasn't as sore as last week, but definitely still felt it in my triceps and biceps over the weekend.

This past Saturday I ran a little over 4 miles and my hips didn't hurt at all, so that was great. If you're ever at my gym, I'm the one air drumming on the treadmill. The time goes so fast while you're listening to good music! :)

Have a great week!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Recipe Wednesday - Vegetarian Taco Filling

Today is the last Recipe Wednesday...because next week it's moving to Tuesday!! :)

This recipe was adapted from the Meatless Chili Recipe in the Incredibly Easy Vegetarian cookbook. I added green chilies and more spices to make a taco filling. It turned out really well! The book also recommends using this on pizza, or over spaghetti, rice or chips.

1 cup dry red lentils, rinsed
2 cups water
1/2 packet dry onion soup mix
1 cup (8oz can) tomato sauce
2 T chopped green chilies
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon paprika
salt and pepper, to taste

1. In a saucepan, bring the lentils and water to a boil. Add the soup mix and simmer for about 10 minutes.

2. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for about 10-15 minutes longer.

This will fill about 12 tacos or so. I crisped a couple corn tortillas in the oven and piled on salsa, leaf lettuce, tomatoes and a little cheese. My tacos didn't all look this neat. LOL (I ate 3 tacos.)


If you assume 12, the filling per taco would have approximately:

58 calories
3.8g protein
0g fat
10.9g carbs
2.3g fiber


So if you ate 1/2 the recipe as a chili instead, it would have approximately:

348 calories
22.8g protein
0g fat
65.4g carbs
13.8g fiber

Friday, January 1, 2010

End Of Week 1 - Maybe I Overdid It :)

Or maybe not. But I did have trouble walking a couple days this week. ;)

My first week with my new program is pretty much in the books. (Except for my planned 5 mile run tomorrow.) It was a really nice change. I'm trying to think of what to call the workout. I don't want to call it my Precision Nutrition workout, because it's not really a PN workout, just a PN-approved workout that I got from the forums. Hmmm...I'll think a little more about this.

Speaking of Precision Nutrition, I was reminded on Wednesday that they are going to be signing up another round for their Lean Eating Coaching Program on January 4th. Since I am using PN now, I am kind of thinking about signing up. But I'm not sure yet. Still thinking about it. There's a $10,000 prize for the best transformation - you can learn more about it by clicking here: PN Lean Eating Coaching Program

Here's how my week went:

Monday: Lower body workout with quad focus. I thought I took this workout easy, because I hadn't used the squat rack in a while, but as I was walking down the stairs on the way out of the gym, my legs felt like jelly. Later Monday night, I really was starting to feel it.

Tuesday: Upper body workout. I forgot my mp3 player at work on Monday, so I had to use my husband's this morning. That was kind of fun because I got to listen to different music. The next song is always a surprise - especially when the Iron Maiden plays! :) This was a good workout - lat pulldowns, presses, tricep extensions, curls and shrugs. I didn't think I would be too sore because my arms were used to working out, but Tuesday night I started feeling it in my triceps. My leg workout caught up to me too - I was having trouble walking! LOL

Wednesday: OFF. And a good thing too. I still had trouble walking. When I was planning my workouts, I had considered a 2 mile run on Wednesdays, but I really needed the whole day off. My legs started to feel better in the afternoon.

Thursday: Lower body workout with hamstring focus. Good workout, not too sore afterward, but definitely felt it on Friday morning. Also got a good upper body workout chipping the ice off of our driveway. :)

Friday: Upper body workout. This one was tough. Lots of rows, presses, flyes, and curls. I'm pretty sure I will be feeling this one later.

That's all for this week. I will be in Phase 1 of the workout for 2 more weeks, and then I move on to Phase 2.

Also - just a quick reminder that the Turbulence Training half off sale ends tonight at 9:00pm ET. You can check that out here: TT Half Off Sale


Happy New Year!!


Disclosure: This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase the product, I will receive a small portion.