Manic Monday

I am going to start trying to organize and plan better for this blog. I enjoy writing for it and I like how it keeps me motivated. One thing I am planning is Manic Monday posts. I am very, very fortunate to work from home and right now life is pretty lazy. No school and I can work in my PJs all day if I so choose. Actually my kids have started to protest regular clothing these days and I don't argue, they only have until the end of July until we start back to our regular school routines. Anyway, I digress, this week I will be in the office a few days to cover for a vacationing co-worker. Last night while preparing my food for today I thought about how soon I will be back to spending my Sunday's planning and how no matter how much I prepare I always seem to have a Manic Monday. I always have little ways of getting what I need out of my Monday's when we are in the school routine. I want to share those here. So for today's Manic Monday I want to share my quick go to breakfast when I am in a rush. 


I have to have a heavy dose of protein for breakfast if I am going to be productive. Actually I have to have protein at every meal, it fuels me and keeps me running all day. Since I am allergic to coffee I can not rely on a morning caffeine wake me up and must use food to do the trick. I do have a cup of tea in the mornings but that is more for habit than caffeine. So back to protein, I typically have an egg with a vegetable or fruit, and some sort of sausage or bacon for breakfast, but I typically have more time. This breakfast will fuel me until noon if need be and leaves me sated. I am a hungry girl in the morning, it is the only time of day I am truly "starving". I attribute it to going to bed hungry which everyone should do in my opinion. 


So on a day like today I fall back on my nearly famous chocolate banana protein shake. Enjoy!!


1 scoop chocolate protein powder
1 banana
2 tbs almond butter
1 cup milk of choice (I use almond)
1 scoop Catie's Greens (optional)
Ice (optional)

Put everything in a blender, add ice if you wish and blend. Enjoy!

In office lunch...

I am in the office today and here is lunch.

Friday's Nosh

8:00am Pre-run - Small 5.5 oz can V-8

                            Water

9:15 post-run/breakfast - Coconut water

                                        2 Chicken breakfast sausages

                                        1 egg

                                        Strawberries

11:45 - small Coke during visit with Mother-in-law at Hospital

12:30 lunch - half spud max at McAlister's Deli

                     half & half tea

2:00 snack - 2 light laughing cow wedges

                    7 multi-grain wheat free crackers

                    1 cup of strawberries

                    water

3:00 warm-up - hot tea with 1 tsp sugar, 1 TBSP half  half

*yes it is 102 degrees here but only 65 in my basement, I am freezing haha. 

6:00 dinner - 3 oz pork chop

                    succatash & leftover potato salad (this is in no way healthy or low fat just really yummy)

8:30 post kid snack - 2 squares allergy free dark chocolate, milk.

I am shocked at how much I am wanting to eat, maybe it is because I am thinking about it too much. Went to bed with a growling belly which I love because I always wake up feeling energized and ready for protein. Today was a lot of eat by the seat of my pants and no planning. My eating will be more structured after this weekend when the holiday and everyone being home is over. 

Eat Clean Train Dirty

This is one of my favorite sayings I see around on the web. Eat clean and train dirty. I love clean eating, everything from the name to the way it makes me feel is a win win for me. It is optimal eating at it's best. I am also very partial to eating paleo which is pretty close the tightest form of eating clean (i.e. preparing for various competitions). It is great for shedding stubborn pounds or detoxing when you get a bit off track. 

In my previous post for this month's goals I have that I want to tighten up my eating. I have been putting one too many spoonfuls of Trader Joe's cocoa almond butter in my mouth lately. While I have been having surprisingly steady weight loss I want to get back on track eating healthier.

I love to keep a food journal and write everything I eat. It is an easy way to keep you accountable but I am also getting sucked into picture journals of your food, so you can't really...let's say curve your grade for your meals. I am thinking about blending the two. Giving an account of what I have eaten all day in the form of a post with some photos. One of the things I do when I look to fitness and weight loss blogs is search for what they are eating, and I want specifics. How much, how often, what types etc. So in case any of you are like I am, you can get a first account of what I eat, including the good, the bad and the ugly. I also plan on looking back through my week of posting meals to see what was good, what was bad and try to eliminate the ugly.

I will also plan to throw in my workout for the day so you kind of get a good idea of what I am doing and what works for me. I am not expecting you to follow what I do, or that what I do will even work for you, but maybe something I do will inspire you. That is why we are all here after all right? Looking for inspiration, motivation? I hope that by adding some of this fun stuff we motivate each other.

I also want to add this latest photo. I finally feel like I have lost enough weight to design clothing for myself so on a whim this week I made this shirt to wear on the 4th of July.



Train hard, Minus your 46...

July Goals...

I saw this pin and had to do a post with monthly goals. You remember those right? The weekly goals I used to post with my progress...oh come on they happened right? I vaguely remember them. This picture reminded me that I used to do those and I thought to myself...why not now. 

July is a crazy month for me this year. My daughter turns 3, I am currently living in Haites like conditions here in the south and I have this overwhelming feeling (or need) that I should celebrate finally being healthy. See this time last year I had my brush with death Salmonella Poisoning and only 2 months ago did I finally find out why I have been sick for the last year. If you missed it you can read more about it here. Between that and brainwashing myself into thinking I am olympic athlete it was hard to come up with just a couple of goals. 

So without further adieu here is this months goals. 

• Continue couch to 10k program adding one extra day of light running totaling 4 days of running. 
• Complete 2 days a week of arms and abs using xbox kinect Fitness Evolve (review after 4 weeks)
• Tighten up my diet. I have been letting some sometimes foods slip in on a somewhat regular basis. 

I am only 1 pound away from pre-baby weight and 4 away from my weight when I got married (mind you I was still overweight) I need to build muscle and tighten up so I don't have to change my name to saggy sally!

I hope you are ready to make July your B**tch!!!

Train Hard, Minus your 46!

Jog FM, a valuable resource

If you are anything like me music is essential when working out. I wish I could be those people who have ultimate focus and can run for hours with no music, or train at the gym with nothing to distract but alas, I am not. I need blood pumping, toe tapping, booty shaking music to get me going during my workout. One of my favorite features of the Nike+ running app is the power song button. Blasting whatever is my anthem at the moment to get me through a difficult part of my run. While a lot of purists look at music as distracting you from your workout instead of focusing you on it, I disagree. Sure plowing away on the treadmill for 3 hours watching Lord of the Rings wasn't my best workout ever, I think my walking pace was 4 tops, I still stand by music as a tool for your workout. For example, Jog FM, a website and now phone app that allows you to choose music based on beats per minute and for pace. It is magical. 

My last run was completed at an 11:13 average pace. I am currently making my way through training with a couch to 10k (review coming soon) so this was an 11:13 pace with walking intervals thrown in. To give you idea of paces; my recent pace has been about 12:43, my fastest race pace was 9:15, most fast walkers walk a 15 min mile, average running speed for most runners is 9-12 minutes with competitive runners running even faster. The current world record for the mile is 3:43. I am not winning a gold medal anytime soon but I was very pleased with my recent pace. I also realized while playing around on Jog FM that a lot of my music is in the 9-11 min mile pace. I completely attribute my faster run time to the music. I think it does make a difference. 

So now to the nitty gritty. Jog FM is a free site and app they helps you compile playlists to maximize your workout. Don't let the name fool you they have playlists for running, walking and cycling. While accessing the website is free, the songs are not but they are iphone and android friendly, offering links to both itunes and amazon mp3. They also let you listen to a song before you decide to buy it, which I always love, there is nothing worse than buying a song you have never heard before and it being super bad! Even though you can look up songs based on pace, they also have a link to playlists made by members. I love this because a lot of them have themes. Besides the songs and playlists there is also a way to map routes, very similar to Nike+ and map my run and just as accurate. 

Signing up is easy, you can create an account or just use your facebook or twitter log in. Signing up isn't necessary however, it is only needed to create and save playlists and routes. Once you have created an account you can also find people but you have to have their username or email address to find them. I like this feature because I love to see what my friends are running to and what is hot. I just wish it was easier to find people. 

So give this site a try, keep your playlist fresh. Music is a great motivator. I always put new songs on my playlist at night to get me pumped to listen in the morning during my workout. With 2 small kiddos I rarely get to listen to anything outside of itsy bitsy spider or Chipmunk versions of songs so my playlist is a sanctuary and Jog FM makes it even more functional. You can check them out here. If you join and want to see my playlist you can find me here!

My next goal is to create playlists by pace and put them on my phone. So have an 8 min, 9min and 10 min pace so I can work on decreasing my pace times!

Train hard, Minus your 46!

Using the Olympics to inspire.

I don't know about you but I love the Olympics. Especially the summer games. I am so keyed up about the coming games it consumes most of my thoughts. I have been clearing out my dvr so I can tape events that hit at odd hours just so I don't miss anything. I also love watching the trials and seeing who gets to go to London. Fun times. But there is more to the games than just watching it for me. They always make me channel my inner athlete and so I totally use the games to inspire me on my journey to optimal fitness and health.

I am sure there is some study out there somewhere that has exact facts and measurements but we all know that viewing tv persuades us to act certain ways and do certain things. How many times are you watching a show and for no reason whatsoever you all of a sudden need to eat and you are craving say Mexican. I bet the people on your show were eating chips and salsa. I took a class on advertising in college and the most compelling section was subliminal advertising. I can still spot a subliminal advertising message a mile away. So naturally watching a sporting event will channel your inner athlete. Just like watching Desperate Housewives channels your inner B**ch. How many times do you see tennis courts at your local park full of Wimbledon wanna-bes during the games, same for football and basketball. I can always tell when there is a basketball game on tv because my neighbors go out and play afterward.

So I encourage you to use the Olympic games to motivate you to get moving and push yourself. Watch the trials and games. Even if it isn't a sport you participate in it still gets your fitness juices flowing. Instead of looking at these athletes and think I will never be like that, think wow look at where hard work got them. Sure they have been competing in their sport since they were young but that doesn't mean you can't be the best  you can be now! Also use this time for the multitude of free resources floating around out there. Nearly every fitness magazine, blog or website is bound to have a story or special write up on an Olympic athlete and how they train and eat. See what they do, what motivates them, use it.

Train hard, Minus your 46.