keepin’ track
20 minutes on the treadmill at home, walked the mutt to 7-11. on the way, we passed where the nuns live and RD could have easily eaten sister mary margaret’s little white sump’erother. she kept calling the dog “rummy” or something like that; interesting name for a nun to call her pooch I would say. bought “fitness” mag yesterday to bring with me the next time AO and i hit the gym. february’s issue claims i can “get lean in 4 wks” and that there are “foods that erase belly fat”. had i known about this fat erasing food i wouldn’t be worried about slimming down today. turns out they lie, and the article is about the best foods for dieters. darn.
new recipe : chili rubbed pork chops w/sweet potatoes
Sunday afternoon I stocked up at Safeway to knock out 4 whole recipes from my new cook-mag. Decided the next recipe to try was “chili rubbed porkchops w/a sweet potato side”. Apparently a 3oz chop has 153 calories and 6 grams of fat, but who can find such a small porkchop?! I’m pretty sure the 2 I got weighed a little less than a pound, so ours were probably 300 calories and 12 grams of fat. But nevertheless, not too bad.
Here’s the recipe - combine enough brown sugar in a bowl to coat 2 chops, then add chili powder and salt/pepper to taste. Rub the granules into both sides of the chop, let sit for a few minutes. Heat olive oil in a pan, then cook the chops for about 5 mins each side; careful not to burn it - the sugar tends to cause that! I used a bone-in chop b/c the recipe said to use that kind, but next time I will go for a boneless chop!
Start the potatoes in advance - bowl 2 sweet potatoes until soft, the skins should come right off with your hand. Mash ‘em up with some honey and chop up a jalapeno or 2 into the mash. Add a little salt & a little lime juice if it’s available. Once again there were no limes to be found at the store - same for fresh thyme, WTF? I also couldn’t find spinach fettucine which also peeved me.
To top the chops, I used the drippings from the pork pan to sautee about a cup of chopped pineapple. Cook low for about 2 minutes until warm, remove from heat and then add some chopped scallions to it. Put this on the chops. I placed a little dollop of plain non-fat yogurt on the mashed sweets and it was a nice touch. Total calories for a “3oz. chop”, pineapple relish and 1 c. pots = 514 calories; 14g fat.
This was a super simple meal to make, and once again recommend it. We killed it on the slopes on Saturday, and I did 25 mins on the treadmill today! Now that I’m pretty sure we’re going to a Mexican beach for my 30th, I am REALLY REALLY trying to get in shape for a bikini…Dear god.
i just KILLED it on the elliptical
ok, so I rule…i found out if you go FAST on the elliptical, it’s not as hard, AND I can actually run on it LONGER. I did 2 miles in 20 mins plus a 2 minute cooldown. While I waited for the elliptical, I went a little while on the treadmill, but it wasn’t very fun. My lunch was yummy and healthy - pine nut butter w/pumpkin spread, red onions and arugula on some toasty bread. MMM!
you’ve got to change your evil ways
damn, i’m tired - maybe b/c i woke up before the sun did today, AND went to the gym. i actually went to the gym yesterday as well, even though AO didn’t. talk about some sticktoitiveness for me! did 10 mins on the cycle and then 12 mins on the elliptical. i had to get home to the mutt, so i didn’t do any arms or abs. i will do the abs here, in a little bit. i haven’t noticed too much of a difference yet, but i did try on these gap dress pants -size 8- this morning to see if they fit my fat arse. they did, but DAMN they were TIGHT! i continue to eat well. for breakfast it was a lg coffee w/skim & 2 pieces of toast w/low fat PB. lunch was half a turkey san & a bowl of chili. haven’t had dinner yet, but i did eat a banana after walking the pup. i am definitely consuming less than 2000 calories, but not sure how many i’m burning. i definitely burned at least 150 on the machines though. it better not be terribly windy on the mtn this weekend so we actually get up there. and please make it snow…
adventures in turkey pozole
AO and I hit the gym today - :15 on the treadmill on medium hill at a decent pace, then :10 on the elliptical. Then we did free weights for arms (which killed us both for some reason, maybe b/c it had been 4 days since we worked that part), then that thing that kills your abs and some situps on the ball.
A few days ago I bought a cooking magazine called Cuisine for Two “simple, healthy & delicious”. The name sold me immediately and I only checked out a few of the recipes but they seemed solid. I’ve been cooking for myself and RB for almost 7 yrs now, and my tried & true meals are a little old - so I decided I needed some help!
Tonight, finally prepared one of the recipes - Turkey Pozole, which is a kind of mexican soup. I must say, it was pretty great. I made enough to feed both of us at lunch and dinner tomorrow. Total time was :30.
Here’s how to make it (use your judgement on how much for everything, there’s no way to mess this up) :
For 5 mins, sweat an onion, garlic cloves, dried/seeded ancho chiles, chopped tomatoes (I used canned), 2 chopped corn tortillas, a little tomato paste, cumin, oregano, chili powder. Then, pour a can of chicken broth in there & simmer for 10. Put all this in a blender and do work. Transfer to a pot, keep on low.
Next you’re gonna brown that ground turkey meat (drain it) w/some oregano and cumin, then you add in a can of mexican hominy (drained), and squirt in some lime (which I didn’t have, I used a pinch of that mexican salt called limon!) A variation I did was take some of the hominy and blend it up with the tom/onion mixture. So then you put it all together in the pot and simmer for about 10 minutes.
I served it in a festive bowl & decorated it with sliced radishes & avocado, and some queso fresco. You could also decorate it with a lime wedge and cilantro. The recipe said to make cheddar corn muffins, but RB ate the rest of the eggs for breakfast. Better that way though, cuz I can’t resist muffins.
The mag says 280 calories for a cup of pozole and one muffin, w/10 grams of fat, & 19 grams protein. I recommend this recipe and give it a 5 out of 6 stars.
not a very exciting day
It was Monday. I got to work before 8:30 and left at around 6:30, didn’t take a lunch break OR go for a walk. I did a lot of testing on some new websites, sent emails and that’s pretty much it. While we were waiting for our boyfriends to pick us up, AO and I played each other at Literati. She can’t spell and she still beat me - only b/c she got lucky and used all her letters early in the game. The word was “PLIGHTERS”. Nice work.
Rodney got a nice long walk today, we ate angel hair w/meat sauce for dinner, JS brought me back some hot sauces from his trip to New Orleans, and made me jealous b/c he got to visit an Absinthe bar that’s about a million years old. Now I’m rethinking whether Vegas/Grand Canyon is a better idea for my 30th bday trip. I did check out flights for June on cheaptickets and the cheapest I found was around $350 which is just stupid.
Did not hit the gym today, so that means I have to go Tues-Thurs, and maybe Friday if my happy hour date cancels between now and then. The plan is to hit the Meadowlark and talk to whoever we need to talk to in order to get her artwork displayed.
big day today, beer tasting last night
We actually got up early-ish today to buy our season passes and hit the slopes for the first time this year. Loveland got about 14 inches in the past few days, so it was nice for our first time out. The sun was shining bright, keeping us warm and the wind was minimal. I did really good today and felt confident. RB wants me to “hit some jumps” this year, so we’ll see. With our pass we actually get 3 free days at Monarch this year, so maybe we’ll do that too.
Giants just beat the Cowboys today - that was unfortunate. Now who am I going to root for?
Yesterday we went to Total Beverage in Westminster to fill up our liquor supplies. We typically spend about $200 each time out there, but this time we spent almost $50 more than that. This is fine with me, as RB picked up the tab this time and now we have enough to drink for at least 6 mths. AND, what’s better - THIS is what our counter top looks like. It was more b/c we bought a lot of individual specialty beers. THEY SELL HITACHINO NEST BEER, and at almost $9 a pop (for a pint & a half) it’s not much of a deal. But I practically screamed when I saw it, so RB got me 2 bottles of it. I drank one last night, in addition to tastes of a few other strange beers.
We decided to hold a beer tasting last night - here’s how they ranked: #1 was Hitachino Nest Beer from Japan (I gave 8.9 pts, RB 8.5), #2 was Odolon Wheat Beer from Ukraine (avg of 7.6 pts), #3 was a Wheat Ale from Russia called Baltika at 6.9 pts, and last was a Lithuanian brew called Lobster Lovers w/an avg of 6.8 pts. We got a few others that we weren’t able to drink last night, and I’m looking forward to sampling those 5 later this week. I know I swore off beer, but it was a contest - I couldn’t let RB drink ALL the good beer we got. In total, I may have had 2 pints.
perhaps I should hit the gym today…
it’s been a while since i’ve had every meal OUT somewhere, but yesterday, i spent money on breakfast, lunch, dinner AND fourth meal. 1st meal consisted of a grande soy latte and pumpkin bread from the ‘bucks. Lunch was out w/colleagues at Baur’s Ristorante downtown. Our first time there (we just launched their website the previous day) was great. I had butternut squash soup and a mixed greens salad w/cherry-balsamic vinagrette. RB and I had dinner at Sushi Hai - happy hour prices, even though we still spent $45 on our food. I caved in and had some BEER of all things, but how could I resist the japanese beer? Oh, and sake, cuz it was only $4 for a large. We had salmon, eel, spicy octopus, etc. I DID NOT go to the gym on Friday b/c I did 4 days in a row - which I think will be my regimen - Mon-Thurs is pretty darn good. AND we’re going snowboarding tomorrow. Hopefully I won’t be painfully sore for days after. After playing poker (I won a chip set for 8th place, ha!) we went to Mezcal for PBRs (yes, more beer, but I only had 1) and $1 tacos. They were really good, and a lot of meat for a buck. They came with 2 corn tortillas for each, but I only ate 1 for a total of 3 tacos. SO, I was pretty much terrible yesterday, but I was just so proud of myself for being good all week that I backslid a little bit. Oh well. Tomorrow’s another day!
woo! did 3 days in a row
I dunno what it is about the Starbucks Christmas blend that I’ve been drinking, but I think it must contain some sort of crack. I start my day out with it in my big ol’ starbucks travel “mug”. I hesitate to call it a mug because a mug is short and squatty, my container is long and lean. So, I drink that today, eat one of them crunchy Luna bars for my breakfast, then a South Beach diet meal (chicken/pasta) for lunch. I get hungry by 4pm, but I keep drinking h20, and then I hit the gym for a quick workout. I do my 10 minutes (I’m working up to more0 this one machine is totally tweaked to difficult) of cardio on the elliptical, do some abs, lunges, and free weights for the arms. For my dinner, we eat fresh spinach microwaved to be all soft n’ yummy, applesauce, a little cajun pork chop and a small serving of organic mac ‘n cheese. Prolly shouldn’t be eating pork chops OR cheesy mac, but I think it’s acceptable b/c it was prepared healthily, and I balanced it out with spinach. I will for sure hit the gym tomorrow, and maybe even Friday for a whopping 5 day record!
