The Jogging Stroller

Training Update - Week 3

2012-02-02T16:26:00.000-05:00

Training is going ok. It's hard to get all my runs in when I can't run early in the morning before everyone's day starts (still nursing and not about to pump in the wee hours plus Aidan usually wakes up 5am and nurses/snuggles with me until 6:30am or 7am).

Last week I was able to get in this:

Tuesday: 30 minute HIIT (3.14 miles for the HIIT and 3.4 miles total) + some circuit training (25 minutes worth)
Friday: 4.93 miles with the jogging stroller + abs
Sunday: Great 7.16 mile run by myself + abs

Total mileage for the week: 15.49 miles
Total January miles: 59.59 miles (if I had only known, I would have run an extra 1/2 mile)

Hopefully, the little man will start sleeping a little later and not feel the need to snuggle every morning so I can get out there and pound the pavement while my family is still asleep. That would make things a lot easier. One day it will happen. I am trying not to rush it.

Today is so nice, I am going to try to get in a couple of miles this afternoon with the kiddos. Are you training for anything? How is it going?

5 Things I am lovin' - 1/24/2012

2012-01-24T14:08:00.001-05:00

Here is another installment of 5 Things I am lovin'.

1. Jillian Michaels

source

I got the option to try Jillian Michaels website for free for 4 weeks. I have always loved her on The Biggest Loser, but I have never been a big weights person. Also, with the holidays finally coming to an end, I noticed my eating habits were less than stellar. So I signed up and it's been pretty good. I am not following it exactly, because most of her meals are not vegetarian or vegan, but it gives me an idea of how I should do my meals. I think I need more protein in them really. I am following for a balanced oxidier, according to her quiz. Like I said, I am not going crazy trying to make what she is recommending, but using it as a guide to how much I should be eating. And I have been adding protein to most of my meals and snacks. It helps for a while, but I am just not a big protein person so after a week, I just want some cereal. :) I am also doing some of the circuit training she recommends. I know I can't do 4 days of circuit training (being that I am running 3-4 days a week training for the half), so I am trying to do as many days as I can. I usually can't finish it but I do as much as I can. It helps me get in 3 days of abs though, so that is good.

2. Detox Salad

source

I found this recipe over at Oh She Glows a while back and have made it several times now. It was a great way to start the New Year off right. It is a delicious, nutritious salad that is nice and light. It's a great way to start off a meal. I make a big batch and it lasts for a week. No one else in my family really cares to even try it (I might be able to get the little lady to try it if she sees me drizzle maple syrup over it). I used my new food processor to shred almost all of the ingredients, so it didn't take nearly as much time as before. I made it a couple of weeks ago already and can't wait to do it again. Yum! Thanks Angela for finding this one.

3. Multigrain tortillas

I am in love with these right now. They are low in calories, multrigran, but soft! I always find the whole wheat tortillas are hard and don't bend as easily. Not these, they are great. I can't say enough good things about them. Oh, did I mention, they aren't expensive either. I find them at Kroger in the international foods isle. Stock up people, they are delicious!

4. My new shoes

I love it when fashion intersects with mom friendly. I scored these boots as a Christmas present for myself via Christmas money. I love the no heel so I can wear them out and still run after children, carry them, etc. without having to worry about anything. I went with brown because I already have a lot of black boots and I scored a sweet deal on them as well.

I decided to get 2 new pairs of running shoes, my tried and true Mizuno Wave Creations, but also a pair of Mizuno Wave Riders. The wave riders are over an ounce lighter but are still somewhat supportive. Both were on sale (got the older version of both), but the wave riders were only $60 which is what pushed me to try them. I have been running in them for almost a month and really love them. Of course no long runs in them, but I will probably save my long runs for the creations. Now those puppies have some cushion. I have not had any feet problems since using my Mizunos.

5. NBC's The Firm

As I was looking for a great picture of this, I found out that it is likely to be cancelled. :( The hubs and I did not start watching it when it first came on, but we watched a couple of episodes over the weekend OnDemand. I personally fell in love with it. I wasn't expecting to like it so much, but I am hooked. I am so sad that more people aren't watching it. If you haven't seen it, give it a chance and watch one episode.

What are you lovin' right now?

Training weeks 1 & 2

2012-01-23T14:04:00.000-05:00

Today starts the first day of week 3 of training for a half marathon in March. I wanted to get a weekly update to you, but I just can't find the time to blog anymore. What is going on? Oh yeah, 2 kids.

So here is how week 1 went.

Planned/Actual

Monday
Cross-train/10 min. elliptical + 20 min. weights (Jillian Michaels circuit training)

Tuesday
Run 2 miles, easy/30 minute HIIT + abs

Wednesday
Cross-train/10 min. elliptical + 20 min. weights (Jillian Michaels circuit training)

Thursday
Rest/Played 3 sets of mixed double tennis (make-up from rainout)

Friday
5 mile tempo run/5 mile run with jogging stroller + abs

Saturday
Run 6 miles/Singles tennis match

Sunday
Rest/Mixed doubles tennis match

Total mileage: 8.43 miles :(

Week 2
Monday
Cross-train/Ran 5.76 miles on mill (@9:15 min pace) + circuit training

Tuesday
Easy 3 miles/Easy 3 miles on mill

Wednesday
Cross-train/Rest

Thursday
Rest/Rest

Friday
Run 5 mile speedwork/Ran 6.12 miles with jogging stroller

Saturday
Cross-train/Rest - I was a lazy bum here

Sunday
Rest/Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shed - Workout 1

Total mileage: 14.88 miles :)

I really lost my mojo in the middle of the week. I am glad I was able to get a good run in on Friday. Wednesday and Thursday were bad.

What do you do to get back on track?

Did I achieve 2011 goals and what are my 2012 goals?

2012-01-04T12:44:00.000-05:00

So here are the questions I posed one year ago. Let's see how I did.

Get Hope into a "big girl" bed (hopefully Jan. 2011)

CHECK - pretty easy transition except for climbing out of her bed repeatedly at the beginning and playing with her toys at night and nap

Get nursery ready for new baby (again Jan. 2011)

CHECK - but not until March really

Clean out office/gym area and make it more defined and less cluttered (Feb. 2011)

CHECK

Birth a healthy baby (ideally without having to be induced this time) (March 2011)

CHECK, went into labor by myself - 10 days early, had baby with no drugs

Make a smooth transition from a family of 3 to a family of 4

CHECK - Hope had little issues with her baby brother

Develop a schedule where I can get in my workouts with 2 kids while still nursing (that is going to hurt those early morning workouts, any advice?)

Kinda CHECK - I think I did pretty well considering no early morning runs really because I am still nursing (and hate pumping) and the lack of sleep until just recently

Get back into pre-pregnancy running shape (no date because I don't want to try to over due it)

Another kinda CHECK, I mean I did not PR, but some of my races were close

Participate in the Race for the Cure 5k (this is in May, just 6 weeks after I am due, so I say participate instead of run, because I may be pushing a double jogging stroller in this one)

CHECK - I started pushing the stroller, but it was so crowded the hubs ended up doing it so I could do a little bit of running

Run the Peachtree Road Race (10k), ideally in under 55 minutes (PR is 50:02), but again, not going to push myself.

CHECK - ran it in 52:26 (6.31 miles)

Run the 13.1 Marathon in Atlanta in October

CHECK, but after so much lack of sleep and poor training (due to lack of sleep), it was not a great race for me.

Would like to run some more (3 new) local fun races (5k's and other lengths that aren't traditional)

Ran 2 new races this year (a 4 miler in June and 5k in November)

Develop a stronger relationship with my husband (see they aren't all about running)

CHECK - we had a really good year, especially considering our family grew and we didn't sleep, can't wait for next year

Have 110 blog entries in 2011

FAIL - I got really bad at the end of the year, I am going to blame the little guy again.

Run 750 miles in 2011 (I would love to say 1,000 but with the whole pregnancy and giving birth thing, I think 750 is going to be ambitious enough)

FAIL - I ran 680.92 according to my records which could be off, but not by that much. I tried to keep track in my training log book and think I did pretty well. Will try for 750 again this year.

2012 Goals

Run 750 miles
Blog more (110 again)
Increase Interval training/Tempo runs - aim for 4 times a month (30 min HIIT on 1/3 was 3.12 miles)
Increase bond between my daughter and son (it's important to me that they have a good relationship with each other, especially since they are not the same gender)
Enjoy my time with my children - try not to be so rigid with my schedules
Submit a recipe for a contest (there is one that is due the end of March, so I think I will try that hopefully)
Investigate an herb garden again (don't have to start it this year, so think about how to do it right)
PR a race this year (doesn't matter the distance)
Accept changes in my life and try not the dwell
Aim to do 10 races this year
Go on a date with my husband that is not a wedding, anniversary, or holiday party (yep, I am aiming for just one considering last year was one and that was before the little man came)
Continue to build a better relationship with hubs (I know, how subjective, right).
Try to be a more positive person.
Abs workouts 3 days a week (abs are still very weak, but not sure they will ever get strong after 2 pregnancies).
Embrace my new roles (not going to get into this right now)

What are your goals? Anything else I should add?

Tough Mudder anyone?

2012-01-03T16:19:00.000-05:00

So I read across this race in my Runner's World mag and thought, could I do this? One of my hopes for 2012 is do some more races. I know it was hard with the little man coming in March and then not sleeping until Dec., so my fall races were slimmer than I had hoped. Ideally, I would like to do one race a month (on average). This race is in Feb. It's 10-12 miles but has lots of difficult obstacles. That is where the problem runs in. I can run the distance, but do I have the strength to complete the obstacles? I don't have much time to train either. Have you run this race before? How "tough" do you need to be?

My running is improving now that I am sleeping. But I don't do a lot of strength training (am adding more abs in the new year though). I do yoga but usually only a couple times a month. Maybe I would do more if I was training for something. I also tote a 9 month old around all day. The race says you should be able to do 25 push-ups (could get there easily) and at least 6 pull-ups (hello hips). Yeah, I will probably never be able to do 6 pull-ups again. So I have a lot of doubts. I also am not sure I have someone to run with. My brother-in-law is interested but he is in such good shape that he might really try and compete (top 5% get to go to nationals). I know there is a lot of camaraderie so I wouldn't be a lone but it would be nice to run it with someone.

Normally, I would just sign up and then start training but the editorial director at Livestrong (if you don't currently read his blog, you should, he has some really good insight) ran it and made it sound really tough (and he really works out, like at a gym and stuff).

So this is where I am. If you have run the race, let me know your thoughts. What kind of training did you do? How long did you train? Should I go for it or wait another year before trying it?

2011 to 2012

2011-12-31T23:31:00.000-05:00

Will have to look back and see what all I wanted to accomplish, but happy new year! 2011 was great. Can't wait to see 2012 has in store.

5 things I am loving right now

2011-12-29T11:01:00.002-05:00

I love it when people tell me what they love (or hate) as it gives me a little help which as a busy mom, I can always use. So here are some of the things I love right now.

1. Peas and Thank You Cookbook

What can I say about this book? It not only has great recipes but it is a hilarious read. I read it as a book the first time around. The stories she tells will have you laughing out loud. We have tried many of the recipes already. We even made Santa Mama Pea's Sugar Cookies (and he loved them BTW). Check out her book if you are in the market for a new cookbook (or even if you are not).

2. Garmin 305

I have not been running as much as I would like to right now, but I got this for my birthday a few years back and I wonder how I lived without it for so long. It is so nice to just leave your house and start running. If I want to run 6 miles, I can just leave in any direction and after 3 miles turn around and head home. I don't have to spend time researching routes. And I am a numbers person so I love having the miles I ran with the time it took me to run it, etc. Love, love, love this thing!

3. True Nutrition Protein Powder

This stuff I have found to be the best as far as vegan protein powders go without costing me a fortune. I couldn't find anything good at the regular grocery store (where I traditionally bought hubby's), so I ventured to GNC where I found this brand. It was the only vegan protein powder they had, so I bought it. It wasn't bad. I think I paid $13.99 for almost a pound. It was chalky and I could only get the vanilla, but I was fine with that. I thought I couldn't do any better unless I wanted to pay a fortune, until I found True Nutrition. You create your own combination of protein powder and it's very reasonably prices (I would say cheap but you have to pay for shipping). I got myself a combination of 1/2 pea protein and 1/2 rice protein, vanilla flavored, and unsweetened (I wanted to be able to sweeten it myself). I got the hubs 2 different whey proteins, chocolate flavored, sweetened with stevia. I ended up getting us each 2 lbs. because shipping was only a $1 more if we doubled our order, making it cheaper per pound. I was nervous when it came, but wow, it is not chalky at all. The powder is much finer and I am very happy with it. I got 4lbs for $44 (2 vegan and 2 whey). The whey is much more expensive than the pea and rice, but still very reasonable. I have only made smoothies with it so far, but I am hoping to do some baking (bars) with it soon. Maybe this weekend.

Why the combination you might be asking? Well I hated to just get all rice protein powder when I had the power to make any combination I could possibly think of. I think those 2 are the only vegan options I used them both. We also got the powder in the free bags to save money, so I had to transfer them into containers when it got here. I may have just ended my search for vegan protein powder.

4. The Big Bang Theory

I had never seen this show, but the hubs started watching it over Thanksgiving OnDemand (love OnDemand) and thought it was pretty funny (did I mention he has a PhD in biochemistry). I slowly started watching a few and have since gotten into it. They show reruns on TBS now, so we caught a few while wrapping Christmas presents late at night after the kids were in bed. It nice to be able to watch so many episodes that I haven't seen before.

5. Running Log Books

Because not all my runs occur on the road (and my Garmin can upload to the internet), it has been nice to have somewhere to put all my runs down on paper. I got one of these a couple years back and used it last year. I specifically asked for one last Christmas and hubs said it was a lot harder to find then he had anticipated, so he had to order it and it didn't make it here by Christmas. Oops. I like to have that one place where I can put everything and then look back and see where I have come from. I forgot to ask for one for Christmas this year, so I guess I need to try and find one. It appears book stores do not carry them, so I could order again, or maybe a running store?

Bonus Love: This guy

3 days before Christmas, my little guy slept through the night for the first time. Since then, he has only woken up during the night twice. It has made my life so much better now that I am sleeping more. I have so much more energy and can actually get through the day. Thank you son for sleeping (it only took 9 months and 10 days but who's counting).

So this is what I am loving right now. What are you into?

Starting to sleep more, and feeling better

2011-12-28T12:24:00.000-05:00

I know, I have been terrible, but being sick, not sleeping, and the holidays, I have had zero time to blog.

2 days before Christmas the little guy slept through the night for the first time. Yay!!! Since then, he has been doing really well. He doesn't always sleep through the night, but he does most nights and when we wakes up it's not for very long. Thank goodness!!! Only took 9 1/2 months. So now that he is sleeping, I have been recovering from being under the weather. I am not sick very often and I felt like I was sick forever this time around. But with the holidays, we have been so busy. I am still cooking a lot, some days more than others. Unfortunately, I did not take a lot of pictures but some things I love to make for the holidays are my mom's pumpkin bread recipe, which she used to make all the time during the holidays. I have kept the recipe the exact same except I made it vegan (exchanged real eggs for flax eggs), but that is the only change. The recipe calls for canola oil already so I don't have to change up the recipe much which is good because I wanted to keep it similar to what she used to make. Memories!

I also make semi-homemade cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning. This was the first year I made them vegan. They turned out pretty well, but didn't rise the second time around as much as they should have so they didn't look very pretty, so I didn't want to take a picture of that either. Any tips to helping dough rise when it's cold outside?

Christmas

I got a new food processor. I have only had a junior food processor and my magic bullet and I just needed a full size one. Now, I am not sure where I am going to put it. Do you store your food processor or do you keep it on the countertop? I haven't gotten it out of the box, but the box is big so I am not about storing it.

The kids had an unbelievable Christmas!

No, Santa did not give her all of those. Santa is responsible for the dollhouse.

Being sick and tired, I have not gotten a lot of workouts in. I have only run a handful of times and broke out the yoga dvd too, but not much. I know I need to get back to working on my abs. I have neglected them for too long. I don't know if they are just weak because I haven't done as many ab workouts after the little guy compared to Hope or if my abs are just shot after carrying 2 babies. My new goal is abs 3 times a week.

I also signed up for the GA Publix Half Marathon a while back. I plan to do a 10 week training plan which will start in mid January. I would like to start running again constantly before then so I am ready to train.

How was everyone's Christmas? Were you naughty or good? Santa knows!

Where have I been and Turkey Trot 5k

2011-12-01T15:09:00.001-05:00

Let's see . . . kids not sleeping, crazy holiday travels which require me to start packing and prepping weeks in advance, and a tired mama. The good part was since the hubs had only taken off 4 days all year (when our son was born), he was due for a vacation. And surprisingly, even though I took off 12 weeks from work, I still had plenty of vaca time as well. My dad invited the whole family (extended fam) to FL for Thanksgiving. My brother-in-law (the genius that he is) decided we should take off the entire week and if we were going to take the whole week off, then why not leave the Friday before Thanksgiving after work. I tell you the man is a genius. So, the week before Thanksgiving, hubs and I started gathering up everything to pack for 8 days in FL. So the kids and I took and picked up the hubs from work on Friday and started our way down to FL. I was so excited to have an easy Thanksgiving. The trip down was uneventful but we didn't arrive until 1:15am. Yikes! Of course both kids woke up and it took a little while to get them back down. For all the families coming down, we had 3 condos. So Saturday, we were able to trade off some to get some much needed naps. The weather was ok on Saturday, overcast but in the high 60's. We made our way to the beach to do some playing. The ocean was freezing.

The days following were warm and sunny and we were able to hang out at the beach for some time during the day.

On Thanksgiving, we had a number of family members who participated in the 5K Turkey Trot near where we were staying. We knew the course would be flat (hello, FL), so everyone was hoping to do well. I finished 2nd in my age group (24:05), my brother-in-law won his age group (19:30) and my father-in-law won his age group (24:33).

Dinner was stress free and then we headed home last Saturday.

My lack of posting is from my darling son still not sleeping well and I just haven't had the energy to write or run for that matter (have not even exercised once this week and it's Thursday afternoon). Also, since my daughter has started school, I have had more responsibility (I am the PTO President of her pre-school and chairperson for the Breakfast with Santa). I have been cooking some, but haven't posted many recipes yet. I took pictures, so if I ever get around to it, you will see I am still going.

I hope to post more soon.

Marathon Relay - Recap

2011-11-07T10:05:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, I got the privilege to run in the Atlanta Marathon Relay for Team Trees Atlanta. I had never run in a marathon relay, and really had a good time. I liked the "team" aspect of the race. I was not in charge of the team, so I just got to sit back and see how it was all going to pan out. That Staruday, I actually walked a 5k for Making Strides against Breast Cancer. One of my bunko/tennis friends formed a team, and we walked the 5k together. Because it was not competitive at all, I was able to bring my jogging stroller and both kiddos (yep, hubby had the entire morning to himself). The kids were awesome that morning. We even ended the morning with a nice little breakfast at one of my favorite places - The Flying Biscuit. I had the scrambled tofu (so yummy).

Ok, back to the marathon relay, it was going to be cold so I was trying to figure out what I was going to wear. All I knew was that I was going to get a Trees Atlanta shirt, but I was pretty sure it was going to be short sleeved. On Friday I was told I would be doing the first leg (5.1 miles with a lot of uphills). Well by Saturday afternoon, it had changed. Now I was going to do the longest leg (8.4 miles with some hills). The captain was going to run the first leg and then run with me on the 2nd leg (he wanted to get a real workout in). Fun! Someone to run with!

Sunday morning, I was up at 4:15am with the little guy, and no, that was not the first time he was up either. So by the time my ride (the captain and my brother-in-law) picked me up at 5:30am, I was wide awake and very talkative. We rode down to the race and got the lay out. We met up with our teammates and then I was off to get on the bus to take me to the 1st exchange. I got on the last bus and he even got lost, but that was fine with me because it was a lot warmer in the bus than waiting around outside. I had decided not to use the porta potty at the start, but to wait until I got to the exchange. Yeah, there was a line. It took me forever to get through it but I didn't have anything else to do.

The race had started. They were giving us updates as to when the first person got to each mile. Then as more runners came on, the race volunteers started shouting the numbers as they approached. It wasn't too long before I heard 137. Holy moly! That's my team. I got ready and saw Eric (captain + brother-in-law + awesome runner). He passed the arm band to me and then we were off. He was telling me about the course he had just run (he didn't think it was too bad at all), and that first 1.5 miles went back super fast. I couldn't believe how well we were doing. I told him I wanted to do a 8:20 minute/mile pace, or at least that was my goal. The men on my team are pretty fast so I didn't want to slow them down too much. We chatted and he coached me through some crazy hills, we had some gu, drank some water, and then between miles 9 and 10 of the marathon was our cheering section. Trees Atlanta volunteers were out screaming and cheering for us. They were so excited to see us and I got really pumped after seeing them. Eric talked me through the rest of my leg, and we finished my leg averaging 8:31 pace. Not too bad. I passed the band to the next teammate and looked for my family. Found them. Unfortunately, they missed us coming in so, no running pics of me.

Just after we finished. Go Team Trees Atlanta.

My personal cheerleader with my medal and some chocolate milk.

And of course, my brother-in-laws cheerleader, who is not a morning person (aka my baby sister).

Our team finished our relay in just over 3:36. Pretty awesome if you ask me. It was a fun race, and I would definitely do it again.

And just because I missed a good Halloween post, here are the kiddos all dressed up.

(Ariel/mermaid and a peapod)

Look what I won

2011-10-21T15:48:00.003-04:00

I won a giveway from Natalie over at Lil Runner. I now have some fall flavors of Clif bars. Yum!

I survived Hopeapalooza

2011-10-20T15:03:00.000-04:00

Last week was such a crazy week, I can't believe I survived. My little girl is 3 years old. I can't believe it. I feel like she is a child now, not a baby or even a toddler (I know she is technically still a toddler, but it doesn't feel like it).

Little Miss Hope Cecile has been giving us drama from the very beginning. Not only was she conceived with love, but also modern science and medicine. Then when I was 20 week pregnant, her growth dropped a little. They told us not to worry but come back for another extensive ultrasound in 6 weeks. We did and she had dropped even more, being diagnosed with borderline IUGR (intrauterine growth restriction). I was put on modified bestrest and told to consume as many calories as possible (easy to say after they freak you out so bad that the thought of food makes you want to vomit). I won't take you through all of the details, but the specialists wanted me induced after she stopped growing at 38+ weeks which was something I didn't want, but had been so upset for so long, I just wanted her out and healthy. The induction went well and relatively fast for inductions and my "miracle" baby was born on Oct. 14, 2008 at 7:30am (yep I labored all night long).

3 years later, . . .

For her birthday, we took her out to dinner and to see Disney on Ice - Dare to Dream. Dinner was nearby the arena at Johnny Rockets. Little Hope wanted a "pink" shake and chicken fingers. And they have a very good veggie burger, so I was happy.

At first, she didn't like the show.

We were very close, it got dark fast, and it was loud, so it was a good 20 minutes before she calmed down. She survived and really enjoyed the second half. The next day was her family birthday party, aka Christmas for Hope.

For dinner, I did 2 veggies soups, vegetarian chili with butternut squash (pretty much used this exact recipe), and baked potato soup. The chili is very good, btw.

For her cake, Hope wanted a pink cake with pink icing and pink ice cream.

It was a whirlwind weekend, but we survived and lived to tell the story, including this guy . . .

Faux egg salad Sandwich

2011-10-13T10:27:00.001-04:00

So I blogged a week or so ago about my Vegan Cobb Salad. I know what you were thinking. Great, but what am I going to do with the rest of can of chickpeas? Well I will tell you. It's called "Faux Egg Salad" and it's delicious. And even better, you don't have to dirty a lot of dishes or gadgets.

It's very simple, but very yummy.

Serves 1

Ingredients

1/2 cup canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 T mayo (vegan or regular)

1 T diced pickles

Pinch of salt and pepper

2 slices of great bread (I used pumpernickel)

Nondairy butter (or regular butter) (optional)

Directions

Place chickpeas in a small bowl and mash them with a fork.

Add mayo next and continue to mash. You can have it as smooth or lumpy as you like it. The first time I did it, I kept it pretty lumpy, but the next time, I smoothed it out more (I prefer smoother).

Add in the pickles and salt and pepper to taste.

Lightly toast bread and pat with a little butter.

Place chickpea mixture on bread and serve.

This is a great, filling lunch for vegetarians and vegans when you want something with some bulk. I love it!

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Half marathon - Race Recap

2011-10-12T14:56:00.000-04:00

Oops. Should have gotten this out sooner, but blogger is just taking a back seat to everything right now and things have been crazy.

Timeline

Saturday: The hubs studied all day for his exam so I was on kid patrol. We went to Home Depot for their Kid's Workshop (it's free BTW) and the little lady made a helicopter.

Then it was off to the "Expo" to get my race number. Not much to do there so I just grabbed my number, shirt, and swag and left. The rest of the day was typical. Kids went to bed, the hubs and I watched some football and then he left to spend the night out to get a good night's sleep. I was feeling very nervous. I felt like I hadn't trained enough, and was concerned about hitting a wall (I know it's only 13.1 miles), but I was nervous. With my lack of sleep, I felt weak. I set my alarm for 4:50am. The little guy woke up at 1:00am. That was pretty good for him. I fed him, then put him back to bed. At 4:20am, my daughter woke up with a bad dream. She was crying. I went in there to help her. Calmed her down and at 4:30am, the little guy woke up. I fed him (this was going to hurt my pumping that I was supposed to do at 4:50am) and tried to put him back down. Didn't work. For the next hour, I was back in there every 5 minutes. He would not go down. At 5:30am my sister arrived to watch the kids and I was off. I told her good luck (he didn't go down until 6:15am btw).

I drove over to the race, not far from my house. Got there in plenty of time. Had my pre-race snack of banana and almond butter. Went to the potty (no line) and then went back to the car because I was freezing. I had debated about what to wear. I decided on running capris, dryfit shirt, and a long sleeve dryfit shirt. I knew I would be fine for the race, but I was cold now. I sat in my car for 20 minutes and then I had to pee again. Well now the line was super long, so I scratched that idea. I did a warm-up lap and ate my Clif Shot Blok and got in line. It was a smallerish race. 2,500 runners or so.

Race started at 7am. I was off. I felt ok. Looked at my watch (sometime I typically don't do) to see how my pace was. About 8:30 at the beginning. That was good. I didn't want to go out too fast. Now I am not sure if it's age, lack of sleep, or lack of training, but I used to be a 1 mile warm-up girl. After one mile, I was ready to go. Not anymore! Now, it's at least 2 miles. Those 1st 2 miles were hard. I felt awful. I thought, there is no way I am going to finish this, let alone averaging 8:17 minute miles. After mile 2, I said (to myself), ok, all miles under 9:00 minutes would be great for me. Mile 3 - 9:00. Crap! Ok, from now on. After that, I started to get into a groove and my legs started to really loosen up and feel better. I was only getting water at the hydration stations, because you never know what the gatorade is going to taste like. Sometimes it's watered down and that's great, but sometimes, it's really strong and that is not good for my tummy while running. At mile 4, I took off my long sleeve and tied it around my waist. Around mile 5, I had another Shot Blok and then another around mile 9. Basically, when I noticed my energy getting low, I had one. I was familiar with the route from doing this race 2 years ago (last year I was pg so I couldn't run it). Miles 10 and 11 were hilly and that sucked because both splits were over 9:00 minutes, but other than that, I stuck to my under 9 minutes and kept it consistent.

At the end, I started picking people off. Thank you to the course for giving me 2 small downhills at the very end. So nice! I saw a guy right in front of me at the end, so I just took off. We ended up tying according to official race results, but in my eyes, I beat him.

Would have loved to have finished under 1:55:00, but oh well. Maybe next time. Average pace was just under 8:46. Not bad considering I have a 6 month old at home who doesn't let his mommy sleep. :) Hey, I am trying not to beat myself up over my crappy time.

After finishing, I grabbed my food and water and started to walk around. There was a place to get a massage but I was holding all my food, so I decided to just go home. No fan support for me. Lucky for me, my daughter greeted me at the door and loved my new bling (race medal).

We spent the rest of the day going to the park (pretty day) and watching football. The hubs called at 2:20pm saying he was just now breaking for lunch because his computer crashed on question #9. Took them over 2 hours to fix. He also said the test was hard. His goal was to start back by 3:00pm so he would call me around 6pm when he finished. 5:30pm hit and after that, I just kept looking at the clock. At 6:02pm, he called. HE PASSED!!!!! I was so relieved and excited for him. So while I didn't PR my race by means, I got the chance to run and hubs is a genius. Good day!

Race Results

Chip Time: 1:55:11

Overall: 685

Sex Place: 209

Division Place: 44

Vegan Cobb Salad

2011-10-05T12:43:00.001-04:00

There are few things I miss since going vegetarian a few years ago, but now that dairy is out of the question, I have been mostly vegan for the past 2 1/2 months (ok, some ice cream has fallen into my mouth a couple of times, but that's it). For the most part, I can make anything that I had before in a vegetarian or vegan way. The problem is when I go out. Now I don't go out very much and definitely even less with kids, but when I only sleep for a couple of hours continuously, and try to run, maybe work that day, straighten up the house, make lunches for the next day, etc. I am pretty tired and making a lovely dinner is not a priority. Of course, I would rather be in the kitchen making a yummy dinner than cleaning the house or doing laundry. So I have had to down play dinner for a past few months. One thing I used to love is cobb salads. I never made them at home, but I used to order them a lot. Now I know they are not healthy, but boy they were yummy. Well this is something I really can't order anymore, so I had to come up with something I could do at home.

Vegan Cobb Salad

(serves 1)

Ingredients

2-3 cups romaine lettuce

1/2 plum tomato

1/4 avocado, chopped

1/2 cup chickpeas, drained and rinsed

2 strips of veggie bacon (I used Smart Bacon by LightLife)

1/4 cup celery

1/4 cup non-dairy cheese (I used Daiya cheddar shreds)

2 tablespoons of your favorite dressing (I wanted creamy so I went with Goddess dressing)

Directions

Make bacon according to packages (I have microwaved it and cooked it on the stovetop, if you have the time use the stovetop)
Spread out lettuce
Take each ingredient and line them up over the romaine
Sprinkle on the dressing

Yes, simple directions, but like I said, this was never something I made, I usually just ordered it in restaurants. I haven't found a restaurant that does vegan cobb salads, so this is a great way to get my fix. The chickpeas are a great substitute for eggs here. And I usually got mine without chicken anyway, so I don't miss a thing with this version.

Do you have any meals you now make at home that you used to get only when you were out?

Last scheduled run before the big day

2011-10-01T21:56:00.000-04:00

So I ran my 3 miles on Friday and only missed one run this week (work and lack of sleep are to blame). I am not feeling great about the race, but I am excited to be getting out there. I had planned on running a race in Aug and Sept but I got sick in Aug and my lack of sleep made it hard for me to get out of the house early to race. Picked up my race number today. Not much there other than some shirts for sale. I had both kiddos so I just grabbed my Number and headed out (we had just come from Home Depot Crafts, Hope made a helicopter).

I have never run a half this unprepared. I did not get all my training runs, and I have not slept a full night's sleep in 6 1/2 months. My legs had a hard time recovering from long runs because I can't sleep more than 2 1/2 hours at a time. Should be interesting.

I am a competitive person but I am going to try and go out there and treat it as a nice long solo run. I have a new mix on my iPod and the weather will be cool (43 degrees at the start). I hope that will be enough to keep me loose. I set my Garmin virtual partner for 8:23 min pace, which would have me finish just under 1:50:00. Not a PR by any means but I would find that respectable. We will see how respectable I do tomorrow.

Also, just as I finish my race, my poor hubs will be taking the patent bar (9am-4pm). So if you are going to pray for anything, pray for him to pass. That is more I portent then my little race.

One pot meal and August running numbers

2011-09-19T14:02:00.001-04:00

So for all you busy people who don't have time to do a lot of dishes, here is a take on fried rice that only requires one pot. It is also nice because it's a good clean out the fridge meal as well.

My One Pot Fried Rice

Ingredients

1 T dark sesame oil

3-4 cups fresh veggies, chopped (I used carrots, onions, broccoli, celery and red bell peppers) - frozen could be used as well

1 cup uncooked brown rice

2 cups water (or vegetable stock)

3 T soy sauce

A couple of dashes of hot sauce

1 T toasted sesame seeds

Seitan chick'n strips or rotisserie chicken (optional)

Directions

Heat oil on medium high heat in a large pan with high enough sides.
Add chopped veggies and saute for 4-5 minutes.
Add uncooked rice and toast the rice or another 4-5 minutes, until it starts to turn brown.
Add water stir to combine and cover. If you have real brown rice, it will take 30-40 minutes to cook the rice. If you have parboil, it will take significantly less time. Stir occasionally.
Remove lid and stir. Add soy sauce, hot sauce, and sesame seeds in. You can also add in your protein now, or just add it to the plate.

Serves 4.

Lots of colorful veggies

Cooking the rice in the sauteed veggies save you on number of pots to clean.

Dinner is served! I added seitan to mine and the hubs got rotisserie chicken.

Running Numbers

I am such a numbers person that I have to tally up my miles at the end of the month. Despite the lack of sleep and not feeling 100%, I surpassed July's number (72. something ) in August with 75.29 (and one week I only ran 4.04 miles). I hope to get up over 100 soon. I just the little guy to do some sleeping (we did pretty well on Friday and Saturday, but he made me pay last night, it was bad).

Do you have any one pot wonders? Happy Monday!

Another kick to the head

2011-09-14T12:35:00.001-04:00

When it rains, it pours. So I took the little man to the peds for his 6 months check up. I mentioned again, that we are having trouble with him sleeping still. Well his sleeping is so bad, that it is now affecting his growth. He has dropped off in height, weight, and head circumference.

                                   Before 6 months                            At 6 months
Height                        40-50th percentile                         25th percentile
Weight                        25th percentile                              10th percentile
Head circumference     5th percentile                                2nd percentile

I took him to the ped at 5 months because his sleep was so bad that I wanted to have him checked out (he checked out fine), but they weighed him then and in one month, he actually lost 2oz. Yikes!!!

So he is on probation. He has to come back in one month for another weight check. The doc is only mildly concerned because he did meet all of his developmental milestones, so his lack of sleep is only affecting his growth currently. Our doc thinks that because he is not sleeping enough, he is not giving his body enough rest in order to grow, but also, because he is not sleeping, he is burning more calories. Double whammy!

So we are also on order to start solids twice a day too. We started solids last week, and he is not crazy about them. Some days he would eat it and some days no. Well after the ped appointment, I went home and gave him 1 tablespoon of rice cereal and 1 tablespoon pureed carrots (yes, I make my own babyfood, it's fun really). He ate it all. So that was good. But he had 3 immunizations and 1 flu shot, so guess who had a reaction to the flu shot, yep, the little man. He got a nasty fever, runny nose, and just didn't feel good. So, he refused all solids for the past 2 days. Awesome little man, don't you know we are on probation here.

And because of my lack of sleep (from his lack of sleep), I felt like the worst mother in the world after that appointment. I cried in the room after the doctor left. I called my husband and he asked if this was me overreacting or if it was that serious. I told him I knew I was overreacting, but I am so emotional right now from my lack of sleep, I just felt awful.

So since the ped appointment, he hasn't slept well because he is having a reaction to the flu shot. His fever did break last night, and we instituited a sleep with mom night last night. The hubs slept on the couch and the little man and I were in the bed together. Everytime he woke up, I was there to feed him or console him. The hubs slept much better, but guess what? We both woke up with sore throats. No!!! I can't get sick!

If anyone has any advice on babies and sleeping, please tell me your secrets. I feel like we have tried them all including some from my own baby whisperer.

FYI - I did get all my training runs in last week. I got to run my 9 miles alone on Saturday morning. The air was cool and it was a great run. I am hoping to get a nice 10 miles in this weekend if that is at all doable.

I also have made some good recipes that I hope to post soon, I just haven't had the energy to do much posting period these days.

My less than stellar weekend

2011-09-05T22:04:00.001-04:00

I am exhausted. I thought my daughter was a bad sleeper. My son woke up 7 or 8 times last night. I am drained. I have lost it. So no, I didn't get all my runs in. I also had a few unexpected things go on this week, so I could't make it to the farmer's market, which meant not many fresh fruits and veggies this past week, so my meals were not as healthy as they should have been. So I didn't feel my best either. Did I mention that I am having a few nursing issues so it's very painful still to nurse and even worse to pump. Neither kid is sleeping so everyone in my house is cranky. My morning actually started off with me crying in bed. You know when your day starts off like that, it's going to be bad. My weekend started out so great, I don't know how things changed unless it's the lack of sleep that is just getting to me.

On Friday, my brother-in-law had off work, so he went running with me, a lot of fun. Then I spent the night out Friday at my sister's house so I could get a solid night sleep, and I did, but we got up early to get a workout in before we started our day. We did 1 hour strength training class and 30 minutes of yoga at Chateau Élan before we hit the spa for a little R and R. I had a nice massage and a great time, but we tried to do so much that by the time we got home at 2pm, I was ready for a nap (which I didn't get). I could tell my mood was not great.

Sunday, I didn't even think about running. The little guy slept ok, woke up a couple of times, but we have had worse. Sunday night was awful though. And today has just been out of control, so no, another day of no running for me.

On one happy mote, I went to the farmer's market today (by myself) so we have lots of fresh foods in our house now. I had a nice big spinach salad for dinner. I needed that after this week's eating habits. I just feel so much worse when I eat bad. I am just having a "My life is a Greek Tragedy" weekend. I am hoping things are better tomorrow. I just hate when I have a long weekend with my family, that it isn't anything but fantastic. My husband works such long hours that to have an extra day with him and not be able to take advantage of it sucks!

I now have to deal with the fact that my fall racing schedule might not be as packed as I had hoped. I am just not going to be able to get all my runs in, and that is ok, but I feel so good when I get a good run in. Of course it's hard to get a good run in when you aren't sleeping well. I don't know what tonight will bring as far as sleep. I feel like we have tried everything. I don't know what is left to try.

Ok, enough of the pity party. I hope everyone is/had a great long weekend.

Training updates - 2 weeks worth

2011-08-29T14:55:00.000-04:00

I have been battling with this lack of sleep for the past 5 months. It's not getting a whole lot better either. 2 weeks ago, I was just not feeling well, so I just couldn't get a lot of runs in (only 1 to be precise). Last week, I tried to get back into things and did pretty well, but struggled at the beginning of the week. Not sure if it's due to my diet or lack of calories.

So I switched up the past 2 weeks of my Runner's World training plan, and hear is how it worked out.

Suggested Monday: Rest/Cross Train
Actual Monday: Rest

Suggested Tuesday: 4 mile easy run
Actual Tuesday: Rest

Suggested Wednesday: Rest/Cross Train
Actual Wednesday: Rest

Suggested Thursday: 4 mile easy run

Actual Thursday: Tennis practice (1 hour)
Suggested Friday: 4 mile easy run

Actual Friday: Rest
Suggested Saturday: Rest/Cross Train
Actual Saturday: 4.04 miles with the jogging stroller

Suggested Sunday: 4 mile easy run

Actual Sunday: Rest
Suggested mileage: 16 miles
Actual mileage: 4.04 miles

This past week was much better, but sleep, diet, etc. are still contributing making working out a struggle some days.

Suggested Monday: Rest/Cross Train

Actual Monday: Rest
Suggested Tuesday: 6 mile tempo run (warm, 4 miles @ 8:39; cool)
Actual Tuesday: 5.17 miles with 4.17 miles @ 6.5-7.0mph pace, ab wheel + pilate exercises
Suggested Wednesday: 3 mile easy run
Actual Wednesday: Rest

Suggested Thursday: Rest/Cross Train
Actual Thursday: 3.01 easy miles with jogging stroller, Tennis practice (1 hour)
Suggested Friday: 4 mile easy run
Actual Friday: Rest

Suggested Saturday: Rest/Cross Train
Actual Saturday: 5.16 miles with jogging stroller, ab ripper X
Suggested Sunday: 8 mile easy run @ 10:08
Actual Sunday: 8.34 miles @ 9:44 pace

Suggested mileage: 21 miles
Actual mileage: 21.68 miles

I am trying to eat more, upping my protein as much as I can, and eating whole grains. Hoping this week, I have more energy, but the little guy is making sure I don't. :)

Off dairy again and the stuff that goes along with it

2011-08-27T09:00:00.001-04:00

Several weeks ago, during the time when the little guy wasn't sleeping at all, we also noticed he had some tummy issues. I did some research and found that moms consuming dairy whole nursing can affect their little ones. That was the only thing that had changed about my diet. I had limited dairy while trying to lose the baby weight and it seems to give me more energy too. Well after the baby weight came off and I was running more, I added dairy back in for the calories. I was able to maintain my weight, but the little guy didn't approve. So now I am back off dairy, and I thought this would be a good time to try veganism (so no eggs either). I got the book (from the library), Veganist. I read it cover to cover in just days (that's pretty good when you don't have a lot of free time). She doesn't think eating soy is bad for you (something a lot of vegans and vegetarians have opposite opinions on). She also has some sample menus which included a good bit of fake meat (another controversial topic). It appears to be her way to get the protein you need.

So I have been doing the vegan thing for the past several weeks (a couple of slip ups), but for the most part, I have done pretty good. I am pretty hungry and have a difficult time getting that full feeling. Thing were going ok, until this week. I had serious troubles with my run on Tuesday and was sore for 2 days, aka not recovering well all of a sudden. Also, some of you may know that after you have a baby, your hair falls out, well mine has been falling out still. I was reading a post from Matt at No Meat Athlete about protein consumption. He mentions hair falling out and having a hard time recovering from workouts. Now I am concerned I am not getting enough protein to sustain my lifestyle (nursing my son and running 20-25 miles a week, cross training 1-2 times a week). I am getting so much conflicting statements, do I eat soy and fake meat to get my protein up, and how much protein should I be eating? Any good tips on foods with proteins that are easy that I might not be eating? I know there are people more active than me that have a vegan diet and perform well.

I hope to get a lot of comments and advice.

Best Vegan Pesto

2011-08-26T11:34:00.000-04:00

Well the little guy has some really bad gas when I eat dairy, so I am back off of dairy. So I have been playing around with some recipes. Here is one I love.

Best Pesto Sauce/Spread

Ingredients

1 bunch basil (1 1/2 - 2 cups)

1/2 cup EVOO

1 cup raw almonds, toasted

1/3 cup nutritional yeast

5 cloves garlic, chopped

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

3 tablespoons low sodium veggie stock

Directions
1. Toast almonds at 350 degrees for 5-10 minutes.
2. Throw almonds into the food processor first, and chop. I like to do this first because it gets harder when you have all the other ingredients in there.
3. Throw in the rest of the ingredients and combine.

The finished product is pretty thick, so if you like it a litlte thinner, just add more veggie stock. I like mine thick so I can use it as a spread for sandwiches. I thin it out with pasta water when I use it with pasta.

Today, this was a little more of a pain for me, because I have a Junior food processor. My blender has broken. Any recs on which one to get?

MIA

2011-08-21T11:08:00.000-04:00

Well this past week has been really tough to put it mildly. Finally, after 5 months of not sleeping well, trying to take care of my family, work, and run, I finally got broken down. I started to feel terrible. Despite all my healthy eating, taking my vitamins, etc., I was starting to feel ill. My throat was sore, my body felt spent. I couldn't shake it. The little man was not sleeping well despite our attempts of sleep training. I read a lot of different books on babies and sleeping and we came up with our own method when our daughter but she was older, so I didn't feel so bad. Out little guy though is a different story. He is tenacious to say the least. I won't go into our sleep training method right now, maybe another post. Well what we were doing was not working so he was waking up every 1.5 to 2 hours at night. From that, my immunity was starting to go down and fast. I woke up last Sunday and nursing hurt, and I mean hurt bad. I had at least one bad crack, maybe more. I thought it must be thrush. I talked to a lactation consultant and decided to start treating myself. Something had to be done. The little guy had no symptoms but I couldn't figure out why all this would be happening after 5 months of no problems. The treatment was going slow, especially when I had to nurse every 3 hours. The pain was excruciating. I wanted to cry every time I nursed. I talked to another LC and she added a few things to the list and I started pumping more (which I hate and it hurt too). Within a couple of days, it started to heal, but then I got a clogged ductfrom not fully emptying during his feeds. This was Friday morning. I hadn't run all week because I felt so bad and had planned to do an easy run on the mill that morning. It hurt so bad there was no way I could bounce around on the mill, so I took a hot shower to try to loosen it up. Of course, a clogged duct calls for lots of nursing and pumping to get rid of it. Awesome! By that evening I was able to get rid of it. I took the little guy to the ped on Thursday to make sure he was feeling ok. Between me having thrush and a sore throat, I thought it was best to make sure he was ok before continuing on with any type of sleep training. He checked out just fine and we discussed his sleeping. He weighed in at 15 pounds exactly and he is big enough to go all night without needing any milk. She thought he probably enjoyed having mommy all to himself in the dark quiet of night. He does seem to enjoy his mommy that's for sure. I was able to get out for a short 4 mile run with just the little guy yesterday. I wanted to more but I am glad I didn't. It was hot and my throat is still sore. I plan to get out again today, since I am feeling better again, but it is going to be really hot. Oh well. It's either that or run on the mill I guess. We will see. The little guy is sleeping better, but I am still recovering. I was suppose to do at least 21 or 22 miles this past week, and next week is supposed to be an easy week (16 miles). I am usually a stickler for rules and that includes training plans, but my body just said no this week. I am hoping to back next week.

So this is the reason I have been MIA the past couple of weeks. My meals have been boring and my exercise regimen has been non-existent. Being a mom and not feeling well sucks!!!

Training Update

2011-08-18T16:03:00.001-04:00

Lucky for me last week went well for training, because this week has been bad. The little guy is killing me with his lack of sleep. More about that in another post though.

Like I said, last week I stayed on track and got all of my runs in. Not too bad. I do well with training plans. I am usually pretty diligent about getting all the runs in and then when it comes time to run the race, I feel very prepared and it's usually an easier race for me too. I have started to change up my speedwork runs though because trying to do them at the end of the week made it tough to power through. Doing them after a rest day is much more doable.

Suggested Monday: Rest/Cross Train
Actual Monday: Rest

Suggested Tuesday: 5 mile tempo run (warm, 3 miles @ 8:34; cool)
Actual Tuesday: 5.2 miles with 3.35 miles @ 8:34 pace, ab wheel + pilate exercises

Suggested Wednesday: 3 mile easy run
Actual Wednesday: 3.2 miles on mill increasing speed (6.4-7.0)

Suggested Thursday: Rest/Cross Train
Actual Thursday: Tennis practice (1 hour)

Suggested Friday: 3 mile easy run
Actual Friday: 5.15 miles with JS, Ab ripper X

Suggested Saturday: Rest/Cross Train
Actual Saturday: Rest

Suggested Sunday: 8 mile easy run @ 10:08
Actual Sunday: 8.43 mile run with JS, little abs

Suggested mileage: 19 miles
Actual mileage: 21.98 miles

I am taking it easy this week and hopefully will be back on track next week.

Review on last week's training

2011-08-09T12:59:00.005-04:00

Training has not been easy. It’s not the miles, it’s the fact that I don’t get more than 2 straight hours of sleep at night. It has been almost 2 weeks since I got any sleep. It is very hard to function with such little sleep. I think sleep training is in our future. He is a little too attached to mom.  I am not sure dairy has much to do with it, but I will continue with it a little while longer.

I was able to stay on track (don’t know how), so here is how last week panned out.

Suggested Monday: Rest/Cross Train
Actual Monday: Jillian Michael’s Shred It
Suggested Tuesday: 2 mile easy run
Actual Tuesday: 5.00 mile run with JS, abs
Suggested Wednesday: 2 mile easy run
Actual Wednesday: Rest (Little guy not sleeping for for than 2 hours, so I needed the rest)
Suggested Thursday: Rest/Cross Train
Actual Thursday: 3.33 mile run with JS, Tennis practice (1 hour)

Suggested Friday: 5 mile speedwork run (warm,2 x 1600 @ 7.5, 800 jogs; cool)
Actual Friday: 1 mile @ 6.3mph, 1.0 mile @ 7.0mph, 0.5 @ 6.5mph, 1 mile @ 7.5, 1 mile @ 6.5mph, all @ 1.0% incline,
strength training
Suggested Saturday: Rest/Cross Train
Actual Saturday: Rest
Suggested Sunday: 7 mile easy run @ 10:08
Actual Sunday: 7.46 mile run @ 9:37, ab ripper X

Suggested mileage: 18 miles
Actual mileage: 20.29 miles

Spreads and dips

2011-08-08T12:55:00.001-04:00

So my little guy has been very gassy lately and we are still trying to figure it out. We first thought it was this (the gas) that had him up all night, but now we are not quite so sure. Well the only thing that has changed about my diet in the past few weeks (since the gas has started to get worse) is dairy. And of course this is a big trigger food for increased gas according to Kelly Mom. So I am back to laying off dairy. It's a mixed blessing for me really. I know I feel better when I limit dairy, but I am finding it difficult to stay full (or get full) when I don't add cheese to my sandwiches or eat a nice big bowl of ice cream after the kids are in bed (and before the little guy is up again). Since the little guy is not sleeping (I mean really not sleeping), I could use all I can get to feel good about myself (lack of sleep sucks).

So I turned to some websites to look at some new dips and spreads I could use to snack on or put on my sandwiches to help bulk up my meals. I found 2 to try.

#1 - Basil Pesto Spread
This is basically the same recipe from Oh She Glows, but when I made it it came out more of a spread than a pasta sauce. It is also a little salty for my taste, so I would cut down on the salt next time. I do like the fact that a can of beans are in there. Nice protein/fiber kick.

Ingredients
1/4 cup dry roasted salted almonds
1 T EVOO
1.5 cups basil, packed
2 cloves of garlic, grated through micro plane
1 can cannelloni beans, drained and rinsed
1 T water
2 T nutritional yeast
3 T lemon juice (I didn't have fresh lemons, so I used the concentrate)
3/4 t salt (too much, next time I will use 1/4 t)

Rachael Ray method for mincing garlic so you don't have chunks

Remember to check the other side of the plane to scrape off all of the garlic

Directions
Pulse the almonds first to chop up.
Add rest of the ingredients and process to desired consistency.

(For those of you who noticed, this recipe started in the blender, and then it broke on me, so I finished in the food processor. Any blender recs?)

Recipe #2 - Roasted Eggplant Spread
Now this is one that came from Barefoot Contessa my friend told me about. I pretty much followed this one to a T, with minimal changes.

Ingredients
1 medium eggplant (I did not peel)
2 red bell peppers
1 1/2 small red onions, peeled
2 garlic cloves, grated
3 T EVOO
1 1/2 t salt
1/2 t freshly ground black pepper
2 T dry white wine (veggie stock will work too)
1 T tomato paste

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Cut the eggplant, bell pepper, and onion into 1-inch cubes. Toss them in a large bowl with the garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Spread them on a baking sheet. Roast for 45 minutes, until the vegetables are lightly browned and soft.

After taking them out (I forgot to turn them), pour wine over veggies to scrape bits off of bottom of the pan.
Place the vegetables in a food processor, add tomato paste, and pulse to disered consistency.

Both spreads were so good, that I put one on each of my bagel halves for a very yummy sandwich.

(Sorry, not a pretty picture)

Any tips to staying full and satisfied?

Look at those tired eyes. Still a cutie!

Half training has begun

2011-08-01T10:29:00.000-04:00

I have signed up for a half marathon in early Oct. It is one I have done before, it's close to home, and it is where I have my half PR so I obviously like the course. I decided it's time to start some sort of training plan so I can keep myself accountable. I really like the Smart Coach at Runner's World, so that is what I tend to use as my training guides. You can personalize it a little more than you can at most training plans. I am doing a 10 week training plan, so it started last week. It's good that it started because Sunday's run was not easy and I wasn't really feeling it but I knew I needed to get out there. I will be happy when the heat lets up a little. It was over 80 degrees by 9:00am (I left the house at 8:35am). It will also get a little easier when the little guy sleeps a little better and is a little more predictable. I would love to get out of the house early, I don't want to leave the hubs with a hungry, angry baby, and I am not a fan of pumping, so I try not to that very often. We will see as my running continues. I might just have to change things up a bit.

Also, I do change up the days a lot for my schedule. The plan has me running 4 days a week, which is what I typically do, but my running days are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and then one of the weekend days, so I have changed the plan to run on those days just for simplicity.

So here is what was expected of me, and here is what I did.

Suggested Monday: Rest/Cross Train
Actual Monday: 30 minutes yoga

Suggested Tuesday: 2 mile easy run
Actual Tuesday: 5.37 mile run with JS, abs

Suggested Wednesday: 2 mile easy run

Actual Wedneday: 2 miles on the mill (I was exhausted due to the little guy not sleeping at all)

Suggested Thursday: Rest/Cross Train

Actual Thursday: Tennis practice (1 hour)

Suggested Friday: 5 mile tempo run (warm, 3 mi @ 8:34; cool)
Actual Friday: 1 mile @ 6.3mph, 3.35 miles @ 7.0mph, 0.85 @ 6.4mph, all @ 1.0% incline,
strength training

Suggested Saturday: Rest/Cross Train

Actual Saturday: Tennis round robin

Suggested Sunday: 7 mile easy run @ 10:08
Actual Sunday: 7.06 mile run @ 9:54 (it was hot people)

Suggested mileage: 16 miles
Actual mileage: 19.36

Have you started training for any fall races? How are you dealing with the heat?

I have a foam roller, but don't use it often. What are your favorite exercises or websites for the foam roller?

Food log from 7/26/2011

2011-07-29T21:13:00.000-04:00

Here is another day of food logging. This was on Tuesday, which is a day that I am at home and not working. You will see how it differs from last week's log when I was in the office.

Breakfast

Tropical smoothie

1 small peach

1/2 frozen sliced banana

3/4 cup almond milk

1 T rolled oats

1/2 T coconut oil

Half caff coffee with almond milk

After a little play time, we headed out for a run to the park (5.36 miles total). I was famished after my run (not usual), so I grabbed a snack to tied me over until lunch.

Snack
Nutri-grain bar

Lunch
Open faced sandwich
Toasted pumpernickel bread
pesto sauce
a little extra sharp cheddar
red onions
kale

Oh She Glows - Apple Sandwich
Apple
PB
Dried cranberries

2nd water for the day (first was during my run)

Snack
My big salad via No Meat Athlete's advice for an afternoon snack
Spinach
Romain
Tomato
Red bell pepper
Cucumber
Spanish olives
Homemade lemon vinaigrette

Dinner

Spaghetti and "meatballs" with nutritional yeast sprinkled on top

I am not a huge fan of fake meat, but it has been really difficult getting meals on the table these past few weeks. The little guy is not sleeping well (advice?) and I am exhausted as well as not getting enough protein in my diet, so I had about 3 oz. of veg Italian sausage, the hubs had pork sausage meatballs. This particular brand is very lean and tasty. I had had in the freezer forever, so I needed to use it anyway.

Snack
Turkey Hill Choco Mint Chip Ice cream (I had a coupon, not bad ice cream, but not great either)
Dark Chocolate Chips

I ran so I get ice cream. Yeah!!! It is one of my 2 vices. Unfortunately, I was hungry all day long but we were so busy that I didn't get a chance to eat enough. Since coming back to my pre-pregnancy weight, I don't need to be cutting calories anymore, and I am running more, so I actually need more calories. When I plugged this into Sparkpeople, I was only to 1700+ calories. That is not enough if I am running and nursing.

And I was still hungry to after the kids were in bed, I ate a small bowl of dry cereal (Kix) and a handful of Kashi crackers dipped in cottage cheese (not pictured). That got me very close to 2,000 calories so I called it a day. I didn't want to eat too much since it was so late. If I am too full at bedtime, I don't sleep well.

Daily Totals

Calories: 1,994

Carbs: 306 (61%)

Fat: 65 (29%)

Protein: 73 (10%)

I know I need to get my protein up. Any advice? I think I will have to start incorporting more cottage cheese into my diet to help me.

Easy breezy vegan dinner (inexpensive too)

2011-07-28T09:32:00.000-04:00

Here is a quick and easy, but delicious dinner that everyone in my house loves - Hoisin-glazed tempeh with snap beans. I serve mine over brown rice, and this meal can be ready in minutes.

adapted from Vegetarian Times

Ingredients
5 t hoisin sauce (plum sauce works well here too)
2 t rice vinegar
1 1/2 T soy sauce or tamari
1 t corn starch
1/2 cup water
1 T canola oil
1 T minced ginger (I keep some in the freezer so I have it on hand all the time)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-8oz package tempeh, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
3 cups fresh snap beans, ends cut off (can use frozen too)
1/4 cup toasted cashews (I buy raw and toast them at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes).
Splash of sesame oil
2 cups cooked brown rice

Directions
1. Whisk hoisin sauce, 2 t vinegar, soy sauce, cornstarch, and 1/2 cup water in a small bowl. Set aside.
2. Heat skillet over medium heat. Add canola oil, then garlic and ginger. Saute for 1-2 minutes until golden, but not burning.
3. Add tempeh and sauce for 3-4 minutes.
4. Add hoisin sauce mixture. Stir to coat tempeh, cover and reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for about 2 minutes until sauce begins to thicken.
5. Add green beans and stir sauce, cover and cook for another 4-5 minutes.
6. Add in cashews and stir to coat again.
7. Place brown rice on each plate, and splash a little sesame oil over rice then serve tempeh over rice.

I buy my beans fresh, and then bring them home and clean them up and place them in the fridge, so they are ready to go when it comes to dinner time. If I have the time, I make the real brown rice, but if I don't have, I grab either the Minute rice (brown), kashi 7 grain rice pilaf, or frozen brown rice that can be ready in minutes.

This meal is a hit for everyone in the fam. Hubs likes that tempeh tastes hearty and meaty like meat, and my toddler likes it, but she likes it to be separate. Hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

The great smoothie/salad experiment

2011-07-25T21:37:00.000-04:00

My husband has always been an active guy, and because of that, he has not had to worry too much about what he eats and can stay at a healthy weight. Well when I was pregnant with the little lady, I was put on modified bedrest and told to up my calories. Because one of my 2 vices is ice cream, he made me sundaes and milkshakes nightly. We both gained weight this way but I had a baby and lost mine, but he didn't have the luxury having a baby. Right after that, he graduated with a PhD and got a new job. He now works very long hours and doesn't have much time for exercise anymore (he doesn't like the idea of getting up early to workout either). He also doesn't really like healthy foods. He will eat a salad but would always prefer chips or fries.

So he is a little frustrated to have these few extra pounds on him, and not being able to get them off is even more frustrating. I was doing a little blog reading this weekend when I came across No Meat Athlete's post on "My 7 links." The post he chose for "Most Helpful was one on smoothies.

He starts off by describing that if you eat 2 healthy meals a day, you won't get fat. Basically, he is saying that if you eat a healthy smoothie in the morning, then you will be more likely to have a healthy lunch, and if you have a healthy salad in the afternoons, you will set yourself up for a healthy dinner, because of how good you feel. I agree with what he says, because I feel that when I have a healthy breakfast I will make healthier decisions later on. But I also like the idea of getting all your fruit and veggie requirements out of the way with 2 simple meals. Then the rest of my meals can be more of what I am feeling and not how can I include a fruit or veggie into your sandwich. And then any fruits or veggies I have during another meal is just a bonus.

So the Smoothie Formula . . .
Basically it's 1/2 frozen banana,
small handful of other fruit,
3/4 cup liquids,
1 T binder (pb, ground flaxseed, rolled oats, etc.), and
3/4 T oil (flaxseed, coconut oil, etc.).
Then you can add in other healthy super foods like spinach or cocoa nibs.

Then the idea is to have a nice big salad in the afternoon with tons of veggies, nuts, and some healthy oil.

So we are going to experiment with this over the next couple of weeks. But I need your help. I tend to get into a rut when it comes to food.

What are your favorite smoothie recipes?

What do you put in your salads right now?

How can we keep this experiment going?

So we are goi

Workouts and Cooking

2011-07-21T11:51:00.001-04:00

My workouts last week went pretty well. I was hoping to get some yoga in on Monday, but only ended up getting 20 minutes into it when I just wasn't feeling it. I did better this week. :) I also reached 21 miles total of running last week. My first week over 20 miles, so I was proud to see that I am slowing adding more miles while still continuing to play tennis at least once a week. A little extra cross training should help out as well. Here is how last week's workouts went

Monday: Yoga (20 minutes)
Tuesday: Running outside with the double JS (5.08 miles), abs (mostly planks)
Wednesday: 30 minute HIIT with an extra 5 minute cool-down (3.51 miles total)
Thursday: Abs, push-ups
Friday: 5 mile tempo"ish" run, one mile warm-up, then 0.5 mile at 7.2-7.5mph followed by 0.25 mile at 6.5, this continued for the next 4 miles and then a 0.3 mile cool-down, incline at 1%, legs workout (squats, lunges, step-ups)
Saturday: Easy run outside alone (oh, how I enjoy the peace and quiet), 7.22 miles averaging 9:32mph pace
Sunday: Rest

Total running miles: 21.11

Cooking
We have also done some good ole cooking at the house. Earlier in the month, we picked blueberries and then the little lady woke up super early one morning so we made blueberry muffins.

I didn't have any sour cream, so I had to tweak my previous posted recipe.

Rain also interrupted our afternoon plans last week, so I decided to make Runblondie's Cauliflower Chocolate Chip muffins. We changed up the recipe a little, but not much (subbed in sugar for splenda and halfed the chocolate chips and added in some cocoa nibs).

Another yum! If you haven't tried these, you are missing out.

Then, Monday morning started the craziness. The little man was in a mood and because of all his rolling over (both tummy to back and back to tummy), we are having to wean him off the baby straight-jacket (aka The Miracle Blanket). This has been a miracle for us for both kids as far as sleeping those first few months.

But between him rolling over and breaking free from it on a nightly basis, we knew it was time to wean.

So after Monday daytime was rough, we had a terrible night with several waking by the little man. I felt awful (but still ran, go me) on Tuesday so I didn't do my typical menu planning before heading to the farmer's market. Once there, I grabbed some fingerling potatoes and snap beans (thinking of 2 different dinners for these), but neither was going to work for Tuesday night. I wanted something comforting. That brings me to the cheese section of the farmer's market. Now since having the little man, I have limited my dairy intake considerably for 2 reasons, 1) I have seen where people have seen increased energy by eliminating dairy from their diet and having 2 small kids, I need all the energy I can get, 2) calorie restriction to lose the baby weight, i.e. not having cheese on my sandwiches reduces my calorie intake without having to think about it (I switched to almond milk a while back during pregnancy). Well it hit me like a ton of bricks, I wanted to make homemade mac and cheese. So I grabbed almost one pound of extra sharp white cheddar (from WI) and a little over a half a pound of gruyere cheese. That was over $11 of cheese just for one dinner. I didn't have a specific recipe in mind so I googled gruyere mac and cheese and found one from Barefoot Contessa. I pretty much followed this recipe to a T, except I had 4 cups of cheddar and 2 cups of gruyere. It was awesome!!!

It was so good, but I had to be careful not to eat too much because it was very rich and my little tummy is not used to such things anymore. It made me feel better even though Tuesday night was just as bad as Monday as far as sleep. Luckily, Wednesday night was better.

Do you have any go to recipes or foods you turn to?

How is the summer workouts treating you?

Summer Panzanella Salad

2011-07-18T15:02:00.000-04:00

I had some fresh veggies I needed to use up, and couldn't figure out what to do with them. Between having 2 small kiddos and the summer heat, my dinners have been lacking. Acouple of searches later, I decided to do a panzanella salad.

Ingredients

1/2 loaf pumpernickel bread, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 red onion, cut up

1 pint grape tomatoes (I cut them in half, but next time I would leave them whole)

2 zucchinis, cut into 1 inch pieces

2 T EVOO

3 T light balsamic vinegarette

1/4 cup parsley

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Drizzle 1 T EVOO on bread and toast for 10 minutes.

Transfer bread to bowl.

Place tomatoes, onion, and zucchini on baking sheet and drizzle 1 T EVOO on baking sheet. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and pepper on veggies and roast for 30-40 minutes.

Remove baking sheet from oven, pour vinegarette over veggies and scrape the bottom of the baking sheet to get all the bits up.

Transfer veggies to bowl with toasted bowl.

Add parsley and chickpeas.

Stir to combine and serve.

Toasted bread

Veggies ready to roast

Roasted veggies with chickpeas and parsley

The finished product ready to serve

Makes a great summer meal and the chickpeas added make it filling.

As a main course, serves 2

As a side dish, serves 4.

Eating at work (Food log)

2011-07-14T10:20:00.000-04:00

So it's been a while since I have shown you what it is that I am eating during the day. This is a typical day when I have to go into the office (right now that is only one day a week).

Breakfast

Here is my Green monster smoothie (coconut milk, frozen banana, almond butter, ground flaxseed, and kale) and my morning coffee (half-caf) with coconut milk in it.

Morning snack

A nectarine I took to a meeting. I love summer fruits!!!

Lunch

The start of my water drinking for the day. I aim to drink 3 of these bottles everyday. For lunch, I had leftovers - bbq tempeh with green peppers and onions and quinoa.

And some watermelon for dessert. Told you I like summer fruits.

Afternoon snack
(Not pictured, ate it before I got a pic)

Heaping 1/4 cup mixed nuts (roasted salted almonds and walnuts) with a couple of tablespoons of dried cranberries (raspberry flavored)

Dinner

Dinner on Wednesdays tends to be more leftover stuff in the fridge because I don't have much time to cook when I get home with 2 small children and a hubby that works until 8:30pm most nights. So I had bought a zucchini, sun-dried tomato and feta quiche at the farmer's market on Tuesday (it was 1/2 off, so it was a steal of deal) that they make fresh there and use cage free eggs and organic dairy. I had some of that along with some broccoli that I dipped in hummus. And then we had leftover hashbrown casserole from a brunch so I had a few bites of that while I was getting hubby's dinner.

I didn't get my run in that day so my rule is no run, no dessert (that rarely works for me but that day it did). :) My totals for the day:

Calories: 1,712
Percent breakdown: 44% fat, 42% carbs, 14% protein

I am a little surprised that my fat was as high as it was. I have been trying to eat more protein, but I have found it difficult, especially when I limit dairy and eat a veg diet. I aim for 15% but I don't track my calories much anymore so I don't know how far off I am on a typical day.

Any advice on other protein sources? I don't tempeh or tofu more than once a week usually, so I need some other choices.

Runing while it H-O-T! and some stats

2011-07-13T10:11:00.000-04:00

Well, we have had heat advisories for the past couple of days. Like it's not hard enough to get out and run, now it's just down right HOT. I went out yesterday with the kids at 9:00am and got my 5 miles in. But I can tell you I was drenched in sweat when we returned home (and I am not a big sweater either).

I would love to go out early in the morning, but it's just not realistic with little A not sleeping through the night. Hopefully, in the next couple of months his sleep will be a little more predictable and I will be able to get out there and log some miles while everyone is still asleep. Right now, he is waking up at 2:00, 5:00-5:30, and then at 7:00-7:30am. At 5:00am, he usually won't fall back asleep unless he is in bed with us, so that I what we have been doing with him (and by us, I mean me). I feed him in bed and then he falls back asleep. I guess I could get up then maybe, I am afraid he is going to immediately wake up as soon as I leave, and then I will get it from the hubs when I return that little A woke up and was hungry. I don't know, maybe I will try it one day and see how it goes. Any advice from the peanut gallery on this (yes, I am still BFing exclusively).

Some stats for ya
Little A turned 4 months old on Sunday and he rolled over for the first time on Sunday too. He went to the ped yesterday and he thriving. He is up to 14lb. 4oz (25%tile).

My stats
Last week I hit my goal range for pre-preg weight. According to Dr. Oz's book (it was on clearance for $3.99 on bn.com), you should have a range, not just one specific number. I have always had a range along with a number. My range is the number plus or minus 2 lbs., so last week I hit my number + 1.6lb., so I have considered that to be pre-preg. So I made it back to my pre-preg weight in just under 4 months. With Hope it was 4 1/2 months (gained a little more weight). But both times, I did it slowly and other than my mental breakdown at the beginning, I didn't stress about it, just ate well and exercised. The last 4 lbs. though, I really relaxed about though. I lost 3lbs. in 5 weeks. I know some people see that they are so close and try to crash diet or starve themselves to get there, but I read somewhere a long time ago, that when you only have those last few pounds, take it slow (0.5 -1.0 lb/week) and they will stay off. I have since adopted that mentality and it has worked for me.

Running
In June, I logged 69.68 miles. If I had known I was so close, I would have tried for 70. Oh well, I am still getting back into running/training mode, so I will let it slide. And at the end of June, I had logged 315.19 miles for the year. Not too bad considering on Jan. 1 I was 7 months pg and then had a baby and had to recover. My goal is 750 miles this year and I know I can log a lot more miles during the second half of the year compared to the first, so I am feeling good about that.

I am trying to figure out my races for the fall. Any races you like that I should do? Especially ones in the ATL?

PRR Recap

2011-07-06T16:38:00.000-04:00

Well, my day started out early.

1:40am - little man woke up crying - fed him
3:00am - little girl woke up crying - I went in and rubbed her back until she started to fall asleep
4:30am- little girl up again - told hubby to deal with it, he slept with her
4:44am - little man woke up again crying - fed him
5:30am - alarm went off

Awesome night sleep!

Race started at 7:30am. My corral (B), started at 7:35am. I was off and feeling good. I put my Garmin VP at 8:13 minute miles, and really tried to stay close to that the first couple miles (I tend to go out too fast). Mile 1 - 8:07 minutes, not bad. After the first mile, I was already sweating, which is never a good sign considering I am not a big sweater (although I had been chugging water all week to make sure I was properly hydrated). I knew the conditions were not ideal at this point. I don't feel like the heat has ever been a huge factor for me, so I don't know if my body has changed since having babies (it can), or if it's because I am getting older, or if it was just too hot and I finally noticed it. Either way, I knew I was in trouble. For the past 2 years, it was 66 degrees at the start of the race. This year - 7 degrees warmer (73 for those of you who are bad at math).

The first 3 miles are very flat. I didn't have much of a problem holding my pace. At the end of mile 3 is where the first big hill starts.

Mile 4 includes cardiac hill. I felt very prepared for Cardiac Hill since I had been running in the heat on a hilly course with the jogging stroller, but I wasn't happy with them.

Mile 5 my back started hurting. 2 possible explanations.

Poor posture due to the fact that I am constantly bending over to pick up the little guy.
Lack of ab muscles causing me to have bad posture. (I have started trying to do more abs since).

I also wasn't feeling the push towards the end of races like I used to. I don't know if it's because I haven't raced much since being pregnant or what, but my drive was not totally in it.

Once I hit 19th street, I was feeling ok. I knew the hills were out of the way, and I was near the finish (course map). I turned onto 10th street and tried to give it my all. It wasn't my legs that couldn't do it though, it was my lungs (did I mention a smog alert and very heavy humidity). As I was approaching the finish, no one around me was really pushing it. I had to bob and weave around people at the end. I was so surprised more people weren't sprinting to the finish.

I clocked in at 52:23 and my Garmin said it was 6.31 miles so my pace was 8:18, not quite as fast as I was hoping, but I was pretty happy with it.

Everyone else with me started later, so I went around and collected tons of freebies. When you finish that early, people are just throwing things at you. I had my water and then tried a 16oz. sample of Muscle Milk Light. Pretty good, but I am trying to limit my dairy, so I probably won't be buying any of those in the near future (and it's pretty expensive too).

Finally got to my friends and hubby and we went back home and I hosted the race brunch afterwards.

All in all, not a bad way to spend the 4th.

Did you race? Any tips for me?

Peachtree results

2011-07-04T15:24:00.000-04:00

Well it was hot and humid. But it was a blast! My time was 52:26, but in my defense, I clocked it 6.31 miles so my average was 8:18, just 5 seconds slower than I had hoped. Complete race recap to follow.

Peachtree a coming

2011-07-01T22:23:00.001-04:00

I am just a few days away from my second race post baby (1st 10K). I got my email confirmation and I am in Corral B. I was a little disappointed that I won't be starting the race when the gun goes off, but I am only 5 minutes later. This will be the first time i didn't start when the gun goes off since the first time I ran this race 5 years ago. The first year We ran, we did not submit a time and were in the 9th group I think. It was 9:00am when we finished and over 80 degrees already. After that, I ran the Buckhead Sizzler and got a competitive time and have been in the front ever since. I am hoping to have a pretty good time, but we will see. I will put it out there and say I want to break 51 minutes. That is my goal. I have trying to add in some tempo runs and some sprints in during the week to try to gain some speed.

What are you doing for the 4th? Who else is racing?

Peachtree a coming

2011-07-01T22:22:00.000-04:00

Anniversary Time

2011-06-27T09:08:00.000-04:00

Yep, we became Mr. and Mrs. 7 years ago yesterday. We didn't do a very good job planning ahead, but at the last minute decided to go out for brunch instead of dinner. Dinner is a crazy time with 2 small children, so we figured it was just easier to have someone watch them during the day. We did a family run in the morning, and then showered and were off to one of our favorite places from our old neighborhood.
We hadn't been to Wahoo for brunch yet, but the menu looked good and they offer the dinner menu too, so we figured we would both be happy (I love brunch btw). I had the Eggs Benedict with sauteed spinach and the hubs had Parm crusted chicken. I had the hashbrown casserole as my side and hubs had the cheddar cheese grits. Both were very good. Since it was our anniversary, we decided to have a morning cocktail (well 12:30pm here in the ATL) and we were given prosecco from the restaurant. For someone who has never been a big drinker and hadn't had a drink in so long from being pregnant and breastfeeding, those drinks went straight to my head.

We ended the day with a family dinner at home and it was wonderful. The kids went off to bed and we shared some ice cream with extra chocolate chips (he knows what I like).

Our present to each other is going to be tickets to a tennis tournament coming to Atlanta in July. We missed the tournament last year due to a family wedding, so I am very excited to go this year.

Running updates and other tidbits

2011-06-26T07:59:00.003-04:00

I don't have much to report. I have been chugging along. My legs are starting to feel heavy during parts of the week. What do you do when you have heavy legs? Do you think it means my legs aren't strong enough yet? I have been trying to add squats, step ups and hamstring exercises to gain more leg muscle. Do you think it will help? It may just be that i am doing too much these days. Yoga hasn't happened in a couple of weeks. It has been replaced with tennis (mixed doubles). Hubby joined this team last season and had so much fun that he insisted I join now that I don't have a little person inside me. I have to say I was reluctant. I have had some bad experiences the past few seasons with tennis and the time commitment is tough when you have small children. But I am having fun and I am 2-0 so that helps too. I wonder if I am trying to do too much too fast. I just want to be ready for the fall racing season. This week my 30 minute HIIT was just an easy 3 mile run while increasing the speed a little every 0.5 mile. Below is my workouts from this past week. I will be taking it easy some this week since the Peachtree is next Monday.

Monday - 100 squats while holding little A, 5 x 10 push ups
Tuesday - 5 mile run with JS on a hot Tuesday morning, aka sweaty and tiring
Wednesday - 3 mile run on mill (9 min mile average)
Thursday - rest
Friday - 5 mile run on mill, 1 mile warm up, 0.75 mile @ 7.2mph followed by 0.25 mile recovery @ 6.5mph, repeated 4 times., planks, step-ups, hamstring exercises
Saturday - 1.75 hours of mixed doubles tennis, I won!
Sunday - 6.15 mile run (4.15 with JS)

Total miles - 19 miles

What are your thoughts? Should I be switching it up more? Advice?

Other stuff
I am down another pound and am less than 3 lbs away from my pre-preg weight. Like I said before, I am slowing down my weight loss with these last few pounds. I am not in a huge hurry and I have worked hard to lose the first 20 pounds quickly. I also know these last few pounds are vanity pounds anyway, although I would love for my tummy to tighten up faster but I know that will take time.

I am in a dinner rut. Summer in the south means it's so hot, I don't feel like cooking much. What do you cook a lot in the summer? Keep in my mind I have 2 kids and the hubs is not home for dinner. He eats later.

Some days are like that, even in Australia

2011-06-17T14:19:00.000-04:00

Well this has a couple of meanings. Yesterday, overall, was just a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day. I hadn't planned on running or even working out, and if I had, probably would have been a better day. I won't bore you with the details of yesterday, but it wasn't fun for me at all.

The other part of no good, very bad days for me includes my runs. Obviously, not every run can be awesome or amazing or a PR. Last Saturday was the first very bad run for me since little A was born. I didn't drink enough water the Friday before (after running a 5 mile tempo run on the mill when the temperature was in the mid 70's in my house) and then I didn't eat particularly well (birthday party which included salad, pizza, cake and ice cream, and half a beer). Saturday morning rolled up on me, and I felt awful. I think I was dehydrated when I woke up. Well I had already told myself I was doing 7 miles, and my father-in-law would be joining me so I had to go. We also didn't leave the house until 9:30am. Yep, it was H-O-T, hot out!

We survived but not by much. I vowed to drink more that day, but I think it took me a couple days to recover from the heat.

Then, there was today. My legs were feeling heavy yesterday from doing some squats the day before, and they still felt heavy this morning. I put little A down for his morning nap and then head for the mill upstairs. I started with my 1 mile warm-up (6.3 mph currently) and then bumped it up to 7.0 after that. Now, I was interrupted by little H a couple of times so I had to stop and get off to help/assist her. That didn't help. I told myself at one point, if you are not in it, then don't finish it. I didn't want to resent runnning. So that was a big step for me. I am so into schedules, and today was supposed to be a 5 mile tempo run. I ended up finishing and did parts of the run at my tempo pace, just not the whole time like I had planned. My time was 45 seconds off of last weeks's run, so it wasn't a total wash, but I was happy I finished.

Of course, knowing that I wasn't feeling it today may hinder my weekend run some. We will see. But tennis has started again and I have already played twice this week and am playing tomorrow. Wish me luck!!

This week's workouts:

Monday - Tennis practice
Tuesday - 5.04 mile easy run with the JS (except for mil2, this was a good run), squats, P90X ab ripper, push-ups (5x10)
Wednesday - 30 minute HIIT on the mill
Thursday - Rest (first since last Thursday)
Friday - 5 mile run (kind of a tempo run)
Saturday - Mixed doubles tennis match
Sunday - ??? Maybe a light run

4 Mile Race Recap

2011-06-06T13:09:00.039-04:00

Yep, 12 weeks pp and I finished in the top 3 of my age group. Yes it was a small race but I was happy with my time. My goal was 34 minutes and I finished in 32:55 (8:13 minute pace).

Full race recap
I got out of bed 2 minutes before my alarm went off. We been out to dinner the night before and both kids went to bed late, so little A even slept through the night. While I was brushing my teeth, little A woke up so I had to go in there and feed him a little. I had not planned on that, so I felt like I was behind. I went downstairs to get ready and pump. I got a bottle ready for the hubs, grabbed my pre-race breakfast (almond butter on one slice of whole wheat bread and some water) and I was off. I was already on edge because I was about 10 minutes later leaving than I wanted. I picked up my dad and we were off to the race. It was not far from his house, so that was nice. We got there, picked up our numbers and stretched a little. We did a lot of small talk. We were debating about our times. My dad was making it very easy for him to make his time. :)

We went up to the starting line and I was up front. It was a small race, so it wasn't that big of a deal, but I have a tendency of going out too fast. The race started and I was off. I had my Garmin with me in case they didn't have the mile markers marked. My biggest problem right now is that I don't know how fast I am going and I don't want to consistently look at my watch to see my pace. I run a lot with the jogging stroller and I am much slower with that and there are so many hills in my neighborhood so I don't know my pace. On the mill, I typically do sprints and walking (plan to incorporate some tempo runs on a regular basis now). My first mile was 7:45. Yikes a little fast since I was planning on a 8:30 minute mile. I knew I was in trouble. There were a lot of rolling hills so that made it difficult by the end. My next mile was better on time with an 8:16. Unfortunately, mile 3 had a lot of hills and it was getting very hot. I am a warm weather person who does not sweat a lot and I was feeling the heat so people must have been dying. I had a bad mile at 8:48. :( I knew I had to pick it up on the last mile and finish strong for myself. I told myself at 3.5 miles I would start passing people. Well it wasn't until 3.66 that I looked at my watch and saw how close I was to the finish. I went the hill with perseverance. From there, I really started to take off. I finished strong with a final mile at 8:06 and finished just under 33 minutes. I was pretty impressed. I had originially thought I would strive for an 8:15 minute mile (33 minutes total) because 8:13 is my average the my PR at the half marathon. I thought that might be too much to ask for being only 12 weeks pp. I am pleased with my time and because it was first time at the 4 mile race, it's an instant PR for me! Yeah!!!

My dad finished strong as well and then I made him wait around for the awards since I thought I might have gotten one. I placed 3rd in my age group. I am feeling pretty good with my running so far and can't wait for the fall.

Stats:Time: 32:55
Pace: 8:13/mi
Overall: 52/272
Div: 3/10

The time waster and other updates

2011-06-04T10:36:00.002-04:00

So it's Saturday morning and the little guy is sleeping in his crib, the little lady is with her grandmother and the hubs is playing tennis. The house is quiet and what am I doing . . . Playing with my new toy.. Yep I got an iPad. I have to say that I really like it so far. If you have any favorite apps please post a comment.

My race is tomorrow so today I will just relax and prep for it. This will include some foam rolling. I know it's not advised before a race but my hamstrings are very tight after a tempo run on Thursday.

The little guy turned 12 weeks on Thursday and I am 4 lb away from my pre-preg weight. That is the great thing about hot summers in the south, I don't have a big appetite because I am drinking so much water and sweating so much during workouts.

I will update you on the race tomorrow. It's a small race so I am hoping to do well. I hope I don't get my hopes up too much.

National Running Day and weekly workouts

2011-05-31T17:20:00.000-04:00

Very exciting that last week I ran a total of 20 miles. Yeah, I think that is a good place for me right now when I am not in a real training plan. I have been adding mileage every week so this week I will cut back and then return to my 20 miles a week. I also have a race on Sunday, so that is another good reason to cut my mileage this week. Here is how last week looked:

Monday: Jillian's Yoga Meltdown and squats, 3.04 mile run with JS
Tuesday: 5.06 miles with JS
Wednesday: Abs and push-ups
Thursday: 30 minute HIIT followed by 2 mile run on mill (5.1 miles total)
Friday: A little strength training
Saturday: 7.09 mile run alone (9:51 average)
Sunday: Rest

Total miles: 20.29 miles

Tomorrow is not a typical running day for me, but it's National Running Day so I guess I will have get some running in. Check out the website and remember to run tomorrow.

Why I need run more

2011-05-30T11:28:00.000-04:00

One word . . . Menchies. This is a new froyo place near our house. If you aren't familiar with Menchies, it's a self serve frozen yogurt bar. They have approximately 10 different varieties of frozen yogurt and 30 or so different varieties of toppings. They only have one size cup but they do have little cups to sample the yogurts before you decide on a flavor(s). If you know me, then you know I am a huge dessert fan with ice cream/frozen yogurt being my favorite. So I was in heaven when I learned about this place. I love the crunch of the toppings and I love variety. Since it's one size only, I decided to share with Hope so she got to influence the toppings we got, which made it interesting. We decided on cake batter and peppermint patty yogurts (swirled) and then the toppings were all over the place. Hope likes the colorful ones and I like the chocolate ones, so we had a lot of toppings (probably why our was so expensive). It was a little busy when we were there so I didn't get a chance to really look at all of the toppings and pick accordingly, so I had to just feel my way through it. But as the hot summer continues, I am already making up fro yo combinations that I will be trying. This is why I will need to continue my running if I want to lose those last 5 lbs of baby weight.

If you have one near you, I highly recommend it.

When to race?

2011-05-27T10:46:00.000-04:00

I saw this race at the Peachtree Expo last year and immediately fell in love with the idea. I really liked the idea of doing the FL Keys race. I have really been enjoying getting back into running since the little guys arrival and south FL in Jan.sounds awesome. So you ask, what's the peoblem?

1. The hub doesn't get many vaca days, so I am not sure that he would want to take a few days off and spend them running.

2. The little guy that I am currently holding while he sleeps (he still won't nap in his crib, any advice on this) won't be 10 months old, and I will still be nursing (nursed DD until she was 15.5 months old). Having 2 little ones makes it tough to do something of this difficult (but not impossible).

3. My sister is getting married in April, so I fear this might be too much to try to do before her wedding. I am a bridesmaid, as well as her wedding planner, so I am busy with the wedding. The race is in Jan.

So those are all the reasons why not to do it, but like I said, I have known about this July. I couldn't do it last January because I was pregnant. And it just sounds like so much fun, that I am just dying to do it.

What are your thoughts? Should I go for it or just wait it out another year?

Weekly workouts - update

2011-05-23T15:21:00.000-04:00

Still going strong. Another great week with some fun runs and other stuff mixed in. Here is what last week looked like:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 5.06 mile run with JS, 3 x 10 push-ups, 100 squats
Wednesday: Yoga Meltdown with Jillian
Thursday: Treadmill - 5 min warm-up (6.0 mph and 1.0% incline), 45 seconds 9.0-9.5 mph followed by 1 min. 15 sec. at 4.0 mph (repeated 10 times), 5 min. cool down at 6.0 and 1.0% incline, then a 2 mile run at 6.4 mph, 5.1 miles total
Friday: 2 mile walk with friends, weights and abs
Saturday: Rest (Family fun at the pool)
Sunday: 6.23 mile run alone (1:01.23, I know, super slow, but I was enjoying my alone time, I guess a little too much)

Total running miles: 16.39 miles

Not quite as many miles as last week, but still strong.

My new favorite vegan granola bars

2011-05-20T17:40:00.000-04:00

I have been tweaking a few granola bar recipes to find one that I really like and is nutrious and feeling that we can make at home. The husband likes to eat them on his way to work so they need to taste good and be filling. Here is what I have come up with:

Vegan Granola Bars
adapted from Clean Eating Machine

Ingredients
4 cups oats
3/4 cup walnuts
3/4 cup cashews
1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
1/4 cup raw sugar
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1.5 sticks Earth Balance (or other vegan spread)
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup agave nectar
1 tsp vanilla
Large pinch of salt

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Mix well.
3. Press firmly into cookie sheet with high sides lined with aluminum foil or parchment paper (makes it easier to get out after they are finished.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
5. Let cool and then cut into 24 bars.
6. Eat and freeze the rest.

You have to give them a try.

Strawberry picking

2011-05-18T14:23:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago I took the kiddos to do some berry picking. It's strawberry season here so we found one farm that looked perfect, but they were closed when we got there. Even though I called the day before, but he did give us another place to try. I am not sure that these strawberries weren't sprayed, but it was our only option that day and my little girl was super excited about picking some berries.

You pay by the pound and we had 11.5 pounds of strawberries. We went home, washed and froze some and used others to top our morning oatmeal, to snack on, and to make muffins.

Vegan Strawberry Muffin Recipe

Ingredients

1 flax egg, (1T ground flax, 3T water)

2 cups Bisquick

1/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

2/3 cup unsweetened almond milk

1 cup strawberries

Directions

Make flax egg and set aside for 5 min.

Mix together all ingredients except the strawberries until JUST blended.

Fold in strawberries and spoon into 12 muffin cups.

Bake at 400*F for 13-18 minutes or until just browned.

Makes 12 muffins.

Serving Size 53 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories

116

Calories from Fat

% Daily Value^*

Total Fat

3.4g

Trans Fat

0.0g

Cholesterol

0mg

Sodium

225mg

Total Carbohydrates

20.3g

Dietary Fiber

0.9g

Sugars

7.6g

Protein

1.8g

Vitamin A 1%	•	Vitamin C 12%
Calcium 9%	•	Iron 5%

Nutrition Grade

Weekly workouts

2011-05-16T09:44:00.000-04:00

I have been noticing my quads are struggling on some of my runs, so I have found a new way to hang with/ put to sleep my son - squats and lunges. Yep, it's a great way to quiet him down sometimes. So here is how last week's workouts went/\.

Monday - 40 minutes of yoga, squats, lunges, and push-ups
Tuesday - 4.54 mile run with jogging stroller (js)
Wednesday - Rest
Thursday - Treadmill workout - 5 min warm-up at 6.0 with 1% incline, HIIT (high intensity interval training) with 45 seconds at 8.8-9.5 followed by 1.25 min walking at 4.0. Repeat 10 times, then I ran 2.5 miles at 6.2 for a total of 5.1 miles
Friday - Abs, 2.1 miles with js
Saturday - 1.5 mile walk with the fam
Sunday - 6.07 miles alone - oh it felt so good

Total running miles - 17.81 miles - the most in a long time.

I think squats, lunges, and interval running are here to stay to help me get back into running shape. Whatelse do you do it get yourself into running shape?

Race Recap - Race for the Cure 5k

2011-05-14T10:24:00.001-04:00

I can't believe it has been a week since my 1st race back and I am just now getting around to blogging about it. Sorry about that. I am having a tough time typing with an infant in my arms. That and the race was a bust in my books. I was 8.5 weeks pp and knew I was not going to be near a PR so I thought I would push the jogging stroller. Well the H thought he would push the jogging stroller since he was not in running shape. Well this brought out a little debate between us. I did not win.

Strapping the kids into the stroller

This race has been a family affair since the late 90's. I even race this race in college some 600 miles away while the rest of my fam was racing in Hotlanta. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in Feb. 1997. Here is my fam getting ready to run (bro-in-law, younger sis, me, hubby, youngest sis, and Dad). My other bro-in-law and sis-in-law were there to capture the event for us.

So the H wanted us to run together as a family. While that sounds great for an average Sat. morning run, when it comes to racing, I prefer to run alone. I started in the back with everyone, including walkers and strollers. We had to walk for a little while before we even could jog. At a turn, I looked and it was so congested, I knew there was no way the H could get around with that stroller. I looked at him and he said to just go. I went, but had to run around so many people I couldn't get into any groove. My first mile was an awful time with all the walking. The second mile was better. Adam cut across the course and actually caught up with me and we did finish together, but again, we were slower because we had to maneuver around so many people. Here we are at the end of the race.

Here are my splits (just to say, I idn't get to run my pace the entire race):

Split	Hour:Minute:Second Time	Miles Distance	Minutes per Mile Avg Pace
Summary	00:30:53	3.16	09:45
1	00:11:15	1.00	11:15
2	00:09:01	1.00	09:01
3	00:09:08	1.00	09:08
4	00:01:28	0.16	09:00

After the race with my other bro-in-law and sis-in-law.

Hope next to her sign with dad.

So I am hoping to do a 4 mile race next month with better luck.

Hodgepodge post

2011-05-09T19:03:00.000-04:00

Holiday
Well I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day (especially the Mothers). Mine was wonderful. The weekend started off with my first race since my son was born. It wasn't a great race. Too crowded and I didn't start up far enough so my time was terrible (30:54 for a 5k). Then we went to brunch (my favorite meal). On Sunday, the husband made me cornflake crusted french toast with strawberries (I am not a fan of syrup). He also gave me a wonderful necklace with 3 charms/pendants for it (H, A, and love) for my beautiful children. Unfortuantely, 2 of the charms don't fit and we tried to return it so they could fix it, but they were already closed. :( Hopefully we will get it fixed sometime this week, I want to wear it.

Of course, Mother's Day is very bittersweet, but I tried to be a good sport about it on Sunday. I know it bothers the husband when I am bummed out on holidays.

Exercise
I am still holding myself to running 3 days a week, yoga once a week, and abs once a week. I have been able to do it for a couple of weeks now and have started to increase my mileage some (4 miles at a time minimum). Unfortuantely, I am running either in the late morning or afternoon and the temperatures are starting to increase. I guess if it gets too hot, I will have to go back to the mill (not a fan).

Weight loss
Well I am down another couple of pounds and have 7 more pounds to go (my son is 8.5 weeks old). Not too bad. I am eating more veggies (think salads most days for lunch), very little dairy (not totally vegan, because I just can't avoid my ice cream, but no cheese really), and mostly whole foods. My go to snack when I am on the run is a Larabar. My current favorites are peanut butter and jelly and peanut butter cookie, but they are all very good. I am also drinking a lot of water, both for weight loss and nursing. I have been very happy with my progress over the past couple of weeks.

How are you going to spend Cinco de Mayo

2011-05-04T11:20:00.000-04:00

Well I can tell you that I won't be cooking, that's for sure. I had planned on making tacos for dinner on Thursday, until I heard that Moe's Southwest Grill was doing $3 burritos in Atlanta. Yep, any burrito is just $3. I couldn't believe it! The Husband and I can eat dinner for just $6. That's awesome! Different areas have different specials for tmorrow, so check it out here. Looks like our taco night will be next week.

I will be having the Jory Junior with tofu, black beans, lettuce, black olives, pico de gallo, and cucumbers. That is all under 300 calories so I can even enjoy some chips and salsa and still stay under 500 calories for dinner. Woo hoo!!! Hope you enjoy your Cinco de Moes!

Working out - getting into some groove

2011-05-01T15:33:00.000-04:00

Kinda. I am trying to find some balance in my life. And that is hard with 2 small kids and a husband who works long hours. I am trying to go slow but working out makes me feel good. My current weekly goals are:

Run 3 days a week, 3-5 miles at a time.
Do 40 minutes of yoga once a week.
Do an ab workout once a week.

I know that doesn't sound like much, but with lack of sleep (a growth spurt I believe), I don't want to put too much pressure on myself and set myself up for failure. Last week, here is how it went.

Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 17 minutes of yoga, ran 3 miles with the jogging stroller
Wednesday - 40 minutes of yoga
Thursday - Ran 3 miles with the jogging stroller
Friday - Rest
Saturday - Abs, walked 3.4 miles
Sunday - Ran 4.5 miles all by myself

My thought is to keep this up, with slowly increasing mileage, adding speed work, etc.

The weight is slowly coming off too, slow and steady wins the race. :)

These 6 weeks have flown by

2011-04-23T15:46:00.000-04:00

I can't believe my little boy is already 6 weeks old already. He is growing so fast. Even me, who sees him everyday, all day, can see the changes in him. His cheeks are getting so full and round; they are adorable. His legs are also starting to fill out (he started off with some real bird legs), but the boy still has no butt. Don't know where he gets that from. :)

So I had my 6 week post-partum appointment as well. All is good. I checked out just fine and am good to go. So of course, I celebrated with a 3 mile run. I an tell you that I had been taking it easy after my OMG moment I have to lose all the baby weight and get back into running shape immediately. I had only been running a couple of times period since then. I feel much better that I have to. (Thanks for all the great comments). I am going to try get back easy. That is going to be hard. I am an all or nothing kind of person. I feel like I should work out everyday, but I know that is not possible right now. I am going to be make a goal to run 3 times a week, and of course, it won't be for long runs at the beginning. I am also try to do some yoga. I will keep you posted.

Who has made the switch?

2011-04-20T10:21:00.001-04:00

Since being on maternity leave, I saw the Oprah rerun of Veganism. Oprah and some 378 staff members went vegan for 7 days. A lot of people mentioned having so much more energy and feeling just better overall. Because my nights are very crazy right now (neither kid is a good sleeper, the last 2 nights both have woken up multiple times), I know I need to eat well to help me feel better. And of course, once you decide to become a vegetarian, all of the literature is really targeted to becoming a vegan. So I have always had some guilt about just being a vegetarian. I am trying to think about it through though. I love almond milk, so that is a very easy change for me to make to sub in for regular milk. Cheese is the next issue. I probably should be limiting cheese anyway since I still have some baby weight to lose. The biggest issue with cheese is with family meals. Both the hubs as well as the daughter both love cheese, especially pizza. They would not be happy if I made a pizza with no cheese. Then there is ice cream. I LOVE ice cream, which I know I probably should be limiting that too if I want to lose weight, but it is my #1 weakness. I tried the banana soft serve and while it was very good, it did take some time to prepare compared to just dumping some ice cream in a bowl like I normally do. And since I was toting around a newborn/infant, ease is very important. I found a new blog not too long ago and she was doing the Crazy Sexy Diet 21 day challenge which is vegan and gluten free. So all these things I am seeing in just a matter of days.

I had one vegan day and I have to say that I felt great. Of course, the kids also napped well that day, so that might have helped out some. Since then, I have been trying to limit my dairy, with the exception of ice cream on some nights. I am wondering if I can kick the ice cream habit. I am not sure if vegan is completely possible for me at least right now, but I think I would feel better, it's healthier, and it would probably help me lose the rest of my baby weight.

So it has me thinking, how do you make the switch? Especially with meat eaters in the family? Any advice? Any reading recommendations or websites? Any products you recommend? Additional vitamins I should take? TIA!

Yummy recipe - Lentil Loaf

2011-04-15T17:11:00.000-04:00

I had made a bunch of lentils, but didn't end up having something specific to use them for, so I started looking into the blog world for recipes. I came across 2 lentil loaf recipes. I had been eyeing this recipe for a while and now sounded like the perfect time to make this.

Lentil Loaf

adapted from Angela and Kate

Ingredients:

2 - 2 1/2 cup cooked lentils (cooked in water)

3 TBS ground flax seed

1/2 cup warm water

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 small mild onion, diced

1 large carrot, diced (I used 4 baby carrots)

1 small apple grated (I used red delicious because that was what I had on hand)

3/4 cup toasted walnuts, roughly chopped

1 tsp kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1/2 cup oats, ground into a flour

3/4 cup bread crumbs

½ c bbq sauce

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F and line a loaf pan grease one large loaf pan or four small ones.

Toast 3/4 cup of walnuts in a 350 degree oven for about 5 min.

Mix 3 tbsp of ground flax with 1/2 cup warm water and stir well. Set aside for at least 5-10 minutes so it can gel up.

In a large skillet over medium heat, sauté onion and minced garlic for about 5 minutes on medium heat in 1 T olive oil, being careful not to burn. After the onions are tender, add carrot and sauté for 2-3 minutes over low heat. Add grated apple, and chopped walnuts and sauté another minute or two. Add salt, and pepper to taste. Remove from heat and set aside.

Take 75% of the lentils and place into a blender. Process until mostly smooth (some small lentils will remain!). Now take the processed lentils and scoop into a large bowl.

Add in the remaining 25% of non-processed lentils and place into bowl. Add the oil, breadcrumbs, flax egg, veggie mixture, oat flour, and ground flax seed. Stir well with a spoon and then remove the spoon and mix well with your hands, press mixture into loaf pan with your fingers.

Spread bbq sauce evenly over loaf and bake, uncovered 30-35 minutes at 350F.

Let cool a few minutes and serve!

The mixture before it went into the pan

The finished product

My plate - I paired my loaf with an organic spinach salad with chickpeas and carrots with Annie's dressing.

Definitely worth a try.

A new purchase for me

2011-04-13T10:59:00.001-04:00

I bought some extra virgin coconut oil yesterday when I was at the farmer's market. I had been looking for it at both the grocery store and the farmer's market but hadn't seen it yet. I saw it yesterday, so I grabbed some up. I have seen a lot of information on coconut oil over the past several months as well as it coming up in a lot of recipes, so I thought I would give it a try.

Benefits of Coconut Oil

The health benefits of coconut oil include

Promoting heart health
Promoting weight loss
Supporting your immune system health
Supporting a healthy metabolism
Immediate energy source
Helps with dry skin and hair

Coconut oil is about 92% saturated fat (OMG, no) and is solid at room temperature. Research has shown that not all saturated fats are alike and that most of them are Medium Chain Triglycerides, which do not raise serum cholesterol or contribute to heart disease, but are in fact very healthy. Coconut oil is rich in lauric acid, which is known for being anti-viral, antibacterial and anti-fungal.

Most oils are light and heat sensitive, meaning that they easily turn rancid if not kept in a cool, dark place. Coconut oil is highly stable and is much more resistant to heat than other oils, even olive oil. So it's great to cook with but supposedly also great to have raw.

What to do with coconut oil?

So now I have it, I don't have any specific recipes to use coconut oil. How do you use coconut oil? I will be scouring blogs for recipes, so if you have any good ones, please let me know. Also, if you use coconut oil for things other than in recipes, I am all ears.

Thanks for the cyber hugs

2011-04-09T21:01:00.000-04:00

Thanks for the great comments on my last post. I don't know why I am so anxious about losing the baby weight. I was not like this last time. So weird. I feel like a failure so much recently. I feel like I am not getting enough done around the house, not spending enough time with the daughter doing things she would want to do, not making great dinners, not losing the baby weight fast enough, etc. Again, I don't know why I am feeling this way. I was much more laid back last time. I guess because I have been feeling better sooner, I feel like I should be getting more done, especially when it comes to losing weight. I know I need to relax and chill out and let it be. I am not sleeping much. The son is not sleeping well so of course, I don't have a lot of energy to get me through the day. I am also breastfeeding which means every 2 hours, I have to take a 20-30 minute break to feed him. I don't mind doing it but I have to realize that, it takes a lot of time out of my day to feed the little man. He is an eater!

I am starting to work out again and am getting on a regular schedule with it so that is good. I think that will continue to be the way I operate and not worry so much about eating. I typically eat healthy, wholesome foods, so I should really worry about it.

So I enjoyed my dessert last night (and tonight, ice cream both nights) and don't regret it. I know I just need to relax. I wish I could more. Any tips to relaxing?

Do people really not eat dessert?

2011-04-07T20:07:00.000-04:00

I admit, the only other time in my life that I had to lose weight (other than the 2-3 vanity pounds) was after I had Hope. So I am not very versed in the dieting arena. I can do well at maintaining, but I am scared about losing this baby weight. I know it came off relatively easy with Hope, but this time maybe it won't. I feel like a fish out of water. I also have some conditions with my weight loss, like I am nursing, so I can't cut my calories too much and have to make sure I am getting enough protein, healthy fats, etc. I am also not sleeping great at night so my energy level isn't very high, and no caffeine for breastfeeding (well I do make half caff coffee in the mornings).

Ok, so getting to the point of my post. I love sweets, so I indulge in dessert more nights than I probably should. But since most of my life, I have just been maintaining my healthy weight, I felt like it was ok. My go to dessert is ice cream (Breyer's Light Mint Chocolate Chip to be exact). I try to keep my portions small, but I know my serving is always more than the half cup recommended. And then sometimes we have organic semisweet chocolate chips that might find there way into the bowl. :)

I was looking at one of my favorite message boards last night and one of the daily posts is planned eating and exercising for the day. I was noticing that almost no one said anything about eating after dinner, i.e. no dessert. Now, not all of these people are trying to lose weight. Actually I would say that most people that answer to the post are just maintaining their weight. What? Are none of these people eating dessert?

I eat breakfast, lunch, a snack, and dinner. I eat dinner between 6 and 7pm. I would get hungry if I tried to make it until the next morning to eat again. Since I am breastfeeding I feel like I shouldn't go that long between meals. Is that correct? Would I be ok not to eat? If I should eat something, what are some better choices for evening snacks?

What do you do when you are trying to lose some weight?

I broke down . . .

2011-04-06T18:57:00.000-04:00

and ran. I know it's early, but I was going crazy. I ran slow (12 - 12:30 minute miles) to make sure little Aidan's head wasn't bobbing around and of course I wanted to go slow for myself. I know there are plenty of people who want to flame me, but I felt ready, so I went.

I ran 2.5 miles yesterday with Aidan and 2.21 miles today with both kiddos. And I felt great both times. I had been feeling a little down, not the baby blues, but feeling down that I can't get more done during the day. Aidan isn't sleeping well so I am pretty tired during the day. Aidan is also a snuggler which is great because I love to hold him but I can't get much done while holding him (I am currently typing one-handed). Running has actually given me more energy.

On the food front, I started reading "The Four Hour Body." It was back in December, when I was reading a post from one of my favorite blogs that I was introduced to Tim Ferriss. I was intrigued by the post but didn't want to immediately go out and buy another health book. So I went to see if the book "The Four Hour Body" was at my local library. The good news was that it was, the bad news was that there was a long waitlist. I was ok with a long waitlist since I was pregnant and not into becoming superhuman immediately. Well I got the book last Friday. It is quite interesting because it is broken up into different sections. He just asks that you read the 1st two sections that spell out some of his philosophies and what he is all about. I did and then I read the first section "Burning Fat." He calls it the "Slow Carb Diet" and claims that if you follow it you can lose 20 lbs. of fat in 30 days. What??? I had to read on. Oh yeah, did I mention he said without any exercise.

So here is how it breaks down:

Don’t eat white foods.Or any foods that can be white. No bread, pasta, rice (including brown), sugars, flours, etc. Cauliflower is fine.
Don’t drink calories.No juices, pop/soda, milk, etc. Stick to no-cal beverages — mainly water.
Eat the same meals over and over.The idea is that if you simplify planning, the diet is easy to follow. So you map out a few meals and just repeat them over and over. Tim gives three major categories and suggests choosing something from each category to create a meal:
Proteins:
Egg whites with one whole egg for flavor
Chicken breast or thigh
Grass-fed organic beef
Pork
Legumes:
Lentils
Black beans
Pinto beans
Vegetables:
Spinach
Asparagus
Peas
Mixed vegetables
Don’t eat fruit.I don't agree with this but this is his thing.
Take one cheat day per week.No holds barred. On Saturdays, Tim pretends he’s in a big, gross eating contest. This isn’t a perk; it’s a requirement. I won’t explain the science, but let’s just say that I agree with the many benefits of a cheat day from both research and personal experience. I’ve annihilated buffet lines in the past during cheats and still lost a bunch of fat. It’s amazing.

After tracking my calories, I noticed I was lacking in protein and even fiber on some days. So while I am not someone who requires a lot of protein (I know this from experience), adding in cottage cheese, eggs, and beans would probably be beneficial. I tried to follow it more carefully for a couple of days, and gained 2 lbs. Like I said, my body just doesn't need that much protein.

Since then, I have been eating more salads with beans and some lowfat cottage cheese. I think that works best for me.

Week 1 Results

2011-03-31T12:56:00.000-04:00

So last Thursday I was 2 weeks post-partum (pp) and decided that since I felt pretty good, I decided it was time to start thinking about getting back into shape (and losing the baby weight). I was going to track my calories on Babyfit and start doing some weights and walking more.

Weight loss
I am down 1.2 pounds from last week. I know my weight will be fluncuating a lot because I am nursing. Aidan didn't eat very much before I got out of bed and weighed myself, so I might have been able to a few more ounces. :) I also know that once I can really start working out, I will hopefully be able to lose more.

Eating
According to Babyfit, I should be eating between 1850 and 2150 calories. That seems like a lot but it's because I am nursing and require more calories to keep that up. I am not used to eating that much so it's a little hard for me. Also, because I can eat that much, I feel like I can indulge some and still lose. I tracked my calories for a week and learned a lot. I would not eat some of my good for you foods because I would want to "save" those calories for my indulges (I know, bad). I would also track my calories all day and then when I would see that I have 300 calories left before I hit the minumim calories, I would eat that many calories in sweets (again, I know, bad) even when I am not that hungry. The whole calorie thing was overwhelming. I also saw that I didn't eat enough protein several days. If anyone has some tips for veg people to get in more protein, I would appreciate it. And no to fake meat. Here are some break downs.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Bitmap

Breakfast

Protein

Fat

Carbs

Calories

Calcium, Ca

Folate, total

Iron, Fe

Fiber, total dietary

Meal totals

452

Lunch

Meal totals

385

Dinner

Meal totals

506

Snack

Meal totals

535

Daily totals

239

1,879

Recommended totals

65 - 80

1850 - 2150

100 - 200

150 - 200

140 - 170

25 - 35

Friday, March 25, 2011

Bitmap

Breakfast

Protein

Fat

Carbs

Calories

Calcium, Ca

Folate, total

Iron, Fe

Fiber, total dietary

Meal totals

404

Lunch

Meal totals

442

108

102

Dinner

Meal totals

754

Snack

Meal totals

480

Daily totals

261

2,079

127

186

Recommended totals

65 - 80

1850 - 2150

100 - 200

150 - 200

140 - 170

25 - 35

Working Out
I have to say that this experience so far has made me at least be consistent with my "workouts."

Thursday: Your Shape fitness test (30 minutes)
Friday: Walk in the neighborhood with double jogging stroller (1.58 miles)
Saturday: Rest (sick toddler)
Sunday: Your Shape upper body workout (30 minutes) and abs
Monday: Walk in neighborhood with double jogging stroller (1.63 miles)
Tuesday: Your Shape lower body workout (45 minutes) and abs
Wednesday: Walk on treadmill at 3.5mph at 9.0% incline

What to do this week

I am not going to track my calories. I know what I should be eating and limit mindless snacking. I think this will help me with increasing my healthy choices.
Might try a run this week.
Continue with my weights
Enjoy my time with my son. :)

Any advice for me as I continue my journey.

Happy news and a yummy breakfast

2011-03-29T14:31:00.000-04:00

Adam and I both got into the Peachtree from the lottery! Yeah! I wasn't sure if we would or not. I heard that they only gave special treatment to those who have raced in the race at least 10 times. Adam and I are at about 5 so we didn't get any special consideration, but we did get in. I also signed up for the Race for the Cure (in May), so I have a 5k in May and a 10k in July. I am thinking of finding a 4 mile or 8k to race in June. If you know of any that are near me (Atlanta) please let me know.

Also, I have been playing around with my breakfasts. Cereal just won't cut it most days, so I have been making a lot of oatmeal. Today I decided to try something different. I have been buying granola (I know it's so high in calories, I only did it while I was pregnant) from the farmer's market. It's organic and only has a few ingredients. I buy the one without nuts and raisins and then if I want I can add my own. While pregnant, I was putting in dried cranberries (raspberry flavored) and nuts (walnuts, pecans, almonds, or pumpkin seeds). So yummy and filling but I know it's a breakfast killer with so many calories. Today I decided to make a healthy yogurt parfait.

Yummy Yogurt Parfait
1 cup plain lowfat yogurt
1 cup blueberries (other berries would work too)
1/3 cup granola

Pour half of the yogurt into a glass or bowl, then half of the blueberries, then about half of the granola. Repeat.

Nutrition
Calories: 370
Fat: 7 grams
Protein: 16 grams
Carbs: 65 grams

And here is a picture of the kids that I took a few days ago. I got the shirts from Cafe Press.

Aidan's birthday story

2011-03-27T09:47:00.001-04:00

Here you go. FYI - it's long.

Wednesday (3/9/2011)

This was the first day I was starting to work from home the rest of the pregnancy. It was so nice. Hope went to MIL's house and I had the house to myself. I got what I needed to done for work and was even able to do my 3 mile run on the treadmill (approx. 32 minutes). It was raining so I couldn’t run outside. It was a pretty good feeling run though. It was a little hard to get motivated, but once I got on there, I knew I could do it. I also packed a hospital bag for baby and me. I picked Hope up at 4:30pm and headed home to make dinner. Again, around 7pm, contractions started. I got back on the couch with Hope and started timing them. I started writing them down again. They started at 7 minutes apart, then 6 minutes apart. Again, when Adam called to tell me that he was on his way home (around 7:45pm), I told him I was having contractions again. I told him they weren’t painful at all, just some tightening again. Adam came home and put Hope to bed for me. The contractions started to get closer, about 6 minutes apart. By the time we went to bed, they were 5 minutes apart according to my chicken scratch so I got my Timex out to measure how long they were lasting. To my surprise they were about 1 minute apart. Well contractions 5 minutes apart and lasting for 1 minute is kind of when you should call the doctor. And Adam was insistent that I call. I told him, they were not painful contractions and were probably not even dilating my cervix at all, but he insisted. I called and to my surprise, my OB was on call. I told her what was going on, and she asked if I wanted to come in and get checked out. I told her no because they weren’t painful so I doubted I was progressing any. She said ok, but if my water broke, I had to come in immediately because things could go very quickly. After that, I tried to go to bed. Adam, on the other hand, started freaking out. He was not ready for baby. He started adding to my hospital bag all of his stuff. He was a man on a mission. He was running around cursing and worrying. It was 11 days before my due date and Adam was planning on me at least getting through the weekend. He even snapped at me. I said, hey, I am one having the contractions. He apologized but wasn’t mentally or physically ready for the baby to come tonight. Finally, he had enough packed up and got back into bed and put on in a movie for us to watch.

Thursday (3/10/2011)

I woke up and still had some contractions, but still not painful. Adam and I decided that I would take Hope to her Mother’s Morning Out Program, but that I would then take Hope’s car seat over to my mother-in-law’s along with Hope’s bag in case I went into real labor. I had a doctor’s appointment at noon that day, so I went home and worked until my appt. I wasn’t timing the contractions, but I know they weren’t getting closer together. I think they were pretty far apart actually. My OB (Dr. Sun) saw me and I told her I was still having some contractions but they were pretty far apart right now, but I was still having them. Last week she checked me and I was ½ cm dilated and the baby was pretty far up. Today she expected to see some progress. She checked me and I was 3 cm and she suspected all that dilating came from last night’s contractions. She also did a quick ultrasound and the baby’s head was still down and even turned the right way, head facing back. She said I could go to the hospital or I could go home. I said I wanted to go home mostly because the contractions were still not painful and at She said I could go home, but if my water broke I had to rush it to the hospital. I said ok. I called Adam and told him that Hope needed to stay with his mom, because we were probably going to have a baby today or tomorrow. I had been progressing and the contractions were still around. Actually while at the hospital, I got very nauseous and a few of the contractions were uncomfortable. He asked if he should come home. I told him no, that I would keep him updated, but until I was feeling the contractions, there was no need to do anything different. He also had an important conference call at 2:30pm that I wanted him to take if he could. So I was on my way home, not feeling well at this point, and thought, hey, this might be my last day being pregnant and I haven’t had any fast food all pregnancy, so I stopped at a combo fast food joint (Arby’s and Wendy’s). I got a large frosty (chocolate) and a medium curly q fries. I went home and ate those and got my laptop and went upstairs to my lay in my bed. I continued to work and rested and started timing my contractions through an online calculator. The contractions had slowed down to 6-7 minutes apart. I started to lose my mucus plug at 1:20pm. I called my sister Val and told her that if my water broke, she would probably have to leave work immediately and drive me to the hospital because Adam was too far away to leave work, come home, and then drive me to the hospital. Well, Val was a little concerned about me being home alone, so she went ahead and left work and came over. She hung out with me on the bed and watched me work. The contractions were 6-7 minutes apart lasting about one minute but not painful. Adam called before his conference call and I told him I was fine. Around 4pm, I sat up instead of laying down and folded laundry. My contractions jumped to 5 minutes apart. Around 4:30pm, I decided that Adam’s call was over so I could start moving around more and see if it did anything for me contractions. The bloody show started at 4:30pm. I decided to take a shower and dry my hair. My contractions were then 2-5 minutes apart, still lasting about one minute. Adam called at 4:40pm and said that he either needed to come home or he would go to a function he was supposed to go to. I told him the contractions were coming closer together, although not painful, so he should come home. He got home around 5:10pm and got changed and started putting the last of the items into our bag. He also wanted to get pictures of the nursery and pictures of me like we did before we had Hope. Around 5:30pm, I stopped laughing during contractions and joking around and started feeling them. I told Adam, we should plan to leave for the hospital at 6pm if this continued. I had no idea how far along I was. I had non-painful contractions all day and now they were started to get painful. So in between contractions we took pictures and got things ready. I wanted to change the sheets in the bedrooms so when we got home everything would be nice and clean. I also put away all of the laundry (yeah). Well at 6pm, we left for the hospital. The contractions were mild to moderate, so the ride the hospital was fine. I wasn’t in that much pain, so it was fine. As I was calling my OB’s office to tell them I was on my way (my OB was on call again that night, double score), my OB called me to see how I was doing. I told her I was on my way. She said she would call the front desk and tell them I was on my way, have the nurse check me and then give her an update. We got to the hospital and the contractions were getting stronger. I got checked in relativity quickly and got to my room (D-1). It was 6:50pm. We got settled and got some paperwork out of the way before I was too uncomfortable. I told her I didn’t want drugs and that I didn’t have an epidural when I had my daughter. She did not have me sign the epi page. She checked me and I was so hopeful. Then she said, you are 3-4 cm dilated. What??? I hadn’t progressed at all. This was not good in my mind. After one hour of contractions, I was dying. I told Adam I might need the epi. I was hurting so bad. I asked the nurse to check me again because if I hadn’t made some decent progress, I was going to need some drugs. I was dying. She said they didn’t like to check patients very often because it could introduce bacteria. I was annoyed! I didn’t know this at the time, but Adam felt like he was failing as my coach because I was wanting drugs and he knew how important it was for me to go natural. He got on his blackberry and googled labor and positions and breathing techniques (something that we had not revisited since having Hope. He said, let’s change potions. I thought I don’t care about changing positions, I am dying here. He said “Let’s sit you up and lean on me when you have a contraction. I will rub your back and listen to my breathing and repeat it.” Well that next contraction was much more manageable and I immediately thought that it must have been a weaker contraction (I couldn’t see the monitor when I was sitting up. Adam encouraged me and told me how well I was doing and that when we got here, the contractions were only in the50’sand now they were in the80’s and I was doing great. I was shaking like a leaf.

At 9:00pm, my OB, who was on call for the evening, came in to see how I was doing. She knew I didn’t want drugs, but I told her I was in a lot of pain, the contractions were coming very close together, and I didn’t get much rest between them. She asked if I wanted her to check me and I said “YES!” She said that I was about at 5 cm. In 2 hours, I have progress about 2 cm. She asked if I wanted my water broken. I said “NO!” I told her I was afraid the contractions would come even harder and faster, but not really help me progress that much. My OB said that she thought I would progress much faster if my water was broken. She said that if I didn’t, then I could get the epi because I had to go through an entire bag of saline before I could have the epi anyway. I said ok. So at 9:05pm, my water was broken. Not much came out, but what did come out had meconium in it. I was shocked. He was 10 days early, so I was surprised there was any meconium. It wasn’t like he was 10 days late. So that meant, we had to have a special time in the room when I delivered. It also meant that he couldn’t be brought on my chest after I delivered him. That really bummed me out. I got to do that with Hope and I really felt like that was a big bonding moment for Hope and me. One contraction later, my OB checked me again, and I was already 6 cm. A few more contractions, again still sitting up leaning on Adam and him rubbing my back, and my OB checked again, and I was 7-8 cm. I was progressing fast. Thank goodness! Adam was helping me with my breathing too. I had to start my deep breathing before the contraction was painful to really focus or I wasn’t going to get through it. That was the nice thing about having no drugs. I could feel the contraction coming on before the monitors picked it up, so I could tell Adam that I needed him and he could come over and take his position. He didn’t have to wait for a monitor to tell him anything. He just listened to me. He told me to focus on something. He said for him it would be palm trees like the ones in Hawaii (Hawaii is our favorite place in the world). I tried to do that, but I was having real trouble with the whole focus point. I was focusing on Adam’s green shirt instead. I did notice that my OB had put on some. All of a sudden during one contraction, I felt the urge to push. She checked me and said all I had left was a little lip but she thought she could get the baby around it. I started to move around to get in position during the next contraction as everyone rushed in and they were changing the bed around to put the stirrups in and as a contraction started I asked if I could push. My OB said yes, so as they are changing the bed, setting up the baby station, etc. I started to push halfway through the contraction. As the contraction finished, my doctor said, he’s right there, I can see his head. I replied “I know.” I could feel his head had come way down and was right there. I told everyone that the next contraction was coming. No one was holding my feet or anything. There was no counting to 10. I just bared down and pushed as hard as I could. It took the entire contraction, but with it, my little boy was delivered at 9:44pm (40 minutes after my OB broke my water and just over 4 hours after contractions really started). At first glance, I thought he looks smaller than I had expected. Adam had the camera ready and was getting pictures immediately and gushing over his son. FYI – I got no love from anyone. My OB quickly suctioned him out and asked Adam he wanted to cut the cord. Of course Adam did and then my son was whisked away over to the baby station. He was already crying. He was crying loud which sounded so good to my ears. Adam went over there to take pictures and check on our son. I was now freezing, shaking more, and needed to be fixed up. All of sudden, I start hearing that my son (who still has no name yet) isn’t holding his oxygen levels and is requiring O₂. Are you serious??? I had gone most of the pregnancy with minimal problems, he has to be ok. Finally it was decided that our little boy was going to need to go to the NICU. I wanted to cry. They hadn’t done any of his measurements, given him a bath or anything. They wrapped him up and brought him over to me. They let me hold him for about 30 seconds. I looked into his eyes and started talking. He finally stopped crying. I told him to be good and I would see him later. They put him in the incubator and took him away from me again. I told Adam I was fine and that he needed to go with our son and make sure everything would be ok and give me updates since I was still being fixed up. I think Adam finally gave me a kiss and he went up. I texted our families that our son was here. They immediately got in the car, but I told them he was in the NICU and who knew if they would see him. Adam called and said he was doing better and they had done his stats. His apgars were 8 and 8. He weighed 6lb. 5oz., 19 ¼ inches long, head circum. was 12 ½ inches, and chest was 12 ¼ inches. He was 5oz. smaller than Hope. I was surprised. I told him not to come down again until he named our son. I was all fixed up (2^nd degree tear) and given motrin. I was moved up to my room and 3+ hours later, my son was returned to me with a clean bill of health. He had just been given formula so I had to wait a few more hours before I could breastfeed him. I was so happy to have him in my arms, and I don't plan to let him go forever.

It's go time

2011-03-24T15:48:00.001-04:00

It's funny, I am actually psyched to get back into working out and having my body back (well as much as back as I can considering I am nursing). Aidan is now 2 weeks old and I am feeling pretty good. I am still a little sore, but I am not taking Motrin for pain anymore and nursing is going really well, so I think I can start to think about watching my eating and start "working out." I know I can't run yet, but I have been walking a couple times a week.

My first walk - 3 days pp

I am now going to start incorporating some strength training which will be easy on my healing body, but will help me build muscle and burn calories until I can start running again (still weeks away). I did The Firm with Hope when she was 3.5 weeks old. I didn't have as bad of a delivery with Aidan so I thought I would start today and see how it goes. Any little bit will help. With Hope I did work out, but I didn't even think about losing any weight because I wanted to make sure my milk was in and I had a good supply (FYI - breastfeeding was/is very important to me. I BF Hope for 15.5 months and plan to BF Aidan for at least 1 year). I didn't want to restrict my calories with Hope in case it affected my supply. This time around, I feel more confident about BFing and my milk came in early and Aidan is nursing great and at 5 days old had already gained back his birth weight plus 3.5 oz. So I feel good about BFing and would like to lose my baby weight a little faster than last time (3-4 months).

Me and my belly the evening Aidan was born

I am actually in between contractions which is why I am smiling

Working Out
This time around I plan to use Your Shape to get some strength training in. I actually got this for Christmas last year, but our PC couldn't handle it so I had to wait until I got a new computer before I could load it up. I had my first workout today and it was pretty good. I think it was just a fitness test but I did it for 30 minutes and burned 246 calories. My goal is to do it 3 times a week and walk 2-3 times a week as well. That seems like a lot to do with 2 small children and my lack of sleep means I am not getting up early to get my workouts in, so we will see how it goes. At least right now, Aidan can't go out so I am stuck at home which means no errands at least right now.

Eating
I gained 24lbs. during my pregnancy. I did not restrict myself during pregnancy because I knew with Hope I had a very small placenta and that made it difficult for Hope to get enough nutrients and calories. Aidan started off fine, but really dropped in the end. Again, another small placenta, so I am glad I gained a good amount of weight. I signed up for Babyfit. I will try to track my calories on this site and see how I am doing. My goal is to eat as many whole foods as possible and limit refined foods. I do know I need extra calories because I am nursing as well as lots of water. So I do plan to have dessert most nights. :) According to babyfit, I need 1,800 - 2,100 calories a day, so that is my plan. I do not plan to do anything dramatic, just try to be smart.

Stats
According to the scale, I am 11 lbs. above my pre-pregnancy weight, with a current BMI of 22.2. With my pre-pregnancy weight, I will have a healthy BMI of 20.2. I have gotten down to 19.8, but for now we are focused on 20.2. I also took my measurements today. I will update you on how many inches I have lost. I can tell you that my chest measurement is currently 4.5 inches bigger than my pre-pregnancy chest measurement. Yes, I look like a porn star right now. :)

My belly today

So, my goal is mainly to just get back into shape so I can get back to my running shape. I am not so concerned with the weight. I know it will come off, well at least it did last time. :) Wish me luck.

Christmas/Birthday all in one

2011-03-22T12:22:00.000-04:00

So I mentioned that Adam got me the Bob Duallie Revolution Double jogging stroller for Christmas. I was so excited because I have been using my single jogging stroller weekly with Hope since she was 3 months old and absolutely love it. We have not gotten any other double stroller, so this will likely be our only double stroller at least until we feel like we need another one. We have seen people with this exact stroller in the mall as well as on the road so we felt like it was a good purchase for us. We also got it on sale and online so we didn't have to pay for tax, shipping, and got the nice discount because they were coming out with a new line of Bob's, so they were trying to get rid of the older models. Saved us over $125.

I have not started running again but I have taken the kids on a couple of walks to get out of the house. My first walk with both kids, and they both fell asleep.

I was trying to get my walks in everyday, but I started having some additional pain and realized I was probably doing too much at home too, so I took a few days off and am now back to walking again. My thought is to start doing some strength training/yoga around 2 weeks post partum (did it with Hope at 3.5 weeks pp) and see how I feel. I will keep you abreast of my getting back into shape blogging.

Happy birthday to me

2011-03-21T17:10:00.001-04:00

Well with Aidan just a few days old and us just out of the hospital, it was a pretty low key birthday, but it was a wonderful one all the same. When Hope woke up, Adam took her and Aidan downstairs and told me to sleep in as long as I wanted. I was able to actually fall back asleep, but just for an hour. But man that hour felt soooo good. I got up and fed Aidan and then had some coffee with Adam. Then Adam took Hope and they ran errands to buy my presents. Now, I know some of you ladies can't believe Adam wanted that long to get my birthday presents, but he had planned to go out last weekend, but we were in the hospital, so all was forgiven. Actually the fact that Adam took Hope to run the errands was so nice. The house was so quiet. Aidan is still in the newborn phase, so he sleeps a lot. I was able to relax a lot, take a shower, eat lunch quietly and not have to worry about anyone else other than Aidan. It was a really nice day for me.

We had planned to have family over for dinner, but since Aidan came early, we cancelled and just did dinner on our own. Adam made me breakfast for dinner, homemade waffles with NY maple syrup and mini breakfast burritos. I was actually feeling kind of sick from everything, but managed to eat every last bit because Adam went to such trouble to make me feel special, I wasn't going to have him think that I didn't appreciate it.

Most of my family did stop by during the day to drop off gifts, so I was happy to get a couple of the accessories (car seat adaptor and console) for the Bob Duallie I got for Christmas. Yeah!!! And then Adam got me some new pans because I was wearing out my old ones. We went with stainless steel to see how it compares to the nonstick we have been using. And then he got me some fun shoes that I had been eyeing.

I am not a huge cake person (but don't mistake that for not a sweet person because I totally am), so when I went to get Adam's birthday cake last month at our favorite bakery, I saw the gentleman in front of me order a half chocolate pecan tart that looked amazing. I told Adam about it and not only did he remember, but he got it for me. It is so good.

Yum, people, yum! If you are in Atlanta, or specifically Decatur, I highly recommend this place.

And of course little Aidan wished his mommy a happy birthday. :)

Happy 32nd to me!

Getting your priorities right

2011-03-16T15:53:00.001-04:00

So I am at home on maternity leave with a 6 day old newborn and a toddler, and what was on my mind last night as well as this morning . . . signing up the Peachtree. This is the 10k that is run on July 4th that is the largest 10k in the world. Well rumor has it that the race was not the largest anymore, so they have expanded from 55,000 to 65,000 runners (no that is not a typo). Well for years, you had to mail in your registration form the day they came out. 2 years ago, they switched to the option of doing your registration online, but had many issues with the servers crashing because so many people were trying to on. Well this year, they are doing a lottery, so you can not guarenteed to get into the race by registering early. The lottery is open for 10 days and then you will be notified if you get into the race. Adam and I have done this race for at least the past 4 or 5 years, and we both would like to run the race this year. If I am selected from the lottery, this will be my first 10k since Aidan's birth. So this morning, I went online and registered both Adam and me. I hope we get in. Keep your fingers crossed for us. :)

Introducing Aidan Spencer

2011-03-13T21:33:00.002-04:00

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Where have I been?

2011-03-12T17:18:00.000-05:00

Having a baby!!! I had some nonpainful contractions on Wed. night (3/9). Real contractions started at 5:30pm on Thurs. (3/10) and Aidan Spencer was born at 9:44pm (10 days early) weighing in at 6lb. 5oz. and is 19.25 inches long. He had a brief episode in which took him to the NICU, but he was returned to us after a few hours. Since then, he has been wonderful. We got home from the hosital today. I promise to get some pictures posted soon as well as the birth story (for those interested).

Our "babymoon"

2011-03-09T11:26:00.000-05:00

Adam and I decided to do a little trip away from our daughter before the new baby arrives, so we went away last weekend. It was a short trip; we left Saturday morning and returned Sunday afternoon (just in time for me to take Hope to a birthday party). We went to a vineyard/spa/resort and had a wonderful time.

We had massages at 11:30am on Saturday, but luckily the place is only 40 minutes away from our house so we didn't have to rush very much. We had wanted to do a couples' massage (we have never done one), but they were already booked. I had a prenatal massage and Adam and had a hot stone massage. He said it was really nice. We hung out in the spa afterwards and relaxed, then we checked in to our hotel room and grabbed lunch at the winery. Adam had a great glass of wine and lunch was very nice. Unfortunately, the weather was pretty crummy, so some of the things we had hoped to do (tennis and hiking) did not happen. Instead we vegged in the room, took naps, watched tv, snuggled, etc. We decided to have a date night so we got dressed and went out for dinner and movie. We had wanted to see Just Go With It for a couple of weeks because we had stayed at the hotel in Hawaii where a lot of the film was made. It was so awesome to watch the movie and know exactly where they are. It was neat. Not a bad movie either.

Sunday morning, we relaxed some more and were very lazy. It was very hard to chill since every weekend has revolved around working on house/nursery or doing things with/for Hope. We headed back in town and had brunch and did some shopping for the kids.

We forgot our camera all weekend so we don't have any pictures to commerate the trip, but we have wonderful memories.

Anyone else ever go on a babymoon?

National Nutrition Month

2011-03-07T12:37:00.000-05:00

Well other than the fact that my baby will be born this month, there are other things going on too. March is National Nutrition Month. The theme this year is Eating Right with Color. This would be a great month to blog at the colors I am eating if I wasn't 8 1/2 months pregnant. My food consumption is very weird right now. Some days I feel like I can't possibly eat anymore food, some days I want only cereal morning, noon, and night, and some days I was to eat a lot and not of the healthy stuff. I am trying to be good, but it's hard when I know I am so close to the end. So I probably won't blog once a week about this and all the great colors I am eating, but I can tell you I have eaten 2 bright colors today, green and orange.

Yep, I had spinach in my green monster smoothie.

And 2 tangerines for lunch.

I also had a white - banana in my green monster smoothie, but I am not sure if they count that or not. I would guess they would since bananas are a fruit, but I guess I won't get bogged down in the details.

So I guess even though I am not at my best for eating, I will strive to eat with color for these last few weeks and then even more come post-partum.

Ugh and ouch

2011-03-02T11:49:00.000-05:00

I wasn't able to get my Monday run in so I decided to do some yoga. Well Monday (well actually Saturday, Sunday, and Monday) I was in a horrible mood. Don't ask me why, but I was easily irritated. I felt awful. I have been kicked in the ribs for the past 7 weeks, I felt huge and starting to get uncomfortable. So basically, just plain miserable, so not getting my run in really hurt me. I did 30 minutes of yoga and cursed the whole time (I did Yoga X to mix it up). I wanted to get more done, but that just wasn't going to happen. I have also been eating pretty crappy which also doesn't help. It makes me feel awful and I lose a lot of energy by not eating well. It's just one of those things, I have been so good the whole pregnancy, that in the past week, I have just really "relaxed" my eating habits. I know, that's a terrible thing to do, but that has just been my attitude.

Well I woke up on Tuesday (which I actually slept pretty well for once) and felt ok. I dropped Hope off at her Mother's Morning Out program and grabbed my iPod and went for a run. It has been a while that I ran outside without the jogging stroller. My plan was to run around 3 miles in my old neighborhood (it is really close to the farmer's market I was going to hit afterwards). Well from the first step, I could really feel my groin pain, but I pushed through it. I mean, I am far enough along now, that I am not too concerned about going into labor (I mean it is March). And being a runner, you learn very quickly to push through pain, or you would never get anywhere, right? Well the first 2 miles were really good (other than the groin pain). I mean I was slow, but that was my plan, just a nice easy steady pace. The weather was wonderful, sunny and 50 degrees. Of course, by mile 3 I had to pee, so it slowed me down and started to irritate me some, but I finished 3.11 miles which was at least faster than my jogging stroller times (yeah, you will never know exactly how slow I am).

But the rest of the day, my mind felt much better. I wasn't irritated or easily set off like I was the day before. I got a lot of nesting done afterwards too, which was good. But my groin pain was pretty bad the rest of the day. So bad, that I don't think I will be able to run today (which I had planned to do). I think I might try the elliptical trainer, if I can motivate myself enough to do it. It's hard.

I am also getting uncomfortable, something that is new for me. My little Hope was smaller (although not much smaller) than this one and I was on modified bedrest so I was forced to not do much and encouraged to eat all that I could, so I don't think the weight gain affected me as much. Now here I am 8 1/2 months pregnant and have a toddler and not on bedrest and I don't know what I should be doing and what not to do. It's like it's my first time. And because of this, my patience is shot and I am easily irritated. I probably should be resting more, but if I rest how will everything get done. For moms out there, how did you feel those last few weeks and how did you take it easy or did you? What did you change about your routine, whether it be your workout routine or your home routine?