Workouts Archives - Page 5 of 20 -

A Minor Food Slump

Post author:Melanie
Post published:March 22, 2013
Post category:Breakfast / Dinners / Gluten-Free / Health / Home Life / Workouts
Post comments:7 Comments

Haaaaaaaappppy Friday!

You may have noticed that there weren’t too many food photos this past week. That’s because I went on a lazy hiatus this week with my meals.

Breakfasts have been my typical banana and peanut butter, lunches have been leftover meatloaf or whatever I can throw down during my lunch break…

…and dinners have been more leftover meatloaf! Lame!

However, yesterday morning I did attempt to be more creative and I made myself what turned out to be an egg pancake made with one egg and 1-2 egg whites. I cooked the eggs over too high of heat on the stove and they quickly turned from an omelet into a pancake. In the pancake was sautéed onions, green peppers, and kale, topped with avocado and Parkers Farm salsa.

It wasn’t my proudest breakfast moment, but it did taste alright and kept my tummy satisfied well until lunch.

Once lunch rolled around, I ate my usual breakfast of pb and banana (haha I just couldn’t go a DAY without it) and had a bunch of other random bites. I have got to turn this food slump around, because it is NOT exciting.

To tell you the truth, this entire week has been one of those weeks where everything seemed to take twice the effort; preparing meals, workouts, work, daily chores…everything. I really think that it has to do with the cold weather around here that keeps droning on and on. I am so ready for warm weather. I feel like I did pretty well this winter without feeling any symptoms of seasonal affective disorder, but now that it’s technically spring, I am realizing I have had enough of the cold and I know I’m not alone on this one.

Out with the cold and in with the warm please!

I did try to get snazzy with my workout yesterday afternoon. I was feeling sluggish and slightly under the weather after work, so decided that a calm 30-minute yoga session might be nice.

I rolled out the yoga mat and started flipping through the selections OnDemand looking for some yoga, but ended up scrolling across a 45-minute session called Grace and Gusto which combines Pilates and ballet. Being that I used to dance and miss it dearly, I decided to give it a whirl.

The verdict: It was fun and different and was the perfect pace for my mood (not super fast). It didn’t include a lot of jumping around, which was what I was looking for, and the instructor did a great job of combining both ballet and Pilate moves into the session. I was glad I did it and it reminded me that I need to step outside of my comfort zone more often and try new workouts.

As for today’s workout, my tentative plan is to go for a run. We will see what kind of mood I am in though! I seem to be kind of a rollercoaster lady lately.

My goals for the upcoming week are to jazz up my meals and to reenergize my motivation for more intense workouts. Who knows, maybe my body was telling me to lay low this week, but I’m ready for amp it up again!

Question of the day: Have you tried any new recipes lately? Any new workouts?

Snowshoeing & Celestial Seasonings Tour

Post author:Melanie
Post published:March 21, 2013
Post category:Travel / Vacations / Workouts
Post comments:6 Comments

I didn’t get to wish you all this yesterday so, HAPPY SPRING! One would never guess it’s spring around here however. The snow and freezing temperatures really don’t go along with what I picture to be spring.

How about a little humor to kick off this chilly Thursday? It’s 7°F here right now as I type. Woof!

Question: What do you call a nosey pepper?

Answer: Jalapeño business!

I just realized I added another pun into the mix….this “chilly” (aka chili) Thursday! Peppers are in chili….get it?

Well anyway, I have a long overdue post for you all today. So, after our incredible trip to Turks and Caicos, we headed back to the states, but not home to Minnesota, instead we headed to Colorado to celebrate Dana’s uncle’s birthday.

We stayed with his aunt (my “aunt-in-law”) in their quaint neighborhood right outside of Boulder. I feel so at home when I am in Colorado and I’ve only been there twice.

I love everything about Colorado: the view, the people, the health enthusiasts, the fitness opportunities, and all of the great food companies! LARABAR, Justin’s Nut Butter, Celestial Seasonings Tea, Food Should Taste Good, just to name a few, are produced in Colorado. Those are some of my favorite companies!

If I weren’t such a homebody, I would think about moving out there, picking up skiing, and enjoying a “greener” life out there, but I am a total homebody. I love that my parents live just 15 minutes away and couldn’t imagine being away. So, I will stick to lots of traveling instead.

When we first got to Colorado, I struggled a bit with adapting to the altitude change, and had an upset stomach and a headache. Not to mention, I didn’t get much sleep that night because our flight got in pretty late. We all laid low on the first morning but once the afternoon rolled around I was aching to get out and get moving. I still wasn’t feel the greatest, but Dana and I drove out to Eldora Ski Area anyway do some snowshoeing.

The last time I went snowshoeing was in my senior year of high school for a class called Lifetime Activities. I remember enjoying it but I’m pretty sure the routes we took back in Southern Minnesota didn’t stand a chance to the Colorado Rockies. Actually, if I recall correctly, I’m pretty sure we just did the snowshoeing outside on the school lot.

We were expecting the mountains to be in the 30’s based on our Weather Channel research, but it turned out to be in the mid-40’s and maybe even 50’s. We went totally decked out in winter coats, long underwear, snow pants, two pairs of socks, snow boots, mittens, and hats….

We took the two-hour route that wove us through the tranquil mountains.

We made a couple of stops to admire the views!

The incline of the hike really had us heatin’ up and we ended up shedding our coat layer, plus our hat and mittens.

This definitely got the heart-rate going!

We followed the orange arrows marked on the trees until we made our way back to the chalet.

I absolutely LOVE snowshoeing! It’s fun, relaxing, and it’s such a great workout too! I want to do more of it. I am so glad we went albeit not feeling 100%.

A good majority of the weekend in Colorado was spent relaxing and hanging out with the family, but on Saturday morning we planned on one excursion:

The Celestial Seasonings Tea Tour!

Celestial Seasonings is located right in Boulder and it was only about five minutes from where we were staying.

Upon arrival we were handed “teakets,” which was a package of CS Peppermint Tea along with a sample mini mug to bring over to the testing area.

At the test bar, I was able to try ANY and every tea that I wanted.

I tried the Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride, The Nutcracker Sweet, Sweet Harvest Pumpkin, and a few more. We also tried their energy shots as well as there kombucha drinks. I didn’t know they made either of those! My favorite of the teas was the Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride which I ended up buying and bringing home to enjoy.

After our free tasting and chit-chatting with the “barista,” we headed in to the screening room to watch a 10-minute video about how Celestial Seasonings began, their morals, beliefs. I found it all fascinating.

Then we threw our hairnets on and headed into the production area. Photos were not allowed inside of this area but I can tell you that it was pretty neat inside; kind of magical if you will, like Willy Wonka. Each room you went by had a different scent. My favorite was the peppermint and spearmint room. This one has to have a door closed to block out the smell because it is so intense that it could migrate into other teas. They opened the door to the room, and as soon as you walk in the mint invades your nostrils, makes your eyes water, and is slightly intoxicating, but in a good way! It cleared my senses and made me feel calm. They call it free aromatherapy, and it’s very fitting!

We learned about all of the different kinds of teas like black, white, herbal, caffeinated, decaffeinated, etc. Our tour guide was great. She explained the process very well and added her touches of humor. I felt like I learned so much while I was there and I truly devoured every second of it.

After the tour we were led into their gift shop. This was the place to shop if you were looking for something for someone who has everything. Did that make sense? They had so many fun gifts, beauty products, treats, and of course teas!

This was the perfect way to spend our Saturday morning, plus it was sleeting outside so it made it even that much more cozy inside.

We had a little time to spare before we needed to head back home for lunch, so we drove to the shopping area to do some window shopping. Again, it was sleeting and pretty darn cold out at this point, so we enjoyed this as much as we could. The mall is set up so that you walk outside in between stores. If it were nice out this would have been fantastic, but since it wasn’t so great, we spent most of our time in the shops.

I loved all of the athletic stores in the area. I refrained from buying anything though! After shopping we headed back home and stayed cozy for the rest of the day.

This Colorado stop was the perfect way to end our glorious vacation. If you’ve never been to Colorado, I recommend you put it on your list of places to visit, because it is truly beautiful.

I hope you had as much fun reading this post as I had reliving it.

Now, back to reality. I hope you all have a fabulous Thursday!

A Successful 7k

Post author:Melanie
Post published:March 16, 2013
Post category:Breakfast / Dinners / Workouts
Post comments:7 Comments

I am in such a wonderful mood this afternoon after finishing the Get Lucky 7k this morning. I was a little nervous about the actual run because I haven’t been running lately, but as it turned out, it was a GREAT run. I felt like I could keep going and going and going, and that was on NO caffeine.

I ate my usual pre-run breakfast of banana with peanut butter and cinnamon…

Dana and I did our best to get “dressed up” for the occasion. I wore a t-shirt from senior year of high school that says “Senior Stars, You Wish.” I knew I kept that shirt around for a reason!

Then we dug these hats out of the basement storage from our friends’ St. Patty’s party last year, and I felt a lot more festive!

This year’s outfits were a big step up from our last year’s Get Lucky outfits…

The temperature at last year’s run was in the 60’s, and this year it was in the 20’s. Quite the difference!

The course was very icy but I didn’t witness any falls fortunately. It was a cold first few miles, but I still felt fantastic.

At around mile two there was a celtic band playing which gave me a boost of energy, and people lined the course cheering us on the whole way. I loved every second of this race.

I completed the 4.4 miles in 40:31, so 9:13 minute/mile. I was VERY happy with that stat considering my lack of running lately. Now, I am super motivated to get out and start running more. I am still hoping for that warm weather soon, though.

Post-run lunch was a green salad (for St. Pat’s weekend of course :wink:). In this grand mix was mixed greens, zucchini, olives, peas, avocado, sunflower seeds, chicken, parmesan cheese, lemon juice, and olive oil. It was a WINNER.

I am in such an incredible mood today. We have fun plans to celebrate Dana’s birthday tonight with my family, and I am going to go relax a bit before I have to get ready.

Real quick though, here was my pre-race dinner from last night: Tilapia with rutabaga fries and broccoli. Very nummy.

I hope you all have a super Saturday. Catch up with you soon. XOxo

Lots of Food Prep

Post author:Melanie
Post published:March 15, 2013
Post category:Breakfast / Dinners / Gluten-Free / Health / Home Life / Recipes / SCD / Snacks / Workouts
Post comments:2 Comments

Happy Friday!

I had a bit of a goofy tummy yesterday so my day of eats was very sporadic. I started the day off with a smoothie.

Strawberry Banana Cocoa Smoothie:

Strawberries
Banana
Kefir
Kale
Aloe Vera Juice
Cocoa powder

I really had to force that bad boy down; I just wasn’t feeling hungry. I drank about half of it and put the rest in the fridge.

I also sipped on a warm cup of Celestial Seasonings Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride tea. When I was in Colorado last weekend, I got to sample this stuff and really liked it so bought a box to bring home. I still need to tell you about my Colorado weekend!

Lunch was more of a snacky deal all day than an actual “lunch”. One of my snacks was ants on a log, aka celery with peanut butter and raisins…

This definitely brought me back to childhood. My mom would make us these for a snack or sometimes she would do banana with peanut butter and raisins. I really enjoy the crunch of the celery and the smooth peanut butter combined with the chewy raisins. So many textures and a nice sweet flavor!

Yesterday I received a book I ordered called “Nourishing Traditions” by Sally Fallon. It is a book my chiropractor recommended to me and one that he and his family use all of the time. I am just getting into the book but what I know so far is that this book brings us back to our roots, or really, our ancestors roots in regards to food intake. It is about eating whole foods, eating fermented foods to help with intestinal health, eliminating sugars as much as possible, etc.

I am pretty pumped about it and will keep you posted when I learn more. Right now I have a pot of bone broth simmering on the stove with 2 Tablespoons of vinegar (this helps leach calcium and minerals out of the bone and into the broth; it will simmer for 24 hours). Bone broth is something mentioned in the book quite a bit.

I also made my first batch of homemade fermented sauerkraut. It’s been a while since I have tried sauerkraut, but last time I did I wasn’t a fan at all. We will see how I feel about my own batch.

The directions said to combine one shredded medium head of cabbage, one tablespoon of caraway seeds, and two tablespoons of sea salt (it called for whey but said if you don’t have whey you can use an extra tablespoon of salt so that’s what I did) in a bowl.

Next, it said to take a meat tenderizer mallet and pound down the cabbage for ten minutes, to release the natural juices from the cabbage.

Arm workout, done. Next, you spoon the cabbage mixture into canning jars, smash it down with a utensil that fits in there (I just used a spoon) until water gathers at the top of the cabbage. You want to leave one inch of space between the top of the cabbage/water and the lid.

Cover the cabbage and let it sit in room temperature for three days, then place in the fridge and eat whenever! Like I said, we will see if I like it but it’s worth a shot at least!

I also made some homemade fauxtmeal raisin cookie bites made from dates, raisins, cinnamon, and almonds. These were also part of my snacky lunch.

In the later afternoon I took Moose for a walk outside and it was unbelievably gorgeous! In Minnesota at this time of year that means it was 40 degrees, but it sure felt warm! Moose was having a hay day with all of the smells everywhere in the snow.

For dinner, we made my favorite grilled salmon recipe with grilled parmesan garlic broccoli.

And an evening snack of FAGE Greek yogurt with honey and strawberries.

We spent the rest of the evening catching up on DVR’ed Whitney and Modern Family episodes that we missed while we were away.

It was a good day full of lots of food prep!

I hope you all had a great Thursday and have an even better Friday!

Do Something for You.

Post author:Melanie
Post published:March 14, 2013
Post category:Breakfast / Dinners / Health / Sweet Treats / Workouts
Post comments:1 Comment

Happy Thursday! It’s time to for some normal posts again.

Yesterday morning I had tentative plans to get a run in on the treadmill, but when I started my walk warmup, my hip was hurting and I decided not to press my luck with the race coming up on Saturday. So, I hopped off the treadmill and headed upstairs to my yoga mat. I haven’t done yoga in a very long time and I know I say this every time but whenever I get a yoga session in again, I always remember how much I love it.

I chose a yoga/pilates OnDemand. It was about a half hour and was pretty fast-moving. Afterwards I felt so refreshed, energized, and stretched out. My body must have been telling me I needed that yoga. Now, don’t forget that feeeling! 🙂

For breakfast I pulled out a gluten-free pumpkin waffle from the freezer. I made a big batch of these last month and froze a few of them for a later time and I’m so glad I did!

I microwaved the waffle to thaw it, and then topped it with some peanut butter and a teeny drizzle of honey. I could swear it tasted better this time around! Probably because I didn’t have to do any cooking this time? FYI I took a couple of bites before I took the photo…I just couldn’t wait!

For lunch I had an apple and leftover salad which was made of mixed greens, artichoke hearts, olives, tomatoes, zucchini, parmesan cheese, and olive oil dressing.

The second part of lunch was a banana with peanut butter. Go figure.

Before I went back to work I snapped this photo of Moose because he looked so darn precious. This is his favorite spot to sit and look out the window and snarl at anything that walks by or anything he thinks he sees go by. He’s my watch dog.

I have gotten myself back on this no extra sugars bit now that I am back home and back to reality.

I resisted the Easter jelly beans at work yesterday which was a proud moment for me. There’s something about jelly beans that I really enjoy. It’s not the taste because they don’t taste ALL that great to me, unless they are jolly rancher or starburst jelly beans, but I think it’s the texture. The hard candy coating and the chewy sugary center. It really does something for me. Anyway, I resisted this time.

On vacation I packed one dark chocolate candy bar for Dana and I. Each night we would each have one square for our dessert. Well then things escalated from there. We went to dinner at the Silver Palms and had the most delicious and decadent chocolate cake with coconut ice cream. Then on the plane we got cookies. Then in Colorado we celebrated Dana’s uncles birthday so we had ice cream cake. Not to mention I also nibbled on girl scout cookies, jelly beans, and chocolate.

No one was forcing me to eat any of these things, but I had decided that since it was vacation that I was going to go all out. Well, my gut reminded me why I had decided to get rid of the sugars in the first place. I set myself back a couple of days, but it didn’t take long for me to get back on track and I am feeling much better now. Although, I must confess that I had a few chocolate chips last night out of a trail mix bag last night. But all in all, I am doing a VERY good job of staying away from the sweets for now, until I get back on track with all of my health shenanigans.

For dinner I had a bowl of the veggie soup I made on Monday. I sprinkled some parmesan cheese on top just to give it that somethin’ somethin’.

For dessert I had a few too many dates with peanut butter, and then those chocolate chips. I watched Glee and opened the insane amount of mail we had accumulated from being away; 90% of it was junk of course. No, I do not want another credit card. Thanks.

*****************

Have you ever read a book that inspired you to be a better person? While I was on vacation I read the book, The Happiness Project, By Gretchen Rubin.

Gretchen writes about finding true happiness in everyday life. She admits that she is indeed a happy person and happy with her life, but she wonders if she could be “happier.” She spends a year working through happiness resolutions, each month focusing on a new project. Some projects bring her happiness, others leave her feeling the same, but all of them make her think about her life and simple changes that can be made to make her be a better person and make her happier.

She realizes that making herself happy will in turn help to make others happier.

This book struck me big time. All I wanted to do was get home and start making my own resolutions chart and happiness project. So, that’s what I’m going to do. Gretchen provides a free template on her website to help start your own project. I don’t know if I will go as extensively as she did, but I do want to make changes in my everyday life and think that focusing on projects on a month-to-month basis is a good way to stay in check.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but once I do decide on my happiness project, I will probably keep it to myself, at least until after it is complete. There will more than likely be more on this in future posts.

I bring this book to your attention because I feel that all of us deserve to be happy. So often we forget about ourselves and get so wrapped up in our busy lives, that we forget to stop and smell the roses and forget to do something for ourselves purely because we want to. And to do something special for ourselves and NOT feel guilty about it.

This is just something to think about. If you haven’t read her book I highly recommend you do. Who wouldn’t want to be happier?!

Question of the day: When is the last time you did something for YOU?

Activities and Adventures in Turks and Caicos

Post author:Melanie
Post published:March 13, 2013
Post category:Travel / Vacations / Workouts
Post comments:8 Comments

I could seriously go on and on and on about our trip to Turks and Caicos, but I’m going to make this my last post about it. I’ll finish the recap up with our activities and adventures from the trip….

I’m not one to sit still for too long. I love to be active. There was most definitely a lot of rest and relaxation on this trip, but we did a lot of fun activities as well!

One morning we walked about 25 minutes to a nearby beach called Three Marys Cay which we read had some decent snorkeling.

Not to mention it was very pretty!

The waters were fairly choppy while we were there so we couldn’t get out too far without being swept back in, so we stayed in shallow water.

We saw a handful of fish and a barracuda! I’m not a fan of those barracudas…they scare the living daylights out of me. It wasn’t the best snorkeling we’ve ever experienced, but still fun!

JODO provided stand up paddle boards to use at our leisure. We got out on these a few times and I REALLY enjoyed them. The water needed to be fairly calm in order for us to use these properly. I’m sure the pros could handle a few more waves than I could. 😉 I’m hoping to do this back home on the lakes this summer!

JODO also provided a two person kayak (I’m almost positive they have other single kayaks as well). We used it a couple of times to explore the water near our villa and took a longer trip over to a nearby island called Parrot Cay. Although the islands are technically public around there, security does a good job of making sure Parrot Cay stays private. People spend the big bucks to stay in those villas. Although security didn’t approach us when we paddled up to Parrot Cay, we didn’t take any chances and literally just got out of the kayak long enough to snap a photo and then turned back around.

We also went for walks on the beach…

We had one day of rain but had a blast inside playing games, reading books, magazines, and chit-chatting.

We rented a car one day and took a drive over to Middle Caicos. We stopped at Mudjin Harbor which was probably the most beautiful island, beach, and water I have ever seen.

We have at least twelve photos of this place. It was spectacular.

It was super windy on the day we drove to Middle Caicos, which made for slightly unpleasant beach experiences. It’s not fun having sand whip into your eyes. But we wanted to check out one more beach before we drove back to our place.

We stopped at Bambarra Beach. Gorgeous. We didn’t stay long because again, the wind was insane.

One night, we got all prettied up and headed out for a dinner out at The Silver Palms Restaurant. We met the owner, Karen, who is originally from Canada. She was so sweet and made EXCELLENT food! This is where Dana and I shared fresh lobster and fresh conch stew. Oh, and the chocolate cake. Can’t forget the chocolate cake. We licked that plate clean.

We also packed along some other outdoor entertainment like a frisbee, a nerf football, and hand paddle boards which we played with in the water a few times.

We went for a run along the beach one morning which is alway an intense workout. All in all I’d say we stayed pretty active.

I am working on getting back into the workouts again now that I am back home. Vacations have a tendency of putting me back just a little bit. I have a 7k run coming up next weekend and I haven’t been running a whole lot. Yikes. I am hoping I will be fine though.

I ran 2.5 miles yesterday and felt great and then walked for a while in the afternoon. I am hoping to get a run in today too.

Anyway, that is the end of my Turks and Caicos recaps. I have SO many more photos but I think I will stop there. However, I DO have to recap my weekend in Colorado still. Be on the lookout for that very soon.

Happy Wednesday my friends!

Question of the day: Have you ever tried stand-up paddle boarding? Kayaking? Do you like it?

Getting Back into Outdoor Running

Post author:Melanie
Post published:February 24, 2013
Post category:Dinners / Home Life / Lunch / SCD / Workouts
Post comments:10 Comments

Well, I did something yesterday that I haven’t done in a while…went for an outdoor run. The weather around here has been pretty nasty the last few weeks with cold temps followed by snow, so I have been taking my runs (albeit few runs) inside on the treadmill lately.

Yesterday morning I was planning on just that; running on the treadmill. I told Dana my plan and he said okay, but just so you know I am running outside today. Usually the only way I will run on snowy, icy, streets in the winter is if I’m running with someone else, that way if I were to fall, I’d have someone there to help me out. I made the decision to run with Dana and Moose outside.

I got all geared up and wore the same outfit as I did at our January 1st Polar Dash 10K run (photo from the polar dash), except no neck warmer:

It was 19°F when we were out. The first mile was really cold on my face, but not too long after that I was warming up real well.

The sidewalks in our neighborhood were kinda wishy-washy as far as being clear of snow and ice. Inevitably, the uphill sidewalks were the ones covered in snow so I felt like I was running in sand, uphill. Those hills made me feel pretty out of shape.

At mile two, my legs were feeling like a light load of bricks. The cold was getting to them but they kept moving. We completed our three-mile loop and I am happy to say I finally got an outdoor run in again.

I have less than one month until our 7K run and as long as I start running outside a little more often, I should be just fine. Who knows anyway, the weather could be pretty nice mid-March. Last year it was unseasonably warm. You just never know! You have to be prepared for anything.

From here on out, I’m hoping the weather will only improve and get warmer so I can really start to enjoy outdoor runs again! I’m ready for it.

When we got home I did some stretching, core exercises, and my plank-a-day. Then we got busy packing for our trip and working on some more food preparation!

I wanted to bring some dried fruit on our trip to snack on, so I placed apricots, peaches, pineapples, and bananas into the food dehydrator, covered it, and left it on for a long time; about nine hours.

*I used canned fruit (in its own juice) for this and rinsed them thoroughly and dried them in the sink

For lunch I ate a grilled salmon fillet with zucchini. I ended up adding some honey dijon mustard to my plate because I’m not into plain salmon yet.

I finished lunch with a microwaved apple…

Later in the afternoon before we left to run errands I snacked on a banana with peanut butter…

Dinner was a grilled turkey burger with avocado, SCD ketchup, and mustard, and cooked carrots. Why do grill burgers taste SO much better?! It was delicious.

Finally at about 9:30 pm, the fruit was done dehydrating. We laid them out on the counter to cool down.

And then bagged them up for the trip!

We do plan on visiting a local farm/farmer’s market to pick up fresh produce while we are in Turks and Caicos, but it’s nice to have other options too.

When we were in the Boundary Waters last May with my brother Scott and his girlfriend Nicole, Nicole had made a huge batch of dried fruit and I loved it so much that I went and bought a food dehydrator for myself. Dried fruit is one of my favorite treats, but I don’t like all of the sugar and additives that is often added to the store-bought kind (dried fruit has enough sugar on its own), so I try to make it myself the majority of the time. No additives here!

I have lots to do today so I better get to it. Have a great day!

February Fitness Challenge Review

Post author:Melanie
Post published:February 23, 2013
Post category:Breakfast / Health / Home Life / Moose / SCD / Workouts
Post comments:0 Comments

Happy Saturday! Today’s my second favorite day of the week after Friday, so I’m a pretty happy camper today.

Considering I don’t have many food photos to share (the SCD is fairly redundant right now), how about we talk about fitness instead?

At the beginning of February I set a goal for myself to complete three strength training workouts each week. They could involve free weights, machines at the gym, workout videos, whatever, as long as they involved improving my strength. I also challenged myself to complete one plank a day for at least one minute.

I am a cardio junkie and love getting my heart rate ramped from the cardio which is also great for overall health, but all-to-often slack on the strength and I wanted to do something about it. I called this challenge, my February Fitness Challenge.

Although I know there are still five days left in February, I have decided to reflect now.

I am happy to say that even though I was struck with a head cold for a solid week this month, and felt very low energy due to the SCD intro, I still managed to stick to my goal each week. I tried to keep it spicy and exciting so that I wouldn’t get bored with it.

Some of My February Strength Workouts:

Jillian Michael’s 30-Day Shred: Level 1 and Level 2
This leg workout incorporated with dumbbells
This arm workout plus other arm exercises
Ab workouts (from the January Abs Challenge)
Most of the time I just did my own thing and mixed up different exercises

I have done my plank-a-day every day too!

I have noticed that with the combination of eliminating white sugars from my diet, and increasing my strength activities, that I do feel stronger. I even feel it when I’m doing cardio. When I’m running my core helps carry me and makes me run lighter.

I definitely feel stronger overall, however I have a looooooonngg way to go to get my strength to where I would like it to be. But it takes time. I’m going to continue to work on it.

I already have a March fitness challenge brewin’ in my head! Be on the look out. 😉

******************

I can’t leave this post complete photo-free because that’s no fun, so I do have a couple to share.

Yesterday I couldn’t eat meat (Lent), which is a main component of the SCD. I was thrilled about it because I am SO TIRED OF IT and completely tired out of eggs too, so it was time to introduce a new food. Peanut butter. I’m not talking boat loads of pb, but enough to satisfy my hunger and give me some protein.

I introduced baked apples into my diet two days ago and my body responded well. My girlie girl Kalkal said one of her favorite breakfast combos lately is cut up apple, with pb and cinnamon. I usually do that combo with banana, but often forget about the lovely apple. I gave it a whirl, but used a slightly cooked apple instead (to aid in digestion for now).

I honestly think I could slather peanut butter on anything and it would taste good. This was a very nice treat! I would prefer it with a raw apple like Kalley had suggested, but for now this will have to do!

The REALLY good news is that peanut butter is sitting very well with my system. Like I said I have no plans of going crazy with it like I tend to do, but one serving a day and I should feel just fine. I am really missing my legumes and lentils however. Soon enough!

The evening was spent:

getting some more vacation stuff together
doing some food prep for vaca
vacuuming
mopping
planking
core strength
running around the house and up and down the stairs with Moose
and cleaning up broken links on the ol’ blog (this is quite the task)

We also picked this guy up from the groomer after getting a nice intense brush-out. He looks so handsome.

I have plans to get a little run in this morning and then we have some more packing to do!

What’s on your Saturday agenda?!

The Next Phase

Post author:Melanie
Post published:February 21, 2013
Post category:SCD / Snacks / Workouts
Post comments:3 Comments

Yesterday was the third day of the SCD intro diet. Since my symptoms were so minimal to begin with, I decided to start incorporating some foods back into my diet after two full days on intro diet. I am choosing foods that I knew my body would normally handle well. Yesterday I reintroduced the banana.

After eating only eggs, meat, cooked carrots, and grape juice gelatin, I was ready for more variety. Eating a banana was such a treat! It was like eating candy.

My body reacted very well as I suspected it would. I will continue to slowly reintroduce easy to digest foods.

I apologize for the food photos, but here they are…

Breakfast looks like carrot puree but it was really a totally botched carrot and egg pancake. I also drank a glass of diluted grape juice.

For lunch I heated up some chicken breast, a turkey meatball, and cooked carrots. I couldn’t stomach the chicken some reason so that went back into the fridge.

I grabbed an egg…

And finished off lunch with grape juice gelatin.

For dinner I ate another bowl of the carrot and bone broth soup and another banana.

I also had a very small diluted glass of grape juice. I think I drank too much juice yesterday, but my body was completely craving it.

I’ve been taking it easy on the workouts the past few days because I know my food and calorie intake isn’t where it should be. I am truly doing the best I can with the SCD intro and trying to eat as much of the allowable foods as I can stomach. I am very happy that I can reintroduce some other foods again because it is not healthy for me to continue on with this minimal amounts of food. I know that I can’t eat “as much as tolerated” of the allowable foods in the intro diet, but when you already have a slight distaste for meat, it is really challenging to force it down.

I continue to do my plank-a-day though as part of my February Fitness Challenge. Today is the last day of week three which means I need to get one more strength training activity in today. I’m hoping I feel up to it this afternoon!

Thanks for sticking by my side through this diet. I am very anxious to eat more of my “normal” foods again and to be 100% healthy!

Happy Thursday!

SCD Intro Diet Day One

Post author:Melanie
Post published:February 19, 2013
Post category:Health / SCD / Workouts
Post comments:8 Comments

Hello there friends!

Morning Run

Yesterday morning I actually ran on the treadmill for three solid miles. I haven’t done that in quite some time but figure since I have a 7k coming up in just about a month, that I should probably get on that. Besides from being bored, the run went pretty well.

SCD Intro Diet

There’s no sugar-coating it, the SCD intro diet is not easy, especially for someone who doesn’t enjoy meat.

If you are new to Beautifully Nutty, please check out this post to find out why I am currently on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. This post does not depict a typical day of food intake for me, it is only temporary.

Day one is complete. I felt hungry and lethargic pretty much all day. The good news is, I only have one more day of the intro diet and then I can move on to the next stage of introducing more foods. I really miss my other veggies and fruits.

Here is what my SCD Intro day one looked like…

Breakfast: Two hard-boiled eggs and grape juice gelatin

A haircut appointment which was a really nice distraction from my hungry tummy. I really enjoyed the hair wash and the blow dry. It relaxed me completely.

Before….

After…

She chopped about two inches off of the bottom, reestablished my side swoop “bangs” and added some light layers. Nothing too drastic but it felt so good to get it cleaned up!

Snack: steamed carrots

Lunch: plain chicken breast with a light drizzle of honey

And grape juice gelatin.

Snack: Carrot pancake made with steamed carrots and one egg. I pureed them together in a mini food processor and then cooked the pancake on the stove top. It was a very easy and this snack helped tide me over for a while.

I snacked on my pancake while listening to a podcast about tips on surviving the intro diet. 🙂 My biggest takeaway was to remember WHY I’m doing it and that is to finally be 100% healed.

For dinner we went over to mom and dad’s. I packed myself a bowl of bone broth with cooked carrots and chicken.

The soup actually wasn’t too bad, but I would prefer it without the chicken in there. The hardest part of this intro diet is the fact that I don’t like plain meat. I can enjoy chicken in a taco with salsa, or a burger with ketchup, but plain old meat, no, not my thing AT ALL, and you know that if you have been reading my blog for a while.

Also, I can’t find Farmer’s Cheese anywhere, which is the one cheese that is allowed during the intro. Dana and I looked at about six different stores yesterday with no luck.

As hard as they may be for me right now, I MUST remember that this is only temporary and I know in my heart this is what it will take to finally be done with this U.C. I truly feel soooo good in general, but it’s just a matter of healing a couple of “wounds” still.

Also, I want to remember that I am lucky enough to have ANY food to eat. There are so many starving people in our world that don’t have enough food, so limiting myself to these specific foods for a couple of days should be nothing I should complain about.

My usual meals will be back on the blog before you know it, so bear with me as I go through this SCD intro phase.

If you want to learn more about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, check out my post from this summer: Specific Carbohydrate Diet.

I hope you all have a great Tuesday. I’m trying very hard to stay positive today! I’ll stay positive if you will!

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