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Showing posts from April, 2014

Zumba Faves

New challenges

I've decided that this is the year I'm going to push myself out of my comfort zone (even more than last year) so I signed up for a Mud Hero run! I have 3 months to prepare for this 5 km race that has 16 obstacles. Even though I workout regularly I do not run - so I figured I should start working on it. I finished the first month of Insanity and loved it, but I need to focus on running. I was looking through my workout journal (because I started a new one!) and I remember that I felt the most toned last April and May. So I looked back in my book and found that I was doing ZWOWs and Bodyrock videos, and doing cardio with them every other day. So my goal is to do a HIIT, mostly ZWOWs in their order again, 5-6 days a week and running 3 days a week. I'm going to also sign up for the Color Me Rad that would be July 19 with a friend I work with, so there's another reason that I need to get into running shape haha. Have you pushed yourself before? I think everyone sh

Restocking my empty fridge

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It's been a while since I posted a grocery shopping haul so I remembered to take a picture last night when I was putting groceries away! I've been a bad girl the last few weeks - lots of treats and alcohol, so I've gained some weight. We had a food day at work today and I went a bit nuts so I'm reeling the reigns in and am determined to be good for at least a week. I bought stuff to make smoothies for breakfast and fresh veggies for salads and stir frys. So what I bought was: baby spinach romaine lettuce red onion bell peppers celery mango cabbage bananas apples strawberries cucumbers canned corn plain yogurt Special K protein cereal milk pineapple juice I don't normally drink or buy juice but I thought this would be delicious to add into my breakfast smoothies :) I'm going to make some more roasted cabbage and sautee some up with onions and garlic... mmmm. I never thought I'd enjoy cabbage this much haha!

Chicken breast for salad

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I've been taking salads for lunches the last 2 weeks with chicken breast as the protein. I cut up 2 chicken breasts into long strips and let them thaw out. Put them in a baking dish and top with fresh chopped garlic and onion, rosemary, paprika, chili powder, basil, thyme, and oregano. I tested one strip out with curry powder and I wasn't crazy about it with this combination. Bake at 325F for 25 minutes and flip. Bake for another 10-15 minutes. I of course used my meat thermometer and cooked it until it reached 175F. Bon appetit!

Roasted cabbage

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The other night I realized I had half a head of cabbage that needed to be used so I remembered that someone in my fitness group had posted cabbage steaks. So I used that and adapted it to this. Preheat the oven to 400F. Slice the cabbage into 1" thick slices and lay them out in a single layer on a baking sheet. Drizzle with some olive oil and season with salt and pepper. I also used Johnny's garlic spread seasoning. Garlic salt/powder or fresh garlic would also taste great with these. Bake them for 25 minutes and flip over. Bake for another 20-25 minutes or until they are the tenderness you like. I like mine a bit crunchy but they were nice and soft on the outside. They had such a great flavor I couldn't stop munching on them as I was putting them away lol. They were a bit difficult to flip over because they were falling apart so next time I might leave the stem (is that what's it's called?) attached and cut the entire head in half and cut each ha

Lunch: chicken, sweet potatoes, and sweet kale salad

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This week's lunches are rotisserie chicken, sweet potatoes, and kale salad. I was going to buy fresh chicken breast but I was too lazy to cook them so I bought a rotisserie chicken instead. I will say it again that Costco has the best chickens. This one is from Superstore and it doesn't have much flavor.  This salad is awesome. It comes with poppyseed dressing, dried cranberries, and pumpkin seeds. In Canada it is available at Costco and Superstore. It's about $6 a bag but I think it's worth it! Cut all the meat off the chicken and divide into containers or put all the meat into one container so it's easy to grab and eat. I made 4 lunches out of this and had the drum sticks left over for dinner. I bought a huge sweet potato and cut it up into smaller pieces so it would cook faster. Toss them in a bowl with olive oil to coat, lay them on a cooking sheet, and sprinkle with pepper and cinnamon, or whatever seasoning you like. Bake at 400F fo

Cauliflower breadsticks

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Last night my cousin and I had a fairly late dinner because we were waiting for these bad boys to be ready. I bought a head of cauliflower when I went for a quick grocery trip on Sunday since they were reduced to 50% off for quick sale. We already had some in the fridge so I decided to give this recipe a try. I probably used half the cheese it called for because we only had a little piece in the fridge. Overall I thought they were a really great alternative to breadsticks. They tasted great, had a great texture, and they weren't flimsy at all! I will admit that it was a bit more labor than I'm used to for making dinner. I have a little tiny food processor so the whole head of cauliflower took about 10 batches to make it into 'rice'. I opted to use the microwave instead of boiling it on the stove. I put water in the microwave-safe dish and put it in for 5 minutes. I let it sit in a strainer for about 5 minutes and then used a towel to squeeze the rest of th