Day 2 and Graduate School

So last nights ride didn't actually happen. Sometimes life just happens instead right..? So I have pictures to post from TONIGHT's Brick...

12 mile ride and then a tough 3 miles. Right now in Logan there is like a freaking ton of construction.. awful... and what do they put on the roads.. chip and seal... horrible to bike on. Yuck.

I took it upside down... oops. lol 

It was a great ride though.. Brooke and I talked about our favorite Grey's anatomy characters and how we are excited for the new season :)

For dinner tonight we had Mango Chicken Stir Fry. Yumm!! I chopped everything up after work before my grad school orientation. That way when Bryce go home he just had to plop it in the pan a stir it around. (That is why there is a lack of cooking pictures.) It was super delicious though!

As I mentioned earlier I went to a Graduate School Orientation... super duper boring. Slightly informative but mostly boring. After that I went to go pick up my books. Crazy thing they only had ONE of my books. I was slightly upset. I guess the reason that they don't have the books for my other class is because only 3 people are taking it and that is including me. (My mind was blown a little... definitely going to get a lot of attention in that class ehh?)

As for my Abs of the day I did Medball sit-ups, Side crunches, pillars on the med ball and around the worlds. Hopefully this is gonna pay off... ehh?

Do you like fruit in your stir-fry's?

New challenge... 60 days to a 6 pack

Lately I have been feeling the urge to really polish my nutrition and add a lot of core work to my workouts. It sounds really vain (and it is). Oh well. I talked to my husband last night and formulated a plan. He is going to give me
ab workouts. I am going to plan out my meals and try and get in more high protein snacks. We went to the gym last night to start with my ab workouts... he is brutal I literally almost cried.

So here we go for my nutrition plan for today:

Breakfast 7:30 am: 1/2 cup old fashion oatmeal, 2 scoops of Larry Scott strawberry protein powder, 4 strawberries, banana, 2 egg whites and 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk. (CHECK)
Snack 10:00 am: Protein Shake
Lunch 1:00 pm: Chicken Salad Sandwiches (older post recipe)
Snack 4:00 pm: Greek yogurt
Dinner 7:30-8:00ish pm: Shrimp taco salad :)

As for today's work out. I will post about it after.. maybe have some picture. I have lifting, abs (that Bryce gave me.... ouch) and a BRICK (bike/run). Brooke and I are headed out at 6:30 tonight to do a 12 mile bike and then an interval workout. I really hope that Bryce didn't decide to unplug my Garmen again or I will totally flip out. Maximus should be excited though He is going to get to play with his BFF/Girlfriend Mia (Brooke's Dog) while we are doing our brick tonight.

For the abs I am going to do 100 leg lifts, 200 Russian Twists, Medball boat hold 1 min, 1 min plank each direction and 10 superman's (each way)


This week I have been teaching a Stability Ball Class on Monday they did a full body circuit and were totally loving it hahahahaha Today I am thinking that we are going to do a lower body circuit... I swear SB makes you more sore than anything else.

Have you guys every really worked with a Stability ball?

What is your least favorite ab workout? and your Favorite?

Speed work, sweating and shopping.

Today is a day just full off "s's". It started out with an awesome day of speed work for our tri. Brooke and I met up at the track at 8:30 and did 2x400/1200/400. The goal was to run the 400's at 5k pace and the 1200's about 15 seconds slower than 5k pace. It was a quick to the point workout. I didn't waste anytime because the doors to the bathroom were locked and I had to go. Needless to say I hit the times I was looking for.

I hoped into the car and picked up my bountiful basket. It was awesome. I love love love getting them. It makes it so easy because then I don't have to pick what is for dinner, I just base all of our meals off what we get in the basket. This week we got:

- kale

- lettuce 

- 4 tomatoes

- cabbage 

- cauliflower 

- bananas

- blue berries

- plums (like 8 of them)

- 2 bags of cherries 

- cantaloupe 

- huge purple grapes (I will post pictures later) 

I got home and did 25 minutes of yoga for runners on YouTube. I think Maximus was a little confused at what I was doing; but he did find it entertaining to lay on his back underneath me and paw at me while I was doing downward dog. 

As I finished up Bryce came home from selling more protein we wrote out our meals for the week (based on the bountiful basket) and headed to the grocery store. While we were there we found a new favorite treat. Little frozen yogurts made by healthy choice. The literally tasted like strawberry ice cream. Delicious! And yes we did smile...

I slacked off and didn't cook anything really for lunch, unless Papa Murphy's counts? We tried a new flavor Thai chicken... Mmmmmmhmmmm. So good. I guess I did throw together Bryce's favorite salad that is adapted from Our Best Bites: 

Spinach Walnut Salad with Citrus

Ingredients:

-bag of baby spinach

- 1/4 cup of red onion

- 1/3 cup of raisins 

- 1/2 cup of toasted chopped walnuts 

- 2 oranges (peeled and chopped up) 

Directions 

- Toss all ingredients together and top with your favorite dressing (I always love balsamic vinaigrette). 

Bikes and Boo Boos

I am a day late on this one... But here we go anyway. Yesterday.. Haha I had my first encounter with the tar on my bike. We had gone on a 15 mile bike ride and were headed back to campus... (Why all college campuses are on a hill beats me). The last mile is a straight uphill shot to campus. As Brooke and I cursed our way up the hill I downshifted a little too hard and my chain fell off. I tried to clip out but I haven't had a ton of experience. Just picture a cow tipping over in slow motion. That was me... In front of all the construction workers. Haha luckily I just scuffed up my elbow... And yes Melanie I was wearing my helmet! Haha the best part is my husband Bryce went mountain biking last night up green canyon with a friend and totally ate it and scrapped up his knee, back, ear and helmet pretty good! Thank goodness for ibuprofen. We are quite the pair...

Enough about us eating gravel lets get to what we ate for dinner. It is one our favorites adapted from blog.naturebox.com/post/35207819367/harvest-chicken-salad.  I just changed it a little bit. We didn't have any apple so to give it a crunch and add some veggies I put in two stocks of celery. (I have to hide celery in food so Bryce will eat it. If not he will only touch it if it is smothered in peanut butter). Along with our sandwiches cooked some carrots because Maximus loves to chomp on them. But he leaves a mess of carrots all over the floor. #firstworldproblems

Harvest Chicken Salad Sandwiches

Serves 4 

Ingredients 

- 1 pound of cooked chicken breast

- 1/2 cup diced red onion

- 1/2 cup diced celery

- 2/3 cup grapes, halved

- 1/4 cup sliced almonds 

- 1/2 cup Greek yogurt 

- 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice 

- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

- Salt and pepper to taste

- whole wheat bread 

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients (except bread). Mix together and then serve on wheat bread. 

*you can also serve over spinach for a salad 

Failed at Blogging.

So I have not done as well at this blogging thing as I really would like to! So here I am recommitting.
What has happened in the last 3 months:

-I graduated with my B.S. in Exercise Science

-I got to go to Texas and see an old friend and watch my Husband kick some booty throwing far!

-I celebrated my birthday with my family! They know me so well! I LOVE LOVE LOVE watermelon. Nothing is better. EVER.

-I started training for my first sprint triathlon. I have never been so excited about training in my whole life (today I am doing mile repeats and a little less than a mile swim... and I cannot wait to get off work to do it!)

-Bryce and I adopted a new member of our family!! Meet Maximus... my future running buddy! I took him on a 15 minute run. He loved it... but was so so so tired after. Haha We love him.

-I had the awesome chance to run Ragnar with my whole family and some great friends. We laughed, ran, sweat, got really ornery, ate and ended up having so so so much fun.

-Last update is I finally took the ACSM Health Fitness Specialist test and passed. Pretty excited that I don't have to pay membership dues for another 3 years.. haha as they would say on twitter #expensive.

Random side note it is my 7 month anniversary!! It has been crazy with ups and downs... and I need to be better at writing down our adventures. I am publicly posting my goal of blogging (they say if you write down your goals and have support from friends and family you are more likely to be successful. This is a double wammy).

P.F. Chang's Lettuce Wraps

I am a huge fan of Bountiful Baskets. If you don't know what they are I will tell you. Basically in a nut shell it is this organization that you pay on Monday and on Saturday you show up and they give you a basket of half fruits and half vegetables of what ever is in season. I love it because it has created so much variety and makes it easy for us to plan dinners for the week. If you are interested check them out at http://www.bountifulbaskets.org/. This past week we were lucky enough to get butter lettuce. Therefore I have to make lettuce wraps eh?
I got this recipe from food.com and tweaked it a little bit of course :)

P.F. Chang's Lettuce Wraps
Ingredients:
1/2 lb ground turkey
3/4 green bell pepper chopped
1/2 onion chopped
1/2 cup mushrooms chopped
1 clove of garlic

Special Sauce:
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 Tbsp Truvia or 1/4 cup white sugar
2 Tbsp light soy sauce
2 Tbsp Sriracha sauce
1 Tbsp lemon juice

Stir fry sauce
2 Tbsp light soy sauce
3 tsp truvia or 2 Tbsp white sugar
1/2 tsp vinegar

Serve with:
Butter lettuce
Rice

Directions:
-Brown the ground turkey take out of the pan an
-Sautée the onions, peppers, garlic and mushrooms
-While those are cooking mix all the ingredients for the special sauce in a separate bowl. Set aside.
-Once the onions are translucent add the turkey back into the pan and add the stir fry sauce ingredients. Let simmer for 5 minutes.
-Serve in Lettuce Cups with rice and top with Special Sauce

Enjoy!!

Face card workout

So this is a few days late but I put this workout together in honor of The Biggest Loser finale. I saw Bob do a version if this workout. I am a huge fan and so excited that Dani won this year! So my boot campers got to celebrate!

Warm-up: 400 meter run, dynamic stretching, high knees and butt kickers

Workout: I took a regular deck of face cards. I assigned each suit a different exercise. The number dictates how many of the exercise you do. We just flipped through all the cards.
-spades: 180 rotation squats
-clubs: abdominal pikes
-diamonds: triceps push-ups
-hearts: jump rope (this one we multiplied the number by ten ex: 2 of hearts = 20 single jump ropes)
-aces: one minute rest
-joker: 10 burpees

It took about 35-40 minutes and gave us just enough time to cool down and stretch! It is a great workout for when you are stuck inside and don't have any real equipment. Enjoy!

Fat Free Whole Wheat Bread

So this recipe I got from my a great friend and I LOVE IT!!! She is actually one of the people who taught me a lot about cooking and especially healthy cooking! This recipe is great because it only takes about an hour from start to finish, it is 100% whole wheat and is fat free!

Whole Wheat Bread

5 cups whole wheat flour
1Tbsp. Vital wheat gluten
1/4 cup honey or sugar
1Tbsp of dough enhancer
1/2 Tbsp. Salt
1/2 cup applesauce
1 1/2 Tbsp. Instant yeast
1 1/2 cups hot tap water
Mix dry ingredients. Add applesauce, and water. Mix for one minute then check dough. Add flour or water if necessary. Mix 10 minutes. Grease pans. Dough should be soft and elastic, not too sticky. Shape dough on greased surface, place in pans, and cover. Raise 20 to 25 minutes (or about 15 minutes in warm oven). Bake at 350 for 25 minutes

Date night!

So this past week has been a pretty good one! I picked up my cap and gown for graduation, got my acceptance letter for grad school (he bought me flowers!I have the best hubby :)), Bryce didn't have to go away for the weekend. We decided to celebrate! One thing that I absolutly love doing for date nights is picking a theme and running with it! I picked this up from a friends blog http://www.thedatingdivas.com/. If you have time check them out.

Our theme was Japanese night! We went out to sushi. Some tips that we use when eating out to sushi to make it a little easier on the waist line are:
-avoid the tempura dipped
-try having a Sriracha sauce instead of a creamy sauce
-ask the waiter for low sodium  soy sauce
-when choosing your sushi roll try not to have all of them with cream cheese (easy for me... I HATE cream cheese in my sushi.. weird I know)
-lastly, watch your portion sizes, try ordering an appetizer of Edamame or Miso Soup to help fill you up at the beginning

Next on our to do list was to go hot tubing... kind of a stretch for Japanese night but I did some research on Hinoki (wooden hot tubs that are famous in Japan. It was a stretch but it sure did feel great to just relax.

When we had had our fill of the heat we headed home to finish off our night with a movie! We watched The Last Samurai staring Tom Cruise. The movie takes place in Japan so it totally fit!

And of course you have to have dessert right?? Yes. So to find this recipe there is a little bit of a story. We were doubling with some good friends and she has Celiac disease (allergy to wheat gluten). So I had to find a recipe that we all could enjoy! I actually stalked her Pinterest account and found this Japanese Cheesecake! quiescence...? I think not! It was a little bit crazy of a recipe but all in all not to bad for you!

Adapted from http://www.thecookbookchronicles.com/blog/?p=3906

10 oz fat free cream cheese

3 Tbsp unsalted butter

3 egg yolk

1 Tbsp +1 tsp sugar

1 Tbsp cornstarch

2/3 cup milk 

3 egg whites 

1/4 cup sugar

Use a 7 in cake pan with a fixed bottom.

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.  Put the egg whites into the freezer so it just begins to freeze around the edges.  Sift the cornstarch.
2. Wrap the cream cheese in clear wrap and microwave until it becomes soft to the touch.  You do not want to heat it up.  (I did this in about 15 second intervals.)
In a large bowl, melt the butter over a double boiler.  Add the cream cheese and whisk well to combine.
In another bowl, combine the egg yolks and 1 Tbsp+1 tsp of sugar.  Mix in the cornstarch.
3. Heat the milk so it comes to a boil.  Add it to the egg yolks and whisk until it thickens in a double boiler over boiling water.  Add this mixture to the cream cheese and combine well.
4. Add a small amount of the 1/4 cup of sugar to the egg whites and mix on medium low speed for about 2 minutes.  Gradually add the remaining sugar to the egg whites and beat on medium until a soft meringue forms.
5. Add ¼ of the meringue to the cream cheese mixture and combine.  Add the remaining meringue to the cream cheese mixture and fold to combine.  Spray pan with non stick cooking spray. Fill the cake pan and smooth the top.
6. Put the cake pan in a roasting pan and add boiling water so it comes up 1-1.5 cm up the cake pan.  Bake for 15 minutes and then lower the temperature to 326°F and continue to bake for 25 minutes until the top turns slightly golden. 
7. Turn off the oven and leave the cake pan for another 40 minutes to an hour.  (I left mine for 40 minutes.)
8. Take the cake out of the roasting dish and place on a wire rack to cool completely.  Refrigerate and chill completely before taking it out of the pan.  It is best served the second day.

Nutrition info: if you slice it into 12 pecieses it equals about 90 calories per slice! Top with your favorite fresh fruit! 

  
 So overall it was a great night! We had so much fun and it was a great way to strengthen our relationship and grow closer to one another!! I hope you enjoyed it!

Road trip snack ideas

So this spring break we went with my family to Moab, Utah! We had so much fun 4-wheeling, hiking, running a 5 mile race, swimming, hot tubing and spending time with family! The only thing is Moab is 6 hours away!!! We were defiantly in need of some snacks... And everyone who knows me.. Well those snacks have gotta be healthy right?!? So here were some of our snacks we packed for our trip:
-celery and peanut butter
-low fat string cheese
-cuties
-carrots
-low fat string cheese
-pretzels
-Carmel rice cakes
-beef jerky
-almonds
-and the BIGGEST hit Lesa's zucchini bread!

Recipe for bread:
Ingredients:
2cups of sugar
2 cups of grated zucchini
3 eggs
3 cups of flour
1 cup of oil
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
3 teaspoons of vanilla
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt

Directions:
-Mix eggs, oil and sugar
-Next comes the vanilla
-Finally add zucchini and the rest of the dry ingredients
- place in bread pans and bake at 350 for 45 minutes

Spin off of Mom's Cinnamon Rolls

So my mom always made the best cinnamon rolls. People still always talk about them! Her birthday was Monday and in celebration I decided I would try and healify (yes I created that word) cinnamon rolls. So we actually don't have my mom's cinnamon roll recipe. Instead I contacted my dear friend Google for this recipe and adapted it from http://www.sideofsneakers.com/2011/07/13/vegan-cinnamon-rolls/

Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls

Dough

• 1 c almond milk
• 2 1/4 tsp instant yeast {or 1 packet}
• 2 1/2 c whole wheat flour
• 2 t baking powder
• 1/4 c sugar
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 t cinnamon
• 4T pumpkin puree

Filling

• Olive Oil Spray
• 1/4 c brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp cinnamon

Icing

• 3/4 c powdered sugar
• 1 Tbsp almond milk
• 1/4 tsp vanilla

Instructions:

-Preheat the oven to 350

-Heat the almond milk in the microwave until it is luke warm (I did it for like 35 seconds or so) and add the yeast. Set aside

Next mix the rest of the dough ingredients. 

Add almond milk and yeast mixture

The dough will be sticky I had to add an extra 1/2 cup of flour so I could roll the dough out into a rectangle. 

Spray with olive oil (if you want you can melt butter and spread it on the dough instead) 
In a separate bowl mix the brown sugar and cinnamon for the filling. ( I had to microwave my brown sugar to soften it up :)) 
Sprinkle the filling mixture all over the oiled dough
 






 










Roll it up into a log
I used floss or thread to cut my roll into 12 pieces. 


 















Place in a greased 9x9 pan and let rise (about 30 minutes)

 

















While the rolls are rising or baking using a hand mixer make the icing. 



Bake for 18-20 minutes

 











When they come out of the oven looking nice and golden brown ice them so they get all melty and delicious! 


We loved them! If you like whole wheat then you'll be set! If you wanted it to have a less whole grain feel then I would do half white-half wheat flour.

Nutrition Facts (12 rolls): Use Olive Oil Spray: 150 calories per roll
Use Butter: 172 calories per roll

Week 2 Arms as BIG as a HOUSE

So last week I said that the next post would include actual lifts, sets and reps for Arms as BIG as a HOUSE. Here you have it:
Super Set 1: 3 sets x 45 second rest in  between supersets
Single Arm Cable Curl x 15 (we did 10 lbs)


Rope Push Down x 14 (17lbs)


Set 2: Close Grip Bench 1 minute rest between sets
1 x 12 (50-65 lbs)
1 x 10
1 x 8







Super Set 3: 4 sets x 1 minute rest between supersets
Bar Curl x 12 (30 lbs)

Lying Tricep Extension x 10


Super Set 4: 3 sets x 45 seconds rest between superset
Stone Curl x 12 (25 lbs)

Stone French Press x 15 (25 lbs)


Super Set 5: 2 sets x 45 seconds rest between superset
Dumbell Incline Curl x 12 (10-12 lbs each arm)

Dumbell Tricep Kickbacks (8-10 lbs)


After week two we are feeling pretty good! We will see how they feel tomorrow. Finishing the work out my biceps feel like they are going to rip through my skin they are so pumped! So far I am loving it! Can't wait for next weeks workout!! 

Arms as BIG as a HOUSE

So over the summer Bryce picked up this workout titled "Arms as Big as a House". Some other people have done it and I have heard that it is a great way to hypertorphy! And if anyone needs to gain some muscle mass it would be me. So the past few weeks it has been on my mind and I finally decided to do it! Thankfully Natalie (my sister) is always up for a challenge so she is going to be joining me on this little journey.

The workout is in 3 stages and each stage is repeated for 3 weeks. Pretty simple... so it seems. So over the next nine weeks I am going to track our progress and see if my arms really do get to be as BIG as a HOUSE. (I am not really sure how big that really means... but we'll see.)
 
Aubrie's Measurements: Right: 11 in Left: 10.5 in.
Natalie's Measurements: Right: 11.5 in Left: 12 in

Yeah.. Her arms are bigger than mine..and she was rubbing it in the whole workout that she was lifting more than me.So here are our "Before"... and we'll see where we end up in 9 weeks for our "After".

After next time I will give you a little more insight on the actual workout.. and let you know how my arms are feeling tomorrow.. Because if my arm's aren't as big as a house after this.. i dunno... but that was a killer workout!

Blogging?!?

So I am totally new to this Blogging thing but Bryce and I have decided to give it a shot! We are trying post different ways that we are improving our own wellness! Our own little wellness journal I suppose! So we'll post healthy recipes, work outs and whatever else seems applicable!! :)