On my team

I apologize for the lack of recipes lately but I've really been focusing on my running lately and have been having a hard time feeling creative in the kitchen. PLUS the husband was out of town for two weeks which pretty much means I don't make a full dinner each night, just grab whatever is around for a "balanced-ish" meal. But he's back and I'm making a new recipe tonight so stay tuned! In the meantime....

I've been thinking about where I draw my motivation and information from. Running does not come naturally to me. I did not run track in high school or cross country. I remember going for training runs with my field hockey team in high school and getting in trouble for cheating on a run. (We were supposed to go for a 40 minute run. We ran to one of the girl's houses that lived close by, ate popsicles and ran back). After college when I wanted to drop my undergrad weight I started working out more on an elliptical and treadmill but wouldn't necessarily say I was a runner.

I started running on-purpose when I started dating my track coach husband. We don't run together typically but he encouraged me to run. I still remember when he convinced me to run a 25k and the farthest I had run up to that point as an adult was probably 4 miles. That winter/spring of training got me hooked on running.

Now, running for me has turned into a way for me to be competitive with myself. I love setting goals and training for a specific goal. I love trying to beat my old time, be better, faster, stronger. I've had a little trouble mentally accepting that I'm not nearly as fast as I was two years ago before my foot reconstruction and pregnancy but I know that in due time I'll be back to where I was, if not better. I love seeing improvement on a daily basis.

When you are working toward a goal, whether it be weight loss, a sport-specific goal or other life goal, its important to have a team of support people around you. This support team helps lift you up, provide knowledgeable information and encouragement. Here is my team roster:

My husband (here's the link to his non-healthy hot dog blog) - he's my main coach
Megan: my strength and conditioning specialist for all those great circuit ideas ;)
Amanda: providing me with knowledge on fartleks and other running jargon
Laurie: Tech consultant, who introduced me to Runner's World training log
Janae: Perseverance coach
My coworkers: Whose constant trash talk with each other and competition within the office drives me!

Who is on your team?

Want to be on my team? What can you offer me??? :)

Organic - Is it worth it?

The organic debate can get really heated.

First of all, lets define organic. "Organic foods are those that are produced using environmentally sound methods that do not involve modern synthetic inputs such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers, do not contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives."

Foods which are labeled "organic" must meet certain criteria set by the government pertaining to additives, growing conditions, exposure to chemicals etc.

In recent years I have seen a lot more hype on organic products. But I have also heard through conversations with people a lot of misinformation on organic products as well.

1. Organic food will not help you lose more weight or will not have less calories.

2. Organic food may, however, have higher nutritional value and less trace minerals found from farming chemicals.

3. Organically grown food is better for the environment....BUT if it is shipped from Chile than you really need to think about the transportation effects on the environment as well!

Basically, I think each person should come up with their own opinion of organic foods. If it is worth it for you to purchase than go for it! If you don't feel compelled to buy organic foods, then don't feel guilty for it!

Research has shown that there are certain produce products which would be best to buy organic and then other produce items which really isn't worth the expense of organic since they have been tested to be low residue anyway. Here's the list:

Dirty Dozen
Peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, pears, imported grapes, spinach, lettuce, potatoes

Just fine without organic
Onions, avocado, sweet corn, pineapples, mango, asparagus, sweet peas, kiwi, bananas, cabbage, broccoli, papaya

Personally, I don't buy to much organic. In the summers I love going to our local produce markets and buying local produce (organic or not organic). This summer Paul and I are embarking on our own vegetable garden. We'll be planting all kinds of produce and I plan to keep you updated on its progress.

Do you buy organic? Why or why not?
Have you ever had a vegetable garden? What grew the best for you?

Setting Yourself Up for Success

My husband is home from his two week trip... and so is my camera! Woo hoo! So hopefully I'll have some posts with pics of real food this week ;)

In the meantime, lets talk chicken. Chicken is one of those foods that can provide you with some muscle-building protein without a whole lot of fat or work, for that matter. I've been trying to incorporate more protein in my diet and chicken is my new best friend. BUT I'm a busy lady and I don't have time to be cooking up chicken every night. So I thought I'd take this opportunity to give you some ideas of how to cook chicken ahead of time. I buy frozen chicken breasts at GFS so I always have good uniform sized chicken breasts ready to go.

BAKED CHICKEN
Thaw chicken breasts and add Italian dressing for marinade. After marinading in the fridge for 2-3 hours, place chicken breasts in a single layer on a 9x13 pan. Grind fresh pepper and sprinkle garlic powder lightly over top of chicken breasts. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.

GRILLED CHICKEN
Thaw chicken breasts and add Italian dressing for marinade. After marinading in the fridge for 2-3 hours, heat grill to medium heat. Brush grill grate with olive oil to prevent sticking. Place chicken breasts on grate in a single layer. Cook for 4-5 minutes then flip. Cook on second side for 3-4 minutes or until heated through.

CROCK POT
Place frozen chicken breasts in crock pot with 1/4 cup water. Grind fresh black pepper over the top. Sprinkle with garlic powder. Place lid on crock pot and cook on low 4-6 hours or high 3-4 hours.

BOIL (not my favorite, but fast)
Boil water. Add thawed chicken breasts for 8-10 minutes or until heated through.

Last night we had baked chicken (option #1) for dinner. Instead of cooking up 2 or 3 breasts I cooked 6. I put the remaining chicken breasts in a tupperware container in the fridge for future use.


Here are some ways to use your precooked chicken breasts:

• Cut up on top of a salad or bed of spinach for lunch.
• Chop and make chicken salad.
• Cut up and use in a wrap.
• Shred to use as a filling in enchiladas or tacos.

How would you use precooked chicken?

Practice what you preach...

As I said before, I'm trying to follow this new meal plan that is matched up with my DNA. I fell into the "Carb Reducer" category which isn't crazy low carb Adkins diet but its still way lower carb than I'm used to eating.

My goal each day is to eat 45% carbs, 35% fat, 20% protein. This is really a struggle for me! I do so well with breakfast and lunch, then I get home for dinner and all I can think of is "What kind of carbs can I have?"

Probably doesn't help that last night I made these... and they were awesome.

(I did however use skim milk instead of whole milk).

Oh well, at least Finley loves me anyway :)

Breakfast Smoothie

No real pictures for the next week :( My husband is on spring break with his team and took our digital camera leaving me without the ability to take any food pictures. Boooo.... But I still wanted to post anyway so here ya go!



I'm trying to break away from my bowl of cereal every morning for breakfast so I decided to try the world of smoothies. I've often shied away from smoothies because honestly I'm lazy. I don't feel like hauling my blender ALL the way from the pantry and cleaning every morning. Really, its not that big of a deal but I've convinced myself that this is inconvenient. Well I put on my big girl pants this morning, sucked it up and made a smoothie.



It was awesome! I felt like I had a nutrient packed breakfast and the clean up wasn't even that awful. I didn't try it but I imagine you could also add a scoop of vanilla protein powder to up the protein.



I included flax seeds in my smoothie. Flax seeds have tons of benefits. First they contain omega 3 fatty acids. Omega 3's are great for your heart, joints and brain health. You can also get omega 3's in fatty fish like salmon, but since we don't do too much seafood in our house, adding flax seeds is a great way to bump up the omega 3's. Flax seeds also contain lignans. Lignans contain both plant estrogen and antioxidents. With all the running around and exercise that I do, I feel like antioxidants can help decrease the amount of stress on my cells.

Breakfast Smoothie

1 1/2 cups frozen berries (I used 1 cup frozen strawberries and 1/2 cup frozen blueberries)
1/4 cup fresh baby spinach
1 cup skim milk
1 Tbsp flax seeds
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients in a blender. Blend until smooth and enjoy!

Makes 1 serving.

245 calories
4.6 g fat
40.4 g carbohydrate
8.6 g fiber
12.1 g protein

26.9% Vitamin A, 125.6% vitamin C, 14% Folate, 12.6% Iron, 35% calcium


What do you put in YOUR favorite smoothie?

On the road...

So tonight little Miss Finley and I are hitting the road to meet up with my husband and his team here. Each year we like to support my husband's track team by cheering on the athletes at nationals. Unfortunately, the food situation is a little bit unknown. I'm not quite sure if there is breakfast at the hotel, I'm on my own for lunches but I go out to eat with the team for dinner.

So the last couple of weeks I've been super diligent with watching what I eat. It may sound crazy, but I took a DNA test which indicates what type of meal plan you should be following to most accurately fuel your body. My DNA came back as 45% carbohydrates, 35% fat and 20% protein. This has been a HUGE adjustment for me as I probably usually eat 60-70% carbs and not enough protein or fat. So I've been working on trying to get my proportion of intake in the right categories. I'm also teaching a weight management class based off of this DNA test so I feel like I have to be compliant so I can practice what I preach ;) Ugh, it's hard....

Anyway, I'm trying to figure out what to pack with me that can fill in in a pinch if I can't find the best choices at restaurants or in the hotel. Here's what I've come up with so far.

String Cheese

Apples

These protein shakes

Peanut butter

La Tortilla Factory tortillas

Bananas

(Obviously to make the perfect banana/peanutbutter roll up!)

What suggestions do you have to pack on the road?

Butternut Cake

Whoops! Meant to take a picture before I sliced it up to give away. Too late - here it is all sliced.

We've been trying to introduce solid foods to Finley. I'm not sure what her deal is but its not going so well. She pretty much screams, shakes and gags like we're trying to poison her. At this rate I'm going to have to go to her kindergarten class every day to feed her since she'll likely still only be taking in milk. We've tried rice cereal, oats cereal, bananas, sweet potatoes and now butternut squash.

I've been making my own baby food with this fancy contraption and its super easy and actually tasty. But since she eats approximately 1 Tbsp a day (and by "eats" I mean spits back out) I obviously end up with left over produce. So I decided I needed to find a recipe to use up the extra butternut squash this weekend.

I found this recipe for butternut squash cake on Fine Cooking. It looked delicious! AND I knew I could make a couple healthy changes. As listed, this recipe provides per serving:

368 calories
13.6 g fat
58.9 g carbohydrate
1.5 g fiber
4.0 g protein

I simply substituted applesauce for the oil and just omitted the frosting recipe completely. I'm sure its really good with the frosting but to be honest, I didn't know what I was missing so I thought it was delicious even without it! In addition to those healthy changes, there are many healthy benefits to eating butternut squash. It is high in potassium which helps with bone and heart health. It is also a good source of vitamin B6 which can improve both the nervous system and immune system. Like most orange fruits/vegetables, it is high in beta-carotene which can help with eye health. AND a 1 cup serving of butternut squash provides almost half a day's vitamin C. (Although I'm pretty sure there's not a whole cup in each slice of cake... but its got to have some, right???)

So, if you're going to have cake, you might as well make it benefit you somehow ;)

Butternut Cake - BETTER

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups granulate sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 large eggs
1 Tbsp distilled white vinegar
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp table salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
3/4 cup lowfat buttermilk
2 1/4 cups peeled and grated butternut squash

Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 325 degrees. Butter and flour a 10-cup Bundt pan; tap out excess flour.

In a large bowl with a hand mixer or in a stand mixxer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until well combined, about 1 minute. Add the applesauce and beat until combine, about 15 seconds. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well on low speed. Add the vinegar and vanilla and mix again until just combined. Add half of the flour and the baking soda, salt, ginger and nutmeg, mixing on low speed until just combined. Add half of the buttermilk and mix until just combined. Repeat with the remaining flour and buttermilk.

Stir the squash into the batter and transfer the batter to the prepared pan; smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Bake until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes; then carefully invert the cake onto the rack and remove the pan. When cake is completely cool, transfer it to a serving plate.

Makes 16 generous portions. Per serving:
237 calories
6.7 g fat
41.1 g carbohydrate
1.6 g fiber
3.9 g protein