Weekly WODs

One of the hard parts about fitting these workouts in is then having the time to write about them! So I am a bit behind!
Monday’s WOD included:

Strength: Thruster 5x3^  I think my max was 65 pounds.

5 sets of (3 Minutes of work/1 Minute of rest)
200-meter run
20 double-unders
15 wall ball shots, 20#/14# (I used a 12# medicine ball instead)
10 V-Ups

I made it through 4.75 of rounds (aka I did 4 complete rounds, but ran out of time to finish the last 10 V-Ups. The wall balls killed me… I actually smacked myself in the face/ mouth with the ball at one point and tasted it. It was disgusting.

Wednesday’s WOD:
Skill: Power Clean/ Squat Clean

WOD #1
5x5 Power Clean^
My max was 65#

5x3 Squat Clean^
My max was 45# (supposedly you are supposed to be able to lift more for this one than for the power cleans, but it involves my nemesis, the front squat.)

5x1 Dead Lift^
My max was 135#! I was pretty happy with myself there. I can at least dead lift my own weight!

WOD #2

Run 800m (No clock, but bring a med-ball)
I brought a 12# medicine ball... can I tell you how awkward it is to run carrying a medicine ball?!
In other exciting news and accomplishments – I FINALLY climbed the stupid rope at the gym! That was one of the skills we were supposed to do in the introduction course- but I missed that class due to getting married. Consequently, I have never been able to do it. Mandy, one of the coaches cheer-leaded me through it when I told her it was my goal to do it by the end of the week.

that's Coach Mandy doing the Rope Climb!

In sad news, this is my last week of my livingsocial/ amazondeal for the crossfit gym :( I have LOVED it and wish I could continue, but unfortunately the cost is just too much for me right now. I tried to convince them that they needed a dietitian and workout a nutritionist for crossfit deal, but I haven’t heard anything since out initial conversation so I guess it is a no go.

I have been looking at various WODs to do at home, it is just the issue of staying motivated and actually working out when I get home! I will be looking in to other gyms options, but $200 a month isn’t going to work out.

How do you stay motivated? Or do you require the group atmosphere to workout?

Pumpkin Alfredo

I am having some technical difficulties the past few days. My computer has been going really slow and keeps giving me the 'magic beach ball of death' so all typing and computer activities has been taking longer than I would like. 

Secondly, my camera decided that working was over-rated. While I was making the below recipe I started with my real camera, but it decided to stop working and not turn on so the pictures below are all from my phone. I apologize for the poorer quality and missing the beginning steps of the recipe. 

My motivation for this recipe was SHOCKINGLY not Pinterest... I don't actually remember how I stumbled upon the website- but I wound up on Organic Authority   looking at pumpkin recipes
that all looked amazing.. especially this one for Dairy Free Pumpkin Alfredo

Since it is already a free recipe I think it is ok that I share it with proper citations. I barely changed anything from the recipe - and it came out awesome!

Ingredients:

•  1 spaghetti squash
• ½ pound whole grain fettuccini **(You can omit this and do all spaghetti squash to cut down the carbs if you want.)
• 1 pound spinach or other green (kale, chard, collard greens, mustard greens) 
•  3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons flour (All purpose, brown rice, whole wheat, whatever)
• 4 cloves of garlic minced 
•  1.5 cups non-dairy milk (I used unsweetened, plain almond milk)
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• Fresh ground salt and pepper to taste
•  Nutritional yeast or parm cheese (optional: note parm cheese if not doing a vegan version!!)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350*

2. Half and seed the spaghetti squash. Drizzle with olive oil and put on a baking sheet. Roast for about 1-2 hours.

3. Near the end of the roasting, boil fettuccini.

4. Add in the greens vegetable of your choice to the boiling fettucini near the end.

5. Drain pasta/ greens into a colindar and set aside.

6. In a pan over medium heat, heat olive oil

7. Add flour to olive oil, mixing CONSTANTLY until smoothish

8. Add in garlic and cook ~ 1 minute to flour and oil mixture, continuing to stir.

9. Add in the milk slowly.

 

10. Then add pumpkin, salt and pepper. Continue to stir. Mixture will thicken.

 

11. Add in extra milk/ pumpkin as needed to adjust consistency.

12. Remove from heat.

To Serve:

Portion about half spaghetti squash with half fettuccini/ greens mixture and serve with pumpkin alfredo sauce. Sprinkle with nutritional yeast or parmesan cheese.

I found it was also very good with a splash of hot sauce, but that is pretty much my opinion on every food.

 Of course my favorite Sous Chef was there to help supervise!

Starting the week out right!

Sunday started off slow and rainy, and so my walking buddy would not budge from bed.


I swear I take the same picture every morning. When I get up Leo moves from our bed to the couch and shivers until I wrap him up. I think I will need to start using different blankets to differentiate the pictures!

 Jordan had a late night shot, and didn’t get home until 4 am, so he was of no entertainment to me either.
Since I had just recapped my week and I was not too impressed with my accomplishments I was set on being productive!
I did a thorough cleaning of the house and 2 loads of laundry. How do we produce so much filth in so little time??
I decided to do an at home Crossfit workout, and was inspired by Tina’s Pug WOD. I completed it in about 12 minutes. - as she said "short and sweet like a pug!"

  I first broke it up into sets of 20 of each exercise, but the push ups became too much so I did sets of 10 between the other 2 exercises.   I really want to do a Boston Terrier WOD for Leo now! But I was trying to incorporate in things Leo loves which include:

• Tug of war
• Running
• jumping
• dog yoga

so I am thinking some running, maybe tuck jumps, and if I had a rope a rope pull...
 any suggestions on an equivelant to do at home??
Well stay tuned for an upcoming Terrier WOD!

After the WOD the sleepy boys finally decided to get out of bed.

Jordan was agreeable to doing a little yoga with me, so I used one of my handy dandy Yogadownload.com sessions.  We did the 60 minute "Anusara Inspired Flow" - though as usual Jordan only lasted 20 minutes- but some yoga is better than no yoga!

I was happy he joined me, I do so much better when I have some one doing it with me.

How was the start to your week?

Taco Pasta Bake

I have allowed Jordan to be in charge of grocery shopping for the past couple of weeks, which has been nice that I haven’t had to go shopping, but tends to lead to having weird food around the house as he does not seem to understand the following a list or buying more just what he needs for one meal. But, god love him!

 
My garden is still growing a plethora of tomatoes so I made a tomato sauce the other day just by simmering olive oil, onions, tomatoes, garlic, carrots, pepper, oregano, basil and Italian spices. I was trying to think of what to do with the sauce (other than just make pasta), so obviously I went to my ‘go to’ … Pinterest.

There I saw this picture I had pinned a while ago of “15 minute Tacosagna” from Graceland blog, and I was inspired.

From that image/ recipe I created a “Taco Pasta Casserole Bake” as I have so called it

Taco Pasta Bake

• 1 box whole grain pasta (I used Penne Pasta)

1 can refried beans

4 cups tomato sauce

1 tablespoon taco seasoning (I used low sodium)

1 jar salsa

2 cup corn

3 jalapenos – diced

1 green pepper – diced

1 red pepper - diced

1 cup spinach, frozen

2 cups kidney beans, drained

1 package light cream cheese (8oz)

1 cup Mexican cheese or pepper jack

2 baking pans

1. Cook pasta until al dente. Drain. 

2. Preheat oven to 350*

3. Spread the refried beans along the bottom of the baking dishes

 4. Mix everything else besides the cheese together (tomato sauce, salsa, corn, peppers, jalapenos, spinach, kidney beans, and taco seasoning) either directly into the baking pans or in a seperate bowl.  - I personally just mixed it all in the baking pan but it was a bit full!

5. Split sauce between the two baking pans.

6.  Cut in the cream cheese in small amounts throughout the sauce 

7. Add in pasta and mix!

8. Cover with cheese. (We had some pepper jack cubes on hand so I just cut them in half and sprinkled them on top.)

9. Bake for about 15-20 minutes until bubbley and delicious! 

Jordan insisted on eating it with a tortilla because I called it a "Taco" pasta... but really the pasta should be adequate carbs!

Weekly Wrap Up 10/07-10/13

Yesterday I was planning on going to Crossfit for the Community WOD but it seemed kind of silly to drive so far on my day off just to go workout, when technically I can workout anywhere. 

Instead I started my day going for a walk/jog (wog) with Leo. It was freezing! Literally- there was ice on the ground. I thought it was going to be a short jaunt since at first Leo wouldn't even move from the doorway because he was shivering so much (even with his sweatshirt on).  With a bit of encouragement he started to run with me to warm up. 

I let him lead the way and we wound up going on a 4 mile wog. Likely partially due to movement, and the very sunny skies - the walk warmed up quite a bit! 

In the end, the jog was not anywhere as intense as crossfit would have been, and I kept telling myself I was going to do at least a little workout at home.. but it never happened, so maybe it would have been worth it to drive to Salem! / I need to find a way to motivate myself to workout from home. 

Review of my goals:

• No alcoholic beverages during the weekdays = success. No drinking since Sunday the 7^th (Monday was a holiday). I had one beer (Shipyard Pumpkin Ale) with Jordan on Friday night.
• Eat more mindfully: This week was a bit of a struggle.
• I have been reading “The Paleo Solution” which I thought would give me god motivation to eat healthier, but it has thus far had the opposite effect of making me angry and eating worse than usual.
• With Halloween approaching, candy and treats are running rampant! I cannot enter a office without a candy dish. I have shown more restraint than usual, but I do have a huge sweet tooth. On Friday we had a work party and I gave in and had a cookie AND a piece of cake.
• Scheduling has not led to the most mindful eating. There have been some days where the only time I really have to eat I have not been hungry- so I just eat because I have a chance.

• Working out at least 4 days a
• I only got in 3 ‘formal’ workouts but I did go hiking and went on a 4 mile jog so I will still consider it mostly successful.

• Walking at least 4 miles.
• I haven’t been using the mapmyrun app on my phone as much because it kills my phones battery. I am on a quest for some kind of pedometer/ distance calculator that actually works but isn’t too expensive.

Any suggestions??  

While looking for a free clipart for crossfit I came across this image, which completely embodies how I feel while attempting any jump rope workout! 

How was your week??

A bird in the oven

My friend Bruce (who hosted this weekends scary movie and sleep over extravaganza) gave me a few cook books to borrow that he thought I would like. One included "A bird in the oven and then some" by Mindy Fox - which gives 20 ways to roast a chicken, nice side recipes, and what to do with the chicken carcass so that the whole bird gets used to its best potential.

I adapted one of the recipes to fit the ingredients I had.
I used:

• 1 whole chicken (5 pounds)
• 1 lime
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 2 tablespoons unstalted butter, at room temperature
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/2 tsp saffron
• 1 tsp freshly ground coriander
• 1 tsp coarse black pepper
• 1/2 tsp NuSalt
• 1 cup white wine (I kept it classy with Charles Shaw)

1. Preheat oven to 350* roasting setting
2. Clean the chicken, remove giblets/ neck and set aside (I just froze mine for another day.) Dry well.
3. Place Chicken in a oven safe pot/ dutch oven.
4. In a seperate pot/ cup boil 1 cup of water, add in raisins and let soak.
5. Zest lime over chicken, and squeeze lime juice over chicken.

6. combine all spices, butter, and soaked raisins in a bowl.



7. Using your (clean) hands rub the spices/raisin mixture all over the chicken, including under the skin.  

8. Put chicken in oven and roast about 15 minutes.
9. After 15 minutes, pour ~ 1 cup white wine over the chicken, continue roasting for about 1.5 hours or until internal temperature is 165*F.

As a side I roasted up some mixed vegetables/ fruit including:

• 1 potato
• 1 onion
• 1 red pepper
• 1 red apple
• 2 cloves garlic
• olive oil
• splash of white wine
• Black pepper

No fancy or exciting prep, just chopped, put in a baking dish and roasted along with the chicken.

I also had a lot of weird looking carrots from the garden so I chopped those up and roasted them as well with just some olive oil, salt and pepper. 

Here are some of my weird garden carrots (with a cheery tomato for size comparison)

Looks like legs that have to pee!

Had a few 'baby' carrots in there
 

 

In the end I wound up just throwing all of the vegetables into the pot with the chicken and it made quite a good one pot wonder of a meal.