Post your final numbers here!

Audrey's Orzo Salad

Try it, you'll like it.

Orzo with Roasted Vegetables
1 small eggplant, peeled and diced into 3/4" pieces
1 red bell pepper, diced into 1" pieces
1 yellow bell pepper, diced into 1" pieces
1 red onion, peeled and diced into 1" pieces
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup good olive oil
1 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 pound orzo

Dressing:
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup good olive oil
1/2 tsp pepper

To Assemble:
4 scallions, minced
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
3/4 lb good feta, crumbled
15 fresh basil leaves cut into a chiffonade

Preheat oven to 425. Toss the eggplant, peppers, onion, garlic, salt and pepper with the olive oil on a large baking sheet. Roast 40 minutes, turning once with a spatula.

Meanwhile, cook orzo in boiling, salted water for 7-9 minute or until tender. Drain and transfer to a large serving bowl. Add the roasted vegetables to the pasta scraping all the liquid and the seasoning from the pan.

For the dressing, combine the lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper and pour on the pasta & veggies. Let cool to room temperature, then add the scallions, pine nuts, feta and basil. Check the seasonings and serve at room temperature.

Last time I made this, I cut the oil on the veggies to about 2 tbsp, and I added another eggplant and another bell pepper or two. I would love to tell you the calorie info, but I've never measured it out to get accurate serving sizes. I've only just guessed. As written, if it serves 16 than it's 241 calories per serving.

To add insult to injury...

After a healthy lunch today I decided I would eat a rice krispie treat. Low-cal right? Well then Tessa only ate one bite of hers, so I ate that too- a bad mommy habit, but we all do it. Can't stand to let that food go to waste. I ate what I thought was 210 calories worth of treats. Not something to be proud of, but not horrific. I usually don't really even like rice krispie treats, but these were so delicious I couldn't resist. They were extra gooey. Too gooey. So gooey I decided to re-check the recipe. Turns out I made them wrong. I tripled the marshmallows and butter, but only doubled the cereal. To make matters worse, when I made them I mis-read the serving size. What I thought was about 210 calories ended up being 756 calories. I just ate 756 calories worth of rice krispy treats. 7-5-6! Now I only have 450 calories left for the day. Looks like I'll be eating a lot of celery and pickles.

Can I have a do-over?

Something New

I am trying something new and different.

A while back I mentioned a little about my stomach issues. I have been eating gluten free for a few months now, and it feels so much better. But every now and then, I have a rough day. While browsing through Trainer Mommas blog I stumbled upon a blog called Nutritious Foodie. I discovered that she suffered from the same issues and diagnosis I have, and has been able to control them through what she eats. I quickly emailed her, spitting out thoughts faster than my fingers could type. To my surprise, she responded that day with a heavenly sent email full of tips that might help me.

One of her tips was to eat my fruit first thing in the morning. I eat a serving of fruit, then wait about 30 minutes. Then I eat another one, and then I wait again. My main symptom is bloating...big, huge, stretched out bloating. What I learned is that when I was eating fruit before, it was having to wait its turn in line inside of me before it could be digested. There was other food that I put in there first, and the poor old fruit had to sit and wait. While it sat there, and sat there waiting for my eggs to digest, it began to ferment. The fermenting can cause bloating.

Now, I don't know if this is why I am having bloating every now and then. Maybe it's just hormonal, but before I went gluten free, it happened EVERY day. Now it happens about once a week. Much better wouldn't you say? If there is a way to improve that even more, I am willing to try it. Especially because my doctor wants me to do that thing where they put you to sleep and look up your you know what. (My neighbor swears it was like a spa treatment. I don't believe her).

I won't be able to visit the "spa" until July, so instead of just sitting tight till then, I am happy to have something new to try.

So far, I feel great. I like it that I get all my required fruit in right away. I don't have to think about it, and the rest of my day is spent eating my veggies.

One last note I found interesting. Her doctor told her to eat as fresh as she could and to eat meat sparingly....hummm....sound familiar? The Word of Wisdom truly was inspired. I think I will take this advice seriously too!

I Am Still Thinking About It!!

I am still thinking about the events of this morning.

It began when my alarm was set to go off at 5:35. (Yes, at that time in the morning five minutes does make a difference). I opened my eyes at 5:34 to see if it was almost time to get up. YES!! I jumped out of bed, put my running clothes on, scarfed down my banana, and drove to my moms house for our first early morning run of the season. I was thinking we would do a nice leisurely run, but she had a different plan. She wanted to take on the four mile hill climb. AHHHH, not the four mile hill climb. I don't know if I'm ready for the four mile hill climb. I didn't want to tell her that, so I reluctantly agreed. Do you think I made it?

YES!!! I did it! Talk about a huge mental booster. The best part is, my legs and rear are only slightly feeling the effects. BEST RUN EVER! I'm still thinking about this morning.

Then to top it all off, I made this for breakfast:
1 sunny side up egg with the yolk completely cooked

1 Sandwich Thin Toasted

2 tablespoons of Avocado

1 ounce of mozzarella cheese melted from the egg and toasted bread

All for a whopping 310 Calories and a full belly for hours!

OH MY! I don't usually reflect back on a healthy meal and anxiously wait to try it again, but this one is going to be repeated in the morning.

Food, you are no friend of mine.

Do you ever get into a slump, emotionally? The past ten days have been like that for me. We've been dealing with some difficult personal issues and I've felt sad, lonely, and depressed. I'm in a rut and I know it.

Not coincidentally, my ability to resist bad food has been weak too. I keep finding myself opening the pantry door, or staring into the fridge. I've never really considered myself an emotional eater, more like a social eater. But this morning as I was contemplating throwing my calorie range out the door for the day, I realized something. FOOD IS NOT GOING TO FILL ME UP. I'm empty inside, and food will not fill that hole. It will not give me courage and faith. It will not make me feel valuable and loved. It will not bring me happiness and peace. I know that... in theory. The application is a little tricky. When did food become a coping mechanism for me?

Ode to Audrey . . .

Whenever I am in a rut

You always seem to kick my butt

With healthy tips and yummy food

You motivate until my mood

Has changed and I am good to go

So it's only right to let you know

That as a sister, friend and wife

Your birth has truly blessed my life!

Happiest Birthday Audrey.  I love you!

Samantha

Thank you for being the best sister I could ever ask for!! You are amazing inside and out and I appreciate everything you do for me and this blog. You have changed my life and you are changing the life of everyone here too. I love you more than you know!

Question to the Runners....

So I have a friend who has been trying to eat right and exercise as well. Although, when she runs she gets a cramp-like, almost charley horse after running just a little while. She says it's closer to the shin on the side, not the calf. She wears the right shoes, I had her make sure she was eating bananas, etc. but it keeps happening. It's only when she runs on the treadmill, not on the elliptical or walking.

Do you guys have any advice I can give her?

True Junkie at Heart

Okay, I hate to admit this, but I am a true junkie at heart. I still prefer the sweet taste of sugar over the vegetables I try to eat for lunch. Unfortunately, my rear end and thighs don't agree with me. So, when I saw this post, I was immediately drawn to it. It's from Dani Spies, a health food nut: Banana Split Breakfast Bites. MMMM, just the wording sounds so yummy. Of course, I knew it was going to be healthy. Check this one out:
http://www.danispies.com/archives/breakfast/banana_split_breakfast_bites.php

Even this one looks like it might satisfy my sweet tooth!

A calorie range works best for me!

Last week I was punching numbers...how many calories I should be eating is always tricky. To few and you end up eating everything in site or your body starts using your muscle as fuel because it thinks it's starving. To many and you either stay where you are or put on weight. So I sat with my computer and calculator and tried to make sense of all this craziness.

Here is what I came up with:

I used the equation from Trainer Momma's Post

Since I don't seem to have a problem putting it all out there my numbers look exactly like this.

(10*82.55kg) + (6.25*172.7cm)-(5*37)-161=1558.875 this is what I need to sustain life

then I used the lowest PAL number 1558.875*1.2=1870.65 Maintain with no exercise

then I used moderate 1558.875*1.375=2143.45 with an exercise burn of 273 calories

Now I want to loose weight so I took 500 calories off of each (that is for a 1lb loss per week)

My range looks like this 1370-1640. Totally reasonable.

Now why do I want a range.

First: I do not workout every day. Before this challenge I workouts 3-4 times a week. Now I'm 4-5 and on a really good week 6 days but most weeks it's more like 4.

I want to know what my low end of the range is because I don't want to be eating an extra 273 calories that the equation thinks that I'm burning off on days that I don't workout. Do you? If you're using a single number based on the average number of workouts you're doing a week you end up eating more on days that you don't workout and that seems to me like you're canceling all the hard work your doing on the other days.

Now, I didn't increase my PAL number because I'd like to take the days that I may get more than 273 calories burned in my workout as extra calories burned. I'd love to lose more than one pound a week. Two pounds would be awesome but I'm not going to take 1000 calories off of what I need to eat each day. That's just not enough food. It also means that if I have an extra hard workout day and I burn closer to 800+ calories I can add some more food into my diet that day. Each PAL increment on the example Trainer Momma showed us increase your burn rate apox. 270 calories.

I did this exact math problem on a weight loss of 20lbs. Something I think is attainable and not unrealistic. That range is 1750-2006 calories or 1251 to 1506 calories to continue to lose weight. That's only a 120 calorie difference.

I hope this helps some of you who may be having questions about what calorie range works best for you. I've used many different equations some I feel to lenient some to strict. I find this is a good range for what I'm trying to do.

Eating the Pyramid

Did you all take Audrey's advice and download the Food Pyramid Worksheet? I did, and I want to urge you to do it, too. You will get instructions based on your calorie intake, on what to eat everyday. For me it's 1 1/2 cups each of fruits and vegetables, 2 cups dairy, 4 oz meat and 5 oz grains. It also suggests that I limit my extras- solid fats and sugars- to 170 calories a day. (Yes! There is still room in my life for cheese and peanut butter!) It is so helpful to me to have numbers to work with. At the end of the day I can look at what I've eaten and say, "I have 200 calories left, what is missing from my diet?" It's almost ALWAYS dairy. I just can't seem to work it in. I mean, 2 cups is a lot! I didn't realize my body needed so much dairy. Or grains for that matter.

While you're there, check out this tool. It's another suggestion from Audrey. It's a search field where you can type in a food, and it will tell you what food group it belongs in, and it's calorie content. I don't know about you, but I was unsure about a few of the foods I eat on a regular basis. Like tomatoes (vegetable,) avocado (fruit,) and cucumbers (vegetable.)

I also like the section called Inside the Pyramid. There you can explore the pyramid by group. It has some great charts that tell you what counts as an ounce or cup, and a fun food gallery that shows you what a serving looks like.

Kudos to whoever created mypyramid.gov. It's a goldmine of information that has proven to be really helpful to me.

Are You A YOGI?

I've participated in Yoga classes on and off during the years but last fall I found a class that I couldn't walk away from. I think that the most important part of the class is the instructor. I've recently taken a few classes that were "good" but the droning voice reminded me to much of what I hear when I pop in a yoga DVD at home. This instructor makes me want to come back over and over to punish myself.

All Yoga is NOT the same. This class I've started taking is called Vinyasa. The room is heated to 85 degrees and it's pretty fast moving. You do hold poses but then you'll have faster flowing movement. You really have to connect with your breath to make it through this class.

The reason I describe this is because this class KICK'S MY BUTT! Sometimes I ask myself why I'm doing this when suffering through a spin class is so much easier, but I keep coming back.

I keep doing yoga because I think it has so many benefits. It helps you become in tune with your body and blocking out distractions, it burns more calories than you'd think and it's a great strength workout without hitting the weights. I'm talking the kind of sore that you wake up the next morning that you've worked out really hard but can still workout again.

I usually only do yoga once a week. It's hard to balance it with riding my bike but I've decided that every other week I'm going to hit two classes since I think it's so beneficial. On Thursday's the class is Vinyasa II. It's harder than the class I usually take but I've done it before. The reason I started only doing the Tuesday class is because the Thursday class went to 75 minutes and I didn't know if I could hack it but of course this week the class was 90 minutes long.

I thought 90 minutes would do me in and I'd look something like this:





But, I rocked it. I only hit child's pose twice to rest. And I made sure that I had my water bottle filled with sport drink I have on my bike rides. Why you ask? Well, you sweat a lot in these classes. I'm talking sweat like I don't think I've sweat any other time in my life. I've learned that I don't like a sweaty face at all, and had to stop a few times to wipe my eyes since there was so much getting in my eyes and bothering my contacts. BUT, I rocked out over 800 calories.

Girls, if you have an opportunity I highly suggest adding YOGA into your workouts. It's a great way to cross train from whatever else you're doing as exercise.

Try it! Mix it up! Find an instructor that works for you! It's not the tree hugin' meditating workout that you're thinking of, it's a core buster, arms and legs toner that you'll be thankful for!

Post your Monday through Saturday Points Here!

What Does 50 Pounds Look Like

Double Mattress
Kayak

Airedale Terrier

Biggest Rabbit found in the UK

50 pounds of Flour

That is a lot of extra weight to be carrying around! Ouch! No wonder it hurt so much to start exercising. How was I carrying this around 24/7?

Want to Join?

Wanna Join? This is the blog Audrey showed us last week. I've been reading some of her stuff and quite frankly, I like her style. Anyway, I thought I'd let you know of the challenge she's doing if you want to join in. I know for all you fellow supporters, you could do this with little trouble.

http://nutsinanutshell.blogspot.com/2010/05/challenge.html

Another Counting Calories Post from Trainer Momma!

If you're still interested in your calorie range HERE is a new post from Trainer Momma!

I LOVE TRAINER MOMMA!

Not only did she respond to my email questions but she put a new post up to further answer questions we all may be having.

Here is the basic answer to the question I had.

1) If you have a HR monitor and want to use your own calorie burn to figure out the addition calories you should be eating use a lower PAL. (Personal Activity Level) You're activity level on an average day without exercise.

Then you have your Calories to maintain -500 calories to lose weight + exercise calories= how many calories you should eat.

2) If you just want to use a general number and don't want to have to worry about how many calories you burn during your workout use a higher PAL and that will give you an average of what you should be eating every day.

THIS IS THE NUMBER OF CALORIES TO MAINTAIN YOUR LEVEL. IF YOU WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT YOU WOULD SUBTRACT (500 FOR 1 LB. A WEEK). DO NOT ADD IN EXERCISE SINCE YOU'VE ALREADY ADDED THAT BY RAISING YOUR PAL NUMBER!

I've checked Lose It, Daily Plate, and Trainer Momma's equations. They are all slightly different but I take my range from there! I have a range not a specific number because if I exercise harder one day I eat at the higher end of the range lighter or no activity on the lower end of the range.

I wear my HR monitor a lot but sometimes I don't but I do like knowing how much more I can eat if I do wear it! Mmm, food.

Hope this helps some of you. If you still have questions let me know and I can talk you through it.

The digging crew

Every year we try to make improvements on our yard. 2 weeks ago we decided to dig a hole for our trampoline. Do you know how HUGE our tramp is? 15x15! The Heaps were up for the challenge.

Heres my crew on day 3. We decided to break it up in 4x4 foot square sections and do one each night. It makes the elephant a little easier to eat :)

We have been working hard but we should be done by this weekend. I will post more pics later.

Some great things about digging:

Our family working, talking, and laughing together

great exercise

fresh air

Seeing progress each night

I never thought I would enjoy digging a hole so much :) I guess I can count this as exercise points don't you think?

She came. She ate. We giggled. She left

Greetings, Ladies! I feel totally recharged after a late night of good belly laughs with a dear friend.

I thought I'd share the meatless recipes I used. Thanks for all the ideas! I'm definitely going to use Jill's spinach pasta toss in the future. I had to switch gears earlier in the day and make something cold because her ETA got pushed back and I needed food that could be flexible. I found a recipe for Roasted Red Bell Pepper Spread Sandwiches that was perfect. Refreshing, delicious, satisfying, but even better the next day in a whole wheat tortilla as a wrap with a few slices of ham!






If you are interested in making this recipe, I would highly recommend a few changes. Use way less cream cheese than called for. Like maybe half! Add extra garlic, salt and pepper. Serve it with spicy sprouts, if you can find them. It's a little high in calories, so I only ate half, and that was plenty for me since I was also eating Audrey's yummy orzo salad, and strawberry shortcake for dessert.
I tried to copy and paste the orzo recipe here, but that didn't work and now I'm frustrated. I'm not willing to re-type it out right now, so maybe another time. Have a great day!

Why Can't I Have the Title?

I was thinking about yesterdays post on the Fitness Freak blog. I started thinking about all the wants of fitness I have. One day I want to become a fitness freak and everything that goes along with it. There is this lady that runs in my neighborhood with two kids, pushing a double stroller. I see her the same time every morning. We've labeled her "The Crazy Runner Lady". Kind of a funny name, but deep down I think, "I want people to call me the crazy runner lady. I think I'm a bit jealous of her title. Then today, I thought to myself, no more wants. No more somedays. It is today. So, today, I'm calling myself the Fitness Freak, or Crazy Runner Lady. It's what I want, so I mine as well make it a reality. So if you see me running down the street, loudly whisper, "There goes that crazy runner lady. She is such a fitness freak." I'll give you a little wave, and a happy dance to go along with it. Besides, I'm almost down 50 pounds. There has to be some craziness in that!