Shake It Up

I thought today seemed like as good of a day as any to change things up. I have been eating a lot of the same foods and doing a lot of the same things for a while now. I started thinking maybe my body needed a wake-up call so I decided to do just that. This morning I decided to break out the Peanut Butter Puffins and Skim Milk. I cannot say enough good things about Peanut Butter Puffins. I heart them. So yummy (and low calorie too).

Today I was invited to a luncheon for a committee I am on at work. It was at a fabulous place called Robin Alexander’s American Bistro in Lynchbug, VA. Remember when I went there a few months ago before the CASA shoe charity event? No awesome pop-rock martinis today though! 😉 I did have a “harvest fruit salad” which was a bed of  clipped baby spinach topped with strawberries, pineapple chunks, cranberries, pears, fugi apples feta and a grilled chicken breast. I opted for a pomegranate vinaigrette which was a perfect pair for this salad. I also got a really tasty vegetarian black bean soup. It was so flavorful. This lunch could have easily been the perfect vegetarian lunch minus the chicken.

Sadly I did not snap a picture of my salad so I am using a stock photo in it's place but trust me the salad was one of the best I have had and I promise to get a picture next time!!

After work I headed right over to the gym. I needed to get some serious cardio done. I registered for The Presbyterian Home 5K for this weekend and due to my heel injury I have been off running for two weeks. Maybe not my greatest plan of all time but I am excited all the same. My workout was good. It was hard and exactly what I needed to start to push myself out of this workout rut I have been in. I am finally getting sick of the waiting. It is time to start trying new
things to push back against this plateau. It is truly no wonder people get discouraged and quit “diets”. Thankfully on a healthy living lifestyle plan you can’t just quit. So it’s Sara versus the Plateau. (it’s on!!) I also decided to do some P90X with my husband when he got home. I made it through a whole 16 minutes. Have you ever tried p90x?

I wanted a simple dinner with carbs, protein, veggies and fruit.  So I made whole grain spaghetti with a ground turkey and oodles of veggies sauce with fruit on the side. Food is so much better when we are really hungry or really craving something. My little spaghetti recipe never tasted so yummy!

Tonight I am making a plan of attack for my closet (more on that next week) and planning tomorrow’s menu and workout. Have a Happy and Healthy Wednesday. I will leave you with a picture of my sweet Corgi Harlow watching the storm. You just HAVE to smile at that!!

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A Change Is Going To Come

There must be something in the air today inspiring positive change. My parents decided to adopt a Husky pup after the longest time of not being able to get past our family dog passing away, my husband met with an admissions counselor about going back to college for a degree in engineering, and I decided to make a shift and change the way I am looking at this fitness process.

Here is how it happened: I was eating a spinach salad today for lunch and even though I had more than enough points allotted for my dinner tonight I was stressing out about the pecans on the salad. I started thinking that it is not normal for me to be freaked out about a tiny tiny serving of pecans on a salad. I have some other unhealthy habits too. I weigh myself obsessively in the mornings. I mean I literally dash in there and hop on the scale. If I see no change or heaven
forbid an ounce of gain I flip out. I get discouraged. I worry about food more than I should. There is nothing normal about it. This is what lets me know that my current relationship with food is not a healthy one, even though I am trying to get healthy. I need to stop looking at food as my arch nemesis and more as fuel for my workouts. This was a lot easier to do when I was training for the ½ marathon earlier in the year. Since I don’t have another until October I am going to kick start my plan by doing a 3 week “mini training” for my upcoming 10K. I want to use this time to get in the right mindset. I have to get mentally healthy with food and fitness before I can truly get physically healthy. I am thankful to have picked up on this now. In order to jump start this process I am doing the following

1.      Using the Scale on Thursday’s and Monday’s only. (Monday is my official weigh in day)

2.      Skipping the weigh in this coming Monday and Thursday. I need a few days to get my head in order. If I have another zero or 0.2 I think it might sabotage all of this mental cleansing I am trying to do. I want to live a week of healthy living without being dictated to by the scale.
3.      Stay consistent. Once this week is up I will not skip another official weigh in. There are WW centers everywhere. I can pop in on vacation, visiting my parents etc.
4.      If I cant learn to view food in a healthy way I will look to talk with a nutritionist or counselor. It’s really important to get the mental aspect in order.

I am a little embarrassed to be struggling so much with this. I envy some of the other blogs I read and how effortless the meal planning seems. I want to get to that place and in time I think I will.

My week has been really demanding so I needed a little Sara Renee time after work. I went window-shopping and ended up finding a new outfit. I will most likely go back out and pick it up in the morning if I am still wanting it.  I guess that technically means it was shopping shopping and not window so much but whatever. 😉

To celebrate the hub’s triumphant return to college I was willing to honor any dinner request (home, out, or delivery) and he wanted pizza. I picked the extra thin crust BBQ chicken pizza with onions and herbs. YUM!

I am very much looking forward to one of my guilty pleasure shows Vampire Diaries tonight. Do you have a guilty pleasure show?

Stop by tomorrow to see how the intense workout/operation get everything out of the bedroom before the furniture comes/dinner and a movie date with the hubs turns out!

Have a Happy and Healthy Thursday!

Be thankful each day in the month of May: Today I am thankful for my family. I am thankful for the amazing parents, grandparents, and love I grew up in. I am thankful for the little family I have made with Bry and the pups. I am thankful for the wonderful family I married into and thankful for the couple of incredibly good friends that have filled the gap where brothers and sisters should be.

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Grocery Store Wish List

There comes a time every few weeks when I have to get creative with my meals. Sadly I don’t mean creative in the “hey lets try something new and fabulous” way but rather the “Sara Renee put off going to the  grocery store for too long and what can we mix together to make a meal” way. Today was one of those days. 🙂 Luckily this means that a major food shopping trip is coming up which I love. I am dying to try a few new items and these are on my list:
* Oikos Greek Yogurt
* Silk Almond Milk
* Bear Naked Granola
* Ezekiel Bread English Muffins
*Newman’s Own Organic Hermits Cookies
Do any of you other healthy eaters have a “must buy” product I should try? I am excited for some suggestions! Im especially looking for an almond butter suggestion for smoothies/oatmeal.

I had the same breakfast as yesterday but did snack on one of my favorite flavor CLIFF bars mid afternoon.  I pretty much love all things CLIFF bar (even the kid ones) but this one is my stand by.

My day at work was so incredibly busy that I was all packed up in the Wonder~Bug (yes even my car has a nickname. I was so not kidding about the nickname thing) and ready to head home before I knew it.

Today was a cross training day at the gym. I did 40 minutes (40 HARD minutes) but I felt fantastic after. There is something so great about that intense cardio. It is a different kind of good than I get from running. Its like running is my boyfriend and cardio at the gym is the hot guy that works at Starbucks (fabulous but not something to flirt with daily). Im finding that I always want to go back to the running.(Im sure Bryan loves this example but you get what I mean).  Since Im not training for a 1/2 marathon right now I am going to be changing up my routine a little soon. More on that to come.

Speaking of running I have a 5K coming up this weekend. It is the “Point of Honor” 5K. Both the words “point” and “honor” are leading me to believe that this might be an up-hill scary run. We shall see. As I mentioned yesterday I am running this race with a “real” runner so I will get to ask all sorts of questions about the things I’m still not sure about.  I will hang with her  as long as I can but I  am ok with going it alone once I reach that point where I cant keep her pace. I am kind of excited since this is my first race since the Disney Princess 1/2.  Its going to be fun.

I use the phrase “real runner” a lot. I don’t know at what point I will start to think of myself as a runner versus just someone who runs. I actually had a cool experience on the trail yesterday. One of my biggest issues has been I am spazzy when I run. My pace is all over the place, my breathing all crazy. However, yesterday I was running off road and it was just so peaceful. I hit a comfortable stride, had controlled and deep breaths, and I went way further without a walk break than I have ever been before. It felt great and just really really fueled my desire to get even better/stronger/faster. I will have 1 (possibly 2) more runs before the race on Saturday.

Since someone (ahem) let the food shopping slide and Bryan is out to dinner with his brother I picked up an organic extra thin crust pizza for dinner topped with chicken/red onion/peppers/cheese and a garlic sauce. I only ate 1/2 of it as I was not crazy about the taste but I definitely finished my serving of pineapple. YUM!

I have a full TIVO and blogs to catch up on tonight. I never knew just how many people there were out there blogging about healthy living.  Sometimes the best feeling is just knowing that I am not doing this alone. Harlow likes that too. 🙂

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