Lot's Going On

When you wake up to sunshine and no humidity, you know it's going to be a good day. Add to that some seersucker work shorts (yes, I'm a real Southern girl) and lots to look forward to this week, it makes for a good Monday! I'm going to apologize in advance for this post being scatterbrained. There's a lot going on this week! I'll give you the update tomorrow. Anyways...

This evening I went to the gym for my normal weights workout and to test out my foot on a couple of machines , per my doctor's orders. I'm happy to report that after 6 minutes on the bike to warm up, it felt good enough for me to lift AND cool down for 6 minutes on the elliptical. I exercised (no pun intended) a lot of self-restraint and got off the machines when I was supposed to. This was in part out of fear for aggravating the injury as well as not being able to walk in my friend's wedding this weekend. I plan to keep up with ~5 minutes or so on each machine and see how it goes. I can tell you that I was one extremely happy camper this evening!! My gym friends were excited to see my getting back in action as well :)

If you follow me on Twitter, you have have seen my mini-goal of eating cleanly this week. The idea of a short-term goal was inspired by Tina's post this morning. What a great concept! My goal will drive many of my meals this week and you'll see an increase in protein. I've been craving it and am hoping to satisfy that craving in a healthy way.

Yesterday I baked a pack of chicken breasts which I purchased from Whole Foods. They are grass-fed, organic, hormone free, and fed an all vegetarian diet. I only mention all of these things because of the moral struggle I've been having with meat over the past few months. I had 0 guilt about my meat purchase and in fact, have been savoring each and every bite of the meat! It tastes so rich and flavorful - exactly how I remember chicken used to taste. I also cooked it very simply:

• Preheat oven to 375
• Add 1/4c water to a baking dish (like Pyrex)
• Place chicken breasts into the dish (make sure they don't overlap)
• Season chicken. I seasoned one breast with salt, pepper and oregano, one with TJ's 21 Salute Seasoning, and 1 with homemade taco seasoning - garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and cayenne
• Bake for ~45 minutes or until meat is cooked all the way through
• Remove from heat and let the chicken rest for ~20 minutes

When I usually make chicken I only wait about 10 minutes before I cut it or put it in the fridge for lunches during the week. I doubled that time yesterday which allowed for the juices to set in the meat and some of the broth was soaked up by the meat as well making it extra flavorful. Yum!

Recapping the day:

Breakfast was a light bowl of hot cereal - 1/4c BRM, 1/4c almond milk, 3/4c water, 1/2T chia, 1/2c blue and strawberries, 1/4t PB drizzle

Morning snack - apple with 1T almond butter

Lunch was a big greens salad topped with dill and some chopped English cucumber plus 1/2c asparagus and a serving of chicken (with TJs seasoning)

Afternoon snack pre-workout was 1/2c plain yogurt with a couple of raw pecans on top and and an orange. This one was so flavorful - I loved it!

Dinner included chicken once again. I wanted some rice but had to cook it so I munched on this veggie salad while I waited. Then, I chopped up a small piece of chicken (3.5oz) and mixed it with 1/2c rice and some roasted artichoke hearts and peas. I seasoned it with juice from a fresh lemon, basil, oregano, garlic, and red chili pepper.

This was fantastic - fresh, light and comforting and I didn't want it to end. A great Monday night dinner!

My snack was another 1/2c of yogurt with berries and a little bit of rice "pudding" with a few raisins. Simple and delicious.

Tomorrow is another day - and I'm seeing James Taylor in concert. Yay! Add to that tomorrow being my hump day since I'm out on Friday. I have a feeling it's going to be a good and quick week :)