A clean treat

I like to think that I'm doing really well with clean eating but there are days I JUST WANT CANDY. I want something chocolately, ooey and gooey. Today, I found the solution.

I stumbled across this recipe for Primal Paleo Fudge. OMG delicious. Melty, peanutty, chocolatey - and clean!  Definitely try it if you're aching for something sweet but not fake!  I used peanut butter instead of almond butter and subbed in almond extract instead of vanilla (because I will choose almond 100xs over vanilla!)


 Bonus, the kids liked it and thought it was candy.

Clean Pizza & Another Virtual Race

We have been on the hunt for the "perfect" pizza crust. I'm telling you, it's been YEARS. A few times we have thought we got close but never there. Flavor but not texture, crunch but not thickness, toppings but not sauce. Then we moved to clean eating and figured it was over, we would NEVER be happy with a clean crust. Until . . .

Last night - perfection.

I made a sauce last time and froze it. I used the recipe from The Cultivated Life, but used diced tomatoes instead of tomato sauce. Then I found this recipe and METHOD (method was the KEY) for pizza yesterday. Obviously I had to clean up the recipe to fit it to our lifestyle. I used 2 cups of whole wheat flour and a 1/2 cup of whole grain corn flour. Molasses instead of sugar. Closer to 1 1/4 tsp yeast. Closer to 1 1/2 cups water. Coconut oil instead of olive oil.   I added about 2 tsp of whole grain corn meal on the bottom of my pan because hubby enjoys that texture.

I followed the baking directions exactly, starting it on the stove then moving to the oven. It was perfect around 18 minutes.

We will be doing this one again VERY soon. It was a huge hit in this house!

I did my second virtual race this morning, the Anywhere 5K. My goal was a PR, of course. I was dying by the end, but I did it!! PR'd my 5k with a time of 27:20! Super excited to have run an average 8:47 mile! What?! My plan was to run 4 minutes at 6.5 then bump it up to 7.5 for a minute. I was able to do that the whole time. I even ran a minute and a half by ACCIDENT at 7.5! I didn't even notice. It's so nice to feel like I'm progressing, improving and becoming more fit and more able.

February Meal Plans

Here's our meal plan from last week and for this coming week.





Monday: Weelicious Ramen soup (I know the noodles weren't clean, but the soup is so yummy!) and grilled cheese with smoked cheddar cheese & bacon; side salad






Tuesday: Crockpot Cinnamon Chicken, green beans and whole wheat penne pasta.

Wednesday: Baked chicken tenders (Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Cookbook 2), brussels sprouts with bacon & a little maple syrup, spaghetti squash with a little garlic. Homemade honey mustard and a side salad. 

Valentine's Day morning, I let my kids make muffins. This is a huge test of my control issues, but it went so well! This strawberry muffin recipe is from Gracious Pantry and they were DELICIOUS! I was able to make 24 muffins instead of 18 like the recipes says and I calculated that they were only 80 calories each! There is no added sugar aside from fruit and the kids DEVOURED them (together my TWO kids ate ELEVEN muffins that morning!!!)  (And I usually don't let them eat like that, but it was Valentine's and I was ok with them loading up on good stuff instead of candy!)

Valentine's night we had a stir fry of Portobello mushroom caps, broccoli, carrots, celery, peppers and onion. Served with steamed brown rice.

Friday: Burgers with avocado, tomato and onion (on whole wheat, but not sprouted grain, buns); green beans and roasted red potatoes with thyme. 

Saturday morning my daughter requested her favorite breakfast, Dutch puff with apples.  Since it is an inherently clean recipe, I am always happy to make it for her! I use this recipe and always change the vanilla to almond extract. I just LOVE the taste of almond extract in this recipe!

For my baked apples, I saute them with a touch (Tbsp maybe) of maple syrup, cinnamon, lemon juice and nutmeg/allspice. Sometimes I will throw them in the oven and give it some time, but Saturday I didn't have that time so I diced them small and cooked them for less time.

I also pulled out my new $3 citrus juicer and juiced up a TON of oranges and grapefruit that just seemed to be lingering in the fridge. Fresh juice for everyone!

We went out to dinner on Saturday night.

Sunday: Meatless fajitas with peppers, onions and mushrooms in a whole wheat wrap. Served with a side of guacamole.

Monday: Mushroom & Rosemary pork scallopini; pasta; salad; peas

Tuesday: Eggs, turkey sausage, toast, fruit

Wednesday: Chicken masala; naan; brown basmati rice with peas; salad

Thursday: Hubby & I are going on a date and the kids will be having Chili mac

Friday: Pizza (clean crust!)

Saturday: Unknown yet

Sunday: Salsa chicken; sauteed peppers; brown rice

Cha-cha-cha-Changes!

The blog got an update! I was ready for some color changes, so I took tonight and made them! 

And .... 
Meet my new shoes! 

I originally bought New Balance shoes in the $75 range when I started running. I wasn't sure if running would "stick" back then, but two years later? I'm pretty sure it's here to stay.  So I took Saturday off from mommying (thanks to my wonderful husband) and bought myself a new pair of shoes!!

I was in my cardio drills class on Friday, which is a lot of running, plyometrics and movement. I started having knee pain (left leg) and calf pain (right leg). I almost had to stop, it was so painful! And I HATE having my body tell me I can't do something!

So now I have a new pair of shoes and I'm excited to get out and run in them! I am hoping I will start to feel less pain now that I'm not working out in old shoes.

I need a new lifting routine. I am bored with my current routine. So this week I am going to focus on reworking my plans and hopefully getting back to regularly lifting. I've been skipping my strength time and instead doing some half-hearted cardio before my classes. Hoping to improve the time I'm spending at the gym!

Here's my current schedule for working out:

Mon: Run or lift; Cardio plus class, 30 min; Circuit class, 45 min
Tues: Pilates, 30 min; Yoga, 75 min, Run
Wed: Run or lift; Cardio plus class, 30 min; Circuit class, 45 min
Thurs: Off day
Fri: Cardio drills class, 45 min; Power sculpt class, 30 min; sometimes about a half hour of my circuit class
Saturday or Sunday: Long run. The other one is an off day.


I ran 8 miles last Sunday. I ran that 8 miles in the SAME amount of time that I ran my first 10K. That's an extra TWO miles. I've shaved that much off of my race time?! That's awesome for me!  I had to run the miles on the treadmill because it was 45 degrees and raining that day, but I still managed to finish!

I skipped a long run this week because of my pain. I am hoping to get in 10 miles this week! Here's hoping!

February stats (a little late!)

Date       Weight    Arms Hips  Bust       Waist Thighs Gut     BF%   Pants

1/4/13 162.0  10.0  38.0   35.0 34.0        18.5      36     27.3%          10

2/1/13 157.      10.5  37.5  33.0   31.0    19.5      36.0    26.5%          10

Diff     -5.0       -0.5     -0.5     -2.0   -3.0   1.0       0.0    -0.80%         0.0

Sorry it's not my usual pretty chart. I'm on a PC now instead of a MAC and it's just so much more difficult!! 

So you can see I've lost a few lbs and a few inches. I'm not happy with my body fat percent yet, but I guess at least it's heading in the right direction! 

Foooood

Just more food porn posts :-)

I am loving clean eating mostly because my fridge is always full of leftovers! We had crockpot salsa chicken on Monday. Tonight, the chicken was reincarnated on a huge salad. Peppers, carrots, tomatoes, chicken and romaine. It was delicious!

Sunday for the "big game" we had an almost completely clean "dinner" (really just a gaggle of apps!) Homemade guacamole (Alton Brown's recipe) with homemade whole wheat tortilla chips. Tosca Reno's baked chicken tenders (from the Eat Clean Diet Cookbook 2). My own spin on potato skins - potatoes scooped out and filled with salsa and sharp white cheddar cheese.

We had burgers and mashed potatoes - with a twist! I used three potatoes and three parsnips. I also added some sour cream and garlic powder. My husband could tell there was something "off" about them but he didn't dislike them. I take that as a win :)

My favorite breakfast: plain Greek yogurt. Trader Joe's Very Cherry berry mix. 1-2 Tbsp of ground flax seeds. 

Stats post is coming soon! I need to wait to find someone at the gym who can measure my body fat, but otherwise the post is ready to hit publish!

Race #1 - Tackle the Miles 5k

This was my first virtual race towards my goal of 13in2013!

It was a virtual race hosted by Marathon Mom!

I was ready to run it at the lake but a surprise dusting of snow (4.5 inches!) kept me on the treadmill.

I tried to keep a steady pace and not rush myself. I DID push through the last few minutes to make sure I came in under 30 min & PR'd this first race. Can only improve from here, right??

Kids & healthy eating

Everyone keeps asking me how I've gotten my kids to eat "clean" with us. My kids have always been relatively healthy eaters. They do love their Kraft mac'n'cheese, they love a cookie, they will beg for ice cream.  But when it comes to lunch/dinner? They know the rules. They can have cheese and crackers everyday, but they get the serving size of whole wheat crackers (4 crackers) and if they are still hungry, we start supplementing with healthy stuff - fruits and veggies!





This was lunch on Friday: 4 crackers, some cheese, a handful of grape tomatoes, half a hard boiled egg and some turkey that my husband smoked.















If you follow along with the blog, you know that I take one afternoon every 1-2 weeks and prep a TON of food - portion out bags of nuts, cut carrots, celery and peppers, hardboil eggs, pack snack bags to make life easy for the husband. My kids LOVE this day. And I don't mind it either. They ask for food all day long - and I give it to them, because they are eating carrots, nuts and other veggies!

My son (2 years old) will wander over when I'm prepping dinner and eat whole veggies. This was two consecutive days - one, a whole cucumber and the other he ate a tomato like it was an apple!

My daughter has been on a roll too - this night, I gave her soup and a HUGE salad. She finished every single bite of that salad! I find that the more I give her salad, the more she is liking it - and even asking for MORE if she isn't full when her dinner is gone. 

We've had our moments. I made homemade macaroni and cheese for my son's birthday party. As I was making it, my daughter came over and asked when she can have "the boxed mac'n'cheese" again. I told her we were eating healthy now, and that certainly wasn't healthy. She said "ok, when are we DONE eating healthy so I can have that kind again???"  

We slowly weaned them from the Quaker oatmeal packets they've been eating (2-3 a morning some days!) and have moved them to old fashioned rolled oats with berries or maple syrup. That was our biggest challenge so far and it's been a dream!

So they aren't 100% on board, but they are doing really well with it. I love finding new things for my family to try together (pummelo! Try pummelo with your family sometime! it's a grapefruit that feeds 4-5 people!)

What's one thing you've fed your kids that they LOVED that shocked you??