What I ate Wednesday!

Another day of not running. Funny how all the aches and pains start to appear when you don't run anymore. This is just temporary, I guess the fact that it looked so cold and gloomy didn't help my choice for running. However, today I got out of my LAZY GIRL vibe and got my butt inside for some HIIT training. It was successful and I felt awesome right after.

I have been trying to entertain the 4 year old in the house. She has been bugging me and wont leave me alone. I try to escape from her for a few minutes but she always find me because she wants to be with "her big sister". Pssh, I know she just wants to play with my stuff. I can't even read blogs anymore because she takes over the computer.

I will try not to bore you any further and here is what I ate today....

Overnight oats mixed with cocoa, cinnamon, almond milk, and lots of LOVE! 

I also had a bit of chopped up fruit to wash all that down.  

Then after some cardio me and my little sister (her plate is the mini one) ate some celery, pb and fruit salad. 

Lunch was a bunch of leftovers 

green smoothie made with banana, almond milk, flax seed, chia seed and spinach

zucchini noodles with lentils and Lima beans, and some veggies with chocolate hummus

I was still somewhat hungry so I also ate half of a small sweet potato. 

I also want to say that my air popper broke! SAD FACE

but THANK GOD for brown paper bags, they still make popcorn healthy. Plus, its actually cheaper and easier. I can just pop it in the microwave and be done with it. I don't have to worry about dirty dishes or having leftovers. 

I had a snack right before we ate dinner because I felt like I was going to eat my hand! 

1 Cup of popcorn, a persimmon, and a new to me product, Soy Pudding. It was awesome!

Dinner was a new to me food, MUNG BEANS. I made a curry/chili type thing. I really enjoyed it!

I ate it along with a wrap

and for dessert I had some of these (recycled pic)

One more snack for a hungry bunny

Apple with almond butter and cereal 

and some of this may or may have not been consumed throughout the evening 

I realized that I tend to eat the same things everyday: oatmeal, nut butter, apples, bananas, chocolate, cereal, and some soup or salad. Grant, all these foods are super healthy but I need to change it up every now and then. Let see if I can think of better things to eat for next WIAW. 

Happy eats everyone. 

Random Thoughts

I did not go for a real run today, I ran my way home from taking my sister to school and that was it. Its funny because I told myself that I would do some cardio at home. Some circuit training would be good, but nope. My body is just so used to running that anything else just seems like a pain in the butt. Isn't it funny how you can love one exercise and don't have the drive to do anything else. This can be a problem in the future, but lets pray nothing serious happens. 

How my cardio session went 

Oh, did I tell you that I went to Fresh and Easy the other day? I am too lazy to check to see if I did say anything. However, the thing is I really don't like that store because I feel that all their food is processed or picked out. You can't really chose you foods, everything is packaged or bagged "ready to go". I don't like that, I like going into the store and picking the exact apples that I want. I like going shopping and knowing what I am getting. Either way, I went because I needed some Wheat bran and didn't feel like driving all the way to Sprouts. 

This peanut butter will make everyone happy! 

I got this in my fortune cookie, makes me kinda sad because now I have to change everything!

Dinner 

I bought some soy yogurt. That doesn't happen too often 

I also made my own "canned pumpkin"

with roasted pumpkins 

a RARE occurance 

homemade cornbread, chile rellenos beans, pumpkin (notice it wasn't sweet potato) and lettuce with hummus

leftovers

I made a chocolate hummus. Turned out good

Spouts, how I love you!

No running!

This Saturday may be my last long run for a while. I felt every bit of it. It was so dark going outside it was pretty sad. I couldn't even take a decent picture. 

I sometimes wonder why I can't be a normal person and just sleep in on Saturday mornings. I haven't done that in the longest time ever. 

Proof that it was so dark, I stood under the porch light and still managed to take a bad picture. 

 Anyways, I ran 15 miles but unfortunately it took a toll on me. You know when you run and you feel exhausted before you even start? Well, that was me, I took off after eating a piece of homemade chocolate pumpkin bread with a small cutie tangerine and was off. I try not to look at my watch on long runs because it makes me depressed that I still have XX miles to go or have only ran XX miles. But I looked at the pace and it was super slow, like 10:15.

I told myself that it was okay because you are supposed to be running 90 seconds to 2 minutes slower on your long runs. But damn it! My pride didn't want to accept that. I naturally increased my pace throughout the run. Then 9 miles into the run, I felt it. My legs were heavy I started breathing hard. I was cold (?) it was just not pleasant at all. I wished I had just planned 10 but nope. I am also one of those people who competes with themselves and not finishing the 15 miles was not an option. I had to, I was five miles away from home anyway. Plus, it didn't matter if I went at a snail pace, I had just set my mind to finish.
So I did what any runner would do, I thought of what I wanted for breakfast the rest of the run, hoping that would motivate my lazy butt to get home faster.

I ended with a 9:20 pace and just sat down for about 10 minutes. Made breakfast for everyone and went under the blankets for 10 minutes and then got on with the day.
Usually the shower helps a lot, but for some reason it didn't that day. I was like a zombie the rest of the day....a very hungry one. I never understood why people say that running suppresses your appetite, it INCREASES mine. 

The 8 cups of water I sat down to immediately after the run. 

Breakfast

Oatmeal, sunflower seeds, chopped apple, applesauce, strawberries, soy milk, cinnamon, 

and some super sweet homemade pumpkin sauce. 

I am getting pretty good at making omelets, it didn't crack at all this time. 

Eating ice cream in the cold! 

makes kids super happy 

YUM!

'

Remember I said that I was making my sisters their Halloween costumes? Well, they hated them! This has never happened before. I was all excited bringing out the costume boxes and the look of disappointment and sorrow in their voice when they said, "awww, we have to wear that!"

made me soo sad. It was funny, because they get excited for random things, but not that! 

I even injured myself making these bad boys! 

Oh well, I guess not. 

Look at my sister's socks, arn't they cute?

We went shopping (You know, cuz I REALLY wanted to walk around) 

Isn't it amazing that Halloween hasn't passes but they already have the Christmas things out. 

Then we went to Veggie Grill. I am super pick with food. This place is great and all, but I am not liking the food. I love chili, but didn't like it. I didn't like their mock chicken sandwich, and I didn't like their barley soup. 

But I keep going, my friend really likes it so I just suck it up. I haven't said anything so he has no idea. 

recovery food (looks simple but it suits me)

Tofu, sweet potatoes, beans, and chili black beans. 

and a simple salad 

Ignore the pictures

I was on I waste so much time  and found these pictures 

Funny thing is that most middle school girls actually wear make up now. They do look like this when they take it off. When I watch the girls go home after PE they look like zombies. I honestly don't know why they are in such a rush to grow up. 

Because everyone should listen to Mr. T.

Just because I feel that I need a little self-improvement in my spiritual and mental health. These are some things that I feel that I need to work on. 

Things I should do to help motivate me to be a better person

Steps:

1. Clear your mind from negativity.

               As in JUST DON’T DO IT. Do not feel the urge to criticize other people or your surroundings

because you just keep a negative emotion over yourself and that tends to bring you down at  random situations.

2. Replace negative self-talk with constructive criticism or positive information about yourself.

Don’t look in the mirror and focus on the one thing you hate about yourself. When you do that you tend to focus and obsess with that aspect. It is easier to pick something you like and play that out.

DO IT NOW!

3. Surround yourself with positive like-minded individuals who tend to like SOME not ALL of the things you like.

In my experience, when someone like everything that I like. I tend to get overwhelmed. I feel like it’s always a huge competition and that I can never fully enjoy myself. The whole point of meeting new people is to get to experience new things and have a nice discussion and educate yourself from a different view. It’s like a breath of fresh air. However, if you don’t like ANY of the same things, brace yourself for a lot of arguments in the future.

4. Read

Yes, plain and simple. Reading is not like the TV where you just absorb information. I read, but I feel as if I don’t read enough. I would like to go through at least 500 pages (1 big or two small books) a week. When you read, you play devil’s advocate. You tend to question everyone and everything. You want to be ahead of the game and figure out what is going on. You develop feeling and biases for some characters. As well as all of this, you also challenge your mind. You are forced to think ahead and determine what will happen.

5. Help others

               Help is such a weird way to say spends time making others happy. Help doesn’t mean you have

to do something for someone else. Even saying good morning to the rugged angry looking stranger can “help” them shift their mood or even FEEL as if someone CARES for them. It’s a very strange world that we now live in, everyone is so self-concerned with their own life and don’t bother with the things around them so it’s time to change that.

6. Smile

               I don’t notice when I do it, I am naturally a serious person so I forget to smile. Hey it happened.

Most of the time I am deep in thought or thinking of weird scenarios in my head so I don’t notice that I look tense.

7. Accept the fact that I can’t change other people

You know, there is certain things that you want to change about someone else, or am I the only narcissist around here that finds something that bugs me in everyone? Those little factors are what make others unique and accepting that is what makes a true friendship!

More to come…..

Pumpkin Squash Noodles

So there has been a recipe that I have been dying to try that I keep editing in my head. Today, I had the courage to attempt it since we had everything on hand. 

I took a Mexican Squash and made noodles with it. 

Then in a pot I proceeded to boil tomato sauce and pumpkin sauce with leftover lentils 

mixed in some veggies and spices and left it to simmer. 

Poured it into a bowl 

added some nutritional yeast 

and hoped for the best. 

It turned out delicious. The pumpkin enhanced the flavor. I  was actually quiet surprised because I though it was going to taste kinda funky. But was pleased. 

Ingredients:

2/3 cup of pumpkin

1/2 cup of tomato sauce 

1 Mexican Squash (made into noodles)

1/3 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup of corn 

2 handfuls of spinach (torn into pieces) 

1 cup of cooked lentils 

2 tsp of paprika

1/2 tsp of cumin 

salt to taste 

Let the pumpkin and tomato sauce boil for about 10 minutes then add the lentils. 

Simmer for 5 minutes and then proceed to add everything else. 

Cook for 10 more minutes or until "noodles" are soft.