Caffeine Crash

Do you know what happens when I am tired, do a morning workout, and only have one cup of coffee?  Afternoon crash, that’s what.  I did predict a dragging of the feet, but holy man…I just about nodded off at my desk!

I tried to be healthy and fill the void with 1/2 an apple with some crunchy organic peanut butter, but it didn’t work.

Around 3:30 I decided maybe sugar would help, so I drank up the second half of my Sugar Tahiti Treat leftover from yesterday.  Along with this I had a handful of honey roasted cashews and some chocolate macaroons.

       

Felt great for about half an hour, but then the drive to get FH zoned me out again.  THIS is why I don’t really drink sugary sodas anymore…the CRASH.

Not enough coffee + too much sugar = exhausted me

Thankfully, dinner was easy leftovers of last night’s awesome pizza.  I heated it in the oven because microwaving it would have been gross.  We added some sautéed mushrooms on top this time just for fun, and served it with a huge, fresh salad.

In the salad bowl: romaine & radicchio, broccoli, cauliflower, orange pepper, tomatoes, red onion, and Renee’s Spring Herb Italian dressing.

After dinner FH suggested a walk, so we took a 15 minute stroll around the neighborhood.  Lovely.  Clear skies, but quite chilly!

For dessert I made up a bowl with the last of my Liberte coconut yogurt, one of my banana coconut muffins broken up, and three fresh strawberries chopped up and stirred in.  It’s like healthy trifle!

I’ve prepped more strawberries from the HUGE box I bought today, plus made a Greek-ish salad for lunch tomorrow, and cut up some more veggie sticks for whenever I need them.  We have a whole lotta produce in the fridge right now and I find it gets used up more quickly if it’s prepped and ready to go.

Now I think a sit on the couch is in order.  I’m pooooopered.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Breakfast, Lunch, and Gym

Back to the early mornings this week (well, today for sure…FH’s course is having a lot of issues so it’s all one day at a time for now) so back to the gym this morning.

Took it a little easier on the treadmill…my back is still bugging me, my shoulder is acting up, and for some reason my hip joints are sore.  I feel like an old woman!  And the worst is that I haven’t done anything strenuous to make all of these things hurt at the same time.  Bah.

So I lowered my pace to 4.5mph on the treadmill and just took it slow.  3 minute warmup, 17 minute jog, 3 minute cooldown.

I wasn’t thrilled with my distance or calorie burn, so decided to add 12 minutes of high incline walking on the elliptical for a total of 45 minutes of cardio (2.45 miles, approx 250 cals burned).

Today is lower body strength day but in keeping with the theme of switching things up and taking it easy on myself, I decided to skip the squats and lunges today.  Instead I did 3 sets of 15 hamstring curls on the ball and 2 full sets of Eurydice’s bum exercises.

As always I threw in a bit of core work.  30 crunches, 30 reverse crunches, 30 side-to-side twists.

On the way home I HAD to stop at Starbucks (to pick up some loot for the fast approaching Blog Girls GTG) so grabbed my morning coffee while I was there.  Today’s choice: grande non-fat coffee misto (translation: coffee with lots of hot milk).  This kept me to one cup instead of two today, so I foresee a bit of a lag in my step this afternoon.

 

Breakfast consisted of my Green Monster, my very milky coffee, and one of my banana coconut muffins.  Lots of protein and fibre in all of that so it kept me going for about 2.5 hours.

For lunch I did some digging in the fridge.  We seem to have a lot of bread-type products open (pitas, 2 kinds of bread, a roll, hot dog buns) so I decided a sammich was the way to go.  Turkey, light cheddar, tomatoes, lettuce, honey dijon and light mayo on a multigrain seeded bun.  Yum Yum!

 

Served with some veggies sticks and an oatmeal chocolate chip bar for dessert.  I’m so full!

Smoothie Week!

A month or so ago I got a new cookbook that has what I thought was a chapter on smoothies.  This gave me the great idea to have a Smoothie Week!  Although it turns out most of the recipes are for juices (and I don’t have a juicer) I decided to go ahead with Smoothie Week anyway.  :)

Each day I will make a new smoothie for breakfast, or maybe an afternoon snack…depending on what’s going on.

If you have a “must try” smoothie recipe, please leave it for me in the comments.  I am willing to break out of the box and try more than just strawberries and bananas this week.

To launch the week, I decided that I should offer homage to Oh She Glows and join the Green Monster bandwagon.  *shout out to Angela*

In the blender: 1 small very ripe banana, 2 heaping teaspoons flax meal, 2 heaping cups organic baby spinach, 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond breeze

And just as everyone says, you can barely notice the spinach.  All I could taste was banana and a slight hint of vanilla from the almond milk.  Awesome!

Served up Angela style!

What should I blend up tomorrow?