A Stuffed Acorn Squash Makes My Day

Hello and Happy Tuesday! (complete lie, is it Friday yet?) Today I woke up with a huge amount of motivation and went back to old Kelly that used to work out before work. I started walking on the treadmill and since my knee has been feeling good decided to run for 2 minutes. Later in the walk I ran for 2 more minutes. Just to make it clear, that's four total minutes of running. At five miles an hour (read: very slow). Then, I stretched...a lot. THEN, I iced.

Result? Pain all day. My thoughts? Total frustration and anger. Since I have been "injured" I have watched people recover from surgery, broken bones and sprains and run again...while all the while I STILL cannot run. It doesn't make sense and it's really annoying. I've been to my primary care doctor, a physical therapist, an orthopedist and a running coach. Most were helpful, except for the orthopedist who just told me that we don't worry about these things until there has been pain for a year. Correction: He may not worry about things like this until there has been pain for a year. I continue to worry.

So today I made an appointment with a different orthopedist for a second opinion. I already think me and this guy are going to get along much better. 1. He actually had an appointment after 4 on a Thursday which means I don't have to miss tutoring and lose money yay. 2. He listed one of his hobbies online as "long distance running." I'm guessing he is not going to tell me that not running for a year is fine and dandy. My appointment is not until December 10th so I'll let you know after that. You guys have been really supportive about this knee dilemma and I do really appreciate it. Most of the time I go along just fine with everything but occasionally the frustration really comes out.

But, on a positive note (you did know I was going to turn this around right?)...my dinner was SO delicious I just had to post it. It seems like everywhere I look everyone in the blog world has been stuffing acorn squash lately and I have been dying to try it. I finally decided to stop by the farm near my house this afternoon and get myself a nice big acorn squash to try.

I was a little concerned about cutting the squash in half by myself (Eric wasn't home this time to do it for me) but after one unsuccessful attempt, I put the squash in the microwave for two minutes and it was soft enough to cut right through. Then I let it cook in the oven while I made the inside.

I decided to fill my squash with Harvest Grain Blend from Trader Joe's (Israeli Cous Cous, Red Quinoa, Baby Garbanzo beans, and Orzo), fresh tomatoes also from the farm and a few pieces of leftover pad thai chicken from my sunday night dinner. I have to admit that while I fully enjoyed my first experience with pad thai on Sunday, my stomach was less than pleased with all of the oil. I decided with all the other wonderful things I would be eating tonight, my stomach would be okay with a small amount of chicken. This is one of the great things I have learned from having IBS (yes, there are small perks). It's okay to have something with a little fat, but try to mix it with a lot of other healthy parts to your meal. The result was fun to look at...

And more than delicious to eat. So delicious I interrupted my phone conversation with Katie to announce how amazing my dinner was. I don't do that for the average meal. I finished off my meal with a small piece of this...

I know, a healthy blogger like me should be finishing my meal with a piece of dark chocolate. But frankly, I don't like dark chocolate and I don't eat chocolate to be healthy. I can get antioxidants elsewhere. This is my favorite kind of Lindt chocolate because it is milk chocolate with white chocolate on the inside. Yum.

How is everyone's week going? Mine is dragging. I was so bored during tutoring today that I told my 3rd grader the best way to remember how to spell crocodile is to remember that song "crocodilly oh my croc croc croc" because when we say crocodile, we say it as "crocadile" and in that song we say crocodilly, which if you ignore the silent e rule entirely could be spelling crocodile. Um, what? Haha. Poor girl is going to be singing "crocodilly oh my croc croc croc" during her spelling test on Friday. Oops :) Though she'll probably spell the word right. Just get me to Friday.

Bringing Back the Yoga Love

In the summer of 2008 I was on a quest to ease my stress and I found a yoga studio about 4 minutes from my old apartment called Prana. For the first time ever (and yes I've tried many times before) I actually enjoyed yoga. I expected to be a bit intimidated by the yoga-types, but everyone was very nice- they didn't correct my every move, but still challenged me and, best of all, I would leave there feeling like I really had a good work out. I went consistently for about 4 months, but then I bought a house and paying $12 for yoga became a little less of an essential. Little did I know, that maybe if I had kept up the yoga- this lovely knee injury may not have happened.

Even without the house, I may not have keep up the yoga. I thought I was so hardcore back in February and March between the shred and running. I remember actually thinking to myself that I couldn't believe I would do yoga and consider that my work out for the day, psh- I was so much more tough with running and the shred obviously. So tough that I ended up injured. Good work Kelly. So tonight after my enlightening *free* consultation with an amazing running coach I dusted off my yoga mat and got all of my yoga equipment ready:

Going back to the studio was familiar, but yet I could tell it had been awhile. When I first started going there it was a very new studio, now you can tell more people go and everyone knows each other. I put on my "I know what I'm doing" face and set up my mat. We started in child's pose and I immediately knew yoga is what I need. I was so tight than even child's pose felt like an intense stretch. An hour later I felt awesome and I enjoyed every single $12 I paid for that yoga. My goal is to go 3 times per week, probably once or twice to Prana and then fill in the others with free yoga at the gym- much as I hate it, it's free and probably good for my body. I don't know if I'll ever be a yoga person...you know the kind I mean (and I don't mean this offensively to those people, I think it's great, it's just not me). But that doesn't mean I can't benefit from yoga...and insane amounts of foam rolling.

I came back from yoga tonight and made myself a late night dinner (well late for me...7:30 haha). Making dinner was more of an adventure than I was going for. Eric and I have a grill that is very ghetto. It was under $100 at Target, but in our defense we could not have a better grill at our apartment or it would have been stolen very quickly. However, we haven't gotten around to buying a new one so we still have it. It's newest problem is that it does not ignite by itself so I had to use some crazy lighter that it took me the last week to figure out how to light. Now, I should just say right now- I am deathly afraid of fire. I blame this on my first grade teacher who insisted that I could not bring my teddy bear out of the house if their was a fire because I cannot take the time to take ANYTHING out of the house (hmm, even something I was already sleeping with?). Anyway, I never lit a match until I was in college and I have probably lit only 2 or 3 ever. So here comes the girl deathly afraid of fire lighting the grill and it FLAMES UP right to my face- it was seriously scary. I am not sure if it's supposed to do that or if I did something horribly wrong but I am really happy I did not burn the house down. See why Eric needs to be home at all times? I clearly cannot be trusted to do things on my own...

Anyway, all this to grill my salmon burger from Trader Joes. My sides of raw carrots and Harvest Grains Blend were much easier to manage.

If you have not tried Harvest Grains Blend from Trader Joes you need to. It's made of Israeli Couscous, Orzo, Baby Garbanzo Beans and Red Quinoa. Yum.

Going to get to bed early tonight and probably will be sore tomorrow. Contrary to my own beliefs earlier this year, hot power yoga is indeed an intense work out and it definitely kicked my butt today. As soon as I get my new high density foam roller I'll do a review :)

My New Obsession

I have always been a big fan of the tuna sandwich. However, when I first got IBS I noticed I could never eat tuna, probably because of the mayo which bothers my stomach A LOT. Regular tuna is just not as interesting so I basically have not had tuna in 3 + years. The other day I just randomly decided to try mixing tuna with Greek yogurt. My mom has always made tuna with a mix of mayo and plain yogurt and I always enjoyed that. It turns out that I LOVE the greek yogurt and tuna combo. I feel like I don't even need mayo because Greek yogurt is SO creamy and good. I know I shouldn't eat too much tuna because of the mercury content, but I just can't get enough lately! I had run out for a few days so I went to the store today to get more and made myself a yummy tuna and yogurt sandwich.

Then I add some of my other obsession on the side: Baked Lays. Yum.

And finally, an old obsession from college when Ash used to buy GIANT boxes of these at Costco...

I am definitely and obsessions girl when it comes to food. This is definitely not a good thing since it leads to getting really sick of everything I eat and then I end up in food ruts. Oh well...What are your food obsessions?

I think the kid germs are getting to me. Time to take medicine and get into bed very early!

Day of Productivity

Today is my last day of freedom for awhile because I have some crazy weekends coming up. As a result I needed to be seriously productive. I woke up at 7, which I decided is the ideal time to wake up. It's light out and not too early, but still early enough to get a lot done. I hit the gym first to do some elliptical and a few of my PT exercises. Then I headed to my parents to spread out my stuff and get some serious work done.

I made a bunch of tutoring games on my computer and then set out to do some planning for the kindergarten kids for the week. I didn't come up with anything too great, but I am reading this fabulous book with a ton of kids games in it.

I am trying to incorporate a lot more fun and active activities into the regular school day in an effort to make my class more boy friendly. This is not to say that girls don't enjoy active games, or that my class is not boy friendly already, but I think school in general is more meant for "girls" and I want to try to change that the best I can this year. Hopefully it lasts even when the crazy academics that are now kindergarten take over in a few weeks.

When I got home tonight (after stealing my mom's food processor because we don't have one yet), I decided to cook almond crusted chicken that was in this month's issue of Body and Soul magazine. I have to admit I normally do not cook recipes from magazines because they always have SO many ingredients. However, this one only had a few ingredients: 1/2 cup roasted unsalted almonds, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 clove of garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon of course salt. Even a simple girl like me can handle that. All I had to do was mix the ingredient, put them in the food processor and then rub them on my chicken fillets.

I also added some mashed potato and carrots to make a full meal. Since I can't eat butter anymore, I make my mashed potatoes using chicken broth. They aren't QUITE as amazing this way but I still really like them and they are much more heathy.

I ended up really enjoying the chicken. If you are planning to try it, consider how much you like garlic because the recipe as I made it tastes a lot like garlic. You'll want to put less if you won't like that :)

I hope everyone had a great weekend, I'm off to go eat one of my delicious small portions of Edy's ice cream!

Check and CHECK.

I had a SERIOUSLY productive day today, and it was fun- which makes it the best possible kind of day. I woke up bright and early because I had blood drawn. Apparently my liver function test was off last time so I had to have it redone. I was supposed to abstain from alcohol for the past 4 weeks, but frankly I had two weddings so that did not quite happen. However, I rarely drink as it is so I am pretty sure my liver is not having problems because of my massive drinking habit. Hopefully this one will come back more normal.

After a quick snack I headed to spinning class. This class is shorter than the one I went to on Monday and SO much easier. It was nice in a way to have a break but I have to try to get to that Monday night one more often, it is so intense. I'm feeling a little bad that I brought my friend from work to that one for her first time since that was by far the hardest one I have been to. Oops. I just got Self, Fitness and Body and Soul October in the past two days so I am going to have to do some work outs that can involve magazine reading. I have a rule that magazines can only be read if I am walking on the treadmill or the elliptical or in some way exercising. Eric's school had a magazine fundraiser last year and teachers got a huge discount so we went a little crazy :)

Post work out I decided to clean the house. This summer I have been very lucky that Eric has done most of the housework but with him at football til all hours, I think this fall the housework is going to fall back into my hands so I wanted to get a head start. As much as I do not enjoy cleaning, there is definitely a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment when it's done.

However the most exciting part of the day comes NEXT :) I BOUGHT MY DRESSSSSSSSS!!! wooooooooo! I decided to go with Dress #2 (Eric don't even think about clicking on that link, I'm serious!) which I had a more immediate love for. It was on sale today and it was already cheaper than Dress 1, so that was happy. Plus I just really felt more comfortable in it and it was more what I pictured for myself on my wedding day. I also found a beautiful veil to go with it and everything is ordered and done. I also love that Priscilla uses NORMAL sizes, so it's not like those gowns or bridesmaid dresses that I have to order twice my size. I know size is not a reflection of anything but it just annoys me anyway and I feel like its a bad marketing scheme because girls always want to feel good about themselves, duh! I also went to check on my bridesmaid dress situation. I forgot if I told you guys this, but when I looked at my bridesmaid dresses online they did not have the pink color, NOOOO. Anyway I went in today and it turns out the lady in the store mixed up luminescent chiffon and iridescent chiffon. So my dress is LUMINESCENT, not iridescent but fortunately there is still a very similar pink color so all is right in the world.

For dinner I decided to get some serious nutrients in my body. This summer I feel like I have not been getting enough veggies or meat, so tonight I decided to remedy this with some rice and beans (okay not at all meat I know). I mixed rice, black beans, carrots and peach (aka my temporary obsession right now). I have a picture but blogger is not letting me post it, what's up with that?

Time to go hang out with Eric while he is actually home. I think I already hate football season.

Coming out of my Food and Exercise Ruts

As I have mentioned before, I am in a major food rut now. I am even not loving oatmeal which is usually my favorite meal of the day. It might have something to do with how hot it's been- steaming oatmeal just doesn't have the same appeal. So today I woke up and had an english muffin with almond butter and some sliced apple. I thought I'd be starving by snack time (yes, I still eat like a five year old even in the summer) but I was not much more hungry than usual :) Then, after work today I did a little Trader Joe's trip in hopes of getting something delicious for dinner. I'd say I was pretty successful!
I got "rice sticks"- which is basically rice pasta, zucchini, chicken and a sauce I had never tried before called Island Soyaki. I cooked the chicken out on the grill and then sauteed it in the sauce. The rice sticks were cooked exactly like pasta, but a bit quicker. I mixed it all together in one of my favorite bowls. It didn't look so pretty, but the new sauce made it taste completely different than my usual food, just what I was looking for!
I highly recommend that Island Soyaki sauce for those of you that are fortunate enough to have a Trader Joe's near you.

I also hoped on my bike for the first time since the triathlon today. I have been having trouble motivating myself to do much of anything since the triathlon but I know I need to get back into it. I did some invitations for one of my friend's shower so I decided to bike to the mailbox about 2.5 miles away to send them out. I know a 5 mile bike ride is nothing to write home about, but I really want to get back in a biking routine because I'd really like to do a 30 mile bike ride through Boston at the end of September. I also have to decide I want to keep my gym membership. I joined the YMCA near my house in May because I needed a pool to train in. I did a student summer membership, so my membership is up very soon. I think for now I probably will not renew, but I am thinking if I still can't run in the winter, walking on the treadmill is not going to cut it every day! I wish gym memberships would just be cheaper.

Also on the note of exercise, I am trying to work on arm toning. However, I have never had a good routine for arms with free weights. The best I ever did with my arms was when I was doing Jillian's 30 day shred. However, Jillian loves squats and jumping- neither of which are good for my knee- so unless I want to spend 20 minutes doing only half of the actual work out, the shred is out for me right now. Does anyone have a good arm routine? I'd love to do 10-15 minutes 3-4 times a week. Any ideas would be appreciated.