#FoodiePenPals and Primal Thoughts

My foodie penpal this month was Colleen over at The Chocolate Mile

She said I was her most challenging penpal yet, but I don’t think she had any problem finding awesome goodies!!!

I told Colleen that I was slowly making the transition to paleo, and requested no crackers, nut butters or anything with white sugar, as these things are HUGE trigger foods.

She didn’t dissapoint:

Box full of fun from Wegman’s!: Irish Breakfast Tea, Fitness Trail Mix, CocoPOP (holy yum), organic red raspberry jam (I flipping LOVE jam)

and…

Organic maple syrup that I forgot to take a picture of before bringing to the boy’s house. I usually make pancakes on the weekends and we had just run out of syrup! Talk about perfect timing. I also drizzled a little in my coffee yesterday morning and that was also quite tasty.

As instructed, I topped some cocoPOP with the jam and fell into crunchy raspberry heaven. Unlike with nut butters, I can stop myself from eating an entire tub of mixed nuts, and I’ve been happily snacking on the fitness mix. The only thing I haven’t tried yet is the tea, but I suspect that will be coming in very handy soon…

Head over to Eating As A Path to Yoga to see what I sent to my penpal, Jill!

Want to join in on the fun? Contact Lindsay Livingston at The Lean Green Bean!

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal & get their mailing address & any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.

-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!

-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!

-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers.

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Time for some updates…

I’ve already told you I’ve been on a bit of a blogging hiatus because of my finger wound, but the stitches are now out and I’m happily typing away. Granted, I still can’t use my finger, so typing is a bit awkward, but I’m back b*itches!

I’m really behind on reading blogs too… trying to play catch up; so if you left me a comment and I haven’t responded: thank you for reading and I will respond ASAP!

Today was my first day back in the gym too. Sad I couldn’t start the 5×5 weight program that I wanted to, but I put in a solid 20 minutes of core (reverse crunches, roman twists, planks, supermans, etc) and then 40 minutes of intervals on the elliptical. In college I used to be lame and just go at the same incline and resistance for 60-90 minutes, and while I worked up a sweat, I definitely wasn’t using my time effectively. Now I change either the resistance or the incline every time a song changes in my playlist (roughly every 3 minutes or so), starting at incline 6, resistance 6. Let’s just say, between that and my bike ride to work, I’m still sweaty.

Yesterday I filmed an episode of Cook For Your Chemistry with the Paleoista herself; paleo lifestyle expert and author, Nell Stephenson! It was a blast 🙂

I looked kind of like a girl for the occassion:

Finally finished reading It Starts With Food and after the past week of eating not super well and not work out….

I’m finally starting the Whole30 tomorrow! That’s right, I’m going back to our primal roots and focusing on clean, lean proteins, fresh fruits and veggies and healthy fats.

No: sugar (or sweetener of any kind), dairy, grain, legumes

Minimal: nuts, seeds, wine*

*The wine is a modification on my end. Some paleos use a little in cooking; most don’t drink it. While I’ll probably cut back a little bit, I’ve done two different months now of no alcohol, so I know I can do it, and wine doesn’t irritate anything. Beer, however, does. And hard liquor turns me into a hot mess. I don’t like either of those options

My birthday is August 31st and I’m determined to make 23 my hottest and sexiest year yet. Once I can grab heavy things again my weight training is gonna start kicking major ass, I will be able to actively participate in my own bootcamp classes (they started last Thursday), and I will be eating cleaner than I ever have.

I’ve been hesitant to start because I worried the restriction would set off my ED like whoa, and I wanted to get a better handle on eating like a human being first. I haven’t completely accomplished that yet, but with what I’ve read in Dallas and Melissa’s book, I think the program will actually help combat my food demons, rather than encourage them.

Sound like fun? I think so.

Turning Up the Heat

It’s been insanely hot here in the Valley for the past week or so; and then like any good desert it promptly gets freezing at night.

I mean, I wore tights and a sweater when I went out with a girlfriend on Monday night. Which I guess I haven’t told you about yet…. oops.

A friend from college just moved to Santa Monica, and since the boy and his roommate were going to be at the Phillies game, I suggested we hang out Monday night. We grabbed some dinner from Aroma (cobb salad sans cheese and dressing), shared some pie at Republic of Pie (coconut cream and chocolate pecan), and grabbed some drinks from NoBar and Big Wangs. The salad was delicious, that coconut cream pie was BOMB, NoBar was dead save for a few middle-aged crazies (but the drinks were cheap) and despite Big Wangs removing one of my FAVORITE cocktails ever from their menu (so long Red Velvet wangtini), it was a great way to end the night. I don’t have a ton of female friends, and since most of the ones I do have don’t live in LA, nights like these are rare. So even though the next morning left me exhausted and brainless in the gym, I was fine with that.

My stupid leg is ripped open so I could only work arms, back and shoulders anyway. I need new shoulder exercises. Suggestions welcome!

The point of my long rambling story of my night filled with tasty things that I don’t have pictures of (sorry!) is that THAT night was COLD… last night was NOT! Even when the boy and I went to bed around 10:30 it was still 80 degrees outside.

It’s possible I simply heated things up too much with dinner.

No, I’m not tooting my sexyness horn; no danger of that. But I did make a deliciously spicy meal:

Tequila-Lime Chicken over Pan-Seared Summer Squash with Avocado

• chicken breast
• 1/2 shallot, chopped
• 3/4 lime
• 1 jalapeno pepper, diced (I removed the seeds)
• handful fresh cilantro
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin (to taste)
• 1 shot tequila
• T oil
• 2 small squashes, or 1 large, sliced into 1/4 inch disks
• salt/pepper (to taste)
• 1/2 avocado
• fresh salsa

Slice your chicken breast down into thin strips and season with salt/pepper/garlic/onion/cumin. Put in a bowl, squeeze in your lime and add the tequila. Add the shallot, jalapeno and cilantro, squishing everything together until well married. Let sit for 15 minutes or so (or overnight if you have the forethought; this was off the cuff). Meanwhile… in a large skillet, heat your oil over medium-high heat. Once the pan is hot, add all your squash disks and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook until the squash starts to soften and develops pretty brown crispy spots. Flip and do the same on the other. Remove from pan and arrange the disks prettily in the plate (if desired; you could throw it in a bowl I guess, but where’s the fun in that!?). To your already hot pan, add the entire bowl you have marinading, except for the lime. Turn heat down to medium and cook until chicken is no longer pink in the middle and starts to brown on the outside. Pile on top of your summer squash. Garnish with avocado and some fresh salsa.

This was so freaking good! And I liked making the plate look nice. I felt like I was being spoiled with some schmancy dinner, but it was just Wednesday with a little Tree of Life viewing.

Super healthy, super low-cal, and as long as you’re not die hard, super paleo. You could easily omit the tequila and replace it with OJ or something if you’re really good about not imbibing alcohol.

I’m not.

In fact, I will probably have myself a few glasses of wine this evening. And you know what? I feel great about it.

My intuitive eating has been going really well; I’m figuring out specifically how foods are affecting me physically, which foods are worth it (wine, sunbutter rye toast) and which aren’t (pizza crust, oatmeal). I’m learning, you just gotta figure out what works for you.

And suck it up and put in an hour at the gym if you want to eat my eggplant lasagna for lunch (recipe soon!).

Jumping into June

I realize it’s already the 5th of the month, so I’m a little late on the uptake.

But June really got kick-started this week here at the office, and only now am I realizing…

IT’S FREAKIN JUNE!?!

Summer starts this month, the year is halfway over, my CPR certification expires in a month and I am WAY behind on my personal training studies.

That being said, I am working on some pretty awesome stuff over here…

Getting ready to do a giveaway for the book I co-edited, planning travel dates for NYC to interview some big shots in the fitness magazine world, setting up interviews with some of the hottest celeb trainers, and yesterday I shot two episodes of an upcoming web-series that I think my readers will certainly enjoy 🙂

I’m also on day 7 of my cleanse which means my brain is fried but I add eggs back in tomorrow!

Now, I don’t even particularly LIKE eggs… but I’ve never been so excited to start working protein back into my diet.

I don’t know if I’ve lost any weight, but my face looks thinner, and I can feel my ab muscles so that’s definitely something. I have learned, however, that when you’re on a cleanse that restricts what you eat, you should probably at least eat when you’re SUPPOSED to, especially after walking around in the sun all day, otherwise you may end up cranky and whiney and crying like a 5-year-old. Hopefully if this happens to you, you will be fortunate enough to have a certain someone swoop in to the rescue to cook you a beautiful and creative dinner to make sure you eat before bedtime. Seriously though: zucchini fries, caramelized onions, seasoned bell pepper and garlic dip; how lucky am I?!

Gym this morning was pretty rough. Hell, biking TO the gym this morning was rough. I had to stop for a little break at one point. Got through my sissy workout well enough, but I’ll be happy when I can get back into my routine. And running…

Only 19 days till my half marathon! My goal is to get in at least 1 long run a week, plus two/three shorter ones. I’ve also not been keeping up with my once a week yoga goal, and my gym membership is currently meaningless since I don’t think I’ve gone since before Vegas.

Get it together, Sam!

I know, I know…

I finally got back into studying all my personal training materials again, but I’m way behind from where I want to be. I think I’ll try to write some posts about the basic concepts as a way to teach them to myself. I seriously have no discipline for this kind of thing outside of a classroom setting. For shame.

Haven’t been quite as creative with my cooking, even though I went on that little tirade in my last post. I’ve just felt really drained. Re-did the spinach/basil pesto with some kelp noodles last night. If you haven’t tried kelp noodles yet, get on that!

Lastly, the transit of Venus is tonight/today (depending on where you live) so that’s pretty spectacular! My inner-girl scout nerdiness LOVES all things astronomy. Can’t wait!

Any fitness concepts you want me to explain? Want me to shut up and stick to posting recipes? Send me your thoughts!