Hills and Trains

Happy Thursday! I hope you all have had a wonderful week. Right now my body is feeling like an old lady. I guess this week’s workouts, or more so their intensity, have caught up with me.

  • Monday: Run
  • Tuesday: Personal training session + 90 minutes power yoga
  • Wednesday: 4 mile hill workout with Gia
  • Thursday: Personal training session
  • Last night’s hill workout was unlike anything I’ve ever done. One of my goals is to run with a group once a week since I find that I push myself more when I’m around others. It’s that natural tendency to want to run faster than the next person, if you know what I mean. When Gia mentioned that she was the new run coach for the Madison Avenue Lululemon I knew I’d be taking the subway uptown after work a few Wednesdays a month.

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This adorable run coach may look sweet but she puts together a hell of a quad and glute killing workout! I don’t want to steal her thunder, since she was so kind to put it on her blog, even with treadmill conversions. Head over to her site and bookmark yesterday’s post for a rainy day when you want a challenging treadmill workout. Your race times will thank her but your ass will hate me for suggesting it.

I woke up this morning wishing I could cuddle further into the pillows and sheets instead of meeting my personal trainer.  But, like everyone says, within an hour I was happy I had gone and had even shown her my headstand, proving that it wasn’t a once in a lifetime moment. Yes, I promise I’ll take a video or picture for y’all soon.

As usual, my hunger was unstoppable after my personal training session. I silenced the beast with an oats, Uncle Sam’s cereal, chia seeds, and banana bowl.

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Three hours later my stomach was screaming so I had a handful of almonds and a tangelo.

001 This little orange beauty has become my favorite winter fruit, enjoyed at least once daily. In fact, if you are looking for a great sweet treat that can be enjoyed at the office, in the car, or just about anywhere I highly recommend tangelos. They are easy to peel and are larger than clementines so I find that I’m more satiated.

This afternoon I had the chance to use my favorite mode of transportation, Amtrak Acela, thanks to  a quick business trip down to Philadelphia.

003 I find that traveling via train is so refined and refreshing.

016There are no security lines, plenty of legroom, ample overhead space, free wireless, and their cafe car serves an astonishing assortment of food and beverages, including wine!

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While enjoying the view out the window and cranking through some emails I ate a delicious Zaro’s salad. I always recommend the Penn Station Zaro’s for anyone who is traveling via Amtrak as it has fresh salads, sandwiches, and wonderful service.

007The trip back was equally enjoyable as my co-worker and I enjoyed miniature bottles of wine and kicked back to relax.

019While Acela is definitely more expensive than regular Amtrak it’s often more convenient when you need to get somewhere quickly, such as a business trip, or when it’s a destination where you’d normally fly otherwise. For example, taking Acela up to Boston or Washington, DC for a 2 day weekend trip is sometimes more advantageous than spending 6 hours in a bus or 4 hours on a train. It all depends on your schedule. I do have two Amtrak tips that I’ve discovered over the past few months.

  1. Join Amtrak Rewards for great email discounts and to accumulate points. I was able to save 20% on this Acela trip even though it was booked just a few days out.
  2. Planning in advance can definitely save you money on Amtrak, both regional and Acela. If Bo and I were to buy tickets down to Philadelphia today for June, it’s only $32 each way!

Okay guys, I’m supposed to run 10 miles tomorrow morning bright and early. Though the morning weather schedule isn’t in my favor, I’m going to finish it one way or another!

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Monday Musings

After a weekend of indulgent, delicious dinners and more than one cupcake taste, it felt wonderful to enjoy some whole, natural foods today. I packed my breakfast and lunch today which meant I was able to enjoy healthy food without much thought or temptation at the office.

Breakfast was a bowl of banana oats topped with chia seeds.

002 Lunch was a homemade spinach salad and a bowl of soup. While my mom and I made last night’s salad I grabbed a Tupperware and made my lunch salad at the same time with the leftover ingredients. Today’s salad contained baby spinach, cherry tomatoes, walnuts, 1/4 cup blue cheese, and Whole Food’s all natural honey mustard dressing. I loved the fresh addition of walnuts and baby spinach.

001 002 The soup was definitely not a winner. This very photogenic soup was my last can of Healthy Choice vegetable soup I bought on sale a few weeks ago.  Luckily, I ordered a case of Progresso Light soups from Amazon tonight. I realized a few weeks ago that my soup habit, while healthy and filling, cost at least $4 per day and didn’t allow me to control the sodium content. Therefore, ordering a case of soup from Amazon is far less expensive and healthier!

My afternoon snack was a yogurt bowl, which has quickly become a daily staple. Over 20 grams of protein, a serving of fruit, and lots of crunch keep me full for at least 3 hours.

003 Dinner on the other hand was a bit more random due to this evening’s Junior League meeting. I didn’t eat the yogurt bowl until 4:30 which meant that at 7:30 I still wasn’t very hungry. I had a dish of crunchy vegetables, hummus, and some cheese cubes while we discussed the month’s agenda.

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During my cab ride home tonight, while brainstorming my post, I came up with some Monday Musings.

  • After reading Theodora’s post about her session with a stylist, I realized that I couldn’t stand the shirt I wore to work today. Therefore, it immediately went in my donate pile this evening.

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  • In case you’ve never taken advantage of Origin’s free mini facials, they are the perfect treat for you and a friend, or parent! Last night my mom, dad, and I stopped by the Flatiron Origins and enjoyed being pampered by Augustine. While we both left with new skin care regimens, no purchase is necessary to enjoy this relaxing treat.
    • This product works better than you’d ever imagine! For $11.00 everyone deserves one of these for their desk drawer or bedside table.
    • Each week, I’ve tried to cleanse and purge a different part of my life. Last week my focus was my daily food through a one day cleanse and cleaner eating. This week, my goal is to clean under my bed and get rid of anything I don’t need or use. I tend to get lots of beauty samples through my job but never use everything. It’s time to get rid of clutter and excess products.
    • This weekend’s weather reminded me how much I love my Hunter Boots. While the $125 price point is hard to stomach, they’ve shown up on RueLala and Gilt before. If you already have a pair of Hunter Boots, or something similar, upgrade them for winter $30 with a fun bright liner sock!
    • One of my favorite Valentine’s Day traditions is buying a 6 or 8 pack of Hallmark cards and sending a random note to my college girlfriends. While we don’t talk weekly or even monthly at this point, it’s still a nice way to remind them how important they are. In addition, a random note brightens anyone’s day!

Do you send Valentine’s Day cards?

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A Quarter of the Way There

Happy Thursday! Are you guys ready for the weekend?

Bo and I feel like we’ve been going non-stop since December 10th when we hosted our first of two holiday parties. Since then we’ve flown over 4,000 miles, spent time with our families in Savannah, celebrated New Years in Cozumel, and started 2012 with a busy work week. This has left no time for relaxation, breathing, or even collecting our thoughts. This weekend’s agenda is short and sweet, leaving plenty of time for relaxing.

  • Take down Christmas decorations and put them down in storage unit
  • Unpack
  • Run the Joe Kleinerman 10k

Like I said, short and sweet!

Even though it’s been a busy week, I’m proud to say that thus far I’ve stuck to my plan 100% so far! While I know we’re only five days into 2012, rumor has it that it takes 21 days to start a habit. Therefore, I’m quarter of the way there! 

Today was a great test in my recommitment to Weight Watchers and tracking everything I eat.

Instead of enjoying my planned soup and salad for lunch this afternoon, five of us went out for a girl’s lunch to wish one of our co-workers farewell as she begins a new chapter in her career. I wouldn’t have missed this opportunity but going to a Rain Thai restaurant for lunch didn’t allow for many healthy options. Their menu was limited to 12 or so different lunch options, of which more than 8 were deemed spicy.  (source)

In the end, I ordered pad thai chicken.  An old favorite of mine, I haven’t had it in ages and forgot how much I love it and how difficult it is to stop at just a few bites. (source)

Thirty minutes and lots of laughter later, I realized my bowl sat before me, empty. At the same moment, I realized my stomach hurt terribly. Instead of getting frustrated for over eating and indulging, I went back to the office, opened my Weight Watchers tracker, and tracked restaurant pad thai into my tracker.

imageWhile I didn’t eat lunch at Noodles & Company, this option seemed to be the most similar and realistic to what I ate.  The points were a bit shocking but instead of getting frustrated or discouraged, I decided to use this as a test and practice listening to my body. Since I had used up all my points for the day, and would have to use Weekly Allowance points, I vowed not to eat again until I was truly hungry.

Tonight at 8pm, my stomach finally growled. If I wasn’t focused on listening to my body I would have eaten around 6:30 or 7 tonight since I was out of work early. Since I had such a heavy lunch I was craving a big salad. I’m rocking the homemade dinner resolution this week!

Remember Tuesday night’s pork chops? They were the perfect salad topping tonight!

001I topped the last bit of my bagged lettuce with cherry tomatoes, onions, leftover green beans, cherry tomatoes, and sliced pork chop with Annie’s Naturals dressing for a delicious dinner!

As promised, below is today’s Weight Watcher food journal for your reference.

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