Tag Archives: breakfast

Protein Success

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A few weeks ago I posted about how my marathon training hunger was kicking in. I was feeling hungry almost all of the time and I was starting to get sick of it. It is much harder for me to make healthy eating decisions when I feel ravenous all of the time!

So I made a conscious effort to up my protein intake at meals and in snacks and I have to say it seems to be working. I feel fuller much longer after a protein-packed meal than a carb-centric one. I really should have tried this earlier (duh, Lindsay), it’s not like I didn’t know the protein (and fat) has more staying power than other foods but it is difficult and requires more planning and foresight.

Any tips on how to add protein (vegetarian or fish) into more meals?

Workout
I woke up wanting to sweat this morning. Does that ever happen to you? Sometimes I just crave a hard workout. I only had about 40 minutes so I set the treadmill to the hill setting and did a speed workout with the hills.

Breakfast
I can’t go a couple of mornings without having my favorite breakfast, so last night I whipped up some protein-packed overnight oats.

I mixed 1/3 cup of oats, 1/3 cup almond milk, 1/3 cup greek yogurt (mix of 0% and 2%), 1 T protein powder, 1/3 banana, 5ish cashews, 1 tsp chia seeds, and cinnamon.

This morning I topped them with warm strawberries and honey, almond & flax cereal.

Coffee and an adora disc complimented the overnight oats perfectly :)

Lunch
My morning was spent in class and dealing with a USPS mix-up. I was so busy, I couldn’t believe it was time for lunch so soon!

I packed leftover taco soup and cornbread from last night to eat at work.

I can’t get over how good this soup is. I may have to start making it with peas everytime :)

I also packed a blood orange for snackage.

Adios kids!

Whats your favorite kind of soup?

Do you ever crave sweaty workouts?

Less Frustrating

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I started out the new month with a great 10 miler. The weather was perfect- not too hot or too cold and more importantly, there wasn’t any snow in sight! Even with my ipod dying at mile 2 (really!?), I managed to push myself to average a 7:50 min/mile. It was definitely a less frustrating run than last Sunday!

On a side note, pacing is really hard in the city, there can be way too much starting and stopping, so I try not to read too much into my Garmin. Gernerally, I am pleased if I average under an 8 min/mile. I do really need to get my butt over to the Lakeshore path though so I can run without stopping at every block.

Breakfast was something new. A week or two ago, I remembered that I had purchased raw oat flour awhile back and have started trying to use it more (protein cupcakes etc.). I have also always wanted to make one of Ashley‘s breakfast bake recipes but never wanted to buy buckwheat flour. Well, in one of her recent posts she mentioned that you could sub oat flour for buckwheat flour in the breakfast bakes. It was like the stars aligned, I could make a breakfast bake ;) .

I made her banana cinnamon protein quick bake. The only change I made was using Aria protein (vanilla flavored) instead of Raw.

I also mixed some plain greek yogurt, peanut flour, and maple syrup together to make some protein pudding to put on top.

This was a great quick breakfast option. I love that it didn’t take long to make. It was also surprisingly filling! I will definitely be making this again :)

I have a lot of assignments due in the next two weeks so I started working almost immediately after finishing breakfast. I forced myself to finish my homework due tomorrow before even thinking about lunch.

But when I did, it was glorious.

Arugula, tomatoes, mushrooms, snap peas, and sausage-less sausage.

The true star of the show was the salad dressing.

If you love cilantro, you will love this dressing. Although, I will warn you that you will most likely not love what it does to your breath  ;) .

I kept lunch light because I’m working from home today and I’m sure in an hour or two I’ll need a break from homework and I’ll find myself searching for a snack in the kitchen.

Alright kiddos, back to the books!

And don’t forget, I’m still looking for blog advice. You can comment on the post or send an e-mail to runningthewindycity@yahoo.com!

Bright and Early

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An easy breakfast on an early morning.

Trader Joe’s Multi-grain O’s, TJ’s Organic Honey Crunch ‘n Oats, raisins, 1/2 a banana, small handful of cashews, and an itty bitty spoon of sunflower seed butter.

Served with coffee (2 cups please!) and an Adora disc.

I have a busy day today- pick up my CTA pass (so I can ride the el and other buses for free) –> work for 6.75 hours –> 3 hour class. Wowza, time to get back to the grind!

See you later! Have a great day :)

Leisurely Friday

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Happy Friday :) .  I’m enjoying a day off from work and my last day off before the semester starts. Break always goes by so fast!

I slept hard last night. So hard that I didn’t even hear Ian’s alarm go off this morning. I must have needed it and I do feel a little bit better today!

I knew it was going to be on the warm side and sunny today so I didn’t go out for a run first thing. I figured it would be nice to enjoy breakfast, do my morning routine, and then head out for a run mid-morning.

I did just that. I kept breakfast on the safe side by having an english muffin (half with orange cranberry spread and half with cream cheese + cranberry jam), two clementines, and an adora disk.

I substituted my usual coffee for a glass of water spiked with sweet tea mio.

My original plan was to go out for my run around 10:30 so that I could come back, shower, and eat lunch, but I started to get antsy around 9:30. I just couldn’t wait to run!

Whenever I leave the apartment, Sonic gives me a look of pure panic and I’m sure he’s thinking ”How could you evvvver leave me?”. Call him a drama queen or a mama’s boy, it still makes me feel guilty.

I had a speedy and sweaty run (it’s warm out there!) and completed a little over 7 miles in 51 minutes. When I got home, I chugged some water, some airborne, and then poured some iced coffee to have with lunch. I can’t believe there was a time when I didn’t drink coffee!

Lunch was easy and used up some leftovers.

I made a salad of brussels sprouts, arugula, and black beans and tossed it in a dressing similar to the pasta salad I made earlier this week (yogurt and salsa). I also sprinkled some cheese on top.

I waited about a half an hour and when I still felt hungry I had a new (to me) flavor of Siggi’s, pineapple, with a little cereal on top.

It did the trick and now I’m comfortably full.

While I should spent the day working on my thesis (I know homework before the semester even starts? Welcome to grad school!) it is just too nice to spend the day inside!

I mean come on, 54 degrees in Chicago in January? Crazy!

Enjoy the day!!

Interval-tastic

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This morning I had one of the greatest workouts. Don’t you love that feeling? My body is tired and energized at the same time :-D

Monday is normally my off-day because I choose to do my long runs on Sunday. However, my schedule got screwed up this week when I chose to run 14 miles on Saturday instead of the usual Sunday. So, I figured I’d take Sunday off and let my legs recover from my run and then use Monday as a free workout day to do whatever I like (instead of focusing on the BM).

My mom gave me some new swim toys for Christmas, so I decided to finally put them to good use. FYI many pools provide these and you wouldn’t need to purchase them, mine however does not.

I also wanted to run a few miles today, just to loosen my legs, so I figured I would just take care of that while at the gym. I packed a bag full of my workout gear- kickboard, swim buoy, towel, goggles, swim plan, glasses case, contacts, change of clothes, gym shoes, socks, ipod, etc.

The bag was stuffed!

It was totally worth it though. I swam a total of 1,800 yards using a modified version of my interval workout including lots of pulls and kicks (needed to use my new toys) and then hit the treadmill for 3 miles of running intervals. I warmed up at 7.5 and then alternated between 7.6 and 8.7 staying at each speed for 2 minutes. Whew!

When I got home I threw together a quick and easy breakfast. I started with a little more than 1/2 cup of greek yogurt mixed with peanut flour, maple syrup, and some almond milk to thin it out and then topped it with 1/2 a sliced banana.

And then I also had a small piece of custard spoon bread from yesterday’s brunch.

I ended up crumbling most of the bread into the yogurt mix and eating it like a parfait.

No coffee yet, hydration first!

Last night
Ian and I decided not to go out last night and spent most of the evening glued to our couch watching Netflix. We did manage to get off our butts long enough to assemble an easy dinner though :P

I had some leftover mushroom stroganoff that I doctored by adding some spinach and some shredded cheese. I liked it better this way, what doesn’t taste better with cheese?

For dessert I had a few spoonfuls of ricotta cheese mixed with cranberry jam and granola.

Why was dessert not the usual ice cream/ cookies/ other concoction? Ian and I are giving up traditional desserts for the month of January. This is not an attempt to lose weight or anything like that per say, we just want to see if we can do it. So for the month of January “dessert” has to be something with nutritional value i.e. fruit, yogurt, small handul of almonds, etc and I’m trying really hard to steer away from cereals or granola that often lead me to mindless snacking.

It’s going to be hard but I think it will be good for us to break the routine.

Have you ever given up anything that you love for an extended period of time? Were you successful?