Tag Archives: overnight oats

WIAW {09-19-2012}

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Happy Wednesday :) . I hope everyone is having a wonderful week and enjoying the cooler cold weather. I actually ran in running tights this morning, I still can’t believe it!

Anyway, today’s WIAW is from yesterday and I am going to get right to it. As always, thanks to Jenn for hosting!

{5:10 a.m.} Pre-run Snack

I always have to have something before I do speed work so yesterday I snacked on a medjool date stuffed with sunflower seed butter before heading out to run.

(I spy a kitty butt in the above picture :P ). I had an 8 mile run with 10 x 200 m strides on my schedule so I ran over to the track I normally use to complete my speed work. Unfortunately, the rain from the night before left the track incredibly slick. It also wasn’t lit so I ended up doing my strides on the sidewalks surrounding the park. It wasn’t ideal but at least I got the workout done!

{7:00 a.m.} Breakfast

I knew I’d be crunched for time in the morning so the night before I prepped some protein overnight oats but mixing 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 scoop protein powder, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 banana (sliced), 1 tsp chia seeds, and 1 cup almond milk. In the morning I added sunflower seed butter, a sprinkle of granola, and warmed strawberries.

{9:00 a.m.} Coffee

I normally don’t drink coffee at home because I like to drink at least one bottle of water after working out. I usually end up packing a shaker cup’s worth of coffee (iced or warm) with almond milk and stevia to drink at my desk.

{11:00 a.m.} Snack

My office catered Burrito Beach for an early lunch but I was unable to eat any of the burritos. I ended up taking some guac to go and eating it with corn-based chips that I keep at my desk.

{12:30 p.m.} Lunch

I had more of OSG’s Lightened Up Protein Power Goddess Bowl (I’m going to be eating this for a while) and an apple at my desk. After eating I ran over to the farmer’s market near my office and picked up a few things.

{3:00 p.m.} Snack

After a quick meeting, I had my last snickerdoodle blondie from the freezer.

{7:00 p.m.} Dinner

I wasn’t in the mood to really cook anything so I threw together a salad (spinach, mushroom, tomato, avocado) and then topped it with shrimp that I coated with TJ’s taco seasoning. The salad dressing was my new favorite homemade vegan ranch. It hit the spot.

{8:00 p.m.} Snack/Dessert

Dinner wasn’t incredibly filling so I snacked on a banana with my new cashew butter (from the farmer’s market) while watching tv with Ian.

Bedtime followed soon after, I was soo tired yesterday!

Do you go to a farmer’s market? What do you usually buy?

Hot or Cold?

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Hot or cold? And no I’m not channeling Katy Perry….

I’m talking about oatmeal!

someecards.com - Did you hear the joke about oatmeal? It's a bunch of mush!

I think the general consensus is that hot oats are perfect for the fall/winter and that overnight oats (or cold oatmeal) are ideal during the warmer months. I don’t feel this way at all. I have been known to eat overnight oats in 20 degree weather or go for a run in 80 degree temps and then cook up a pot of hot oats. For me, hot or cold depends on convenience. Hot oats are my fave but if I know I’m going to be short on time, overnight oats do the trick with no prep time in the morning, I can just grab a spoon and dig in!

Anyway, I am here to tell you about my new favorite bowl of oats. I have tried it in both hot and cold form and I have to say, I can’t decide which one I like more!

Dark Chocolate Cashew Cherry Oats
1/3-1/2 cup oats
1-11/4 cups water
1 tsp chia seeds
small handful of cashews (~6 nuts)
1/4 cup cherries chopped
maple sugar to taste
1 T dark chocolate chips (I use about 6 vegan chocolate chunks)

Heat oats, water, chia seeds, and cashews over medium high heat until mixture starts to bubble. Turn down heat and add in cherries and maple sugar. Cook until oatmeal reaches desired consistency. Take off heat, pour into bowl, and top with chocolate chips.

These oats are so good. The maple sugar sweetens the oats just enough and the chocolate chips melt into everything. Mmm. I also topped my warm oats with cashew butter to keep with the cashew theme. Delicious!

And now for the cold variety:

Dark Chocolate Cashew Cherry Overnight Oats (vegan)
1/3 cup oats
3/4 – 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
2 tsp chia seeds
1/2 sliced banana
small handful of cashews (~6 nuts)
1/4 cup cherries chopped maple sugar to taste
1 T dark chocolate chips (I use about 6 vegan chocolate chunks)
1 tsp maple syrup, added as topping

Mix everything in a bowl and store overnight in the fridge. In the morning, top with maple syrup and nut butter of choice.

While the chocolate chips don’t get all melty in the overnight version, the banana slices are a nice touch and sweeten up the bowl juuuuust enough!

I still can’t say which one I enjoy more but I can guarantee that I will be making this bowl on morning when I need a little something extra (like chocolate chips ;) ).

My only other notable eat since we last talked food has been zucchini tacos. It probably sounds strange but Ian and I are going to Michigan this weekend and we need to use all the veggies in the fridge before they go bad. As we had three zucchinis to use, zucchini tacos sounded perfect for dinner!

I sauteed the zucchini in olive oil, salt, pepper, and chili powder and then served it in corn tortillas with broccoli slaw & vegan ranch dressed. I had one taco as is and then another topped with an avocado sauce made by mashing an avocado, lemon juice, a little olive oil, and more chili powder.

I ended up preferring the taco without avocado. The taste was much cleaner.

And while we’re talking about food, I also want to address another issue. The start of marathon training has changed my workout routine from one where I did a mix of running, swimming, and biking to one where I’m primarily running. Running wears my body down a lot more than any other form of exercise and as a result, I’m always much hungrier.

While I haven’t addressed this much on my blog (a little bit here) I went through a phase where I was under eating for my exercise level. I have made quite a few changes since then but a remaining consequence of under-fueling my body is that whenever I up my mileage, I mentally go into panic mode and start to crave everything and anything. If I’m busy (who isn’t busy anymore) I can easily forget what is a reasonable portion size and I start going back for multiple servings of dinner and dessert. This has started happening again and I just wanted to address it on the blog to hold myself accountable. It’s a weird situation for me as I don’t want to restrict and under-fuel like I have in the past but I also don’t want to overeat.

My goal is to pay better attention to my hunger signals and to listen to and honor my cravings. If I am seriously hungry and craving sweet potato fries then I’m going to have sweet potato fries, even if I think I should have a salad. When I don’t listen to cravings is when I start to get into trouble with uber-snackiness. I think this is probably true for a lot of people.

Do you prefer hot or cold oatmeal? What are you up to this weekend?

Midweek Musings

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1. The first few days of my staycation were wonderful. I kept thinking that I could get used to having free time, working out whenever I want, watching day time t.v. etc. Yesterday I got bored and started a bake-a-thon. I have two more days + a weekend before work starts, the question is how much more can I bake?

2. Another nut butter bit the dust earlier this week and made the perfect receptacle for overnight oats in a jar.

I only have three nut butters in rotation right now. My tastebuds are unhappy but I’m sure my bank account doesn’t mind.

3. Yesterday I had a swimming PDR –> 3,000 m! I actually really enjoyed it and wanted to swim the extra 200 m to hit about 2 miles but some strange man hopped in my lane and started running along one side doing high knees. This bothered me for a lot of reasons (he could have asked – I would have said yes, he wasn’t switching sides of the lane, & he wasn’t even swimming) and I had to get out of the water before I did something drastic like accidentally kick a lot of water at him.

4. Speaking of working out, my abs are burning from the whittle my middle challenge I talked about yesterday. I was hoping to do day 3 of my 5 this morning but I was too sore. Maybe later?

5. Veggie burger salads have made epic lunches this week. The one below is now different. I topped butter lettuce and raddichio with sweet potato, mushrooms, and a veggie burger. The dressing is a mix of hummus and Bone Suckin’ Sauce. Delicious!

6. My one eye had been bothering me a lot every night when I take out my contacts. I think I must have a small cut on my eye. Either way it’s annoying and I’ve been sleeping with a cold paper towel over my eye at night to soothe the pain. Lucky Ian, his girlfriend is soo attractive. (I have an eye appt today and will ask about it)

7. Last night I made a vegetarian paella. It was really tasty and gave me the opportunity to cook beans from scratch and you know what? It wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it would be. It just needed a little extra prep work.

I had some paella for dinner with a half-assed massaged kale salad.

I ended up going back for more paella, it was pretty good!

8. I haven’t run since last Sunday and I’m going crazy! I know the break was needed and will be worth it but I’m definitely going a little stir-crazy. I actually spent almost two hours last night working on my Goofy Race and a Half training plan. It’s almost finished and starts the second week in August. I’ll be sure to share more details then.

9. Speaking of running, is anyone else doing the Big 10k this Saturday? Originally I was planning on racing it but now I think I’m going to treat it as a training run and take lots of pictures instead :P . The weather looks awesome too, I can’t wait!

10. A month ago, Ian and I bought a Groupon for a cleaning service and they’re coming today. Neither Ian nor myself really enjoy cleaning and we do what we can to “straighten up”, sweep, and vaccum when necessary we don’t really get down and scrub the floors or clean under the fridge like we should. I’m looking forward to having that new apartment feel again.

11. It’s crazy how different cycling classes can be. I’ve been to two this week (same gym) and the one I went to this morning was a lot harder than the one on Tuesday morning. I get that workouts are different but you think they would have a standardized plan of what should be included in each class. Especially at the same gym. The other interesting this is today’s class was much less crowded than Tuesdays. Hmm..

12. I figured that I would get creative with breakfast during my staycation. Well, besides my Tuesday morning pancakes, I’ve been pretty boring and have eaten a lot of overnight oats.

This morning I had a batch with 1/3 cup oats, 1 T chia seeds, few shakes of cinnamon, 1/2 a sliced banana, handful of blueberries, a few blackberries, two sliced strawberries, 1 tsp sunflower seeds, and 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk.

I topped them with homemade granola and a drizzle of maple syrup. Totally hit the spot.

Any ideas on how to keep busy these next two days? Are you running the Big 10k? Which team are you supporting?

Heat Wave

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Is anyone else as glad as I am that today is FINALLY Friday? If only it weren’t so hot right? I can’t believe the high temperatures as well as the fact that it’s going to be hot all next week. I guess we all better get used to it.

I made the really dumb mistake of biking to work yesterday. I was running late and riding my bike is the fastest way to get to work, but I should have known better. I got sweaty on my way to work (no big deal) but literally couldn’t breath on my ride home. It took my lungs a few hours to recover and I’m in decent shape, I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I wasn’t a constant worker-outer. Note to self: don’t bike to work when it is above 90 degrees.

When I got home, I tried this new to me beverage.

It cooled me off and was really tasty. The ingredient list is short and has no added sugar or unfamiliar ingredients. There’s a limeade and a ginger flavor and I have my eye on both. I found this one at Whole Foods and haven’t seen them elsewhere but my guess is small health food stores or other organic markets would have them.

Initially I wanted sweet potato fries for dinner but even though dinner was a few hours after my horrendous bike ride home, I did not want anything warm. Instead I had a cold millet salad (unpictured) and a pumpkin pudding (pumpkin puree, mashed banana, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, maple syrup; topped with pumpkin seeds, walnuts, and figs).

This pumpkin came from a box and I liked it a lot less than the canned variety. I also learned a valuable lesson, when scooping from the bottom of the box, do not bring the box too close to your face- you will get pumpkin on your forehead.

I spent the rest of my evening watching trash t.v. (the new Snooki and JWow show definitely fits the bill) and reading Harry Potter. Interesting combination right?

This morning I woke up at 5 and headed out for a 4 mile run. It was already hot, although not as hot as yesterday, but it was also extremely humid. I ran down by the lake and kept running into swarms of bugs- not fun! I finished 4.03 miles in 31:44, for a 7:52 min/mile average.

Then I headed to the pool. Apparently, everyone and their mom decided to swim today and the line for the four lanes was three deep by the time I got out onto the pool deck. Fortunately it only took 10 minutes for me to get into a lane but I was most definitely shooting the man who was swimming with snorkeling gear dirty looks. There is no need for that at 6:30 a.m. at a gym pool.

For whatever reason my appetite has not subsided with the heat like it usually does. I’ve actually been pretty hungry. Overnight oats have been my breakfast of choice for the past three mornings because they’re cold & don’t dirty my blender, filling, and can be prepped the night before.

This time I did things a little differently though. Last night I mixed together 1/2 cup oats, .5 tbsp chia seeds, .5 tbsp honey, a little cinnamon, and 1/2 cup almond milk. This created a really chewy batch of overnight oats. I topped them with almond butter, pumpkin seeds, banana slices, and a few Hail Merry almonds. Delicious!

I decided to skip the bike ride today given the warm temperatures (the car fumes make it SOO much worse) so I need to head off to work a little earlier, have a wonderful Friday!

Any exciting plans this weekend? Please share!

Busy Bee

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Yesterday’s workout: 5 mile run (all I had time for)
Today’s workout: a very hot & slow 7 mile run

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1. Overnight oats with 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 mashed banana, 1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup almond milk, and 1 tsp chia seeds. Topped with millet granola and almond butter.

2. Getting all dressed up for my meetings yesterday morning.

3. Dinner: baby bok choy, mushrooms, brussels sprouts, and black beans sauteed in leftover pumpkin pasta sauce. I added a lot of pepper because I love the stuff. Don’t judge me :)

4. Late night snack: brown rice bread topped with sunflower butter (half), almond butter (half), banana slices, and maple vanilla almonds. I also had a sidecar of almond milk to wash the nut butters down.

A hummus + avocado wrap, snap peas, and a nectarine also made appearances at the lunch hour but I was too hungry to snap a picture.

Also don’t forget to enter the Ozeri Digital Kitchen Scale Giveaway. The giveaway is a fun contest and you win a kitchen scale, can’t go wrong there.

Sorry for the shorter post, life (err work) has been very busy this week and I’m starting to feel it. At least it’s almost the weekend (kinda).

Have a wonderful Thursday!