Nutrition Podcasts

I can’t believe the week is almost over! I had a great day at work. That is awesome considering today marks the start of one of my busiest seasons at work. I guess I just needed a change of pace and getting away from my desk most of the morning felt good. The day flew by! I always had something to keep me busy and I kind of thrive on that, as long as I am not too stressed out.

I’ve been listening to nutrition podcasts on my way to work lately (all pictures were taken at stoplights, not while the car was moving) and while this one hasn’t impressed me yet:

There just has been mostly promoting of the podcast author’s books and her being apologetic for not podcasting for a while. I haven’t learned much at all quite yet!

This one did impress me today! The subject was “The Dark Side of Soy.” I can’t wait to keep listening. I kind of like the speaker’s voice though because she’s from Minnesota and I find her Midwestern accent soothing. I know, I am weird.

They were cautioning using soy for menopausal treatment and eating too much of it in general.

Do you ever listen to nutrition/fitness or other podcasts? Any favorites? I like language podcasts too. I am sort of a language geek though.

While I lived in Switzerland, I missed hearing the English language, so I used to listen to podcasts on my iBook each night. I looked forward to it while having dinner most evenings.

Back to last night–I did go to the gym and I lifted some weights and ran/walked on the treadmill. I set an incline on the treadmill to sort of prepare for Sunday’s 10K run. I did pretty well with the hills! I guess I am used to them from living in San Francisco and running two half-marathons and Bay to Breakers there.

After the gym, I needed a quick dinner, so I had a veggie masala burger on whole wheat bread with spinach.

Dessert was Stonyfield vanilla yogurt with berries, which is what I had for breakfast this morning too. One of the strawberries was from our garden and it just smelled so delicious!

Right before we went to bed last night, Craig and I went for a nighttime walk. It was fun to walk under the street lights. Kind of romantic too!

Today

Breakfast was Stonyfield Vanilla yogurt with strawberries and blueberries. This was exactly what I wanted!

Lunch was a nice potluck one at work. I brought the veggies. I haven’t purchased baby carrots in ages, but they were easier to just bring instead of preparing some for the lunch.

This was our wonderful spread of food. I had turkey meatloaf, fruit, carrot cake (heavenly), gummies, doughnut holes, veggies, and pasta salad. We had a celebratory goodbye lunch for a volunteer that has been in our department for years. It was sad to hear her reminisce about her wonderful time at my workplace.

Clearly I am feeling better today because I enjoyed a nice big plate of food and wasn’t too worried about what I ate. Sometimes when I get sick like I have been the last couple of days, I am ravenous for the next couple of days. I swear it’s because my body isn’t processing food correctly or something and then it craves all of these nutrients.

After work, I was trying my hardest to make it to Zumba class at 5, but due to a baseball game, I had to take the long way home. I just decided to take a rest day because I usually do on Wednesdays anyway. Craig and I went on a walk around the neighborhood instead.

Dinner was late and quickly made-the pizza bagel with basil, bruschetta sauce, pizza sauce, and provolone cheese.

Time to go read some blogs and then call it a night!

Moist and delicious banana bread

As always, where did this weekend go? Too bad we didn’t get to do too much outside due to the dreary weather we’ve been having in Milwaukee.

Did my usual Sunday morning thing–meditated, ate breakfast and watched CBS Sunday Morning.

Breakfast was an egg on a TJ’s sandwich thin with jack cheese, jalapenos, and Frank’s Red Hot sauce. Yum! I love eggs with jalapenos.

I really want to get back to doing Body Pump on Sunday mornings, but with my nose now being so stuffy, I figured it wasn’t the best thing for me today.

Instead, I showered and decided to run my errands. I went to Target and Pick N’ Save. I needed some produce, so I picked up a bunch of it at Pick N’ Save. I also got lunch meat, skim milk, Sun Chips, blue corn chips, and yogurt at Target. Oh and gummy bears and Milka chocolate somehow made it into my cart!

I wasn’t feeling the whole shopping thing today even though the stores seemed empty to me.

I ate this when I got home. Just can’t seem to get sick of the Vegetable Masala burgers this week.

Then it was time to bake! I had three dark bananas and had been waiting to make banana bread with them.

Please excuse the big hole I created by testing the middle with a knife!

Even though I knew I was going to make banana bread, I didn’t have a recipe picked out yet. Luckily, myrecipes.com tweeted a bunch of banana bread recipes this morning and I bookmarked the tweet. I used the Classic Banana Bread recipe from Cooking Light.

The only alterations I made to the recipe below were that I used whole wheat flour and not all-purpose, I added three heaping scoops of ground flax seeds, and I used Chobani plain greek yogurt instead of regular plain yogurt.

Ingredients

* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup sugar
* 1/4 cup butter, softened
* 2 large eggs
* 1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
* 1/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* Cooking spray

Preparation

* Preheat oven to 350°.
* Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.
* Place sugar and butter in a large bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add banana, yogurt, and vanilla; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist. Spoon batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

It turned out really moist and delicious! I definitely recommend this recipe.

After watching a movie in the afternoon, I finally got my butt to the gym. I wasn’t feeling it because of my stuffy nose, but I went anyway. Glad I did because once I am there, I am always fine. I did 25 minutes on the elliptical, a full circuit of weights, squats on the bosu, and crunches on the Swiss ball.

It was late when I got home and I didn’t have much of an appetite, but I put together a nice salad that contained spinach, chickpeas, feta cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, & artichokes. I topped it with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Dessert was gummy bears and a slice of banana bread.

And now I am watching one of my favorite movies because I am a big bird lover, Winged Migration. I usually turn on the TV while I blog and I still had PBS on, which just so happened to start that movie at the exact time I turned the TV on.

Better read some blogs, catch up on the Sunday newspaper and then get to bed early. Another week awaits!

With another work week upon most of us, it’s good to remember this quote from Onward by Howard Schultz (of Starbucks).

Bottomless pit

Yay, only two more days of the work week! So glad I don’t have to work this weekend!

Just a typical Wednesday for me. Worked, had yoga class at work, and rested tonight. My body, especially my abs, really hurt after yesterday’s HABIT class. I am glad they did because that means I did something right! It just hurt to do any ab exercises in yoga today.

Breakfast was the usual.

I actually bought my lunch today because I didn’t feel like preparing anything before work. I also was craving a big salad and eggs, so I knew I would just grab a chef salad at work.

After yoga, I was still hungry! Rather than eating treats, I went for a fruit cup at my work cafe. It hit the spot and tasted so good!

When I got home from work, I found a package with one of the things I ordered with my blog profits! I decided to treat myself to a knitted apple holder from etsy. I know you probably think this is ridiculous, but the germ phobia I have makes me currently bring apples wrapped up in a paper towel when I go to work. That’s not eco friendly and I try to be as green as possible. So, I saw one of these on another blog a while ago and finally treated myself to one.

This is from early girl on etsy, obviously. Cute packaging, huh!? I am a sucker for that kind of stuff!

I am also a sucker for anything with bird prints on it.

Here’s the holder in my favorite color, teal! No apples to model it with, but when I buy some, I’ll show you what it looks like or you can click over to early girl’s etsy site to check it out for yourself!

I had a bottomless pit today and felt like nothing satisfied me! I lost some weight and I think my body is trying to gain it back. I snacked when I got home from work–had some pita chips, some dark chocolate covered almonds, and some pomegranate green tea.

Dinner was a vegetable masala burger from TJ’s. I called it a chana masala burger earlier this week and I saw the package just calls it a vegetable masala burger. Oops. Must have had chana masala on my brain!

I finished my first book on the kindle last night. I loved The Secret Holocaust Diaries and encourage others to read it. I have a confession though. I balled when I read a part of the book and just couldn’t control my tears. Her story was so sad and the thought of all of the awful things that happened during the Holocaust rushed into my head, causing me to cry for all of those who lost their loved ones during that horrible time in history.

Off to read some blogs!