Fall Tastes

Good Morning! I have a few extra minutes to spare in between training, studying, cleaning, and knocking other random chores off my list this morning so I wanted to share with you all a great new vegetable I just discovered. It's called a Kabocha and is also known as a Japanese Winter Squash. Ever heard of it? Well I'm not much of a squash fan nor am I a fan of cooking anything that takes more than a few minutes of prep but a fellow lifting girlfriend excitingly told me about it the other day as it is apparently difficult to find around here and she had found it at Trader Joe's. I guess it's one of Pauline Nordin's (Figher Diet) favorite starchy veggies so being a huge fan of hers I too had to try it out. I scooted off to Whole Foods the next day since I had a GC to spend there and to my luck I found a big box of them. I chose a small-ish one and after reading-up online about how to prepare them I decided the cleanest and easiest version would be to cut it into slices and bake them on a greased baking sheet for about 10 mins each side at 375 F. I sprinkled them with cinnamon for a little extra sweetness and flavor. When I pulled them out they were soft and easy to cut into smaller chunks. Some of the recipes I read recommended skinning the squash first but that looked way too difficult so I just ate the skin right along with the fleshy middle. I would liken the taste closer to that of sweet potato than say butternut squash since it was quite sweet. I thought it was delicious and the best part was that 1 cup is only approximately 40 calories and 7 grams of carbs. What a great food to have on-hand while dieting! I ate 1/2 of the squash with dinner alongside some steamed peas and grilled chicken breast and I was full for the rest of the night! Here's a collage of the baking and eating process:

I would recommend using a very sharp knife to cut through the squash if you choose to cook it that way. My knives all suck so I had to microwave it for a couple of minutes to soften it a bit before slicing. My friend who claims to be a lazier cook than I said she just cut it in half, scooped-out the seeds and steamed it in the microwave until soft with a little bit of water added to the center. I found some other recipes that sounded pretty tasty which suggested additional spices and tossing in coconut oil prior to baking but I was going for low-cal here!

Anyway, I just wanted to share this new find with all of you before it leaves the shelves again. I always love finding new clean foods to add some variety to my bland diet. Please share any fall foods you have recently tried in the comments section below! Happy Sunday Funday all :) 

Lately

Hello Gym Rats! First off, I'd like to apologize to my loyal readers for being MIA for so long. My excuse? Outrageous busyness to the point of literally not having enough hours in the day to do everything that I need to. Even my training and diet have suffered as of late. These 4:30 am daily wake-ups in order to be on the gym floor by 5:00 are seriously killing me. Not because it's "too early" but because by the time I get everything done for the day and settle down to sleep, there's just not enough hours left for a decent slumber between then and when the alarm goes off again! I am someone that has and probably always will require AT LEAST a solid 7 hours in order to function properly. When I list out my major priorities at the moment, training is still numero uno. I just feel like I'm rushing through things in order to get in-and-out in the measly hour I can devote each morning and letting equally important things like stretching, cardio, foam-rolling and ice bathing fall a bit to the wayside. I know…no excuses right? So I keep trudging and working on some workarounds.

I decided to call this post "Lately" because some of my favorite bloggers are always posting "Lately" posts of their week's recent events (OK, month in this case). I don’t even know where to begin though! The biggest life change (and consumption of time) for me is something I can't share here yet but I promise as soon as I can, I will! It's officially Fall here in Maine and that alone brings many changes in our day-to-day lives. Do your training and eating habits change with the seasons? Mine sure do! I've been freezing my ass off here (as usual) and have been in full-swing with the Fall baking. As clean and protein-packed as possible of course LOL. So far I have made two separate batches of pumpkin apple protein muffins, yum! I don't really have a recipe for them to share with you guys. Basically I just googled a simple pumpkin muffin recipe that included chopped apple chunks, did my usual swapping-out of butter with apple sauce, lowered the sugar,  added-in a couple scoops of protein powder and doubled the baking powder to offset the denseness brought on by the protein powder. This is a great baking trick a friend told me about. If you find that your recipes get too dense and don't rise enough when you add-in protein powder, just double the baking powder/soda (whatever is in the recipe). Works like a charm!

Last Sunday I finally had a few free hours of "me time" so I met up with a couple of friends and went apple picking. I try to go apple picking every year. Store-bought apples just aren't the same. Nothing beats a bite into a crisp Macintosh just plucked from the tree! I also picked up a small jug of fresh apple cider. Sooo good; especially when heated-up! Here's a pick of me doing some necessary orchard taste-testing.

I have no idea what I was laughing at but apparently it was a riot. Sunday night I whipped-up a delicious apple crisp with a protein crumble topping. I've been having a small bowl of it for breakfast each morning with my eggs. Great pre-lifting fuel! I think this weekend I am going to try making a pumpkin bread with dried apricots and sunflower seeds. I found the recipe while sifting through my recipe binder last weekend. I think I cut it out of a magazine last year and never made it. I'll post the recipe here if it comes out as good as it looks!

As far as training goes, nothing really changes for me in the Fall but I am being a bit less strict about calorie control (i.e. I may or may not have had pizza and wine for dinner last night). My favorite fitness idol, Pauline Nordin (check out FighterDiet.com if you aren't already in-the-loop) posted a good point the other day when she said something like "you can always loose an extra few pounds of fat so use those added calories today for greater muscle gains!". Well she said it much better but anyway my point is that I'm feeling like I'm making great progress on my "problem" areas thanks to added carbs/calories in my diet so if I my abs aren't quite so visible right now I don't really care. It's not bikini season, right? Plus, a guy who I constantly avoid getting into a gym convo with because of his highly critical nature actually went out of his way to compliment my progress the other day so I figure it's not totally in my head LOL.

As I mentioned before, I really haven't been doing much cardio at all other than my one day per week where that's all I do in the gym. My shins haven't been bothering me at all lately but that's probably more due to lack of cardio than it is true progress on my skeletal imbalances. I am still trying to get-in a 10-minute ice bath post Sunday morning leg training because it really does make a HUGE difference in my recovery. There's just no time for it any other day of the week unfortunately. Outside of the gym I did get out for a beautiful pre-Fall hike a couple of weeks ago from which I was literally crippled for a good 3 days afterwards. Maybe doing legs the day before wasn't my best idea ever LOL! Here's a pic of the miles and miles of Maine woods you could see from the top of Burnt Meadow Mountain in Brownfield.

Gorgeous, eh? I hope to get in at least one more hike before it gets too cold (i.e. two months ago LOL). Maybe go somewhere with some good foliage viewing! Alas, I must cut this short so I can check more items off of my Thursday "To-Do" list. Side note: it's not too bad with only about 386,206,173 tasks to get through today! So, that's it for my "lately"…How does your life change with the changing of the seasons?

TGIF!

Hey y'all! Happy Friday! Just a quickie post as I sit here sipping a glass of delicious Barefoot Refresh Summer Red wine. I've never been a red drinker but I was recently in a position of compromise and decided to give this sweet version a try. Guess what? I LOVE it! This could get dangerous LOL!

Anyway, it's the start of the long Labor Day weekend and I was happy to work from home today to make for a semi 4-day weekend. Being plugged in all day isn't so bad when you are in the comfort of your own home, not being frozen to death by the arctic A/C and in comfy gym clothes to boot!

Despite not having to get up as early as usual I decided to rise at 5:00 am today to do legs. This month I am changing my rest day to Saturday (from Friday) so since I didn't want to have 2 rest days in a row I did a little switch-up. Sunday will basically be an ad-hoc day since I won't want to do legs again and since my sister is coming to visit I am going to take her to the gym for an introductory lift sesh. She's either going to love it or hate it; I'm so excited! I think I'm going to do a total body circuit of my favorite exercises for each muscle group so she can get a feel for what lifting is like.

So anyway, today was the start of my September lifting plan which I created a few days ago. I've been having some success with keeping the shin pain at bay lately so I'm going to try to hit legs 2x per week again and see how it goes. Today's plan consisted of the following:

BB front squats
Romanian DLs
Hack squats
BB stationary lunges
Calve raises

I was ticked when I arrived at the gym and found all of the squat racks taken (seriously, taken at 5:30 am? FML!) so I started with the hack squats. Luckily one of the racks opened up quickly so I was able to stay put and get the squats, DLs, and lunges all done in the same spot. It actually made for a much more efficient workout, not having to move around all that much. When I was through with my planned lifts, I finished-up with some hanging leg raises and some stretching and foam-rolling on shins and quads. No matter what I do I just cannot loosen-up those areas but some stretching/rolling is better than none! I think it might be time to splurge on a serious deep tissue massage in the near future.

Anyway, it's Friday and I'm being a total anti-socialite as I have to get up early tomorrow to attend a course I am taking (details at a later date). It's the reason Saturday is now rest day! Alas, I'm signing off now to go prep for tomorrow and finish my wine :)

Happy Labor Day weekend everyone! Be safe and stay active! xo