Category Archives: The Gym

Where Did the Day Go?

Posted on January 25, 2012 by inmytummy| 15 Comments

Today felt busy. Tuesday’s are my double workout day meaning that I do weights and run. My legs are fresh from taking Monday as a rest day so usually it goes by pretty quickly. Today, however, I was tired. Starting a new job is exhausting. I’m sure some of it is because before yesterday, I hadn’t gone to work since November, but I think a bigger part of it is just trying to learn so much new stuff in such a short amount of time. I remember feeling tired for a while when I started my last job too.

Nevertheless, I went to the gym after work. Fortunately, there is an LA Fitness literally 5 minutes from my office and even more fortunately, it wasn’t that crowded at 6:15 pm. I did my weights and halfway into it, a man stopped me and corrected my form. I never know how I feel about this when it happens. On one hand, if I’m doing something wrong, I’m not doing it on purpose and would rather learn to do it correctly. But on the other hand, it’s not really anyone else’s business how I’m lifting weights. This was just a random dude, not a person that works for the gym. I don’t know how I feel about someone trying to help me. I guess I should just take advantage and remember that they really are trying to be helpful.

By the time I finished my weight routine and my three mile run, it was already 7:30 and I live about 20 minutes from the gym by my office. Making a home cooked dinner was obviously not happening! Fortunately, I went to Trader Joe’s over the weekend.

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Entire dinner – Vegetarian Pizza, organic arugula and Goddess dressing – brought to you by Trader Joe’s. My long day wasn’t over after I ate though; I had a freelance writing assignment to work on. I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this, but I write deals for a daily deal website (called Home Run) a few times a week.

By the time I got everything done, it was after ten. Where did the day go? I guess that’s what happens when you go to the gym for an hour and 15 minutes after work. I might need to reevaluate my double workouts.

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Posted in Strength Training, The Gym, Vegetarian Meal

Bribed With Cookies

Posted on January 19, 2012 by inmytummy| 16 Comments

I finally made it to the gym last night for my four mile run. I got there around 8:30 and the after-work crowds were starting to die down. Don’t get me wrong; I still had to wait for a couple minutes to get a treadmill, but after I hopped on, several others opened up making me feel like I didn’t have to adhere to the time limit since no one was waiting.

Just to note: my gym is always very crowded. Yes, there are lots of new year’s resolutioners making it extra crowded, but this particular gym is never not full at peak times.

I ran 3 miles on Tuesday and had a really good run. It felt easy and I actually ran much faster than I normally do. I don’t know if I wore myself out or what, but yesterday’s run was awful. I just could not get into it at all. I told myself that I could stop at two miles. Two miles came and I told myself to try switching treadmills. I often will switch treadmills to make a run seem shorter.

I let myself take a five minute walking break. I ran another mile. I really wanted to stop. I told myself that three miles was the same as four really and that I could just run three. But then I bribed myself with cookies. Jason had asked that I pick up some bread and Diet Coke on my way home. The idea of also buying some chocolate chips so I could make Katie’s Chocolate Chip Almond Meringues would not leave my mind. So I told myself that if I ran one more, for a total of four, I could make the cookies. And you know what I did? I got off the treadmill at .7 miles. I went to wipe it off and then I thought that I was being ridiculous and ran the final .3.

I swear this was the longest four miles that I’ve ever run. Obviously, a bag of chocolate chips was purchased. This was my first time making meringues and my first time whisking egg whites until stiff peaks formed. I was a little nervous that they wouldn’t form. But after about 5 minutes, look – stiff peaks! I was probably a little too excited about it to tell you the truth. (Side note: I don’t know how you’d do this with a hand whisk. It seems like it would take forever).

#kitchenaid mixer stiff peaks#

I had a little bit of trouble spooning the dough (is it still considered dough?) onto the cooking sheet. It was too thin. Maybe my peaks weren’t stiff enough.

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Nevertheless, I stuck them in the oven anyway and hoped for the best. 23 minutes later and here’s what I had:

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Looks like a monster chocolate chip cookie, tastes like a meringue. Works for me. Now if I only I could stop eating them.

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Posted in Baking, Running, The Gym

The Day that Got Away

Posted on January 18, 2012 by inmytummy| 20 Comments

Today got away from me. It’s somewhat embarrassing how the entire day can pass and I find that I haven’t done a thing. Well, that’s not entirely true; I got a much needed haircut (although I don’t think it’s short enough), took Murphy for a walk and made something from Eating Well for a late lunch: Black Bean Quesadillas.

I used pinto beans instead of black because I had some left over from the Toasted Pita and Bean Salad that I made the other day. This was really a basic quesadilla that I could have, and probably have, thrown together without a recipe. It was good, but nothing special.

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I laid down on the couch after lunch and somehow found myself being awakened by the phone over an hour later. Whatever, it’s my last week of unemployment, I’m going to take advantage! However, I did miss my window of opportunity to go to the gym before it gets crowded.

I do not like the gym by my house. It’s always very, very crowded, it’s hot and people put the weights in the wrong spots when they put them back if they bother to put them back at all. However, it’s 3 miles away so I go. (This is a chain gym, I’m hoping the one near my office is better.) It used to get crowded around 5 but ever since the New Year, it’s been getting crowded around 4. And I hate it. I know I’m supposed to be all PC and say that it’s so great for all these new people to join the gym and try to get healthy but I want to be on the damn treadmill for more than 20 minutes (after waiting in line for an additional 10.). I have a training plan to follow! Grrr.

So, I haven’t gone to the gym yet. I guess I’ll go around 8:30 when the crowds die down. Because I didn’t go, I haven’t gone to the grocery store either and that means that dinner was not from the Eating Well Vegetarian Project, but rather some random stuff that I threw together like a yogurt, an arugula salad with cherry tomatoes, TJ’s Goddess Dressing and Nutritional yeast…

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…and some Kabocha squash. Remember when Kabocha was all the blogger rage a couple years ago? Weird how foods get trendy like that. Anyway, I picked up this squash at the farmer’s market last weekend because it was cute. Little foods = cute foods.

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If you’ve ever had a Kabocha squash before, you know that they are extremely hard to cut, even with a really sharp knife. I’m constantly making Jason cut things for me because I’m scared of injuring myself (I really want to take a knife skills class) but he was asleep (due to his weird schedule) so I just threw it in the oven whole and hoped it would get soft enough to cut when it was cooked.

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People always say that Kabocha is so sweet, but it doesn’t taste that way to me. I don’t even think I really like it that much. It’s been a while since I had one, but yep, I definitely prefer butternut. Cubed and dipped in ketchup.

Here’s to hoping I don’t fall asleep on the couch again and miss gym window of opportunity number two.

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Posted in The Gym, Vegetarian

Pushing Through a Run

Posted on October 13, 2011 by inmytummy| 13 Comments

When Jason came home from South Carolina, he brought something fun with him – tomatoes and green peppers from his parents garden.

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Considering I can’t keep a plant alive to save my life, I was happy to have some produce that someone else grew. I decided to use the peppers tonight and simply roast them with some onion and broccoli.

With the roasted vegetables, I made a recipe that’s literally been sitting on my kitchen counter for a week – Tomato Straciatella. The New York Times Health section has a ton of good recipes.

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I realize that it looks a little puke-ish, but it’s basically egg drop soup and egg drop soup tends to look like that. Sounds appetizing, huh? It actually was pretty good. And I’m not going to lie; I ate two of those Udi’s Cookies while I was cooking.

I think I deserved dessert first for pushing through my 5 mile run. It was kind of rainy out, so I went to the gym. I actually don’t mind running on the treadmill, as long as it’s less than an hour. I can’t say that I was dying to run, but it wasn’t one of those days where the thought of it made me want to cry. However, this run sucked. No ifs, ands or butts about it. Sucked.

I did 2 miles and then jumped off the treadmill. I was thisclose to hopping on the elliptical or just leaving the gym all together, but I made myself get back on a different treadmill and run the additional three miles. My half marathon is a week and a half away. I’m in the home stretch. I can’t quit now, right? Plus, if I run, I feel like I can eat cookies before dinner.

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Posted in Running, The Gym, Vegetarian

A Difficult Workout and a Good Dinner

Posted on October 7, 2011 by inmytummy| 19 Comments

During my half-marathon training, I’ve been trying really hard to keep up with strength training as well. It’s not easy. After running four days a week, the last thing I want to do is lift weights. Sometimes it’s because I’m tired, sometimes it’s because I’m lazy but usually, it’s because I’m afraid of getting sore. If I wasn’t training for a race, I’d embrace the soreness, but when I need to run a certain number of miles the next day, the last thing I want to do is run on tired legs. So, I’ve been kind of half-assing it. I’ve been lifting twice a week, but not for a very long time and not using very heavy weights. Until tonight.

For the past few months, I’ve been doing workouts from the Women’s Health Big Book of Exercises. I decided to switch it up tonight and do a different Women’s Health workout instead – The Women’s Health Best Workout for an Hourglass Body. I’m not sure if certain body types respond better to certain moves as this workout implies, but I figured that out of all the possible body shapes (on WH, they list pear, curvy, straight and athletic, although I’ve also seen apple in other magazines), I’m definitely hourglass shaped (larger chest, smaller waist, larger hips), so I figured I might as well give it a try.

This was hard! Puke-worthy, even. That’s a good thing and no, I didn’t actually puke. It was nice to feel like I was actually doing something though, instead of going through the motions of weight lifting like I normally do without gaining any results. The hardest move for me was the pushups on the ball with the leg lift, the easiest the glute bridge with tricep extension. I probably am going to be sore tomorrow, but I don’t think I’m doing my long run until Sunday, so I should be fine by then.

While the workout made me feel like I was going to throw up, dinner did not. I stopped at the grocery store after the gym. I didn’t really have a list, but I had one recipe in mind for dinner and picked up some staples that I knew we needed. After eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the past few breakfasts, I knew that I really needed to pick up a few things, even if it meant going back later this weekend for a bigger shopping trip.

Even when I follow a recipe, I tend to make a lot of the same things – soups, stir fries, Mexican casseroles – but tonight, I made something really different. I made Zucchini Grinders.

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I looked for whole wheat sub rolls, but Kroger didn’t have any so I just bought regular. White flour is not going to kill me. I sauteed the zucchini in PAM instead of butter but other than that, I followed the recipe. This was really good. I was worried that the bread might get soggy but it didn’t. On the side, I had sweet potato rounds. I thought about doing fries, but rounds are a lot easier to cut, so I went that route instead. I cut up a large sweet potato and coated it with 1/2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp sea salt, 1 tsp cumin and some red pepper flakes. I baked them at 425 for about 35 minutes.

I’m off to relax and watch some episodes of Breaking Bad.

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Posted in Recipe, Strength Training, The Gym, Vegetarian

Vegas Healthy Style

Posted on September 6, 2011 by inmytummy| 18 Comments

Even though Vegas is sort of synonymous with indulgence, there is a way to stay healthy here and I think we did that yesterday.

First, I woke up and did a 4 mile run in the cardio room. Our hotel has this ridiculous mandatory resort fee (maybe they all do?) which includes free internet and free access to the cardio room. I figured since I’m already paying for it, I might as well check it out. The cardio room was pretty nice. It was, hence the name, strictly cardio equipment and had about 6 treadmills, 4 ellipticals and a few bikes. All of the machines had personal tvs and I entertained myself for 40 minutes by watching Dance Moms.

After I finished running and we got ready for the day, we headed back to the Palazzo to eat lunch at Canyon Ranch Grill. Let me tell you, if you aren’t staying in the Palazzo, this restaurant is extremely hard to find. It’s actually in the room part of the hotel, not the shopping part. We finally managed to find it and I’m glad we did. I ordered a coffee and they had NuNaturals stevia! I was really excited about this. I’m obviously a big nerd.

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We split the Lebanese platter for an appetizer – hummus and babh ghanoush with some flatbread. I don’t typically like eggplant unless it’s mushed up like this. I didn’t think I was someone who was bothered by food textures, but I just can’t stomach big chunks of eggplant. However, I like it when it’s been baba ghanoushed.

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I had a veggie burger for my meal. All of the food here had the calories, fat and fiber counts on the menu which I like. I sort of feel the opposite of restricted when restaurants do that. Instead of thinking, “Oh, I shouldn’t order such and such because it has a lot of calories,” I generally think, “Oh, the such and such isn’t as bad as I thought, I should get it.”

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After lunch, we set out to find Gold and Silver Pawn, the pawn shop on Pawn Stars, one of Jason’s favorite shows. It’s on the strip, but way downtown so we took the Monorail to last stop and then decided to walk 1.5 miles to the pawn shop. It was definitely a little bit seedier up there.

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There were lots of wedding chapels and strip clubs.

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We found the pawn shop and went inside. It was really crowded. I’m not a huge fan on the tv show so I didn’t really recognize anything, but Jason did. There were a ton of people working there, not like what you see on tv.

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In addition to the stuff that people sold, they also had a lot of Pawn Stars merchandise. I thought about buying a t-shirt but didn’t. Jason ended up selling two necklaces that he brought for that purpose.

We walked the 1.5 miles back to the monorail hung out in the room for a bit before going back out for the night. The plan was to get dressed up and see Le Reve and have a fancy dinner at the Wynn to celebrate Jason’s birthday (which is today).

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The Wynn is definitely the nicest hotel that we’ve been in. There were pretty lights and trees everywehre.

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We didn’t exactly know what Le Reve was, only that it was some sort of water acrobatics show and Jamie and Dave recommended it. I’m glad we listened to them because it was really cool. Lots of gymnastics, acrobatics and diving. Half the time, I was just trying to figure out how these people were strong enough to do some of those tricks. I’d definitely recommend see it if you’re in Vegas. It’s similar to a Cirque show.

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(I am not that short. I’m standing on a different step.)

After Le Reve, I was starving. We had 9:30 dinner reservations at Lakeside in the Wynn but it was only 8:30. We went to the casino, lost some money and decided to see if they could accommodate us early.

The restaurant was really nice with a view of a big waterfall. I was excited to try it also because all of the Wynn and Encore’s restaurants have vegan menus. I’m not a vegan, obviously, but I like vegan food and was really curious to try upscale vegan food for that matter. We started off with a cocktail. I had some sort of white sangria. It was delicious and that fruit makes it healthy, right?

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It was also Las Vegas restaurant week so there was the option of getting a 3-course Prix Fixe menu. I didn’t get it because I wanted to try the vegan stuff, but Jason did. Since he was getting an appetizer, I decided that I didn’t want to be left out and got the vegetable soup.

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It was delicious. I love soup. Jason got the Maryland Crab Cakes.

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For my entree, I had the grilled hearts of palm,

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while Jason had the petit filet.

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We both enjoyed our meals a lot, although for some reason, I was extremely full after my soup and couldn’t finish mine. Trust me, that’s not normal. Jason’s meal came with a dessert (he choose a little cake) and the waiter brought him a red velvet birthday cupcake too. Somehow I was able to clear some room from my stomach and try them. Imagine that.

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And that was our healthy day in Vegas, although today might be a different story because I think we’re going to try a buffet.

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Posted in Healthy Choices at Restaurants, The Gym, Vacation, Vegetarian

Upgrade + Massaged Kale and Red Bean Salad

Posted on August 18, 2011 by inmytummy| 25 Comments

I’ve belonged to LA Fitness for about nine years. As far as inexpensive, large chain gyms go, they sort of are the only option in the Atlanta area. They seem to be everywhere and convenience is a big deal when it comes to the gym. There are smaller, boutique gyms around, more in the city and then further out in the suburbs, there are some big Lifetime Fitnesses, but if you live intown (or right outside of town, like I do) and you want cheap and convenient, chances are you go to LA Fitness.

There are two different locations that I go to – one is near my house and one is near my office. The problem with LA Fitness, at least these locations, is that they’ve never upgraded their equipment. I mean, it works, (when it’s not out of order) but it’s not especially nice. Plus, parking is huge problem. I’ve actually had to leave the location near my house because I couldn’t find a parking space.

They just opened a new LA Fitness. It’s about the same distance from my office (roughly 3-4 miles) as the other one, only in the opposite direction. I decided to check it out after work tonight.

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First thing I noticed was a huge parking lot! This is in a relatively new shopping center and it shares a parking lot with Costco. Plus, there’s also a deck. You can’t really tell from this picture, but I don’t think parking is going to be an issue.

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I went inside and had a huge smile on my face. Look at all this nice cardio equipment!

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And do you see what’s on all the cardio equipment? Well that would be a personal tv and ipod dock. Now I know that’s almost standard at gyms nowadays, but no LA Fitness that I’ve ever belonged to has had them. They’ve always had big tvs hanging from the ceiling. You had to tune into through a radio station if you actually wanted to listen and they were always too far away for me to read the closed captioning.

It actually took a little getting used to having a tv in my face like that. They only had about ten channels, so I just watched the news but it definitely made my run go by faster.

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So nice to be able to charge your ipod too. I can’t tell you how many times mine has died at the gym. The only problem that I had with this gym is that it was hot.

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A sweaty t-shirt is attractive, no? A small price to pay for such an upgrade in gyms though.

After my workout, I felt inspired to make something. I had some kale and an avocado that needed to be used so my thoughts went to a massaged kale salad. I just sort of winged it, but I think it turned out pretty well.

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Massaged Kale and Red Bean Salad
Serves 4

1 head kale, torn with hard stems removed
1 can red beans, rinsed and drained
1 avocado, diced
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp garlic granules

1. Put kale in large bowl. With your hands, massage the avocado, olive oil, salt and garlic into the kale until kale is well coated, approximately 2 minutes. (The kale will shrink.)

2. Once kale is coated, massage in nutritional yeast.

3. Mix in red beans.

This would be good with some sort of grain, but I was lazy and ate it by itself.