For those of you who don’t live in Massachusetts, Monday was Patriot’s Day, also known as Marathon Monday. It’s a state holiday and since I didn’t have to work either job, I took myself hiking. For those of you who don’t believe me that this is a thing, here’s a wiki-link for it. It’s to celebrate the battles of Lexington and Concord because I’m sure middle schoolers are very concerned with the American Revolution and its’ battles giving them days off.
Here are some pictures from my hike.
With my little map in hand and heart rate monitor on, I hiked 6 miles of trails around Well State Park, which is about 25-35 minutes from me depending on traffic. It had great, clear trails and it’s one I would definitely do again, but only after I cross a bunch of others off my list. Needless to say after my hike and fruit bar snack, my Monday was pretty great.
The rest of the week not so much.
The work week was short and that was great, but mentally I don’t think I was into my overall health to feel driven. I managed one day at the gym this week (Friday). I accomplished almost 30 minutes of free weights on my lunch hour. Aside from this my eating was all over the place and I was the face of stress eating. From pizza to sushi and french fries. This was definitely a low week in my better lifestyle that I have had the past two years. I can’t even pin point what made me feel so low. But if I wasn’t stuffing my face then I was forgetting to eat, and only a crazy person forgets to eat.
By Friday night, I had a gala to attend and it was a self serve buffet… let’s not talk about it.
The upside to the weekend was I chopped off some of my hair and got layers. This is a big deal for me. While it may not look like anything is missing, the shortest layers is shoulder length, she had to cut off 7″ for that. I would say this was a ballsy move and kind of what I needed to get me moving for this week.
I acknowledge my failure and this week is going to be different. I’ve pre-registered for Bikram tomorrow. I’m in serious need of finding my center and sweating this funk out. I was going to pre-register for that HIIT like small group training class for Wednesday, but it’s completely booked. There’s one at 7:30 on Friday morning, I need to check with work and see if I can come in late instead of taking my lunch hour because I would really like to end the week on a powerful note like that.
In between these days I want to try to get two runs in, no specific distance yet, hopefully around 2 miles a piece.
For the “in my belly” segment of this post, I’ve made chicken and steak for the next two days at least. I bought produce this weekend including salad fixings, mangos, bananas, squash, onions, sweet potatoes, oranges and lemons. I need to get back on track and stay on track. Summer is around the corner and more importantly I don’t want to reverse my hard work.
Here’s to kicking ass and taking names this week. We stumble and fall and pick ourselves right back up. This is just a bump in the road.
❤ Cristina
A few weeks ago I started making my own fruit bars and I had bought both pitted date paste and whole pitted dates from a local international market. I haven’t used the whole pitted dates until last night. I had no idea what to make with them other than the bars.
Thanks to Pinterest, I found a crockpot recipe that calls for pitted dates, apples, and pecans as the main ingredients. Turns out, it’s from a blog on blogspot called Feeding Ger Sasser. You can get the recipe I used here. There’s no special name for it, but it tastes pretty special :]
Pitted Dates
Post-crockpot to bowl picture
Breakfast in bed on Easter morning
Some notes. I could’ve cooked this a little longer, my apples are a little crunchy still, but it’s still really good. Maybe adding a little water to the mixture might have helped break the apples down a little more.
This made for a great breakfast this morning, while I watched Hop. I don’t celebrate Easter so I plan on relaxing and working around the apartment today and I have a ribeye pulled from the freezer for dinner tonight :] Bring on the wine!
I hope everyone has a great day with family and friends!
❤ Cristina
Ignore this post. I added Bloglovin’ to my blog and in order to claim my page I had to create a post with my bloglovin URL.
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Today’s run was pretty fantastic if I say so myself. I did a tiny bit over 2 miles at the park. I’ve mentioned that each lap is 3/4 of a mile, so this was about 2.5 laps. The first lap I ran at a 9:27 minute mile pace and I seriously couldn’t believe. It explained why I was huffing and puffy, but I had no idea my little legs could carry me like that. I started to slow down so I wouldn’t burn out, which is freaking hard to do! I maintained between a 9:35 and 9:44 pace.
I couldn’t have asked for better weather. My weather app said it was about 40 degrees, but it was definitely peaking around 60, with a sweatshirt on I was clearly overdressed, but I didn’t mind the extra sweat.
My hips are a little sore today, which I think running added to after a week’s worth of wearing heels and being on my feet constantly. I’m taking tomorrow off from running and working out. I intend on cleaning my apartment and going through some things to donate to the local Saver’s. I started today and after 2 loads of dishes and 3 loads of laundry, my living room looks great, my bedroom is coming together and my kitchen could be in better shape.
Monday I’m taking myself hiking since I have the day off for Patriot’s Day. Yay for made up holidays.
Anyway, I’m getting ready to switch over the laundry and The Big Bang Theory is on. I hope everyone had a great Saturday :] Below are some pictures to brighten your night and your Easter morning!
❤ Cristina
Blogging from my phone and on what appears to be a super Sunny Saturday morning, I’m questioning my body’s sanity for being up before 8 am when it knows I didn’t get into bed until 7 hours ago. Get it together!
After a long week of being very cautious and clean I had a treat, one hard cider. Not paleo, but gluten free nonetheless. I plan on running this morning and maybe this is my body’s way of saying “you cheated, now get up”. I’m going to lay here a few more minutes until I realize that I’m wasting my morning and then I will get my butt in gear. I just wish I could’ve slept in. I mean, it’s the weekend and I deserve a little break!
Well fingers crossed that my run goes well. I haven’t set a distance for today yet, but it’s a little chilly and this is new to me, but runners run in crazy weather, so I need to suck it up 🙂
Have a great Saturday everyone!
❤️ Cristina
Two recipes from my 50 in 2014 list in one week; it’s definitely been a busy week and one where change is welcome! I found this recipe as a pin on Pinterest, but turns out the blog is also a WordPress blog called Pop an Egg on It.
The blogger, Katy, is a mother and has a passion of cooking. She’s battled a lot of eating issues and stomach issues. She discovered paleo and has lost weight and become healthier as a whole person. Her blog is mostly if not all paleo recipes and I can’t wait to try others because this one rocked!
Katy’s breakfast muffins remind me of making paleo pancakes with eggs and a banana when I was prepping them, but with some oil, coconut, honey and almond meal these are so far from the banana bread smelling pancakes.
This batch made 8, which is what Katy said it would make.
yay batter!
post oven- yes the unwrap one was eaten :]
They came out fluffy and light. Typically, I think almond meal can be a little chewy and sometimes dense, but these were just like cupcakes. I had set the oven for 350 since I was making other things, and I have never been more happy that I have an oven temperature gauge because the oven was heated to 450!
This little guys only needed 10 minutes and they were done. I can’t win with my oven, not at all.
I have no idea what a serving would be, but it’s safe to say eating one with something else would be a good call. It wouldn’t be hard to eat them all. Katy’s post even suggests mixing in other things like chocolate chips or blueberries to make them interesting. I’ll have to make a variation next time :]
