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February 21, 2010

hills need work

Filed under: Dinner,Restaurants — Tags: — Kristen :) @ 8:00 pm

This weekend has flown by as usual!  Friday night I was too lazy and didn’t have on hand what I had planned to cook, so Chris and I decided to venture out to find a new restaurant.  We are both very indecisive and went back and forth from Italian, pizza, and Chinese, but finally decided to try a Chinese place called Ta Ta Chinese Bistro.  

I completely forgot my camera but we started out with veggie tempura (love this stuff!), a caterpillar roll (my fav!) and a piece of yellowtail for Chris.  Next we ordered mongolian beef and orange chicken which were just eh okay.  I don’t think anything can ever compare to P.F. Chang’s or Pei Wei for fresh Chinese food.  I don’t know if we’ll go back there, but it was nice to at least try something different.

Saturday was spent mostly running around trying to get errands done, so I’ll spare the details 🙂  Here are some of my eats:

Oats for breakfast . . . dates are spectacular on oats!

Lunch was a bit of leftover spruced up Annie’s Mac with some more spinach thrown in and about 1/3 cup micro’ed egg whites.

Then, later that evening we went to dinner with Chris’ parents at a pizza place called Northside Nathan’s.  I had never been there before, but Chris had to have it and has been raaaving about it.  It’s Detroit-style deep dish and actually pretty tasty!  You’ll have to excuse the crappy pictures, because I forgot my camera again and had to resort to the iPhone.  I’ve been forgetful with the camera lately, eh?

We started out with the garden salad with Italian on the side.  And I had one bite of the onion rings.

Next up came the GIANT pizza!  This one had chicken, roasted garlic and mushrooms.  The crust was really good, although I think I prefer thin and crispy from Settebello now 🙂  I had one slice of this one.

We also got a small veggie, I had a slice and a 1/2 of this one.

I was so incredibly full after this and just felt ick.  It tasted good, but boy my tummy doesn’t like when I eat like this too often.  I was so tuckered, by the time we got home and settled, I hit the hay by 9:30pm!

~~~~

Sunday started out getting ready for a bike ride . . .

Breakfast included a bowl of cereal and a small spoonful of a scrambled egg concoction that Chris made.  I found this new Kashi cereal that I really like a lot, have you seen it?  It’s not quite as crunchy as the normal Kashi, but stayed nice and crispy in the milk with little bits of chewy dried blueberries and cranberries, yum!  I think this one’s a keeper.

What I like most about it is that there’s 9g of protein, 8g of fiber and 190 kcals per serving.

Well, the ride was less than stellar, but I powered through it!  It started out pretty good, but it got really windy and we went up around Lake Las Vegas which has some killer hills.  I am the worst when it comes to hills and that is really what I need to work on for the LiveStrong Ride because Napa will be pretty hilly.  Everyone seems to truck along right past me on their super light and expensive bikes, while I’m sucking air trying to keep the bike moving lol  I may have to look at a lighter bike, but that’s just an excuse 😉  I’m really trying to focus on strength training right now and building powerful lean mass to climb those hills.

  • Time:  2:25
  • Avg: 13.6 mph (boo!) Max:  32.7 mph
  • HR:  158  Max:  194 (that was the hill from hell!)
  • Distance:  33.4 miles

We stopped a couple times during the ride.  This was at Lake Las Vegas and while we were still with the group.  After this I started to lag behind and Chris was nice enough to stay with me 🙂  He’s also nursing a funky hurt knee, so I guess it was a win win.  I still felt bad when I’m the last one, but I have to realize these guys are really good and have been riding for a lot longer.  And there was only one other girl there.  Something more to work towards!!!

And I also got a new Lazer Helmet!  I thought it would be good to have a quality helmet and not the cheapo I had before to be safe.  They fit really, really well too.

The first stop I had a packet of Luna Moons and shared 1/4 blueberry muffin with Chris.  The second time I had to stop and grab something so I munched on a small Raw Revolution bar.

When we got home I quickly made a power smoothie for both of us to replenish and refuel.

  • 1.5 cups NF milk
  • 1/2 cup Wallaby vanilla yogurt
  • 2 x-large handfuls of spinach
  • 1.5 scoops chocolate whey protein
  • 1.5-2 cups mango, raspberry, blueberry frozen blend from TJ’s
  • 2 Tbsp flax meal w/ blueberries
  • 1 heaping Tbsp TJ’s peanut butter

This was a tasty one!  And I had to top it with a handful of the Kashi Crisp, love this stuff!

Then I got to prepping dinner and making some granola bars and protein cookies.  Oh and I had to have a handful of WW pretzels, pistachios and 3 khadrawy dates for a snack before dinner 🙂  I love dates!  Yesterday I also made baked quinoa oats and marinated vegetables for the week.  I’ll have to share the recipes because they turned out nice.  I sure made a lot of messes in the kitchen this weekend 🙂

Dinner was really tasty!  I made stuffed flank steak with a tomato sauce in the crock-pot along with pasta.  I will definitely have to share this recipe too.

Hope you all had a nice weekend!

Was there something that you really had to work hard towards?

17 Comments »

  1. I am now officially craving everything you just blogged about! THAT ALL LOOKS SO AMAZING! And that oatmeal?! I definitely need to give my oatmeal a makeover!

    Comment by Monica @ Sincerely, Nutrition — February 21, 2010 @ 9:17 pm

  2. I love dates on my porridge especially when I have carob powder too, its a great combo! x x

    Comment by Tamizn — February 22, 2010 @ 1:26 am

  3. What a great bike ride! And a tasty looking smoothie to top it off!

    Comment by Shannon — February 22, 2010 @ 5:03 am

  4. Great job on your ride! The hills can definately slow you down.. did you have any headwind?

    Comment by Gelareh @ Nutritious Foodie — February 22, 2010 @ 10:39 am

  5. Galareh, It seemed like every direction we turned there was a headwind! lol I think I just need to go out and do some shorter hill training & bust it out and eventually get better at the longer ones 🙂 what do you think?

    Comment by Kristen :) — February 22, 2010 @ 6:58 pm

  6. @Kristen 🙂,
    starting with shorter hills may not be a bad idea… but what I am doing
    during the week is I am doing one day of heavy duty lower body strength
    training to the point that the next day I can barely walk… I spin 2 days a
    week and on 1 day of straimaster and long ab workout… believe it or not
    the stronger your abs are the easier everything will be.

    But again.. I am doing all of this for the first time too… I have to admit
    though so far this regiment has worked for me 🙂

    Comment by Nutritious Foodie — February 22, 2010 @ 7:07 pm

  7. Galareh, that sounds really good, thank you! I’ve been doing full-body weights/abs 2x per week with a few other cardio classes, but I’ve only been getting 1 long ride in, which I need to increase to at least 2. It’s just hard to find those 4 hours during the week to get a good ride in, right? I may try to bike to work if I can some days 🙂 Thanks!

    Comment by Kristen :) — February 23, 2010 @ 6:08 pm

  8. I would not be good at hills, I know it would take me a LOT of practice. Actually, running was something I used to be very bad at, which I had to practice very often before I became half way descent. Hills would take a lot more work for me. I think I would practice by walking on an incline on the treadmill, then running, then walking (intervals) and also by using the elliptical at a very high resistance, to build muscle.

    Looks like you guys had some great food this weekend! Nick and I ate out a couple times too, and both experiences were just ok. Nothing special really, but it’s always fun to get out of the house and get served!

    Comment by The Candid RD — February 22, 2010 @ 11:59 am

  9. Kashi frustrates me because there is sugar in most of their cereals! It does look yummy though, just like the pizza! That’s a big ol’ pizza!

    Comment by Michelle @ Find Your Balance — February 22, 2010 @ 12:05 pm

  10. I haven’t seen that cereal before but I really like the protein + fiber amounts. Hills are killer! I ran 9.1 miles yesterday and when I got to that point and saw the crazy hill I had to go up to get back to my car I decided to walk 🙁 Glad you powered through it! You’ll get to where all those guys are soon enough.

    Comment by Heather @ Get Healthy With Heather — February 22, 2010 @ 12:42 pm

  11. Heather, wow, 9.1 miles?! that’s amazing in and of itself girl! Thanks for your encouragement 🙂

    Comment by Kristen :) — February 22, 2010 @ 6:56 pm

  12. Ooh! Thanks for the heads up on the new Kashi cereal–GoLean is my all time favorite!

    Comment by BroccoliHut — February 22, 2010 @ 2:06 pm

  13. 194 – wowza! That was one monstrous hill, for sure! What a workout! I’ve never seen those Luna Moons before…I’ll have the check them out!

    Comment by Nicole, RD — February 22, 2010 @ 3:22 pm

  14. I Love North Side Nathan’s! It is a little pricey though, but since I don’t get to go there very much anymore (being in Nor Cal), it is usually on my list of places to eat at when I am home….that and Farm Basket! Hard to kick the “bad” food places, but they are so good, and bring me back to being a kid again. 🙂 Swap bikes with Chris next time you guys go out for a ride.

    As far as working hard towards something, I tried the 3+ mile cross country trail at work today…little harder than I thought, but I managed to get through it ok. I’m just trying to work on getting some of this “dad” tummy to go away. 🙂 My arms and legs are toning up nicely from working out the past few months, but I needed to add in some cardio to help the tummy go away.

    Comment by Allen — February 22, 2010 @ 4:48 pm

  15. Allen, that’s awesome! It will only get better 🙂 I haven’t had Farm Basket in ages and I think they all closed here? I should lol I could probably fit his bike. I actually have had this crazy idea of try to sell mine and get another ‘lighter’ one, geez this sport is the money pit!

    Comment by Kristen :) — February 22, 2010 @ 6:55 pm

  16. @Kristen 🙂,

    Any sport you start to take seriously will cost you lots and lots of money. Bowling, Golf, Running, Baseball, they all become money pits. But what is the fun of making money if you can’t spend it on something. 🙂

    Comment by Allen — February 22, 2010 @ 8:36 pm

  17. I LOVE Kashi GoLean Crisp!! 🙂 The nutritional profile is awesome, and it’s so yummy! 🙂 I so enjoy reading about your cycling adventures – good for you for achieveing so much so quickly! You’re amazing!!

    I hope Chris’ knee feels better soon!

    I’m very much looking forward to the flank steak recipe – it looks amazing!

    Comment by Astra Libris — February 23, 2010 @ 5:29 am

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