Fitness Links for the Weekend

I’m winding down my busy week and wanted to share some fitness tips and links that I got recently, courtesy of Fitness Magazine. My mom is coming in to the city for Mothers Day and I’m going to take her out, so I don’t know how much I will be around.

Healthy Recipes: Fitness has a ton of great recipes that I want to try. I always need new ideas for breakfasts, lunches, dinners… I tend to get stuck in a rut. So I will definitely try out their suggestions.

Smoothie Recipes: I have made a few smoothies this week (smoothie). I like mine with coconut milk kefir. Yum.

Actually, here is one of the other smoothies I made this week. It was coconut milk, raspberries, blueberries, honey (lots), and maybe a splash of water to thin it slightly.

Healthy Snack Foods: I don’t like when I’m told to just eat a bar for a snack. I don’t like bars! Fitness tells me I should have hummus with pita and peas, and that sounds much better. If you do want packaged snack foods they have some suggestions though, and a section on vending machine snacks (not my thing).

What’s your favorite snack? Mine is probably a crisp apple.

P.S. I updated Operation Wedding.

Operation Wedding

**UPDATE**

My wedding was on July 24th, 2010. When I moved to New York in November 2009 from California, I took a new job, I started eating out more, and got a little bit lax about exercise and fitness. I wanted to shape up a little bit for the wedding, so these are the exercises that I found most effective:

Yoga

  • Tom Morley’s Buns and Thighs Yoga (~25 minutes)
  • YogaDownload’s Yoga Sculpt (~25 minutes)
  • YogaDownload’s Weight Loss Yoga (~25 minutes)

Strength Training

Cardio

  • Walking. I try to walk at least 2 miles every day. On my better days I will walk upwards of 4 miles. Walking is great for your bones, your legs, and toning in general. It is an exercise that you can do whether you are in shape or just starting to get fit. You can walk no matter where you live, no matter what the weather is like outside. Walking in snow just makes it better exercise 😉 Walking is my exercise of choice because it’s just so easy to fit in. I walk with my husband and we chat about our days. I walk alone and listen to music or podcasts. I think about things to blog about. I cannot get enough!

My Results

I lost about 5 pounds and I gained back a lot of tone. I was really pleased with the results of “Operation Wedding”. Here are some wedding pictures (I am a little bit wedding-obsessed now, so bear with me! For more pictures visit My Photographer’s site -> Featured Events -> Maggie & Robert):

**END UPDATE**

—Original post below—

I have just over 2.5 months until my wedding to look toned. I’m going to try to do either Jillian’s 30-day shred *or* a 20-minute yogadownload routine every day. This morning I did the 30-day shred level 1 routine. Great before-work workout.

What will I eat? Probably the same stuff I usually do. I just want some nice long lean muscles for the wedding. I’ve lost my toned-ness since moving to New York because I haven’t been doing much yoga (or any kind of strength training at all).

Yesterday I mentioned that I saw a celebrity at Souen – it was Lisa Edelstein, aka Dr. Cuddy from House. I adore House. Such a good show. Cuddy was absolutely drop dead gorgeous in person. That show does not do her justice. Apparently she is vegan and practices Ashtanga yoga. I may copy her if I will look that good when I’m 44.

I also mentioned that I converted Bobby and Julia (sister) into oatmeal lovers. This was our Sunday brunch:

Mine is on the left (oats, butter, honey). Julia’s in on top (oats, cinnamon, sliced apples, peanut butter). Bobby’s is on the lower right (oats, honey, apples).

The trick is to use Scottish style oats or steel cut oats. They are chewy and have a completely different texture from instant oats or even regular oats. If you think you don’t like oatmeal, think again. You will love these. (Make sure to add a dash of salt for each serving while cooking – that’s another reason that people don’t like oats. They’re awful without the salt.)

I have also been eating yummy lunches at work. Last week I sauteed up some cabbage in a whole lot of butter and ate it with half of a frozen eggplant parm from Trader Joe’s.

Mmm butter. I could be a vegan aside from the butter and the cheese. Oops. I would be a bad vegan.

Though this new breakfast is completely vegan and awesomely delicious (and fatty!) on a hot day:

Yes, that is a smoothie in a bowl. It’s just…

  • 1 cup coconut milk kefir
  • 1.5 cups frozen fruit (this is strawberries, but today’s was raspberries and blueberries)
  • 1 tablespoon honey

Blend it in a food processor, blender, or magic bullet. I used my mini food processor.

It was great after my morning workout. I may have another one tomorrow. I love having fats in the morning.

Have you made a new breakfast recently? I rarely waver from either eggs or oats, so this was a nice change.

Moving in Manhattan – Kinda Rough!

I had a horrible couch-moving experience (bad bad Craigslist), but I do want to say thank you to Rob the Mover as well as the lifesaving New York Couch Doctor for making my horrible awful day not quite so bad after all.

I was pretty stressed all day because of the couch drama, but I did make this yummy dish for Bobby because he was actually the one who had to deal with most of the awfulness.

  • rice
  • coconut oil, garlic powder, teriyaki sauce
  • shrimp, red peppers, scallions

So simple. He loved it. While he ate this I ate chocolate. Kinda wish I’d just made more of this because the bite I did have was delicious.

Today I got a smoothie for lunch at Jamba Juice. My tum has been really bloaty lately. I got the Berry Fulfilling, which does have Splenda, so I may get something else next time. It was yummy. It has a dairy base and then raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries (I think).

I thought it would help my stomach since smoothies should be easy to digest, but it didn’t do much – I was still bloated. And now I’m really hungry. I did have an apple with the smoothie so maybe that’s what did my tummy in.

I did manage to get in my exercise by walking home (2 miles) and walking at lunchtime to meet Bobby (<1 mile). I try to get in 2 miles of walking every day but it doesn’t always happen.

Do you ever feel like you should act a certain way or eat a certain thing because of other blogs? I know I used to, but now I pretty much do my own thing. I think it’s better this way.

Green Monster Madness

Have you ever tried a green smoothie? Angela has been making them for breakfast, and I got very curious, so I decided to try my own.  It was surprisingly good.  I had to add a few teaspoons of honey to sweeten it up at the end, but after that it was great.  And it’s a wonderful way to get some veggies early on in the day.

Maggie’s Green Smoothie

21-green-smoothie-setup

Ingredients

  • 1 small banana, sliced
  • 4-5 strawberries, sliced
  • spring mix (got a huge box at Costco and I’m trying to use it up) – 1.5 cups, packed
  • chopped collard greens (couldn’t find kale) – 1.5 cups, packed
  • 1 cup unsweetened chocolate almond milk (but you could use any non-dairy milk)
  • 2 teaspoons natural peanut butter, warmed up so that it mixes better
  • 2 teaspoons honey
  • I just thought of another thing that would be good, but I didn’t put any in – wheat germ! (1-2 tablespoons)

Directions

  1. Add the fruit, milk, peanut butter, and honey to the blender/mixer.  Then add as many greens as will fit.
  2. Blend until the greens are pureed.  Keep adding more greens and blending until you’ve fit them all in.
  3. Serve in a nice tall glass.  Eat it with a spoon if you like!

22-green-smoothie

Mine came out pretty thick, so I did end up eating it with a spoon.  I’m hoping it will hold me over, but I’m not sure – I usually have carby breakfasts and I don’t get full on liquids.  So we’ll see.  It was delicious though, and very voluminous!  I don’t own a blender so I made this in my mini food-processor.

This morning I did some old favoritesYogaDownload’s 20-minute Power Vinyasa #4, and The New Method 20/20 Perfect Pilates (40 minutes).  I really do love YogaDownload.