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Back to the grind!

Yoga

This morning I woke up to do a quickie yoga routine.  I found this new site by an instructor named Eion Finn.  Cool name right?  That link has a bunch of free podcasts ranging from 25 minutes to 1.5 hours.  I have done one 25-minute and I liked it a lot.  It’s not as vigorous as some of the yogadownload.com sessions, but it is still a decent workout.  It’s perfect for gently waking up or a nighttime practice.

Breakfast

  • 1 cup of raspberry lowfat yogurt
  • 1 hot vitabrownie
  • (mashed together)
  • 1 apple

After breakfast I went for a walk (1 hour, first finishing my book – Love the One You’re With by Emily Giffin – and then on the phone with momma then dada).

Lunch

  • 2 large plates of Greek salad (with feta): sliced tomatoes, romaine, hot peppers, onions, and other typical Greek salad toppings.
  • No dressing (feta was enough)
  • Apple on the side

Snack

  • Another apple (3 for the day…)
  • Warmed Chocolate Brownie Zbar (I think I have Zbars every day.  They are too good.)

Yoga

After work I did a 1.5 hour Ashtanga yoga class!  I took the same class on Wednesday after work as well.  The teacher is fantastic and I love it.  I might buy a membership to this studio.  For now I just bought 10 classes that expire in a year.  The studio is Yoga is Youthfulness in downtown Mountain View.  My teacher is Mojdeh.  Her main critique of my self-taught yoga was that I need to learn to tame my flexibility.

Dinner

For dinner I had to cook up a squash that was starting to mold. I cut off the small part that had the mold and baked it up into squash fries.  I made a meal of it, topped with organic ketchup. Bobby had food that I brought home from work today – Greek stuff.

Dessert

  • 2 apples (is this seriously 5 apples in a day)
  • A couple T of peanut butter.  I think peanut butter will always be my favorite nut butter.  I do enjoy almond butter and I have a gigantic jar in my fridge, but in the end – every time I have PB I reconfirm it as the best.

Like my spoon?  I got it at Crate&Barrel.  I also got a cute blue appetizer spoon.  The bowl is from there too.

Bobby and I are watching Amelie now.  It’s one of our favorites.  I adore French, Italian, and German movies because I speak those languages (at diff levels).

What’s your favorite movie?

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Review of YogaToday

On Sunday night I got a chance to relax for an hour with a video from yogatoday.com.

The class: “Forward Bending Class” instructed by Neesha.  Advanced level.

My rating: 3/5 stars.

Review:

I may be slightly biased here, because of the type of yoga that I normally do.  This video (57 minutes) started out quite slow.  Too slow for my liking.  I like to do more fast-paced yoga that leaves me sweating.  I like the intensity of a smooth flow with shorter holds and a great focus on the breath that creates an almost cardio workout.

This class spent a lot of time describing what the poses were, which was surprising because it was an Advanced class.  I wish that more time had been spent on pointing out common errors that people (especially people that have been practicing a long time) tend to make and how to fix them.

It’s a very visually appealing setting – the instructor and two students practice out in a field on the grass with some pretty trees behind them.

The instructor was very softspoken and even with my speakers on the highest setting there were many times that I couldn’t hear her, or her voice was drowned out by an airplane or the sound of a truck backing up (?!).

Overall I enjoyed my hour of yogatoday, but it wasn’t what I was expecting!  Once I stopped wanting it to be a workout I enjoyed it more.  However, I think I will stick with my audio downloads from yogadownload.com – they really push me and make me work for it.  I would definitely try this again when I am in the mood for a very relaxing session though.  It would probably be good for preparing to sleep or to awaken slowly in the morning.

Has anyone else tried YogaToday?  I know Heather has (she recommended that I try it – thanks!!) – what are your thoughts?  Are there more workout-y yoga classes there?  Did I happen to pick one that was slower than usual?  If anyone knows of a more invigorating and intense class/instructor on YogaToday I’d be happy to try it.

Hope you all are enjoying your week!  I do have several recipes and an exciting lunch post lined up, so stay tuned.

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Anniversary Day :)

Today is our anniversary!  3 years 🙂  Still not sure what we’re doing tonight, but I’ll fill you in later…

Review: Cassava Chips

These are really good!  They have double the fiber of normal potato chips.  Bobby got them at Whole Foods and I had to try them.  I’m guessing I had about 1 serving (23 chips is the serving size, 150 calories, 6 grams fat, 2 grams fiber).  No preservatives in these guys either, and 70%+ organic ingredients.

Yesterday (Tuesday) morning I woke up before the alarm and got in a lovely 40 minutes of yoga from yogadownload.com.  Thanks so much Julia for recommending this!  I also got a rec from Heather to check out yogatoday.com, so I’ll let you know what i think of that too.

Breakfast was a standard – 1/2 cup oats, 1 cup water plus a splash, and a whole sliced banana.  Add in at the end: 3/4 cup soy milk.

Mid-morning I snacked on an apple, then went for my lunch walk.

Lunch was a sandwich made of 1/4 cup lowfat ricotta and 1.5 tablespoons of olallieberry jam (all out now – I scraped the inside of the jar).

On the side I had a salad – 1/2 an apple (the other half is in Bobby’s lunch), broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, onions, vegan nacho cheese, topped with olive oil and lemon juice.

And an apple on the side (love apples).

Snack was the same as yesterday – a vanilla Chobani Greek yogurt and a BSI muffin, and later another apple.  Bobby and I really like these muffins.  I think there are only 6 left and we started with 16!

Bobby and I went to guitar center to look at things… He’s getting me a piano!

We went out for dinner – the pre-anniversary dinner – to a Thai place called Blue Mango.  We got 3 things and shared them all.

  • Shrimp Papaya Salad
  • Chicken Pad See Ew (thick noodles stirfried with a few veggies) – kind of oily but that didn’t stop me.  So good.
  • Mushroom Mountain (self explanatory name; also had baby corn, bamboo shoots, and tofu)
  • Brown rice

So I was very very full after this meal.  Definitely a splurge.  It certainly was delicious.

Can’t wait until tonight… thanks for all of the lovely suggestions!

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New month!

Last night I had this:

And also another BSI muffin.  They are so good.

This morning I did yoga – Vinyasa power flow #3 – from yogadownload.com.  Such a great site.  Let me know if you check it out.

Breakfast at work was 1/2 cup oats, 3/4 cup soy milk, 1 cup water plus a splash, and 1 sliced banana.  The extra milk made it so creamy.

Snack was a Chocolate Brownie Zbar (my favorite).  Then I did my walk.  I finished a book I got from the library on Saturday called The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation by Elizabeth Berg.  It’s a bunch of short stories about life and doing what you want and being happy.  It’s really good and I definitely recommend it.

For lunch I made a salad (3/4 apple, 1 tomato, romaine, mushrooms, bacon bits, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and s&p):

And a delicious open-faced sandwich (thinly sliced chicken, vegan nacho cheese, sliced 1/4 of an apple) on this new bread that I got from Trader Joe’s – the brand is Alvarado Street Bakery.  They make great bread.

I had a nice big snack of a BSI muffin, a vanilla chobani, and an apple.  I crumbled up the muffin and stirred it into the yogurt… so good:

And then when I came home I made dinner.  I gave the kelp noodles another try but I still don’t like them.  Tonight I mixed together the kelp noodles, veggies (carrot, tomato, onion), and I chopped up a big chunk of tofurkey.  I topped it with a soy sauce/vinegar/sugar dressing. I had to throw it out.

I also made butternut squash fries again, and due to the kelp noodle failure, I mostly just had the fries with organic ketchup.

For dessert I had 2 small fuyu persimmons and some grapes topped with a little more than 2/3 cup of lowfat ricotta cheese.  I am in love with this stuff.  I crumbled BSI muffins on top.

Bobby’s and my 3 year anniversary is this Wednesday – we still haven’t decided where to go out!  Any suggestions for type of food/cuisine?  What do you guys do to celebrate anniversaries?