Healthy Food Choices

On my search for healthy foods, I have been lucky to find some things that taste good and are good for you. I want to share those with you as I find them. Today I broke my fast, I did a three day cleanse, with a healthy meal before my workout. I had a piece of toast with peanut butter and jelly on it plus a banana. 

The bread I have found is wonderful. It is a local company called Heartland Bread Company. They have different types of bread and we have tried all of them. The one I had today was Grandma's Perfect White. The ingredients are so like what I use to make bread, simple. It has untreated, unbleached wheat flour, water, pure cane sugar, salt and yeast. That's it! I have searched for a store bought bread that didn't have extra ingredients in it for the past 10 years or more. I found this on at my Tom Thumb store. They have signs under products that are local, like this one. I buy three or four loaves and freeze all of them but the one we are eating. They don't have preservatives so they won't keep like the other breads that are full of things we shouldn't eat. My kids love it.

The peanut butter is Smucker's Natural Peanut Butter Creamy. It contains peanuts and less than 1% salt. I don't have to put it in the refrigerator but I do have to stir it. I am OK with having to do that since it tastes good and is better for me. I love to eat it on toast. 

I just found this jelly, Smucker's Natural Strawberry Fruit Spread. NO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP. YAY! It contains strawberries, sugar, fruit pectin and citric acid. It tastes really good and it comes in four flavors, strawberry, grape, raspberry and orange. I love the strawberry but I am sure the other flavors taste good, too. 

I can't wait to share more healthy products with you. I post some healthy recipes on my other blog. I just posted my bread recipe. I have made rolls with that recipe, too. 

Changing my life one day at a time.

Angelmom's White Bread

Angelmom's White Bread

Ingredients

2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2/3 cup white sugar (organic)
1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
1/4 cup coconut oil (soften first)
6 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (organic)

Directions
In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar in warm water and then stir in yeast. Allow to proof until yeast resembles a creamy foam.

Mix salt and oil into the yeast. Mix in flour one cup at a time. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface (or in your very large bowl.) Place in a well oiled bowl and turn dough to coat. Cover with a damp cloth. Allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Rising in a warm oven (turned off) works best.

Punch dough down. Knead for a few minutes and divide in half. Shape into loaves and place into two well oiled 9x5 inch loaf pans. Allow to rise for 30 minutes or until dough has risen 1 inch above pans.

Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes. I bake it at 325 degrees instead for a softer texture. I use loaf stones (instead of glass) to avoid burning the bottom on the loaves.

I have also made this recipe for rolls. I cooked it at the same lower temp and it cooked the same amount of time. I used a muffin stone for it. I don't like burnt bread or cookies.

Also, if you have a Kitchen Aid mixer use the wire whip attachment to mix the flour into the other ingredients. Then use the dough hook to knead the dough. I love my mixer. It makes baking so much easier and more fun.

Until next time...blessings to you.

Jiggle Butt Run 5K

Today I ran my first race of the new year, the Jiggle Butt Run 5K. It benefits Safe Haven of Tarrant County. It is a race that I will be doing every year with my daughters. They didn't run with me this year but I am going to get them to do it next year. This race was in my city. I love that I have found some races that are so close to me because it makes it so much easier to get to and from the races without tons of time driving. 

I ran 4 miles on Tuesday and 4 miles on Thursday this week. So the run today seemed much easier to accomplish with less walking and a faster completion time. I did it in 42.56. That is a few minutes off my time of late. I had done it in a shorter distance a year ago but things have slowed me down. That is what I am working on improving, getting my time back to what it was and even shorter. I was very proud of my performance in the run. I pushed myself throughout the run but at the same time I did my best to run at a consistent pace so I could keep running more than walking. I thought I was running very slowly at times but the time show that not to be true. I tried to only walk short periods of time and force myself to run. The whole point of doing it is to actually run, for me anyway. There isn't anything wrong with walking. But if you intend to you, like me, you should run as much as you are able. I do believe you are a runner if you run any amount. I don't think you are less of a runner if you walk during a run. Don't let anyone tell you differently. If you want to be a better runner, just keep running. Run more each time you run. Never give up.

I am working on strength training, too. I want to start running stairs. I saw in the runners magazine that if you spend 20-30 minutes running up stairs and walking down them, over and over, it will help you with running inclines. I just need to find some stairs to run. There was some incline on the run today and I was able to run most of it. For some reason I have no desire to do the DVD workouts that I have done in the past. I have been doing free weight workouts and using the workout machine in the garage. Plus, I want to do that stairs workout twice a week. 

I honestly wish I had another 5K lined up for January. I wanted to do the Polar Dash and didn't sign up for it. I am contemplating signing up with it now simply because I can't stand waiting so long to race again. My next race that I am signed up for is the Hot Chocolate 5K on February 8. That will always be my favorite race. I will do that one every year. So unless I find another race for January my next race is in February. 

Changing my life one day at a time. 

HELLO 2014

Seems like only weeks ago that I was looking towards 2013 with anticipation. I had yet to run my first 5K even though I had started running during the summer of 2012. Looking back over the year I see that I tried many things to get on the right track but didn't keep doing all of them consistently. That is the reason I didn't reach the weight loss goals I had set. 

I am proud of the fact that I ran in six 5K races in 2013. I am already signed up for nine in 2014; seven 5K's, one 10K and one half marathon. That is HUGE! I don't think the 10K is that major since I have run 5 miles before and a 10K is only 6.2 miles. But the half marathon is 13.1 miles. That seems huge to me. I am super excited about it but at the same time I KNOW if I do not keep running regularly and do not train I will not be happy with the results of that race. I will feel that I wasted money, since it was the most expensive race I have even thought about signing up for. I know I want to cross that finish line with confidence that I did my very best. I am not really worried about the time, other than actually finishing within the time frame they allow. It would be great if I could increase my run time and finish strong. 

My run time goal for 2014 is to get it down to a 10 minute mile. That is quite a challenge since right now I have slowed down to about 14 minutes instead of the 13 that I was doing earlier last year. I am not sure why I have slowed down so much. But it probably has to the with the fact that I have put on 10 pounds and don't run regularly. I WILL change that in 2014. 

I joined a fb group that has a goal to run 1 mile a day or 365 miles in 2014. If I am doing my training for the 10K and the Half, that should be no problem at all. I am also doing what I can to eat healthier. I know I need to start a food journal and track everything I eat. It is easy to misjudge how much we are eating if we don't track it. I am trying to make sure I take my vitamins and other things that will help my thyroid get back on track. I will share more about those changes if food and activity as the year goes by. 

I hope everyone has great goals set for the new year. Make them count. Take it one day at a time and do something towards those goals. Doesn't have to be a big step, take baby steps. Change one choice you make at a meal. Go for a walk instead of eat a snack that is unhealthy for you. Decide to eat a smaller portion of something. Go to bed earlier so you can get a good night's rest. Drink water instead of soda or some other sugary drink. You have a blank "notebook" with 365 pages. It is up to you what you write on each page. 

Changing my life one day at a time. 

Reindeer Dash 5K

My sixth race this year was the Reindeer Dash 5K on Christmas Eve. I signed up for it right after Thanksgiving. I thought it would be something fun to do that was different. I really like the idea of keeping it fun but also having a good cause to benefit. It keeps me motivated. 

I had no clue when I signed up for any of these winter races that we would actually have a winter this year. But that is exactly what we are having...winter! That morning at the beginning of the race it was 27* and at the finish of the race it had gone up to 30*. During the first quarter mile it felt like my face was going to freeze off. I have never run in temps that low. I suppose I need to find some sort of cover for my face at the beginning of a race in cold weather. After a certain point you just aren't bothered by the temps any longer. In fact, you get so warm that the layers you have on you wish you didn't. I was wearing a short sleeve shirt, a long sleeve running shirt and then my long sleeve race shirt plus a windbreaker over that, and gloves. I unzipped the windbreaker and took off the gloves during the third mile.

I enjoyed the race because I got to wish the officers located on all the street corners directing traffic a Merry Christmas. I had Christmas music playing on my phone. There were reindeer located at the start and my daughter got a big kick out of taking pictures of them. 

I ran more of this race than I did the last one. I still had to walk a bit because the cold really bothered me this time. It took awhile for me to get over it and be able to breath regularly without feeling like a coughing fit would ensue if I took too deep a breath.  A hot shower helped a great deal with the steam opening up my lungs. I changed out of the two under shirts and sports bra before we left the race location. I read that if you run in cold temps you should do that because otherwise you can get sick. I am trying to be a better runner and read things to help me. I am also trying to put them into practice. Otherwise, what good is reading them?

I started training for a 10K this week. I have the Nike+ app and it has these new "coach" training programs on it. I am going to do the 10K coach and after that I will do the Half Marathon coach to help me train for the Rocky Mountain Half we are doing in August. That is very exciting to me but I don't want to just keep running races and not run in between and never get in shape. I want to train and eat right so that I will be in top shape by August for the race. I want to run as much of it as I can. I want to improve my race time per mile, too.

I think I have figured out the weight gain. I don't think it is only the coffee that I was drinking. I have stopped drinking my smoothies every day. Those contained all of my vitamins and the other things to help keep my thyroid is good working order. So now I have put on weight, my sleep isn't as good, I am sluggish and my skin is having issues with dryness. I also think I am not drinking enough water. So I am going to start keeping better track of that and go back to drinking my smoothie each day, even if it is for lunch or in place of dinner, I will have one smoothie a day so that I get the benefits. 

My next 5K is January 4. I am praying it isn't in the 20's for that one.

Changing my life one day at a time.

Run or Dye Arlington 2013

Today I ran in my fifth 5K this year. I have one more for 2013. My oldest daughter was signed up for the race so I decided to go ahead and run with her. But she got very sick and then ended up having to work. My younger son took her place and ran instead. He really isn't a runner but he does run really fast when he does run. He has been going to the gym four times a week with his dad for the past several months. He has built up a LOT of strength in that time. He has a really hard time running at a slow pace. He is more of a sprint runner. But he is very competitive and likes to win. He said he was third until he was at the 2 mile mark and had to slow down because his lungs were hurting. I know that if he ran regularly it would build up his lungs like he is building up the rest of his body. I hope he will do that and we can run together again. I love it when my family runs WITH me.

I ran one time last week and then it froze over for DAYS. I was not able to go out and run during the rest of the time leading up to this race. I was a bit sluggish at the beginning. I did have to walk from time to time but I did my best not to allow myself to walk for very long before I set a new goal of what to run to. I would pick a "target" to reach before I would allow myself to walk. I did my best to pick a target that was far away. It is not my goal to walk a 5K. I want to run as much of it as I can. I may run slowly most of the time but I want to put forth as much effort as I am able. When possible, I would push myself to go a bit faster than I had before to make up some time from the periods of walking. 

Since this was a run where they throw colored powder at you, it got pretty messy. We didn't get as messy as we did for the Color Run in April of this year. We were a mess that day. I didn't have sun glasses today to hide my eyes so I closed my eyes as I ran through it. My son didn't realize it was going to be like that and he got a big chunk thrown into his eye, which was not fun for him. He always ended up with a bunch of it in his mouth when he tried to drink something after the race. I love doing the Color Run so I think I will stick with just ONE "color" run a year, if any. My hubby hates the mess in his Jeep afterwards.

They didn't have the miles marked and my tracker wasn't working. I never really knew when one mile ended and the other one began. I think that would have helped. It always does when I am running by myself because I can tell myself I am "this far" or I only need "this much more".  They didn't have the Turkey Trot marked either and my tracker wasn't working. It doesn't seem to want to work at the Ballpark area for some reason. Pandora did work this time. I had made a playlist on my phone and when I tried to play it things went nuts. It would play a few seconds of one song and then change, over and over again. I finally shut it off and tried Pandora. Thankfully, that worked. It is easier for me to run when I have music to listen to and keep me going.

There were quite a few parts of the race that were up hill. Some where down hill and I tried to take advantage of that time and run a bit faster. It made me think about our run in August. That half marathon is going to have a few miles that are uphill. That means I NEED to run uphill HERE to get used to it. I have heard it helps build your strength and speed if you run uphill. I need both. 

Looking at the pictures of myself makes me a bit more sad than I already am about my weight. But it will be fine when I can see how much I have lost in the next year and beyond. I will be able to see how far I have come. At least I ran the race and did something healthy. At least I am taking steps to change the way my body looks instead of just living with it or worse yet, gaining more from lack of effort. 

I will share more about my weight training in a later post. My husband gave me a workout to do and I was sore for three days afterwards....

Changing my life one day at a time.

My First Flylady Purchase

I am trying hard to get back into "flying" with Flylady. It is such a struggle for me. It is my goal to start the new year actually flying each day. To me that means doing my morning and evening routines and actually attempting each days zone instructions. So far I just read them and think to myself "I could go do that" and then don't. 

I purchased some things from the Flylady store to help me get started. There are more things I would LIKE to get from the store and will after the first of the year. One of the things I got wasn't for cleaning but it was for doing something they talk about on Flylady, drinking your water daily. I got one of the water bottles and it is GREAT. I want to get one for both the teens and one for my hubby. It will keep our water cold on bike rides and other adventures. I keep mine filled all day long and I have been drinking more water this whole week. I got the duster to help make it more fun for my daughter to do her dusting and to be a more effective job since this one actually attracts the dust instead of just moving it around. I purchased two of the Scrubba toilet brushes and the kitchen set. I also got some purple rags plus a small scrubba. You can check them out on the website for more information on what they do. 

Until next time...blessings to you.