Weekly Preparation

Tomorrow I will officially be starting my Les Mills Body Pump rotation.  I'm really hoping I can stick with it.  I think the only physical thing that would hold me back is my knee issue.  I did it for a week as a warm up and to get used to the bar and all was good.

Today I prepared 3 meat dishes to eat all week so I wouldn't have to guess about what to eat.  In a perfect world I would have bought chicken breast, but I had to go with a less pricey option which was chicken drumsticks.  Not in the picture is Trader Joe's Brown Rice Medley to go with the Brown Stew Chicken.  Brown Stew Chicken is a Caribbean dish I think.  I had it at a restaurant and wanted to duplicate it.  It has virtually no added salt and get its color and flavor from spices such as ginger, allspice, cinnamon.  I cook it in chicken broth and it has a really nice richness.  I love this recipe!  I got the idea of the turkey meatloaf muffins from bodybuilding.com on youtube.  There are many options on youtube.  I highly suggest you give it a view if you are wanting to try something new or even just browse.  The chicken will also serve as protein on a salad or a chicken wrap...All sorts of yummy this week!

      

Brown Stew Chicken

Turkey Meatloaf Muffins

Stewed Potato to eat with the chicken 

Recipe Experiment-Moist Molasses Bran Muffins

So I took a couple days off of work and really enjoying the down time.  I resisted baking all kinds of sweet goodies in the guise of "healthy".  I do enjoy the smell of yummy stuff waffling through the air.

Yummy experiment number one....
I get my tea from Urbane Tea Company .  The tea is flavorful and in interesting combinations.  Thoughts of Fuze tea came to mind and I had the idea to make iced tea.  I initially thought of a blend I recently bought called Creamy Caramel Oolong.  The description on the package is "creamy Oolong w/caramel bits and marigold flowers".  All things yummy, yes?  So with that I have a Gingersnap tea which I thought would compliment the caramel.  Still yummy!  For an added bite, I mixed in a little Simply Chai.  OMG, this mix was amazing!!  I did add a little agave to the mixture while hot and it totally sings with delight.

Yummy experiment number two....
As I was cleaning up all these bags of Bob's Mills goodies I'd bought wheat bran that I really didn't know what to do with. So...Still having a desire to bake something on the package is a recipe for Moist Molasses Bran Muffins.  Now, if you've read my other recipe blogs you know that I almost never do the recipe as is.  Why?  Because I use what I have on hand or I try to make it a little more healthy.  My substitutions was using coconut milk, whole wheat pastry flour/whole wheat flour and agave because I didn't have molasses.  I feared that they would be too grainy or mealy which was why I added the pastry flour.  I also added some cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and butter extract.

Baking now and they smell amazing!  I just tasted them and they are very good.  I'm glad I added the flavoring because I think they would have been bland otherwise.  In hindsight, I guess the flavor would have come from the molasses in the original version.  The crumb is not dense, but not fluffy either.  It does have a type of fluffiness, but it is not a heavy muffin.  I am pleased with how these turned out.

Calorie count is diet friendly too at 134.6 per muffin and 22.3 grams of heart healthy carbs from the wheat bran and wheat flour blend.  Another bonus is the lowish sugar grams at 7.4 per muffin!  Dietary fiber at 4.1 gram per muffin...bonus 3!

 

Reflections and New Start

In week 3 of Jillian Michael's Body Revolution I wasn't feeling the crazy moves.  She introduced some yoga moves with variations.  I felt this was so unfair to the format of the program.  She tries to encourage you to not be afraid and that your body is ready for it.  Ummm....NOT!  Yoga takes practice and you graduate into other moves.  There was no yoga in this program or even a lengthy stretch segment.

I moved on to Les Mills Body Pump by beachbody.  Today is Day 3 of that program.  I've never used a barbell before so I have to get used to it.  Also, I'm used to working out at home with no shoes and I think I may have to put them on in order to brace myself.  I feel my foot sliding on the carpet and with weights on your shoulders that is not a good thing.  So far I like the format of the program.  I've always liked weight lifting, but the pump format is new to me.  I like that the instructors are encouraging and are camera friendly.

Diet has taken a hit during the week or so I stopped Jill.  Why is it that when one thing stops other things follow?  I don't know, but I'm hanging out at bodybuilding.com and getting supplement info.  I never knew when to take my fish oil.  And thanks to watching Dr. Oz and buying CLA, I didn't know when to take my that either.  I've put together little dishes of daily pills to take to use for Wednesday to Friday.

I went to a restaurant bulk store and bought a 10lb box of tilapia.  I'll be good on that for a while.  I highly recommend bulk buying whenever possible.

I'm not going to do a focused thread on just the workout since I always talk about other stuff that has gone on with me throughout the day.  I'll focus on a section of my posts to the workout instead.

Till tomorrow!

Easy Meal Creation-McCormics Apple, Sage Pork Chop

Meals do not need to be elaborate or rocket science.  Sometimes, or even often, the most delicious meals can contain minimal ingredients.

I found McCormicks Recipe Inspirations which is a spice packet of everything needed to create a yummy dish.  You add the meat and/or produce to complete the recipe.

I experimented with McCormick's Apple and Sage recipe creation.  This is a stroke of genius for them to develop this.  It is a packet of all the spices you need to make an awesome recipe.  It has a recipe card on the back that you can keep in your recipe book.  I don't think I ever cooked fruit with my meat, but it was very good.

Pic below...that empty space in the pan accounted for the chop I ate for dinner.



For general health you should work to reduce sodium intake.  A bonus of these recipe's is that there's no sodium included.  I found that when making the Apple & Sage Pork Chops that the spices and the reduction of the apple juice flavored the meal nicely.  I'm looking into cooking with herbs and spices to flavor my meals instead of adding sodium.