Meals with No Excuses

Happy Hump Day! Thanks for all of the positive feedback on my last post; reading comments always put a smile on my face.

If you read yesterday, remember I went to check out release 80 for BodyPump last night? I hate to say it, but I was very underwhelmed. All of the preview reads I’d done on it made it sound like a total game changer that was totally going to own your ass, but alas, it was pretty standard for a BodyPump release. I LOVED the music that they chose, but here’s what I thought of the tracks:

Warmup: Resuscitate Me – September Nothing new here for warm-up.
Squats: The Edge Of Glory (Glory Mix) – Red Beans & Rice There were more pulsing squats than in 79 and lots of singles.
Chest: Smells Like Teen Spirit – Ninth Immortal I felt this was fairly standard as well.
Back: The Tide – Twilight If you don’t like the power press (ie: clean & 3 presses in a row) and wide-grip rows, you’ll have a hard time on this track. I wish I had raised my weights.
Triceps: Till The World Ends – Britney Spears LOTS of tricep push-ups, skull crushers, and presses followed by overhead extensions.
Biceps: Eye Of The Tiger – Altiyan Childs Easiest bicep track I’ve done in awhile.
Lunges: Fading Like A Flower (Club Radio Mix) – Dan Winter HOLY COW! Hardest lunge track ever! Let’s just say there’s some really fast lunge hopping going on.
Shoulders: Hands Up! (Sample Ripperz Remix) – Jens O Again, lots of push-ups, but the rest of it was pretty typical.
Abs: Rolling In The Deep – Colourbox Bicycles, assorted planks, and pulses.
Cooldown: Fade Into Me – David Cook Ahhhh…all done!

Overall, it was a very good workout, but nothing super crazy (minus the really tough lunge track). Be sure to check it out, at least for the song selection  For today, I just got in a 3.1 mile easy run to loosen up my legs from lunges. I also walked quite a bit today, so that’s good enough for me.

Meals on the Go

Before I started cooking more frequently, I always thought I didn’t have enough time to feed myself healthy foods, so I’d eat out a lot. This is a pretty big misconception because there are so many meals that can be whipped together in less than ten minutes. These meals can often be made even faster with the help of convenience foods in the grocery store. It helps if you don’t mind eating lots of leftovers because you can make enough food for a week of lunches.

One of my favorite meals to make for the week is stir-fry with brown rice or couscous. The beautiful thing about stir-fry is that there really isn’t a “right” way to make it, so you can just toss in whatever you like. Here’s my standard recipe along with some time-saving tips.

Quick Stir-Fry

Ingredients:

- brown rice or couscous [I buy the 10 minute boil-in-the-bag brown rice or Near East brand couscous that cooks in 5 minutes]
- protein [rotisserie chicken, tofu, fully cooked chicken sausage, your choice]
- veggies [pre-packaged stir-fry mix, frozen stir-fry mix, or steam-in-a-bag veggies if you're REALLY pressed for time]
- light soy or stir-fry sauce
- seasonings [I stick with garlic powder, black pepper, and add in some Sriracha]

Directions:

1) Get your grain of choice cooking so that it’s done when you finish the stir-fry.
2) Cut up your protein and throw it in the wok or large pan with some olive oil and season.
3) When mostly heated through/cooked, toss in your vegetables until fully cooked. If you microwave-steamed your veggies, just toss them in and go immediately to step 4.
4) Add in a little soy or stir-fry sauce to taste and stir everything together.
5) Enjoy!

 This time around, I used Near East Wild Mushroom cous cous, Archer Farms Spinach & Garlic chicken sausage, and two bags of frozen stir-fry veggies. The entire meal took me less than ten minutes to throw together, and I have lunch for an entire week. That’s a steal.

It’s getting really late, so I’ll leave you with a glimpse into the normal, everyday conversations between Thao and I while we’re at work. I found a wonderful blog post earlier today from Callie @The Wannabe Athlete written on behalf of all of us slow runners out there, and it made Thao and I feel good about ourselves.

I hope you had a great day!

Question of the Day: What’s your favorite meal when you’re short on time and want to eat healthy at home?

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