Update and a recipe!

Yesterday was probably my best day, eating-wise in quite a while. I packed my lunch on Sunday night, and wrote everything into my tracker, so yesterday was easy. I got home and made myself some mini pizzas on sandwich thins, with a spoonful of tomato sauce, some turkey pepperoni, fresh basil leaves and mozzarella cheese. They were yummy!

While I had planned on it, I ended up deciding not to do my water class last night, so I instead popped a movie into the dvd player, and jogged in place in my living room. The cool part was that I walked for the first 5 minutes at a faster pace, about 120 steps per minute, and then jogged for 30 minutes at a 180 step per minute pace. The cool part is that this is much faster than I used to go. It’s my slog (slow jog), but it’s still a jog. And I definitely felt the muscles working. After I finished, I got out my resistance band, and discovered 2 new exercises I can do for my arms, while sitting.

I held the handles in both hands, and wrapped the band around my feet (which were straight out, and did bicep curls, which worked! It was some serious work, and my arms definitely got a workout. (This is especially good because the ex-roommie took the weights with her. They were hers, although I was the only one who used them for the last 3 years, but now I am weightless. LOL) Anyways, the other exercise I had the band wrapped around my feet again, but I had the handles crossed in front of me. The awesome part of this exercise is that when I row my arms, I have to use my leg muscles to keep the resistance up, because the band tries to pull the legs together.

While I know I got a great workout last night, I’m not sore at all. Again, it’s like yesterday, where I can feel the muscles work when I move them, but there’s really no soreness. Hopefully the water I drank after working out last night helped dissipate any soreness that might have remained. I really feel like I’m this close to being completely back on track. I still have to work on my diet, but the exercise part is finally starting to fall into place again. In the last 9 days, I’ve exercised 6 times. YAY!

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this, but I found a recipe on-line for Larabar lookalikes, that you can make at home. While they can be high(er) in calories for a snack bar, they are all natural, and completely good for you. Mine were two points each, but you can adjust the quantity, etc., as much as you want to. I threw together some dates and dried apricots into my wonderful food processor and processed the crap out of them until they pretty much balled up into one big ball. Then I put it into a bowl and added cashews to the processor until they were almost powder. Then I mixed them together, and weighed them on my scale, so I could take off pieces to roll into a ball, that would be a measured calorie count. I made them 2 points each, which was perfect for a snack.

This recipe came from the Enlightened Cooking website. Oops, I tried to add in the hyperlink and it wouldn't let me. If you use that wonderful thing called google, just put in "Enlightened cooking" and "Larabars". It'll bring it right up. Here it is.

VERY CHERRY BARS (use as a template for almost any combination)
LARA BARS use a multi-layer package that keeps out UV light and oxygen, which, in turn, maintains freshness without the use of preservatives. I use plain old plastic wrap and my refrigerator, then pop one in my bag when I’m ready to go.
¼ C. roughly chopped dates (not pre-chopped)
¼ C. dried cherries or dried cranberries
1/3 C. whole pecans, almonds or walnuts
1/8 tsp. cinnamon
Set out two pieces of plastic wrap for shaping and wrapping the bars. Do this first; you’ll have sticky fingers when you need it. (I actually just made them into balls and put them into a storage container in the fridge.) Place the dates and cherries in a food processor. Pulse until processed to a paste. Transfer paste to a medium bowl (don’t clean processor).

Add the nuts to the processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add the nuts, along with the cinnamon, to the bowl with the fruit paste. Use your fingers to knead the nuts into the paste (just keep squishing, it’ll happen).

Divide mixture in half. Place each half on each of one of the sheets of plastic wrap. Wrap the plastic around each bar and start squishing into a bar shape form, 3 and 1/2 inches long, 1 inch wide and 3/4-inch thick); press against countertop to flatten bottom side, flattening top side and ends with flat of hand. Tightly wrap the plastic around each bar and store in the refrigerator. Makes 2 bars.

Nutrition per Serving (1 bar): Calories 207; Fat 9.4 g (sat .8g, mono 5.2g, poly 3.1g); Protein 3.9g; Cholesterol 0mg; Carbohydrate 24.9g; Sodium 0.4mg.

On her blog, there are a whole slew of ideas of different combinations. It’s totally worth the short time it takes to make them, and saves you money. The bars usually sell for around $1.99 but if you get the dates, etc., in bulk, the homemade ones can be around $0.50, or less, like mine were.