Fall Flavors

CultureMap Column:

Please hop over to CultureMap to see my latest column called “Shedding the Exercise and Eating Right Excuses.”

Marie Claire Article:

The magazine just published an article called “The Hunger Diaries” about popular food bloggers and their distorted relationship with food and exercise. Link here. As a new-ish food blogger that reads all of these blogs daily, the article is a little…off. These girls have thousands of followers and readers and inspire people to change their lifestyles for the better through their daily posts. They act as trendsetters and role models while the article portrays them as obsessive food and exercise fanatics. You can go read the article and go to their sites, or any site similar to mine, and see that blogging is a positive hobby to learn more about fitness and food and share our stories with the blogging community and our readers.

A great outdoor run:

The temperatures have dropped, and I couldn’t be happier about that! The Dallas Half Marathon is 9 weeks away, and it’s time to pick up the pace outside. I have a rough outline to train with, and find it helpful to also keep track of all my workouts and how I feel at the end of each week. On Saturday, I went to Memorial Park with a goal of 6 miles, about two laps around the park. The weather was in the low 70s with lots of sunshine, so it was still a hot and sweaty run. I jogged the whole thing without walking breaks. My pace is really slow, and I really don’t know how to go faster for an extended amount of time, so I’m just working on distance for this race. No major aches or pains, but by the end, I was ready to stop. When I go longer than 6 miles, I know I’ll need some kind of fuel, and I have Clif Shot Blocks ready to try. And 6 miles is about when I’ll need a water bottle refill. So that will be interesting to figure all that out.

Before I left, I decided to split breakfast in two parts. I had one slice wheat bread with peanut butter and half a banana, and then when I got home, I had the same thing again. Loved this idea, and then ate lunch a little later which is fine for the weekend since dinner is later too.

Then on Sunday, I spent some time in the gym cross-training and stretching. I think I have weak hip flexors because I always have right hip pain, so I’ve been focusing on upper leg exercises and stretches that will hopefully help. One gym machine I’m loving is the adductor/abductor one. It makes my adductor muscles very sore, which means I need to work on those muscles.

Fall Food Flavors:

I’ve mentioned before how much I love the cooler weather, and this year has made me realize that Fall is truly my favorite season. After a long, hot summer, the cooler temperatures feel amazing. And I love Fall holidays, changing the wardrobe, the colors, and getting ready for Winter! The leaves don’t change too much here, but I like looking at pictures of places where the trees are so pretty.

In the spirit of the season, I got out the canned pumpkin for breakfast. This is a first for me, and it will come back again soon!

In the mix:

• 1 cup (5 oz) Chobani Vanilla yogurt
• Fiber One
• Kashi Cinnamon Harvest
• ~1/4 C Libby’s canned pumpkin

This was really delicious, and pumpkin was a nice addition! I used the can of pumpkin for some muffins you’ll see tomorrow, and still had some leftover after that, so the remainder went in the refrigerator for more breakfasts.

And then I had this pretty dinner: Grilled cheese!

Fact: I did not make my own grilled cheese. I don’t really know how to make grilled cheese, so Jeffrey made it for me.

Ingredients:

• 2 slices Nature’s Pride Whole Grain Healthy bread
• few slices cheddar cheese, thinly sliced
• 1 small tomato

Instructions: (in case you don’t know like me, I watched)

• butter the pan, butter one side of each slice of bread
• place cheese and tomatoes on bread
• place in hot pan and let cook until brown on bottom. Flip, cook again. Apply pressure to melt the cheese.
• Yummy.

I had mine with an apple. I really wanted to cook the apple inside the sandwich, but didn’t want to try anything crazy this time.