Big Hills and a Pea Protein Smoothie

My sister-in-law lives at the bottom of a pretty big hill. Today she took us with her on the route she takes to decompress after a long day at work. At the top of the hill we could see all the way down the Pioneer Valley into downtown Springfield. It was a gorgeous day for walking and taking in the views.

She made us some gluten free blueberry muffins for breakfast. It's hard to eat just one of these!

For lunch I made a salad and went wish listing through the Athleta catalog. They have great stuff. 

I also made a smoothie and used one of the sample proteins sent to me by Naked Nutrition. I've never tried pea protein before. I'm not dairy free, so I mostly use whey proteins. After doing some research, I learned that whey protein is considered "complete" and pea is "incomplete." This means that whey proteins have all 9 essential amino acids and pea proteins are missing some. 

I could not detect a taste to the pea protein in my smoothie at all, although it has been described to me by others as being earthy and grainy. Naked Nutrition pea protein was smooth. Today's smoothie: frozen strawberries and blueberries, almond milk, plain yogurt, and spinach. 

Naked Nutrition proteins are made without additives, essentially stripped of chemicals. Hence the name. I like the sound of that.

Tomorrow we are off to New Hampshire to visit the girls and some friends.

What is your preferred type of protein?

Fitness Friday

This post was ready to go last Friday, but I went to a pizza party at my aunt's and forgot about it. And now we're in Massachusetts after a week in Ohio! 

If shopping counts as exercise, I've been killing it since arriving in the US!

I did however, do some actual exercising today (aka last Friday). Admittedly, it felt really good.

It was a gorgeous morning, so I took my yoga outside to enjoy the cool, clean air. My heel is still firing up when I flex my foot during downward dog, so I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. 

I took my mom's dog with me to get my brows waxed so that we could walk at the park after. She's little, but she can cover a mile pretty quickly.

My favorite thing to do (besides shopping) when we come home is to enjoy food. I know I can eat salads in China, but it's much easier to get boxed salad here and just gobble it up. 

I started and finished a new romance book about a runner. It's been a while since I read a book that fast. It was really good!

My mom made gluten free chocolate chip cookies. A couple of those with Ohio sunshine and life is good.

We arrived in Massachusetts on Marathon Monday. Booney's adoptive dad was running and we tracked his progress online, but we were super excited to get this via a text.

We got a workout yesterday digging around our stuff that's in a storage unit here. It's nice to have our things so close.

My sister-in-law always has something new-to-me and tasty in her kitchen. I'll be bringing some of this back to China with me.

We finally got our underwater camera pictures developed from our trip to the Maldives in February. 

Hope you're having a great day!!

Banana Peanut Butter Protein Bars

I'm not a fan of bananas. True story: a friend once chased me around the dorm lounge trying to make me touch the mushy fruit inside. Totally freaked me out.

Now that I'm miles away from that silly college girl, I love to use them in my homemade protein bars.

Making the protein bars was an excellent follow up to a morning climb up Nanshan mountain. It's been cold and cloudy in Shenzhen since I got back from the Maldives (yes, I love saying that!), but we made it to the top without getting rained on.

Banana Peanut Butter Protein Bars are one of my favorite homemade snacks. I haven't been making the best food choices lately, so I checked the ingredients for my recipe and figured I could still make them here in China. And they're still gluten free.

Here's my recipe:

2 cups quick cooking gluten free oats

1 cup protein powder (I use vanilla)

1/4 cup organic buckwheat flour

1 tbsp ground flaxseed

1 cup nut butter (I use almond butter)

1/4 cup honey

2 mashed ripe bananas 

1 tbsp cinnamon

Mix together. Spread about 1/2" inch thick onto cookie sheet lined with cooking-sprayed wax paper. 

Bake 350 degrees 15 min. 

Remove from wax paper. Let cool and cut.

I always have a couple right away. 

After the hike, I met mrC at the salon. He got a haircut and I got my nails done. They were seriously overdue. 

On our walk back to the apartment, I saw this scooter and now I think I want one. Except it would put a dent in my Fitbit stats. 

We didn't do the souvenir thing on our trip. We bought some incidentals: post cards, a disposable underwater camera, sunscreen. It was enough to earn a free gift and tonight we put it to use while making dinner. I love it!

Do you make your own snacks?
Souvenirs or no souvenirs when you travel?

My Accidental Run Streak

After substituting a run for my weekly hike up the mountain yesterday because of the rainy weather, I wasn't sure if I should do my normal Tuesday run or not. I was feeling good (which really means my knee) and I hate days without fitness unless I have a really, really good reason (sick or trip to some beautiful place with mrC - hint, hint).

Always up for a challenge, I went for it. Well, after waiting out some passing rain, again. Then I waited until I saw another runner out on the waterfront for a final boost of courage to actually get out the door. It was good. I paced better on this run, so the humidity did not get the better of me.

Still feeling good after my three day run streak, I took the time to go through all my post-run stretches. I think my muscles have been much happier since I truly started doing this and by default my knee has been happier.

Planking is still a challenge. I think my body is really missing my weekly SurfSet class. With a tile floor in our tiny apartment, I can't safely do HIIT workouts, so I'm on the lookout for something.

We took a trip out to a bigger international store and I found some new gluten free chips. I admit that I'm a salt freak and love something crunchy. I picked up one of each brand to try out.

Speaking of gluten free...just kidding. I did not buy any of these live crabs. It's just amazing to me to see them all lined up and spread over a table like this. Ok, and a little creepy.

My actual gluten free lunch: turkey and swiss rolls up and a salad with GF ranch dressing. The salad is one of the things that makes our trip today worth it.

Have you ever done a running streak?

Not What I Was Expecting

Ever since getting sick, I've been waking up extra early.

Today, instead of staying in bed (I'd already laid there for 30 minutes), I got up and laced up. My weather app happily reported that it was a mere 80 degrees causing me to nearly dance out the door.

I was greeted by glowing decorations that made it almost seem like Christmas.

Since I was out the door before the sun was officially up, I ran east to catch the sunrise.

I didn't think it would take me long to get to the waterfront for the best view. I've been feeling better and the weather was so nice, but I bonked. Right from the start the run was a struggle. My legs felt heavy. I couldn't find a rhythm. My breathing was off.

It happens. I didn't give up though (although I wanted to...many times). It wasn't easy. I didn't have a partner to pull me along, but I kept going and finished the route that I had planned.

At home I did some planking. My left side is noticeably weaker than my right.

For breakfast I was super excited to try some GF tortillas and make cheesy scrambled eggs with sausage wraps. I used to buy Udi's gluten free bread in the US to make toast sometimes and it was delicious.

It did not turn out the way I expected. I first tried it as an on-the-go wrap (no heating). It basically fell apart when I tried to fold it. So I tried again and heated one in the microwave between a damp paper towel for 20 seconds as per the instructions. Sadly it stuck to the towel in places and still ripped apart.

Sadly, it didn't taste very good either. Maybe it's a bad batch (I did buy it in China after all).


Is one side of your body stronger than the other?
Have you tried Udi's products?

The Sick Zone

For the past few days our apartment has been a sick zone and it felt like all I could do was empty tissue boxes.

My attempt to rid myself of my cold on Thursday with a run did not work. In fact I ended up losing my voice and taking two more days of mostly rest. Maybe what I needed was an IGP.

I took a walk on Friday morning to test my energy level (so low I decided to skip Pilates), but I did enjoy the sights on the walk.

Beyond daily planking, the only other thing I did was bake. I finally had all the ingredients to make Buffalo Chicken Quinoa (recipe here), one of my all time favorite meals (and gluten free).

Today I woke feeling like my cold had taken a turn and all I could think about was running. All the virtual cheering I did for my ZOOMA friends who ran the Cape Cod race really had me itching to go.

To make sure I didn't do too much, I ran intervals. It was a much better run than my last one:
1. I was feeling better
2. the weather was cooler
3. it was earlier (no sun).

Before I knew it, I had run nearly 4 miles.

I'm going to take it easy the rest of the day and share this little video of an epic sendoff my old school gave to a student (link).

1,200 high school students and staff come together to give a 21-year-old student aging out of the special-ed program an epic, sweet sendoff.
Posted by ABC News on Friday, September 25, 2015

I love GOOD news like this. Let's keep it going. Tell me something you've seen or heard recently!

Sniffles, Smoothies, and some Running

I came home from my #treadmilltuesday progression run feeling all happy and then went down with a head cold.

SNAP!

Just like that I was drinking Emergen-C, skipping Wednesday yoga, and sipping smoothies because my throat felt like it was on fire!

I literally spent the day sleeping and watching episodes from season 1 of The Good Wife. Good show. I don't know why I didn't watch it before.

I woke up today feeling a bit better, definitely not sick enough to miss SWIC running group. Plus, I thought it would help to sweat a little. I should have looked more closely at the weather app. That feel like temperature is a killer. And the sun...I struggled.

So yes, it was a very tough run. Heat, humidity, and a head cold. And it's good that I went because it was only two of us today. Ironically, two New Englanders running in China :)

Post run and planking, I went for a nice cold smoothie. Main ingredients today: blueberries, raspberries, almond milk, protein, flaxseed, kale and greek yogurt. With a side of GF Rice Chex. I finally got my hands on some. It's only the second time I've seen it sold here, so I bought two boxes. I love munching on them.

I spent the rest of the day using up all the kleenex in the apartment while wish-listing for some new gear.

Loving these long roga shorts...good for running, but great for hiking too.

and these chi extra long tanks...any color would be ok.

How does a cold affect your fitness?
Favorite smoothie ingredients or snack?