A New Goal & Recipes

Hello ladies!  Happy Monday!  Have you worked out?  No?  Me neither.  I believe I'm going to start this day with a nap.  The Olympics took a lot out of me.  I'm a trained night owl, and I can function as such, but really I adore sleep, and 12 AM is too late for me on a regular basis.

Saturday I ran 3 miles.  I'll be honest; It hurt.  I came home and did the 5 Tibetans.  I really cannot spin any longer.  My poor old brain gets addled.  I did each move 21 times, or at least close to it.  All I can say is, I did it.  Maybe if I can memorize the moves and the sequence I won't have to open my eyes and break my concentration so much just to follow the video.  Perhaps then I will love the 5 Tibetans.  Perhaps not.

Then I did two 10 minute Tara Stiles yoga workouts from YouTube.  One was flexibility, and the other was hip flexibility.  It felt so great!  I love the faster pace and the fact that if there's music it's so subtle that it doesn't distract.  My new goal?  Doing the splits.  Seriously.  Awesome.  Check back in...a while.

I learned a long time ago that women carry their stress in their hips.  Not kidding.  So any type of move that loosens your hips (husbands are going to love that one) and stretches your core will help you feel less stressed.  It helped me Saturday; the change in my mood was almost immediate and my body felt so good the rest of the day.  This morning I can feel the tightness creeping back in.  I must loosen my hips more today. :)

And finally here are a couple recipes that I tried recently that turned out well, and I promised to post.

I've been looking for a healthy granola bar recipe for a while, one that doesn't turn into granola, all crumbly and dry, and I found one!

This is the link.  This is the recipe:

Soft and Chewy Granola Bars Recipe

 

 

Why we love this recipe. These granola bars are so much better than what you can by at the store, especially since you can substitute for your favorite dried fruit or nuts.

What you need to know. While these are very simple to make, there is a 2-hour wait for the bars to firm up enough to cut. Feel free to add your favorite dried fruit, nuts or chocolate to these – it’s completely up to you. Since we use a 1/3 cup of honey, we like to splurge on higher quality honey. 

Created By: Joanne and Adam Gallagher

Yield: 12

You Will Need

• 2 1/2 cups (230 grams) old fashioned rolled oats
• 1/2 cup (80 grams) whole almonds, coarsely chopped
• 1/3 cup (113 grams) honey
• 1/4 cup (56 grams) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1/4 cup (50 grams) packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup (60 grams) dried cranberries, coarsely chopped
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (67 grams) mini chocolate chips

Directions

Prepare Oven and Pan

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C). Line bottom and sides of a 8-inch or 9-inch square pan with aluminum foil. Then lightly oil or spray with cooking spray.

Toast Oats and Nuts

1. Add oats and almonds to a small baking sheet then bake 5 minutes, stir and bake another 3 to 5 minutes until lightly toasted. Transfer to a large bowl.

Prepare Granola Bars

1. Combine butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla extract and the salt in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally until butter melts and the sugar completely dissolves.
2. Pour butter mixture in to bowl with toasted oats and almonds. Mix well. Let cool about 5 minutes then add cranberries and a 1/4 cup of the mini chocolate chips. Stir to combine. (The chocolate chips will most likely melt a little. This is fine, they turn into glue and help to hold the bars together).

I free-formed this recipe.  My typical problem is that there is never enough moisture.  So I added a couple tablespoons of tahini paste (ground sesame seeds) or you could add the same amount of peanut or almond butter.  I added another tablespoon of butter, and threw in some raw quinoa, flax seed meal, chia seeds, and sunflower seeds, all these ingredients adding up to about 1/2 a cup total.  Thus the necessity of the added moisture.  

NOTE: LET THE BUTTER MIXTURE COOL OUT OF THE PAN FOR THE RECOMMENDED 5 MINUTES.  Being totally impatient and wanting a snack 10 minutes ago, I did not wait, and ended up with my chocolate bits being nearly totally melted.  Which wasn't totally bad because it is still chocolate and it was added glue, as the recipe states.  Obviously I did not read past "stir to combine".  But I would have liked some chunks of chocolate.

That being said, these were absolutely delicious!  They felt rough and chewy, sweet and salty, complex and satisfying all the way from smelling to being in my tummy.  I made them in a 9x9 pan and cut them into 25 1.5" cubes.  If you put them in a 9x13 you could make them more bar-shaped.  I was tickled with the cubes.  Delicious.

Second Recipe: Mashed potato waffles, from Joy the Baker.  Super delicious, moist and yummy.  I cut the butter out ('cause I'm crazy like that) and reduced the cheese melted on top to a few sparse shreds.  They were super fab.  Everyone enjoyed, and they were more vegetable than white flour.  I've seen and made variations using sweet potatoes (yams). These are delicious and orange so they have more vitamins, which makes them a better substitution.

Have an awesome day, and work in a workout in some way or another!!

Day 2.6: Stretch Yourself

Does anyone have a Christmas party today?  Did you have one yesterday?  Our first one is tonight.  This side of my family hasn't gotten together in a few years.  It should be fun!

Stretch yourself.  Literally.  I mean it.  Stretch.  With the discussion about age yesterday, I remembered that stretching and being flexible reduces your "true age".  In other words, it keeps you young.  Yay for youth!

First thing about stretching: never stretch cold.  Do not static (stationary) stretch before you run or do other aerobic activity, but warm up with dynamic (moving/swinging) stretching.  Only stretch warm muscles.  A study I read showed that static stretching prior to running increased injury risk and provided no benefits to the overall run. Dynamic warm up stretching was beneficial.

See this article: http://www.livestrong.com/article/462832-should-stretch-cold-muscles/, and this one: http://www.runnersworld.com/the-starting-line/should-i-stretch-before-or-after-my-runs

A good place to start is to stretch for 10 minutes after you work out, holding each stretch for 30-60 seconds.

Here's a chart of basic stretches:

This fall when I started running more, I was getting really tight in my hips, and my IT band started giving me trouble.  I did some research and found this stretch routine, called the "Cannon Ball".  Doing this immediately after my run really loosened me up and felt great, even improving how my foot felt (plantar fasciitis).  Here's the link:  http://vimeo.com/4498054.

Second, practice some yoga.  I love p90x yoga x.  It is 90 minutes: 45 minutes of yoga & 45 minutes of comprehensive stretching, and it feels sooooo good.  I don't often have 90 minutes of attention span for indoor workouts, but when I do, my body is happy.  In the p90x program you do this once per week.  It's a doozie.

Here is a chart for a good short, beginners yoga routine:

Third is a You Tube channel that I found: Tara Stiles Yoga on You Tube.  Once you get over the sheer spectacle of her spidery spaghetti noodle-like body, admire her strength and flexibility.  A former model and ballerina (of course), she has been practicing yoga since high school, which means she's fully gumbi.   Her goal is to make yoga and its benefits more accessible to everyone.  She has short videos to teach you sequences, in varying difficulties.  She's very pleasant to listen to, and I don't find her weirdly zen, just normal.  Check out her channel and do some wandering to find something you might like to try on these snowy cold days:  https://www.youtube.com/user/TaraStilesYoga.

Yoga can help you in many ways.  This article (http://www.yogajournal.com/health/1634) give us 38.  Yes, 38 benefits to doing yoga.  Don't snore, just read the highlights, then read details if you're interested.  When you are sick, as we are all bound to be sometime this winter, yoga is a great exercise to do.  Yoga is also great for pregnant women, and there are many yoga routines that are low impact and beneficial for you and baby.

Watch the snow fall, find peace and center yourself today by doing some satisfying yoga.

Stretch Yourself!