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Showing posts from July, 2013

Favorite Things - Summer Edition

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Here are a few things that every time I use them I think "Wow, this is totally great!"  I thought I would share them with you - AND - I would love the inside track on what you consider some of your favorite things. Continuous spray sunscreen!   I am a simple girl, and I don't usually buy into the latest and greatest thing.  In fact I am about 90 years old at heart.  If I haven't been using it "forever" then it's not worth the extra bucks to try.  Well, I was wrong about this one! One of my daycare clients brought a can of this to use on her little one and now it's ALL we buy for the kiddos.  My favorite sunscreen isn't available in the continuous spray (yet).  I love how well it covers and how FAST it goes on.  I am running around after the kids and spraying it on at the same time!  Oh, I'm gettin good... Yes, it's a multi-tool.  After using David's several times off of his bike, I asked for my own.  They are SO

I Be the (wo)Man with the Plan

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Another great way to keep costs down when feeding your family is to meal plan.  I have been collecting recipes for years from places like SavingDinner , Cooking Light Magazine, and friends and family.  Each week I sit down on Friday and plan 6 suppers to have during the following week.  I shop on Friday evenings to ensure that I have all of the ingredients on hand. I don't bother planning around weekly sale ads.  My sale shopping is usually done in bulk, like when frozen vegetables or pasta or cheese goes on sale, I buy 20-30 units.  We have about 15 recipes that I rotate over and over with 5 new ones from magazines or pintrest or whatever thrown in there each month. I won't lie to you.  I really hate doing the meal planning.  And the shopping.  But I love the cooking.  And I love being able to write on the board what we are having for dinner each night. This week we will have chicken, ground buffalo, tofu, and turkey kielbasa.  The ground buffalo came from a friend - now

Ways to Eat Well When You're Broke

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One of the saddest statistics about obesity in the United States is that it is very closely tied to poverty .  The availability and relative low cost per calorie of fast and packaged foods translate to folks with limited income doing what they can to keep from being hungry, but winding up being malnourished. It's a crazy phenomena that a person can be 50lbs overweight and be considered deficient.  But when a person consumes a diet high in salt, sugar and fat, and one low in vitamins and minerals what you get is a body that stores excess calories as adipose tissue, yet remains in a state of hunger in an attempt to get the missing nutrients.  A cycle of over eating continues. There are a lot of different schools of thought regarding nutrition.  Low-carb, low-fat, Paleo, Vegan, and the like.  But for our purposes, we will assume a balanced diet.  One that includes 5+ servings of fruits and vegetables as the base, with a rotating feature of wheat, rice and quinoa as grains and me

Buckets of Sweat

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Do you know your sweat rate ?  Walking, running, and biking outside in the heat of summer takes special care.  Knowing the amount that you sweat (and need to drink to replenish) in certain training conditions throughout the year is good info. After a very sweaty run. As for me.  I sweat.  A LOT.  I'll tell you a little known secret...I actually wear Men's antiperspirant because I sweat buckets just day-to-day living.  I've tried all the "clinical strength" ones for women.  Nope.  I need one strong enough for a man and made for one, to. I know that I'm a sweaty beast, so I try to stay hydrated and just drink as much as I can without sloshing when I run and bike.  I've wondered if maybe I shouldn't be eating some salt tablets on runs and bikes over an hour or so.  I'm not a Gatorade drinker, usually.  Too many calories for shorter rides/runs. For giggles, I measured my sweat rate tonight.  It's fairly un-scientific.  Weight before, run

Wednesday

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Training today consisted of a lovely weight training session for the biceps, latissimus dorsi and trapezius muscles this morning and a fantastic, but short, 1500 yard swim this evening.   My swim was a little slow, but I trained a little heavier this morning for my back.  I'm on a muscle building mission.  Muscle burns calories, friends.  My husband laughs at my reasoning...I want to eat more. :)  More muscle means more calorie burn means I get to eat more. Simple. The rest of my day was largely uneventful.  I cleaned house and burned up the vacuum.  I made bread and forgot to cut it.  I cleaned up the toy room like 3 stinking times.  Picked a couple more zucchini, ate some beautiful cinnamon and brown sugar Pop-Tarts for a snack (shh...), grilled and picnic'd for supper and had a pretty okay day. Praying for a couple of ladies that aren't feeling too good.  Even with all the crap that my back gives me, I'm sill in pretty good health.  And even when it&

Weights, Gardening, Kids and a Swim

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  Hello, Monday.  I liked you about as much as I normally do, today.  Our 4 year old son woke us up hollering his little head off at about 4:15 this morning.  He had a question.  Uh-huh.  So after my adrenaline was all charged up (and I answered the stinking question), I was unable to fall back asleep.   My husband gets up at 4:30 to ride his bicycle to work.  I laid around and tried to worry my brains out about money, but decided a better use of my time would be here:     The pain cave.   Today was leg day - and I experimented with listening to music instead of watching Star Trek.  I felt like my time was more "my own" when I had the headphones on.  I don't know...for what its worth, I had a good hour of leg and ab goodness.   I finally figured the banking for the month - and if I keep squeezing these here stones, everything will be fine.  :o)  Ha, ha...yeah, things are tough all over, right?  Me and my whining.  Won't get me anywhere.  As a r

The Lincoln Mile

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Susan participated in her very first race today! The Lincoln Mile is a timed, one mile race through Campus in downtown Lincoln.  David ran with Susan and they had a blast! Susan and Mom before the race. Fun with the parking meter. Time to RUN! My little buddy waited patiently for sis. A great race and a strong finish! She races for cookies. :)  Smart kid!  I was so incredibly proud of her! I almost cried when they came in to finish and the announcer read her name over the speaker.  Silly, right?  Well, she's my baby girlie and I can be silly if I wanna. The race was super well organized, as always, and the Lincoln Track Club did a stupendous job of honoring every runner of every age and ability.  This was another run in the Kids Grand Prix.  As an additional event with the adult runs, they organize a kids fun run on about 7 events through the season.  The kids even get a prize at the end.  Yay! As for my training - I was pretty pooped today.  I

Looking Ahead

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I finished up the second brick workout of training and my body is rebelling a bit, as well it should. The bike portion was 34 miles (roughly 2 hours and change) through the bike paths of our city.  I got home, changed shoes and hat and forced myself to run 3 miles.  Seriously forced.  By the time I got off the bike it was already 11am - I know, I know, stupid.  It was at least 100 degrees outside and a thousand percent humidity.  Okay more like 80 degrees...but it felt hotter. I just cant train my legs anymore!! I am proud of myself for completing the workout.  My run was slow - but that's okay.  I was really hurting during the last mile and got some good "embrace the suck" training done.  Shutting off the little voice of doubt is way hard when the body isn't willing to comply. I can't tell you how happy I am to see that next weekend there is NO BRICK WORKOUT planned!  Thank you, coach Garmin, thank you!!  Me and my legs did cry when I looked at the n

Season Two in Triathlon

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Since the Marathon Fail, I haven't done much structured training. Or writing. Or anything but working out and feeling sorry for myself. I did start a weight training program and have stuck with that - so I haven't been doing nothing. No races, though, and not much running.  This year we had to pare back on the race entries.  It gets expensive!  When two people are involved, it gets really pricey.  So, we picked 3 events we were both really interested in and just paid for those. Last weekend, David rode in 5/500 with his brother.  And without me.  My body is a big wuss and I had a bad back flare the weeks leading up to our Century Ride.  I didn't get my training in and I didn't feel anywhere near ready to ride. And I didn't feel like it.  Frankly, I have felt pretty depressed since May.  I try to ignore it, but just last weekend I realized that I was in a pit.  I'd been digging it slowly and it was time to climb out. I made a decision