Pita Pizza & Pics

Today for lunch I had a wonderful little invention called the Pita Pizza!

Super simple concept and preparation! Inspired by Peas and Crayons and Cookie+kate.
Just make a pizza on a pita pocket! I used EVOO, herbs, mozzarella, spinach and left over chicken. 
Then cook it at 425 in a cast iron skillet for about 12 minutes and voila! A perfect personalized pizza!
I may be eating this for lunch and dinner for the next two days...or until I run out of pita bread! 

In other news, the past week has been lacking in the workout area because I sprained my ankle last weekend, a silly incident of being run over by a large man and falling into a flower bed during some weekend festivities.
This is what it looked like a couple days after:

Still very swollen and painful at that point. I had to take two days off work to help it heal. It's doing better now and closer to normal size again!
I think I will need to go easy on it for another week, but the past two days I've been able to get some great workouts in without hurting myself more.

Since I'm not a gym rat anymore, my workouts have been consisting of a lot of plyometrics and compound moves to work my muscles and get some cardio. But with a sprained ankle, the plyo part has been difficult because jumping on a weak ankle doesn't seem like the most productive thing for the healing process.
I've been making due and today managed some burpees again!

I'll post more about my "recovery" workouts soon, but I wanted to post a couple progress pics now that I've been done with Jamie Eason's 12 week program for about 6 weeks and on my own, doing mostly at-home-workouts.

 (May 19, 2012)

Yes, I do have motivational/inspirational quotes on my mirror!

 (and please excuse my messy bed!)

I can definitely see some improvements from what my arms looked like in February! 

That makes me very happy :)

What do you like on personalized pizzas?

Have you ever sprained your ankle? What did you do to recover well?

WIAW...err, Friday?

I was suppose to post this on Wednesday, but that was the night that my boyfriend got into town and I've hardly touched my computer since! So, it's time for another What I Ate Wednesday, except, I'm going to call it a "What I Ate Friday" this week ;) AND I actually remembered to take pictures of *most* of what I ate Tuesday!

Of course, I didn't remember until I made a mid-morning snack, but breakfast was nothing special, just two eggs and a bowl of oatmeal.
But for a snack, I had a delicious triple berry and spinach smoothie!

Since the boyfriend is moving in this week, he gave me all of the food in his fridge, which happened to include a bunch of frozen berries! I actually had a smoothie for my morning snack as well as for my afternoon one :)

Post-workout I ate lunch:

A spinach salad with balsamic and an Ezekiel english muffin, one half with PB and honey and the other with mustard and deer summer sausage. I know, it seems like a strange combo, but I love my peanut butter and had to get some in my day!

For dinner, I made pasta, based on this recipe:

Avocado pasta! I used whole wheat noodles and added some shredded chicken to the mixture! Boy was it good!
And ridiculously filling!
Westin really liked it, I can tell this will be a favorite for a while!

That was mostly it, I guess I did have some dark chocolate in the evening as well :)

Be Flavorful!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Bars

The first three words of the title should have you intrigued! I mean, who doesn't like chocolate and peanut butter together?! I guess if you were allergic to peanuts you wouldn't...but that's beside the point, these bars are delicious!

I adapted this recipe just slightly from =Protein Pow(der). It's a great blog that has SO many recipes for any and all types of protein powder...and they all look so delicious!

Here's what you need:
1 1/2 cups chocolate protein powder
3/4 cup oat flour (ground oats)
1/4 cup peanut butter + 2 Tbsp
1/8 cup coconut flakes (unsweetened)
1/2 cup milk
dark chocolate bar

Mix everything together with a fork/spatula and press into a 3x9 baking pan and place in the freezer for about 20 minutes.

**Update: I forgot to mention that the extra 2Tbsp PB are to spread over the top of the pressed down mixture...because I love me some peanut butter! :)

For easy clean up, put down wax or parchment paper to prevent the mixture from sticking. Then take them out and cut them into 6 bars. Melt some of the chocolate bar on the stove, about 1/3 of the bar. When it's all melty, you can either dip the bars into the pan, or use a spatula and "paint" on the chocolate.
Place the chocolate covered bars on a wax paper lined baking sheet and place back in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. Then wrap individually and store in the freezer.

These bars are super delicious and taste like desert because of the chocolate covering!

These are the types of protein and peanut butter I used, in case you're curious:

MyoFusion is an okay protein, it has a good flavor, but after 5lbs of it I'm pretty tired of the same old thing! I do have to say that earth balance's coconut and peanut spread is the BEST peanut butter EVER!! I normally get freshly ground peanut butter from Vitamin Cottage, but this stuff is just to die for. It has a wonderful blend of coconut flavor to compliment the peanut butter.

I'm drooling just thinking about it right now...

Enjoy!

Full body workout and protein pudding

Once again, it's been a while since I've posted, but today I have not just a recipe (it's a delicious one too!), but I also have a full body at home workout!

School has ended and so has my gym membership, so I decided to try more at home workouts for a while to see if I like it. I can always get a gym membership somewhere else in town, but working out at home can save some money and I'm hoping it will change up my normal routine. This first week without a gym has been kind of frustrating because I want to actually lift weights and continue to get stonger, but I only have a 10lb medicine ball at home. I ordered some resistance bands online this week and I'm excited for them to get here so I can have more...resistance in my training! I do have to say that just in the past week, I have really improved with pushups, which is very exciting!

Even though there's been some hard feelings about not being able to lift heavy, I have come up with some great circuits and HIIT workouts, today's circuit was especially brutal.

4 rounds:
-10 rep: walkout plank with pushup
-20 rep: alternating single leg v-ups
-12 rep: chair dips
-6 rep each leg: single leg burpees
-20 rep: frog squats
-15 rep each leg: lunge hold with med ball twist

Including the 2 or so minute break I took between rounds, the whole workout took about 45 minutes and by the last set of burpees, my arms were pretty shot! This workout was also kinda tough on my wrists, so in the 4th round, I had to be mindful of keeping my fingers spread wide to support my wrists.

Afterward, I fueled up with some Chocolate Almond Protein Pudding!

Here's what you need:
1/2 avocado
1/2 scoop chocolate protein powder
1 Tbsp almond butter
1/2 cup+ almond milk

Blend everything in a blender and enjoy!
You'll definitely get your healthy fats in for the day with this!!

Note: You may need more almond milk, I was adding it in splashes until I got the right consistency of pudding that I wanted. You could even add more to make it a "drinkable" shake instead of pudding. This pudding isn't very sweet, so if you want it more like desert, you could add some maple syrup or honey.

OH! and I should mention that I am a college graduate now! Here's a couple pictures from my graduation :D

Thanks for reading!

Do you prefer working out at the gym or at home?

 

Ending a Chapter

Today at 10:30am, I was officially finished with my last final and finished with my college career! Wow! So much has happened in the last four years, I feel a need to recap some highlights from my time spent in college.

First, here's a pretty picture of little Durango-town, which has been my home for 3 out of the last 4 years. 

This is me and one of my very best friends, Melissa. We met my freshman year of college, she's from Arizona and had never seen a heavy snow storm until moving to Durango!

My sophomore year: camping in between Durango and Silverton.

During the winter me and my roommate, Vanessa, ingeniously heated up cookies on our space-heater :)

Also during my sophomore year, I visited my best childhood friend, Angela, in LA for spring break. Here we are playing frisbee on the beach in March!

Then I was lucky enough to spend my junior year in Spain. The picture above is from La Rioja region of the Basque country. 

The faithful gang on Halloween in Vitoria, Spain.

Here's me and my mom in Granada, Spain, where I spent my second semester. Above us is the famous Alhambra Palace. 

My two best girls, Colleen and Olivia, and me on the beach in Lagos, Portugal. One of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. 

Last but not least, Westin and me at the top of Hogsback in Durango during my senior year. 

It's been the best experience of my life to go to college! I have met lifelong friends, traveled across the world and learned so much, not only in school, but about myself!



Thanks for reading!

Catching up

It's been a while since I've posted anything...eerrr, sorry about that! Last week was pretty hectic with school; I had papers to finish and books to read. But it's all (almost) coming to an end! I have one more test tomorrow and then I'm free from college for as long as I wish! :) It's exciting and strange! The past four years have gone by a lot faster than I thought they would and especially these last two feel like they've flown by.
Graduation is just a few short days away and then the days of full-time work begin :) As if school isn't full-time work!

I meant to continue with a WIAW post this past week, but Wednesday turned out to be my busiest day of the week and it just didn't happen. So I'm gonna share a whole bunch of pictures today of the fun, in the sun, I had this weekend and some of my daily eats.

A couple days this past week I made some protein pancakes with a side of PR2 and some frozen berries that I heated up and mashed to make a sticky, chunky, fruity syrup. Super filling breakfast!

I've been snacking on Kind bars and am LOVING them! My favorite so far is Coconut and Almond, it tastes just like an Almond Joy, minus the chocolate...but surprisingly, I didn't even miss the chocolate. That's when you know it's good!

  Tuna has been on my plate, or in my bowl, a lot lately. For one, I love tuna! And two, it's so inexpensive and ridiculously filling. Best bang for your buck! Here I had a salad and topped it with tuna mixed with fresh salsa and a little lemon juice.

As you can see I've been eating while doing homework a lot! This was a delicious bowl of black beans and rice with cheese, seasoned well with garlic and cumin :)

The weather has been unseasonably warm in Southwestern Colorado and it has been nice to be able to break out my bike and use it for errands and joyrides. As you can see, the trees are blooming beautifully and the bike path smelled so sweetly of spring!


What's your favorite part of spring?

 

WIAW Birthday Edition

I'm back for another What I Ate Tuesday Wednesday! This post happens to be special because it was my birthday yesterday! The big 22! :) I was unfortunately really terrible at taking pictures of what I ate, so I'm sorry that it's going to be lacking in photos!

As usual, I started my morning off with a protein shake and some fruit, an apple, before I hit the gym.
Then after my shoulder circuit + cardio, I ate a small bowl of peanut butter and banana oatmeal and 2 eggs.

For my morning snack, I cheated a bit (it was my birthday!) and ate a raspberry-cornmeal muffin from a local bakery...I totally forgot to take a picture, but it was oh so good!

Lunch was a taco salad of sorts.

Mixed greens with rice, ground beef and some cheese with EVOO and hot sauce for dressing...yummy!

Once again, I didn't take a picture of my afternoon snack, but it was trail mix. I don't buy trail mix very often and it seems like I always forget why I don't buy it...it's because it's so addicting!! It's hard to just have 1 handful of trail mix, almost impossible actually.

Then I was also a bad kid and didn't take a picture of my b-day dinner. I went out with some friends to a mexican restaurant for Taco Tuesday! $2 tacos is a hard deal to beat! I had two carne asada tacos in corn tortillas.
Of course birthday dessert came next and they brought me the most ridiculous dessert ever! A sopapillla filled with ice cream and topped with strawberry sauce! I should've taken a picture of that monster! It was soo good!
With all the sugar in me, I was definitely not hungry the rest of the night!

And that was my WIAW...I will admit, I lacked in the veggie department yesterday, oops! Gonna have to make up for that one today!



 

I would also like to share a couple items I received for my birthday. Since I was home a little over a week ago, my mom gave me my presents then, one of them being a metal necklace that says "In dog we trust" on one side and the other had a cut out of a dog. It's so cute!

She also gave me some "prayer" flags, but they aren't actually the Tibetan prayer flags, they are from a local artist and each flag has a different picture relating to gardening and summer!

   

This one's my favorite:

How cute is that?! :)

Then yesterday, I had flowers delivered to me by my thoughtful boyfriend!

They are so pretty and perfect for spring! Good job, babe!

And since we live in different parts of the state, he send a little note saying he wished he could be with me :) (awwww!)

That's all for today! Thanks for reading!