Fruit & Veggie Fail...

I saw on Clean Eating Machine the other day this break down of how many servings of fruit & veggies she had in a 3 day span. She wanted to see how many she was getting out of the recommended 9 servings a day. I thought, what a great idea since I am trying to eat better and watch my veggie and fruit intake. Well after a 3 day recording of what Iwas putting into my body (only the fruits & veggies) I realized I have a LOT of room for improvement. The sad thing is, I was making an effort to eat a fruit or veggie or both with every meal or snack. So here is the damage.


Monday Fruits / Veggies
1. Tomato
2. Asparagus
3. strawberries (in yogurt)
4. orange
5.celery
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Tuesday Fruits/Veggies
1. Strawberries
2. lettuce
3. tomato
4. radishes
5. green pepper
6. carrot
7. pear
8.
9.

Wednesday Fruits/Veggies
1. green pepper
2. tomato
3. strawberries
4. orange
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

Wednesday was a bit tough since I went down to the Tiger's game yesterday and as you can imagine there really aren't fruit and veggies at a ball park!!

How do you get in all your fruits and veggies? Do you get enough? Any suggestions on how to add more to your diet?

A day in the life...

Summer is here and with that my desire to eat healthier and workout more. So here is a snapshot into yesterday and what happened.

started off the morning by sauteing mushrooms and asparagus (fresh from my backyard!) with some garlic powder, onion powder and pepper..


added in an egg/milk combo..

and my lovely breakfast... scrambled egg with mushroom and asparagus and some yummy strawberries and grapes!

( image from Kashi.com )

I spent most of the morning researching different eating/work out plans and looking at interesting recipes long with some cleaning..

I decided to time how many crunches and push ups I could do in one minute intervals..

35 crunches and 11 push ups if you were wondering.. (boo)

HOPING that the rain would stop.. it did not..

so I had one of these delicious raspberry chocolate bars and decided....

a little rain never hurt anybody! except maybe my mp3 player that would randomly stop working when it got wet every now and then! so i popped on my hat and went out for a 1 mile run/walk

and here I am AFTER that little run/walk.. i didn't time myself because i kind of just ran out the door but i felt good.. i decided that instead of doing the couch to 5k AGAIN.. and not finishing i am going to stick with my 1 mile route and get up to being able to run it all and then move on from there...

since my summer plan is wake up, start the coffee, go for a mile walk, drink coffee / watch the news and play around on the internets, clean for awhile, go workout again, and then get ready for my day.. so along with my mile walk i will be doing something else.. either 30 day shred (when i figure out how to use the play station!) bike riding, running or inline skating.. and then what other activities i do in the afternoon with friends or hubby (hiking, walking, bike riding etc..) are bonus! since last Wednesday when i started this i am down 2 pounds! and by starting i mean after a day of work i road my bike over 2 miles, ran/walked .6 miles, jump roped and did crunches.. so here is to a healthier summer!

my lunch.. chicken salad (mixed with mayo, mustard and celery) topped with lettuce and tomato (realized all of mine were pretty much bad boo) celery on the side, some pineapple and baked southwestern ranch lays potato chips! (yummmm)

dinner.. salad (lettuce, mushrooms, carrots, asparagus, olives, celery with some Parmesan and peppercorn dressing) baked red potato with butter and some salt & pepper, applesauce and some chicken from a roasted chicken i got at the store the other day..

and what better way to end a summer night than with ice cream! a soft serve carmel with nuts from McDonald's! yummmm

So, the exercise wasn't fabulous *but it was a start* and the eating does leave room for improvement but hey I did something!

What are your favorite summertime meals? What are your favorite ways to exercise? Any suggestions??

Nashville weekend and Green Monster Update

I have so many videos and lots of pictures from Nashville. Most that the public will not see. However, I have gone through and picked a few that are appropriate to share. However, it takes a long time to upload these videos so you may be treated to Nashville videos sporadically! The pictures are from either Saturday or Sunday and the video is from Sunday evening, from a bar on Broadway in Nashville. I would have added some more video but it takes forever!

Saturday night we went to Loveless Cafe & Motel for a Southern Family Style Dinner.. my second time there was just as good as my first.. YUM. The food is good and they have a bunch of shops around that you can look at while you wait for you dinner. I will suggest the pulled pork, coleslaw, mac & cheese, potatoes and their yummy homemade rolls. I also had some sweet tea, but it really wasn't all that sweet. We got fried chicken but I am not a fan so I only had a wee bite. The boys loved it.

Saturday night we also got tickets to the Grand Ole Opry because Charlie Daniels and John Anderson were playing. Charlie Daniel's plays a mean fiddle. We also saw a lot of country singers had never heard of before that were older. We did get to see a girl debut at the Grand Ole Opry that was 16 and pretty darn good!

Charlie Daniels!




This is a clip of a guy at one of the bars on Broadway singing. For the most part we really enjoyed all the bands and singers on Broadway. Except for the jerks who wouldn't play our songs.

Also, I tried a Green Monster today and it was surprisingly good. I wasn't really leery about it and it was fine. I went with a handful of mango, a banana, a scoop of peanut butter, very little spinach because it was all frozen together and I could barely break it apart, splash of milk and some ice cubes. The hubby even tried it and kind of liked it. I think tomorrow will be more of the same. My only complaint was that it was pretty thick and kind of hard to drink through my straw. Any thoughts?

On the book front.. still plugging away on Middlesex.

On the exercise front.. the hubby and I went on a 2 mile walk tonight.

Can't wait for tomorrow's green monster adventure. Oh and I apparently cannot boil eggs successfully.

Green Monster

I know I have a lot of healthy and active readers so I felt this would be the best place to ask this question since I have been looking around the interwebs and still have questions. I want to make my first green monster in the morning, but I am trying to figure out what I should put in, and what would mix well. If not a green monster tomorrow, I am definitely in the mood to start my morning a couple days this week with a yummy smoothie.

I do not have spinach in the house, well I have frozen spinach, I should say. I have cabbage and lettuce. In other ingredients I have peanut butter, milk, yogurt, bananas, cantaloupe, frozen strawberries and fresh, frozen mango, celery, carrots, hmmm.. I think that is probably about it in terms of smoothie ingredients.. But I may be mistaken.

With having those limited options in mind.. what would you suggest? I am up for multiple choices since there are lots of days in the week to try new recipes! Is spinach a must, or can I use lettuce? What are your favorite ingredients to include in your smoothies/green monsters?

The hubby and I are in a eat healthier and get moving kick and I really don't even think a green monster will appeal to him, but I may be mistaken! I am currently hard-boiling eggs to use as protein in my salad line up for the week. Which also brings up, what are your favorite salad ingredients? At the store this week I stocked up on, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, celery, onions, radishes, strawberries (love them in salads!) orange peppers, sweet peas and I think that may be it.. Can't wait for our asparagus to come in!

Give me your salad suggestions.. They seem to be my best bet for lunches everyday and I like to change them up day to day so I don't eat the SAME salad/thing every day.

Thanks in advance.. I can't wait to hear all the ideas and will try to photograph my concoctions to share with you all.. after of course I go through my trip photos and videos eesh.. Anyone else put that stuff off and off cuz you know how much time it is going to take??