Change of Plans

I was all set to make "Son-of-a-Gun Stew" (which is essentially jambalaya) for dinner tonight, and when I went to whip it together, realized that it called for six hours in the slow-cooker.

Epic fail.

So, I opted for Wednesday's dinner tonight: The Pesto Résistance.  (I feel like the name needs to be said with a flourish - like, I'm whisking my cape over my shoulder.)

I sauteed half a cup of chopped walnuts in a tablespoon of EVOO, threw in some garlic, spinach, and basil, and tossed it with four ounces of whole-wheat spaghetti, topped with one tablespoon of mozzarella.  It was so delish - and über filling.

But look at us getting ahead of ourselves!  I started off the morning with the Artery Aid smoothie: two ounces of low-fat vanilla yogurt, two tablespoons of ground flaxseed, one cup frozen peaches, and agave nectar to taste.  However, I had to add a bit of skim milk because I could not, for the life of me, get the darn thing to blend.

My morning snack was a Chobani and four strawberries, which tided me over until lunch when I had the rest of my "Pineapple Delight" from last night in a whole-wheat tortilla.  I had my afternoon snack fairly late so that I would be full of energy for my workout: celery with edamame hummus (thank you, TJ's!) and a hard-boiled egg.

Boot camp today was kind of boring.  We had five stations and rotated through them every 25 seconds.  The first stop was kickboxing: throwing punches and kicks on the bags.  The second station was a sit-up/jumping Jack pyramid.  The third and fourth station were related: one partner held out her hands while the other partner cross-punched them and hit the floor for a half-burpee and repeated; while the second partner was in the down portion of the burpee, the standing partner swung each of her legs over the other's head.  The final station was a three-way burpee: go down in burpee stance, bring knees to chest, and then throw legs out to either side.  The first one or two were not too hard, but holy smokes: the next few were tough.  I really didn't feel like I got a wonderful workout, but I was drenched in sweat, and now I'm über sore - especially my shoulders.  Apparently the coaches know what they're doing.  :)

Last night I talked to my brother for quite a while on the phone, and it was really, really nice.  I miss him a ton.  Anyway, he's pretty much a fitness and nutrition god, so he was really excited to hear about my new ventures and then offered me some advice.  One thing I'm going to start doing is similar to what I've done in the past: logging exact amounts of proteins, carbs (fiber and sugar), fat (saturated, trans fat, and unsaturated), and overall calories.  I'm still going to eat what I'm eating and do what I'm doing, but it'll be interesting to see the actual breakdown.

And now, I'm off to bed.  I grabbed a couple of new books at Barnes & Noble this evening, but I'm not sure I can even stay awake long enough to dive into them.  I'm wiped.

Night, y'all!