2 recipes + 2 workouts

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

I have TWO recipes and TWO workouts to share with you. All FOUR are fantastic. (I can do maths!)

First up, the recipes. Both used my favorite protein powder, Click. Seriously, I can’t get enough of the stuff. I’ve already shared an awesome cookie recipe using Click. Now if only they sold their product in Canada, I would be so much happier.

Friday, I made an awesomely yummy smoothie.

Ingredients:

1 scoop of Click
1/4 c. plain greek yogurt
1 c unsweetened almond milk
handful of blueberries
handful of strawberries

It had a wonderful combination of fruit with a kick of espresso.

My second Click recipe to share with you is a concoction of chocolatey, blueberry goodness. In the form of pancakes. Oh my god, my stomach was so happy with these.

Ingredients:

1 c flour
2 1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1 t sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 c unsweetened almond milk
1 t vanilla
1 tbsp cocoa powder
3/4 scoop Click
blueberries

For the protein frosting:

Plain greek yogurt
Unsweetened almond milk
Click protein powder

Pretty easy directions. Mix all the ingredients then portion it out into about 6 pancakes on the griddle. Place desired amount of blueberries on pancakes as first side is cooking. Stack when finished, top with protein frosting (you can play with the ratio of frosting ingredients for desired consistency), top with more blueberries and chia seeds.

SO GOOD, you guys!!

Now onto the workouts. On Friday, I wasn’t entirely in the mood to do the designated BBB workout, so I decided to whip up my own batch of goodies. I divvied it up between lower and upper body.

Lower Body (10 reps of each move, done 2x through)

Stability Ball side lunge (L)
Stability Ball side lunge (R)
Gliding reverse lunge (L)
Gliding reverse lunge (R)
Single leg squat (L)
Single leg squat (R)
Single Leg deadlift (L)
Single Leg deadlift (R)
Glute squeezes
Weighted plie squats

Upper Body (10 reps of each move, done 2x through)

Tricep Dips
Pushups
Front raise
Weighted Arm Circles
Standing overhead press/Oblique crunch (L)
Standing overhead press/Oblique crunch (R)
Kettlebell swings

I managed to get in 20 minutes of spinning just before the workout to get my heart rate up. All in all, the circuit is quick, but effective- I was sore the next morning!

Even though I was sore, I wanted to get my blood pumping on Saturday. I opted to do yet another Deck of Cards workout. (Previous Deck of Workouts can be found here and here)

♠ V-sits
♣ Burpees
♥ Kettlebell swings
♦ Pushups

I kid you not, I shuffled them almost into respective suits. I must have done about 60 pushups right off the bat, and OF COURSE, most of the burpees were at the bottom of the deck. Yikes. But totally worth it. I was sweaty and ready to have a yummy pizza for dinner. (More on that meal later!)

Anyone have a favorite protein powder? Favorite recipe to use with it??

Harlem Shake

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

I have a clusterfudge of stuff to share with you (it took me 4 days to gather enough stuff worthy of a post)

Let’s start with food. I have been doing a lot of experimenting in the kitchen lately. Mostly they are just new recipes on basic meals. Still, it was fun to follow other recipes and see how they turned out.

First up: PIZZA. Tyler and I love pizza. We used to order it all the time, but I have chosen to make our pizzas as a means of controlling what goes into the mix. I like knowing there are no preservatives in my food, thankyouverymuch. However, most all the recipes I tried resulted in uber doughy pizza. Yuck. I don’t want bread for dinner, I want PIZZA.

After going home in January, I learned some special tips and tricks from my parents as to how to yield a decent homemade pizza (keep in mind the altitude in NY and the altitude here are drastically different).

Here’s a pic of my pizza- it had pineapple, olives, peppers, prosciutto, and a bit of leftover bacon crumbles from Tyler’s pizza.

It was really good- especially topped with tons of sriracha!

Sunday morning/afternoon, I made us brunch. We had hit up Costco on Saturday, so we were freshly stocked up on produce and meat and lots of other goodies.

Nothing like a TON of food on a Sunday afternoon to make you lazy. But that fruit was faaaaantastic. And so was the coffee..obviously.

Later that night, I decided to whip up yet another recipe that I finally snagged from my mom. In my parents town, there is this hot dog place that is out of this world fantastic. Not only are they tasty, but they are super cheap, and they have this really awesome meat sauce on them. My mom got the recipe from my uncle, and now it is finally in my hands. Bwahaha.

We used some of the yummy Costco hot dogs as our base (I think I managed to eat about half of this. Phew, was it a lot of food). The sauce took about 2 hours to simmer, and I’m pretty sure the next time I make it, I’ll have to put a lock on the lid- I went to the gym while it was simmering and I’m pretty sure Tyler would’ve eaten it straight out of the pot because the smell was so good.

If only there was smell-o-vision (or…smell-o-internet??)

Next up..cookies! I had recently gone to the health food store and picked up a bunch of ‘different’ baking ingredients so I decided on some paleo chocolate chip cookies.

I used this recipe, but substituted agave nectar for honey/maple syrup, used an egg, and used carob chips rather than chocolate chips (almost the same thing. google it)

They came out pretty great! At least, my tastebuds thought so because I inhaled way more than I’m willing to admit.

Ok. NEXT! Chili. I’m now on the Meatless Monday bandwagon- simply as a means to find more meals I can throw together without meat, both for money saving and health reasons.

I chose to use this recipe. Only changes I made were omitting one onion and adding a zucchini.

Meh. Quite flavorless. I added tons of sriracha in mine and Tyler mixed shredded cheddar in his, and there was hardly an ‘oo’ or an ‘ah’ at the table. I also had some leftover dough from pizza-making on friday, so I balled it off, topped with melted butter and garlic salt, and viola!

Sad to say that was probably the best part of the meal. No bueno, folks.

And last, but certainly not least, in honor of pancake day today, I made a hearty stack of coconut flour pancakes.

They took forever to cook on the griddle (different consistency since I was using coconut flour) but they still had tons of flavor.

I topped the stack with plain greek yogurt mixed with cinnamon, and strawberries/blueberries.

The fruit was yet again my favorite part of the meal. Yummmm.

Now that I have shown you all this food I’ve been eating, I guess I should jot down what I’ve been doing in attempts to burn it off.

Friday: Strength Workout C from BBB and 20 minutes of spin, followed by only 42 burpees.

Saturday: Day off. I originally planned on doing cardio, but my body felt so dead and heavy, that I opted to switch my cardio to Sunday. Thanks to a pep-talk facebook message from Athena. Thanks!

Sunday: 30 minute run and 90 burpees.

Monday: Strength Workout A from BBB, 125 burpees (done during Biggest Loser commercials) and a 30 minute run.

Now onto random things:

1. Took the dog to the dog park on Friday. Then we hopped in the car and went to another spot along the river for more walk/play.

This girl was plowing her face into the snow and ice so much that she made the bald spot on the inner part of her eyes bleed! Silly.

Lots of passersby were laughing or smiling at her romping and rolling.

2. Got my visa extension in the mail yesterday. Now I can plan a visit to see my best friend in Seattle!

3. I can’t wait to meet her beautiful baby. I’m also really glad to see she’s already pumping the iron I’ve sent her 😉

4. I brought back tons of bottles and cans and cartons to the bottle return the other day. Like, 2 carts worth. And I made $32.35. Too bad I probably won’t be making that much anymore since we are reusing our special bottles for homebrew.

5. Skyfall and The Man With the Iron Fists: bad movies.

6. I am obsessed with the Harlem Shake videos. Honestly, I would post them all here if I could, (and I could), but I won’t. Here are a couple to give you the idea:

I’m off to workout and find another pair of sunglasses since I managed to break my $5 ones that have lasted me about 4 years. What are you up to on this fine, Fat Tuesday??

Let’s rewind.

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

I somehow how a little time before getting food ready for the big game that I have decided to catch up on my recent things on these here blog.

I somewhat touched base as I was sitting in the Albany airport, but that doesn’t really count. Let’s rewind to Wednesday night…

Ok, so Wednesday night (my last night in New York) I got dressed after the workout I did at home and headed out to dinner at my FAVORITE local restaurant with mom and dad.

Outfit: American Apparel leggings and a top I scored from JCPenney.

Dinner was at Bistro LeRoux. I seriously cannot praise this place enough. The food, atmosphere and service are all so fantastic. I ended up having Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling, 1/2 order of crab cakes, 1/2 order of poached pear salad with steak, and a lava cake with peanut butter ice cream. I’m not really good at writing about my full experience, but let’s just say that I was ‘mmm-ing’ with every bite. Ahhhh, so good! I can’t wait for my next visit home so I can go there again 🙂

As I was packing later that night, I came across my high school prom dresses. Feel free to laugh at how ugly they are!

That really concludes my trip home. Although, I did manage to wake up at O-dark-thirty on Thursday morning to get in a 40 minute run on the treadmill. I watched a Jillian Michaels infomercial to keep me motivated.

My trip home was a long one. Having a layover in Chicago in the middle of winter is practically a death sentence. My first plane was 45 minutes late, but made good time getting into O’hare. I chilled out for what was supposed to be only a 2 hour layover and had me one of these suckers:

I also had a steak salad, but didn’t take a picture because I was hungry and ate it. Duh.

I then walked all over the terminal not only for exercise, but also because the incoming plane for my gate was super delayed (I was also on the prowl for some good chocolate).

Well, I didn’t fin the chocolate that I wanted, but I ended up settling with a bag of these:

They look like GIANT malt balls

But they are SUPER WEIRD on the inside.

I also managed to take advantage of the DUTY FREE shop! I have never done that before, so it was an interesting experience.

I made my purchase, showed them my boarding pass and ID, then got a receipt with a pick-up tag. The attendant would then meet me at my gate and hand me my purchase as I was boarding the plane. Nothing like being able to carry a big ass bottle of Grey Goose on a plane!

A few hours later, I was home and reunited with my puppy!

And now begins the dog pictures. You have been warned.

Tyler and I enjoyed the first bottle of home brewed wine (It was REALLY good!) and watched the first two episodes of The Following (also REALLY good!) The show was intense.

Friday, I was left at home to get back into my routine. The morning was filled with lounging, house-things, and puppy cuddles.

My workout was the Endurance workout from Best Body Bootcamp (supersets of exercises to be repeated until you reach 100- same as last Friday). I busted them out as I watched recorded episodes of The Mindy Project. After I ran out of episodes- and finished my strength workout- I headed over to the gym for a sweaty 14 miles on the bike. I really missed the Keiser bikes while I was in New York. Oh right, and Layla joined in on my strength stuff. Forgot to mention that.

She was so excited to see me put my coat and shoes on to go to the gym, that I felt bad and ended up taking her for a walk as soon as I got home. She was kinda rude about it, but whatever.

Apparently I didn’t take her on as good of a walk as Tyler has been doing the last few weeks, so as soon as he got home, she was all over him. Traitor.

We rounded out the night with tacos and watched Flight (so glad I waited until after my trip to watch that movie!)

On to Saturday. Bacon and eggs for breakfast. YUM. And lots of coffee. YUMMx2. Then errands.

One of our stops was the mall so that I could pick up my earrings from Tiffany & Co. I had dropped them off last month when one of my screwbacks kept popping off. As the associate unwrapped my earrings, I noticed that not only did they not replace the backing, but they completely reset the diamonds in different posts WITH different (ugly) backings! And the backings wouldn’t even stay on the post! I tried to be as nice as possible, but it was pretty upsetting that they made all these changes without my knowledge. I ended up leaving them there until the Ops Mgr calls me to discuss possible solutions. Fingers crossed I get a free upgrade.

Blah. That was kind of annoying to type. I just want my friggin earrings back!

My workout for yesterday was supposed to be ‘cardio of choice.’ I chose to do a mish-mash of things at home. I did alternating kickboxing and strength moves and finished up with 100 burpees. 100 BURPEES!! Rather than breaking it up into sets of 10, I wanted to bust out as many efficient burpees as I could. I would do as many as I could with the best proper form, record the number, and take a quick break before attempting more. After 15 attempts, I hit the 100 mark. I’m totally going to do this throughout February. I’m starting to love burpees again.

And again, Layla joined me.

Once my workout was complete, I quickly cleaned up and Tyler and I headed to the Flames game! Tyler got tickets from his boss, so it was a sweet (and free) way to have a nice little date night. And of course we enjoyed beer and hot dogs.

The game was actually close, but the Flames lost in a shootout.

Which brings us to today.

PANCAKES.

Chocolate chip pancakes.

With Coffee.

HEAVEN.

Chocolate Chip pancakes

1 cup flour
1 cut oats
2 c + 2 tbsp unsweetened almond milk
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
4 tsp baking powder

1. Mix ingredients. Pour batter on griddle. Top with chocolate chips. Flip. Eat.

I was planning on topping with a tiny bit of pure maple syrup, but they were so moist and gooey that it really didn’t need it. Go make these now.

Now I must go put cheese on chips and chips in dips. And watch football.

Question: What’s your favorite pancake flavor?!

Recipes, Purchases, and a Workout

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

Hey, I’m back. I told you I would be, so it shouldn’t be such a huge surprise.

1. So these:

Holy hell are they sweet or what. They’re so sweet, I gotta say it again: holy hell. But if you’d like the recipe, you can find it here.

2. Apple Leather

Here’s what I did: 6 apples peeled and halved. Put into boiling water for a few minutes to get them nice and tender. Drain and throw them in the blender with just under 1/4 c water and cinnamon to taste. Then spread out on a cookie pan lined with saran wrap (sprayed with cooking oil helps). Then put oven on the lowest setting (mine was 170 degrees) and let it sit in the oven overnight (8-10 hours. Check it now and then to make sure it doesn’t crisp up, you want it to be a bit pliable).

There ya go!

3. I went to Lululemon (because Tyler TOLD me to) and I got 2 precious gems to add to my collection. This is totally going to help me with that issue I mentioned yesterday.

It’s the Virtue Energy Pant in dense purple and the Run: Swiftly Tech long sleeve

4. Then I got carried away and found an amazeballs steal on some more winter clothes. I got two pairs of cords and 2 sweaters and they were each $20! Not bad, Jen. Not bad.

5. Yesterday’s workout.

It was somewhat adjusted because I only had one girl attend the class, but here’s the gist: (some of the moves were taken from Best Body Bootcamp. Green= strength; Blue= cardio)

5 minute warmup

Elevated push press (using the step) 1 min each side
Up/down plank- 1 min

Run laps around the studio for 3 minutes
15 seconds jacks/15 seconds mountain climbers x3

Lunge stance with row- 1 min/Opposite leg forward lunge stance with reverse fly- 1 min
Tricep dips- 30 seconds at the 4-count and 30 seconds at single count
Repeat lunge moves and tricep dips

Run laps opposite directions for 3 minutes
1 min torso twist hops

1 minute wall sit with bicep curls
1 minute weighted laying hip abduction/1 minute weighted hip adduction
1 minute wall sit with overhead press

30 seconds jump rope/30 seconds quick feet x3

15 squats with front raise
15 chest flys
30 second decline plank
15 single leg tricep kickback Left/15 right
10 plank with single arm row Right/10 left
8 surrender squat right/8 left

BURPEES

we did 5 burpess with a 15 second rest 10x through

ABS

Crunch progressions: 10 reg crunches, 10 with legs at tabletop position, 10 with legs straight in the air, 10 with scissor legs left, 10 scissor legs right, 10 tabletop, 10 regular

Tell me something random. How about: what’s the last thing you bought online? Where’s the last place you went out to eat? Favorite TV show this fall? Favorite cold-weather meal to make?

The Funk Phenomena

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

1. I forgot to mention yesterday about this sort of cool thing. Tyler ate McDonalds. No, that is not the cool thing, but I’m getting to that part. You see, when I’m not in the house around dinner time, Tyler cheats on me. I came home from teaching at the Y last week and I asked if he wanted me to make him a smoothie. He said no, he wasn’t hungry. I asked him if he had any dinner and he said he snuck to McDonalds when I left. My jaw dropped and my head started to shake, but he had what he thought was a legitimate excuse: the Monopoly game was back. AND he won. I asked if he won a McMuffin, which is basically not winning, and he said no, he won 2 free 5×7 prints from snapfish.ca.

“Ok” I thought to myself, “I can use this!”

So yesterday, I got online (shocker) and ordered two prints. And shipping was free.

2. Naturally, I followed up this venture with a trip to Michael’s for some craft frame project, but I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted. I had a coupon, too! Wahhh.

3. I made these puppies to accommodate dinner last night (which was salad topped with spicy pulled chicken)

Cornbread Jalapeno Poppers

Here’s what you’ll need:

6 jalapenos
cornbread mix (I used the entire box, and baked the rest as muffins to freeze for later)
1 cup corn
1.5 cups shredded cheddar
GLOVES

Here’s what you do:

Put on gloves and cut each jalapeno in half (lengthwise). Remove veins and seeds.
Mix the cornbread according to box directions (ugh I always make mine from scratch, or use Jiffy mix, but I couldn’t find Jiffy anywhere here! Another sad face for Canada), mix in the corn and one cup of cheese.
Scoop the mixture and place in each jalapeno. Top with remaining cheese
Bake at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes.

(Tyler didn’t like them. I’m thinking he was secretly hoping they were full of cream cheese and wrapped in bacon. That’s for next time!)

4. I had a really sweaty at-home workout last night.

(The stability ball followed me into the bathroom, apparently)

I started with about 40 minutes of kickboxing, and rounded out with a 20 minute full body strength session. I started laughing at the beginning of my kickboxing workout, because the first song was The Funk Phenomena (I linked to the YouTube ‘video’ so you can listen to it if you have no idea what I am talking about). I went through the song 2x because I was laughing so hard.

“Jen, why were you laughing?”

“Because he sounds like he’s saying Tha Fu Fa Na Ma Na instead of The Funk Phenomena!” (Leave it to me to make everything childish.) I was also super hyper, so I was adding some crazy hip action to this routine.

5. When I went back home in August, I dedicated a full day to take care of formally important stuff. I had to contact every insurance company I used for car insurance (to provide Tyler’s insurance company with proof that I have been driving x-number of years with 0 claims- so that my payment would be reduced) I had a lot of insurance companies, because I was always reviewing to see who could provide me with the cheapest rate. Oh, and the coverage I had under my parents when I was in college- that company doesn’t even exist anymore, so that was fun trying to track down.

I also had to deal with all the health insurance bills that SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN A PROBLEM. You see, my health coverage from my employer in the states covered one annual physical and one annual ‘lady exam’ (cough cough, yaknowwhatimsayin, cough cough). So, I went for my lady exam in September 2011 and was billed $289. UM THAT’S NOT ACCEPTABLE. So I went to my HR department to bitch about it, and they just told me to call the doctor’s office, who then told me to call the billing office, who then told me to contact my health insurance company…blah blah blah. This went on for almost a year. Finally, I was contacted by someone in HR who said they screwed up and incorrectly entered my social security number. And that’s why I kept getting billed.

I also went in for a routine check up at my doctor and was billed $110. For what? She basically took my blood pressure and asked if I ‘felt safe at home.’ Dumb questions that doctors ask these days.

Long story short, I spent 6 hours on the phone when I was home in August, trying to straighten everything out. I had people send me receipts and confirmation that everything was settled.

And then this weekend, my dad messages me saying I had another bill from them in the mail.

NO, AMERICA. YOU ARE SO SUCKY AT HEALTH INSURANCE.

YAY, CANADA. YOU GIVE ME MEDS FOR FREE AND ARE NICE TO ME.

6. Since I love to tell funny stories, I’ve got another one for you today. You see, I used to be fat.

(Source)

Ok, well not ‘fat’ but I ate a lot of calzones and chocolate covered raisins and drank a LOT of beer in college. And I broke my foot junior year which didn’t help, either. My highest weight was just a hair under 200 pounds. I kid you not. So to all you boys out there I made out with in college- you’re welcome. You must have been drinking a lot of beer then, too.

I went through phases of over-exercising, and no exercising, and weight watchers, etc. It wasn’t until after I graduated and moved into my own place did I realize the importance of what I was eating. And it wasn’t until I got certified in group fitness did I get the importance of my fitness.

And now, I am more than 50 pounds lighter than I was in college. Hooray! (And I still drink beer and eat Nutella, imagine that!)

7. My dog is crazy.

Tell me something random in the comments!

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