Invigorating evening

English: Half a dozen home-made cookies. Ingredients: butter, flour, white sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, soda, salt, and chocolate chips. Français : Demie-douzaine de cookies fait-maison. Ingrédients: beurre, farine, sucre en poudre, œufs, vanille, soda, sel et grain de chocolat. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After a long, tiring, stressful day, I came home and made a strong cup of coffee.

Next, I made some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Now usually when I make cookies, I can’t leave them alone.  I can easily eat six or seven.  However, I tried two of them, and they just didn’t taste all that good to me.  Don’t get me wrong — there was nothing wrong with them.  I made them just like I always do, but I think my taste buds are burned out on holiday sweets.  DD told me the cookies were some of the best I’ve made.  I was quite pleased that they didn’t taste all that good to me because I wouldn’t be tempted to gorge on them.

Once done with the cookies, I worked out to one of my Shaun T DVDs. 

While cooling down from my workout, I had a large glass of carrot juice. 

I said, “Now THIS tastes GOOD!!!!”  It tasted so much better to me than the cookies did.  Woohoo!  I never thought I’d say that carrot juice tasted better than chocolate!

I got supper ready for the others, but I just wanted my juice, a small container of yogurt, a small piece of a Hawaiian roll, then I headed in to take a nice hot bath.

DD is bored with Christmas break so she actually started school today.  I just finished going over her school work for today.  Now we are watching Raiders of the Lost Ark for her Movies as Literature course. 

 

 

 

 

I’m hoping I wind down soon.  Bedtime isn’t too far away, but I’m still rather wired from the caffeine and invigorating workout I had this evening!

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Juicing and Working Out

So I’ve been juicing now for around three weeks and I have dropped one size. Not only that, but usually when I have a weekend off, I will take a nap on Friday when I get home, one on Saturday, and sometimes one on Sunday. This weekend, I took one on Friday, but was too busy on Saturday and Sunday to take one. Though my energy wasn’t extremely high on Saturday, I didn’t feel exhausted from having missed out on my usual nap. However, my energy level seemed to be at peak levels all day on Sunday! It has me wondering if perhaps my juicing is increasing my energy levels. And I’ve noticed that I also am drinking less coffee per day.

I want to address something regarding juicing — some people say that juicing isn’t all that it is cracked up to be because you don’t end up getting all of the pulp when you juice. Granted, that is true because a juicer spits out so much pulp. But I want to point out my side of the story. I do not like to eat fresh fruits and veggies. I never have. However, I *love* to drink them! So for me, juicing is a winner because it helps me make healthier choices to get that “live” food in my body and I also gain the benefits of losing weight.

Though I didn’t feel like doing a high energy cardio workout this evening since we had several things to do after I got off work, I pushed myself to do a 35 minute cardio workout. Once I got started, it felt FANTASTIC!! I used one of my Turbo Jam DVDs and did a shorter version that what was on the DVD. Hopefully, this will help motivate me to get back into doing more cardio workouts. Perhaps next week when my vacation starts, I will put forth more effort in that direction.

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Juicing and working out

Since I am off work for the weekend, I opted to try something new for breakfast.  I juiced an apple, pear, and tangerine.  I added that to the Ninja, along with some yogurt and made it into a smoothie.   While the smoothie was very good, the yogurt had WAY TOO MUCH sugar!!!  Being that I am hypoglycemic, I have to watch my sugar intake.  I’m sure glad that I waited to try this until I had a day off.  I felt horrible after drinking it.

I will go back to my normal breakfast which consists of Kellogg’s Protein Plus cereal.  I love that stuff!  I would give up pizza before giving up my cereal.   I also eat a peanut butter on toast in the morning.  I drink a protein drink — the kind like people who workout use.  It has LOTS of protein in it, and helps keep my sugar levels stabilized throughout the morning.  And of course, I have to have my morning coffee.

Later today, I worked out on the Wii.  I did nearly an hour of Just Dance.  I also used my exercise bands for a bit this afternoon to work my legs.

I made apple/carrot juice to have shortly before supper.  If I drink about 30 minutes before time to eat, then I don’t eat nearly as much.

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Juicing and other news

We tried using our new Ninja for juicing.  However, since it doesn’t remove the pulp, we found that you had to add so much apple juice or orange juice that it caused the calorie content to increase immensely, and thus, defeating the purpose of why I wanted to be juicing again.  We will still use the Ninja if we want smoothies.  And I can make healthy smoothies for me that will have enough protein to keep my sugar elevated.  (I am hypoglycemic.)

I opted to buy a Hamilton Beach juicer yesterday at Walmart.  I made 2 glasses of carrot/apple juice this evening.  It was DELICIOUS.  I ate a bite of peanut butter for my protein and had a piece of carrot bread that I made with the pulp.  I’m hoping I start seeing results soon.  I’ve gained 10 pounds this year, and I am NOT happy about it!  I don’t feel as good physically and I want to get back to feeling better.  I see the difference that it makes to carry that extra 10 pounds and I don’t like it!  (When we bought a Juiceman juicer several years ago, I went from a size 18 to a 12 in 30 days!)

Speaking of that Juiceman juicer, it sure took a lot of carrots to make ONE glass of carrot juice.  I was able to use TWO carrots and get a full 12 oz. glass of juice with our new Hamilton Beach juicer, meaning it will be better on our budget too.  So having it be healthy for us physically AND financially is FANTASTIC!!!

Onto other topics —

DD had small group tonight.  Since it was dark and rainy, she didn’t want to drive.  However, I told her she needs to get used to driving in those conditions.  She did a GREAT job!

I had a $10 coupon for Kohl’s that expires tomorrow so I decided that I better use it today after work.  I bought 3 shirts and 2 pairs of pants for baby Aedan (my nephew’s baby).  I never knew shopping for a boy could be so much fun!  The clothes were SO cute!  I can’t wait for his mama to open them at Christmas!  My nephew is currently deployed in Afghanistan.  He had to leave when Aedan was only a month old.  We are sure looking forward to when my nephew is safely home with his family.