Meatloaf Salad and Tracy Anderson

I made meatloaf last night and needed to find a way to use the leftovers. I didn't want to make a sandwich since I'm trying to cut down on bread and I needed my salad for the day so I used some meatloaf in a salad and it turned out delicious! I used red lettuce, chopped red pepper, almonds, cranberries, and cut up meatloaf. I threw some raspberry vinaigrette on top and lunch was done.

I also did part of my Tracy Anderson Post Pregnancy DVD. I've got a cold and didn't feel like jumping around so this fit the bill. She has the best abs exercises and usually my muscles are sore the next day. I first started this when Elise was 5 months (she's 2 now)  and still do it occasionally.

Sweet Potato and Apple Salad

I picked up the cookbook while waiting in line at the grocery store a couple weeks ago. It's called "New Year! New You! Recipes". It has a recipe for Sweet Potato and Apple Salad with Vinegar Dressing. I had it for lunch today and it was delicious! Of course I didn't have all the ingredients so had to make some substitutes. It makes 4 servings.

Here it is:
2 small sweet potatoes (8 oz. ea.) scrubbed and poked with knife
2 T apple cider vinegar
2 T extra virgin olive oil (canola oil for me)
1 clove garlic, grated or crushed
1/8 t pepper
2 granny smith apples, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 cup diagonally sliced scallions ( I used red onion)
1 T raisins
2 T chopped unsalted dry roast peasuts (I used pistachios)

Bake sweet potato at 400 degrees until tender, about 45 minutes. (I put mine in the microwave oven for 5 minutes) Cool completely, then cut into 1/2 inch slices and cut each slice in half.

Whisk vinegar, oil (I used canola oil), garlic, and pepper in large bowl until blended. (I also put in a squirt of honey.) Add potatoes, apples, scallions (or red onion), raisins, and half the nuts. Toss to blend. Sprinkle with remaining nuts.

I doubled the dressing because it seems no recipe has enough. Next time I'll use a sweeter apple because for me the tart dressing and tart apple was too much. It would be really good to leave out the apple and double the sweet potatoes for a healthy potato salad. Mmmm..  That's what I'm trying next time. I must say I'm really enjoying trying new recipes for lunch. I don't have to please anyone's taste but my own. Plus I have salads already made for the weekend. :-)

Chicken Salad without Mayonnaise

I looked up a chicken salad made with cottage cheese and decided to try it today. I was getting tired of the same old salads. It's really good and I feel better that it doesn't have mayonnaise. I put mine on a whole wheat English muffin. I also added a side salad so I'd get more veggies in. Try it, it's really good!

1/2 cup cottage cheese (try and smash it up so it is a smoother consistency)
about 1 1/2 cups chopped up chicken breast (or canned chicken)
dried cranberries
diced celery
diced jicama (I used Granny Smith apple, chopped up)
some curry powder (I added salt, pepper)
and if it is too dry, either add more cottage cheese, or a dollop of light mayonnaise. (I added a couple teaspoons sour cream)

Another Tabata

I took Wednesday off because I went to bed too late Tuesday night and the idea of getting up early and exercising wasn't appealing. So I need to make up for it. I'm doing another Kettleworx, core week 3. I'm going to add another tabata at the end, this time targeting the lower body. I'm only doing one exercise this time, a squat jump jump. From a standing position jump into a wide squat. Then jump your feet back in and do two jumps. You can see in this workout on fitmiss.tv.

Here's how I did: 10, 11, 11, 10, 10, 9, 9, 11

My legs are like rubber now. Off to enjoy breakfast before my morning starts with the girls. Have a great day!

I Broke Down

I did have my salad today. Yay! Nothing too exciting so I didn't take a picture. But I was still hungry after. So I broke down and had a piece of cranberry bread that someone made from Gordon's work. It was yummy, but I'm going to keep it to one piece.

I know it doesn't seem like a big deal but when you're trying to make healthy changes, every little thing counts.  If it was just me in the family I would start throwing out all the things I'm trying to avoid. It's harder when the rest of the family needs to eat too but they don't want to eat your way. My husband loves white rice, I'm trying to move away from the "whites". Move from white flour to whole wheat flour, brown rice instead of white, no white sugar or fructose corn syrup. But these things are still in my house.

So, how do I make the change to clean eating when no one else is? I honestly don't know. But I'm going to keep trying. :)

1-11-11 My Steak Salad

We remembered to take the food out of Gordon's car last night so I'm having my steak salad today. I used romaine again. That turning out to be my favorite lettuce, but I'm going to pick something else next time I'm at the store. Added broccoli, yellow peppers, almonds, and of course steak. I found an all natural raspberry vinaigrette by Olde Cape Cod and it's really good. Anybody try some great salads recently?

1-11-11 End With A Tabata

I'm onto week three of my Kettleworx program. But I'm throwing in a tabata at the end because I wanted to add some intensity. Here's what I'm doing:
Cardio Kettleworx week 3, about 20 minutes.

Then the tabata:

High Knees 53 (running in place bringing knees up as high as possible)
Pushups 13
High Knees 53
Tricep Dips 14
High Knees 52
Pushups 8
High Knees 54
Tricep Dips 17

Remember it's 8 rounds of 20 seconds of really intense effort with 10 seconds of rest. I want to work on my pushups, but the dvd had some too so the tabata ones were hard.  Even if I can't get all the way down, I'm not going to my knees. My goal is to do 20 pushups on my toes going all the way down without a break. Remember you'll need an interval timer for tabatas. So either get a Gymboss or try out this one. It's already set up for one tabata, but you can change it to whatever you need.

1-10-11 Didn't Go A Planned

I had big plans for this salad, but things don't always go as planned. I wanted to make a steak salad leftover from last night's dinner with family. But my husband forgot to take it out of the trunk and off to work he went this morning. I also wanted to try a clean ranch dressing I found at The Gracious Pantry. But I screwed it up by misunderstanding "blend with a whisk" and put it in a blender which made it way too thin. After adding some arrowroot in hopes of thickening it then some sour cream, it was still watery. So it's in the fridge hopefully getting thicker. Next time I'll add the seasoning to greek yogurt and slowly whisk in buttermilk until it's the consistency I want.

So today's salad was pretty usual. Romaine lettuce with red peppers, walnuts, dried apricots, and shredded carrots. The dressing was apple cider vinegar, olive oil, honey, salt and Parmesan cheese. All in all it was good, just not what I was craving. Tonight I'll make sure the steak gets in the house. :)

1-9-11 workout Tabatas

I was really disappointed with how I did with my workout Saturday. So I'm going to attempt to make up my own routine. I'm putting together 4 tabatas for a 16 minute workout, not including warm up and cool down. If you've never heard of tabatas, they're some of the best ways to burn some serious calories and fat. One tabata is 4 minutes, 8 rounds of 20 seconds really hard work and 10 seconds rest. You'll need an interval timer and there's a free one online here. I've decided to try swings, bicycles , jump rope, and half way down push ups (still need work on these). So that'll be 32 rounds with 20 seconds work and 10 seconds rest.


The tabatas could be done with one exercise for the entire 4 minutes or you could choose different exercises for each 20 seconds.
Then later we're getting together with my brother's family for Christmas since we didn't see them Christmas day. My husband's making a huge rib roast and I'm sure I'll eat too much so the workout will make me feel a little less guilty.


Here's how I did:
Jump Rope: 39, 39, 37, 31, 22, 42, 47, 46 (the last three without a rope)
Push ups: 13, 12, 8, 7, 8, 9, 7, 10
15 lb. Kettlebell Swing: 13R, 13L, 13R, 13L, 13 Alt., 13 Alt., 15 two hands, 15 two hands
Bicycles: 15, 18, 15, 14, 14, 12, 13, 12 (Right +Left=One Rep)


I had a hard time jumping so I'm going to try shortening the rope. The basement ceiling is pretty low so that could cause a problem. I saw this and thought it could be the answer.

1-9-11 Salad-Romaine, Broccoli, Walnuts, Apricots

I used the last of the romaine I had and added what we had. Time to go to the store! I made a dressing with apple cider vinegar, olive oil and honey. It's good to have a light lunch because dinner is with family for a last Christmas and I know I'll be eating too much. :)

1-8-11-Salad-Romaine, Almonds, and Dried Apricots

I has some leftover dressing from yesterday's spinach salad so I added a little apple cider vinegar to thin it out and I like it even better. I added it to romaine lettuce, a handful of almonds, red peppers, and some dried apricots I had around. Mmm.

1-8-11 workout-Swings, Burpees, and Jumprope

Friday night: So tomorrow I want to push really hard because the Kettleworx dvds I've been doing don't seem as intense as I know I can do. So I found a workout on BodyRockTv that I could use my new kettlebell with. It alternates swings with burpees, but the burpees increase with each interval. I'm going to try it a little different. The original intervals go 10 swings, 11 burpees, 10 swings, 12 burpees...up to 20 burpees. I'm going to start with 10 swings then 20 burpees and work down to 11 burpees. I saw that in some of the comments and thought it might work better because I'll be doing the most when I have more energy. I'm also not going to do the pushups with the burpees just because I don't like doing them together. I might try doing them separately somewhere else in the workout.


Saturday: This was alot harder than I thought it was going to be. It might have been that I started the workout at 8:30 before I had any breakfast. I just didn't want to wait an hour or so after I ate. Doing 20 burpees in a row was not fun. So I switched it up and started doing mountain climbers and upped the swings to 20. So here's what I did:
10 swings
20 burpees
10 swings
19 burpees
10 swings
18 burpees
10 swings
17 mountain climbers
10 swings
16 mountain climbers
20 swings
15 mountain climbers
20 swings
15 mountain climbers
20 swings
15 mountain climbers
20 swings
15 mountain climbers
20 swings
15 mountain climbers


That took me 19:26 so I started doing the jumprope, but decided I'd had enough when I kept tripping. That's another goal of mine. To get better at jump roping. Maybe it's the rope I'm using...

2011 is going to get healthier

Hey there. I'm Vickie, a stay at home mom of two girls. I've decided to get healther this year so I'm going to add a healthy habit every day of each month so by the end of 2011 I'll be much better than I am now.


2010 was to get into the exercise habit and now I work out 5-6 mornings a week. I'm working with my new kettlebell so I may be posting some on that. But my eating still leaves someting to be desired. My goal is to work toward clean eating, although my Diet Pepsi habit is going to be hard to break.


January is to eat a salad every day. I think February is going to be drinking enough water. Thanks!

1-7-11 Salad-Spinach Mandarine

So today I went with a recipe I found on Food.com. I just can't get used to that new name, it used to be recipezaar.com and I liked that name. Anyhow, here's the recipe. I did add a can of chicken so there was some protein also since this is my whole lunch. I have some dressing left over so I'll save it for the weekend. Enjoy and have a great weekend!


Update: The dressing's really good and I think I'll make some to keep in the fridge for other salads. It is sweet, but I like that. Next time I'll cut the chicken in half. A whole can was a bit much. :)

1-7-11-Kettleworx

I just finished my second week of the Kettleworx program I got for Christmas. Today was resistance. There's also Cardio and Core. I've got mixed feeling on it. My muscles do get sore so it's doing something, but I don't think all the form is very good. When they do swings, I know it's wrong because there's supposed to be more force coming from the hips. Plus it goes too fast sometimes for my 15 lb kettlebell. I think it's meant for lighter weights but that's all I've got. :)


I'm going to do the whole 6 week program, and then start doing my own routines that I find either on Youtube or on myomytv.com or FitMiss.tv. I've been trying to do cardio heavy workouts on days I don't do Kettleworx. I've got my last 10 lbs. or so to lose and they aren't moving easily. But once I learn the kettlebells, watch out! It really is a great piece of equipment if you're willing to take the time to learn it correctly. Wish me luck and I'll let you know how it's going.

1-6-11 Salad-Romaine and Apple

I'm eating my salad as I type. It's actually pretty good considering I made it up. There's romaine lettuce, shredded carrot, diced Granny Smith apple, walnuts, and cranberries.

The salad dressing I made is a new one for me, but I'll definitely be making it again. Mix equal parts honey mustard with apple cider vinegar. Then mix in a little extra virgin olive oil and a little Truvia to taste. I heard that apple cider vinegar helps lose weight so I'm trying to make that my usual vinegar. Plus the vinegar keeps my apples from turning brown. Next time I'll try a sweet apple since the dressing is a tart one.

Try it and let me know what you think!