Tuesday, April 29
Thursday, May 1st
Tuesday was such a beautiful day, I am sorry for myself for missing the walk! I would love to walk on thursday and one other day, anyone else have an extra day for walking?
Thursday, April 24
Wednesday, April 23
Tuesday, April 22
What a beautiful day for a walk! The kids got a bit chilled in the wind, but I think they enjoyed it anyway! For even more pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/kmt.park/RiverwalkII
Tuesday, April 22
Friday, April 18
Wednesday, April 16
This is a very long-winded post.
There are two things lately within the realm of health and fitness that have been quite helpful to me, and I've decided I'd like to share them with you, my very dear walking friends.
First, in regards to this business of eating a balanced, healthy diet (which can be so tiresome for me that sometimes I'm driven to eat an entire container of cream puffs in the span of two days...): I'm almost always concerned about whether or not I'm eating enough vegetables. Leafy green vegetables, to be exact, because I'm always reading about how they're "nutritional powerhouses," blah, blah, blah. I really like vegetables, even leafy green ones, but I get sick to death of eating salads day in and day out. Actually, if someone would make the salads for me, I wouldn't mind eating them so much, but ripping up lettuce is one of my least favorite things to do in the kitchen, so I like to avoid it as much as possible. It's quite a dilemma I have, isn't it?
Fortunately for me, however, I have a mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law who are the queens of drinking green smoothies, and with their help, I think I've found the answer to my terrible leafy green crisis. Green smoothies are just a mix of greens and fruit tossed into a blender with water. I think the recommended ratio is about 60% fruit to 40% greens, but I don't think it's super necessary to be a stickler about that. (I'm not, anyway.)
It's fun to play around with different combinations of greens and fruit, and I especially, especially like that every ingredient is a whole food. No awful processing, no fruit juice or added sugar, and not one drop of high fructose corn syrup. My favorite concoction so far is a cup of fresh pineapple, a cup of frozen mixed berries, a cup of spinach, and however much water strikes my fancy. (This makes enough for a regular-sized glass. And it's purple instead of green, but nevermind the small details.)
My sister-in-law Sara says it's a good idea to rotate the greens, and so instead of spinach, I've tried mustard greens (which I will not eat ever again, in a smoothie or otherwise!)and romaine lettuce. I didn't care for the romaine very well, either, mostly because the fruit didn't mask the flavor of the greens and it tasted like liquid lettuce. Some of the other greens Sara suggested are kale, collard & beet greens, and Swiss chard.
In terms of fruit, I've also used frozen peaches and fresh strawberries, and this week I'm going to try something with fresh mango. My mother-in-law likes to throw a lime or two into her morning smoothies, but that is a little bit too sour for me.
Besides having peace of mind about vegetable deficiency, I also seem to be less hungry throughout the day when I drink a smoothie in the morning. Sara says when she drinks them regularly, she loses a lot of cravings for other junky food (and also loses a lot of weight). There's a book called Green For Life by Victoria Boutenko that has lots of good scientific information about green smoothies (and recipes, too).
This is much longer than I thought it would be, and so I'll write later about the second thing that has been helpful to me. No one should have to read more than one blog-essay in a day, after all.
First, in regards to this business of eating a balanced, healthy diet (which can be so tiresome for me that sometimes I'm driven to eat an entire container of cream puffs in the span of two days...): I'm almost always concerned about whether or not I'm eating enough vegetables. Leafy green vegetables, to be exact, because I'm always reading about how they're "nutritional powerhouses," blah, blah, blah. I really like vegetables, even leafy green ones, but I get sick to death of eating salads day in and day out. Actually, if someone would make the salads for me, I wouldn't mind eating them so much, but ripping up lettuce is one of my least favorite things to do in the kitchen, so I like to avoid it as much as possible. It's quite a dilemma I have, isn't it?
Fortunately for me, however, I have a mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law who are the queens of drinking green smoothies, and with their help, I think I've found the answer to my terrible leafy green crisis. Green smoothies are just a mix of greens and fruit tossed into a blender with water. I think the recommended ratio is about 60% fruit to 40% greens, but I don't think it's super necessary to be a stickler about that. (I'm not, anyway.)
It's fun to play around with different combinations of greens and fruit, and I especially, especially like that every ingredient is a whole food. No awful processing, no fruit juice or added sugar, and not one drop of high fructose corn syrup. My favorite concoction so far is a cup of fresh pineapple, a cup of frozen mixed berries, a cup of spinach, and however much water strikes my fancy. (This makes enough for a regular-sized glass. And it's purple instead of green, but nevermind the small details.)
My sister-in-law Sara says it's a good idea to rotate the greens, and so instead of spinach, I've tried mustard greens (which I will not eat ever again, in a smoothie or otherwise!)and romaine lettuce. I didn't care for the romaine very well, either, mostly because the fruit didn't mask the flavor of the greens and it tasted like liquid lettuce. Some of the other greens Sara suggested are kale, collard & beet greens, and Swiss chard.
In terms of fruit, I've also used frozen peaches and fresh strawberries, and this week I'm going to try something with fresh mango. My mother-in-law likes to throw a lime or two into her morning smoothies, but that is a little bit too sour for me.
Besides having peace of mind about vegetable deficiency, I also seem to be less hungry throughout the day when I drink a smoothie in the morning. Sara says when she drinks them regularly, she loses a lot of cravings for other junky food (and also loses a lot of weight). There's a book called Green For Life by Victoria Boutenko that has lots of good scientific information about green smoothies (and recipes, too).
This is much longer than I thought it would be, and so I'll write later about the second thing that has been helpful to me. No one should have to read more than one blog-essay in a day, after all.
Tuesday, April 15
Friday, April 11
Tuesday April 15th
It's tax day....come walk off the stress, or get good council on how to spend your refund check!
These are great days to be out walking! Come join us!
Melisa, Shirley and Elaine walked along the river on Thursday. We had a wonderful time and went all the way to 124th! I was shocked when we got there and I recognized where we were. Time flies when we are chatting and catching up, or in Shirley and I's case, getting aquainted. We figured that we walked close to 7 miles. True, it is very flat, and probably not a big deal to the marathon ladies, but to me....an accomplishment. Thanks ladies for a very nice morning.
Thursday, April 3
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