Chili for Breakfast

Yesterday afternoon I met with my Naturopath, Dr. O'Leary. We talked about my diet and mainly the one thing that was lacking from it. Protein. So today, I am starting my morning with a nice big bowl of Amy's Chili. I know...it sounds a little crazy, but it actually is pretty good. A nice change from my routine of oatmeal or plain yogurt with granola.

When we sat down in her office, we brainstormed some ideas about how I can get more protein in my diet. I weigh 160 pounds, and it turns out that someone my size should have 72 grams a day. I was only getting in about half that every day. We also talked about when I am running that I need to take in even more protein. I think she said some where around 130 grams. Yikes! Protein and a complex carbohydrate is a good breakfast and snack because it will leave you feeling full for longer as well as it will help to stabilize you blood sugar over a longer period of time.

So she gave me a good list of things to snack on, which I will include below for you. And she stressed that it would be important for me to get at least 20 grams every morning for breakfast. Hence the chili. Amy's Organic Medium Chili has a whoppin' 15 grams per serving, and each can has two servings. Go Me!

I don't think that chili will be a staple for my mornings from now on, but it is a good change every once and a while. It also is a nice start to the changes I am making to diet.

Suggested High Protein Snacks

- Hard boiled eggs

- Nuts/ seeds (almond, sunflower, pumpkin, walnut, cashews

- Nut butters with fruit or veggies, brown rice cakes

- Turkey or salmon jerky

- Tuna or wild caught salmon wrap or nut thin

- Hummus with veggies or brown rice cakes

- Smoothies

1 tbs. flax seeds, ground

1/2 c. liquid (coconut milk, unsweetened rice or almond milk)

2 heaping tbs. brown rice powder

1/2 c. frozen fruit (bananas, berries or some other combination)

Add water to thin and blend well

Little Hood to Coast Relay

During the month of February Mark and I are having a friendly competition to see who can log the most miles. I as some of you know have a a half marathon coming up in May, and I need to start running a little more than I had been.

So today kicked off with my first run, as did Mark. I started my run with one of my favorite mixes, and did some speed work. I am not a fast runner, so when I say speed work I was alternating running 9 minute miles with about 11:30 miles. Once I was finished, I had run just under four miles. I still felt pretty good, so got into a comfortable pace and just kept going, with the music just playing over again. I ended up running a total of 7.25 miles in 82 minutes. Hip Hip Hooray!

Since we are tracking our distances I documented mine as I should have, under my name for the first day of the month, and added a little Woo Hoo (this is the first time I have run that far). I didn't tell Mark how far that I had run when I when we talked. When I got home in the evening I looked at the chart, and he had run 4.1 miles. Next to it he wrote "It's On" Yippy...hopefully my knees wont feel too bad tomorrow. It would be nice to win though.

Megan Claw the Baker

Last Christmas my baking and cooking supplies almost doubled just like a loaf of bread rising in a comfortably warm kitchen. To my already bursting cupboards I added a Kitchen-Aid Mixer, shiny All-Clad measuring spoons and a beautiful scalloped black cake plate amongst other things.

I have always enjoyed cooking and baking. I don't know if I love it, but it is pretty close. But there has always been something magical about confining my self to the kitchen for an afternoon or late evening of baking. I don't know if it is the way my house smells when a loaf of bread is finishing during the last 30 minutes of baking, or the way chocolate melted over a double boiler with some heavy cream is enough to stir my dog's attention on the other side of the house, but baking brings me a peace that I can't find many other places.

Starting with a semi-organized pile of ingredients; eggs, flour, butter, sugar, chocolate, and mixing them together in a particular order then heating them to a precise temperature creates perfect morsels of edible joy.

Being a perfectionist, I typically follow all the rules and keep my toes in line. But when I step into the kitchen to bake...things change. I know that for a lot of recipes measurements must be exact, mixing order followed and heating temperatures exact. But when I become the baker. I am in control. Perfect control. I alone, am creating and making the cookies, cakes and breads what I want them to be. I may follow someone elses guidelines, but I can adapt recipes how I want them.

I adapted the following recipe from my Health magazine. I omitted the wheat flour, and added cranberries and they turned out perfect. They were not overly sweet and with the oatmeal and walnuts they felt hearty, like there was more to them than just sugar. It is almost 11 pm now, and my eyes are droopy (no it is not from a sugar rush), but I feel like I accomplished a huge feat, creating something from only a few ingredients. What better way to end the night than a cup of warm vanilla milk and a couple of cookies?

Adventrures

Okay, it seams like everyone I know is blogging. So I thought that I would give it a try. A couple of my friends blog, and I enjoy reading about their adventures and questions about life. Now my momma is going to start blogging, so I thought what a good opportunity to try together. We are a lot a like, and I think this will be a good chance to start something together...although, at this point, I do not think that she knows we are going to be blogging at the same time.

So let me tell ya a little about my self. I'm 25 and I've been married for four years now. Mark and I got married in Greece, just after the 2004 Olympics. Our anniversary is coming up in just over a week. Just before we got married, we got a dog together. His name is Icarus. He is a Sheltie, and has a bit of an attitude problem. Lets just say he is more stubborn than me. Only a couple of years after we had been married we moved to Idaho so Mark could complete his Masters. While in Idaho, we adopted a second dog, Nyx. I got him as a birthday present so, technically he is my dog. This dog is super sweet, but suffers from multiple personalities (more on this later). Thankfully, Mark was able to get a job back in Oregon, and we were able to move back home in December of 2007. He now works for a freight company in the IT department. After I graduated I worked at a couple of different jobs. They were alright (they paid the bills), but didn't really enjoy any of them. After Mark got his job, I was able to take a break from working for a few months, and when I was ready to go back, I was able to do something fun. What could be any more fun than coffee? I work about 3/4 time at a cafe in downtown Portland. There are so many great things about this job. The best thing...FREE COFFEE.

This is going to be all for right now on me. I have not quite nailed down what I want my blog to be about. I don't think that it will be on anything too specific, only because I don't want to limit myself to the things I can talk about. So, keep watch, because you never know what will pop up next.