Back to Healthy: Post Vacation Shape Up

It's been a while since I posted anything to the blog and there's a very good reason for that - it was my birthday!! My birthday was in October and we had just finished the Hoboken Urban Challenge (and it was challenging) - when we took for Nashville and Memphis.  Now we've been to Nashville, but I've never been there not sick, and we were going to see the Lumineers at the Ryman Auditorium!

Lumineers at the Ryman - Pretty Awesome!

It was an amazing trip, but we did ALL kinds of eating.  We ate everything in Nashville and Memphis. I tried fried chicken for the first time, we ate tons of mac and cheese, and all kinds of carbs! And we barely did any running, certainly not enough to keep up with the food and the drink.

Birthday Treats were in addition to all the food we ate!

 For my birthday we got to the Memphis Zoo, which was adorable, we got there at 2pm and we were able to see the whole zoo in 3 hours.  We were back near Cat Country at 5pm, and we got to see all the lions, tigers and other cats up and about. And I got to take in a sea lion show and they are my favorite!!

The lionness and lion in Cat Country! 

My favorite animals the Sea Lions!

 When we got back home we continued our bad eating binge and ordered pizza, went out to dinner, got sushi and Chinese - it was a bad display.  So Sunday we finally got back on the horse and went for a run, which felt tiring but great and decided to make use of the veggies we got at the Hoboken Farmer's Market and we did some shopping for pantry staples.

What I made:

A Veggie Barley Soup - some fresh and some frozen veggies, with Chicken Stock and Quick Cooking Barley, this cooked up in ten minutes after the veggies softened added the chicken stock and barley simmer 10 min and then add the frzn veg and 10 minutes more.

I took this took work several days.

I also bought tons of squashes at the farmer's market.  I made a butternut squash soup with roasted butternut squash and chicken stock, and with the rest of the roasted squash I put that in quinoa with spinach, toasted pine nuts, sauteed apples and carrots and golden raisins, I added a bit of lemon/olive oil and S&P and it was delicious.  We used the other half of the quinoa last night with some other roasted veggies when we both got home at 10pm.  I had roasted kale, eggplant and mushrooms earlier this week and we put that with the quinoa and it was delish. We are using the rest of the roasted veggies tonight in pasta.

Also this week we (finally) used some of the fresh fish we got at the farmer's market, we made swordfish with spaghetti squash.  This was my first time using the spaghetti squash and I was imitating a recipe from Becco I had had (Lidia's restaurant!).  I roasted the squash after I cut it in half flesh side down with EVOO and S&P for about 40 min, heated some sauce from Rao's and boom  - side dish.  We also had green beans.  The spaghetti squash was a big hit! I will definitely buy some this weekend and will be buying one for my mom as well. I ate the leftovers at work.

Spaghetti squash, green beans and a veggie burger.

At the grocery store, I also stocked up on milks (almond and regular), yogurts, fruits, salad, the rice and quinoa and pasta, some meats, and veggie burgers and string cheese so I can make some healthy stuff for work and home.  I still have leftover soup and I am planning to do it again this Sunday.  We have to get ready for our wedding this Summer and heading back to Costa Rica.

On the running side I went running this Thursday for 2.5 miles and it was awesome.  The rest of this week was a  BIG week at Sky Club. I subbed a Monday Spin which meant I was there 4 days this week.  The classes were amazing and it felt great (but sore) to teach spin M,W,F and bootcamp Tuesday. I'll post the bootcamp workout and our obstacle workout later this weekend.

Are you shaping up for winter or enjoying a break?