The return of yoga

After an early morning full of baby kicks, conference calls and pumping, I finally made it to a yoga session!  Started at 9:30 and I ran in just as it was starting.  It was a little hard to slow my brain down, but I managed.  I'm still a little sore from the Shred workout, so it felt good today.  I think yoga will have to move up on my priority list.

I didn't bring my camera to yoga, but wanted to share a pose we did today.  I've done it a couple times before, but today it had a special meaning:

The happy baby pose

Source

If Tyler can do it, so can I!  Only after doing this he puts his feet in his mouth, which I definitely cannot do.

Breakfast today was some black cherry Chobani and cinnamon raisin Ezekial bread, toasted with some yogurt spread.

Someone asked me the other day why Ezekial bread was so much better than regular bread.  Here's my answer:

When you buy something that says "enriched flour" as one of the ingredients (or you'll hear them referred to as "refined flour"), it means that the wheat kernel has been stripped of the bran and the germ so that it can be ground into flour.  This eliminates most of the fiber and vitamins and minerals that you would get from the whole grain.  Since the good stuff has been stripped away, companies then add synthetic vitamins and minerals to "enrich" the flour.  Your body doesn't absorb these nutrients as well as the natural ones that are found in whole grains. Ezekial bread is made out of sprouted grains, which contain all parts of the kernel so you get the fiber, protein AND the vitamins and minerals.

Here's a little diagram I found that hopefully helps to explain.

And that's your lesson for the day.

For lunch I had some whole wheat spaghetti noodles (probably enriched, need to check the box) sauteed in garlic grapeseed oil with a handful of spinach and some minced garlic.

Supper was grilled pizza part 2.  I made semi-homemade dough this time, so instead of out of a tube, it came out of a box (this time I'm sure there's enriched flour in it).  I didn't do any crazy toppings this time, just plain ol' pork sausage.  I did add a bunch of garden fresh jalapeno peppers, onions, green peppers and banana peppers while I was browning the meat.

Note to self: smaller pizzas = easier when it comes to grilling.  I had a hard time getting the big one on and off the grill so I split the second piece of dough into two pizzas.

Pert' darn good.

Tomorrow's Friday!  Yippie!!

Fun Food Day

Had another late night with Tyler but oh well.  He's just a hungry hungry man.  I made up for it with a fun food day.  I know sometimes I get in a rut and have the same thing over and over, which is fine as long as it's healthy.  It's just boring for you guys.

So for breakfast I had an old favorite that I usually do almost every day, except when I don't have fresh blueberries or Greek yogurt- I had a power smoothie.  I have a little mixer that is quite similar to the Silver Bullet that you see on TV.  I fill up the bottom with frozen strawberries and blueberries then added one scoop of protein powder and filled the rest up with an organic yogurt product that is made locally.  It makes smoothies taste about 50 times better.  I usually just use water but went with this because it's soo good.

For lunch I used a leftover smart chicken breast- cut-up and reheated, threw it with some instant brown rice and dumped some homemade salsa over it.  It reminded me of doing the Standard Process cleansing program during my days at chiropractic school.  You could only have chicken or fish, brown rice and fruits/veggies.  So this meal was a staple.  I threw some black beans over mine for some extra fiber.

Should mention I had half a MOJO bar for a snack and some trail mix to get me through the afternoon.

Now for the grand showcase... grilled pizza for supper!  We haven't ever done this, so we were pretty excited to try since we both love pizza.  It's definitely going to need more experimentation, but it was delicious.

I just used a tube of thin crust pizza dough by Pillsbury, since I knew I would never get home in time to make it from scratch.    Make sure you prepare all the toppings before you get ready to grill, because you have to move fast.  I cut up 1 and 1/2 red onion and sauteed them in olive oil until they got all nice and caramel-ly.

For a protein I used an all natural chicken sausage.  It was a little too sweet, definitely go the Italian route next time.

For tomato sauce, just used the rest of a jar of spaghetti sauce that was in the fridge- it doesn't take much.  And cheese was just a pizza blend from Hy-Vee.  Sorry- no pictures of those items.

We packed everything up (including Tyler) and headed down to the grill.  We heated the grill up nice and hot, then sprayed it down with some PAM.  We decided to one at a time so we didn't screw up both.  That works well, because like I said, you have to move fast.

Tyler sat in his Bumbo (away from the grill) while we worked.  I caught him with a handful of grass in his mouth.  So he'll eat grass but not rice cereal.  Go figure.

So how did we create these masterpieces?  Throw the dough on the grill, and let it heat up.  It takes approximately 3 minutes to crisp up, if you start getting bubbles on the top it's ready to flip.  Then when you flip it, immediately place the toppings on because the other side doesn't take nearly as long.  For the second pizza, I pulled the dough off the grill then loaded the toppings before I put it back on.  That worked better.

Attempt #1

Attempt #2

You get such a nice crunchy crust... it's totally worth the hassle.  We learned you can't really load on the toppings, keeping it simple is the way to go.  The first one we made we put the cheese on last, and the second one we put the cheese on after the sauce then put the toppings on.  I liked it better the first way.

We will be revisiting this idea soon, needless to say.

That's all for today... looking forward to a productive Thursday!!