garmin Archives - Ari's Menu

Ari + Whole Foods = ♥

September 26, 2011 · by Ari ·

Happy Monday everyone! Today is actually my easy day! Subbing a ballet class, teaching an acting class, and one voice lesson. I’ll take it! I actually get to see mi hermano tonight!! We’re going out to dinner. I feel like I haven’t seen him or Cindy (his mom–yes, my family is confusing.) in forever. I’m also excited because for the first time ever, we are performing together for his piano recital! We compromised by picking a song by each of our favs–Turning Tables by Adele and Paradise by Coldplay. I have no idea when we will have time to practice, but I just love creating music with him, and it’s so nice to get a chance to sing!

Last night, Steve and I went on one of my favorite errands–to Whole Foods! YAY! Did you know some things are actually super cheap at Whole Foods? Rolled oats in the bulk section for 69 cents a pound! We totally stocked up on oats for about $2. Also, whole wheat pastry flour for about $1.20 a pound. On the other hands, I might have to break up with chia seeds. $10 a lb just seems so ridiculous to me! I know they’re good for you, but are they really that beneficial nutritionally to be worth $10?! I mean if I want to add extra fiber, can’t I just use ground flaxseed meal for 1/4 the price? Thoughts?

Also not cheap, in an attempt to work on my food packing issue, I jumped back to my 19 year old self and actually bought packaged food.

Only when you’re attempting to be healthy with boxed food, it is NOT cheap. I miss the day of a box of macaroni for 99 cents. The mac and cheese cups and the noodles only require hot water and a microwave and both have decent amounts of protein. I also bought out the bar section

I really try not to do the bar thing all too often, but I hate not having an easy protein fix ready to grab when I need it, so I stocked up. Plus they were on “sale.” I hate when you get something on sale, but it is still overpriced. Oy. I can’t help it, I’m Jewish 🙂

After some wise words from the smartest person I know (my mama!) I have realized that I really just need to invest in a lunch box with some ice packs and go back to making easy to go meals for the week like I did this summer. I love my mom. She always has the smartest advice. Also, before I bugged her to read mine, I don’t think she had ever read a blog in her life and now she calls me and says “So I read on the blog…” I’m a lucky girl to have parents who support everything I do and are just wonderful 🙂

While at WF, I also picked up my fav grain sweetened chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. We were completely out, and this girl likes to spontaneously bake! And lastly, I also spent too much money on these gems

Why is it that anything with butter in the title is always delicious? Nut butter, honey butter, butter butter, pumpkin butter, fig butter. It’s never a let down. TJ’s was out of my fig butter on my last trip, and I used up the very last of my figgy goodness by making oats in a fig butter jar this weekend. Oats in a jar–not just for nut butters. It was delish. So anyway, I spent more money than I should have buying this new kind at Whole Foods. It better be spectacular!

In other news, my Garmin arrived on Friday! Whoot!! It’s pretty 🙂 So this morning I had to take it out for a little test run. I was surprised by how annoying it was at first to have it making my wrist all sweaty, but definitely worth it to track my pace. I feel like I was a little too focused on checking it out and I wish I would have focused more on actual running, but happy to see my pace average around a 10 min mile. I still have to set it up to track my pace for each mile and to pause when I stop. I stopped at the water fountain twice and stopped for a minute or so to stretch at one point. I wasn’t feeling fantastic this morning, so I kept it pretty short. I’m still trying to figure out what to eat right before I go out so that my tummy doesn’t hurt. So distracting! Plus, for some reason it just felt extra hot today. Anyway, not 100% happy with what I pulled out this morning, but it could be worse.

I’m really glad that I bought it already. I read some race recaps this morning from other blogs that were really inspirational to me and really hammered in why I want to some day run a marathon.

Fall TV Guilty Pleasures

September 21, 2011 · by Ari ·

Good morning friends! So there is a very good chance that this will make me sound like a loser with no life, but I am so glad Fall tv is back!! Last night I got some work done, and then ate my dessert (fro yo of course) while sitting on the couch with the puppies watching Biggest Loser. It felt like the biggest oxy moron. I have a lot of issues with a lot of what they do on the show, but I am a sucker for weight loss tv. I can’t help it. But, I will say that I already miss Jillian. Did you know that I met her???

That was last years GoDaddy holiday party. I told her she was an inspiration, and I was basically star struck. I had to kind of hunt her down because the famous people had their own private area, but my dreams came true and I met her. I wanted to ask her for a work out, but Steve ~~threatened to call off our engagement~~ ~~die of embarrassment~~ ~~disown me~~ asked me nicely not to.

Today I had yoga on the schedule, but Kara had to cover a shift at the bux, and I still thought about going it alone, but it’s not til 11 which is so inconvenient because I like to be done with my work out by then, so I woke up and went for a run. Of course none of my phone devices wanted to cooperate (is it time to buy the Garmin yet?!), so I just went on time and made a nice loop through the neighborhood for 33 minutes. When I got home I drove said loop in my car and used MapMyRun to input the loop to double check. Ironically, it was 3.1–perfect for getting ready for my 5K coming up! 33 minutes is not the stellar time I would have liked and have me second guessing the accuracy of last weekend’s 30 minutes, but I’ll take it, and I feel pretty confident that it is correct. Both my car and the website said so!

Side note: I just googled myself to get a link to put in, and the Arby’s menu came up instead. I think my food is a lot better.

Ok, back to my run. Again, the first 2 miles felt great and passed pretty quickly, but mile #3 still makes me wonder why I would ever want to run to begin with. But that’s okay, because I still remember the first time I ran .25 mi without stopping, and that being an accomplishment. And today was only the 4th time I’ve run the distance, so it should be hard. I came home a sweaty thirsty mess.

Honestly, someone needs to teach me how to take cute post work out pictures, because this is not cute, but it is what I look like when I’m a sweaty mess 🙂 Winston and Clementine immediately proceeded to try to lick the sweat off of my legs. Why are dogs so weird?

Gross, Winston. They also do the same thing when I get out of the shower, but that seems much less gross to me. Although, I don’t prefer my freshly cleaned skin to be covered in dog saliva. Oh the joys of being a pet owner 🙂

After Winston and Clementine tried to bathe me themselves, I took it as a cue to get my butt in the shower, then made some oatmeal and caught up on last night’s Glee! I absolutely loved the season premiere. I laughed, I cried, I felt embarrassed for feeling so emotional over Glee of all things, but I have to be honest, about 1/2 of my teaching work is classes inspired by Glee. It has really sparked something in our society, and as a girl trying to make a living using a BFA in Musical Theatre, it has provided a lot of opportunities and opened a lot of doors. So when Kurt and Rachel cry in the car over their fears of not being good enough and how scary it is to pursue your dream when there will always be someone better than you, I kind of feel okay crying a little too. Because it is scary. But honestly, the more performing arts and shows like Glee become a part of our pop culture, the better chance we stand of survival as artists. So, sappy and silly as it sounds, I’m really grateful to Glee and what it has done for my field, and I love it apologetically, even when the writing is bad and the material is totes inappropes for its target audience. And even though I kind of hate the sound of Rachel’s voice. And even if I wasn’t in theatre, Jane Lynch would absolutely make it for me.

Have a good Wednesday everyone!

PB&J Oatmeal & Garmin Talk

September 20, 2011 · by Ari ·

Hello, friends! After a weekend of, for whatever reason, feeling like my eating was all out of whack, I have been putting a lot of thought into my meals yesterday and today. One of my favorite things in life is when I feel like I consistently eat food that is great for my body and great for my soul-healthy, satisfying, and delicious. Yesterday, and today so far have been just that! In fact, my oatmeal this morning may have been the best oatmeal I’ve ever made. I usually don’t take pictures of meals unless I’m making a full on recipe (somehow I feel like simple things like oatmeal would bore people?), and Steve is here to take amazing pictures with his fancy camera. But today was so yummy, that I made an exception. You know, no matter how delicious oatmeal is, it never looks appetizing to me in photos.

See what I mean? Somehow Kath’s oatmeal always looks like it was painted to be that pretty. Oh well, this oatmeal tasted fantastic.

PB & J Oatmeal

yield one hungry person!

1/3 cup slow cooking oats
2/3 cup almond milk
1 ripe banana, sliced
1 tsp chia seeds
cinnamon to taste
drizzle sugar free maple syrup
1/2 tsp coconut extract–the winning ingredient!
1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder
3/4 tbs any nut butter (I used PB & Co White Chocolate Wonderful–YUM!)
1/2 tbs fig butter
1/2 tbs 100% fruit blackberry spread (or spread of your choice)

Directions:

1) Heat all ingredients, except nut butter and fruit spreads, on stove top until oatmeal is cooked. **IMO, cooking the banana in with the oatmeal the entire time makes the oatmeal taste like banana bread–YUM!**

2) Put fruit spreads at the bottom of the bowl.

3) Top with oatmeal.

4) Top with nut butter.

The fruit on the bottom gives you a treat waiting for you as you get towards the bottom!

This was the perfect post spin breakfast! Speaking of spin, guess who totally rocked it out in class today?!

That’d be ME! I love the feeling after I give my all to a great work out! Which leads me to my next topic…

Yesterday morning, I went for a run, but my usual run tracker on my phone couldn’t find a gps signal so I had to use a different one. I had been using the Run Keeper ap, but this time used the Sports Tracker. Well the numbers were totally off. I mean I know about how fast I run on a treadmill and have NEVER considered anything below 5 mph even a light job. It’s a hard sweaty power walk, but I can’t run at that pace, and if you recall from last weekend, my device told me I ran 3.1 in 29:59, although who knows how accurate that one was at this point 🙁 Anyway, today after 37 minutes, it told me I went 2.7 miles. Ugghhhh. I don’t feel like it’s right, but the inaccuracy is really frustrating. So I have a decision to make. Do I spend a good chunk of change (remember, this girl works in theatre where the money is scarce) on this baby?

Right now it’s on sale on amazon.com for about $140. The Garmin 305 was my spin teacher’s recommendation that will keep track of my heart rate in classes, during any work out and will track my mileage on runs. I really want to improve my running, so I feel like it would be a good investment, not to mention I’ve wanted a HR monitor for a long time. Just hard to spend the money. I as also thinking of buying the ease into 10k ap on my phone by the same guy as C25K. I would really love for my next race after this 5K to be a half marathon, but I know before that happens I need to get comfortable with the 10k distance.

I would love any thoughts/recommendations/opinions on the Garmin, and/or improving running distance in general. It is NOT my forte, but it’s something I enjoy that I want to improve on.

Alright, off to job #2 for the day, then my house becomes the Disney Channel as I work on Aladdin choreography! Have a great day everyone!