Eat right and Wake up Light

Good morning. Hope everyone is off to a nice day and staying warm. It’s cold and rainy here, aka sleep-in weather. Last night, I got creative and set out my workout clothes and tennis shoes so that I could jump right into them and head to the gym in the morning. (I’ve read that this is a helpful tip to streamline morning workouts.) Well, it was a bit of a fail. I was too sleepy and slept in until 7, making it too late to head to the gym. Sometimes, a girl just needs a little extra sleep! (I stayed up a little later last night which may have something to do with it!) Since I woke up with a little bit of extra time, I decided to finally try out a morning yoga sequence from Pinterest.

Morning yoga pin from my Inspiration Board

Before going through these poses, I did a few sun salutations incorporating cat/cow pose and child’s pose to warm up. (A blog post on how to do these poses.) I love using Pinterest to find new workouts and fitness routines.

Oh thank you Pinterest…

So, I didn’t manage to get any cardio (yet) but I would definitely say this was a great way to wake up and get going in the morning. I often wake up a little sore from workouts or sleeping funny so these yoga moves were the perfect touch to help me feel rejuvenated this morning. I would definitely recommend trying this or some of the other morning yoga routines out there. One of the best things about yoga (or pilates) is that you can complete a practice anywhere.

My fancy yoga space 😉

I must say that I feel a little more limber this morning. Maybe I’ll try doing a short yoga sequence tomorrow morning too.

I heart radio yoga

Moving back a step, yesterday evening, I headed straight to the gym after work. I basically gave myself zero time to be at my apartment before shuffling over to the gym. I didn’t want to get too comfortable at home and by pass the gym! I did 30 minutes on the bike followed by a short ab workout. I was going to do some weights but my lower back was a little tight from Sunday (I think I may have over-worked my right side when I was doing side planks but today it feels almost back to new!).

After my workout, I had a nice hot shower and then moved downstairs to cook up some sort of healthy dinner. Sometimes when I go in to the kitchen without a plan, I end up with a disaster of a meal but last night was definitely not the case! I think my cooking skills are improving! 🙂

the ingredients

My mom stocked my up with lots of good food when I was home this weekend which was awesome. She gave me the lettuce and the tomatoes. Good, fresh lettuce is a necessity! When I first started making salads, I never really liked my final product because I would use lettuce that was a little brown or not fresh. A little tip I’ve picked up along the way- buy the nicer packaged lettuce! Unless the head of lettuce is going to be used soon, it just does not keep fresh like the bagged and boxed kind. Anyway, I’m excited that my salad last night was delicious because I’m a huge salad girl but just had trouble enjoying my own salad creating. Not so anymore. 🙂

I used this bag of salmon to add a punch of protein to my meal

I added olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, and soy sauce to season

I may have had a few snacks along the way…

My salmon was pretty good although it was a little undercooked. Also, I was planning to make this salmon last week so I took it out of the freezer and placed it in the refregirator to thaw it out a bit. That evening, I didn’t end up needing the salmon after all so I just put it back in the freezer. Last night, I nuked the salmon in the microwave since it was frozen and it was definitely not a normal texture. I would advise against thawing out a meat or fish and putting it back in the freezer although one good thing I found was that I easily got rid of the fat from the fish since it had been previously thawed. All in all, it was pretty tasty to me! (Doesn’t take much now that I’m the chef huh!)

Ta daaaa!

I know a lot of people put the salmon over the salad but I like to eat mine separate because I like the flavor without the salad dressing.

A Christmas salad!

My salmon was pretty big so I saved the other half for lunch the next day. I just added tomatoes and artichokes on the side and my lunch was complete.

Lunch for the next day is ready to go

After I was finished with meal preparations, it was time to satisfy my sweet tooth. I actually had some dates and they were delicious. Dates are my new favorite treat — they make a great healthy dessert. I also made some more chocolate pretzel sandwiches. I figured it would be a good way to use up those window pretzels that I never eat. 😉

I ran out of Kisses so I used baking chocolate chips

I tried one of these last night and they were delicious as always! I was curious to see how the chocolate chip sandwiches turned out and they were good too. They were a little messier because the chocolate spread through the pretzels a bit but they tasted just as good. I like to have a small dessert so that I can satisfy that never ending sweet tooth of mine.

Have a sweet Tuesday! 🙂

Good nutrition articles:

• 6 Rules of Good Nutrition – Eat This Not That
• 15 Low Carb Snack Ideas – FitSugar
• 9 Foolproof Cooking Tips – Fitness Magazine
• Diet Advice You Shouldn’t Follow – Shape Magazine