Check out what I'm learning in school!!

Good evening,

I just finished up my homework assignments for this week in my online Human Relations class.  This class is pretty basic...some of the info I groan and skim through like, "Be positive at work and it will get you far!"  Really?  Nice reminder, but give me something I don't know!!

I was taking an assessment (we have many of these in this class) entitled:
Attitudes Necessary for Getting and Keeping a Job

We had to rate each of the 18 questions on a scale of 1 to 10 if we had these necessary qualities or not.  I was intrigued to find out that THREE of the questions were health-related!!  Here they are...where do you rate?

1.  I am concerned about my health and eat only healthful foods.
2.  I enjoy exercise.  (Should have also said "I do exercise"...we can all "enjoy" exercise..)
3.  I carefully monitor my weight, muscle tone, and cholesterol level.

I will be honest, I put 10's for all of them...but trying to be truthful with myself now...I may only be at 7's for all of them.  I'm not perfect!!  Semi-Health Nut remember??





Just guess the amount of empty calories in this bag...
I only ate half of them when I turned the bag around...

 
It was so interesting to me that these questions be put into a questionnaire about attitudes necessary for a job!  I loved seeing them because it is so true!  When we value ourselves, it translates into all parts of our lives..including our jobs.

At the end of the assessment the part regarding the health questions says,
"This score reflects your attitudes toward your health and wellness.  If your score is low, are you willing to pay additional premiums not covered by your employer?" 

Yikes!  Reality check!  If we don't monitor our health...we could pay for it later!

Well, hope this motivated you like it motivated me! Now we should all go work out, eat a healthy meal and smile and say positive things at work. :-)  Let's start with a delicious salad.  And make sure it's filling in a healthy way with lean turkey and cottage cheese.  Mmmmmm...

*Salad Blog Post*





Romaine, turkey, cottage cheese, random tortilla chips and salsa ranch
Tip: Dip the fork in the dressing instead of dumping it on the salad.  :-)

  
I cannot figure out how to add an attachment on this blog...so if someone wants that assessment, I can e-mail it! 



380 for the whole bag thank you.  A whole meal's worth!

So where do you rate on the scale?  Do you agree that being healthy benefits your career?

Have a great night!  And thanks for stopping by!!

Breakfast! The most IMPORTANT meal of the day!

Hello all,
I just got excited about breakfast this morning and wanted to share my excitement.  (Should be working on homework...but that can wait right??)

I love peanutbutter.  I could eat it every meal of every day.  But I suppose if I did that...there would be no room for other healthy things :-(

Here's my usual breakfast:




Photo Credit

 

• Whole grain toast (lately it's been Pepperidge Farm)
• Peanutbutter
• Reduced sugar jelly (no fake sugars either!)
• aaaand a side of gummy vitamins!!

Calci-YUM!!



Since I've been getting my vitamins the delicious way..I rarely ever have a craving for gummy candy!


Well, I went out of town two weekends ago so decided not go to grocery shopping that week.  When I got back, I used up my last piece of bread but for some reason I was feeling lazy and not wanting to go to the store.  Do you ever do that?  For some reason you just keep putting it off and putting it off until you HAVE to eat at a restaurant or are forced to search the freezer for a potential meal?  Well I did that.

I kept thinking I would do it after work, but I was sooo hungry (or "hungry like the wolf" my friend would say...) after work, and it's never good to go to the grocery store on an empty stomach.  Then on my days off, I would just stay home and do homework.

I started eating peanutbutter on sandwich thins...which was fine, but not as filling.  Then...I ran out of >>scary music<< PEANUTBUTTER!! 

And I got so busy/lazy that weekend that I STILL didn't go to the store.  One morning I had a bowl of sugary cereal that I keep for my BF or for sugar cravings and my tummy was not pleased.  Another morning I found some turkey sausage in the freezer (I think my BF bought it a long time ago...don't tell him!)  I was running out of veggies and fruit too...just some old carrots and a sad looking banana.

So when I FINALLY went grocery shopping I was soooo excited to eat my usual breakfast.  I think that makes me a breakfast nerd?

This made me really realize what a good choice I was making each morning.  The peanutbutter was filling as was the whole wheat toast.  One slice of the toast is 100 calories, and the serving of peanutbutter is almost 200 calories...which seems scary, but if it will keep me full and my food cravings down, I'm good with that!

On the mornings that I wasn't full enough I was soooo hungry after work that as I was making lunch, I would munch on cookies.  (Emphasis on the plural form of cookie)  Maybe I was saving an extra 100 calories in my breakfast...but if each cookie was 100 calories, then I was more than making up for my lower calorie breakfast.

So, to my friends who skip breakfast or eat a wimpy breakfast bar and are shaky by lunchtime....consider this!  Jump start your metabolism with some delicious peanutbutter and filling whole wheat toast!  (Can I have my money now Jif? jk)



My good and hearty friend Mr. Jif Extra-Crunchy :-)



Does anyone else have a must-have food item??  A must-have breakfast item??  Or am I the only one??

Well, I better get on my homework!!

Have a wonderful day everyone!!

Semi-Healthy Fudgy Oatmeal Cookies

Hey peeps,

I really don't know how people blog EVERY DAY!!  Because when I blog, I not only post on my wall, but I mess with settings on my blog, read other blogs and pretty soon TWO HOURS have gone by and I realize I have a ton of homework to get done before bed and work in the morning!!

So I actually set a timer of 35 minutes (it was preset for laundry lol) so let's see how we do.

I wanted to share with you a DELIGHTFUL recipe for chocolatey oatmeal cookies.  Since I have limited time, I have not figured out the calorie count, but if you are interested just comment and I will figure it out for ya!

I got this recipe in a book that my wonderful mother gave me called, Crazy About Chocolate.  Nice title huh?  She knows me too well!

I tried to make these before, but realized in the middle of making them that I only had instant oatmeal in the little packets...and they did not turn out so great.  So FYI use the oatmeal specified!  :-)

"Analucia's Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies"
(Whoever Analucia is, she's a genius!)

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups sugar
1 stick of butter or margarine (I used butter, but depending on your stand on margarine, the marg. has less fat)
1/2 cup milk (I used light vanilla soy because that is what I had in my fridge!)
1/2 cup peanutbutter (protein!)
3 cups oatmeal (I used Quaker's Oldfashioned Oats)
1 tsp vanilla (now that I think about it...I accidently used a TABLEspoon!  Turned out just fine)

Semi-Health Nut's instructions:
Melt butter in a saucepan, add sugar, vanilla, then cocoa.
Turn the heat up high while stirring and boil 1 1/2 minutes.
Remove from heat.
Add peanutbutter..it will get all melty and delicious looking and you will probably want to taste-test...but it's hot!!  Adding a little more peanutbutter will add protein :-)

Add the oats and mix it all up!  (I added just a touch more than 3 cups and stirred for a couple of minutes to make sure the oats were cooked) 

I used a table spoon to scoop out "balls" (aka gooey globs) onto waxed paper that was sitting on plates and then stuck them in the fridge.

The result: Delicious fudgey-oatmeal-peanutbutter cookies!  They are still cookies and still have sugar and butter in them...but the oatmeal and peanutbutter makes them slighly healthy..or semi-healthy!

Enjoy the cookies and let me know how they taste or if you would modify anything!

Proud running side note:
I ran outside 5 miles and it felt AWESOME!  Such a good feeling to have accomplished that and my time was 53 minutes.  Ran with my Garmin watch too!  I will post about the watch soon...once I get the hang of all the sweet things it can do.  :-)

Happy chocolate snacking!!


Comments are welcome!!

(Finished right on time!)

For more info on healthy sweets: Making cookies and other sweet treats

Being out of town is NO EXCUSE to not work out!! :-)

Hello friends,

Okay I am not perfect...some vacations or periods of traveling I am lazy and don't exercise more than walking from my hotel room to the car!

But this weekend I was good!  I usually try to make sure the hotel I am going to has good reviews on the fitness center..and make sure it has one.  The hotel I went to had an EXCELLENT work out room AND I was the only one in it, so I could set the TV to anything I wanted!  It was like the old days when I lived in an apartment and I knew just the time to go to the apartment complex gym so I had it to myself.

I am a fan of working out and having something going on in the background.  Whether it be listening to my music on my IPOD, a TV at the gym, working out with a friend, or running outside and seeing different scenery.  I find that if I am entertained while working out then it makes the time go by faster, and I may even stay longer than planned (if I have time.)


This particular time I was out of town with my boyfriend who had to take the FE Exam...a very long boring exam that engineers have to take in order to become an engineer.   Since he was gone for over 8 hours one day, I had some time on my hands.  I brought my laptop to do my online homework...but one can only study so much.  So I went down to check out the gym...

Okay, picture taken on my phone, but you get the gist

There were TVs on each machine and a huge flat screen.  I turned the TV to a movie station and stayed on the treadmill for over an hour watching the end of Fun with Dick and Jane and then the beginning of Anchorman.

Total went: 6miles, 73:42 (with warm up and cool down)

I was even able to fill up my water bottle with yummy cold water!  I may have been to some bad hotel gyms before, but I really think this was the best hotel gym I've been to!  Props to Marriott!

Even when there is no access to a gym when you are on the road...there are still little things to do to get the work outs in...

• Take the stairs!  Maybe take the elevator if you have a lot of luggage, but the stairs are always there.
• Walk to nearby restaurants
• Lunges, squats, push-ups, and crunches can all be done with no equipment AND in the comfort of your hotel room (and guest room!)

Does anyone have other ways to stay healthy on the road/on vacation?  (I did not even touch the food part because this is something I have to work on!)

Thanks for stopping by!  AND stay tuned to see how my new running watch is working!!

Happy Birthday to Me!!

Yesterday was my birthday!  How old am I?  Well I have been telling people I am 22...again...

I got a present I am soooo excited to use!

I have been running outside for about 30 minutes at a time because the weather is actually starting to feel like spring outside! 

The problem is that my neighborhood is full of curvy roads so I have a very hard time figuring out how far I have run.  When I posted this frustration on Facebook I got some helpful hints like driving my car over the route I run, and using Google Maps to map out where I've run.  These are helpful hints and I appreciate them but there are some issues with those tips.  I have been running on a trail nearby and there are no mile markers and I can't exactly drive my car on the trail.  This neighborhood is new so my dad's address doesn't even show up on google maps. 

Also, I just don't want to go to all that trouble!  So I started researching the best running watches!  I also crossed a blog where a girl was recording her running stats with Garmin.  I started browsing Amazon.com, reading all of the reviews, etc and I concluded that the Garmin Forerunner 305 was for me!  It's not the newest addition, but it seemed to get the best reviews. 




Meet Garmin Forerunner 305!

 But of course it rained all day on my birthday and now it's looking foggy and cold outside today...but I will let you know how AWESOME my present is when I get to use it!  Thanks to my awesome Daddio!

My sweet BF got me ALL of the pink carnations they had at the store (27).  :-)  Pink is my favorite color and I actually love carnations because they last so long!  He is awesome.  *sigh*

We (me and BF) are going out of town this weekend because he has to take the FE Exam for Engineering and we just decided I could go with for my bday and hang out with some friends we have there.  I am hoping the hotel has a good fitness room and/or there is somewhere I can use my new present!!

Best Birthday EVER! 

Hope everyone has a great weekend!  Happy running! :-)