Then It Finally Happens…

It’s Hump Day and before I know it, weekend is around the corner. This morning I did one of Bodyrock.tv older workout since Zuzana didn’t post any new one yesterday. It was ok, but I wish I should push myself harder to prevent plateauing. You might wonder why I am so eager to get up at 4:30-5:00 am in the morning everyday just to squeeze in the workout? Well, for me working out actually clears up my mind and makes me feel I accomplish something for the day. After working at the same place for a while, it could become daunting and flat. I’m not saying I don’t like what I’m doing now.

Anyway, enough rant. Let’s move on to the food.

I’m getting lazier to eat post workout snack and pack another food for breakfast to bring to work, so I just combined them together instead.
Half sweet potato and Applegate Organic Roast Beef Slices

That didn’t really sustain me until lunch time so I snacked on some coconut flakes.

Lunch was another deja vu from dinner.

Plus Lotus Root Soup.

Not sure why the lotus root soup turned out to be darker than the last time I made it. I made it exactly the same way. Probably because I boiled more roots in the soup?

Lunch filled me up pretty good, but in the back of my mind, I kept thinking of these babies:

So late afternoon, I ate them and was happy.

When I got home, I made Oven Fried Curried Chicken Fingers, Bo Bo Cha Cha and Easy Oven Fried Taro Fries.

Today’s Bo Bo Cha Cha combo was taro and purple yam

While waiting for everything to be done, I was snacking on these. Do you know what are these?

Those are “loquat” or according to wikipedia it could also be referred as “Japanese plum” and “Chinese plum” (Wiki source). These fruits are used to make Chinese cough syrup known as “Pei Pa Koa“. You might have noticed I mentioned I took that syrup whenever my throat feels scratchy or dry.

Ingredients: Honey Loquat - just mix with hot water

This was my first time eating fresh loquat. The best part is they are ORGANIC because they came from my sister in law’s parent’s backyard. Currently they are not completely ripe yet so the they aren’t that sweet. When the skin turns into deep orange color, according to Hubby K, it’ll taste really sweet. Geez, I wonder if I could wait that long.

Anyway, finally dinner was ready and I devoured it.
And I had some taro fries afterward.

Ok now about the post title..you might wonder what is it about? Well let’s say that from now on I’ll be the only one who’ll bring in the money to the house. This means I might have to adjust our spending. If you notice, recently I started to shop at Organic store or Farmer’s market to get organic produce or grassfed beef etc. That might have to be limited. We actually do not eat out that often but we do spend quite some for grocery (plus mortgage, utilities etc). We don’t even shop clothing that much either, let alone furniture (it’s about more than a year we got this place and we are still using our apartment-style furniture instead of real ones).

Anyway, here’s my plan:
I will only buy strawberries for organic fruits. Other than that I’ll just either skip them or buy conventionally. For meat, I’ll stick to conventional lean cuts (boneless skinless chicken breast, lean cut beef and some lamb). For once in a while splurge, I might buy grass fed ground beef.

Alright, this gal needs to get ready to shower and get some zzzz so she’ll have enough rest and sleep to get up early tomorrow to bring home the food after her usual morning ritual.

Nite all!

Tell me about your food budget strategy. Ironically, Kath also posted something similar as well.

 

Weekday Meal Preparation and How To Stay Active

Hey everyone! Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Either I wasn’t inspired enough to post anything (other than a recipe that I posted couple days ago) or I was just plain lazy

Anyway, apparently my weekend meal preparations only enough for today’s dinner, so today after I got back home, I quickly threw the Chicken drumsticks (marinated similarly to Roasted Chicken with Caramelized Shallots) into the oven. Before I started making another dish, I did a quick upper body strength training.

After that, I made some burger patties (seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute, chopped 3 strips of Applegate bacons and 1 egg). First I pan seared the patties to brown the outside then threw them in the oven, baked for about 15 minutes (together with the chicken drumsticks).

While all the proteins were in cooking in the oven, I made some mixed veggie (carrots, tomatoes and asparagus) soup cooked in beef broth.

Dinner served! (Hubby K cooked the Chinese greens btw)

Oh btw, yesterday I finally I made Bo Bo Cha Cha, loosely based off Fit Daffy’s recipe. Ever since I saw it, I’ve been wanting to make it. Sadly, I didn’t have any coconut water so I just had to use regular water. Basically I made this dish because my opened coconut milk has been sitting in the fridge for a while and I don’t want it to get spoiled. Then why don’t you just drink that coconut milk? – you might ask. Let me tell you, for some reason, I can’t drink straight coconut milk- it gives me indigestion. I’m fine consuming it as long it’s part of some dish.

My Bo Bo Cha Cha version had: 1 orange colored sweet potato (cube cut), 1 purple yam (cube cut) and about 1-2 cup coconut milk mixed with about 1/2 cup of water – didn’t measure any. I just added some water to thin it out a bit. Pretty much just bring the coconut milk to boil, then reduce the heat to medium low, dump the sweet potatoes and boil until tender.

I had these for my late morning snack- SUPER GOOD even when it’s cold. The coconut milk thicken when it’s cold, but it doesn’t bother me. Got me super full that I didn’t even eat my lunch until around 2pm.

And before that, I had 4 hard boiled eggs seasoned with TJ 21 Seasoning Salute (can you tell I am really digging this seasonings??) as my breakfast around 8:00am.

****
Recently, I’ve been thinking of my overall physical activities beyond the workouts that I do in the morning (or evening). You see, overall I only spend about 15-20 minutes exercising each day, some even less than that (10-12 minutes) for 5-6 days a week. And yet I spend about 40 hours a week during weekday, sitting on my ass in the office or could be even more if I stuck myself in front of computer during the weekends.

Well okay, I don’t ACTUALLY sit for the entire 8 hour a day in the office. Every late afternoon (like around 3-4pm) I’ll get up and walk around the office parking lot for a good 15-20 minutes just to stretch myself. Sometimes I do it twice a day (one in late morning and one in late afternoon).

Anyway roughly I still spend more time being inactive and an idea came across in my mind. On Monday, I started to ditch my regular chair and use my stability ball instead.

Every time I needed to sit down to eat or in front of my computer, I sat on the stability ball. The longest I’ve done was yesterday (40 minutes) when I was watching Desperate Housewives newest episode on abc.com. The day before, I sat on it about 30 minutes when i was checking my email/read blogs. The result? Just from 30 minutes I could feel my abs muscles being sore, and yesterday I had to give up after sitting on it for 40 minutes straight. When sitting on the stability ball, your core muscles are constantly working to keep you in balance. If your posture gone bad, then you’ll feel uncomfortable.

Yes, as I am typing this, my core, oblique, and back feel sore, but in the GOOD way though (Truth: as I am typing this post, I am sitting on my regular chair again to give myself a little break). I just wish I could bring the ball to the office and ditch my office chair. Sadly, I can’t do that or the HR department will make me sign a release form for not suing them if anything goes wrong…(ha!)

What do you do to keep yourself active other than doing an actual exercise?

Our So Cal weather has been gloomy since Monday (overcast and cold). It was raining last night too! I feel bad for Hubby K washing our cars on Sunday and might have to wash them again because of this stupid light rain.

Have a great night!