Oh How I Love Butternut Squash

So once again -- I've been sick for the last week off and on. Not like I was before, but this time it was with headaches probably stemming from a combination of stress, runny nose and congestion :-/ I had "run 9 miles" on my calendar for about 5 days in a row with one headache after another. If you've ever tried to run with one, you know how impossible it is. If you're one of those who can push through the pounding that just gets worse and worse with every step, I highly respect you and want to know your secrets :-) Finally, yesterday I set out for a 6 mile run. I thought I was running my 3.5 mile route, but ended up running my 5 mile route which was going to be followed by a 3 mile route = a total of 8. I hadn't run in about 5-7 days, and I think my last run was about 7 so I didn't want to push my tired arches too hard, so I left it at 5. Becoming more body conscious in terms of preventing injury and preserving myself vs. pride and pushing to see how far I can make myself go has been an interesting transition. I think it comes with growing up maybe? Either way, you have to give into a little bit of that pride and use your brain a little more so I've come to find -- and believe me, my feet and knees thank me. :-)

Today I followed up that run with a 45 minute workout at the gym. I did a bunch of weights, working out everything from glutes, calves, hamstrings, biceps, triceps, and abs. They say not to work out everything all at once so you have other things to work out for the next day and so your muscles can heal properly (working out certain groups on certain days with time inbetween lets them heal rather than repetitive tearing of the muscle fibers), but tomorrow is my 9 mile run and I won't be doing any weights. Finally -- tackling my favorite task on my to-do list! :-)

Mom & Dad came into town this last weekend and it was so much fun getting to see them as always :-) They stocked my refrigerator and pantry prettttyyy well so that means time for new recipes! I've made a couple -- yesterday I made a butternut squash, pumpkin and apple soup that I devised from a recipe. I'm only listing the actual recipe for now because my recipe needs a bit of work and was mostly compiled of things that needed to be used (i.e. the open can of pumpkin in my frige).

Apple Butternut Squash Soup (from Clean Food by Terry Walters)
1 large butternut squash
1 large yellow onion chopped
2 Tbsp grapeseed oil
4 large apples, peeled, cored and quartered
4 cups vegetable stock
1 cup rice milk
1/4 cup coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Sea salt to taste

Peel squash, cut in half and remove seeds. Cut into 2-inch pieces.

In large pot over medium heat, sauté onion in oil until soft (about 5 minutes). Add squash, apples, stock, rice milk, coconut milk and nutmeg. Cover, bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes or until squash is soft. Puree with handheld blender (or regular if you don't have handheld or food processor) and remove from heat to cool slightly. Season to taste with salt and serve.

Serves 6


I'm a huge fan of veggies. HUGE fan. Fresh, steamed, boiled, baked, broiled. Doesn't matter to me. One of my favorite things to do lately has been to slice turnips into circles and zucchini/summer squash long ways, toss in some asparagus and green beans, toss them in a little olive oil, sprinkle them with sea salt and multi-colored cracked pepper, then bake them in the oven for about 15 minutes on 375. Mmmm mmmm!! Of course, you can do any combo of this you want, or even throw in some others like brussle sprouts, sweet potatoes, etc. You really can not go wrong :-)

For lunch/dinner today at Skyviews, I decided to use my veggie combo, toss with a little whole wheat rotini pasta, and some turkey meat spaghetti sauce I made (my Momma's recipe--super easy and SO good!). I'm looking so forward to it!! :-)

With all that I have going on, I've been a little stressed. Not just with the never ending to do list for school, projects, tests, working out/running (which is actually my outlet of stress),  but I finally discovered that it is because I don't have much semblance of a routine. Sure I have school daily, but projects and tests and homework are all over the place, multiple in one week which is normal for college. What gets me is that no day in the week is the same, schedules seem to always conflict for group projects not to mention they're all due within a couple weeks of each other (there will be 2 times this semesterwhen this happens), and I feel like sometimes there is not enough time left in the day. This realization in itself has helped me tremendously. I no longer feel like "Why can't I handle this?!" becuase I've always been able to handle a large load with no or minimal stress. I've also come to terms with the fact that you can control what you can control, and you have to learn to accept the things that you can't and work with or around them.

Have a good night! :-)

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company...a church...a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how i react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes."

Pain, No Gain...Or with these Muffins:)

When it comes to running, where there is actual, not supposed to be there pain, there probably won't be much gain. I was driving down Avenue X here in Lubbock the other day and I thought back to when I was training for a marathon over a year ago with my friend Lauren. As I was driving I thought about my old running motto I used to tell myself if I started to feel pain (real pain, not muscle fatigue or something normally related to exercise) which was "feel no pain". Looking back now, I couldn't have been more ignorant about it. I thought the pain and injury meant I was a real athlete and that I was pushing my body to the limits. Well I was pushing my body to the limits, just not in the way I wanted. For those of you who have read Marathoning for Mortals or follow RunnersWorld.com (or magazine), John "the penguin" Bingham used to have a very similar mindset. Even after reading Marathoning for Mortals and about how he was the same way as me, I kept on with the same mind set. But of course as with everything else, I learn the hard way--through my own experience. It was on this street, that the dreadful moment happened when I pushed it too far past the pain to run in the race. We were running down this street around mile 11 on a 16 mile run when the pain I had been having in my foot finally got too much for me to keep running. When we got to University and 19th, I told her quickly that my foot couldn't handle it anymore for the day and left her to finish the rest of the run as I ran/hobble/limp/walked back to my car about a mile away. It didn't take long for me to realize this wasn't going to go away so I called my Sports Medicine doctor to see what they could do. They said feet weren't his specialty and referred me to someone else. Unfortunately, this someone else was not on my insurance so I looked up what foot doctors here in Lubbock were on my insurance. I made an appointment for that week. Turns out, I had plantar fasciitis. The first step was to tape my feet and see how that went. If I responded well, I would get orthotics and not have to undergo cortisone shots or surgery. Luckily, besides the blisters and not being able to wash my feet from the tape for 2 weeks (that was worse than the blisters) my plantar fascia did seem to be doing better. I got the orthotics about 4 weeks later. I kept off of it for another couple of weeks before I went stir crazy and tried running with them. I experimented in many different ways -- having them on top of the pads, under the pads, one on top and one under. For a long time I had my right on top and my left under. My left foot never really hurt, but the right was killing me so I felt like I got more support out of it this way but left my left foot to be more comfortable (while still getting the extra support). It took a long long time to finally get back to real running shape, feet and otherwise (but mostly feet) -- I would say about 10 months to a year. There were times I would go out and run and it wouldn't hurt at all, others it would kill me. When this happened, I would rest it for as long as I could (usually about a few weeks) before I would break down and cry and mentally have to go on a run. For those of you who aren't runners or who don't know me, when I don't run I'm not myself. It's my morning coffee. My calming, mind clearing, relaxing, zoning out, fix. It's also what I do when I'm mad, stressed, upset or flat want to punch someone in the face. It's nothing a few sprints or a long run can't fix but when I can't do that, I go a little crazy and I can get a bit bitchy. However, I am finally back to having healthy (mostly) feet thanks to a lot of ice, A LOT of impatience that I just had to wait out, a lot of E-STIM (which I have my own so I don't have to go and pay $2,000 for treatment thankfully), and those orthotics. Now that I'm back to running my normal mileage (anywhere from 4-10 miles every other day), I'm being much more careful and much smarter (even though sometimes my pride will get in the way and try and sneak in every now and then telling me to run farther when I shouldn't). I'm finally accepting the fact that I may not be able to run a marathon anytime soon if ever. Not that I won't try and give it my best go, but this time I'm going to listen to my body. Lesson in my long spiel: if you feel pain (again--real pain, not fatigue or muscle exhaustion, or the pain you feel when you first start working out), there is no gain. In fact, you'll lose out on time of running or whatever it is that you're into that caused this, if you keep pushing through it. I'm not a fan of going to the doctor's office, but sometimes you suck it up and do what you gotta do. :)

Now for those muffins...

Vegan Pumpkin Spice Orange Banana Bread
(I swear if you think vegan is code for "not very tasty", these will change your mind:))


Yields 12 squares/muffins

2 cups spelt flour
1 cup white flour
3 extra-ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup canned pumpkin (or applesauce)
1 tsp cinnamon
dash cayenne
2 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp orange zest
1 large orange, juiced (about 1/4 cup)
2-3 Tbsp canola oil
1/2 cup almond milk (or other non dairy like hemp, soy, coconut, etc...)
1/3 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1 tsp salt (omit if using salted nuts/seeds)
1/3 cup maple syrup (or agave)
1/2 cup crushed pecans/nuts
2 tbsp crushed/whole flax seeds
Directions:
*Preheat oven to 375-400 degrees*
1. Add flour, dry spices, salt and baking powder to a large mixing bowl. Stir well.
2. Add in the almond/soy/coconut/hemp milk, oil, vanilla extract, bananas, pumpkin or applesauce, orange juice and maple syrup. Stir well.
3. Mix in pumpkin seeds, 1 tsp of the orange zest, and additional nuts.
4. Lay a sheet of parchment paper over a shallow 8 x 14" baking pan/dish (for bars) or line muffin tin.
5. Pour batter into baking dish. Smooth out for bars.
6. Combine another 1/4 cup of maple syrup with a little cinnamon, and the other tsp of orange zest. Drizzle this over the top of the bars or muffins and then sprinkle the pumpkin seeds over the top.
7. bake for 15-20 minutes depending on how thick your bars/muffins are. These should be lightly browned at the edges and you can always use a tootpick/knife/other long skinny object to poke in the middle and see if they're done.
8. Remove and let cool. I ate these every morning for breakfast, sometimes I'd even have two. They're great alone, or crumbled into chunks over fruit (I used diced honey crisp apples, a sliced banana, and an orange cut into bit size pieces) with vanilla almond milk and cinnamon. Mmmm mmm!!! I also tried just dipping it in my vanilla almond milk, and with jam -- both of which were also delicious!

I must fess up -- I snagged the one that is missing before taking this picture to make sure they were finished. Turns out they were, and they were also very delicious.:) They also kept me full for a very long time which is also a plus so you're not eating these calories (since carbs usually leave me pretty hungry a couple hours later) and then quickly consuing a whole bunch more from getting hungry again fast.

I am finally back to running and working out again after taking a 6 day hiatus because I was sick. Even those 6 days were almost too much for me to take. On the night of day 5, I started crying and had to explain to Patrick that nothing was really wrong, I simply just wanted to go on a run! Luckily, he understood and didn't think I was a crazy. :) The first day back, I ran a short 3.5 miles while listening to Michael Buble' in the amazing 48 degree weather, and yesterday I had a great workout at the gym for two solid hours -- just what I needed:) I may not be completely better so I'm not going to go balls to the wall just yet, but I am getting better and want to keep getting better so those 7 milers are going to have to wait until next week most likely. I did run a good 7.26 (thank you to map my run, I know exactly how far I went) the day before taking my wonderful/horrid 6 days off.

Something else that has been going on in my life is some spring (fall) cleaning. Not my house though, my life.:) In college (as most of you know), you have a lot of friends. Some are genuine and love you and have you're best interests at heart (and vice versa), but there are some that try to put on this face of the genuine friend but in fact end up coming very short of the genuine friend. These are the people that I literally do not have time for (I hardly have time for my genuine friends!), they suck energy, and this may sound a little selfish (but sometimes you have to be because you are who you are so you must do what makes you happy) but they don't give you anything. I'm not talking about physical posessions or drinks at the bar, what I mean is they don't contribute to your happiness. I'm also not talking about your best friend who you're in a huge fight with right now because those things happen. This might sound harsh to smoe of you but as you also know, I'm very into supreme happiness and how people get there. There are no right steps in some specific order for all of us because we all have to be true to our own selves. This is exactly what I'm doing, being true to myself and my wants and needs. My house did also get a little bit of a face-lift and I have been cleaning more often and more deeply (thank you Mom & Dad for the new vacuum!) which contributes to my happiness so that can count for the spring (fall) cleaning too:)

I'm sure a lot of you have tried, heard of, or seen these Garden of Eatin' chips at the store. I have, and I'll be honest I didn't try them because they had more calories than the Guiltless Gourmet chips I keep buying. Well, Patrick and I have been going through the salsa and chips like nobody's business (highly recommend Frontera's salsa (in all varieties -- you can not go wrong!) and he was not a fan of the Guiltless Gourmet (the spicy bean flavored was better for him, but didn't go so well with the Pineapple Mango Frontera slasa we had in the frige). So last night, we got a little hungry and made a trip down to Market Street. I was getting a little tired of the Guiltless Gourmet myself and decided to make the switch! I got the Multi Grain with Sea Salt and they're SO GOOD! They have flax seeds in them too so they have a little nutiness which is great and they aren't too salty like most chips are. I believe for 16 chips its 140 calories which isn't much different than the 18 chips for 120 that the Guiltless Gourmet offered, but they're also a very welcome change:) Not that I won't be buying my Guiltless Gourmet again, or that I'm bad mouthing them  now that I found these -- no way. But 3 bags of them in one week for a couple weeks in a row did get to be a lot of the same after the same after the same. So with that, I highly recommend these marvelous chips! I took a picture but it isn't wanting to load. I'll leave you with that and I hope you have a great week!:)