Do you remember this song?
I was never a huge fan of The Muppets (I’m not sure why!), but I’ve always liked that song. Yesterday’s #Elf4Health challenge was to “eat the rainbow.” In a normal week, I would have totttttalllllly rocked that challenge, but yesterday was a little more difficult.
I feel like I’ve been making excuses for things lately, but really – I just can’t justify filling my fridge with a rainbow of veggies that might not be eaten by next week. I had to stick to some limits! Let’s just say yesterday was more of a “rainbow disconnection.”
That doesn’t mean I didn’t try, though! I covered most of the colors. And you get to see them all since it’s What I Ate Wednesday! Thanks to Jenn as always for her hospitality. I have a lot of random tangents today, so bear with me.
Workout
Okay so another challenge from #Elf4Health that I previously slacked on was Sunday’s 100 Burpee challenge. Um. What. If you know me, you know I really dislike burpees. I didn’t do them Sunday or yesterday, like I had planned, so I decided to tackle them once and for all this morning after a 30 minute elliptiCOOL session <<– see what I did there again?
LET ME TELL YOU. My arms were jello. I split the burpees into ten sets of ten, and it was so tough. I wanted to quit multiple times. When I was finished, I felt the greatest sense of accomplishment! It really proved to me that I can do what I set my mind to.
PS: I had some dates before I hit the gym, since this is WIAW and all.
Breakfast
On Monday Cassie posted a Cinnamon Pear Green Smoothie recipe. I knew I had to have it, so I made a special trip to pick up a pear that night for the occasion.
Interesting story: I also added a banana and froze both that and the pear. It must have been too tough for my poor blender to handle, because it smelled like it was burning and then started spinning really slow. I decided to help it along by stirring with a plastic spoon, which then accidentally got nicked by a blade.
When I poured the smoothie out, I couldn’t find the pieces of the spoon so I even texted Cassie telling her the smoothie was delicious but that I thought I ingested plastic. She responded with something along the lines of she has probably eaten plastic before, too. That’s why we’re friends. It turns out I found both small pieces in my last few bites, so no toxic contamination or choking here, folks.
Sidenote: Frozen spinach doesn’t blend well in smoothies, especially when you decide to use it on the same day you break your blender. The taste of the smoothie was still fantastic, so definitely give it a try.
Rainbow foods:
Yellow: Banana, pear
Green: Spinach
Lunch
This scene should be pretty familiar by now. I had plain greek yogurt mixed with honey and cinnamon, an apple with peanut butter, and carrots. A few carrots also fell prey to the PB. Surprisingly, I wasn’t very hungry for lunch. Breakfast held me over well! Does anyone remember the quote from Bridesmaids about the ugly carrot? I took a picture of this specific carrot because it was the ugly one in the bag.
Rainbow foods:
Yellow: Apple
Orange: Carrots
Snack
I popped a date in my mouth before I hit the gym for yoga. I didn’t go to hot yoga tonight for various reasons, but I still needed my fix. The class at our gym is much less intense and I consider it more of a stretch than a workout.
Rainbow foods:
Brown: Date… please tell me that counts.
Dinner
I was really craving sweet potato fries for dinner, so I whipped up a big batch of those to go alongside some baked chicken and cauliflower (with ketchup).
Rainbow foods:
White: Cauliflower
Orange: Sweet Potato
Bedtime Snack
Last night was the second night in a row I made Amanda’s Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Mug Cake. It is amazingly good; not too sweet with a soft texture from the coconut flour. As she said, the chocolate chips are necessary! Ignore my ugly photo and imagine a wonderful taste (as with so many of my meals).
Rainbow foods:
Orange: Pumpkin
All in all, it was a good day of eats, although i wish I could have done a better job with the rainbow challenge.
Question of the Day:
Muppets – yay or nay? What did you watch instead if it’s a no? I was very much a Barney girl.
I loveeeed muppets. Especially a muppet christmas carol and muppet treasure island!!
You didn’t tell me how many frozen things went into your smoothie – I once had too much ice in one and my Vitamix made scary noises. The next day it worked fine though.
Plastic in your smoothie or not – it looks ridiculously good!! I love green smoothies. I just find the color from the spinach to be so refreshing.
Oh well, at least you had some fruits and veggies yesterday! I’m sure that was the point of the challenge. I agree with the first poster – I use frozen spinach in my smoothies all the time, and it’s fine. But the key is that the liquid to frozen ingredients ratio has to be more than 1:1 otherwise you will need an industrial strength blender to get it all mixed up. If you put ice in yours, maybe try blending the frozen spinach and other ingredients first until they are kind of chopped up, then put in the ice at the very end.
Poor carrot!! It definitely isn’t very pretty :(.
omg I’m obsessed with that song. I still know every word! And I’m jealous of the fact that you and Cassie get to hang out. Way to exclude me guysssss!
Looks like you did a great job getting in all your colors! I go to yoga Monday nights at my gym, it’s defiantly more of a relax than workout time but I still like going.
Mmmm I’m dying to try Amanda’s mug cake!! Love all the colors you incorporated into your day!
Burpees have always been the bane of my existence, so kudos to you for getting 100 of em in! And I love, love, LOVE the Muppets! Muppet Christmas Carol has actually always been one of my favourite movies to watch around this time of the year — gonna have to pull it out soon!
I haven’t seen the Muppets, but I think it’ll be on my queue for the holidays. That mug cake looks awesome!
I was never really a big Muppets fan as a kid – I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t go out of my way to watch it either.
And I’d say you did an awesome job with eating the rainbow! Lots of produce up in there.
lol seems like you had an interesting day of eats! lol at first that smoothie scared me but after looking into it I think I’d like it!
-ELise @9toFit.com
Good job on getting those evil burpees in!! I hate them too, ugh!
That chocolate chip pumpkin mug cake sounds amazing!! I love dates as a preworkout snack too… love to pair one with a bit of coconut butter. 🙂
Miss piggy is a hottie…right?
Oh burpees can go jump in a lake. They MAY have been a big reason I didn’t partake in the Elf4health challenge.. although I might do round two.
Our blenders must be related. Damn frozen spinach actually broke my blade which I may have ingested. :s Fail. Whale.
Yes we definitely used to watch the Muppets and sesame street too!!
Not good about ingesting plastic, I think I have before too. Funny that you found it in the last bite though. The smoothie sounds delicious anyway – in spite of the plastic 😉