I Make Myself

chicken dobladitas & broiled brussel sprouts

Here is another easy & healthy recipe! A dobladita is a folded tortilla. I use small wheat tortillas like the ones used for burritos only smaller.

You will need:

• Brussel sprouts
• 1 boneless chicken breast
• 2 small wheat tortillas
• mozzarella & cheddar shredded cheese mix

 

For the brussel sprouts I cut them in half, add some salt and put them in the oven. Once in the oven tossed them once or twice and they should be done in 20 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the dobladitas I cook the chicken brest in a nonstick frying pan and shred it when it's soft enough

 
 

In the mean time I preheat a bigger pan and place one tortilla to heat it up. I add some cheese and a little bit of chicken and fold it until the cheese is melted and the tortilla can remain closed. While the first dobladita is cooking I add a second one so they will cook at approximately the same time.

 

 

 

I take the brussel sprouts out of the oven and serve them with the dobladitas. An easy meal in 20 minutes! 

You can add some hot sauce to them if you dare :)

 

 

Things I do when I'm not running

 While I'm not running I do plenty of things one of them is becoming... the coolest aunt E.V.E.R!

Three of my friends decided that 2011 would be an amazing year to have babies and they got pregnant AT THE SAME TIME!! So now I'm  not only training for a marathon but I'm also on the road to becoming a super aunt to these gorgeous babies.

On saturday it was Anya's (baby N.1) baptism and we all got together for this special occasion. A baptism is a catholic ritual and they are a big deal here in El Salvador and since I am a proud salvadoran I wanted to share part of my culture (even though I'm not a catholic myself)

We went to mass at 10:00 AM where all of us looked color coordinated

 
oh...the proud parents and aunties!

 

After mass there was a brunch at Finca San Ernesto this is in Comasagua which is a 30 minute drive from San Salvador 

 

  
  
  
You might recognize my friend from the -against the wall- story :) I am happy to say she is fully recovered! we even went for a morning run today. Oh yes, and that whole "never wake up a sleeping baby thing"- uhm, we ignore it because we like to squeeze them all the time!

Brunch included a traditional salvadoran breakfast: Mashed red beans, cheese omelet, fried plantain and other more lunch-like food: chicken & spinach crepes and beef stuffed baguettes. 

 
 
And there was the fruit.

Becoming the best aunt in the world also includes spending quality time with the parents. As the day came to and end we decided to go the beach, have a couple of drinks and enjoy some grown ups solo time.

 

Drinks at the beach all year round is one the "downsides" of living in El Salvador.

And this is the sort of things I do on weekends...when I'm not running.

Yoga on my own

I want to acknowledge the fact that I've been focusing mainly on my marathon training - running and proper nutrition- and I've been neglecting not only writing about my yoga practice but actually having one!

My passion for yoga is undeniable but I can't find the time to go to yoga class. I have to hit the gym, cross train, run, cook, write and well ok, do other imperative things like...spend the day with this cutie:

 

HE IS A HOTTIE! Sorry ladies he is all mine!

 

 

......Ok, due to public demand here is another pic!

 

He is  HUGE imakemyself supporter! see..getting his proper nutrition and being happy.

Bauti is the son of one of my besties and the truth is I can't get enough of him! So If he calls me to say he wants to go shopping with me..uhh..yeah  I GO! We are getting married some day (sorry Heinz) but I just love this little one. 

Back to the point, I've been busy. 

I decided that even if I couldn't make it to my classes I didn't have to completely set aside my yoga growth. I've been studying on my own and there are three books I am currently reading :

1. B.K.S Iyengar. Light on Yoga

Currently at my parents house so I couldn't snap a pic of the book.

 

2. Matthew Sweeney, ASTANGA Yoga as it is and the Dalai Lama, How to see yourself as you really are.

The book by the Dalai Lama was a gift from a dear Colombian friend.

 

On my on-line research I stumbled upon this video and I really wanted to share it here

 

 Briohny Smyth

Briony is a yoga teacher who is -obviously- amazing and her video has caused quite a stir in the yoga world and I REALLY try to make myself understand WHY!? Apparently the video got negative response due to the fact that she is in her underwear.

This is why I wanted to share the video because of this controversy. It makes me think that we always tend to emphasise on the medium but not the message. One would think that the main focus of this video would be the out of this world arm poses and self control shown by Briohny but to some people it's not. 

I guess there is always going to be people who stick out the negative over the positive..."Look how good she is at yoga...no wait, she is wearing only her underwear so no, forget it she's not good".

I try to focus on the positive and maybe that is why it's so hard for me to understand this type of approach. For me negativity is like an epidemic! We start with little things like pointing out negative aspects of lets say, this video and then we go on with negative aspects about yoga, and then we proceed with people who do yoga and suddenly we focus on so many negative things that we start to hate the world. It's an epidemic trust me.

Our lives can be far from perfect and not everything is going to be joy and happiness but we can decide whether to focus on the brighter parts or if we want to embrace negativity and become one of those  -look at her she is her underwear- type of person.

 

 

 

Mashed broccoli for dinner

 After a long day of meetings and greetings Heinz came home ready to EAT! I decided to pay tribute to his roots and made some sort of german inspired dinner. Mashed broccoli pure and sausage.

For the mashed broccoli I used 1 medium broccoli and 2 small potatoes.

I boiled the broccoli and potatoes (separately) for 10 to 15 minutes. I cut the potatoes into pieces so they would cook faster. When everything was soft enough I took them out of the hot water and mixed/mashed them together with a fork. I added little salt and a spoon of low-fat cream cheese. 

 

I boiled the sausage (polish kielbasa) for 10 minutes and that's it! 

My version of a german inspired dinner! Even though I tossed in some potatoes it was just to add texture but the main ingredient must be the broccoli. The broccoli was really tasteful and I think it's a great way to incorporate green vegetables! This recipe is definitely a keeper.

 

 

Emergency Room and Pizza

This weekend was particularly fun and particularly not.

Friday night a friend and I decided to have a girls night out. It was spontaneous and not planned at all! We chose a cozy bar with great girlie drinks and then...another friend came and she brought another friend with her and then another friend came. What was supposed to be a relaxed soiree for two turned out to be a lets-go-dance-our-butts-off night out! Fun fun fun!

 
lovely pics courtesy of  @SandovaLuciana

Unfortunately we got a little too excited with the dancing and the night ended up like this:

 Luckily it was nothing serious as our smiles tell in the picture. 

We were having a great time dancing to every.single.song when suddenly my friend, the one I was originally having a quiet night with, tells me she had bumped her face against the wall!... mhmm...WHAT???...I didn't know if I was supposed to laugh or worry!  She had a small scratch on her nose but she wasn't bleeding so we sat down and I asked her to tell me how in the w.o.r.l.d she could have hit her FACE against a wall???!!!!!!! and believe it or not she told me it happened while dancing a song called AGAINST THE WALL! Apparently it's an upbeat song and she took the lyrics rather literal and while dancing against a wall she miscalculated the distance and hit her face.

We went to the ER to check that everything was ok because she had a little cut on her eyelid too. The against-the-wall-song story made the doctor laugh too!

The doctor laughing. Evidence 1.

My friend got a few stitches and and a funny story to tell. At around 2:30AM I finally got home but I had a feeling that staying up so late was setting me up for a lousy run on sunday.

I tried to rest on saturday but I actually wasn't feeling so tired. For dinner Heinz and I decided to load up on carbs and we went to one of our favorite places which is  -to everyone's amazement-  a pizza place.

Delikat is a small restaurant in San Salvador at Boulevard El Hipodromo. They have great pizzas and the one I always choose is the Vienna which has pesto, basil, prosciutto and feta.

I've read before that having pizza counts as carb loading (it is kind of obvious since it has a lot of carbs) and  I've seen people having it before a long run so I thought it would give me energy for sundays 19K run. When choosing food I guess I will have to make future decisions based on trial and error because even though this pizza was delicious I feel it didn't give me the energy I was expecting.

Last weekend I ran on red beens and avocado and so far it has been my biggest energy booster for a long run. I've tried pasta before but my body takes too long to digest it and I run feeling full and heavy.

This weekends long run didn't go as great as last one did. I guess staying up late did take its toll after all. I started with 1K warm up, at 15K I made a walking break, ran 1K more and then cooled down for the last 2K. I felt exhausted, I wanted to stop the whole time and to top it off it was hot as hell. I ended up with a pain on my lower back but thank God it was gone today.

On a brighter note I am making a new recipe tonight! Mashed Broccoli! I hope it turns out delicious enough to share it! and since it is monday -the beginning of a new week and all- I decided that even though my weekend run went blah I would start today with a happy self help note:

 

 

 

My first 30 days of marathon training

After an internet connection crisis I'm back! To the point :)

I've commented before that I've been having, dealing, battling sugar cravings. I don't know if it's the training load or if I'm not balancing proteins and carbs right...I really don't know. What I do know is that I have to confront them and find a way to deal with them. 

I am taking a few steps in order to do this:

First, researching and reading to try to find out if I am eating right. 

Second, eating right ;)

If I can't make the cravings stop then I have to satisfy them with a healthy snack but since I've never been into sweets I don't have a clue about sweet healthy snacks. With this being said I am announcing that I am currently on the road to discover a new world of sweets...that is until I can make the cravings stop!

Yesterday I made myself my very first very healthy -no sugar- sweet snack...A SMOOTHIE.

I love the tropical touch of the orchid in the pic.

Maybe a smoothie is a no-brainer for many but for me is a hassle. Ok, it's not a hassle but it is definitely not my first snack choice. It turned out to be so simple to make that I decided to share the secret recipe with all those non smoothie makers like me.

• 1 strawberry yogurt (I use the no sugar kind)
• 1 banana (I discovered I can keep them frozen)
• 1 cup of skimmed milk (I use lactose free)
• 1 little spoon of protein powder (all those with none to small athletic activity can skip this or consult a professional)

Directions> Mix in the blender and ENJOY!

 

Another thing I am using to confront the cravings is self motivation it is not as tasty but it is encouraging. It was exactly one month yesterday that I started training for my first marathon (read in tone as if I am trying to convince myself) and to keep myself motivated I keep track of the total distance I've ran, the amount of calories burnede and time records to see if they've improved.

I track my workouts at Dailymile it's a page where you can type in or upload your workouts and I love it because it's really friendly and they have a cool app to share my last run on my blog. 

This are my lifetime stats!

 

I L-O-V-E! the one that says how much donuts I've burned!! almost 50 donuts! No one can deny that this is only the coolest thing in the world! 

Keeping track - and this goes for non athletic activities as well- is a way remind our selves of our achievements. If I'm not feeling like running 5K I can look at the chart and see that I've ran a total of 134K! What are 5 more kilometers? The number 134K makes a 5K look extremely easy. It's all about perspective.

Regarding my training I decided to share what my schedule has been so far:

Click to enlarge

My overall feeling is good. I haven't felt the training to be particularly hard and right now my focus is on learning to keep a steady pace, learning about hydration and nutrition and most important staying injury free!

The biggest challenge I would have to say is coming up with routes for my long runs. I have to feel safe when running so I have to stay within certain areas making it hard to run a 17K route without looping and I really don't like to run in loops!

I've misses pretty much all my fridays run but I feel rested for my long runs so I am listening to my body and learning to know how much I can push it.

Another challenge has definitely been the food. I am feeling hungry more often and I don't want to embrace the -I work out I can eat what I want- mentality. I try to keep myself from getting too hungry by snacking before I'm starving and ready to eat anything. I've realized this is when I make poor food choices.

As for products these have been my biggest discoveries so far:

1. My Garmin. I really didn't understand what the big deal with Garmins was until...I had my very own. They measure distance, pace and time and that is more than enough for me to have a passionate relationship with it. When I got it my husband looked at it and asked "why is that watch so big? so you can see what time it is on big numbers?" and I said..."actually you It doesn't tell you what time it is". We still laugh because he couldn't believe that a "watch" that size wouldn't give me the time. I have the Garmin Forerunner 205 and yes, it is big on size but it doesn't bother me when I am running so I would say size is not a negative aspect.

2. Brooks shoes. They are the lightest shoes I've ever had! I used to run on Aesics before and I have great things to say about them but they did got to feel heavy when running for long distances. Brooks are light weight without sacrifying good support.

3. Compression calf sleeves. I have tight calves and these sleeves help me recover so much faster than before. I would recommend them to everyone! I can feel the difference within hours. I am getting another pair.

 

As the training continues distances get longer and I really hope my motivation will get bigger as well. I love to have the challenge of a marathon! The good thing about self imposed challenges is that they give me energy and purpose which is the perfect combination of two must haves ingredients in life.