Guest post and a yummy recipe

Have you ever fisted a bald chicken?  Be honest.  I should probably introduce myself first.  This is Bryan (Rachel’s ultra talented loving husband) and Rach asked that i contribute to her blog post every once in a while.  Back to why there is a bald chicken on my fist.  

Dinner!!!

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Sunday night is a great time for me to display my culinary feats and also remind Rachel how lucky she is to have a husband who can cook.  Sunday’s dinner recipe was a whole roasted chicken.  Ultra healthy, super easy.  The best thing about this dish is that you can change the recipe every time you make it.  Rachel tells me too much garlic gives her gas, so I tend to leave that out.   But feel fee to alter some of the veggies depending on your personal bowel movements.

This is the before:

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Ingredients: Whole Chicken, 1 lemon, rosemary, garlic, white onion, butter (optional), salt, carrots, and potatoes.  

Remove fist from chicken.  Cut the potatoes, carrots and throw them in the roasting pan.  Salt and pepper on top.  HOT sauce if you can handle it…

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Cut the lemon in half and forcefully stuff the bird, throw in an onion as well (remove the giblets before stuffing your bird!).  Chop some garlic and melt some butter, combine in a bowl with rosemary.  Brush on the skin.  Add a generous amount of salt to the skin (this is where you get that bomb-ass skin).  Rub in the salt vigorously!  Caution: Under salt at your own risk!!  Please drink a glass of red wine throughout this process.

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Bake at 425 until the bird reads 175 degrees.  Juices should run clear and will be soaked up by those delicious potatoes (fingerling, sweet, whatever works).  You should be on your 3rd glass of wine by now.

The after:

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As you can see, we also served roasted brussels sprouts on the side.  I also usually whip together a avocado cilantro dressing to go with.  If Rachel lets me back on her blog, i will share that recipe next time.  

For now, i’m off like a prom dress.

Enjoy!

What I ate Wednesday and my favorite memes

Hey, hey!

Doesn’t moving suck?

I spent my Saturday biking through the West Loop looking for potential places to live, but once I looked online I found that these apartments are expensive.  I’m talking like $2,500 a month for a 2 bedroom/2 bathroom, expensive.  Ouch.

Here is a money shot of the city:

ImageI also saw this strange (and large) door with a monster peeking out, RANDOM…

ImageLike, wtf IS that?!?!? I digress…

Anyway, my best girlfriends and I have decided that first, they will make a trip to Chicago in May and then we will all make a trip to NYC in July.  The July trip will involve me hanging out by the pool with a bunch of models whilst in my bikini so I decided to start an online weight loss challenge to prepare for this mortifying super fun event.  

With the challenge in full swing, I have been keeping a close eye on what I eat.  Today looked like this…

Breakfast: Spinach, carrot, banana, pineapple smoothie (est. 180 calories)

ImageLunch was a salad with spinach (again, ugh), walnuts, carrot sticks, beets and bleu cheese dressing (est. 400 calories)

ImageSnacks: fat free cottage cheese with 3 strawberries and a red anjou pear (est. 230 calories)

ImageDinner was Kath’s Slow Cooker Chicken served with avocado, cilantro and sweet potato + kale on the side (est. 500 calories).  I didn’t take a picture because hers would put my pictures to shame.

Daily totals amounted to about 1,300 calories.  Since I worked out, this should be o-okay.

Whenever I am on a diet, this is what I’m constantly thinking about…

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I don’t know why, but some of these internet memes get me every. single. time.  Here are a few of my favorites.

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 GUYS! I am cracking up as I post this!!!!

Do you have any internet memes that make you die laughing?!?!?!

Getting back on track

Happy hump day!

I hope you all are having a fantabulous (yes, that’s a word) week!

I, for one, am not.  I have not been so good in terms of eating (and drinking) healthy.  I’ve been really good about working out but we all know that’s only part of the equation.

I forget where I read this, but I got the idea to put a calendar that signifies how you are doing with your diet and exercise plan.  Here is what mine looks like thus far:

ImageYou basically mark off each day with either green or red.  Obviously, red means you have not been doing so hot.  Considering all the red on my calendar of late, it looks like I need to get back on track.  

Truth be told, there has been a lot of this going on:

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Soooo, this morning, I prepped for my day by making sure I had only healthful foods with me.  This is how the layout looked…

ImageI want to take a moment to talk about the carrot juice.  I found it in the store for only $4.00 and I thought it would be great for my morning smoothies.  The nutrition facts are pretty legit.  Note that the only ingredient is “carrot juice”…SCORE!

ImageI won’t lie, the first smoothie I made (spinach, pineapple, carrot juice) tasted kinda disgusting weird.  BUT, the next day (today), I added half a banana and it was delicious!  I suggest you guys give it a whirl because I had tons of energy after drinking it!

Let’s switch gears and talk about my weekend for a moment because it was pretty solid.

My friend, Indira told me about this running group hosted by Lululemon.  The running group starts at 7:30 AM on Saturday and they run for 65 minutes.  The run is followed by yoga inside the store!  Well, we were about 2 minutes late and the group left so we just did 4 miles on our own and made it back in time for yoga.  We’re planning on making it on time this week 🙂

On Sunday, the weather here in Chicago was AMAZE-BALLS so early in the morning, I got in a quick workout and then we went to go see the cubs!  Short hair, don’t care…

Image[you can follow me on Insty via @sweethanrahan]

I think I did something to my left hamstring so my workouts have not been anything to write home about.  I did do Jillian Michaels’ 6 week 6 pack (level 2) and that thing was TOUGH.  But other than that, I’ve just been milking the elliptical and lifting weights.

In case you are on the fence about the Jillian Michaels’ workout DVDs, I strongly suggest buying them.  They are cheap, quick, effective and perfect for when the gym sounds miserable.  

How cute is this lil’ guy?

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Any workout videos you can suggest?

 

 

 

 

I run for the champagne

Ahhhh, Monday, how I loathe thee.

This Monday was especially painful because of how tired I was from this crazy weekend.  I swear, I feel like I hardly took a break at all the last 2 days.  So, here is a little recap…

Friday night I just went out to dinner with the hubby because I knew the rest of the weekend was going to be jam-packed.

Saturday morning started off with a trip to the gym.  Since I was going to be running an 8k on Sunday, I took it somewhat easy: 20 minutes elliptical, 10 minutes stair-stepper followed by back/abs strength session.  After the gym, I headed over to Michael’s for this little DIY project that was inspired by my friend, Leslie.

ImageI tend to kill plants so cacti are perfect for me.

After Michael’s I picked up my race packet and got my teeth whitened, sexy right?

My husband and I got so tired that this had to happen:

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Note the straw.  Apparently, according to the teeth whitening people (what else would you have me call them?), we had to avoid pretty much all alcoholic drinks for 3 days but that using a straw makes it okay (thank GOODNESS!!!).

Race day gear ready to go…

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Sunday started off like-so:

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Soooo many people, holy moly.  I thought it was really cool that the winner of The Biggest Loser 2013 was there.

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The actual race could have been better.  I had an unpleasant bout of diarrhea right before the race (too much?) so I was really dehydrated and felt like crap for most of the time.

ImageOverall, for me I did a-okay.

After the race was over, I had a nice little brunch with my friend, Indira (she ran too!) then met up with my husband for some bike riding on the lakefront.  Aaaand then, THIS happened!

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What can I say, I run for the champagne!

Money shot:

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Random question: If you saw a meetup group in your city named Bitches, Booze and Books, would you consider joining?

 

 

 

Gym pet peeves, a new book and I’m screwed

Happy hump day everybody!

My week has been flying by, I hope yours has too 🙂

Workouts:

Monday: 30 minutes on the elliptical + upper body strength

Tuesday: 4 miles on dreadmill

Wednesday: 20 minutes on the elliptical + 1/2 of Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred (level 2)

While I was running on the dreadmill on Tuesday, I got to thinking about all the irksome little things that people do at the gym (what can I say, that thing is BORING). 

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Here are my 3 top gym pet peeves:

1) People not wiping down the machines once they are finished, GROSS

2) When I am waiting for a machine, and there is someone who is barely using it (talking on their phone, walking at a turtle pace, zero resistance, etc.)

3) Those girls who basically wear a bikini (you have a hot bod, we get it) to work out

Any pet peeves that drive you crazy?

Anyway, today I got very excited because my new book finally came in…

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Have you guys heard of it?  The basic premise is that modern-day wheat is genetically altered to create manufacturers with the greatest yield at the lowest cost.  This modern-day wheat is what’s making America fat.

I am not saying that I am going to go nuts and dive off into this wheat-free diet but I am interested in what Dr. Davis has to say.  So we’ll see.

In other news, as I mentioned earlier, I ran 4 miles yesterday and you know what?  It killed me.  My hips and hamstrings are completely sore.  I used to run 6 miles no problem, what happened?  Winter.  Winter is what happened.  Anyway,I just realized that the Shamrock Shuffle 8K is this weekend.  For some reason, I thought I had like 4 weeks until this sucker.  Considering the fact that 4 miles completely put me on my ass, I would say I’m screwed!  

Anyone else running a race this weekend?  If so, I hope that it will be warmer for you than it will be for me (48 degrees, FUN!).