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Healthy eating

Food, Healthy eating, Recipes, Vegetarian

Fresh Tomato-Basil Pasta Recipe

Since summer is in full swing, farmer’s markets have popped up all over the place, and our gardens are starting to yield, I decided it was time to share one of my favorite summer recipes: Fresh tomato-basil pasta!

This recipe is:

  • Perfect for summer
  • Light and fresh
  • Low in calories
  • Full of heart-healthy fats and antioxidants

This summer, I’m only growing a little pot of herbs because I don’t have my own space to plant a garden; however, there is a permanent little farm market close by where I was able to pick up some local peaches, zucchini, and fresh tomatoes.

Fresh Tomato-Basil Pasta

I didn’t like fresh tomatoes all that much growing up because the seeds and goop were a little too yucky for my picky self. As I’ve gotten older though, I’ve fallen more in love with the versatile flavor that they add to many dishes. Caprese salad is one of my favorite dishes with fresh tomatoes!

My mom and grandma used to make fresh tomato-basil pasta so I’m sharing that with you today! This is a perfect recipe for me because it’s cheap and quick to make. This pasta won’t take you longer than 15 minutes to make and only uses a handful of ingredients. I love using these scissors (affiliate link) to prep the basil even faster!

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Exercise, Food, Healthy eating, Running, Training

Welcome to My Life as Mrs!

Welcome to the new blog, My Life as Mrs! This new blog has been a long time coming. I had been trying for so long to think of a good name to represent me and I’d had a whole bunch of inspirational ideas for a name but the domain name was usually taken whether or not there was a blog attached to it. Well I finally figured that I wanted a name that would move along with me as my life changed and I really liked the idea of incorporating “Mrs” because being a wife is pretty much my favorite thing. I love my husband and all of our adventures! Since we’re in an extremely transitional period right now with him just about finishing with school, about to take his boards, and starting a new job, a lot of things are going to be changing over the next few months and now is a great time to start documenting our adventures in a more dedicated fashion.

I’m in full swing for triathlon training since my sprint tri is coming up in 6 weeks! It’s been slow going to get into it because of pain in my back that I’ve been dealing with lately, but things are going well all things considered so I’m going to be sharing more updates and details as they’re actually going on so I can have a better training log of this training cycle.

So let’s start with Sunday’s run!

Run Outfit

I look like I’m falling asleep but the sun was right in my eyes! About 2 seconds after Brady took this photo, I realized that my shoelaces and my top were pretty much exactly the same color. Yay for color coordination! I haven’t been running a whole lot lately due to the aforementioned pain but when I have been, I’ve been running to push for speed because I really held back on that last year when I was training. However, when I run for a faster speed like in the 8:30-10:00 min/mi range, I usually don’t run for more than 3-5 minutes max in an interval. So for Sunday’s run, I really wanted to see where I was at if I focused on running for an amount of time instead of speed. I managed out a decent 20 minute run with no breaks at a 12:26 min/mi average pace. I was getting some nerve problems down through my right leg the last 3 minutes of running and I’ve been a bit sore in my quads and hamstrings today but I’m actually really satisfied with that run considering it hasn’t been a consistent endeavor lately.

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Healthy eating, Meal Planning, Recipes, Vegetarian, Weight loss

Lunchtime Yummies

I wanted to share a quick photo of my lunch because it was really that delicious! I cooked the sweet potato in the microwave last night and reheated it for lunch. I made a modified version of the farro salad last night as well and it’s exceeded my expectations. This was one of the recipes I’ve been looking at making for a while now and I think it’s going to become a regular for sure. I’d recommend trying it!

Mediterranean Farro Salad and Sweet Potato for Lunch

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Healthy eating, Meal Planning, Vegetarian, Weight loss

A Week of Healthy Vegetarian Meal Planning

Meal planning is something that I’ve done somewhat ever since I’ve been married but I’ve never stayed extremely dedicated to the plan because I’d get tired or lazy some weeks and eventually end up just buying groceries willy-nilly. Whenever I do take the time though, I eat healthier, spend less money on food overall and I feel better all around.

Usually I like to meal plan on Fridays or Sundays, so I’m a day late and my week calendar will be off a day, but I’ll sort that out for next time. I like to center my meals more around natural/fresh foods so I am eating minimal amounts of processed foods and additives. And in case you didn’t know, I’m vegetarian preferring vegan most of the time.

The main goals for this week are to prepare and eat ALL the planned meals, NO going out to eat for this week. Drink more water throughout the day.

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Exercise, Healthy eating, Training, Triathlon, Weight loss

Self-Improvement Begins Here

It’s been just about 3 months since I signed up to repeat my favorite (only) race from last year and now we’re sitting on 5 months until Iron Girl race day! I get really excited when thinking about doing this race again especially now that I have an understanding of what I’m doing and how training for a triathlon feels like.

Sometimes I feel wimpy when I say “training for” because it is a sprint distance and for someone who is doing an Ironman, this race is basically like any training day for them. But I remind myself to stop feeling pitiful because if I didn’t bother to put in the time or the effort to train for my little race, then I could still be sitting on the couch like I was last year dreaming that I’d one day lose weight.

Losing weight is hard. —If anyone has ever had an easy time with it, tell me your secrets please!— Last year, I knew I had to have a tangible goal that I was excited to work towards and that’s why I went in search of an event that would remind me daily of what I was training for. While there were definitely difficult days, I was never sad or upset to do my daily workout and I actually was usually excited for it because I knew that with each workout, I was building myself up to succeed once race day arrived. Just imagining crossing the finish line with the knowledge of what I had accomplished is what pushed me through the tough days.

My goal in doing this race was to build fitness, build confidence, and lose weight and I feel like I really succeeded last year. This year’s goal is build on that foundation and keep going, because there’s so much more that I want to accomplish.

Along with my fitness goals, I am trying to work on my diet and improving the quality of the foods I eat. I’m trying to drink more and eat more of a veggie based diet. I’m vegetarian but a lot of dairy, grains, and processed foods tend to dominate what I eat so I’m trying to scale back and make it more about the healthy stuff.

Over the next several months, I’m going to be sharing what I’m doing to improve my diet as well as how I’m preparing for this year’s race. I need support to make it on this continuing journey and I also want to be a support for those who need some encouragement to meet their own goals.

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If you’re interested in signing up for the Iron Girl Columbia Triathlon on August 7, 2016, –> Click HERE. (The price rises $20 on April 1st). I’m not advertising for any personal gain but I’m passionate about it because I really believe that this race is an empowering event for women.

Exercise, Healthy eating, Training, Triathlon, Weight loss

Things these days + 6 month goals

Hello internet family! Long time, no update!

My husband and I are back in Michigan for him to attend a couple months of classes before we head back to Maryland for his last 2 PT clinical internships and then we’re back here for graduation! It’s amazing that his 3 years of hard work are almost over! I’m so proud of him. 🙂

St. Joseph sunset
One of the few reason I can be happy to be back in Michigan: St. Joseph and amazing sunset viewing.

Since we’re only here for a limited time, I’ve been hanging out in our apartment and catching up on some TV shows and movies (Grey’s Anatomy, The Bachelor… and Inside Out). Winter is a really difficult season for me and I tend to feel like I’m in some sort of hibernation mode. I want to sleep all day and just eat blah food. It takes a lot of mental energy to work out when I feel like this but I’ve managed to get out and do some swimming and a few other workouts at least 2-3 times per week.

With my last update, I announced that I was doing a health challenge and my main goal was to maintain/lose weight through the holiday season. I tried to be conscious of what my portions were but I didn’t restrict myself from any specific foods because, well, you know we only get them once a year! I kept to my goal and I managed to drop just a little under the weight I had been sitting at.

This year, my health goals will once again be working up to the Iron Girl Triathlon in August. I’ve already registered and started planning my goals for the race and for the next 6 months leading up to the race and they are as follows:

  1. Continue to lose weight. I made a lot of progress last summer and I want to keep building on that so I can be a healthier -healthy weight- me. Running will also become significantly easier with less weight to pull around.
  2. Focus on strength training. It was a component of my training last summer, but I was training to finish the race so I focused most of my time on cardio. I want stronger muscles because I noticed, during the race, how much of a difference it would make to be stronger.
  3. Pre-train so that when I start my more serious training in May, I’m starting at just as high, if not higher level of fitness that I was when I did the event last summer.
  4. Train with sister Hanni who I have conned into doing the race with me! (Love ya sis)
  5. Drop race time. If I can achieve the above goals, then I am extremely confident in my ability to significantly reduce my time. I don’t want to share a number yet in case I’m being realistic, but I am really working towards this goals (with help of the above goals.) My time last year was 2:45:49.

I’m really excited about a lot of new things that are happening this year because it’s going to be a big transition for us (hubby and me) to both be completely out of college as well as continuing my pursuit of a healthier lifestyle and self. Happy 2016!

haircut
Makes a girl feel pretty to have a fresh haircut 🙂