That’s right, my new blender! We have two cheap ones in the house I live in, but they get abused often and aren’t for the serious Green Monster making that I have in mind! I couldn’t get it open and washed out fast enough before I was throwing in ingredients

Lunch-time smoothie:

• 6 frozen strawberries
• 1 kale leaf
• 2 c baby spinach
• 1 ripe banana
• 1 c soy milk
• 1 Flax Pak (to be reviewed soon!)
• 8 ice cubes

With a July-4th-themed straw from a package that my mom sent me!

The rest of lunch consisted of a plate of carrots and Mary’s Gone crackers with a scoop of almond butter and 2 tablespoons of garlic hummus for dipping, with a cup of cantaloupe on the side.

I didn’t get back from classes until 2 p.m., so I was hungry and ate my lunch right up. I’m still deciding what I’m going to do for exercise today. I have a 3.5 mile run scheduled for my half-marathon training, but my knees and legs are pretty sore from yesterday’s run, so I’m thinking that I will either run on a very soft surface (park trails) or do some cross-training on the elliptical, especially since I have a speedwork day tomorrow.

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Truly “Calci-YUM”

While talking with my new nutritionist about calcium intake, she said, “I have the greatest calcium supplement that will make sure you never miss a dose!” and pulled out this bag:

Now, I have tried Viactiv and assumed that this would be similar – some fake chocolate, powdery tasting chew. I’d rather just swallow a pill! I reached in to pull out a dark chocolate “disk” and was surprised – it actually looked like a piece of chocolate!

I still wasn’t convinced. Sure, it might look like a piece of chocolate, but I’ve learned, especially from Green Monsters, that you should never judge taste by appearance! I flipped over the package and saw that for one disk, I would get 30 calories, 2 grams of fat, 100 IU of Vitamin D, 40 mcg of Vitamin K, and 500 mg of Calcium. Now, I was pretty impressed by those stats, so I decided to give it a nibble…

YUM!! It tastes just like my Green & Black’s dark chocolate bar that I have a few squares of after dinner! I am picky about dark chocolate, and I give this 4.5/5 stars for chocolate, and 5/5 stars for a supplement! These are made by Adora and can be found at selected stores including Whole Foods and GNC. They also make a milk chocolate disk.

Because the body can only absorb so much calcium at one time, it is important to stay aware of when you are taking calcium supplements. For example, after my meal from last night (tofu, broccoli, pasta, cheese) would not be a good time to take a supplement because my meal was fairly high in calcium, so my body wouldn’t be able to absorb the extra calcium from the supplement. A good time to take these might be with an afternoon snack or an evening dessert. I’m putting them on my list to pick up next time I go to the Co-op!

See you tonight for my Week 2 Half-Marathon training re-cap

Before I run off to class, I just wanted to make a quick update about the nutritionist’s appointment that I was so scared of last night. It went really well! I think that she will be very helpful. She met me where I was at, instead of treating me like someone who has no knowledge of food or nutrition.

Before I left, I had a quick breakfast of Flax Multibran with raisins and soymilk.

She had me give a run-down of what I ate yesterday, and complimented my overall healthy eating! When I told her about my Green Monsters, I said, “Ok, now this is going to sound weird, but…” She laughed and said she admired my commitment to health. It’s not such a hard commitment when they taste so good!

We did talk a bit about my vegetarianism/veganism and how she was concerned about my calcium/iron/protein intake. I am going to see my doctor soon to get my iron levels tested, just to make sure they’re ok, because she said that even a slight decrease in normal iron levels could highly impact my running and overall feeling of wellness.

She introduced me to the greatest calcium supplement I’ve ever seen! Stay tuned, I’ll share it with you all later today.

What I’m going to work on this week is decreasing my soy milk intake and replacing it with other sources, such as almond milk, protein powder, and (eek!) cow’s milk. This will be a challenge, but I want to be the healthiest I can be!

See you all after class!