Summer foods make me happy.

Ahh. It's been a while since I posted. I will slowly try to catch up on some of the stuff that's been going on. Let's just start with the main things:

1). My back is "healing" (I think/hope) nicely. 

Basically I have been staying away from A LOT of exercises. I mentioned in a previous post that I basically stopped Back Day. I mostly work my shoulders & lats on back day instead. I have stopped a lot of leg day. However in the past two weeks I have started incorporating squats back into my routine. Today I hit 135x4 which was hard and humbling. Working my way back up.

I have been doing one Chest & Arm workout, one Arm Only workout, and then one combined Shoulders/Lats/Legs Workout a week. So 3 lift/total workouts a week instead of 4. I walk the dogs 1-2 miles every non-workout day instead and sometimes try to run if I'm not going to lift.

All in all, it has been helping a lot. The other thing that helps is that I've been traveling for the past two weekend (not including this one). Even though the car makes my back pretty sore, the lack of workouts or long time at the shelter has probably factored into the recovery some.

2). Eating hasn't been as healthy.

I attribute this to several reasons. Amoung them is that every day I have to fight that feeling of "Well I'm not working out a lot so I don't need as much protein. May as well have ice cream instead." I have eaten a lot of ice cream in the past month or two.

Traveling makes it a lot harder to control portion sizes (except by eye) and makes food choices less available. It's not that I absolutely couldn't eat the same way, but its a lot easier to eat what everyone else is eating and just try to eat a bit less. This is what I've been trying to do. But it still makes for several meals that aren't quite as healthy.

We've also recently added a third baby (puppy) to our pack. She's grown into a very loved family member, but the past month and a half have taken a lot of work getting all of us there. I haven't been at work as long because I've had to come home earlier for her. This cuts down on workout time some and definitely takes away some energy.

The above excuses are all things I'm working on now. I'm trying to eat more healthily regardless of how much working out or traveling I do. But it's tough for sure. I think it has just gotten the best of me recently.

3). But my love of summer foods will help fix number 2!

Summer is actually one of my favourite seasons in which to eat. A few of my favourite things recently are:

a). Strawberries. I pretty much have these in the fridge every week. They make the perfect snack to eat when I get home and I want to last another hour until dinnertime. They are so perfect now, and not to mention almost always on sale!

Delicious!!!

b). Salads. I love them. They are pretty and filling and delicious! Back when I had more serious issues with counting calories, I would use salads as a way to fill up without having a lot of calories. Basically I wouldn't use a lot of cheese, no dressing at all, ever(!), and definitely no nuts or seeds or anything that would add more calories. Basically I just had lettuce, peppers, cucumbers and chicken. Nowadays I'm loving lite honey mustard. Tonight's salad had Romaine hearts, a variety of cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries (they're perfect in salads too!), crumbled feta, grilled chicken and lite honey mustard dressing. And it was delicious. I usually make enough to get 2-3 salads out as well :-)

Dinner tonight & Lunch tomorrow :-)

c). Grilled chicken & grilled veggies. I love food on the grill! Ryan is such a good griller. Although it's been raining the past couple weeks, we usually grill out at least one a week. I typically have marinated chicken or turkey burgers. He usually goes for the red meat and has burgers or steak or kabobs of some sort. I love grilled zucchini and squash as well.

Healthy shopping cart!

What do you love about summer foods?