Midweek progress

I posted a couple days ago that I am doing the Tracy Anderson Method right now for my strength workouts. At first glance, a lot of the moves look pretty easy, but do not be fooled, this workout is HARD! I have completed 6 days of the 30-day program so far, and I already am noticing some changes. My stomach is much flatter and my arms and legs feel and look (to me) more toned. Awesome! The downside is that the workout is exactly the same for 10 days, and then is switches to a new sequence. Doing the same workout every day is getting pretty tedious.

The other day I thought I would give her dance cardio a try, and I after flailing around my living room like a crazy person for about 3 minutes, I gave it up. In Tracy's book she claims that repetitive activities like running and biking build muscles and make you bulky and because of that says that you are not allowed to do cardio aside from her dance cardio while on her program... Sorry Tracy, that's just not going to happen.

I've been having some foot pain for the last week when I run, so I haven't been doing much of that lately either. The nice weather over the weekend and early this week meant a couple of bike rides, but now that it's going to be cold again I might be hitting up the elliptical machine. Boo!

For dinner tonight I made a really tasty soup inspired by this recipe. It's really not like the original at all, because I didn't have many of the ingredients on hand, so lets consider this to be a loose interpretation.



Spring Greens Soup
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 3.5 oz white onion, chopped
- 4 oz celery
- 4 oz frozen peas
- 1 package frozen spinach
- 4 oz white beans
- 4 oz chickpeas
- 1 cup whole wheat macaroni
- dried oregano, basil, thyme, dill
- salt and pepper

Sweat the garlic, onion, and celery for a few minutes on med-low. Add peas, spinach (no need to defrost), beans, macaroni, and 6 cups water (or broth or stock if you are so inclined). Add about 1 tsp. of each of the herbs, salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil and cook until the pasta is al dente. Taste for seasonings.

I served it with some tilapia that I seasoned with Blackening Seasoning and pan-fried and an english muffin on the side. The whole meal was delicious and healthy and came together really quick!

Sorry for the lack of precise herb measurements and cook time. I am the queen of winging it in the kitchen. I rarely set a timer when I cook, because I usually have pretty good intuition about when things are done. However, this does not always work out for me. I made cookies last week, and over the weekend I opened up my oven to put something in and found a cookie sheet of week-old burned cookies. Whoops! I may or may not have eaten them anyway :)