What I Eat Wednesday: The Canadian Eats Maple Syrup

More of the same - the usual meat/greens/carbs. I have a couple meals on here that are different from the past What I Eat Wednesday post. I try to take pictures of the more interesting meals, otherwise they would all look pretty much the same. Variety = spice of life, right?

This is a "what I had in the fridge" pizza. The last time I went to Trader Joe's, I bought two pizza doughs and threw them in the freezer. It's a great meal in a short amount of time and super versatile. I had some spinach that was too wilty for salad and BBQ pork that I had to eat or toss in the freezer. I used the herb crust, which I think is the best. This made about two and a half servings. 

Chicken Caesar salad made from a Dole's salad kit and some frozen grilled chicken. I used all the lettuce and half of both the dressing and the cheese, which I saved for my lunch the next day. I find that the salad kits always provide WAY too much dressing so I always buy lettuce or spinach to make another salad with. 

Grilled chicken with plain pasta and broccoli. There was a phase of my life where I only ate the most boring bland food ever and plain pasta was something I ate three times a week for dinner. I don't like eating pasta more than once a  week now and usually mix it up between brown rice, sweet potatoes, quinoa or couscous. As weird as it sounds, plain pasta is a little bit of a comfort food for me. 

Honey maple salmon with Cajun sweet potatoes and broccoli. The idea for the glaze for the salmon comes from my Canadian Henley host family - just mix a little bit of honey mustard with a little bit of maple syrup. I used authentic Canadian maple syrup but I'm sure Aunt Jemima would work just fine. It is delicious. 

Join me! #WhatIEatWed or comment below! 

What I Eat Wednesday: Meat on Meat on Meat

One of the number one questions I get when people find out that I work out two or three times a day, six times a week is "what do you eat?" The answer is complicated. As a lightweight rower, I have to fuel my body for practice but not overindulge. It's a balance I am still tweaking and fine tuning as I continue with training.

On a couple Wednesdays a month, I'd like to share some pictures from my kitchen. This past week was a little different because I had off work, so I had the time (and the Christmas gift certificates) to shop at Wegman's and Trader Joe's.

I bought 11 pounds of meat at Wegman's this weekend. Since Wegman's is a hike from where I live in Philly, getting to go is always a treat. They have really good prices on high quality food. I bought so much meat that I had to leave half of it in my boyfriend's full size freezer because it wouldn't fit in mine! My New Year's resolution is to eat more meat, so I'm going to say I'm off to a decent start. 

Dinner: Honey mustard salmon from Trader Joe's cooked in the oven, garlic butter broccoli and plain linguine with a little bit of parmesan cheese. 

 Dinner: Oven baked chicken with Italian seasoning, plain linguine with a little bit of parmesan cheese and roasted Brussels sprouts. And a mouthful of ramen, that I ended up giving back to my boyfriend because I was too full! 

Lunch: Whole wheat couscous and spicy jalepeno chicken sausage with red pepper flakes, both from Trader Joes. If I had known couscous was so easy to cook, I would have replaced any and all pasta in my diet a long time ago. I made a big batch of this for work lunches. 

Dinner: Steamed broccoli, crockpot pulled pork and my roommate, Claire's, version of fried rice. Both the pulled pork and fried rice were part of weekend food prep so I can come home from practice and have dinner ready in under ten minutes. Blue plates supposedly help to curb appetite - not really sure if that works for hungry rowers post erg workout. 

Comments? Questions? Email me or leave a note below! Want to share what you eat with the world? Tweet with #WhatIEatWed

Spicin’ It Up: Four Ingredient Cajun Sweet Potatoes!

One of the greatest food discoveries I have made in Philadelphia is Whole Foods’s “Six Dollar Box”. For six dollars, Whole Foods will let you pick a meat and two sides from the deli counter. Due to my diet, this is a great way for me to be able to go out to eat delicious, good quality food with friends on the cheap. My favorite side at Whole Foods is definitely the Cajun Sweet Potato fries. They are AMAZING! My only problem with them was that they are a tad too spicy for me. So of course I needed to find a way to make them at home so they will be just right (and I can have them all the time). After some experimenting, I think I’ve figured it out. Here’s the secret:

 Ingredients

7 medium sweet potatoes – I got mine at Trader Joe’s in a bag

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon Cajun spice (or more if you like it really spicy! Can be found in most spice sections)

3 packets of Wawa hot sauce (or about 3 tablespoons of another brand)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven for 400 degrees.

2. Wash the potatoes  

3.Cut into pieces -  here I experimented with round, cube, fry shaped etc.

4. Stir everything together.

5. Bake in the oven for 50 minutes, stirring halfway through. In order to make sure it's cooked, poke them with a fork...or taste test!

Serving Size: One potato (or about 160g)

Calories per serving: 145 calories

Makes seven servings and keeps well for about a week in the refrigerator, which makes them a great food to have around when you’re in a rush. These were great for my lightweight diet, with required that I have 200g of sweet potato for my dinner. The spice on the sweet potatoes amped up my meal from super boring to something normal people would eat!

Any nutrition expert will tell you that sweet potatoes are considered a superfood – good source of vitamin C and magnesium, sources of iron, magnesium and Vitamin D. They are also high in carotenoids, which help ward off cancer. This recipe has all of those things, plus a spicy kick! 

Independence Day Regatta: Year Two

It’s amazing to me that the last time I updated was the middle of June. This summer has flown by and it’s easy to see why – every single day is packed! With five hours of rowing a day, there really isn’t a lot of time for other things besides going to work, prepping and eating food and sleeping. 

Independence Day Regatta has come and gone. IDR marks the moment last year when I first started thinking about rowing for a summer program. My IDR experience last year – car-topping a single and crashing on a couch- was completely different from this year. Last year I raced the Intermediate 1x (unaffiliated), this year, the Intermediate Light 1x, Open 2x and Open 4x for Penn AC. I was originally supposed to be in the Intermediate Light 2x but the Tuesday before IDR, my double partner broke her hand in a biking accident and I was put in the single instead. Both of us were really disappointed because we had been working very hard in our double and planned on racing towards a good result. This change of plans meant that my race and therefore my weigh-in was two days earlier than expected. My first weigh in as a 130 lightweight was definitely a tough one, but I hit the mark exactly: 130.0! Can’t say I’m not accurate. 

 I had a fair race in the heat and was able to make top two without pushing my hardest. The final on Saturday was a completely different story. I knew I had tough girls to race and had to have a good race to even hang with the pack. Unfortunately, my nerves got the best of me and I overgripped my oars, giving me the worst forearm cramps I’ve ever experienced in my life…beginning at 1500m to go. I crossed the finish line in last place at 26spm barely able to hang on to the handles. I was very disappointed with this, not just because I got last, but because I felt I wasn’t able to row to my potential at all and test my skills against girls I feel like I could compete with. However, the bright side is that I did at least make the final and got more racing experience. Now I know what to work on and that I have a lot of room to improve!

On Sunday, I raced in the Open 2x and Open 4x. The 2x was a last minute entry in order to give me a race in a double after we had to scratch the lightweight double. We had an okay race, we were just racing people way, way faster than we were. Like World Championship medal faster. As someone who should not only be racing as a lightweight but also in the intermediate category, this was definitely intimidating. But once again I gained more racing experience. We encountered the same situation with the quad. We put together a good race but were just outclassed. But I have to say that even through all the last minute changes and tough racing, I learned a lot and was fairly pleased with the weekend. 

 I love rowing for Penn AC. Every single person comes to practice excited and ready to row, even when we’re exhausted. Rowing in Philadelphia has refueled and revitalized my love for the sport completely. As far as my transition to a lightweight rower, things have definitely been hard but not unmanageable. My diet has worked great and although it is challenging to pass on beer and burgers when I’m out socializing, the reward has been worth it. It also helps that most of the people I know here are rowers, former rowers or coaches and understand what I am going through. The support is amazing. I definitely have a lot of thoughts about my shift to a lightweight rower so there will be a whole post about that at some point! But for now, enjoy a picture of what I eat on a regular basis. 

This Wednesday begins Club Nationals, a race I have never participated in before. I will be racing in the Intermediate Light 2x, Intermediate Light 4+ and Intermediate Light 4x. I am very excited for lots of racing over five days with a great team! GO PENN AC!

On the Road to Boston!

Last weekend I participated in C.R.A.S.H.-B. Sprints in Boston, MA. This was the second year I have gone, and like most second year events I think it went better than last year. My score won’t tell you that, but well, that’s what this blog is for.

I like going to C.R.A.S.H.-B’s because it gives a more definite purpose to winter training. I love competing and as much as I enjoy competing against my teammates, it gets kind of old to me fairly quickly. C.R.A.S.H.-B’s feeds my need for competition and helps break up the time until we race on the water again. I also believe that the more experience I get competing in different areas against different people will help me to be more mentally prepared to race in any situation on the water. All that being said, I raced pretty terribly in Boston this year.

           

Everything was set for me to do well. I was much smarter with my diet than last year and felt very strong despite my weight loss. I had great pre-regatta workouts, including a 2k only one second off of my P.R. from last year. I had four great nights of sleep before the race. I weighed in with minimal stress (well, less stress than last year, anyway). I had a fantastic pre-race playlist. I warmed up well. I had a good coxswain. I was less stressed about the race than I was the year before. But I just couldn't hack it.

           

The thing that I like about erging is that there are no excuses. I didn’t have a bad race because six seat rushes her slide or the coxswain didn’t take a good line or stroke seat didn’t keep the rate up or the set was off. I had a bad race because I raced badly. I think that’s why it has taken me so long to write this post; because I accepting that I did poorly is not something I do particularly well. It’s even harder when I had to return to a team full of people who watched me taper throughout the week and who were rooting for me.

           

However, I’m not upset I made the trip. I always try to learn from my mistakes. I know I have to be a lot more focused on my own race, rather than let the environment and the speed of the people around me scare me into going out too fast. I have to use my cardiovascular strength to keep the rate high when my legs get tired. I have to be able to turn a bad first thousand into a good piece. At this stage of the game, a PR isn’t going to come unless I want it 110% of the time, whether I'm at on the water, on the water, in the weight room or in my kitchen contemplating eating six cookies for lunch instead of a salad. 

At least my erg face isn't so horrible...but Clarkey kind of looks like Mario in that red hat!

       

I also enjoyed the trip because, being the huge rowing nerd that I am, I just love being around rowing people. Because I’m a nice person (a.k.a. wanted to keep my gas costs down) I drove three freshmen guys to and from the race. While providing a great deal of amusement, they also jogged a lot of freshman year memories that I had forgotten about. Sometimes I feel that dealing with senior captain stuff gets in the way of me appreciating how much I truly love the sport of rowing and it was great to be reminded. I also enjoyed spending time with Marist alumni who make me realize that if I work hard, I can have a future in rowing after I graduate. I also got to spend some quality time with my often pair partner and housemate, Angie, which is always fun (and she had a great race). I think that I can learn something from every “generation” of Marist rower, whether it’s about the sport of rowing or just enjoying myself with new friends.

           

But at least my taper wasn’t for nothing. I destroyed my 5x5' PR the Monday I got back, so I got one good erg piece out of the weekend. It just wasn’t the right one at the right time.  But, as things go in the rowing world, there will always be more 2ks and as many more bad pieces I will likely have, I hope they teach me how to have more good ones.

Special thanks to Catherine, Sopko, Fish and Victoria for letting us crash in their dorm the night before the race and good luck to Harvard Swimming at Ivies this weekend!! Go Crimson!

And for your listening pleasure, here is my very girly pre-2k playlist that I am pretty sure no one else in the entire world would like. Haters, keep hatin'. 

1. Fixin' to Die - G. Love

2. Rolling in the Deep - Adele

3. Redneck Woman - Gretchen Wilson

4. Dirty Talk - Wynter Gordon

5. I Wanna Dance (With Somebody Who Loves Me) - Whitney Houston

6. Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You) - Kelly Clarkson

7. Turn Me On - David Guetta & Nikki Minaj

8. Blackout - Breathe Carolina