Life is a Run, Author at lifeisarun.net

Friday Food Finds {1}

June 7, 2013 by Life is a Run · 4 Comments

We are so fortunate these days with how readily available information is to us especially with blogs! From our own blog posts about the times we’ve done the Advocare cleanse to providing you with healthy recipes we think y’all know we are always on the look out for doing what’s best for our bodies. Blogging, twitter and instagram have all played an awesome part in connecting our blog with other bloggers and finding food bloggers that share delicious and healthy recipes. Delicious and healthy recipes that we love! So we wanted to periodically share some of the foods we find elsewhere and are constantly making at home with you! So without further ado let’s really get to what this post is all about:

Fit Foodie Sam – Wonton Tacos: These are delicious and a fun twist to turkey taco meat! This dish has become a regular at our house and they are easy to put together and don’t take long to bake at all. I’ve also heard Sam has done a pizza spin on this recipe as well, which will be tried soon!

Peas & Crayons – Confetti Pasta Salad: If you are look for a dish to bring to your next potluck, to a pool party, to a 4th of July party or if you happen to already be looking for dishes for Labor Day Weekend – look no farther! This is your dish! I have made Jenn’s dish multiple times in the past couple of months and have heard nothing but good things from everyone who has gotten to have a serving!

Happy Friday! And happy cooking! 🙂

Filed Under: Food, Uncategorized Tagged With: advocare, bloggers, blogging, cooking, finding food, food, healthy recipes, healthy-living, instagram, pasta salad, taco meat, turkey taco meat, twitter, wonton tacos

Bulletproof Coffee Review

June 6, 2013 by Life is a Run · 6 Comments

Butter in your coffee huh? Sounds gross, right? That is what we thought and really it just reminds us of that Friend’s episode when Ross was going to drink the fat for Rachel because she was mad at him! Anyone remember that?

source

Basically this idea of “drinking the fat” is up in the fitness world and really big with those who try to intermittently fast. Not sure what that is? Go here.

Although neither of us actually fast, we do understand the need for good fats in your body. Good fat is OK and is nothing to be afraid of and many of us do not get enough good clean fat. Plenty of us get the crappy stuff, especially those that might go through the drive through window, but for those of us that eat clean and eat our veggies it is good to have a wide range of good fats. Just one of the ways you are getting good fat through Bulletproof coffee is by incorporating Kerrygold grass-fed butter.

You may know that good fats can come from multiple sources like cold water fish, plant oils, nuts, seeds and avocados. Bulletproof coffee is another way to get those good fats in your system as well as actually put in good coffee. We have definitely had our fair share of coffee but Bulletproof is different. Bulletproof claims to be the “cleanest” coffee in the world and has been cleared of toxins that often give people the caffeine jitters or the crash later on.

This website has tons of information about the effects of Bulletproof coffee and just exactly how it works. You can even find the recipe here as well as how to make this coffee. You should definitely check it out! We buy the big pack of coffee because it ends up saving tons of money. Plus he usually sends a coupon for a second order!

Also the recipe calls for MCT oil or coconut oil. We have tried both! We really like the pure MCT from the website and will add a dash of their pure vanilla. It’s a dried form of vanilla but mixed with the coffee it is reeally good, very vanilla latte like.

Reading all kinds of iiinteresting things about food and learning more about what we put into our bodies!

or you know if you can’t find Kerrygold butter this was our alternative at Sprouts

Advice: We try not to look at it. It definitely does not look gross but we have all had science class and know that oil and water do not mix. It will start to separate and kind of looks greasy! But have no fear – it’s fine!

Also, if you have a small blender we recommending using that to make the coffee more frothy like. It’s much better that way and allows for everything to mix in perfectly! Additionally you’ll want to use a glass blender to do the blending as you will be blending a very hot liquid.

Ta da!

frothy!

Are you already drinking Bulletproof Coffee? Or do you just think we are crazy for drinking it? 🙂

Note: We are not getting paid to write this review rather we both drink this coffee, dig it and wanted the world to know!

Filed Under: Food Tagged With: blender, bulletproof coffee, butter in your coffee, cleanest coffee, coconut oil, eat clean, food, Friends, good fats, grass fed, grass-fed butter, MCT oil, Ross, sprouts, vanilla latte

Sugar Land Half

June 3, 2013 by Life is a Run · 5 Comments

It’s been three months today since we ran this half. Ha! Talk about being behind BIG time! The only reason we even found out about this race was because of our fellow NTX Runner, Brian, who’d notified the internets that – Hey! This half is only $25 for a limited time! Get your registration on! We are pretty sure those were his exact words.

We figured $25?! In Houston and it’s over six months away we got time to figure this out! One of us (take your guess who) immediately began to peer pressure Beth’s cousin Chase into also registering. Upon the completion of his registration we then called dibs on the couch and floor space in his apartment so that we might have a place to stay that weekend. 🙂 Thanks again for that, Chase!

Honestly, the Friday night portion of this weekend has been blocked out in the past three months. 🙂 Saturday morning we got up to go to packet pickup and then secure some warm clothes to wear pre-race and ditch once the race started. One of us had the brilliant idea of getting robes! Turns out this was genius as they cover an even greater portion of your body with just one piece and with just a strap keeping it closed super easy to ditch while running.

Pretty much the rest of Saturday was spent doing really random things or eating. 🙂 We hit up the near by Bed Bath & Beyond for some shopping. We met Brian, his wife and sweet daughter for dinner. We in detail reviewed the hand drawn course map and longest list of course rules any of us had ever seen! We were pleased to discover there was a loop set up that each runner would cover twice and make up the majority of the course, so we would all be able to see each other!

pre-race car photo op

LiAR and Brian

Neither one of us had been keeping up with our running very much after Louisiana Marathon, so the main goal for the day was to finish! One of Beth & Brent’s friends, Taylor, who is from the Houston area who also got in on the sweet $25 registration price and was out there for the race. We found him before the start and got to catch up before we went out to face the cold.

Taylor & Beth

Ultimately, we accomplished our only goal for the day – survive! Teal & Chase ran the whole half together, but like we said all early we ended up getting to see each other out on the course several times even speedy Brian. One of Teal’s favorite volunteers was a high school kid out on the loop standing by one of the mile markers and see since it was the loop portion of the course sometimes you’d see a mile marker that you weren’t really at yet because you’d only just begun loop 1, so this kid used a sheet of notebook paper to cover up the 7 on the mile marker sign since it was also mile 3.5ish. In place of the number 7 was in the kid’s handwriting “3.5ish”. So funny and so sweet to look out for the runners and not discourage them early on in the race!

Another successful half marathon completed for LiAR, and put us at half marathon no. 17!!

Filed Under: Races Tagged With: course map, Half Marathon, Louisiana Marathon, NTX Runners, races, running, Sugarland Half

Finding the Real Amongst the Fake

May 8, 2013 by Life is a Run · 3 Comments

Recently we have been reading a ton of stuff about food and just exactly what is in it and frankly we find most of it downright SCARY. We didn’t really understand the full extent of the issue and the more we read the more we have realized we have to make a change ourselves, and try to not put crap and other fake food products into our bodies. Now we definitely are not over here thinking we are the picture of perfection when it comes to eating. We definitely eat things we shouldn’t (ahem, goldfish for example) and we know we shouldn’t but we have recently decided we would make a HUGE effort to reduce the crap in our life and really get more educated about what we are eating. You are what you eat right? We don’t want to be fake!

This is really unfortunately harder than it seems because everything it is HOLY CONFUSING or we have been tricked or even worse, had information withheld from us! We are not scientists and we don’t really understand the truth behind things like soy protein isolate, BHA, Potassium Benzoate… We have no clue what they really are or at least we didn’t before. We also found out that the FDA does some awesome trickery and says that some things are GRAS (generally recognized as safe) GENERALLY?!? Really, does that mean sometimes it’s not? Who is going to tell us this?

We kind of enter a little freak out mode sometimes when it comes to thinking about all of it. It seems overwhelming. How in the world will we ever remember all the things we should know and avoid? We have used the trick that many say “Look for as few ingredients as possible and make sure you can pronounce all the words.” We think that that works most of the time but then enter Genetically Modified Foods, which P.S. they don’t tell you about the majority of the time. GMO’s can be hidden in even the simplest of words making it easy to fail that “short as possible, readable words trick.” Overwhelming right?? We think so.

Enter our saving grace. We recently found the app FOODUCATE, which is downloadable for free on your smart phone. It is very easy to use and super convenient at the grocery store. On one of our recent road trip weekends we scanned EVERYTHING with a label in the car just so see how it worked and we loved it! You can find either one of us often on a trip to the grocery store scanning away! You can also visit Fooducate online and sign up there!

Here is what it looks like:

Once you are in the store you just press scan and hold your phone over the barcode label. It searches its data base and immediately gives your food a score. HINT: Make sure when you set up your account that you ask it to tell you if a product has GMO’s.

You will get a screen like this with what is in your food that you should avoid.

Once you see that you can decide if it is good or bad for you and if it is bad it will even give you alternatives to try. And as you can see from the picture above there’s a “fun facts” part where they actually give you random tidbits about food.

BONUS! Remember how we told you it’s all confusing and we can’t keep track of how everything is made or produced or what it actually means. Fooducate lives up to its name and actually educates you as to exactly why to avoid that food.

We thought that we would pass this along because it is one of the easiest ways we have seen to help keep us informed and hopefully healthy.

What are some of your favorite food or exercise apps?? We would love to hear about them. And P.S. we are not being paid by Fooducate we just seriously LOVE it!!

Filed Under: Food, Life Tagged With: BHA, clean food, FDA, fooducate, genetically modified organisms, GMOs, Potassium Benzoate, real food, smartphone app, soy protein isolate

Wordless Wednesday No. 37

April 17, 2013 by Life is a Run · 1 Comment

Filed Under: Uncategorized, Wordless Wednesday Tagged With: boston marathon, hill repeats, miles for boston, North Texas Runners, pray for boston, runners unite, running, running community

Tasty Tuesday: AMAZE-balls a.k.a. Clean Eating Meatballs

March 26, 2013 by Life is a Run · 9 Comments

These things are seriously AMAZING. I don’t know about you but every time I have ever tried to make meatballs on the stove I have ruined them. I typically burn the outside and the inside is raw, or they fall apart or are just gross. PLUS, you really can’t make that many at the same time. It had never occurred to be to bake them. This recipe is a super easy baked meatball recipe that literally might change my eating life! OK, that’s dramatic but…. I figured this would be horrible and it turned out to be the easiest thing ever. Little mess, no half burnt/half raw balls of meat and it makes a ton. I ate these things for a week.

What you need:

2.5 lbs of lean ground turkey, beef or chicken (just use what you like, although the calorie count below would change)

1 (16oz) package frozen spinach (or whatever else you would want you could probably use kale too)

1 cup of onion (I used red)

¾ cup bread crumbs ( I used gluten free)

2 eggs

1 garlic clove

Sea salt and pepper – I used about a tsp. of each

2 tbsp. Worcestershire, or soy sauce, or A1, or BBQ (I used Worcestershire but all will work)

½ tsp. each of thyme, oregano, crushed red pepper

1/3 cup Chicken broth

Olive oil

How to:

1. Preheat the oven to 400.

2. Heat olive oil in the pan and add all spices and the onion. Sautee until the onions are tender

3. Add Worcestershire sauce, chicken broth, and spinach. Cook down until there is very little liquid left in the pan

4. Meanwhile, mix meat, bread crumbs and egg in a bowl

5. Add the spinach mixture to meat mixture and mix together

6. Using a ¼ c measuring cup section out the meat to ball and place on a greased pan. They don’t expand much so they can be pretty close. I had 20 on a pan. Ball out until mixture is gone

7. Place in the oven for 20 minutes

8. Voila! I served mine over quinoa and added marinara

My fitness pal nutrition facts (calories are per ball, based on 38 total made)

Calories: 48.7

Fat: 1.2g

Carbs: 1.1g

Protein 8.1g

For a printable version of this recipe please click HERE.

**Advocare Note: If you make this recipe during your 10 day cleanse you’ll need to count that as your one carb for the day!!**

Filed Under: Advocare, Food Tagged With: baked meatball recipe, clean eating, food, healthy, Meatballs, turkey meatballs

The Texas Half

March 25, 2013 by Life is a Run · 5 Comments

So once upon a time we signed up for the four seasons challenge and we kicked that off by running the Big D Half in April of last year, then slowly completed the Hottest Half in August and then we decided to skip the Tyler Rose Half in October since wedding stuff with Beth was wrapping up and we were busy! Well, that’s only three halfs and that last sentence says FOUR seasons challenge. The last race happened to be just two weeks after completely The Louisiana Marathon.

Which worked out perfectly because we were sad that the Louisiana Marathon meant that we would no longer have a matching number of halfs that we have run. 🙂 Yes, we are nerds like that, but you are reading this so you apparently still like us despite that. Teal being the awesome friend and running buddy that she is still wanted to come and be there for the race.

Since so much time has gone by I don’t have a play by play of this to that mile for you (you’re welcome for that). It was a chilly morning and the race was small enough that I was able to sit in the car with Teal for awhile to keep warm. But when I did make my way to the start line I found a fellow DFW frunner, Caron! We both love getting to see her at races and talk with her!

I had time for a quick potty break and then headed back to the start line to wait for about five minutes. Then we were off and almost immediately ditched my zip up hoodie I had been wearing to stay warm which I found in the same place I ditched it after the race. Yay, small races! The first 3 miles were an out and back so that you hit the 3 mile mark right when you were running by the starting line again. It was fun getting to see the leaders of the race early on and admire them for their speediness! I also hadn’t really run in this area particular area of Irving so I was checking it all out, and trying to decide if I was running too fast or at a pace I could maintain throughout.

Like I said it was a small race so at right around the halfway point I saw Teal! My Runkeeper was at one point ahead on mileage and then got behind. Around here a fellow racer asked me where I was mileage-wise and I think I said around mile 6 and then 30 seconds later there’s the 7 mile marker! 🙂 Ok, it might not have really been a full mile off, but when I saw the 7 that’s what it felt like. Ha

During this race I got to run by my husband’s office building though no one was in there…..it was still fun because it made me think of him. In the last half of the race some of the miles were done on the Campion Trail which is where Teal and I did a couple of training runs while we were getting ourselves ready for Louisiana Marathon. It was here I saw a fellow Private Training Zone member who asked me, “What are you doing?!” “Running a race!” Haha. Always great seeing a familiar face!

The last two things that stand out to me about this race was as I was making my way over the bridge back towards the Irving Convention Center to the finish line the course here had blocked off one lane for runners so that cars had two lanes to themselves. This suburban was heading in the direction towards me and another car pulled up beside the suburban, rolled the window down and yelled “WHY ARE YOU DRIVING SO SLOW?!” Pretty sure I immediately rolled my eyes. Can we all just take a minute to shake our heads at the yeller?

……

Thanks for sharing in that moment with me! I also applaud the slow suburban driver as they were simply being a cautious driver! As I got myself over the bridge and under the highway I saw Teal again! Teeeeeeeal!! She was telling me, Push! And you got this! But I didn’t feel like I had that much give left. Maybe that’s due to my lack of running between Louisiana and this race? Ha, but what I had I left out on the rest of the course. Then there was the finish line! Not only did a bring home a shiny medal from my 16th half marathon, but I also brought home a shiny new PR at 1:55:02! I finished 13th overall in my age group. So crazy that my half marathon PR stood at 1:56:39 since I ran my very first one in December of 2010 then December of 2012 I beat it at Dallas Marathon and come back to beat that in February 2013. Running can be a crazy thing!

Tied at 16th again!

Filed Under: Races, Uncategorized Tagged With: Campion Trail, Half Marathon, halfs, Private Training Zone, races, runkeeper, running, Texas Half

Tasty Tuesday: Clean Eating Balsamic Chicken & Green Beans

March 19, 2013 by Life is a Run · 3 Comments

We have had quite a few people asking us about the clean eating turkey meatloaf recipe we posted back in October and we have totally misplaced it! 🙁 Yes, the title of this post has nothing to do with turkey and/or meatloaf, but we are bringing you another recipe that is Advocare Cleanse approved!

So if you are cleansing right now! Try this for dinner in the next few nights?! If you are not cleansing and just what a tasty and healthy meal then you try this for dinner!

This recipe we found from Clean Eating Magazine which we both love!

Ingredients:

1 lb of fresh green beans, trimmed and rinsed

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil, divided

16 oz button mushrooms, sliced

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 lemon, zested and juiced

1 yellow onion, cut into 1/4 inch thick rings

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast, sliced 1/2 inch thick

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp sea salt

1. Prep all of your veggies and meat so they are ready to go.

2. Fill a pot halfway up with water and bring the water to boil. Add the green beans, reduce heat and steam until they are crisp (approximately 5 minutes). Set aside.

3. In a large non-stick skillet, heat 1 tsp of olive oil on medium heat. Add mushrooms to saute for approximately 10 minutes, stir occasionally. When the mushrooms are almost done stir in the lemon zest, lemon juice and garlic and saute for three minutes.

Remove the mushrooms from the heat and transfer to a large bowl. Combine the green beans and the mushrooms in the bowl and toss well. Cover the bowl to keep the veggies warm.

4. In a large non-stick skillet, heat the remaining teaspoon of olive oil on medium heat. Add the onion rings and saute for approximately 5 minutes. Add chicken, thyme, vinegar and salt, and cook, stirring often, for 8 minutes or until the thickest part of chicken is cooked through. Remove from heat, serve with green beans and any remaining juice from the skillet can be poured over your chicken and/or veggies.

And voila! Dinner is served. Sorry, we were too hungry to remember to capture a photo of the final product, but it was also husband approved!

Expect to spend about 35 minutes preparing the food and 35 minutes cooking.

For a printable version of the recipe please go HERE.

Filed Under: Food Tagged With: advocare, balsamic chicken, clean eating, clean eating magazine, dinner, food, green beans, healthy recipe, recipe

The Life & Times of LiAR

March 15, 2013 by Life is a Run · 3 Comments

Howdy, y’all! 🙂 We have a lot of stuff we have yet to share with you on our little bloggy blog and need to get on top of that! But since it’s Friday (HAPPY FRIDAY!!) we figured we would give you a more picture and less words post. If you follow us on instagram though chances are you’ve seen some of these pictures before.

We’ve still been running!

more running just this time in Houston!

Reading all kinds of iiinteresting things about food and learning more about what we put into our bodies!

Sunday Fundays!

Bulletproof coffee!

Spring Break!

Getting ready for the annual St. Paddy's Day parade on Greenville here in Dallas!

Getting ready for the annual St. Paddy’s Day parade on Greenville Avenue here in Dallas! You can find us on this float!

We hope everyone has a safe and fun St. Paddy’s Day weekend! Good luck to all of you racing! 🙂

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: bulletproof coffee, clean eating, Dallas, Greenville, happy friday, instagram, running, spring break, st paddy, St. Paddy's Day parade

Friday Food Finds {1}

Bulletproof Coffee Review

Sugar Land Half

Finding the Real Amongst the Fake

Wordless Wednesday No. 37

Tasty Tuesday: AMAZE-balls a.k.a. Clean Eating Meatballs

The Texas Half

Tasty Tuesday: Clean Eating Balsamic Chicken & Green Beans

The Life & Times of LiAR

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