A new approach on eating to gain muscle & a chipotle pumpkin chicken stew

I'm not changing out of yoga pants today, and I don't feel guilty at all about that. Sundays are made for being lazy. Plus, my weekend was entirely overstimulating and chock-full of awkward situations, far too little sleep, and new-to-me people and places. But I'm saving that for tomorrow's Marvelous in my Monday post, so you'll just have to wait for the details.

One thing that I have accomplished this week was doing a little research on putting some structure into my eating routine to gain weight and build muscle. I really struggle with knowing how much food is enough, especially when it comes to carbs. The problem is that I basically cut out most non-vegetable and non-fruit carbs for a while when I revamped my lifestyle in college. My body and tastebuds just stopped craving them. Now, after years of trying to gain back some of that weight, I finally started to become more comfortable with increasing my carb intake and have found some foods I really enjoy. The problem remains that I just don't know how much my body actually needs to repair and build muscle, so I tend to severely overeat at night when I look back on my daily intake and realize I haven't really consumed any whole grains. This usually appears in the form of me eating an entire bag's worth of chips or several bowls of cereal without even necessarily feeling hungry, but eating because I'm panicking that my body didn't get enough fuel and I'll lose the precious little muscle I have been able to build. Kind of a ridiculous notion, I know.

The point of my mini-rant is that I really need to implement some more structure into my eating routine in order to retrain my brain and body to know what it needs. After reading several articles about the benefits of carb-cycling, I've determined that this is probably a good dietary guideline for me to follow. I've found this article on FitnessRX to be very informational.

Basically, there are several ways to structure carb-cycling, including high carb, moderate carb, and low carb days based on my workout schedule, with fat intake in contrast to carbs and high protein intake on all days.

My rough weekly plan is:

Sunday - 9am Total Fitness, 10am yoga; high carb day
Monday - 6pm Vinyasa yoga, 7:15pm hot yoga; moderate carb day
Tuesday - 6:30pm Yoga Fusion; high carb day
Wednesday - 7pm Tone & Crunch (kettlebells and TRX); high carb day
Thursday - off; low-moderate carb day
Friday - off; low carb day
Saturday - 8:30am yoga fusion, 9:45am vinyasa yoga; high carb day

So I'll follow a high carb, lower fat diet on the days I'm lifting weights. I found this meal plan example helpful in giving me an idea of what a day's intake should look like on both low and high carb days, though I'd aim to consume closer to 2000 calories daily rather than 1400. This week I am going to come up with a meal plan for myself to follow and ideally I'll start carb-cycling next week officially. We'll see if I can stick to it.

For dinner tonight, my lazy self was motivated enough to throw some pantry ingredients into a crockpot and call it cooking a meal. I loosely followed this recipe from A Teaspoon of Happiness, tweaking here and there based on what I had for ingredients and quantities.

Crockpot Chipotle Pumpkin & Chicken Stew

Ingredients:

1 15-oz can pumpkin puree
1 15-oz can black beans, undrained
2 or 3 medium sized boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 tsp minced garlic
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 medium zucchini, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
4-5 large handfuls of kale (I used about 1/2 the bag pictured)
4 cups low sodium chicken broth
3 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, diced
2 tsp adobo sauce (from the can of peppers)
cilantro
cumin
salt & pepper

Dump all the ingredients into a crock pot over the chicken breasts, adding spices to suit your tastes (I used a lot of cumin and cilantro, but very little salt). Cook on high for 4 hours. Remove the chicken, shred with a fork, and return to crockpot to cook on low for at least 2 hours. Serve with shredded cheese, if you're into that.

Super easy, super filling, and super delicious. #supersoupsunday haha

Rocking my Hot Booties

Thursday night and I'm sitting on my couch in my pajamas by 8pm, drinking tea and eating popcorn, and wearing my Hot Booties.

Best Yankee Swap win of 2012

Pop those bad boys in the microwave for a minute and, boom, instant warmth. They also have the added benefit of lavender scent and imposing awkward clown shoe mobility.

Lame? Maybe. But I definitely needed it. It's exhausting to sit and chatter my teeth all day at work.

I can't say my job is all bad, though. I adore some of the people I work with.

Yesterday was the agency Christmas pot luck/gift swap, which involved lots of baked goods and bad pizza. At least I wasn't sitting in the conference room in the dark for 90 minutes watching a webinar with cold air blasting on me from the AC like I was today. Sorry, I'm easily distracted by traumatic memories of arctic temperatures.

Back to the point of this tiny tangent. I walked away from the gift swap with a gold Michael Kors wallet, which I totally wasn't into at first. But the more I look at it, the more I like it. My coworker gave a winery tour and tasting for two at Shelalara Vineyards in Coventry, which the new administrative assistant won. I've been on the tour before and really enjoyed it. The wines were really different (flavors like blueberry merlot, strawberry reisling, and watermelon merlot), and some were made to freeze to wine slushies. I told her about the wine tasting and she seemed really into it. When I got into the office today, though, she came by my cubicle with the gift and insisted I take it. I ain't mad.

Anyone interested in joining me for a wine tasting?

P.S. - I apologize for jumping all over the place. I'm too lazy to edit my train of thought.

MIMM: A Long Weekend Well-Spent

Happy Monday! And a very happy short work week! Needless to say, this Monday is extra marvelous: I'm embracing the opportunity to sit around in my pajamas, sip coffee, and watch an America's Next Top Model marathon on Oxygen just because I can. Since weekend mornings typically have me (gladly) rushing off to yoga right after I get out of bed, this morning laziness is a rarity.

Just a few marvelous weekend highlights:

Saturday night I spent a lazy night in to free up some space on my DVR. Nothing exciting there, other than staring into Jonny Lee Miller's gorgeous eyes throughout last week's episode of Elementary.

Usually on the weekends I make a crockpot meal, but it just didn't happen this week. I gladly enjoyed a roasted acorn squash as part of my Saturday dinner. Hooray for winter squash being on sale for $0.89/lb at Stop and Shop the past few weeks!

Olive oil, sea salt, cracked black pepper, roasted at 450F until desired crispiness.
Always enjoyed with the skin intact, my favorite part!

Sunday was unusually busy this week. I started my day off with two hours of yoga, then headed home to grab a quick meal before heading to a Providence Bruins game with my mom, Kris, and her friend, who was so nice to get us free tickets!

Didn't mean to catch Kris with her eyes closed. Oops!

Providence Bruins definitely like to put on a show. There was a fight within the first 3 minutes of the game ending in blood shed.

Not sure what caused a fight this early, but it was entertaining. 

In the 3rd period, every player on the ice was involved in an all-out gloves-off brawl. It was nuts. Bruins ended up dominating the game, shutting out the Hartford Wolf Pack 6-0. 

After the game, I rushed home to eat a quick dinner, then headed to Hose Company for trivia. It's much harder to play than it is to host, that's for sure! We ended in last place, but had fun nonetheless. 

I came home to end the night with Once Upon a Time. How sexy is Captain Hook?

Marry me, please.

Not sure what lies ahead for today, other than vinyasa yoga and hot yoga from 6-8pm. I expect today will be marvelously relaxing :)

On a not-so-marvelous note, Tuesday's weather forecast is bleak:

I'm not ready for snow and cold :(

The bane of my New England-based existence.

Linking up to Katie's MIMM: 

Sunday on a Saturday

Unmotivated. 

I was completed unmotivated to do anything today. 

After 700 abs in yoga this morning, I negated all that hard work with eating an entire jar (and a half, let's be honest) of salsa and probably close to an entire bag of blue corn Food Should Taste Good tortilla chips. 

Damn you for being so tasty and addicting!

I did the grocery shopping at BJ's and Stop and Shop, then came home to do absolutely nothing. I think my mind is trying to compensate for my loss of a Sunday since I'm DJing that party tomorrow night from 5pm-11pm. I needed to catch up on my favorite TV shows / TV crushes anyway.

So I figured, why not share some of my favorite fall TV shows at the moment?

What's not to love about New Girl? This show is hilarious awkward, and Buzzfeed is always blowing up with New Girl posts to back my opinion up. 

Case in point: http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinchack/most-relatable-schmidt-quotes

Yes, Schimdt has been my favorite since day 1, but Winston is really coming into his own this season.

Elementary. Who doesn't love a quirky detective with gorgeous eyes? I have to admit, a good part of my love for this show is inspired by my crush on Jonny Lee Miller.

I never thought I'd like Nashville. I wasn't into country music and I wasn't crazy about Hayden Panettiere in a lead role, but I have to say I'm completely changed my opinion. The acting is amazing and now I'm a country music devotee. Go figure. Sam Palladio as Gunnar Scott is the sexy icing on the Nashville cake, I must say:

My lord, he is gorgeous

By far my favorite new comedy this season is Brooklyn Nine Nine. I love Andy Samberg. His sense of humor makes him so attractive. 

Some of my other favorite Fall TV shows include The Mindy Project (I can't get enough of Morgan the nurse, he kills me), Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, American Horror Story, Meet the Goldbergs, and Top Chef. I tend to let shows pile up on my DVR and marathon them over weekends or at night after work and yoga. I always seem to be behind, but that will probably change as the weather gets colder and I go into hibernation mode. 

Turning the clocks back tonight and crying to myself because winter is just around the corner. I'm not ready for a high in the 40s tomorrow.