Gets Better Every Time

Happy day after Thanksgiving everyone!

I hope you had a wonderful day filled with great company and joy.

So I am aware that almost every other blog you read will have a Thanksgiving feast recap.  Please feel free to fret, because I will add onto that list–only this time, I’ll try to keep it short!  Notice the word “try”.  *I can hear fingernails being bitten*

Of course, my nephew Daniel was looking as cute as always!

Basically, my family had never celebrated any holiday up until about…3 years ago.  One faithful day I somehow had mustered up the courage to go ahead and give this celebrating thing a shot.  Of course, we all loved it so much that now we have a big turkey day every year.  I have to add, though, since the day that Greg became a part of our family, a lot of things have changed around the Kim household; those changes have been nothing but good….

This year’s turkey went into the oven the night before!  Poor turkey…

He was left in there for a good 11 hours at approximately 200-225 F.  This was by far the most moist turkey I have ever made!! It truly gets better every year as I improve my skills.

The next morning, I made all the small but good stuff.  Some of my recipes came from All Recipes–that site is truly a life saver!!

I tweaked most of those recipes to suit our needs and preferences.

My favorite dishes were the spiced orange cranberry sauce, cornbread, and mashed potatoes.

The cornbread was extremely soft and moist because of the addition of Greek Yogurt.  Some recipes seem to suggest sour cream, but I always substitute that with plain Greek Yogurt.

The mashed potatoes were from an amazing recipe that contained steak seasoning!  Only instead of all butter, I added a bit of cream cheese as well.

The dessert was courtesy of my sister.

Pumpkin pie and a walnut & peanut butter chip brownie.

My mom is so cute!  Haha, I think she’s becoming like me–posing all funny for the camera.

The Day After…

This morning, I was craving nothing but overnight oats–which I refrigerated since last night.

I had the bowl of cold oats with a side of Hazelnut Coffee from Godiva that we all received at Foodbuzz Fest!

This delicious bowl contained 1/3 C rolled oats, mashed banana, almond milk, chia seeds, carob chips, raw cashew pieces, dried apricots <—amazing when they plump up!  Try it~   chopped apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, almond butter, and Fage Greek Yogurt. 

Although I didn’t necessarily “stuff” myself yesterday, my mind and body still craved light foods and a ton of exercise!

I was very grateful today because instead of feeling “guilty” of eating heavier-than-normal foods, I just felt content and thankful to even have the luxury of such good food!  And on top of that, I was just looking forward to going to the gym and getting my groove on.  Yayuhhh.

Cardio Intervals

Since my uppers were worked up rather well this week, I went with the stepmill and treadmill only.

Stepmill:

Every 30 seconds, I switched the direction I was walking towards:  frontwards, side (right), backwards, side (left) the whole 20 minutes.

• 30 sec.– Level 8 (switched directions every 30 seconds.  So, I was on level 8 for 2 full minutes.
• 30 sec.– Level 9
• 30 sec.– Level 10
• 30 sec.– Level 11
• 30 sec.– Level 12
• 30 sec.– Level 13

Then, I went back down until the timer went off.

This is seriously such a great workout and so effective for cardiovascular health!  And this is coming from the girl who always bashed on exercise machines…oops.  And I apologize y’all, haha.  I highly recommend this one.  It is also really good for before running.  After this, running and jogging becomes so much easier.

Random:  A cute little grandpa saw me walking on this machine backwards.  He smiled and came up to me saying, “I know…we all have something weird about us…except for me.”   Hah!

Treadmill:

• 30 sec. walking– 4.0 incline+3.5 speed
• 30 sec. jogging–            “          +7.0 speed
• 30 sec. walking–           “           +3.5 speed
• 30 sec. jogging–            “           +7.5 speed

And I did this pyramid-style repetition until I reached 8.5 speed.  Then, I walked for 15 minutes on 3.5~4.0 speed.

I hope you have a beautiful remaining of your day, and if you want your Thanksgiving link up on my site then you can check this out.

Does your family celebrate holidays?

Who has recently brought a lot of change into your life?

Do you tend to feel “guilty” after eating certain foods?  Why/how did that emotion begin in the first place?

What’s one “weird” thing about you lately?

Love,

Ellie <33

Tagged as: cardio, eating guilt, Fage greek yogurt, family, food, God's love, godiva coffee, gym, holidays, stepmill, Thanksgiving, treadmill