Thank you all SO much for the support and comments on going after my dreams of personal training certification! Knowing that I have fabulous friends like yourselves behind me will make the process of learning new things and believing I can do this much easier. I’m glad I decided to finally bite the bullet and go for it!

Speaking of biting the bullet, I bit the bullet one more way recently. Last night I took a few hours (good gracious it took longer than expected) to set up a FFF T-Shirt Shop for my lovely friends!

I almost didn’t make the shop because I didn’t want it to come across as some marketing ploy to make money off of you. I’m not into that. Good thing I would be lucky to make enough money off of this to buy Makenzie a new puzzle…so it works with my values. Honoring your requests also works with my values, so here we are.

When I made shirts for myself about a month ago, many of you showed interest and asked how to get some for yourselves. I kept getting requests, so I finally obliged. I created this shop solely in case you wanted to rock a shirt sporting your love of green smoothies, fitness, and a positive body attitude. I added the designs I originally purchased and a few new fun ones, that I’m kind of jealous of and wish I could have for my own. So, check out the Faith Fitness Fun Shop!

Moving on. I was in an incredibly good mood today. I simply woke up on the right side of the bed ready to tackle the day.  And ready to tackle another challenging workout. I would apologize for the plethora of workouts I’ve been sharing this week, but I won’t. They all work so well that it would be selfish of me to keep them to myself.

I headed to the gym this morning for another short, easy two miler. I simply pop in my headphones (tangle free), hop on the treadmill, push the 6mph button, and go for 20 minutes. I like not having to think about it and just go. Anything more than 20 minutes and I would have to mess around with the treadmill to keep the boredom from taking over.

I followed up the run part of my workout with another group of mini-circuits. They worked so effectively on Tuesday for a full-body workout that I concocted another group of exercises to entertain myself with today. Pushing my body is entertaining, no? 😉

Thirty minutes later = a sweaty mess high on endorphins! To round out my hour, I hopped on the elliptical for 20 easy minutes of cardio. Honestly, I just wanted to read some of my SELF magazine.

I have quite a few magazine subscriptions because I scored such a good deal on subscription bundles during the holidays. I love reading my magazines, but only really care to read them while doing low-key cardio. I don’t know why, but I almost crave magazine reading with light cardio. Even though I have 6 subscriptions (which I scored for less than $20 total!), I still could read more. Too bad it’s so hard to run and read. That could certainly help my relationship with the treadmill.

All together, I spent a little over an hour getting my fitness on. I kind of dropped the ball with that though. I had forgotten a play date at the library to get to and still needed to eat a real breakfast! That meant rushing home, shoveling food, and rushing back out for Makenzie to have some fun time and pick up new library books.

I hate rushing my meals because it never satisfies me as much. No surprise I ended up hungry way earlier than normal. I don’t know how I used to hoover all my snacks in under 3 minutes and my lunch in under 10 minutes every day when teaching. No wonder binging was such an issue for me then! I likely never felt satisfied because I could barely remember eating! Moral of the story = take time for your food. Those little scraps deserve some TLC (tender loving care chewing).

• How quickly do you tend to eat your meals?
• What do you enjoy reading and when? Mags w/ cardio? Books in bed? If any answer goes, a book on the beach for me. Too bad that’s not reality!

I anticipate a fair share of you have heard of Jenn’s “What I Ate Wednesday” phenomenon where bloggers share…well, what they ate in a post that publishes on a Wednesday.

The posts always intrigue me because, you know, I love food. I don’t often share my food, but I have a recipe too good to keep to myself and figure a “What I Ate Tuesday, but you can eat today aka Wednesday” post fits perfectly. Say “aloha” to my food. <—It makes sense later, I promise.

My morning started per any regular Tuesday morning with a mad rush getting the kids all situated and fed before heading out the door to the gym. I do the quick and easy route of munching an apple for some pre-workout fuel. I have to get something in my belly, but since I end up eating so close to my workout that means something light and simple to digest. Hooray for fruit!

Do you want to hear about yesterday’s workout? I think you do. Trust me. A little piece of me died and went to heaven in pure “I owned that workout” bliss.

First up, intervals on the elliptical using a workout from Fitness Magazine. Like this:

*For minutes 8-29, repeat the moderate to fast to easy combo. Each round increase your time spent at the fast pace by a minute: 3 minutes the second time through, then 4 minutes, then end with 5 minutes as the last round.
**For minutes 31-43, continue alternating one minute each at the moderate pace and challenging sprint for a total of 6 more intervals.

I followed that sweaty session up with a full body workout. I love completing circuits and super sets to help me get through my workout faster. I switched it up today and worked my entire body going through 3 mini circuits in 30 minutes.

Any guesses how I refueled? You will likely only need one.

You’re so smart! I simply adore my strawberry, raisins, and peanut butter oats combo these days. It helps that I have a plethora of Skippy Natural Honey PB at my disposal.

Thank you Amazon for giving me this much peanut butter for about $1.60 per jar! I promise to share the deal with you when it comes around again. I know at least two gals who will want in on that action.

Ay! We’re only at breakfast? Someone *cough cough* is feeling rather chatty this morning. Let’s progress to lunch shall we?

I thought of creating a fun, inventive, more exciting lunch to share with you – but I don’t pressure myself to eat things just for the sake of the blog. My belly wanted my sandwich, fruit, and veggie combo so that’s what my belly got.

Ham sandwich with avocado, spinach, tomato, mustard, and laughing cow swiss cheese (because I’m obsessed with its creamy, flavorful spreadability). Plus grapes that were like candy. Plus carrots all by their sad lonesome with no hummus dippage. Hummus = one of the items axed at the end of the month, lower on the budget grocery trip. Money scores again in our never ceasing battle. 😉

We shall now whizz right on by my snack because I have a recipe to get to!

I wasn’t in the mood for anything particular or a one-bowl-wonder yogurt concoction…so a happy face mix of sliced sharp cheddar, a ginger snap larabar, and a banana. Making happy faces with my food? Can you tell I’m a mother?

And now we say ALOHA! Thank you for sticking with me. I promise this recipe will be the Hawaiian vacation your taste buds hope for after the previous 689 words. Yes, I used the handy word count tool counted.

Hawaiian Tofu

• 1 block extra firm tofu
• 1 jar pineapple tidbits in juice
• soy sauce
• grated ginger
• minced garlic

Press the water out of your tofu per normal preparation. Cut the tofu into even 1 to 2 inch slices/cubes. Place in a large ziploc bag. Strain the juice from the pineapple can into a bowl. Add soy sauce, grated ginger, and minced garlic to taste. I used about 2 or 3 tablespoons soy sauce, a bit over a teaspoon of ginger, and a tablespoon of minced garlic. Pour the marinade into the ziploc bag with the tofu.

Let marinate in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to 2 hours. Remove tofu and place on a baking sheet. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes, flipping halfway through.

We used our Hawaiian tofu atop romaine, pineapple tidbits, onion, cucumber, and feta cheese with a sesame ginger dressings. Sweet and tangy. An interesting twist on the traditional ‘fu. Deee-licious! And with those 862 words – I’m out!

• Do you enjoy tofu? What’s your favorite way? I love my BBQ tofu wraps!
• Do you ever use workout ideas from magazines?