Berry/Spinach Smoothie and Chicken Salad Made with Guacamole

First I have to mention that someone in the office brought in pizza for a lunch meeting, it’s all I can smell right now….OMG do I miss real pizza crust.  Ok, enough of that, it just had to be said.  I closed my office door but that wonderfully awful smell is finding a way to get in here!

Anyway, moving right along, I finally figured out last night that I can work out after work now that we are doing smoothies for dinner.  If I don’t have to cook I have lots of free time when I get home, yay!  I got on the treadmill, the first time in a while after being sick, etc. (you have already heard about it).  It felt SO good!  I didn’t move too fast but I cranked the incline up to 3 for 30 minutes, a little over a mile.  It’s kind of sad that I used to do two in 30 minutes, but I will get there again.  After that I did some arm work with my exercise band.  Yay, it felt great.  It really is a good stress reliever, and those endorphins always make you feel good when you are done.  I didn’t realize how much I was missing it.

I have a strange sounding combination of foods for you today.  It sounds really strange but both are good, just try them!  The first one was my smoothie creation last night.  I always try to work veggies into them because they are good for me J  Here’s my Berry-Spinach creation from last night:

Berry-Spinach Smoothie

Ingredients:

½ C nonfat plain Greek yogurt (I use Chobani)

1 C unsweetened vanilla almond milk

1 C frozen unsweetened berry mix

1 T raw agave syrup

1 T chia seeds

1.5 C fresh spinach

Directions:

1.      Put the berries in the bottom of the blender, add the yogurt, almond milk, agave syrup and top with spinach

2.      Start the blender on low, give it a chance to get into those frozen berries, then gradually increase the power until the spinach has been pulled down and blended into the mixture

3.      Turn off and taste, add sweetener if you want more (I don’t like it too sweet) and dump in the chia seeds, blend for about 30 seconds longer

4.      Pour into a large glass (and I do mean large, this makes a big smoothie), enjoy!

The second recipe is what I’m sitting here eating for lunch while I’m typing.  I came across the idea on Pinterest, I didn’t follow the recipe, I just kind of winged it based on the idea.  The recipe below is my version, and, if you love guacamole (the real, homemade kind) then you are going to love this one.  By the way, this makes a lot, for me it was two lunches.

Chicken Salad made with Guacamole

Ingredients:

1 avocado

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 T lime juice (I use a little more but I like that flavor)

Salt & Pepper to taste

2 cooked, chopped chicken breasts (about 6 oz. total) – I used a rotisserie chicken

½ C quartered grape tomatoes

2 scallions, chopped

Directions:

1.      Cut the avocado in half, dispose of the seed and scoop out into a bowl

2.      Squeeze a lime over the avocado, add the garlic powder and a little salt and pepper

3.      Mash the mixture with a fork until desired consistency (I like mine slightly lumpy) – this is the point where you should taste it for salt levels

4.      Add in the chicken, tomatoes and scallions and mix well

5.      Serve with crackers, your own baked tortilla chips or even on some GF bread

BTW, if you are eating GF and love crackers like I do make sure you try Mary’s Gone Crackers, they are GF and vegan and so darned delicious sometimes I just eat them without anything else.  They are great when I need something crunchy.  Kroger in my town carries them, actually they have several flavors.  I always reach for the original but the others are yummy too.  There is a store locator on their website, check them out if you can find them near you.

Ordinary Days

I skipped a blog day again, ugh, I seem to forget a lot lately.  It wasn’t intentional this time; I fell asleep last night when I got home…oops J

I will recap the last couple of days because I skipped.  On the thyroid front, the ultrasound went relatively well.  There are a couple of nodules, kind of expected because that’s normal for people with Hashimoto’s.  They needed my tests from 2005 to determine if they have increased in size at all.  My next step is an appointment the specialist at the beginning of August.  I’m getting closer to answers every day!

Food has been good, though I have been really hungry lately (swinging back into hyperthyroid).  I have been able to manage it to the point where I am using my WPs.  I didn’t want to this week, but I also need to listen to my body.  I haven’t used all of them and I won’t dip into activity points so I feel like I’m staying on track.  Luckily my cravings haven’t been for sweets/chocolate, they have been for crunchy and protein.  The crunchy is easily taken care of by an apple, or dill pickles or my home-baked corn chips…check.  The protein I’m just focusing on low-fat stuff, mostly chicken and some tuna. The exploding chicken taquitos from Hungry Girl have come in handy.

Exercise has been going well.  I love the feeling of getting stronger.  Am I crazy to be excited about putting the treadmill up to 6% incline and trucking like I’m climbing a hill?  I love that I can, that my muscles work well and feel strong and that I know if I were on an actual hill I could do it no problem.

Ok, that’s it for today.  I don’t really have much more to say.  Happy Friday!

A Long Pause and Hashimoto’s

I have been absent for a few days, life got a little crazy here.  My husband ended up with a serious infection in his leg that put him down for most of the week.  Between that and my struggle to get my thyroid acting right again I just plain fell back into old eating patterns.  For me that means no cooking healthy wonderful food, it means buying food that others have cooked (aka take out from restaurants).  The result?  Only a .4 gain, thank goodness I kept exercising through it all.  I even added some more weight workouts, it makes me feel like superwoman afterwards.

I saw my doctor this week for the first time in the past two months.  She was out of town for my entire thyroid blowout.  I have Hashimoto’s disease, my immune system attacks my thyroid making it either to into hyper or hypo mode.  About a month and a half ago I went to the doctor for a racing heart, a symptom I recognized meant I was well into hyperthyroid.  My doctor was out of the country and the on call doctor, without looking at my history, took me off my thyroid medication all together.  Big mistake, one of the worst things you can do for someone with Hashimoto’s is take them off of their meds, that gives the immune system free reign to further damage the thyroid.  The biggest problems I have had since are brain fog and total exhaustion along with what is likely depression.  Not a good combo for someone that is trying to really focus on getting healthier.  My doctor put me right back on my meds, it will take a bit for me to level out, I’m looking forward to that.  She also set up an appointment for an ultrasound because my thyroid is now enlarged, and also with a specialist because she wants me to have someone there that knows everything about my condition (I love my doctor!). 

The silver lining in all of this?  I never once skipped exercising, even when I woke up so tired I didn’t feel like rolling over in bed.  I pushed myself; I made sure that I continued at least one healthy thing for me.  I’m really proud of myself for that part.  In the past I would’ve given up altogether and just gone into a mode that was totally unhealthy.  Yay me for maintaining focus in at least one area.

My plan for getting back on track?  Obviously, no eating out!  I also decided to make my entire week’s menu, tracking points for every day.  I put it all down on paper and left a few points on the table for any “oops” I may have.  The goasl for the week are to stay within DPs as much as possible, maintain the same level of exercise and focus on getting the food back on track while my thyroid evens itself out.  Oh, and posting in my journal, it’s important and keeps me focused.

I hope everyone is having a great Sunday!