Power Yoga

Today was filled with new things. Before going to work I made my usual banana oatmeal, but instead of topping it with almond butter I stirred in some coconut butter. To be honest, I couldn't really taste it. Although I still love coconut butter on toast, and anywhere else where I can actually taste it, I will probably be sticking to almond butter on oatmeal.

I got to work a bit of a shorter shift today which was nice, only six hours. I brought an Ezekiel tortilla with apple butter as a snack to work, and Greek yogurt, granola, and a banana, along with an almond butter and apple butter sandwich for lunch. Apple butter was a recent discovery for me, a friend of mine has been raving about it for weeks and I finally picked some up. OH MY GOD, it's absolutely amazing. So, so, so good! It's basically apples and apple cider that get simmered down with cinnamon to create a thick spread that has a consistency similar to super thick applesauce. It taste's like heaven, and only has 20 calories per tablespoon, which is more than enough to cover a piece of bread. Of course I've taken to eating it with a spoon... but that's just me.

After work I went home, grabbed an Ezekiel tortilla with a small amount of almond butter and apple butter (are we seeing a pattern here?) and then went to go try out my first ever Vinyasa Power Flow class. I've done a pretty good amount of Bikram yoga, and while I love it (well in that I hate doing it, love the way I feel after kind of way) and I'm get a workout in the sense that I'm sweating my but off (literally), and there is some muscle work... I wanted a real 'oh my god, my muscles are shaking, can't hold this for another second, wow I'm sore and can't move my legs' kind of workout. So power flow class it was. It was really, really fun. I loved it, and man do all those downward dogs work your triceps, not to mention the countless plans, twists, and awkward balancing poses. She also had us pair up so that we could actually do handstands, which was cool because it's not something I have the strength to do yet. In short, I really enjoyed the class, it flowed nicely, I was able to get into it, but because it wasn't a class with set series of poses there was a certain amount of informality and flexibility to it that I liked.

The studio was right next to whole foods, and I was out of bananas (I tried only buying six this week as the 12 I bought last week almost ended up going bad, but I ran out, so this time I am trying eight). So I ran in, and bought some bananas, and some apples, because they actually looked good this week. I am super picky about apples and wont eat them if they don't have the right crunch. Fortunately I've gotten pretty good at telling whether or not they will be good by look and feel. They looked good this week - hopefully they will be. I also decided to grab a giant salad from the salad bar for dinner as the boy requested Asian noodles from a place nearby and I was feeling a bit carbed out.

I piled a box high with spinach, chickpeas, sesame tofu, carrots, bell peppers, and corn and topped it off with raspberry vinaigrette, and raisins. I also grabbed some nature's path granola bars as I need snacks to take to work as I am always starving halfway through my shift, and let me tell you, the Starbucks pastry case is hardly filled with health-food items. I got the pumpkin spice flavor and the apricot flavor. I love, love, love their peanut butter granola so I had a good feeling. They didn't disappoint, I had a pumpkin spice one in the car on the way home because yoga left me starving. So, so good.

With my dinner salad I also had a piece of soda bread with almond butter (again, but let me note I only ever put about a teaspoon if even on bread, I'm not a fan of super thick spreads, I like it thin, just enough so I can taste it, not so much it sticks to the roof of my mouth), and crofter's superfruit spread, which I also grabbed at whole-foods today after seeing it on so many blogs. Again, it didn't disappoint, and was the perfect dessert.

After dinner the boy and I proceeded to watch this week's episode of Lost and now I think its time for bed. We both have the day off tomorrow, so I think we're going to go climbing. I also have to do a 5 mile tempo tomorrow, the first one of my marathon training plan. Yay!

Night!