Not Good Guys!

Well I met with the hand surgeon this morning and it aint pretty kids. I have severed the nerve that runs to the outside of the pinky and the tendon that controls movement of the pinky. I am going in for surgery Friday morning (hopefully, the doctor is trying to reaarange his schedule…if not then Monday) and will be going under general anesthesia! (SUCK) I will be out for most of the day. I will be in a cast for 8-10 weeks and will need physical therapy to teach the tendon how to operate again because right now I have a paralyzed pinky and it does nothing. So this is going to be quite the ordeal. This was/is major hand trauma.

I was fitted with my splint/cast this afternoon and have had the hand set.

I wish I could say that I have managed to put a positive Kelly spin on this but right now I don’t have anything but really read swollen eyes from a lot of crying. I mean a lot. I am in pain, I am frustrated, I am scared and I didn’t realize I was going to be a one-handed Kelly for 8-10 WEEKS! One hand! I can’t shower by myself, put a bra on even. I feel completely handicapped. Shit I am. Hell, I am typing this blog post with one hand!!!

As for working out…who knows. Definitely not for the first 14 days because I will have to keep the arm completely elevated for 2 weeks. Nice!! Then who knows….the Occupational Therapist said doubtful for at least 4 weeks. Brilliant! Just brilliant. Then as soon as this entire ordeal is over than I am going to be scheduling knee appointments to figure out what needs to be done to fix my meniscus. GOOD LORD! ENOUGH! REALLY! ENOUGH!

I definitely have a long and uphill battle in front of me, no doubt. But I guess I am going to have to deal with it as it comes. I have no idea how long it will take the incision to heal but I am hoping not too long and I plan to kick PT’s ass and have a fully functional hand in no time. (there it is…that Kelly spunk…I knew it was somewhere) I am also going to learn to be one hell of a one-handed chef!

I have another appointment with the doctor tomorrow at 11:00am to go over final steps and pray like hell that I can get into surgey for Friday!

I also will not be attending the Healthy Living Summit. For all you who are going next weekend…have a ball!

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One Hand? No Problem!

Happy Wednesday guys. I am about to head out for my morning doctor appointment with the hand surgeon. Wish me luck…details this afternoon!

But let’s hit on dinner last night. One hand…no problem! This might have taken me a lot longer to cook than normal but I managed. And managed quite well thank you very much! I may have dropped a few curse words along the way and I may have gotten a tad frustrated but in the end I made dinner with 8 fingers and without getting my left hand wet or dirty. Sounds easier than it is…trust me!

Anyway…we had boneless lean pork chops that needed to be used so I got busy. I also roasted some okra for a yummy side dish! Keith is not a huge okra fan but in light of my situation he is basically inclined to let me have whatever I want! haha!

ISLAND PORK CHOPS

(adapted from P90X recipes)

• 16 ounces boneless(extra lean) pork chops
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1/8 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 tablespoon garlic, finely chopped
• 1/2 tablespoon Cholula

1. Preheat Oven to 425 degrees F
2. Stir together salt, pepper, cumin, chile powder, and cinnamon, then coat pork with spice rub
3. Heat 1-2 teaspoons oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat and brown pork chops (about 4 minutes) turning once
4. Stir together brown sugar, garlic and Cholula and pat onto each chop. Place on a baking sheet and cook for another 10 minutes (depending on how thick your chops are)

Holy goodness...this was AMAZING!!! I already want it again! This was the best porkchop recipe I have found and I am not even a big pork chop lover! TRY THIS!

 Okay…Happy Wednesday everyone! Wish me luck at the doctor!

Foodie Questions: Do you like pork? What’s your favorite pork recipe?

BEST VIDEO EVER: this will give you chills!!! http://finishstrongmovie.com/ 

Let’s Get To It!

Hey guys…thank you all so much for all the warm wishes you left me this morning. I will say that this has been one hell of a summer. I feel like it just one thing after another after another. As soon as I start to pick myself up…BAM…I am thrown another curve ball. But I have the most amazing husband on the planet who reminds me that life is full of curveballs and how we deal with them is what shapes our future.

So, this girl is picking herself up by her bootstraps and making a game plan. I have an 8:45 am appointment tomorrow morning with the hand surgeon so I will have a lot more details tomorrow. And until then I am just going to chill and enjoy some time off from exercise. Let me body enjoy it too. I can’t sweat because they don’t want the injury to get wet so maybe I will do some light walking and just enjoy life! Then I fully plan on aquajogging and doing other cardio (post-surgery) and I will pick back up with P90X as soon as I can. I also know I can do some lower body weights and abs. So there is still plenty for me to do. But I am NOT going to do anything until after I have met with the surgeon and let him tell me what to do. There is no point in doing something temporarily stupid that will have results prolonging any recovery.

So yesterday many of you wanted to know what the “Kelly” eating plan is. Well let me share! (it will make me feel useful! haha) Basically I said that I was following a cross between the P90X plan and Jackie Warner’s plan. Here is the deal per day:

• 1-2 carbs (usually for me that is oatmeal in the morning and sometimes brown rice in the evening or a piece of gluten-free toast with lunch. Sometimes it is only oatmeal in the morning. AND this is important any refined carb has to have less than 5 grams of sugar…anything with 5g of sugar or less will not spike your blood sugar and insulin levels)  
• 1-2 fruits (usually just 1 fruit for me…I am not a HUGE fruit person so usually one piece a day works just fine but if I do eat it twice one serving is usually in a smoothie form)
• unlimited veggies (I eat a lot of vegetables…probably 5-6 servings a day…but I never heard of anyone being unhealthy from too many vegetables!)
• 4-5 protein (I try to eat a protein with every meal and most snacks)
• 1-2 Fats (usually in the form of nuts, nut butters, flaxseed, seeds, olive oil, etc.)

I know Dairy is missing from this list…but my stomach doesn’t handle dairy well at all. So I usually only eat it a few times a week at most. When I do it is NEVER milk but usually greek yogurt or cottage cheese.

Here is a typical day of eating in the life of Kelly:

• Breakfast: Egg white omelet (stuffed with vegetables), 1 cup oatmeal (sweetened with truvia and cinnamon and sometimes some unsweetened cocoa powder and sometime sprinkled with seeds or nuts)
• Snack: Green Monster (as of late) or maybe a handful of almonds
• Lunch: Big salad (usually mixed greens, bell pepper, tomato, cucumber) and topped with a protein (chicken, tuna, tempeh) and a dressing of balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
• Snack: An apple with PB or almond butter or vegetable sticks with hummus
• Dinner: A protein (usually chicken or fish) and vegetables (any and all kinds) and sometimes a starch like brown rice, quinoa, etc.

I make sure to ALWAYS eats every 2 to 3 hours. Most of my meals are around 400 calories and my snacks are about 100-200 calories. This seems to work REALLY well for me. I am typically not a late night snacker because I go to bed about 2 hours after I eat dinner.

Does this help you?

Do you like seeing what a typical food day is like for me?

When It Rains…

Well guys…I am just not going to be little miss positive today, okay? Why? Well yesterday afternoon I was cooking and decided that I didn’t really need my pinky finger. Yes…big ole butcher knife…down on the pinky. Blood everywhere, me screaming (literally) and my sweet honey rushing me to the emergency room as I hyperventilated and concentrated on not fainting.. 2 hours later…after a tetnis shot and some stitches I was informed that I have severed the tendon from my first joint to the tip of the finger rendering the top of my finger completely useless. Literally I have no control over it and it just flops over. I had an x-ray to look at the bone because I cut myself all the way to the bone. Nice, huh? But thankfully the bone looks fine…just the pesky tendon. I have an appointment with a hand surgeon on Wednesday morning and the he said most likely I will be having surgery on either Thursday or Friday of this week. And apparently it is full on under the knife with anesthesia surgery. Fun!

Who really needs a pinky?

Poor hand!

So as I mentioned yesterday, I HATE to be aimless when it comes to working out so I started the awesome 90 day P90X challenge. Well I guess I lasted one freaking day because that aint gonna happen now. No weights, no pull ups, no push-ups…nada. Oh and did I mention no running because of the damn knee…so yeah…not happy…not in a good place. I am definitely a Mrs. Grumpy Pants today! Keith says it just a setback, an obstacle, and I will be able to do my P90X challenge, just not right now. Sigh. Someone tell me joke…cheer me up…please…I beg!

CHALLENGE ME!

Good afternoon everyone! Sorry for skipping out on my morning post but usually Sundays aren’t extremely high traffic days for this ole blog and I wanted everyone to get a chance to see my review for entry #1 of the recipe contest! Recipe 2 will come at some point this week! 🙂

So I have always admired Anna and her challenges. If you are unfamiliar, she usually picks one thing and challenges herself for one month while chronicling her journey on her blog. This month she is going raw! GOOD-LUCK ANNA! But it got me thinking a few weeks ago that I needed some kind of a goal. I don’t do well when I am “aimless” per say and that is how I have felt ever since this knee injury. Just sort of aimless. I never really had to put much thought into my workouts before…I just woke up and ran. Simple, end of story. Now I am trying to be creative and find new things to do. I have been doing weights and some running and elliptical and swimming. But I have decided that while it is nice to add spice to my life I do better and feel better on a solid workout plan! So I have decided to nix running altogether (COLLECTIVE GASP) and take some time away. It is scary but necessary I believe. I have decided to embark on a new challenge (just call me Anna) and commit to P90X for the next 90 days. I am also going to following a combination eating plan. I am going to create a Kelly plan that mixes the eating plan out of Jackie Warner’s book, This is Why You’re Fat, and the P90X eating plan. I am excited!

Yesterday I had to take my “before” pictures, do the fit test and then I started full force today with day 1 workout! I am excited and really anxious to see how this all works out in the end! 🙂 Regardless, it just feels good to be on a plan, working towards a goal and not just aimlessly being there. I know my way of thinking doesn’t work for everyone but it works for me! So let’s bring it on!

• Day 1: Chest & Back followed by Ab Ripper X. I have one word: WOW! That’s it. That’s all. Just WOW.

Have you done P90X or know anyone who has?

Recipe Contest #1

Happy Sunday! Well as promised I have picked 3 recipes submitted from YOU to be in my recipe contest! First up was Hilary’s Chicken Enchiladas! 

Keith and I are going to be using the following criteria for each recipe. We will rate the criteria 1 to 5 (five being the best) and then we will add up the numbers and find the average score. The person closet to 5 WINS!

1. Preparation Time/Degree of Difficulty
2. Taste
3. Ease of finding ingredients
4. Presentation

Chicken Enchiladas a la Hilary

• 1 medium onion, chopped fine
• 1/2 t vegetable oil
• salt
• 3 medium garlic cloves, minced
• 2 T chili powder
• 2 t ground cumin
•  2 (8 oz) cans tomato sauce
• 1 c water
• 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• ground black pepper
• 8 oz shredded reduced fat cheddar cheese (I used reduced fat mexican blend)
• 1 (4 oz) can pickled jalapenos, drained and chopped
• 1/2 c minced fresh cilantro leaves (I used an entire cup of cilantro but Keith and I love that flavor)
• 12 (6 in) corn tortillas

Preheat the oven to 400.  Combine the onion, oil, and 1/2t salt in a large saucepan.  Cover and cook over medium-low heat until the onion has softened, stirring often, about 8 -10 min.  Stir in the garlic, cumin, chili powder, sugar, and cook about 30 sec or until fragrant.  Stir in the tomato sauce and water.  Bring to a simmer and cook until slightly thickened, about 5 min.   

 Nestle the chicken into the sauce.  Reduce heat to low, cover,a nd cook until the chicken is no longer pink, 10-12 min (it took mine closer to 20).  Transfer chicken to a plate and allow to cool.  Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste. 

 Shred the chicken and toss with 1/2 cup sauce, 1 cup cheese, jalapenos, and cilantro and season with salt and pepper.  Warm up the tortillas until pliable.  Place 1/3 c chicken mixture in the middle of each tortilla and tightly roll each tortilla around the filling.  Lay them seam side down in a 9×13 in baking dish. 

Lightly spray the tops of the enchiladas with cooking spray.  Pour 1 cup of remaining sauce over the enchiladas and top with 1 cup cheese.  Cover the dish with foil and bake 20-25 minutes.  Remove foil and continue to bake another 5 minutes or until cheese browns.   

Nutritional Info:  (2 enchiladas per serving) Cal: 350 ; Fat: 10g ; Sat Fat: 4.5g ; Carb: 37g ; Protein: 33g     Fiber: 7g ; Sodium: 980mg

 Preparation Time/Degree of Difficulty: 3. This took quite a long  time to make. From beginning to end it took about an hour and half. It was worth it but it isn’t a quick meal you can just throw together on a busy weeknight. But while it may have taken a long time to make it wasn’t difficult. Nothing harder than chopping onions.

Taste: 5. OH MY GOSH! Keith and I both agreed these were better than any restaurant enchiladas we’ve had!

Ease of finding ingredients: 5. All the ingredients were easily found at my local grocery store.

Presentation: 4: These are pretty but enchiladas are always hard to plate, in my opinion. I haven’t mastered that part yet. 🙂

FINAL SCORE: 4.25

New Things Saturday

Good morning! So last night, as told, we went to dinner at Kona Grill with good friends, Doug and Kelly. Keith and I were a little all over the place with our food selections. We actually had sushi and pizza. ha…don’t judge. We split a sushi sampler and a margarhita pizza. Kudos to our waitress…she didn’t even flinch when we told what we wanted! 🙂

Okay now I want to talk about something. I want to talk about the Green Monster. Now I know this was HUGE in the blog world a few months ago. And truthfully, I am not one to jump on a bandwagon because everyone else has. So I honestly just never got the appeal of the green monster smoothie trend. Well this morning after a killer weight workout, I wanted something COLD! So I thought I would finally try it. Into the mix went:

• 8 ounces water
• ice
• 1 peach
• 1 scoop Jay Robb Vanilla Whey protein powder
• handful spinach
• 1 tsp xantham gum

My First Green Monster (Oh and yes I was wearing a sweatshirt...the sweat combined with the AC made me cold! haha)

I blended, I sipped, and then I might have geeked out all over my kitchen! THIS WAS AMAZING!!! You can’t even taste the spinach! I know, I know 90% of you are rolling your eyes while the words “duh” are running through your head! What can I say, I am late to trends! Case in point, it took me forever to embrace capri pants. But back to the point…I loved it.

What’s your favorite Green Monster creation! Bring it on!!

Today, we don’t have too much on the agenda. Laundry, as usual, and some cleaning. GAG! For Keith’s birthday (last March) me, my mom and stepdad, Jim, went in together and got him a huge gift certificate at a massage place for multiple 90 minute massage and today he is cashing in on another one from 3:30 to 5:00! LUCKY GUY! 😉 Then tonight I am making my first recipe from the recipe contest I have going. We are making Hilary’s chicken enchiladas! Results tomorrow!

HAPPY SATURDAY!!

Date Night Friday

Happy Friday everyone! Well my day started out pretty nice. I did my 25 minute Jackie Warner HIIT and then did weights. (I am getting good at this weight lifting thing! haha)

• Renegade Push-Ups (30 reps/3 sets)
• Dumbbell Flyes (15 reps/3sets)
• Squat Jumps (30 reps/3 sets)
• Sumo Squats (30 reps/3 sets)
• Narrow Presses (15 reps/3 sets)
• Dips (15 reps/3 sets)
• Dumbbell Transverses (30 reps/3 sets)
• Single Leg Jackknives (15 each side/3sets)
• Wide Dumbbell Pulls (15 reps/3 sets)
• Wingmans (30 reps/3 sets)
• Dumbbell Deadlift (15 reps/3 sets)
• Cross-Knee Bridges (30 reps/3 sets)
• Concentration Curls (15 reps each arm/3 sets)
• Alternating Dumbbell Curls with Rotation (15 each side/3 sets)
• V-Tucks (30 reps/3 sets)
• Bicycle (30 reps/3 sets)

WOWZERS…feel the burn!!! 🙂

I hope everyone is excited for the weekend. I am! Who has what going on? Tonight we have plans with some of our good friends, Doug and Kelly. We are headed to two of our favorite places. First, we are doing dinner at Kona Grill. Love this restaurant! Love! Then we are headed to Yogurt Planet for some fro-yo! Could this BE the most perfect night…um YES!

What are you doing tonight? Any fun plans??

Dinner last night was another easy and simple one. We grilled chicken breasts (marinated in lime juice and garlic) with roasted broccoli (and balsamic vinegar) and a side of fresh pineapple chunks! Very summery and very yum!

Easy Summer Dinner

Funny story. Keith and I have been married for almost 4 1/2 years and in that time period we have gone through 3 toaster ovens. We bought our 4th one yesterday. Seriously, we are hard on a toaster oven. We use it every single day. It is by far our most “go-to” kitchen appliance. So here’s my question, is it just me or does it seem like toaster ovens don’t have very long life expectancy rate in our house? Surely it isn’t normal to have to buy a new one every year. And this one didn’t even last us a year…we got our last one as a Christmas present from my brother! Please tell me this is normal? haha!

What kitchen appliance are you hard on?

And with that: HAPPY FRIDAY!!

Food Color Additives…Safe?

I was persuring one of my favorite websites: About.com and came across this fabulous information by Peggy Trowbridge Filippone:

The FDA separates color additives for foods into two categories: Certifiable or Exempt from Certification. Cerfiable color additives are man-made. They must be tested for consumption safety and approved or certified by the FDA to be added to their list. There are nine certified color additives on the FDA approved list from which a multitude of colors can be mixed.

Certified color additives are known as dyes or lakes. Dyes are water-soluble and be used in beverages, dry mixes, baked goods, confections, dairy products, pet foods, and other products. Lakes will not dissolve in water and are more stable than dyes. They are best-used in foods containing fats and oils or those foods which do not contain a lot of moisture to dissolve dyes, such as tablets, cake mixes, hard candies, and chewing gum.

Name/Common Name	Hue	Common Food Uses
FD&C Blue No. 1 Brilliant Blue FCF	Bright blue	Beverages, dairy products, dessert powders, jellies, confections, condiments, icings, syrups, extracts
FD&C Blue No. 2 Indigotine	Royal blue	Baked goods, cereals, snack foods, ice cream, confections, cherries
FD&C Green No. 3 Fast Green FCF	Sea green	Beverages, puddings, ice cream, sherbet, cherries, confections, baked goods, dairy products
FD&C Red No. 40 Allura Red AC	Orange-red	Gelatins, puddings, dairy products, confections, beverages, condiments
FD&C Red No. 3 Erythrosine	Cherry red	Cherries in fruit cocktail and in canned fruits for salads, confections, baked goods, dairy products, snack foods
FD&C Yellow No. 5 Tartrazine	Lemon yellow	Custards, beverages, ice cream, confections, preserves, cereals
FD&C Yellow No. 6 Sunset Yellow	Orange	Cereals, baked goods, snack foods, ice cream, beverages, dessert powders,

Exempt from Certification are those color additives derived from natural resources which are known to be safe to consume. These exempt additives come from such sources as vegetables, minerals, animals as well as man-made concoctions from natural foodstuffs. Normally man-made color additives have no flavor, while colors made from natural foods may well impart some unexpected flavor and color results. Keep this in mind if you plan on using homemade natural color additives at home.

Colors Exempt from Certification
Annatto extract	Beta-carotene	B-Apo-8′-carotenal*
Canthaxanthin	Beet powder	Carrot oil
Caramel color	Cottonseed flour, toasted partially defatted, cooked	Cochineal extract (carmine)
Fruit juice	Ferrous gluconate*	Grape skin extract* (enocianina)
Grape color extract*	Paprika oleoresin	Paprika
Saffron	Riboflavin	Turmeric
Titanium dioxide*	Vegetable juice	Turmeric oleoresin
*Restricted to specific uses

Food Color Laws and Regulations

The Food and Drug Act of 1906 in the United States established a voluntary certification program regulating the addition of colors to our foods in the US.

Mandatory certification came with the Federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic (FD&C) Act of 1938, regulating what color enhancers could be added to not only foods, but also drugs and cosmetics.

In 1960, the laws were further amended to require any color additive be on the Federal Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved list. And, most recently, the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 now requires that any certifiable color additive used in food must be listed in the ingredient statement by its common or usual name.

All new color additives must be tested and proved not to cause harmful effects when consumed, and are approved only by petition to the FDA to be added to the certified list. Once approved, the FDA may still restrict usage to only certain types of foods.

The United Kingdom also regulates food color additives in their territories.

The 27 countries comprising Member States of the European Union Community have also established regulations on color additives to foods with quite an extensive list. 

I know in today’s world we can’t really get away from food color additives, but how do you feel about the above information? Do you think the FDA is doing enough to regulate these chemicals?

Thursday Recipe Winners

Happy Thursday everyone!! Well last night was an easy (but delicious dinner) we had Tilapia, steamed broccoli and kidney beans. Boring…but tasty and it did the trick! I simply seasoned my tilapia with some fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper and some garlic. It was nice and light.

Look out veggies!!

Workout this morning was nothing short of exciting. Woo-Flipping-Hoo….can you just hear the excitement. I tried running again. Can you see where this is going? I ran 4 miles at a (I think I might cry) slow pace. (6.7 on the treadmill) then I followed up with 20 minutes of HIIT from Monday. I know I need to not be so hard on myself but I feel like such a baby…my workouts suck. Okay there’s my Thursday pity party…moving on.

Let’s talk about the fun stuff and what most of you really want to know! The recipe contest winners!!! Well I am excited to say that we got some AWESOME entries and for those of you I didn’t pick…don’t worry I am still going to be making them! But for this contest, Keith and I chose:

• Biz’s Thai Basil Chicken (Kelly’s pick)
• Matt’s Grass-Fed Bison Burgers (Keith’s pick)
• Hilary’s Chicken Enchiladas (Joint pick)

So over the next few days to a week we will be testing all three of these recipes out. I will post for you the recipe and pictures with mine and Keith’s opinions and ratings! Remember the winner is going to get a copy of my first cookbook and a feature in my second cookbook scheduled to come out this November! WOO HOO!

Which would you make first?

Question of the day: Do you have any addictions?

Me: I am totally addicted to:

1. Orbitz Sweet Mint Gum
2. Crossword puzzles
3. Ebay