Today was a great day and definitely one for the books.
I had the best weekend I’ve had in a long time, and I woke up happy this morning; not something I can say about every morning. But today I was genuinely happy and smiley when I got up this morning.
With my new found energy, and a few texts from friends, I pushed my butt out of bed and got my to-do list started. Between laundry and watching Friday Night Lights on Netflix (new obsession!), I got my first outdoor run in. I COMPLETELY KILLED IT!
My mile was 1:40 fast than I typically run indoors on the treadmill. My lungs definitely paid the price after a mile. My breathing is very different than when I run inside, so I need to work on that; my pace was pretty steady throughout the run so I have hope that I can get my breathing under control.
After my run, I stopped by the grocery store and picked up two Larabars: Apple Pie and Cherry Pie. They didn’t have any other flavors, but I know there are a lot of other places that sell them so this was good for today. Larabars are pretty clean fruit bars. They’re all made with less than 9 ingredients and all ingredients are whole foods such as almonds, dates, apples, cinnamon, etc. They’re gluten free, soy free, dairy free, vegan… I can pronounce all the ingredients and that made me pretty happy.
I tried the Apple Pie bar today and it was awesome! I can’t wait to try the Cherry Pie bar tomorrow… regardless I need to get my hands on more of these bars.
This morning I asked if any of you had heard of Larabars and what you thought about them. Greta at Fueled by Fresh not only confirmed that these were a great bar, but she shared a recipe for a homemade bar that she uses. So after my trip to the grocery store, I stopped at the Mediterranean Market by my house to pick up pitted dates.
I picked up two different things: whole pitted dates and pitted date paste. The second is basically pitted dates already thrown into a food processor. I figured might as well get both and see what works best. For tonight’s bars I used the paste and it was pretty darn easy. I added sliced almonds,shredded coconut, coconut oil and dark chocolate chips to the paste in a food processor. After it was mixed, I kneaded it a bit more and formed it into a square on wax paper and put it into the fridge for the night. It really can’t be screwed up is super simple.
After all the sticky mess was cleaned up I got down to business: dinner and snack for tomorrow.
Up first: Spaghetti squash for tomorrow’s snack.
Tonight’s dinner: Guacamole burger salad with raw onion and tomatoes.
Three loads of laundry, two loads of dishes and 10 episodes of Friday Night Lights later, I’m in bed under the covers still smiling, wishing this weekend would never end.
<3 Cristina
Sounds like an awesome weekend! You’ll have to let me know how your bars turned out!
They turned out great. Thank you so much for sharing the recipe with me. I need to find more things I can add to them, I’m thinking dried apricot next time.