Product Recommendation: Good Karma Flax Milk

Hello my dear Blog Readers, real and fictional!

I have another product recommendation for you...Good Karma Flax Milk -  Unsweetened!

How did I come about finding such a thing?  Well my friends, I ventured out to a new store on Sunday, called Rainbow Acres in Culver City.  It is a Natural Food Store, and what made me go there was a coupon for Ezekiel Sprout bread for $1.99.  While I was there I did some browsing and found myself in the dairy section looking for a milk alternative that did not have so much durn (yes, durn) sugar!

So there it was in the fridge case, talking to me, "Look at me, Look at me!"  So I gave in and looked at it.  Flipped the carton over and low and behold...low in calories, low in fat....and NO SUGAR!  I began jumping up and down...not literally!  I was excited and was overtaken by such wonderful nutritional facts!

I didn't even pay attention to the price I just grabbed it and put it in the cart!  Much to my surprise the darn Half Gallon cost $4.99!  Wowzers.  I will definitely have to see if I can find this elsewhere for cheaper!

I opened the carton and took a little sip..not bad.  It tasted like flax.  My intent was to use it as the milk in my protein shakes.  So yesterday, Monday, I made my first protein shake with it!  I was impressed, it tasted good, and it blended well with the powder.  My friends, I have a winner here!

Give it a try!  Here is the website:  http://www.goodkarmafoods.com/products

The Flax Milk comes in 3 varieties, Vanilla, Unsweetened and Original.  My review is for the  Unsweetened one!  I hope you try it and I hope you like it!

Jet to Jetty Run - Official Results Are In!

Jet to Jetty Run, Walk & Fun Bike Ride / 5K Searchable Results / Kyra Clarke | Active.com Race Results

Yah Me!

I still want to get my 3 miles at 45 minutes or less. I will get there one day!

Kyra

Jet to Jetty 2012...Completed!!!

Howdy there!  I know I have been missing in action yet again!

Some days I just can't seem to make myself get on the computer and blog.  But in all honesty, not much has been going on. My Dad & my brother has been in town, so my life and my schedule has not been my own. They came out to celebrate my birthday and we again did the Jet to Jetty race.  This is now my 3rd year doing this race.  It first started with my Daddy & I doing it, so he has done it with me for the last 2 years. This year he has a hamstring injury, so he did not participate. This year is my brothers second time at the race.  Last year he did the 5k, this year he did the 10K...and he took it all in strides! He did an awesome job!  He ran like a 11:30 mile pace!

As for me...I finished!  Hooray!  I certainly did not jog as much as I anticipated.  It was hard to get going since I was inactive for 4 days and of course ate all sorts of unusual things for 4 days.  But none the less, I was able to maintain my current pace and actually finished a little faster.  When I walk/jog on my own, I do 3 miles in about 50 minutes.  So with the 5K I did 3.1 Miles in the same time.  So not too bad.  The official race times have not yet been posted, but based on my phone tracking I think I am at 50 minutes and some seconds.

Nothing too exciting, but here are a few shots from the race.

Once the official time and any official pictures are taken, I will make another post!  Talk to you later!

Hurt

Words spoken with even the best of intentions still hurt. Again I face a challenge, Do I go alone on this journey or do I continue this "support system" that has now offended and hurt me twice in a few days?

I sitting here in tears as I try to understand how I am not to put walls when I continually get hurt? How does one open themselves up to just continue to be beaten down?

I hurt, I cry, and I just don't know where to go from here. but I'm tired oh so tired.

Hula Hooping

Yes folks...Hula Hooping!  I got an email from a place called Hoopnotica in Venice Beach, CA about a free Hoop Jam Session.  Ya know I am willing to try anything once and well, it was free.  I really had no reason not to try it.

The class was more challenging than I expected!  I had fun...I laughed at myself ALOT!  That helped burn extra calories.  So here are some our cell phone pictures.... Be forewarned they are horrible, and they almost make me want to stop eating food!

Tired from Temescal Thursday

Howdy...Thursday has come and gone and I am still trying to recover from that hike on Wednesday.  I was so unprepared for what I am currently experiencing 

Thursday I was fighting sleep all day, I am so tired, so low on energy and oh so sore!  Kickboxing was on the workout schedule for Thursday, but that so did not happen!  I didn't do any physical activities on Thursday.  I could not muster up any energy to get moving.

It is unusually warm for Los Angeles right now, so the heat inspired me to make a smoothie!  So I broke out the bag of 3 Berry Blend from Costco, Pulled out my Cranberry Juice and of course the blender and Voila! Berry Smoothie!  I had no honey or sweetener at the house so this smoothie was rather tart!

3 Berry Smoothie

My other interest concoction of the evening, I am calling Kyra's Chicken Boil Surprise.  It was a tasty meal made by accident!  No recipe, no pre-planning the ingredients, I just said, It's too hot to bake this chicken, so I am going to boil it!

Chicken Boil Surprise

Ingredients

Kirkland Chicken Breast Tenderloin (defrosted)

1/2 bag of Trader Joes Southern Green Blend

Maybe a 1/4 cup of frozen corn

Maybe 2 cups of Frozen Broccoli

I pulled out my skillet, I added some olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and water.  Brought it to a boil then added the chicken breast.  Let that Boil for about 15 minutes then I added in the veggies.  And let that boil for 3-5 minutes.  I also added the juice of 1 whole lemon.   Dinner is ready!

I scooped it out of the pan into my handy bowl here and ate it!  It was surprisingly tasty!  I hope I can re-create it again one day! 

So that is all for Thursday.  See you guys later!

Temescal Canyon: DONE!

Excuse Me, Can I have everyone's Attention?
I have a very important announcement to make!  Yesterday, August 8, 2012, I hiked!  Now I can cross that off of my Undertakings list for 2012!  WooHoo!

Now let's talk about this hike!  I am going to tell this story how I felt at the moment doing the hike!  I got to Sunset off of PCH.  Parked and I looked up and said, Damn...that is a frickin' serious mountain!  With much nervousness, I meet with Hailey at the entry of the Park.  We walked back into the park to where the trail begins.  All I keep thinking is, Damn this is a huge mountain.  So as we got to the beginning of the trail, what do I see?  Stairs!  Now ya'll know..how I feel about stairs.  I am here to hike, and not walk up stairs! Maybe about 10 minutes into the hike, my heart was almost pounding out of my chest.  I promise you it was so close to busting through my skin and landing straight on the trail floor!

Thank goodness for Hailey's patience, cause I had to stop many times up that damn hike.  At one point on the trail we moved out of the way to let this older man pass.  Of course being me, I had to size this man up.  Cause the first thing I noticed was how, big he was.  He was not all thin and fit.  He was a heavy set man, that looked like he was in his 60's and he was trekking it up the mountain like it ain't no thing!  He turns and says to me, you are doing a great job, just being out here, you are doing great!  I politely said thank you, and was thinking to myself, if he only knew how I wanted to turn around and get the heck off this mountain!

Shortly running into that older gentleman, comes a lady, walking the opposite direction.  She brought disturbing news, "Be careful up ahead, there is a rattle snake!".  Please know at this point, I was really ready to get off the mountain.  I know she meant to warn us, but I seriously, did not need to here that there was a rattle snake up ahead!

We finally get to the top of the beloved mountain...after like an hour or more!  I felt like an eternity.
Hopefully this embed photo from Picassa works, here are some photos:

The trip down the mountain was still very difficult.  The path down was very scary, so many valleys and dips and rocks, I was really scared to fall!  But none the less...2 hours 3.4 miles later!  I was done!

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Random Recording

Time is moving so quickly I am having such a hard time keeping up with life. Does anyone else ever feel that way?

This past Saturday (August 4th) I had another awesome bike ride from Pacific Palisades to Venice Beach.  Now that I have gone back to the West side to bike, I think I like my Dockweiler bike ride better.  It is more calming and definitely has some better views.  More importantly, less crowded!

Other than that the weekend was rather uneventful.  Not too much activity.  I did go to a birthday party Saturday night.  Sunday ventured out to the movies and saw Dark Knight Rises.  I was surprised, I did not think I would be able to sit through almost 3 hours of a movie, but I did...and I enjoyed the movie!  It was really good!

Monday was not a good day.  It was truly not a good start to the week.  Eating was horrible, exercising was completed, but not at a good level.  I ate a 1200 calorie sub from subway!  I really just felt off yesterday, I don't know what's wrong.  Even this morning, I still don't feel myself.   My fridge decided to pull a cold spell on me and all my lettuce blends, kale & greens are frozen!  What a waste!  I can't use any of it now!  Whatever veggies I was able to salvage, I juiced.  So I threw some kale, greens, roma tomatoes, celery & a lemon into the juicer and it turned out a pretty decent juice!  Never underestimate the power of random juicing! I will have to post the picture of it later, I left my phone at home.

Monday Workout:  3 Mile walk w/ BGR Westchester!

Well upcoming events in my life:

• I am going on a hike this week!  We talked about Hiking on Saturday, Wednesday I will be hiking!
• Jet to Jetty 5K on Aug 25th
• The Awesome 80's Run Sept 1

I am looking forward to them all!  I can't wait!

Thursday Took a Turn for the Better

Hello...
After my Thursday morning drama of the moving truck blocking my garage the day actually made a turn for the better.

Our receptionist at work is out of the office for the need 6 days and she offered me her parking garage entry key!  Yeah!  I get a break from the bus for a week  I am most excited!  I know that sounds very minor, but some days, its a hassle getting to places on public transportation.  So at least I get a little break!

I experienced something completely unusual.  I had an extreme case of dry mouth all day.  I think I drank like 4 Liters of water and nothing helped.  I had this chronic dry mouth!  Sigh.  I couldn't imagine that I could be that dehydrated.  But maybe I am?  I don't know, but I will see how things go today.  Right now I feel okay.

I have not listed out my food in a while so let me do that today....

Bad Breakfast:
     White Chocolate Latte
     Cheese Danish

Lunch
     My Good old homemade salad:  Lettuce, cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, tomato & 4 ounces of chicken
     Juice of 1 lemon and some Wishbone Italian Dressing!

Snack
     Apple
    handful of Sunflower seeds

Dinner
     2 drumsticks from El Pollo Loco
     Corn

Workout:
     55 minutes walk/jog intervals.
     Jogged 1/4 mile intervals

My post workout treat was a nice freshly made glass of celery & apples.  I know its a great detox drink, and since I was having hydration issues, I figure I should juice something up that will help hydrate.

Yesterday and This Morning!

It is August 2nd, and I was supposed to weigh in this morning.  Oops!  Well let me tell you my excuse, I overslept.  I am supposed to be at work at 6:30a, I straight woke up at 6:03am!  HaHa!

So this morning was a mad dash to shower, dress and get out the door.  Which I did in record time.  I was out of the door by 6:33am.  Then much to my surprise, I walk out to my garage and what do I see?  A big ole Penske moving truck parked parallel to the garages.  I can't even get into my garage!  As you can imagine...I have smoke coming out of my ears!  I had 1/2 the mind to call a tow truck!  But somewhere deep within me there was a voice of reason...I called Penske and asked them to track down the driver to come move the darn truck!  

Okay so that was the drama of this morning!  I will move on to what I really came to report in about.  

Wednesday August 1st.  Pretty decent day!  I started off the morning with Rowing.  I meet 2 of the BGR girls over at the studio for a 6am class.  Rowing is hard on its own, being in class @ 6am just made it that much more difficult!  But nonetheless, I got through it.  It was a great way to start the day!  I will have to see how often I can be late to work, so I can get to 6am rowing class.

My energy levels were surprisingly high all day, I attribute that to the early morning exercise.  I maintained my planned meals for the day and even got an easy (very easy) evening workout.  So after I got done with my Arthritis Foundation Assignment I hopped on the treadmill.  I walked only, no jogging, and I keep it at a rather slow pace.  I stayed between 3 - 3.5mph.  Nothing to taxing since I already had my hard workout in the morning.  

Let the gym, started heading home and there was an accident on the 405 Freeway!  Ugh!  It made the drive home so much more later than it needed to be.  But at least I got home safely, and it appears the people in the accident were safe as well.  

Okay that is all for me today...Oh..here are yesterdays workouts:

Rowing:  I forgot to pull my meters off the darn machine!  http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/qtQAT1Ow1Wk

Treadmill:  My really slow stroll 

http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/lV5c5axldUQ

TTYL