I slept for 14 hours last night.

I haven’t done that since college. But it was such a rainy, dreary morning, it was the perfect opportunity to sleep in and catch a few extra z’s.

Once I forced my butt out of bed, I headed to the gym to get my workout out of the way.

Work it Out

I went with an oldie but a goodie, this 25 min incline interval from pbfingers. I was huffin and puffin by the end, and worked up a crazy good sweat. Then I cooled down for 15 minutes on the elliptical, before I drove home to do Week 4 of Ripped in 30.

Oh. My. God. Jillian Michaels. You are CRAZY. Normally there are one or two exercises that are pretty difficult to get through, and the rest is manageable. Week 4 is a whole different ball game my friends. I can think of maybe 2 or 3 exercises that weren’t that bad. Everything else was INSANE.

You know the creepy noises professional tennis players make whenever they hit the ball?

Yea, that was me by the end of this frickin workout. But I like being challenged and feeling like I really accomplished something, so I’m gonna keep chugging along!

Healthy Tailgate

The Brad Paisley concert is tomorrow!! I’m so excited. My best friend from college Sarah is heading to Providence to join me, Andrea, Amanda, and Vicki. Should be a blast!

We decided to go balls to the wall with tailgating, and actually bring real, healthy food (rather than buying a bag of chips and calling it a day).

The menu:

1. Hot dogs (no buns)
2. Fruit Salad with some leftover Fruit Dip
3. Sweet Potato Fries (to be made tomorrow!)
4. Skinny Chunky Monkey Cookies
5. Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Chex Mix

The cookies and chex mix aren’t 100% healthy, but it’s a tailgate so we need something sweet to munch on too!

The fruit salad I made included watermelon, strawberries, blueberries, cantaloupe, grapes, and pineapple. I made a TON of it too, I hope there’s leftovers!

I also made the cookies tonight, here’s the recipe!

Skinny Chunky Monkey Cookies
Adapted from Six Sisters’ Stuff. Makes about 30 cookies.

Ingredients:

3 ripe bananas
2 cups old-fashioned oats
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup of peanut butter morsels/chips

Instructions:

1. Mash bananas in a large bowl.
2. Add oats, peanut butter, cocoa powder, applesauce, and vanilla to the banana and stir until combined. I melted the peanut butter slightly, so it was easier to work with.
3. Mix in the peanut butter morsels/chips.
4. Let batter stand for approximately 20 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 350°F.
6. Drop batter by teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Flatten cookies gently with hand (they will not spread when they bake).
7. Bake 10-12 minutes.
8. Freeze or store at room temperature in airtight container.

Nutrition:

The original recipe for these cookies doesn’t include the peanut butter chips. I added them because I had them on hand from making these cupcakes the other day. I thought it’d be smarter to add them to a batch of cookies, rather than eating them by the fistful periodically throughout the weekend.

I wouldn’t recommend adding the peanut butter chips (unless you’re trying to get rid of them like me). The primary flavor of these cookies is the banana, so they didn’t really add too much to it. These cookies are delicious though, really chewy and sweet and banana-y. Yum!

I’m SO excited for Brad Paisley. It’s time for me to get some sleep so I can squeeze a workout in tomorrow morning before Sarah gets here!

Is it just me, or is the fruit salad way more photogenic than the cookies?