Healthy snacking, girl time, workouts and other faves

Hi, friends! How’s your week been going so far? Ours has been good! Just a lot of workouts, walks, eating, baby wrangling (a mixture of snuggling and playing), endless laundry and all of that good stuff. Super exciting, if you know what I mean.

Before we jump into this week’s batch of favorites, I want to send a huge and early “Happy Mother’s Day!” to all of the mommas out there — including my own! Whether you are a dog mom, cat mom, baby mom, step mom, or any type of mom, you deserve a major high-five for all that you do. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and somebody shows some appreciation for you on Mother’s Day (and every day for that matter)! 🙂 

Now, on to the faves …

Favorite ladies activity: SoulCycle and brunch

I have a good group of girlfriends who all live very close to me and who all have young kids (with Brady being the second youngest). Well, as busy mommas, we need to get out of the house for fun stuff and that doesn’t happen all that often as a group without kids. So I decided to plan a little healthy gathering for us, which just happened to fall on Cinco de Mayo last weekend.

We met for a morning SoulCycle class, then walked over to True Food Kitchen for a delicious brunch in our sweaties. We had a great time, worked out, ate good food and of course, laughed and enjoyed your kid-free time. Much needed! (Check out my review of SoulCycle here.)

Also, fun fact: Some of Steph Curry’s family was eating in True Food Kitchen when we were at a table just a few feet away, sans Ayesha and Steph — it was just the kids, Steph’s mom and some nannies (or we assumed they were nannies). If you’re not a sports fan or a Bay Area local, this means nothing to you, but we thought it was cool to watch them hang out. Basically a celeb sighting … 

Anywho, I had a cherry kombucha and my usual ancient grains bowl, and it was as delicious (and expensive) as ever. Yay for True Food Kitchen!

Favorite healthy snack at Starbucks: Bare Snacks 

This portion of the post is sponsored by Bare Snacks. Thanks for supporting our sponsors!

Snacking — particularly clean snacking — is a subject I like to talk about.

And Bare Snacks are so tasty and so clean, because they literally have one ingredient (fruit), so you don’t have to be worried about additives that aren’t good for you. I like to mix my Bare Snacks with almonds or almond butter for an extra kick sometimes too, but they are also good alone. They are also pretty accessible and not too expensive, which is important, because not all healthy food needs to break the bank.

Well, big news from this local company — you can now find a brand new Bare Snacks fruit medley, which is a mixture of strawberries, pineapples and bananas, available for sale in Starbucks. So cool!  

Dave and I live in very close walking proximity to a Starbucks, so we go often (perhaps too often), and I was so happy to find this little bag of healthy goodness on a rack before checking out with my matcha the other day. Yay!

Best eats from the week

And for some more food …

There’s a new poke place near us in Walnut Creek, called Pokeatery, and we finally gave it a try on Sunday. (In case you’re wondering, poke is a raw fish salad, which originated in Hawaii and is usually just small square chunks of fish mixed with sauce or other things.)

Not only was the customer service excellent, but there were so many options, and I wanted everything on the menu. I ended up creating my own bowl and it had kale, salmon poke, kimchi, sweet potato chips, wasabi, veggies and more. So darn good. I picked up the “original bowl” for Dave, which had white rice, tuna poke and a few other things, and he liked his too. Eating poke just feels so fresh and clean.

We were proud of ourselves for going somewhere new instead of our usual weekend lunch spots, and we were so pleased. We ate our poke bowls outside in the sunshine while Brady napped indoors, and it was awesome.

And while my weekend meals were out, my weekday meals were all at home …

Here’s an at-home lunch from the week featuring the usual suspects, like mixed greens, turmeric cauliflower rice, a veggie burger, kimchi avocado and a tasteless spirulina seed cracker I picked up on a whim and did not enjoy. The rest was good though!

And for another lunch from this week eaten at home …

The star of this plate is the baked purple sweet potato. I used to buy these all the time and have a hard time finding them now. But I did come across a small stash at Sprouts, so I picked up a few. (Fun fact: Someone mentioned to me on Instagram that purple sweet potatoes may be easier to find at Asian markets, so perhaps I’ll consider that in the future.)

I also had an avocado, sauerkraut, two eggs, sautéed greens and threw a lot of turmeric and salsa on top to round out the meal. So good.

One more food item from the week … bone broth!

I like to buy the cartons of organic chicken bone broth from the grocery store and heat it up as a side to meal sometimes — drinking it straight out of a mug. I usually add sea salt and turmeric to it as well, and I find it pretty tasty. 

As a note: Bone broth is sometimes in the fridge section, but usually in the soup aisle, near all the other broths. When shopping for bone broth, make sure you check that there aren’t any additional ingredients. You can also make your own, which I’ve never tried — because convenience is key for me.

Anywho, it’s full of protein and collagen and just feels good to drink, which is why I like it (life is too short to eat or drink things that don’t feel good).

Weekly workout recap at 30 weeks postpartum 

Now on to the fitness …

Here’s a look at my workouts from last week — and when should I stop saying postpartum? Doctors say you’re postpartum for a year, but I feel like I’ll drop it sooner rather than later. Do you agree?

• Monday: Took 1-hour BODYPUMP class, 10 a.m.
• Tuesday: Took 30-minute BODYATTACK, 30-minute CXWORX classes, 9:30 a.m.
• Wednesday: 25-minute full-body weights workout, 11 a.m.
• Thursday: 1-hour walk, 10 a.m. (active recovery/rest day)
• Friday: Took 1-hour BODYPUMP class, 12 p.m.
• Saturday: Took 45-minute SoulCycle class, 10:45 a.m.
• Sunday: Took 45-minute SoulCycle class, 10:45 a.m.

This past week of workouts was the FULLEST I’ve had since having Brady, that’s for sure. I’m totally loving being back to taking classes at the gym many days of the week. I do feel like I push harder in classes than I do on my own, so it’s been nice to feel challenged. And as a note — this full week followed up a week which had four full days off — so it all evens out in the end.

I did take a leisure stroller walk with some girlfriends one day of the week as my “rest day” — and while normally I would have taken a second rest day, I have some SoulCycle credits to use (thanks SoulCycle!!), and can only go on weekends when Dave is around, so I hit up the studio twice this past weekend. Good times! What I am most proud of this week is that I lifted weights on Monday, Wednesday and Friday — giving my body a day off of weights in between each time to recover. It felt right.

Best reads from around the web 

A few things I enjoyed reading …

• Posture: I LOVE this article because posture is such an important thing. I definitely have to think about it to stand up straight, and it’s all about the core and loosening up the upper-back. Check out how this woman fixed her posture.
• Home: So Dave and I started off saying that we wouldn’t have shoes in our new house. Then the movers wore shoes. Then our friends who helped hang a TV wore shoes, then next thing you know, we weren’t always taking off our shoes. Basically, our “no shoe” house hasn’t been entirely shoe-free, as much as we hoped, but I don’t think it’s too late to make a change. This article explains exactly why. Also, the Wellness Mama website is a GREAT resource for all things clean and non-toxic living, in case you’ve never checked it out.

Favorite A Lady Goes West archives

In case you want to keep on reading …

• Fitness: Want to join the fitness world? … “How to become a group fitness instructor when you have a full-time job.“
• Food: It had been a while since I posted one of these, and I think you liked it … “Here’s everything I ate on a normal weekday.“
• Wellness: There’s nothing wrong with a little break … “How to get back on track after a break from your healthy routine.“

That’s it, friends! Thank YOU for coming to read the blog today. See you soon! 🙂 

P.S. Speaking of girl time, I’m heading somewhere with my lady friends tonight, and you’ll see all the action over on Instagram. Happy weekend, peeps!

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Questions of the day

Have you ever had a celebrity sighting? Who and where?

What are you up to this weekend?

Have you ever eaten poke? What did you think?