quick and beasty

instead of going to the gym today, i switched things up and went outside to do my second fav running workout.

ladders.

block off a straight path of about 100 feet. (walk 1 foot in front of the other 100 times...ladies should prolly go for 115 unless you wear size 12.)

SPRINT 5 times (there and back is one)

then

WALK the full 100 feet..(no hands on your knees!! breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth)..then turn around and walk back to the start line. don't take all day either, lol. that was your recovery/rest period.

then

SPRINT 4 times (there and back is one)...

do you see where i'm going with this? yeah, all the way down to 1. oh and then? go from 1 all the way back to 5. now, you're done. if you feel like you can do this workout one more time, you didn't go hard enough. i understand that you can't go from 0 to 60 in a few seconds when you have either done little to no activity in a while, or haven't run your hardest in forever. so, start small and slow to prevent injury. you can modify this workout several ways. 5 too much? cut it down to 3. maybe only go down the ladder to start (5 to 1) and call it a day. either way, it's a great sprint workout that gets your metabolism REVVING. high intensity sprinting can burn 600+ calories in just 20 minutes. you continue to burn calories even while resting vs. running long distance. my kind of workout cause i have things to do. like cook.

a satisfying and filling meal was needed after a workout like that. however, that does not mean calorie dense foods are my only options. ever seen one of these?

spaghetti squash. pretty intimidating. cutting up raw sweet potatoes is a tough task for me, so i was not too excited to try and crack this thing open since it was pretty solid. hungry-girl gave rave reviews to substituting spaghetti squash for the pasta in your spaghetti dish, but i was so sure that was a bunch of baloney. so, here goes. i threw the squash in the oven for 45 min on 350 to soften it.

that's more like it- i can work with that. after i let it cool, i sliced it in half.

just like a pumpkin, scoop out all the gooey stuff and seeds in the middle.

it really does look like pasta strands, huh.

after you scoop both sides clean, discard the shell. unless you have a compost pile or something. i seasoned mine with salt and pepper and just a tad bit of olive oil.

i topped the squash with my spaghetti meat sauce. can you tell making it pretty with garnishes was not a priority this time? i was hoongry. i added a 35 cal laughing cow cheese wedge and it melted a little from the heat of the sauce. YUM. and talk about filling- i was completely satisfied afterwards. just 1 cup of spaghetti squash is a whopping 40 calories. are you serious? i had two big servings of it. compare that to pasta which is approx. 200+ cals for 1 little 1/2 cup serving.

the best part- Sonny liked it and i hope you do too!