In my tummy

Finally Back to the Gym

Posted on May 17, 2012 by inmytummy| 17 Comments

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I’ve probably told you before, but I work out so I don’t gain weight. That’s the main reason behind it. Sure, I could tell you that I like the way it makes me feel (I do) and I like setting goals for myself and seeing that I can achieve them (I also do), but honestly, the main reason is because I want to be in the normal weight range.

So, when I don’t get to work out for a long time, I get antsy and irritable. Call it a disordered way of thinking if you want, but it is what it is. It’s my way of thinking. After not working out for three days last week, going to Raleigh and eating and drinking way more than I normally do, and then having some major back pain for two additional days, that made for seven days without working out.

Plus, to make matters worse, I had not one, but two doctor’s appointments where I had to step on the scale. Grr. First on Monday, I went to the Urgent Care Clinic for my back and then this morning I had a gynecologist appointment. Stepping on a doctor’s scale is never any fun, but after not working out for seven days and pigging out instead, well, you can kind of figure out how I was feeling.

Fortunately, my back feels MUCH better today! I mostly feel a little bit of stiffness, but nothing like I was feeling on Sunday and Monday, when it hurt to sit or lay down. So, I decided I needed to reunite myself with LA Fitness. I took it easy; I did 30 minutes on the elliptical and really tried to watch out for any twinges or pain in my back. I might be crazy about going to the gym, but I’m not crazy enough to re-injure myself because well, that shit hurt!

The number on the doctor’s scale wasn’t shocking. I knew it was around there. But I’d like it to be 10 lbs less. If it never is, then it never is, but I feel better about myself when I weight 10 lbs less than I do now. So, I’ve been trying to eat a little less. And by that, I really mean, I’ve been trying to curb my snacking. I get into the horrible habit of snacking while I’m making dinner and by the time dinner is ready, I’m not even that hungry because of the snacking, but I eat it anyway, so I’m basically eating the equivalent of two dinners. Tonight, I made myself not do that and cooked what one would call a normal dinner.

Tofu pasta green beans

This was Laura’s Sesame Baked Tofu, leftover green bean fries and some random spaghetti that was in the fridge. While I was on the plane, I picked up a copy of Self Magazine. They were toting some diet and I was reading about it and what really stood out to me was that they gave the dieters a certain amount of calories and then an additional 200 for treats. But if they wanted to, they could save them. I thought this was sort of a good idea. I know that I’m going out to dinner tomorrow and Friday night. If I ate less calories tonight, I could eat more when I go out. I’m usually not very good at the whole calorie bank account thing. If I eat a piece of cake, I just go on about my day. I don’t try to make up for it. While I don’t think you always should, I think that if I’m trying to lose 10 lbs, maybe I should, at least sometimes.

Anyway, that was my very long-winded way of saying that my back feels better.

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Posted in Cooking, The Gym, Vegetarian, Weight Loss

At 70%

Posted on May 15, 2012 by inmytummy| 12 Comments

I don’t know if it’s the painkillers or the fact that I slept for 11 hours last night (because of the painkillers) but I feel much better today. I’d say I’m at about 70% whereas I was at maybe 20% yesterday and Sunday, whatever that means. However, I’m curious to see how I’ll feel if I don’t take a painkiller. I took 800mg of ibuprofin and a muscle relaxer today twice. They also gave me a Lortab prescription but it said not to take while working in big capital letters so I didn’t take it today. I did, however, take the muscle relaxer at work and that was not the best idea. I just felt sort of out of it for the entire afternoon and couldn’t focus at all. Maybe tomorrow I’ll just take the iburprofin and hope that I’m getting better.

Needless to say, I skipped the gym today. It’s been one whole week since I’ve gone and I’d be lying if that didn’t freak me out a little bit. I’m signed up for a 5K on Saturday and I guess I’ll play it by ear as far as what I’ll do about it. I can walk 3.1 miles fine, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to run by then.

Since I didn’t go to the gym, I got home early enough to make dinner. Sometimes when I work out at night, I don’t get home until almost 8 and by then I’m too lazy/tired to cook. I took advantage of being home earlier tonight and made Green Bean Fries with Tofu Edamame Nuggets. I’m kind of exaggerating when I say make dinner because the Tofu Edamame Nuggets were from Trader Joe’s and in my freezer. I really wanted to make the green beans though and they seemed to go along well. Nothing wrong with some frozen food sometimes, right?

Green bean fries

Hopefully, I’ll be all better tomorrow and can make my triumphant gym return. But maybe not. We’ll see.

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Posted in Cooking

Back Problems in Raleigh

Posted on May 14, 2012 by inmytummy| 12 Comments

My weekend started out like this…

Emma graduation

and ended up like this…

Painkillers

Needless to say, it’s been a long couple of days. Backing up…

After what was probably the shortest flight I’ve ever taken (a whopping 52 minutes from takeoff to touchdown), I arrived in Raleigh and my brother and sister picked me up at the airport. My brother had come from Maryland earlier that morning and my dad and stepmother had driven down with a van the night before so they could transport Emma’s stuff back to Maryland.

We all met up at our hotel and went to a hibatchi/sushi restaurant for lunch. My stepmother and I had sushi while everyone else had habatchi. After that, we walked around the NCSU campus for a while, taking pictures until the graduation ceremony began at 4. Since NCSU is a big school, they had separate graduations for each major and my sister, a psychology major, had hers at some middle school in Raleigh.

Emma diploma

After the ceremony, which was about an hour, we decided to go to the Village Grill to have a drink before dinner. It’s one of those places with tons of beers on draft; I think our server said there were 99. I had the Carolina White.

Village draft house beer

We had dinner at Brio and then afterward, my brother, sister and I went out in Downtown Raleigh with some of her friends. Let me tell you, hanging out with a bunch of 22 year olds makes me feel very old. I think my brother, at the ripe old age of 24, felt a little out of place too. I still go to bars from time to time, but the ones that I frequent are the type where you can sit at a table and chat while drinking a beer with friends, not where drunk 22 year olds are on the dance floor. Anyway, I kept telling myself to just try to enjoy the time with my brother and sister (they’re my half-brother and sister, which is why there’s such a large age difference) and stop thinking about how young everyone was.

We took a cab back to the hotel and promptly fell asleep until my dad woke us up at 7:30 to have breakfast before they got on the road. That’s where the pain medicine comes in.

Remember my back ache? Well, it felt much, much better on Saturday. I don’t know if it had to do with sleeping in the hotel bed with Emma or what, but when I woke up on Sunday, it hurt again and by about 11am, it was downright painful to sit.

I felt better when I was up and walking around and we had some time before our flights home, so Emma took Eric and me for a tour around campus.

Belltower

Free expression tunnel

They had this cool sound tunnel thing where if you stood at one side and someone else stood at the other, you could hear each other very clearly even though you were far away. I was standing in something just like they were and could hear them completely.

Sound Tunnel

I tried to make the best of it. I don’t see my brother and sister that often, so I really tried to ignore the pain that I was feeling. I took some extra strength Tylenol but it didn’t really do much. Emma had some stronger painkillers from when she was sick with mono but I was afraid to take them because I had to drive home once I got back to Atlanta and I wasn’t sure how they’d affect me. So I just tried to suck it up.

Riding in the plane did me no favors and by the time I got to my car, in the pouring rain, I was near tears. Although I’m only like a half hour from the airport, it seemed to take forever and when I finally got home around 10:30, I burst into tears.

I managed to fall asleep for an hour or two and spent the rest of the night googling back problems. Basically, my lower right back hurts. I can’t really pinpoint exactly where the pain is stemming from which leads me to believe that it’s nerve related. I drew myself a bath at 3 am and, after I figured out how to maneuver myself into the tub, that seemed to help, at least for a little bit.

At 7, I texted my boss and told her that I wasn’t going to be coming in. With two hours of sleep under my belt and no sign of the pain getting any better, I decided to go to Urgent Care this morning. They basically told me that it could be from anything (I think it’s from deadlifts personally, although the doctor didn’t seem too sure) and while it could be a herniated or bulging disc, it could just be general back pain. They gave me some painkillers and told me to contact them in a week or two if there’s no progress.

I feel better now. I took a 3-hour nap and am sitting in a chair with little pain. However, I’m on the painkillers so that’s to be expected. Plus, it still hurts to bend over. I’ve never had back pain before. Sure, I’ve had sore muscles and things like that, but nothing like this where it takes a good bit of determination to get in and out of the car. Not fun.

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Posted in Family

Tagged family

5 Days No Gym

Posted on May 12, 2012 by inmytummy| 7 Comments

The conference that I went to, the Digital Summit, was really cool but I am absolutely exhausted. It’s hard to sit and pay attention for that many hours in a row. I graduated from college many years ago. I’m out of practice.

My original intention after the conference was over was to stop at the mall that’s across the street, get a dress for my sister’s graduation and go to the gym after. Well, getting the dress took a bit longer than I had intended for. I went into a few stores and couldn’t find anything (mind you, this was not the best mall) and went into Express out of desperation. I generally think their stuff is too young (and too short) for me, but I ended up finding a cute dress.

express dress

Cute, right? By the time I left the mall, it was like 8pm and I was exhausted so all intentions of going to the gym went out the window. I also developed a weird pain in my right lower back/upper butt. I think it’s from doing some leg weights on Tuesday, but it was sort of weird and sudden. It’s like a dull ache, worse when I bend in certain directions, but if I’m totally still, I feel normal. I’m hoping it’ll go away.

I’m going to North Carolina tomorrow morning for my sister’s college graduation (hence the dress) so I am not going to see Jason all weekend. (He’s not coming because I won’t get home until late-ish on Sunday night and he needs to sleep before going into work in the middle of the night.) So, I knew that this was the only chance I’d have to see him in a while, so I skipped the gym again. He was really tired from working overnight, so I knew I only had a very limited amount of time.

And then I’m going to be out of town for two days so that’s five days of no gym. I’m trying to be okay with this but it’s freaking me out, to be honest. Although, I can’t really tell if I have just general muscle soreness or an actual injury of some sort, so maybe it’s a good thing.

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Posted in Random

Tagged random

Dinner with Jolene and Tina

Posted on May 11, 2012 by inmytummy| 9 Comments

I’ve spent the last day and a half at the Digital Summit, a digital marketing/social media conference. I found out about the event a couple months ago and mentioned it to Jolene, since she does the social media for her company as I do for mine. I was really excited when she told me that her company would pay for her to fly down to Atlanta and attend it!

The conference was interesting and provided some good takeaways, but the best part was afterward, when Jolene and I met Tina for dinner. We went to Noche. I swear, I had only been to Noche (there are three different locations, I think) maybe three times before a few months ago. Then suddenly it became my new favorite spot. Funny how that happens. Anyway, the Vinings location is close to where the conference was held, so I suggested it when we were trying to decide where to go.

Jolene and Tina

Me and Jolene

Noche is primarily tapas. It’s so nice to be with friends that eat similarly to how I do. Going to a tapas restaurant can be difficult if the people that you go with have totally different eating styles.

We all started out with individual salads. I had the Noche salad.

Noche salad

Then we got some plates to share. Our server recommended the scallop special and I’m really glad we tried it. It was my favorite thing. We also got the marinated tuna. I was a little surprised when this came out. I was thinking it would be more like tuna steak or even tuna tartar, not like flaked tuna. Canned tuna (not sure if this was canned, but it tasted like it) is actually something I really like, so I was fine with it. Just not what I expected.

Scallops tuna noche

And we had garlic mushrooms. Tina and Jolene split the bacon wrapped dates, which they loved, but I didn’t partake.

Mushrooms noche

After we hung out for a while chatting, Yoforia, which was practically next door, was calling our name. Never mind that it had gotten sort of chilly out. We needed froyo!

Yoforia

Is it just me or has Yoforia raised their prices? It was delicious and totally worth it to spend time with these ladies. Such a fun night.

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Posted in Atlanta, Atlanta Restaurants, Blogger Meet-Up

Tagged atlanta restaurants

The Cop Out Instagram Post

Posted on May 9, 2012 by inmytummy| 14 Comments

So there’s another bandwagon that I’ve jumped on and it’s Instagram. I can’t help it; it’s cool. I’ve always liked photography and there’s something fun about taking good pictures with your phone. I mean, I love my dSLR but it’s not exactly the easiest thing to lug around when I’m on the go. And we won’t even talk about how I took it to a food & wine festival last summer and the mode dial still sticks.

I do find, however, that while food pictures look good on instagram, it’s the scenery photos that really shine. And yes, in this cop out of a post, I’m going to post my favorite instagram pictures.

Instagram1

Obviously, I take about 50 million pictures of my dog every day. I mean, he is really cute, you have to admit.

Instagram2

Mid-afternoon Kombucha break. I really like the chia flavors even though I know a lot of people find them to be pretty gross. What I don’t like, however, is how they have double the calories as the regular flavors. Oh well, chia is good for you.

Instagram4

I wasn’t lying when I said the King of Pops is at every festival. I wonder how many Kings there are now. It started out as three people, but now I bet it’s more like 15.

Instagram3

We went to the Decatur Square last Saturday and found out that they have free music throughout the month of May. Tons of families brought picnic baskets, blankets and chairs. It was really cool. I want to go back. With a picnic basket, blanket and chair.

Is there any way to take instagram pictures but not bombard my feed with them? Sometimes I just like using the filters but I don’t necessary need anyone to see them?

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Posted in Photography

Tagged instagram, photography

Us and Me Meals

Posted on May 8, 2012 by inmytummy| 11 Comments

Though he might not believe it, when I am cooking for both Jason and myself, I really do try to make things that he will like. Having my husband eat healthy is very important to me and if that means making healthy versions of Mexican, Asian and pasta dishes when we’re together, that’s what I’ll do.

Even though we had Mexican food on Cinco de Mayo, we had burritos again last night. Well, again is the wrong word because neither of us actually had a burrito on Saturday.

Burrito

I used this Spicy Bean and Rice Burrito recipe. I forgot to buy chipotles in adobo (which I kept calling adobos for some reason), so we used jalapenos instead. I had planned to make an avocado and corn salad to go on the side, but all the avocados at Publix were either past their prime or not ripe at all. So that’ll have to wait until another day.

Tonight, however, Jason was asleep when I got home from work (although he’s not working weekends anymore, he still has weird hours) so I got to make a “me” meal. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the burritos last night, but sometimes I really like the stuff that sounds, well uber healthy. Like kale. I love kale. Jason does not. So when he is asleep, I do what any kale-loving wife would do, I cooked up a huge batch of kale.

Kale stuffed mushroom

These were Creamy Vegan Kale-Stuffed Mushrooms. I promise there are mushrooms underneath all that kale. My mushrooms were kind of small, so instead of making a side dish, I just ate two of them. I’m the only kale-loving person in this household, although Murphy sort of likes it. He may not believe that either.

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Posted in Cooking, Vegetarian

Tagged cooking

Art-B-Que

Posted on May 6, 2012 by inmytummy| 10 Comments

When I was younger, I was all about going to festivals for the drinking holidays. You know what I mean – St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, New Year’s Eve. Now, while I’m certainly not opposed to celebrating those days, going to a crowded festival with a bunch of drunk 22 year olds is not really my idea of fun. No offense to any drunk 22 year olds that might be reading. A friend invited me and Jason to a Cinco de Mayo festival, but we decided that it would probably be a better choice not to go.

I write part of a Weekend Guide on my work blog. It doesn’t have anything to do with the industry that I work in, but it’s the most fun post to write each week and it makes me feel really in the know about events going on in Atlanta each weekend. So, instead of doing something specifically for Cinco de Mayo (although we did go to Raging Burrito for dinner), we decided to check out something that I’d written about on the work blog, and that seemed a bit more low-key, but still fun: Art-B-Que.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Atlanta has a TON of festivals in the late spring/early summer. Some of them like the Dogwood Festival and the Inman Park Festival are really big, but this one was really small, it really only took up a few blocks.

Art-b-que

Art-B-Quew

Since it was a smaller festival, dogs were allowed so we brought the Murphster. He got a lot of attention from other festival goers.

Me murphy art b que

Murphy jason

The theme of this festival was barbeque, if you couldn’t guess. One of the things that I like the most about living in the Atlanta area is that there are almost always vegetarian options no matter where you go. Jason asked what I’d eat at this festival, but I felt confident that I’d find something. Or I’d just eat a popsicle.

Burnt fork bbq

Do you see what I see? BBQ Tofu! I don’t really eat BBQ ever, mostly because 99% of the time, it’s pork or beef. I also don’t really love the taste of BBQ sauce, at least not the sweet, tomatoey kind. But seeing as I’d never even heard of BBQ Tofu before, I had to try it.

Bbq tofu

It was good! This came from Burnt Fork BBQ. One of the owners is vegan, so they have several vegetarian and vegan dishes on their menu. I’d like to go back and try them.

We hung out for a little bit and listened to music while random kids came up and petted Murphy.

Art b que band

After a while, Murphy started to get really hot and wanted to sit in the shade, so we decided that it was time to take him home.

Murphy

(Do you see that white thing on his tongue? What is that? I need to ask the vet the next time I go.) We left after about an hour and a half. But we bought some art first! The good thing about little festivals is that the art is more affordable. I really liked these ceramic pieces by a local artist named Eric Strange and ended up buying a big mug. You can’t really tell from the picture, but this mug is much, much bigger than a normal coffee mug.

Pottery

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Posted in Atlanta

Tagged atlanta festivals

Busy Busy Busy

Posted on May 4, 2012 by inmytummy| 14 Comments

I have Google Analytics set up to email me an alert if I get under a certain number of page views and I feel like for the past few weeks, it’s been blowing up my email with low page view alerts. I don’t know why I’ve been so busy, but for some reason, I just haven’t felt like I’ve had the time to blog, or really much to say.

But I’m not quite sure what I’ve been doing instead! I haven’t really been cooking, that’s for sure. I think I made one meal this week. At least it was a good one.

Pasta

This was Penne Rosa with Shrimp and it was husband approved, always a good thing. But other than this, I’ve rummaged through my freezer for the remainder of dinner this week.

Jason started his new job on Monday and while you wouldn’t think that would throw me off, for some reason it has. Or maybe I’m just using it as an excuse. I just feel so busy right now and I haven’t even gotten to the busy part of the month. Next week, I have a 2-day conference to go to (it’s local) and then I’m going to my sister’s college graduation in Raleigh. Then, at the end of the month, we’re going to Vegas.

I’m not really that busy when I write it down. I’m not sure where my time is going. Oh yeah, maybe toward reading 50 Shades of Grey. Actually, come to think of it, that’s probably why I haven’t been blogging.

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Posted in Random

Not in Training

Posted on May 2, 2012 by inmytummy| 11 Comments

I’m not training for any races at the moment. I might do a 5K in a few weeks (the Brookhaven Bolt for any locals – my friend’s personal training studio is a sponsor of the race) but aside from that, there’s nothing on the horizon. And that’s a blessing and a curse.

When I ran my last half-marathon, in March, the weeks leading up to it were difficult. I felt disenchanted with running and I didn’t want to do it anymore. Nevertheless, I soldiered through as much as I could, but after the race, I definitely embraced not having to run all the time.

While it’s been nice to not follow a specific plan and not really care about getting a certain amount of mileage in each week, it’s been a lot easier to let myself get lazy and, while I’m still exercising, I’m definitely not putting in the same amount of dedication.

It hasn’t helped that the window of opportunity for it to be both light out and cool enough to run after work lasted for about a week.

Screen shot 2012 05 01 at 8 22 22 PM

I did a two mile run this past weekend about 11 am and felt like I was going to die afterward. It’s seriously summertime out there already.

Outdoor run

Even Murphy wants no part of it and makes himself cool as best he can.

Murphy picnic table

So, with temps still hovering in the mid-80s after work, I made myself go the gym and run on the treadmill.

Gym

(Not sure why my hair looks so wind-blown. And I’ll have you know that it was extremely hard to get the gym in the background of this picture.)

I told myself that I’d run 3 miles and not even 3 minutes into it, I started trying to rationalize why I didn’t have to run that far. The run didn’t feel good. I felt slow and my legs felt heavy even though I was running slowly and there was no need to run 3 miles; 3 was just an arbitrary number. But then I thought about how mad I’d be at myself if I got off, so I kept chugging along, pretending that I was training for something even though I’m not.