Monthly Archives: September 2010

When it comes to running, I often try to talk myself out of going. I knew that I had a 4 mile run to do, but immediately started thinking of excuses of why I shouldn’t run. They were all valid reasons – my legs were sore from lifting yesterday, I was tired, I hadn’t taken a rest day since last Saturday. I told myself that I could have put the run off until tomorrow.

But I didn’t.

It was only four miles and it was nice out. I didn’t have anything else to do. If I put it off until tomorrow, then I’d have to, well, do it tomorrow. Sometimes getting out the door is the hardest part. The run went fine. My legs were sore, but running didn’t feel any different then sitting. And now it’s over and I can take tomorrow as a rest day. Friday rest days are a good start to the weekend.

While I was running, I was trying to think of what I wanted for dinner. I got it in my head that I was going to make a spaghetti squash macaroni and cheese. Umm, it didn’t turn out exactly how I planned! It was more like spaghetti squash with some broccoli and cheese sauce (cheese mixed with milk) on it. This is why I am not the next Project Food Blogger.

Seriously, I have no concept of how to invent a recipe. I am not even that good at following a recipe. I guess that if I cook more and more, I’ll sort of figure out how certain ingredients work together, right? I wish I was a good cook! Here’s my nothing like macaroni and cheese spaghetti squash.

Are you good at making up recipes?

I get stuck in breakfast ruts. For about two years, every morning, I ate cottage cheese mixed with peanut butter, banana, splenda (back before I realized that it kills my stomach) and cereal. Every morning. Then I got sick of it and never wanted it again. Lately, my thing has been egg sandwiches. And when I say lately, I mean for the past year or so. I do switch it up occasionally, but for the most part, my breakfast consists of either 2 egg whites and an egg or 1/2 cup egg beaters on some sort of bread with a slice of cheese. Today was one of those rare days where I did have something different.

A smoothie in a bowl. Yes, I’m totally guilty of hopping on the trendy food (in the healthy living blogger world) bandwagon. Don’t judge! This smoothie was made of 3/4 cup skim milk, 1 banana, some frozen berries, a pineapple ring and a scoop of chia seeds. Then I topped it with Kashi Go Lean Crisp. Pretty good and fun to eat, although I did sort of want an egg sandwich.

I did a decent leg workout during my lunch hour. For some reason, this time I got a lot of different exercises in and finished in like 25 minutes. I like to use the ifitness app and switch up the routines. Today I did the Glutes Definition routine.

Dumbell Calf Jump – 20 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Machine Leg Press – 90 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Dumbbell Lunge – 24 lbs, 3 sets of 8 (each leg)
Dumbbell Front Squat – 25 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Single Leg Standing Calf Raise, 2 sets of 20 (each leg)
Side Lunge – 12 lbs, 3 sets of 8 (each leg)
Swiss Ball Glute Bridge – 3 sets of 12
Side Kicks (I added this one because I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to do a hack squat which was in the original routine.) – 2 sets of 20 each leg

I use this app a lot. I’d say that besides Facebook, EchoFon (Twitter) and Shazam, I probably use ifitness the most.

Speaking of ruts, I tend to get into cookbook ruts too where I make recipes from the same cookbook for a while. Jason has expressed interest in eating healthier so I have really been trying to make an effort to cook so I can prove that healthy food can taste good too. Again, I made something from the PDQ Vegetarian cookbook.

This is Lentils with Spinach and Basil over Rice. Except I forgot to get fresh basil and just used a cube of Dorot frozen. Perhaps it would have been better with fresh. It was still good though. I would not classify it as quick, but that’s because I used Brown Basmati rice that took forever to cook. Seriously, I think it cooked for an hour in my rice cooker. The lentils also took 40 minutes to cook. No, definitely not a quick meal, but a pretty easy one to throw together.

I stepped on the scale yesterday and the number was up 2 pounds from the 5 pounds that I was complaining about the other day! Unfortunately, this set my mood for the entire day. I might have thrown a temper tantrum or two. I hate that the number on the scale dictates how I feel. I don’t weigh myself a lot, but sometimes when I feel like my clothes are getting tight, I do hop on the scale to see exactly what’s going on. Yes, I know that there are fluxuations- this morning it was 1.5 pounds less. It’s just frustrating because I feel like I work out a lot. I mean, I ran 7 miles the day before. I’m not exactly a couch potato. And, I eat pretty decently. But I guess there is always room for improvement. I am going to really try to focus on the snacking issue and try to make real meals for dinner. That’s another problem that I have, I’m usually very hungry when I get home from work/gym and I start mindlessly snacking while I’m thinking about what to make for dinner. By the time I’m done, I’ve already eaten a huge snack plus my dinner.

I tried last night, but I still snacked. Jason emailed me earlier in the day and said that he’d gone to Kroger and bought some stuff to grill. The weather was not cooperating but he was dead set on grilling.

We had steak and mashed potatoes.

Upon further inspection, my steak seems to be an imposter. But I did make those mashed potatoes from scratch. I roasted some small red potatoes and mixed them with milk, a little bit of sour cream and a little bit of cream cheese. Jason had a real steak.

That dancing merengue dog’s got nothing on Murphy.

Or Jason for that matter.

I felt better this morning. I know what I need to do to lose these few pounds. I need to stop snacking and choose my snacks wisely. I need to evaluate what’s worth eating and what’s not. And those dumb 100 calorie packs are mostly not worth eating! I am going to also try my hardest to make actual dinners instead of just snacking. Tonight, after my accidental 5 mile run (which was supposed to be 4.5), I made a real meal. From a cookbook.

Okay, fine, the veggies are of the Green Giant steam in bag variety, but I did make the cabbage rolls. Unfortunately, they were not that great. This was the Barley Filled Cabbage Rolls with Tangy Tomato Mustard Sauce from the PDQ Vegetarian Cookbook.

The problem was with the cabbage. It was very tough and not good. So, we just took the barley out and topped it with the sauce and that was pretty good. You win some, you lose some, I suppose.