my words: subtle, firm, boring

my words: notsweet, dark, fruity

my words: smokey, dense

We started with the wine, and I love the label.  This was a gift from a friend of ours that I got to see for the first time in a while.  I hate being so busy.

I liked it more than sweetie, it's a little bit more acidic than I'm used to and sweetie said it was more 'alcoholy.'  I'm not sure if I agree with that.

My words: Dark, acidic, big, fragrant

Sweetie's words:  Strong, chocolate, bitter

 It's certainly not my favorite wine ever, but I enjoyed it.  (Well, I am enjoying it.  Still on my first glass.)

 This cheese had kind of a Monterrey jack consistency.  It was slightly sharp and I liked it but it was a bit unremarkable.  No nibbly bits to speak of

My words:  soft, swiss-like (though sharper), boring

Sweetie's words: creamy, Cheese doodle

Gabriella Bella Campagna Cheese (Truffle)

This cheese was coated in truffle oil, and the oil tasted ah-may-zang.  It was earthy and delicious like you would expect from a cheese coated in truffle oil, though it was just a marinade.  No truffles inside, sadly.

My words: Earthy, decadent, mozzarella-y

Sweetie's words: Olive Oil, mushroom, tangy

 Wensleydale Creamery-- Festive Warmer -- Red Leicester Cheese with Sweet Red Onion Chutney

My Words: BBQ, Sweet, Onionbits

Sweetie's Words: Sweet, Loose

 Yancey's Fancy -- New York's Artisan Cheese-- Horseradish and Smoked Bacon Aged Cheddar


My Words: Antisubtle HeatyHot GoodlySalty

Sweetie's Words: Soft AllHorseadish

New Bridge Aged 2 years Cheddar Vermont Extra Sharp


My Words: Sharp Dense Traditional

Sweetie's Words: Sharp

San Sebastian -- Vinters Red


My Words: Yuck Sweet Yuck

Sweetie's Words: Over sweetened kool-aid

We bought it mostly because it was made in FL.  I decided to try to cook with it.  What a waste of $10.  We pulled in an emergency sub.

Snap Dragon California Red 2009

My Words: Fruity, sweeter

Sweetie's Words:

Wine and cheese

So today for wine and cheese night Steve and I had the Dark Horse Cabernet Sauvignon with two cheeses: a welsh cheddar called Collier's and a Dutch goat cheese called Cablanca.  I decided that Sweetie and I should pick three words for each to describe them, and this is what we came up with.  I think it's clear I don't follow rules well.

My words:
Wine-- Fruity, earthy, chocolatey, superhero  (Similar to the sam adams' special edition chocolate cherry bock)

Cablanca--buttery, mildly goaty, corningware (This refers to the rind

Collier's--tangy, smooth, meltier cheddar, sweaty, (3 out of 10 in the nibly bits department)

Sweetie's words
Wine-- cool (i.e. not warm), mild, cherry
Collier's -- slightly bumpy, mild, bitumonous
Cablanca-- soft and creamy, square pupiled

If you think 'corningware' was an odd choice, you should take a peek at the rind.  The rind peeled off really easy, though and both cheeses were really good.  I wish we could get smaller portions like when we went to Giant Eagle Market District, though.  There isn't even a Whole Foods in town.  So lame.

I wanted to document the color of the wine, too.  It was a nice dark red.

30 day pushup challenge.

I'm going to start Fit Sugar's 30 day push up challenge.  I was considering starting on a day other than day

one, but some of the push ups she lists are no joke.

The challenge goes through 5 different push ups.  The standard push up, single leg push up (both sides),  a push up into side plank (both sides count as one rep, here) and a diamond hand position push up (pictured on the right).  By the end of the month I'm supposed to be able to do 10 each.  I think I can do it if I can stay motivated.

I'm not staying on track with my running like I'd like and I'm eating way too much old Halloween candy.  I thought something new would be helpful.  Thoughts?


EDIT: I'm on Day 4! I made it through a rest day and actually continued.  I'm doing them all on my knees, I'm weaker than I'd expected.  Still, I'm getting them done, which makes me happy!

Ruben on The Biggest Loser

I'm so in love with Ruben being on this season.  I loved him (and Clay) on American Idol.  I think it's awesome that we see someone who's obviously *not* lazy battling with obesity.

So often we look at overweight people and assume they aren't trying hard enough.  That they just don't have willpower.  Clearly Ruben has a huge amount of willpower (he took it  all the way!) and still he has these problems.

Certainly the Biggest Loser has its own set of issues, but I'm glad we get to see overweight people in such a positive way.  It doesn't glorify being overweight, but it also doesn't demonize it.  It's just a battle some of us have to fight, and often it's one of many for us.

Also, I'm in love with all things Jillian Michaels.  She's my girl crush and my hero.  I want to look that pretty when I'm crying!

Ghostly Gecko 5k

Tonight I ran the Ghostly Gecko 5k!  It was a Halloween themed 5k with tons of great costumes.  I, of course, was lame and didn't wear a costume.  Maybe next year.  It had a one mile stretch of river front running, which was super nice.  I walked about one mile of the 5k, but the rest I ran.

My time: 41:20.6
First Mile: 12.22.8
Second Mile: 25.29.2

I ended with a 13:21 minute mile, which I was pleased with.  I'm just now jumping back on the running train, and this was better than any of my treadmill runs.  I'm also pleased that I survived the heat and humidity.  It was over 80 degrees but it didn't feel quite so nasty.  The humidity was definitely there, which is really what kills me when I'm running, but I wasn't constantly worried about it.

My calves did start tightening up along the outside which I imagine means I need new shoes.  I'll ask the internet what it thinks before making any big purchases.  Especially since I just bought this beauty:

Two weeks

So some of you may know that I finished my PhD a few weeks ago, and then of course I moved over 14 hours away.  During this time I basically let myself eat whatever I wanted and hardly ever exercised except for back/arms/shoulders/abs so all that sitting and then the move wouldn't hurt quite so much.  This was a conscious decision, I said that I wanted 100% of my focus on my work and moving house.  However, now I am paying the piper.

Tomorrow marks two weeks of me jumping back on the wagon.  I've dropped nearly 7lbs by kicking sodium out of my diet.  Today is day 4 of running, and I'm just doing intervals of 12 min/mile and 18 min/miles.  I don't want to hurt myself and then lose motivation.

I hope my pants start to fit soon.

Eating while moving

So, if you've ever talked to me about cooking you know I LOVE my new George Foreman Grill.  I love it so much when we packed up a POD to move to Florida I decided to keep it and bring it when we drive down.

I've used the heck out of it in the last week and a half since I didn't bring pots or baking pans separately.  One of my favorite things to make on it are omelettes with the special omelette plates, so I thought I'd blog that.

First I start with the fixin's.  We like omelettes with lost of stuff, so I included onions a baby portabella (these were big for babies and some Johnsonville smoked cheddar and jalapeno sausage. I used a little bit of evoo and laid everything in the pan.  Yes, the grill top was not the cleanest when I started.  We aren't the most hygienic of couples.  Don't judge me. 

 I only used half a white onion, I kept the other half unchopped in case I wanted to use chunks later.  The mushroom and sausage I chopped completely.  We had enough fixin's left for another batch of omelettes tomorrow, or something else, who knows.

 I closed the grill and let it cook for about 5 minutes at 350.  I never wait for the grill to preheat.  I turn it on, start chopping and when I'm done I toss things in.  I was a bit ambitious when I put stuff in the pans and they didn't manage to cook down as much as they did in my head.

 

 It's worth noting that my Foreman can be put flat (for baking) or tilted for grilling.  For omelettes I always keep it flat.  There's no way for grease to drip out anyway.

My omelette is on the left side and it has 2 egg whites.  His is on the right and it's one egg and one of my discarded yolks.  Note how full the depressions are even before they cook.

 I said these were omelettes but I'm putting these guys into burritos.  While I'm waiting for the eggs to cook (Which doesn't take long)  I get the tortillas ready.  I add some salsa.  Usually about this time I'll open up the Foreman and add some cheese to the semi-done eggs.

 My artistry took too long, so the eggs were done by the time I got the cheese ready.

 There's a simple solution, though.

 And these are super easy to serve! I don't fold the burritos, I just pass them out like this, and with only one exception no one has minded wrapping the burrito himself.

Foremans are 'nonstick' but not quite perfect.  This is what the grill looked like after I lifted the omelettes out.  Not bad, and they came out mostly in one piece.  You can see a little bit of the top of mine got stuck to the top plate as well.  I don't know if that's because they started not-quite-clean or the plates have seen a lot of love.

So, that's my omelette plan nearly every day.  The fixin's change but the basic recipe (2 egg whites, tortilla, salsa and cheese) comes out to around 200 calories and has TONS of fiber (from the tortillas) and protein (cheese and egg whites.)

It goes really quick now that I've made hundreds, about 12-15 min.  Typically I make them while Steve makes coffee and they're done around the same time.  Since we moved we haven't had a coffee maker but today that all changes!  Enjoy!

Traveling

So, I've been in Utah for almost a week now for work.  The views are amazing, but I'm sensitive to altitude and dry air, so I've been taking it really easy.  I'm not getting as many steps in as I should, and that makes me sad, because everyone else is hiking and doing all sorts of active things.

I've also had tons of work to do, and I find that exhausting as well.  It's been stressful and I'm just now starting to feel human again.

I'm here for a conference, and all meals are provided, so I brought no food with me.  I also eat with tons of people (there are as many chairs in the place we eat as there are participants, so you never need to worry about sitting alone.) and that makes me self conscious about what I'm eating.  I avoid eating lots of carbs in general, but they don't have tons of protein, so it's usually just some veggies and a protein that's probably fried.  A lot of the veggies seem to be cooked in tons of oil, so I avoid them, and everything's pretty salty so I try to load up on the fresh veggies instead.

I also haven't weight myself since I got here.  I'm a weigh-myself-every-10-minutes kind of person.  I've been writing down what I'm eating, but not having a scale (like weighing my food in front of colleagues is a better option) and not knowing what's in my food means everything is up in the air really.  When I left I weighed 156 and my 10 day average was 157. I go back and forth between "I feel like I'm not eating anything, I better have lost weight!" and "I'm only eating crap and I'm barely moving, I hope I didn't gain anything!"  Which leads to my question to start asking people:

HOW DO YOU ONLY WEIGH YOURSELF ONCE A WEEK?!?!

Doesn't this drive you crazy? Goodness.

Also, check out my AMAZING sculpture.

Negatives

So, this summer I got a personal trainer so I can get huge.  She's been amazing and I'm so pleased with my decision. I told her I wanted to work on upper body and abs.  My goal is to give the impression of being capable.  I'd also like to work on my posture.  I stick my booty out too much.

One of the reasons I like having a trainer is that I get great new workouts that I wouldn't do without her encouragement.  I'm the kind of person who will pin 10,000 workouts then head to the gym and do the same set I've been doing for years.  So, today I had a session and she spotted me in exercises I've never done... negatives!

I knew a little bit about these exercises, but not how to implement them.  So here's the rundown:

Start in a bench cage with weight on the bar just above your one rep max. Begin the motion at the top of a standing curl (as usual) and sloooooowly let it down.  Then have your spotter assist/lift the bar back to start.  We actually did tricep presses, not bicep curls, and my triceps were tight for 20 minutes afterward.  It was amazing.  These are typically used to break through plateaus, but can be used to rehab muscles post injury as well.

When I lift I usually will do a slow rep at the end of each set (when I wouldn't be able to do another full rep without rest,) but just because a friend of mine told me it was a good idea when we lifted together and I don't change my workouts without prodding (see above.)  A whole set of these sorts of exercises is crazy.  I dig it.

Body Pump

So I signed up for a YEAR of cardio classes at a strictly cardio studio:

Because they offer a ton of Zumba, which is where my heart is.  But I dropped in to a class called Body Pump that started the hour before Zumba.  It uses weights and a mat and it's set to music.

You work your back, arms, tush and quads.  My inner thighs were really feeling it after, just from the squats.  My biceps are killing me, and my traps are letting me know they're there.  I do wish they had more abs, but the rest of me is getting a great workout.  There's a lot of "Bring it down in 3 counts" for slow reps that really require control and focus along with "Down 1 Up 1" for your cardio.

I've only ever had one Zumba instructor that I disliked.  I hated everything about her class.  Her routines didn't go to the music, there wasn't a lot of arm choreography, and she even kept screwing up the routines.  Her class just felt very half assed.  I actually signed up at this studio to get away from this girl, but now she's teaching one of the Zumba classes here!  Why me??

Even with that, though, I'm really liking the studio.  Kari is my favorite instructor, and there's an Alli who was great, too.  Check out this pic of my from their open house:

Check out that shoulder!  And my "Booty tooch!"  I feel like I'm starting to get my body together.  Seeing that picture made me feel really good.

Rye Naan? Why not?

 So, I ordered gluten flour and rye flour from amazon.com.  I'm super excited to try out some low carb recipes!  But first, check out this super adorable packaging.

 They are SERIOUS about not using a box cutter.

 Which made a lot more sense once I opened the box.  That would have been a mess.

 So, I mixed equal parts of gluten and rye flour and replaced the flour in this recipe with that mixture.

So, I made 5 pieces of naan.  I took some liberties with the recipe to make it smaller.  My recipe is:

1/2 cup of gluten flour
1/2 cup of rye flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 packet splenda
1 egg white
1/2 cup of plain yogurt
1/2 cup 1% milk

So the nutrition information I calculated: 577 calories, 66.3 g protein, 70.7 g carbs, and 15 g of fiber.

Not too shabby, I think.  The bread was totally tasty.  I've certainly had tastier, but not with that nutritional profile.

My thoughts on emotional eating.

Hey,

Sometimes I get sad.  Sometimes when I get sad, I want a brownie.  And when I'm sad, and want a brownie, I'm going to eat a brownie.  Anyone who tells me not to is a meany.

I hate when people tell me that I shouldn't eat to soothe my emotions.  If something makes me feel good when I'm feeling sad, I see nothing wrong with indulging.  There are always caveats, but in general I think indulging when you're sad is an acceptable coping mechanism.  The trick for me is making sure I'm only eating until I feel better.  Savoring one brownie long enough that my mind realizes it's been given a happy food is a bit tricky.  Usually I'll go to Starbucks or a similar place so that I'm limited to one (or shamed into asking a barista for a second.)  A bonus is that no one can eat three of these cuties and still be sad!

I did say there were caveats.  I have some that I'm very serious about:

1.)  I will not eat to make myself feel better if I'm sad because of my weight.  This seems obvious.  I won't shop to make myself feel better about being broke.  I won't smash my phone to make myself feel better that my screen got scratched.  I won't run to make myself feel better that I pulled my hamstring.  It's actually crazy how natural it feels to do more of exactly what's making you miserable, and I try hard to suppress that impulse.  We humans love setting ourselves up for failure, right?

2.) I pay attention to whether or not eating actually made me feel better.  Chocolate does it for me, pasta doesn't.  For the longest time I'd turn to salty carbs and creamy pastas to cheer me up.  Finally I was indulging with a girlfriend and she pointed out that I'd gone through two bags of chips and I was still crying.  Yea... I didn't really know what made me happy, it was just a habit.

3.) I always burn off the calories I eat to pick myself up.  It might take me a few days, but I make sure to work them back off.  Just like you'd save money to shop, or listen to a friend complain the week after you complained to them.  I can do what I need to to cheer myself up, but I have to pay the piper.  That's not a bad thing, I just need to hold myself accountable.

4.) Most importantly, I write down every time I eat (or shop, or run, or smash my phone...) because I'm sad.  I suffer from depression.  I've been to some great therapists through my university and I'm on some fantastic medicine to treat it, but the reality is I'm always in danger of falling back into depression.  What's funny is that I'm actually very lucky that I'm aware that I'm depressed.  As women we're trained to just keep going.  We're told that everyone has it bad, so we should suffer in silence.  Throw a smile on, eat a bonbon and keep going.  That's bullshit.  If you are sad, WRITE IT DOWN!  Keep a tally.  The next time you go to your doctor, show her the list of times you were down and the severity and ask if that seems like a lot.  Keep track of how you coped with it, if it affected your job, your family, your love life.  Food is a great pick me up, but it is not a substitute for mental help.

Emotional eating is not my problem.  Mindless eating is.  Eating crazy amounts of food and at the end of the day not even remembering the binge.  Eating to make myself feel better may not be a bad decision, but I need to make the decision.  I need to be aware of my choices and how big my problems are.

Hey! I ran! And Pilates!

First, just to keep me honest, check it out! I'm running!  This picture is a little old, but I'm running every other day.  I'm super proud of myself.

Now, I'd mentioned I've been looking through free fitness videos on my Roku.  The latest channel I found was NetFit.tv.  I tried their Pilates 1 video.  Now, I have a lot of prejudices about fitness, and one is that Pilates should be taught by women.  This is completely irrational, Pilates wasn't even started by a woman, there's no reason only women should teach it, but I still feel that way.  So I rolled my eyes nearly out of my head when this big body builder guy started talking to me about not driving around parking lots.

He started with upper body using 5-10 lb weights, which reminded me that I need to go back to the weight room, stat.  I'm wiggling my arms and shoulders right now to see how sore I am, and it's clear that I definitely did some work, though my triceps aren't crying or anything.  In the video one of the backup exercisers, a huge dude, was kind of a wimp about this, which made me push harder.  I'm totally tougher than him.

Then our instructor started abs, and the routine was pretty rough.  There was no Pilates 100, mostly leg lifts with a butt lift at the top of each.  It worked me, my abs aren't happy, but was pretty boring.  I skipped the plank stuff, I'm not a fan of plank work and just did some teapots.

Finally this guy did lower body, which surprised me.  His lower body exercise was straight out a Mari Windsor video.  I don't do Pilates for lower body work, personally.  I'd rather push out some squats and hamstring curls and get on that Chinese-torture-contraption for inner/outer thighs.  This was a good workout, though.  I was just very surprised at how closely it followed that set of Windsor-Pilates videos.

So, do I recommend it?  Yes, but only because it's free.  It was a good, solid workout, but not very engaging mentally.

A brilliant idea!

 Alright, stop noticing how watermarked my container is and listen up! This tip may not have changed my life, but it definitely changed my mornings.

My biggest problem with dieting is portion control, bar none.  When I first start a diet I'm faithful to measuring out every little thing.  Eventually, however, I start to feel like I 'know' how much a cup is, and the measuring cup doesn't make it out of the cabinet.  Measuring takes time, and it dirties an extra item.  It's an easy step to skip.

So, a week or so ago when I didn't have any clean bowls left, I dug through our tupperware for a container that I could use.  The one above is the one I found, and when I dumped my cup of cereal in it, it filled it exactly!  So then I got excited.  I poured half a cup of 1% milk in the container and marked a line where that was.  Now this is my cereal bowl!

The line came off in the dishwasher, but it's a bit above halfway.

This particular container came from Kroger.  Sometimes I buy containers of pre-cleaned fruit, and this was the smallest one.

We have a lot of these containers of different sizes.  I have a few from cheese spreads that have lids.  They're a cup size as well, but they're opaque, so I'll put soup or beans for lunch in them.  One less step is one less step, right?

Now, you don't need to save every single container you get food in.  Most of the tupperware we get at the grocery store has a capacity measurement written on the bottom, and definitely on the packaging.  This may be in metric, but you can get out your smart phone and ask google to translate into cups.  (I'd say to mark it on the container with a marker so you can see it better and remember, but my dishwasher will have none of that.)

There's another bonus to this that I haven't mentioned.  Since these containers are exactly as small as they can be to accommodate your portion, you'll also be eating off of smaller plates, which many claim will trick your mind into thinking you're full sooner.  Twofer!

What do you think? Am I the last person in the world to figure this out?

My weight chart

So I decided to include a graph of my weight loss to date (well, to yesterday's date) to show two things.  One:  I'm obsessed with charts.  But more importantly Two: There's definitely a correlation between not recording my weight daily and gaining weight.  The sad thing about this is that I was still weighing myself daily!  That's right, I was just too ashamed of a lb of weight gain that I didn't put it down until I'd gained back 7 lbs.  As if not writing down my new weight would somehow trick my body into getting smaller.

The other funny thing is that all of those little increases like, say, in early October felt huge and motivated me to work that much harder.  They felt like huge setbacks.  If I didn't lose for two days I'd start thinking "Am I at a plateau?"  How do I get through it?  This was great short term, but I can't keep that kind of neurosis up long term.  I'm going to try to focus on more reasonable reactions to my weight gain.  I want to hold myself accountable, but not have a panic attack.  There's got to be some middle ground, right?

I did it!

Well, after a month long break from running I hopped back on the treadmill today.  I started super easy-- just 2.5 miles, but it was a start.  I was glad I could run the whole time, but I hit 3 walls during the run, which is an awful lot for such a short run.

A while back I signed up for a free trial of GymBox, a workout channel on the Roku.  I wasn't using it enough to justify the cost, so I cancelled, even though many of the classes were good.  Well, with my new resolution I decided to look into it again, and I found out that there are FREE channels now.  Yes, they have commercials, but I'm looking forward to trying their Pilates class.

Looking forward to getting back on the bandwagon!