Done Dieting

Lots of food pics and a running update at the bottom…

Hi everyone!  I hope that you all had a nice weekend.  Mine could have been better.  I woke up on Saturday not feeling well and in a lot of pain.  I guess my little “procedure” wasn’t all that effective.  I ate some breakfast, took a Vicodin (which I rarely do) and ended up on the couch for 4 hours.  Asleep.  I spent the rest of the day groggy and just not feeling it.  I hate that.  When I woke up from my little nap I ate this wonderful sandwich.  It has turkey, Bergenost cheese (which has to be my absolute favorite) and mixed greens.  I put it on a sandwich thin and ate it dry.  I loved it.

I got off of the couch and decided that since I had wasted most of the day already I might as well be productive.  Since I was still in the pseudo-pain-free-Vicodin-haze I went for a walk.  It was a short one, only 2 miles but it was necessary.  I felt like the fresh air was desperately needed.  I had the best company on my walk, too.  Well, I walked the full 2 miles, he might have strolled some of it on four wheels.

We got back from the walk and Bean was super hungry.  He has quite an appetite.  I managed to snap a picture before he finished it all.  There was (not pictured because he devoured it) a hard-boiled egg with a little mayo, some tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber and carrots.  He loves his veggies.  He rolls up the lettuce into little “taticos” and goes to town.  Taticos are what he calls taquitos (tah-key-toes).  He puts tomato or egg in them and they become his mini version of tacos.  Everyday I give thanks that he is a good veggie eater and that he has such a wonderful appetite.  And that he is so smart and cute too.

For dinner I had broccoli quiche.  It was just egg, broccoli and Bergenost cheese sprinkled on top.  I made a roasted red pepper coulis to go on top and added a little parm to it.  What can I say?  I love cheese.  I may skimp on everything full fat, but cheese, never!

After a very uneventful Saturday I figured I would go to bed early as if I hadn’t slept enough.  I hit the sack right after watching Slumdog Millionaire.  That is such a good movie.  Hubby loved it.  He was extremely impressed.

Sunday morning I woke up craving oats.  This isn’t usual for me.  I’m more of a savory person in the morning.  I made a bowl of banana oats.  OMG!  I love these things.  They were super creamy, wonderful and they held me over all day almost.  I was shocked.  Usually I’m hungry 10 minutes after I eat.  I’m exaggerating, but you know what I mean?  I smashed a banana into a bowl, added the oats on top,  put a scoop of flaxseed meal, and a squirt of agave and snapped a pic.  Just for you guys!

Right before I ate them I added a splash of soy milk.  These are so good.  I will be making them again, and again, and again…

On Friday I went to lunch with two coworkers.  We were celebrating that one of them is getting married this weekend.  We went to a little hole in the wall that looks like a shack.  I’m always a little wary of places I am not familiar with.  This locale was no exception.  Behold, La Tuna.  It came highly recommended.  I liked the red door.  Darn cute.  Elizabeth Arden was onto something…

See what I mean about the shack kind of feel?  Anyway, keeping an open mind I decided it would be ok.  I seriously freak out about these things to much.  I felt a little better once I looked at the menu.  I ended up ordering the lamb sandwich with mango peach chutney and goat cheese.  On the side, nopalitos.  This is a typical Mexican salad you find here in San Antonio, TX made from cactus.  It is marinated in vinegar, pico de gallo and sprinkled with a little queso fresco.  OMG!  This was an amazing lunch.  Just goes to show you shouldn’t judge a restaurant by its “cover”.

The goat cheese was like butter.  The nopalitos have the texture of green beans and they were delicious.  Spicy and amazing.  I will definitely be going back here.  I only ate the bottom half of the bread from the sandwich.  I didn’t need to be falling asleep at my desk from the carb coma I’d be in if I ate it all.

Dinner last night was really good.  I made a tenderloin in the crock pot.  I added mushrooms, onions, tomato sauce, tomato paste and the meat to a pot and let it simmer for a bit while I cooked some spaghetti.  This was a big hit for Sunday dinner.  It isn’t a pretty picture but it was really good.  I think Hubby might actually love me more today because of it.  That cup from McDonald’s in the background belongs to my dad.  He has a coke problem and I don’t keep soda in the house.  He swung by and picked one up for himself.

Now for some outfits:

Thursday I wore a dress again.  What is wrong with me?  Not the best picture.  It’s a cute little gray sweater dress that I wore with a short-sleeved tee underneath.

Most of my outfits are work clothes, so I figured that I could post a pick of casual wear.  Please excuse the messy bathroom.  Just jeans and a cute comfy top.

Running progress:

C25K Week 2.  Run 1 minute 30 seconds, walk 2 minutes.  It might not be much, but it’s more than I thought I could do.  My knees don’t hurt anymore when I run.  Apparently, I supinate and was wearing the wrong shoes.

Graceful moment of the weekend:

As I was walking home from dropping Bean off at a friends house I was pushing his bike home with me.  For some reason I got distracted and the bike hit a rock, jumped out in front of me and I wiped out.  I landed on my hands.  Hard.  My right hand is bruised and my left doesn’t feel great.  However, it wasn’t my knees or bottom half.  I’m sure the neighbors got a little laugh.  I was, after all, on my back in someone’s driveway with a toddler bike under my legs.  I am quite graceful.

Today for a change I’m going to start off with some food.  My brekkie, lunch and snacks from a couple of days ago.  On the far left we have a bowl of chocolate PB2 oats.  I take oats and soak them overnight in water, 1 tbsp PB2 powder, 1 scoop flaxseed meal and 20 chocolate chips.  In the morning I add a splash of soy milk, stir it a little, nuke it and it comes out as this chocolatey, melty, goodness.  Sorry, no pic.  In the middle I have my lunch.  Two mini bagels, some deli meat turkey and 1 T. of Spinach Artichoke Cream Cheese.  By the way that cream cheese is amazing.  There is also a small container of mixed greens.  At work I added my usual elements, fake bacon bits and lite Caesar dressing.  It was yummy.  I actually feel a little silly about how excited I was about this lunch.  For snacks I had a peach Chobani and an apple.  I had one in the morning and then later in the afternoon I had the apple.

A couple of dinners:

Crab cake, sweet potato fries and spinach with bacon and onion.  This was so good.  It was probably all of the bacon.  I didn’t eat most of it, but the flavor was amazing.  I toned down the “fatty” aspect by adding a splash of roasted garlic vinegar.  It was the perfect addition.

(that looks like a lot of bacon, but it isn’t more than a pound.  I swear.)

The next pic is of my post-run dinner.  It was a little basmati rice with tuna and tossed with mixed greens.  I squeezed a little lemon juice and Tabasco on the final dish.  It was amazing.  You just can’t go wrong with salad greens.  I’m adding them to everything it seems.

You may have caught in that previous section that I said post-run dinner.  I guess that sort of means that I ran.  Well, I did.  I took everything that you all said and recommended to heart and had every intention of following it, but I did start to go for a walk.  When I was out walking I started my C25K program and began to talk to myself.  I am notorious for psyching myself out.  I’m awful about quitting.  I’m the worst slacker when it comes to exercise.  I’ll give myself any excuse to not do something.  While the pain in my knee was real I knew that if I let it get the best of me I was done trying to run.  As easy as that, I would be done.  So I ran.  Did it hurt?  Yes.  Was it unbearable?  Nope.  However, my outfit was painful to see.  Hehe.  Just for you readers I posted a picture.  Yes.  Those are green shorts.  I used them to cover my bottom.  Running tights are NOT flattering alone.  However, the green shorts?  Probably equally unflattering.  But hey, I’m here to entertain.  And most of you, I hope, know that I don’t usually dress that way.  Continue reading to see some of my outfits.

Way after dinner I had a little snack.  This is a spelt cracker with sunflower seeds, topped with a little PB and some guava jam.  I love the color of guava jam.  This was a perfect pretty snack.

And I’m seriously addicted to these.  Seriously.  Love them.  It’s my guilty pleasure.  Hubby likes them too.  One day, I had my bag on my desk and it wasn’t bothering anyone.  I left it there.  When I came back to it a couple of days later the bag looked the same.  I went to grab a couple of chips and the bag collapsed.  It had been filled with air by Hubby and put back on my desk.  He said that he was only doing it to help.  I hid this bag.

And now for proof that I don’t always leave the house looking like a deranged leprechaun, my outfits:

This is a Merona sweater from Target.  The yellow shirt is also Merona.  Yes, I can be quite cheap frugal.  I paired this with charcoal colored pants.

This was one the rare times when I wore a dress.  It’s a Calvin Klein sweater dress in chocolate brown.  You can’t really tell but I’m also wearing a dark blue Gap cardigan.  The two colors are probably too dark to wear together but I liked them enough to do it anyway.

And here the dress without the sweater.

Sorry that some of the pics are blurry. 

Ok.  Here is my dilemma.  I’ve been doing the C25K for about two weeks now.  The first  week I came down with a viral sinus infection and that really put the running into the “hating” category.  I couldn’t breathe and my entire body hurt.  Last week I started the plan over again only to have a million “other” things come up.  I’m sure most of it was excuses.  Anywho.  I reset the program again on Monday and went for a run.

I’m really bad at running.  Let me rephrase, I’m REEEEAAAALLLLLLYYY bad at running.  I don’t do it well.  I have bad form.  I’m fluffy.  It isn’t easy and I psych myself out.  Please don’t judge me for the next thing I say… I did something stupid.  I went running in Vibram Five Fingers.  If you aren’t familiar with these they are a “barefoot” running shoe with very little padding.  I’m sure if I were better at running the end result would have been different.  I’m sure they are great shoes for a hundred other things really.  I’m not smack-talking the shoes.  I like them.  I want to love them.  I’m still taking them back to the store.  Why?  I hurt myself.

If you’re still with me here is the part where I talk about my knee.  Stay awake.  I promise it has a point.  When I was 21 I had an accident.  While rollerblading.  Why was I rollerblading at 21?  Well, I was good at it.  I did all of the jumps and ramps.  Off of ledges, down steps.  You name it, I did it.  All of it.  One fateful day I took a jump and on the take off my skate hit a pebble (boulder, really!) and I wiped out.  I landed, full force, on my right knee.  I had a gash on my left leg from rolling over the pile I was on the floor.  I got up.  Took a look at myself and said maybe I shouldn’t do this anymore.  I’m brilliant you know!  I had a 8 inch gash on my left leg, bruises on both knees and throbbing in my right knee.  I got up and walked away.  Well, kind of limped away.

I had always been active.  I played soccer and softball in high school.  I walked all the time, everywhere I went.  I did yoga.  I wasn’t sedentary.  So, I walked it off.  Or so I thought.

After a couple of months (what is wrong with me?) I finally decided that I had had enough discomfort and pain.  Truth be told the gash on my leg hurt worse.  The mean nurse that washed the gash out at the hospital was evil!  Still, there was something wrong with my knee.  I went to the doctor who sent me to an orthopedist.  The ortho doc said that I needed surgery.  Uh, but I just fell.  Nothing big.  Just a little fall.  Needless to say I did not include all of the details.  However, surgery was scheduled for a week later.  Yippee.

The day before my surgery I slipped and lost my balance.  I didn’t fall but I tweaked my knee and I felt the worst pain I had ever felt (since then I’ve had a child).  I started to cry.  I knew that I was in for a bad ride after that.  The ortho doc said it was my meniscus that was out of place.  Not. So. Much.

So they did the surgery.  I woke up a couple of hours later and my doctor was sitting right there.  Guys, that’s disconcerting if you just wake up and see your doctor sitting there.  Since when do doctors wait?  He tells me that it wasn’t my meniscus at all.  I had crushed the cartilage that cushions the meniscus and the femur.  English, please?  Or Spanish, whatever, just be clear.  So essentially, I had crushed the cartilage in my knee.  It had to be “rebuilt” during surgery by scraping the layer of mother cells on the disc and, in turn, the cartilage would regrow.

Long story short, I was in bed for 4 months.  I wasn’t allowed to put any weight on the knee while it healed.  Then I had a few months of rehab until I could walk on it fully.  It was never the same.

So the run on Monday I essentially went running barefoot.  No protection, padding or cushion between my foot and the pavement.  I pounded that joint for a good 30 minutes with no protection.   Stupid?  Absolutely.  Hopeful? Yes.  Screwed? TBD.  After the run it didn’t hurt.  It hurt after I cooled down and got in the shower.  It hurt when I walked to the kitchen to get dinner.  It hurt at bedtime and when I got up.  My brain says, “Oh, shit”.

Now my knee still hurts a bunch.  So much that I have been icing it every night and I haven’t been doing much of anything else.  I feel like I need to heal, but I know myself.  I’m going to take this as a failure and give up.  I really don’t want to be that person.  I really want to be good at this.  I want to succeed and run the damn 5K in approximately 10 weeks.  But…My knee really hurts.

Do I go for a run tonight?  With real shoes or do I just give it a rest?  This is really hard.  I’m feeling like an idiot because I didn’t take care of myself.  I feel like a failure because I want to give up.  I’m scared that I messed up my knee.

Please don’t focus on my stupidity on this one.  I’m really just looking for an answer and not to be chastised.

Ok.  So when I got home yesterday I realized that my computer wasn’t working.  So no blogging.  However, there was crying as promised.  Enough about that.

As I mentioned I was visited by the Coach fairy on Valentine’s Day.  I absolutely love that the hubby knows exactly what to get me.  This purse is ridiculously cute.  I love the colors, and the hearts, but the poof ball hanging off of the side is what really got to me.  Every time I look at this purse I smile.  It’s fun and funky.

I wanted to pair it with a cute outfit.  I think I succeeded.  Sorry if all of the pictures of my outfits get annoying, but they make me happy.  I’m seriously trying to pursue as much joy as I can in my life and this blog does that.  So do spring colors.

Vera Wang Simply Vera cardi in salmon = love.  I really liked the way this looked on me.  The pants are a brown color, with a very tiny bit of cream thread mixed into the fabric.  I had on boring shoes.  I really have to work on that.  As in I need to buy more cute shoes.

The Bean had a school interview on Monday.  I drove him there.  He is getting so big, so fast.  I’m proud of my little boy.  The school we went to is a really neat school.  It focuses on teaching the “whole” child.   What that means is that along with the regular subjects (math, science, English, etc.) they get other subjects like art, foreign language, ceramics, yoga, music… I really hope he gets in.  The interview went well.  I thought about what it meant for him to go into a school that.  My husband worries that he won’t get enough emphasis on math and science.  Honestly, I worried too.  I talked to my mother who has been a teacher for well over 30 years and she said that everything that a child needs to learn can be taught in a couple of hours.  That set my mind at ease.  It would be great if he got in.  Well, it’s really out of my hands now so I’ll just leave it be.

Now for some food.  This is my lunch bag.  Built makes the best products.  I love them because they are tough and functional, as well as trendy and fun.  I have two of these bags.  One is a lunch specific bag.  It comes with a zipper and it keeps everything in.  The other is what they call a shopper bag.  It is a little bigger.  I usually use the bigger one because it allows me to carry my water bottle and coffee thermos as well as my lunch.  Bean will probably use the smaller one when he goes to school.

No. Really.  Now here is the food.  Breakfast was a mini bagel, a hard boiled egg, two pieces of cheese and an apple.  There might have been PB2 on that mini bagel.  Might.

I had a light lunch.  It was a mixed green salad with carrots, broccoli and asparagus.  On the side, and tiny container of non-fat potato soup made by my mom.  I doctored it up with fake bacon bits, some parm and hot sauce.  I guess that made it more of a low-fat soup, than a non-fat soup.  It was good, but I was hungry like 10 mins later.

Even though I was still hungry after lunch I made myself some hot tea (not pictured) and drank some water.  At around 3 I finally caved and ate my snack.  A peach Chobani and some Multi-Grain Cheerios.  Yum.  This held me over through dinner.

I’m hoping today is better than yesterday.  Because yesterday sucked.  So far, so good.  Hope everyone has a wonderful day today.

So I had a busy weekend.  I’ll update with a more interesting post later tonight.  For now, I want to leave you with my outfit on Friday.  Love this Anthro cardi.  It is so versatile.  Worth every penny.

My son was really tired at dinner.  Isn’t he cute?  You know, this nap at 6 pm meant that he wasn’t going to bed until 10 or so that night, right?

This item is making my shoulder hurt.  I may have hinted to hubby that I needed to remedy that situation.  Stay tuned.  Valentine’s day I was visited by the Coach fairy.  As I was told, I’m not a purse whore.  I’m a purse courtesan.  That is much less low brow I think.  Thanks Merry.

In my next post I will give an update on the running thing I mentioned earlier.  It isn’t pretty today, but I’m not giving up yet.  I’m also working out the details for a giveaway.  I promise I’ll have something by the end of this week.

Also, today is really turning out to be a bad one.  Not only does the internet on my PC not work, I made a huge snafu at work.  Oh well, let’s just say that it might be a blessing in disguise.

Plan tonight:

• Blog
• Cry
• Chocolate
• Dinner with Dad and the fam
• Did I mention cry?

Hope everyone is having a better day than I am.

Morgan @ Live, Love, Eat & Play is having an awesome giveaway.  Stop by and check it out.  Who doesn’t need something cool like this!

I’ve loved her tips this week.  They’ve really solidified my desire to get out there and start running.  For real.  Not the usual slacker stuff I say is running.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I just don’t know what I’m doing.  I don’t know where I’m going.  I know I had this existential crisis a few weeks ago, but my “plan” didn’t work the way I wanted it to.  Oh well, we move on.  However, I’m not sure what direction to go in.  I’m paralyzed by fear.

This blog started out as one thing and has strayed from that.  It began as a place where I could vent about not dieting and that type of thing.  I could put pictures and article about “fat resistance” and “fat acceptance”.  I’ve never been political, so that has fallen to the wayside.  Then it kind of became a food blog…Sort of.  I posted a few pictures of food.  Then I put in pictures of my outfits…Darn cute I might add.  Needless to say, I’m not sure where I’m going with this blog, let alone my life.  But, I digress.

I was talking to someone yesterday who has a huge passion for fishing.  He loves to go out and fish.  It seems boring and uneventful to me, but he has converted a passion into a dream.  He’s gone as far as organizing fishing tournaments, shark tournaments and talks with television networks.  I said to him that I wish I had a passion about something, anything, like he did.  He’s kind of a smartass so his response was, “maybe your passionate about being passionate about nothing”.  I swear!  Anywho, he made me think that I really don’t have anything that drives me to do more.  Other than baking, there isn’t much else.  It’s really sad.  I need to find myself again.  I hate this argument.

For now, I’m just going to write to this little blog and see what happens.  There isn’t probably a specific route I’m going to take.  It will probably be a lot of the same as before.  Hopefully somewhere along the way I will find what I want to do.  Who knows what’s coming next anyway?

We had a chili potluck at work yesterday.  Here on the plate you see a piece of jalapeño-cheese cornbread (made by me), 7 layer dip which was amazing, tortilla chips and an Indian dish that I have no idea the name of.  All of it was good.  The dip was so fresh.

This is my little bowl of chili.  I sprinkled a tiny bit of cheese on it.  It was just spicy enough but I still added some Chipotle Tabasco sauce.  OMG!

This was an outfit from earlier this week.  Anthro sweater that I got for my birthday, Banana Republic shirt, dress slacks in khaki.  I really liked this outfit.  I felt super fun and flirty in it.  Why is it that clothes either make or break your day?

This outfit was another one that I liked from this week.  Anthro sweater ($29.95 off the sale rack), Old Navy tee, brown slacks.  It worked.  I was surprised.  The color combo was something I had never tried before.

The shoes below were the only thing I liked about my outfit yesterday.  You know how bad it was?  I put the sweater and shirt I was wearing in the laundry and then in the Goodwill bag.  It was BAD.  And not in a good way.

(they’re plaid !!)

I have love for these shoes.  It isn’t even funny.  I saw them and drooled a little on the desk.  No, really.  I did.  They are so beautiful.  The leather looks like butter.  The tie straps are great.  I need these shoes.  At $328 I don’t know if I can justify it.  I’ve paid that much for purses though.  Eek!  Perspective I guess.  I’m a purse whore.  But, not a cheap one. 

At the potluck we had decorations.  One of my coworker’s sons makes balloon animals.  I fell for this little green fish with bubbles.  Isn’t he cute?  I took him home to my three year old.  Yep.  That’s the truth.  For my three year old.  It is totally not sitting on the TV stand in my bedroom.  Huh-uh.

I guess what I’m saying with this post is that I’m not sure what it is going to be like.  I don’t know what I will end up with, but for now I’ll try and keep it at least entertaining.  There will be pictures.  Oh, and I’m planning a giveaway.  It will be good.  I promise.

Let me start off by saying, “Yeah, Saints!”.  I love it when the underdog wins.  Peyton Manning is still an AWESOME QB and no one can take that away from him.  I’m just happy it turned out to be a good game.

Here is what I wore…

I’m still under the weather.  Wow!  This is really a bummer.  The congestion is awful.  All I can look forward to is the NyQuil I’m going to take.  Again.  For the 5th day in a row.

I felt cute.  I also felt cute today.  I really wanted to wear a vest, but I didn’t have one so I threw on this red shirt over a striped shirt.  It was comfy, and I got compliments on it.

See my smile?

It’s cuz I knew that…

This was going to happen.  Truth be told, I’m pretty sure she’s stalking me.

Breakfast today was a peach Chobani and some Multigrain Cheerios.  It was good.  Different, but good.  I usually am more of a savory person for brekkie.  Oh well, it hit the spot today.

I picked up some snacks today.  I hadn’t ever tried this until today, but it was delicious.  I love the sinfulness of them with the not so badness of them.  I’m sure I will try other flavors of this.

And, since I’ve heard so much about these babies I picked up a bag.  I haven’t tasted them, but I hope they are as good as they sound.

Here I come Big ‘N’, little ‘y’, Big F@%!ing ‘Q’….  That’s such a throwback.  Good night blogworld.

Oooooh, my ruffles have ruffles!  That’s what I thought as I got dressed this morning.  I put on my lovely Anthro birthday shirt.  I paired it with a black ruffled cardigan I have.  I think it looked pretty cute.  In honor of “Wear Red Day” I wore a red turtleneck underneath it all.  Splashes of color are my favorite things.

I’ve been fighting off a cold for the past couple of days.  Hubby brought me medicine.

Can I just say…”I love dark chocolate”.  LOVE!

I’ve always said that my mother is amazing.  She used to watch my son and his best friend when they were just babies.  They were both like 4 months old.  She would watch them all day, manage to do all of the laundry (both kids went home with clean clothes) and cook a four course dinner.  Not even kidding.  She made dinner at my house for us yesterday since I was sicky.  Yes, sicky.  Not sickly. That’s what I call myself when I’m sick.  I didn’t get a final pic but that is a broccoli and cauliflower quiche.  It was phenomenal.  I love my mom.

I’ve always said that I can’t run.  At least that I don’t do it well.  Usually running is reserved for chasing the little one or running from danger.  Thankfully the latter doesn’t happen much.  I decided though that it didn’t make sense for me to not even try.  Why accept failure before giving it a shot?  I downloaded an app for running called Couch to 5K onto the iPhone.  So far I’ve completed the first day.  I know that isn’t much but, truth be told, it’s more than I have ever done.  My goal is to run the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure that is being held here in May.  Theoretically, I have enough time to be able to do it.  Logically, my mind is ready for it.  Physically, I will be there by the deadline.  Emotionally, I can’t even wrap my head around it.  I’ve told myself for the past 3 years that I will run it the next year.  I never do.  I always end up walking it.  This year, I’m going to run it.  Ok.  So now it’s out there.  Let’s start the countdown.