A very special surprise!

Because I care (and because I had the afternoon off), here’s my lunch and snack for your viewing pleasure.

Lunch

Deli chicken breast, some reduced fat Colby Jack cheese, a little cream cheese, and some mushrooms, all shoved between two slices of Ezekiel bread and tossed on the grill pan. I also split a nectarine with Matt when he got home from work at 2.

Snack

Delicious Brown Cow Maple yogurt (the only sweetened yogurt I ever buy anymore because it is awesome and worth the overload) with some flax and some sliced almonds. I never take yogurt to work because I can’t be relied upon to eat what I bring with me, so sometimes it goes to waste. Since I was home though, it was perfect.

Except when I knocked it over and some of it got on Matt’s records. I told him it was okay because it was healthy. Good thing we’re still in that “honeymoon” period.

Anyway, the sad part is that this is actually more interesting than my usual daytime fare.

The AC is still broken at the gym, but today I’m smart enough to skip it. I randomly picked out a yoga DVD from the library, so I think I’ll do that. As much as I’d like to take the opportunity to skip exercise altogether, I am feeling the need to stay active before our trip to NC (in a week!) because I have a really cute dress to wear and I keep looking at it on the hanger and wondering if I bought accidentally bought it for mini-me. As opposed to regular me.

In which I persevere in the face of adversity.

The stars were aligned against my workout today. Somehow, I powered through in spite of:

1. Knee pain the morning that ruined my 5:30 workout plan.
2. The AC being broken at the gym. Again.
3. Yoga being canceled due to #3.
4. My iPod crapping out 12 minutes into my workout.
5. Did I mention the AC was broken?

They had two floor fans. Two. Floor. Fans. Yeah. That helped. When I was leaving, I think I may have noticed a slight change for the better, but at that point, the damage was done. My kicky green workout top may never be the same again. I also heard one of the kids working there, who was walking around with some sort of temperature gauge, say that it was 88 degrees.

So, I somehow made it through 45 minutes on the Arc Trainer. Seriously, I think I already blocked it out, because I know it happened, but I can’t really recall it.

I was pretty wiped out when I got home, so I wanted a nice, replenishing meal. And I came up with grilled veggie and tempeh fajitas.

I marinated the tempeh in a tapatio/honey/paprika/garlic/black pepper mix and grilled it. I left the veggies plain and just grilled those, too. You probably can’t tell, but there’s also zucchini, yellow squash, a green pepper, and some mushrooms under there. And, of course, cheese.

I really love tempeh, but I’m always hungry an hour after I eat it. I’m waiting for that so I can have another snack. You know how I love my snacks.

Peanut butter is good in everything.

Tonight was the last night of Sunday night yoga for the summer, which was sad. I usually feel a lot of exercise guilt if I don’t do my five days of 45 minutes of cardio, but yoga has really been giving me an attitude makeover this summer. I look forward to it, which is kind of strange, since I’m really not that good at it, and I usually only look forward to things I’m good at, like beating Matt at Trivial Pursuit. Every. Single. Time.

But that’s beside the point. I can’t go to noon yoga anymore because it’s way too hot to do vinyasas in a room with a dinky little window unit and then go back to work and pretend like I don’t smell bad. There are two night classes this week, and I’ll try to make them, but I need some DVDs or something, I think. So, I’m looking for any and all recommendations. Please, help me. You’re my only hope(s).

Now for the food. It was insanely hot again today, and I had a really hard time eating. Especially after I went to the grocery store in 100 degree weather and had to witness the carnage that is a 10/$10 sale of little organic raspberry cartons (I managed to salvage three for myself).

I made dinner before yoga, because it was a carrot-apple-peanut soup that needed to chill. I think it’s my first chilled soup? I’m pretty sure. I was really nervous about it, but that turned out to be ridiculous because it had four of my favorite foods: apples, carrots, potatoes, and peanut butter.

The recipe suggested garnishing with crushed peanuts, which sounded like a fine idea to me. This was a pretty small serving for soup, maybe 2/3 of a cup (seriously, it’s the heat. I passed a bank sign that said 108 on the way home from yoga). To balance things out, I had some Kashi crackers and a plum. My first plum ever. It was good.

And now my arthritis is flaring up so I need to go. Hopefully I’ll get my appetite back in time to eat some ice cream or something.

I have five minutes.

I know it doesn’t seem like it, but sometimes I do put a lot of thought into this blog.

Well, maybe not thought. But definitely time.

Not tonight. I have to post, set up the coffee pot, make muesli, eat some soy ice cream, peel some carrots, get my gym bag ready, and take a shower, all in the next 12 minutes. No problem, right?

I’m doing this because, for the first time in a month, I’m going to really make the effort to actually go to the gym tomorrow morning. Which means getting up at 4:50. NO PROBLEM. REALLY. It’s good training for Thursday when I will stay up almost that late to see Dark Knight the SECOND it opens.

I made it back to kickboxing, so my toe is back to normal. I also did another abs class, which kind of felt like I set my torso on fire on purpose. But whatever, it means I’m tough enough to get back to my morning gym routine.

I’m trying to stretch our food and our dollars this week, so I rummaged around in the freezer this morning until I found some ground turkey, which I thawed for turkey burgers. With them, as usual, we had sweet potato fries. And some roasted broccoli since the oven was at an obscenely high temperature anyway.

My turkey burger was kind of little, but that’s really probably because that bun (one of those Ezekiel buns) was massive. And delicious.

Six minutes! Okay GO.

Mas stretchy

We had another busy day, and my toe was kind of sore, so I decided to skip my usual Cardio Craze class in favor of a 90 minute yoga class. All classes are hit or miss at my gym, since the instructors are primarily undergrads, so I don’t venture out and try new ones often, but this time I’m glad I did. I’ve been having lots of hip pain in recent weeks, and when I went to get a massage last weekend, I almost started screaming whenever my left hip was touched. She gently suggested that I might want to come back and work on that and recommended yoga in the meantime. But I didn’t make it to noon yoga all last week, so this was my first opportunity.

I was nervous when the instructor walked in wearing platform flip-flops, but she was actually really good. It was a nice blend of vinyasas and balancing poses and tons and tons of leg stretching. Now my hips feel all stretched out. Next stop: hamstrings! I will be able to touch my toes one day. I BELIEVE.

The only bad part was when there was a brown recluse crawling across the floor towards the woman in front of me. They’ve had an “outbreak” of them at the gym, which just makes everything more exciting. Whatever, I pay 13 dollars a month, so I can’t really complain. The instructor killed it and then, visibly upset, told us that she usually doesn’t kill bugs. Um. Not a bug, my young friend. An agent of death.

When I got home, we ate some peanut noodles that I prepared earlier.

Tasty. We took a short walk, as it’s nice again today, and then stopped at the grocery store behind our house for a few things. I was overcome with a craving for chocolate milk, and we could only find reduced fat kind that also had HFCS. I bought it anyway and mixed it with my regular milk. Even at a 1:3 evil chocolate to skim ratio, it’s awesome.

Now I’m going to go make my muesli for tomorrow morning and read and pretend tomorrow isn’t Monday.

I’m a survivor.

I rode the damn stationary bike again. It was either that or try a Bosu class, and, honestly, if I tripped and almost broke my toe just putting shorts on, I’m pretty sure it’s not in the cards for me to bounce around on half a stability ball in front of a bunch of 20 year olds in small clothing.

Anyway, I’m trying to be positive, because I got a lot done at work today, I had a halfway decent hair day (literally - the left side looked great, the right not so much), I made it through 40 minutes on the bike, and I polished off an issue of Self while I did it. I’m not a big Self fan, because it’s all about which eyeshadow is in season and women working out in bikinis and such. But, I bought it in the airport a few weeks ago because, when I travel, I really want to buy things I usually don’t like so much: weird women’s magazines and drinks from Starbucks. Anyway, so I had this magazine laying around and I feel like I learned so much about Anne Hathaway and I didn’t cry on the bike. Score one for me. No, score 80 billion for me (I need a lot of affirmation today).

Then, I did an abs class where I think I may have actually died a little bit, and came home not interested in cooking anything at all, but very much in the mood for beans. So, I had a big salad. With a lot of beans. And some tomatoes, spinach, chips, cheese, and a heaping helping of salsa that made me sneeze:

I hope you like that artistic diagonal shot. I did that for you.

I also had some more chips with cheese. Known in some cultures as “nachos.” But, these chips have flaxseed in them, so these were healthy “nachos.”

I’m still hungry, so I might go for some cereal.

Okay, I have to stop here because we’re being energy efficient and the laptop is dying.

I am clumsy.

Okay, so we had a nice little mini-honeymoon/celebration of Matt’s birth in Lawrence, which involved more food than it probably should have. Good food. But a lot. But a mini-honeymoon comes around, what, once every… month or so?

Anyway, after all the wedding/conference/birthday/Matt’s birthday/mini-honeymoon eating, I was all prepared to come back home and get back into my exercise and healthy(ish) eating routine and then I tripped while putting on some shorts yesterday afternoon and stubbed my toe so hard that I couldn’t walk for a few hours. So, being the smart and healthy person that I am, I skipped the gym and ate cake instead!

This morning I happened to notice that my toe was gray. Oops. I hobbled to work and called the doctor, who did some x-rays and things. Turns out it’s not broken! Just badly bruised! Sweet! But I can’t bend it and it looks really gross. Seriously. My doctor actually said “eww.” Needless to say, I was advised against kickboxing. I can’t exercise for 48-72 hours, and even then, I’m supposed to do the stationary bike until it fully heals. I loathe the stationary bike. I guess this is why you shouldn’t walk and put on shorts at the same time. This morning while I was getting ready for work, Matt yelled “STAND STILL,” just as a reminder.

But enough about me!

Just kidding. This whole blog is about me.

It was really hot today and we had almost no groceries, so we threw together this Mexican Pasta Salad, from Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites, which I picked up for 8 bucks in Lawrence. I love all things Moosewood, and this was no exception. Light but filling and if I’d only been able to resist the cookies I had afterwards, it would have been a really healthy end to my day.

Yum.

I need to go ice my gimp toe now.

Catching up

I’m going to dispense with my usual witty commentary because I’m a little stressed and a lot tired and I’ve got to be up early for my lung tests. I’m also going to a conference later this week and I have about eleventy million things to do before I leave for sunny Southern California.

Saturday night, after a movie marathon, I used the rest of the bean salad to make a polenta casserole that turned out really well. I also made a salad, which I spun in our new salad spinner. We used our new dishes from Donna:

I also had cake.

Sunday, I went to a crazy hard class at the gym and came home starving for fajitas. And so:

Grilled chicken (in a Tapatio, honey, garlic, and paprika marinade), peppers, onions, and tomatoes. And some cheese. Mozzarella, which is not necessarily appropriate, but did not smell bad like the other cheese.

And I also had cake.

Tonight, after kickboxing, I made my first frittata in our brand new wedding skillet. Half of it got a little crispy on top. Crispy, not burned (I’M LOOKING AT YOU, MATT).

I had more than this but I started small because I was nervous:

See the crispy? It was good. It had potatoes, tomatoes, spinach, mushrooms, and feta. I made some Ezekiel 4:9 toast to round it out.

Oh, and I also had cake. And finally, I remembered to take a picture:

You can see the peanut butter and jelly layers! We still have a lot of cake left, which is not a problem for me. We may get to freeze even more of it to enjoy on our first anniversary. Oh, and that’s a little bit of Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream on the side. If you were wondering.

Posting may be sporadic for the next week (sorry, Mom). Matt’s taking me out for an early birthday dinner tomorrow, if I’m still standing after my tests. Wednesday I should be making some food, so I’ll try to post it.

I am very healthy.

I started today assuming that it was going to be horrible, which, if you’re wondering, is not the best strategy for getting through. For once, though, I was completely wrong and my day was very affirming. This happens sometimes.

I did cardio this morning and was pretty hungry for most of the day, and then I went to yoga after work (my crane pose is up to .000006 seconds off the floor!) and that killed my appetite but I knew I needed something in me, so I thought “What can I force myself to eat?” And then, “How can I work in some cheese?” I was planning a bean salad so I mixed that up and then hit upon my best idea of the day: nachos. So I layered my bean salad (chickpeas, pinto, black, and kidney beans, corn, a diced tomato, cumin, lime juice, S + P, and cilantro) with some cheese and those blue corn flaxseed Target chips I love, and microwaved it. Here they are with some avocado and sour cream for garnish.

I used to eat loaded nachos every single week during grad school. And when I say loaded, I mean, literally cups of cheese. With a side of jumbo margarita. And I still lost weight during that period of time. HOW DID I DO THAT?

Last night, I was really efficient, and I had much lunch packed, the coffee pot timer set, and my gym bag ready before I went to bed. This is likely directly related to my day going well.

Tonight, I’ll probably eat some ice cream and look at the dishes and say stuff to myself like, “We should really make room in the refrigerator for the cake” and then fall asleep on my book before I do anything about any of it.

Wait, I’m trying to be positive.

I will eat ice cream! The end.

Stress eating

Last night, I was in a great mood because I was elated by the outcome of Top Chef and the fact that Matt brought home cupcakes with sprinkles on the icing and then the tornado sirens went off again. we’d been in a watch all afternoon but apparently that’s normal for June, though I think “normal” is a complicated word in this context. It was an advance warning, so we had time to run to Donna’s so that we could take cover in her basement.

It was just like last week except that, this time, the tornado came through our town. This is the first time in 30 years? More than that? I don’t know. The first time in a long time, at any rate. We are safe, and our house and car are fine, but there’s damage everywhere. The tornado, which was more than 1/4 mile wide when it got here, touched down three times in town, including once on campus, where it caused more than 20 million dollars in damage. We weren’t able to work today, which was good because I’m in a fragile state of mind. I went to the gym a few hours ago and it was kind of surreal, like you’re driving and it looks like there was a really bad storm, branches everywhere, that kind of thing. And then suddenly it’s 10,000 times worse and you can actually see, in a very clear line, how the tornado moved through, taking off roofs and things like that. There’s metal everywhere, and insulation from houses, and trees and power lines down. It’s… I don’t know.

So I needed a comforting dinner. I also needed something filling because I did a “Rep Recycle” class at the gym which made me feel basically like a puke bucket should’ve been included on the list of equipment needed for the class, along with a step, two sets of weights, a mat, and a barbell. Seriously. That’s a lot of equipment. And I’m clumsy. So I needed this

I had a better picture but I accidentally deleted it and by that time things didn’t look very photogenic. Here’s a stuffed baked potato with some ground turkey breast, salsa, a little cheddar, and some sour cream. Kale chips and broccoli on the side. Multiply that serving by two because I went back to finish off the veggies.

I’m off to try to relax now.