Chicken Lettuce Wraps

My cats have gone to CA's house for three days because they are doing work in my apartment. It is awfully quiet and lonely without them, but at least I can use the computer in peace. They come back on Friday night by which time the workmen will be done with whatever it is my apartment complex has decided needs to be done. I am still on track, I did actually manage to lift some weights last night which was good. I am actually eating everything that I said I was going to eat this week in some configuration or another. Tonight I have chicken lettuce wraps which were awesomely tasty and very simple. The recipe is as follows: 1-2 roast chicken thighs per person (1 makes a light meal, that is what I had tonight, 2 would make a pretty substantial meal) Mixed thinly sliced vegetables of your choice ( my grocery sells baggies of pre-sliced plain veggies for coleslaw which I use because I do not have to prepare them) At least 3 large lettuce leaves per chicken thigh 1 tbsp reduce fat peanut butter 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil 1 tsp Soy Sauce Red Pepper flakes (to taste depending on how hot you like things) Pinch salt Heat the peanut butter for one minute in the microwave and combine with sesame oil, soy sauce, red pepper, and salt. Slice the chicken up and place on lettuce leaves and mound veggies on top. Pour peanut butter mixture over whole thing. Roll up the lettuce leaves and enjoy. Tasty, reasonably low in calories (frankly most of the calories are in the oil and peanut butter) and five minutes to prepare. This is why I need to cook things in advance so I can throw quick meals together like this, a good lesson for the future.

Monday Check-in

I am on track today with exercise and food. I think I will finish at about 1400 calories for the day which is just about right. I can't write much because my youngest cat is obsessed with the computer screen and is trying to attack it right now. Oddly she just became obsessed this last weekend with it and now I can barely type because she is walking all over the keyboard. This morning I ran for about 10 minutes and then got on the eliptical machine for 35 minutes, which worked up a good sweat. I need to go and lift weights now and do some core fitness which I have been slacking on for awhile now. So, I am going to do that before my cat destroys the vicious computer screen.

What I did today

This is the problem with clean eating, it is a lot of work. So far today, I have been to the grocery store (spent an hour buying everything I needed) where I spent $100 on food which was better than I anticipated. That is actually the amount I budget for food every week. Came home, made cream of tomato soup which I spilled all over the place while trying to puree it. However, very tasty and I made enough for about eight meals. I chopped up a bunch of vegetables I am going to roast this afternoon (potatoes, yams, squash, red peppers, and onions). I also roasted about eight pieces of chicken and stored them away in their container for the week. I still need to roast the veggies, cook some brown rice to store for the week, and clean up. It is now 2 in the afternoon and I started cooking at 11 am. I am taking a break for about an hour and then I will roast the veggies which will probably set off the smoke alarm (always happens when I cook things in the oven at 400 degrees or above). The veggies will then be stored away for the week as well. I know that doing all of this today means that I will not have to do much cooking during the week, but it is such a long process for a sunday and I like cooking. Still, this means I will have a bunch of meals with no white flour, bread or pasta involved which I can mix and match. This week I am eating the following: Couscous with saffron, almonds, and raisins (made it last night super easy to do) Oatmeal with soy milk, splenda, and cinnamon (breakfast obviously) Roast chicken and roasted vegetables Cream of Tomato Soup and brown rice Chicken Lettuce Wraps Turkey Lettuce Wraps with cranberry sauce and honey mustard Roast chicken with brown rice and roasted red peppers Roasted winter vegetables and brown rice Most of this menu is from the Best Light Recipes book from the publishers of Cooks Illustrated, I love all of their cookbooks and use them all the time. Some of the dishes are things I have made forever (i.e. the turkey wraps) and I am just bringing them back into my diet, others (i.e. the chicken lettuce wraps) I am making up on the fly by mixing the roast chicken with vegetables. I also have fruit and light yogurt for snacks. I also have some organic soups that I can just heat if necessary one night. Anyway, I guess it is back to the kitchen now.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.-Buddha

I am working very hard on being present in my life and in this journey. In certain ways that just translates to being aware of what I am doing in my life, and with the food I eat. In the end it always comes down to food for me. I eat incredibly fast to the point of almost inhaling food sometimes and it means my body does not have time to catch up and register whether or not it is full. Thus I am making a choice to try and slow down when I am eating and to pause to allow that reflex to happen and catch up. I am focusing on making sure that I am not depriving myself and eating when I am actually hungry. I had two cups of couscous tonight for dinner rather than one, but I only ate the second one after taking a 10 minute break to make sure I was really hungry. Oh and I still ended up at 1400 calories for the day which is well within my target range for the day. I am concentrating on eating rather than drinking my calories which means no more venti green tea frappuccinos at Starbucks much as I love them. I just cannot see having something which will not make me feel full and will take 650 calories out of my day. Besides I am cutting back on all things coffee related for awhile. Not cutting out, just cutting down. I only like coffee with stuff in it and that means that calories can add up quickly. I am not doing this primarily by cutting calories, I don't want it to be about that, but rather about eating things that are good for me. Mostly this is about eating really cleanly and enjoying the food. I am a foodie at heart, and it is hard when you are only cooking for one person but I am trying to come up with ways to make meals that will morph into other meals and really allow me to experiment with cooking healthy. It is all part of the choice to make my health a priority again and to find balance in my life.

My secret stash

I know what you are thinking, she is going to talk about chocolate now. No, not that kind of secret stash. In my ottoman (small apartment, I have lots of hidden storage), I have a small collection of fitness dvd's. They are the workouts of last resort, saved for when going to the gym is too much trouble and I can't be bothered to get dressed to workout. Today, I pulled out one (basically a cardio dance dvd) and did that for an hour. I don't think I did most of the moves right, I am not terribly coordinated, but it was a workout nonetheless. My goal was six days of cardio this week and I finally accomplished that because of the secret stash. I am also still doing well on eating and usually weekends are where that totally falls apart because I cannot be bothered to eat healthy food. Tonight, I am going to make couscous with raisins and almonds because I have all the ingredients in my pantry and tomorrow I will make tomato soup, roast vegetables, roast chicken, and brown rice for the week. I am going for variety in my diet and that involves a fair amount of weekend food preparation so that I can avoid most cooking during the week because the last thing I want to do is cook when I am tired. So, I am pleased with the progress I have made this week and working on keeping it up this coming week.

Things that annoy me

I have a number of close friends I love, no really, I adore them. I may, however, be forced to kill them. I spent all of lunch listening to a discussion by two of them about how tiny they used to be in high school and college. I very politely told them to bite me, an excellent use of that very expensive education I am still paying off. I was at best, a size 18 in high school, by then end of college I had ballooned up to a size 24 and I pretty much bounced between size 18 to 24 until I was 27 years old. While I am not the skinniest I have ever been by a long shot right now, I am still smaller than I have been for most of my adult life. I have no basis to have that conversation, no idea what that would have been like to be thin at a time it really mattered socially. I will probably really never be skinny, I am just aiming for healthy and a size that I can live with over the long run. I have no idea what that size is, but I will figure it out, and it will be harder for me than it will be for my friends who are trying to lose 20 lbs or so. I will have to monitor absolutely everything I put in my mouth, work out six days a week, and almost never deviate from my plan. I am not complaining, this is just the reality of the body that I have and the relationship I have developed with food over the course of my life. I love them, but they will never know what that road is really like, which makes some days more difficult than others. In better news, I have five really good workouts under my belt this week, and no food flops even with eating out two days this week. I had salad both times and light dinners to balance the meals out. So, one week down, the rest of my life to go.

Once more with feeling

So, I am back. Again. I have not blogged in very long time, I think it has been about eight months. Yeah, that was not a good plan. Not blogging meant no accountability and that is never good for me. I have not been a total slacker, food has not been a total disaster, but it has not been good either. So, it is time to suck it up and really work at this again. In a new development, I will have a live companion in the weight loss arena, one of my close friends is also trying to lose weight and eat healthy so we are helping each other out. Also known as the make sure CA and Kat don't eat crap and actually workout plan. A novel concept, I know but one I am going to stick to this time. I am doing this a little differently this time around, I am concentrating more on making and preparing my own food than in the past, and eating in a sustainable manner for me. Basically, I am working on cooking enough food on the weekend to make different meals throughout the week, and cutting out food which triggers my overeating tendencies. I am forced to admit that at this late date in my life, there are things that I can never eat without triggering some kind of excessive consumption. I like food, food is my drug, always has been and always will be, and while I can tell when I am hungry, I have never been able to successfully gauge when I am full. I am still working on that on a daily basis, it is better than it was but not great. So, for me it means the following, no bread, pasta, white flour, refined white sugar, and as few processed foods as possible. This weekend is all about cleaning out my fridge and refilling it with homemade soups, roasted vegetables, fruit, and chicken. I call this my temple food, a term I stole from Nigela Lawson and by that I mean foods which cleanse and restore my body. It is not going to be easy but I know it will make a real difference in the next few weeks. I know I will feel better if I do this, it is not about deprivation it is about balance which I desperately need in terms of my food choices. I am not being quite as crazy on the exercise as I have been in the past, I am going to workout for 45 minutes a day, hopefully six days a week but I am not going to kill myself right now. I am going to go get a personal trainer to teach me how to workout smarter, and for additional motivation. CA and I are going to try and squeeze in some lunchtime cardio sessions if we can, it won't be possible all that often but it is worth a shot. Mostly, I am going to be kind to my body and myself, by accepting my limitations in terms of time and energy. This is less and less about an ultimate goal and more about feeling comfortable where I am, I miss that feeling and it is time to get back to it. Wish me luck, no doubt I will need it over the next few months.

Stressed? Who me?

Well, eating at dinner left a little to be desired tonight. Apparently, I am going to jury trial on Friday, crap. I could feel the stress and I know I ate too much at dinner, fortunately it was pretty healthy food. Still, not good. It probably did not help that I ate my lunch at 10:45 am and then did not eat until dinner. Not a good plan. It is also a sign of how insidious all the cultural messages about weight are, that my first thought was "I can't go to trial, I'm fat and I have nothing to wear". Frankly, I am not that fat, I know this logically but logic does not always win in these situations. Also, most juries don't make decisions based solely on the weights of the respective lawyers who are involved in the case. I do need to buy clothing, however, but that is more because I have been putting off buying clothing for the last 6 months because I have been aggressively paying down my credit card debit. So, I found something to wear on Friday, and I on Saturday I will have to suck it up and go and buy a couple more suits (especially since I have trial next week as well). Possibly I should also cut my hair this weekend (I am wearing it up on Friday). On the plus side, I did manage to run this morning although my body was exhausted. I am going to go and do some yoga stretching now and see if that helps my stress levels enough that I can get a decent nights sleep. Ah, the joys of being a trial attorney.

Random Work Blog Post

I wrote this at work during lunch on a piece of paper and am now posting it from home. Then I went back to doing work after a fifteen minute break. It is a long week for just being Monday. Somehow today, a piece of cake magically showed up on my desk. Magically I tell you. Perhaps my office has cake elves. I turned around and there it was sitting on the middle of my desk with a fork sticking up out of it. A simple yet deadly piece of white grocery store cake covered in pink and white frosting. So, because I am a little bit strange, I sniffed it and then tossed it in my trash can, I'm long past the days of reaching into trash cans for food (and yes that is something I used to do). The cake did not actually smell good, in fact all I could smell was sugar, so I probably did not miss out on any great taste sensation. It did, however, silently mock me from the trash can for the rest of the day, but I'd rather have mocking than food regret later on in the day. I suspect that drinking 32 ounces of water by 10 am helped me avoid the cake eating. I was not terribly hungry. I also had a low fat bran muffin to snack on which no doubt helped as well. I am trying to eat five slightly smaller meals every day, largely to preven myself from crashing late in the day and reaching for sugary snacks. I am aiming for between 1400 and 1600 calories every single day (approximately) consisting of as little processed food as possible. This is due to my continuing attempts to workout in the evening as well as the morning. I figure that any less than 1400 calories will cause me to become completely insane. I am working my way through 64 ounces of water today as well. 32 ounces of water in the morning and 32 ounces in the afternoon. I am now religiously taking a nalgene bottle to work and refilling it at lunchtime which more water. This won't work on days I have court and cannot sit around drinking water, but I am trying as much as possible to drink my 8 glasses of water a day. There ends my work post. A few updates as it were, I managed to finish my 64 ounces of water by 2 pm in the afternoon. I figure that I drank closed to 96 ounces today with the water I had after my workouts and with dinner. As my brother would say "hydrate or die", okay he would also say "don't stick your fingers in a camel's mouth" but that seems slightly less relevant. I did manage my afternoon workout, another 30 minutes on an eliptical machine plus 60 situps and a weight workout for my arms. I am going to feel that tomorrow and not like myself very much. Anyway, I have to go make my lunch, and get everything set for tomorrow so that I can just grab it and go at 6:30 am when I leave the house.

The week of suckage

Last week was ridiculously long (and it was only a four day week) and sucky. Mostly due to work stuff which I cannot discuss because of confidentiality issues. However, it is over (although this week is not looking good either) and I am moving on with my life. I only made one night workout as a result of last week. However, food was pretty good overall and I managed to run 4 out out of 6 workouts which was pretty good. This weekend has been all about cooking, so far I have made spicy chicken skewers, pumpkin soup, low fat bran muffins, and turkey chili. I still have leftovers from last week so my goal of filling the house with lots of healthy easy to prepare food is working. I also worked out this morning so that is one more thing off my list for the day. I am thinking of making a bean dip as a snack for the week and then I will be done with cooking. The universe has decreed that I should stick with the healthy eating thing as well. This morning, I went to Barnes and Noble and stopped to get a Cinnamon Dolce Latte at the bookstore coffee shop and they ended up only having the sugar-free version, which is what I ended up buying. It was my splurge meal for the week so I had not planned to have the sugar free version but it probably saved me about 400 calories so it worked out in the long run. Hopefully all this healthy eating will really start making a difference soon, I do feel better but hopefully I will see a physical difference soon as well. Anyway, I am off to check on my laundry and finish cooking for the week.

Happy MLK Day

I am quite pleased with myself today, dare I say slightly smug. I actually managed two workouts today which is impressive because I have the day off and was thus inclined to slack off. It worked out to about 1.5 hours of cardio which included a 20 minute jog. I have created a workout chart on the refridgerator as a way of motivating myself to get in the extra workouts. I am aiming for 3 night workouts this week and I think that is workable because I have been working out in the evening on Tuesdays and Thursdays anyway. I have also passed the halfway mark in paying off my credit card bill which is terribly exciting as well. So life is good, however I have to run because my cat is attempting to get into one of the cabinets and I believe it is the one with the christmas decorations which she tends to destroy. So, off I go to prevent any destruction from occurring.

Weekend cooking roundup

Sundays are generally the days I cook for the entire week, mostly because I do all my shopping on Sunday morning. So, right now, bubbling away on the stove is a batch of beef chili with black beans. The recipe made so much that I had to divide it into two pots in order to prevent spillage. Most of the chili is going to be frozen for meals over the course of the week and possibly over next week. I may save out some for dinner tonight. I am also going to make more pumpkin soup and roast carrots as well. I will say, that the chili is not something I would try to make during the week, it requires about 2.5 hours of cooking time and a fair amount of prep work in terms of chopping up vegetables and so forth. However, the fact that it is a well balanced meal and freezes well makes it a good dietary choice for me. Not to mention the fact that given the amount of spices in it, you will totally clean out your sinuses as well. I am all about easy to prepare items which I can just microwave or reheat on the stove. I did workout today, however there was no running because the treadmills were packed. I settled for using the eliptical machine and if I feel really motivated, I will go back tonight. Otherwise I will do core work and situps. I am working on increasing the amount of time that I work out on weekends, but it is still a triumph that I am working out on weekends at all because for a long time that was something that I was not prepared to include in my day. Baby steps, and so far the baby steps are working.

On track

I have now published more posts in 2008 than I did in all of 2007, now that is depressing. I am remarkably still on track, even with the evening workouts. This evening I dragged my butt to the gym for a second workout and managed a 20 minute run. I even have managed to run in the mornings for about 15 minutes. If you add that to the 35 minute eliptical workout each morning and a 10 minute warm up/cool down period, this is the most cardio I have done in a long time. I really did not want to workout tonight, there was an accident on the freeway and instead of a 10 minute commute, it turned into a 35 minute commute (yes I know I have it easy). By the time I got home and dealt with all of my bills, working out was not high on the list of priorities. However, I dragged myself over to the gym and workout anyway. Really, getting there is three quarters of the battle, and frankly it is all mental (although my legs will be tired tomorrow). I spend most of my time talking myself into doing things and actually doing them takes only a little bit of effort. So, I am pleased with myself today. I am aiming for three night workouts this week so I am going to try and go workout tomorrow night as well, we will see how that pans out.

All things small and orange

Long, long ago, in a blogland far away, I wrote about my unholy love for avocados, and by extension my father's guacamole. People, tonight I discovered something almost as good (well not as good as my father's guacamole because nothing is that good). Do you know how good roasted carrots are? Do you? I think you do not fathom the goodness that is the humble carrot. This is a very simple side dish, well except if like me you accidentally set of the smoke alarm (twice) and have to dance around flapping blankets at it and turning on fans. However, simple other than that bit. This comes courtesy of one of the Best New Recipe book by America's Test Kitchen Well, except for the dancing around the apartment bit, that is courtsey of my smoke alarm 2 lbs of baby carrots (two 16 oz bags) 1.5 tsps of olive oil 1/2 tsp of salt 1 tablespoon maple syrup 1 tablespoon butter Heat the oven to 475 degrees. Toss the carrots in the bottom half of a broiler pan and toss them with the olive oil and salt. Put them in the oven to roast for 12 minutes. While they are roasting, melt the butter in a small saucepan until golden (about 1-2 minutes). Take the butter off the heat and mix with the maple syrup. When the carrots are done, pull them out and toss them with the maple syrup and butter mixture. Put them back in the oven for 8 more minutes. Shake the pan twice during the last 8 minutes. Pull them out and voila. The carrot will be just cooked and have a hint of sweetness from the roasting and the maple syrup. They are incredibly yummy. Plus, according to my father, they will help your night vision and give you curly hair. In full disclosure, I could take or leave most carrots generally, especially raw carrots. However, these I love, they ended up being my main dinner meal, so much so I did not finish my polenta. I am taking a baggie to work tomorrow as a snack and they will be dinner tomorrow night. So good, so easy, and you don't have to feel guilty about eating them. I love healthy food discoveries.

A balanced Sunday

I forgot how expensive it can be to try and live on purely healthy non-processed food. At the store this morning, I spent around $100 and pretty much just bought fruit and vegetables and milk. Yes there were a couple of high ticket items, real maple syrup for the glaze on my roasted carrots, a water bottle to carry at work, and tofu for smoothies but still, that is about 30 dollar more than I have been spending in the past. I have decided that food will have to be a non-negotiable expense in my budget, whatever it costs to eat healthy is what it costs. I actually budget $100 a week for food anyways, I just don't usually spend it all. I have already polished off 32 oz of water this morning which leaves about 32 oz to go for the day. Not to mention the fact that I went to the gym and ran for 25 minutes (five more minutes than last week) and did some stretching. I need to lift weights and do situps later on today. It is good weekend in other words. My cat is sleeping on top of the computer monitor and I have celtic music playing in the background as I go about my day. All of this is part of the balance which has been lacking for a while in my life . I may head off to the bookstore later on today but I have not really decided yet, I'll think about it. I made polenta for lunch which turned out to be surprisingly good when topped of with 1/2 cup of marinara sauce with meat. I was surprised because it was far tastier than the restaurant polenta I have made in the past and easy to cook as well. I could have made the marinara sauce, but I can't say I was enthused by that idea. I did have to spend 15 minutes in the grocery store figuring out which sauce did not include high fructose corn syrup but that was a small price to pay for the end result. I am off to check on my laundry now and get on with the rest of my day.

Pumpkin soup and polenta

I am finally back to really cooking, for the first time in a long time. Today, I finally got around to making my pumpkin soup (it was delayed because I had to go buy a pot to cook it in) and it is actually very good. Also, it is a rich enough soup that only having a cup really is enough. Plus, it is basically pumpkin, peanut butter (I used reduced fat) and sweet potatoes. The amount of pumpkin and potatoes far outweighs the amount of peanut butter. The ingredients are as follows: 2 cups of pureed cooked sweet potatoes (about 4 sweet potatoes give or take) 1 cup smooth peanut butter 4 cups of pumpkin 4 tablespoons butter 1 tsp salt 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper 6 cups of chicken stock Heat the butter over medium heat and when it is melted add the sweet potatoes, peanut butter, and pumpkin. Stir to combine and then add the stock, pepper and salt. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for twenty minutes. Serve. Accidentally I bought pumpkin pie filling rather than pumpkin and while it worked fine, it was a little bit too sweet for my taste. Now, those are words I never thought would come out of my mouth. So next time I am going to remember to buy just canned pumpkin. Now obviously this is not a low fat dish because of the butter and the peanut butter. However, it is ninety percent things that are good for you and sweet potatoes are so ridiculously good for you that they qualify as a superfood. Thus, I refuse to kill myself worrying about the fat content. I think if all you are eating for a meal is a cup of the soup (which is what I am doing) well then you are totally good. In addition, my snacks today were a few slices of turkey with mustard and totally within bounds. I have to say, for the first time in a long time, my body is actually happy with me. I just feel better, more alert and less sluggish. I was napping a lot on weekends, I do not feel the need to do that anymore and it is all down to the change in my diet. I intutively know this about myself, I just get lazy about food and I am working on being less lazy about what I put into my body and about being more aware of the things which trigger my need for sugar or junk food. So, I am back to making meal plans and trying to really plan what I put into my body. As part of the plan to make sure that there is good food in my apartment all week long, I am freezing four small ziploc bags to the pumpkin soup, this will allow me to just pull it out and reheat it on the stove or in my microwave at night. In addition, I am going to roast carrots tommorrow and possibly some other vegetables. I am also going to try to make some polenta which qualifies as a good grain in my world. All of this should be enough good food to get me through next saturday when I will decide what I am going to make for the following week. It is nice to be back on track and this time I have to make sure it lasts permanently while also taking it day by day. So far so good.

A Twofer

So, I made it back to the gym tonight which means that for the first time in forever I have done two night workouts in one week. I have also been pretty good about my food and while I don't see any physical change in terms of weight, I can see the differene in my skin already. It is amazing what drinkin loads of water accomplishes in a short time frame. Actually, given how high stress this week has been, I am doing surprisingly well. There has been some coffee but other than that I have been really good. Although this morning I had to tell myself several times that I was not going to go to the vending machine and eat a candy bar. I am eating a lot more fruit which is good, and this weekend I am actually going to cook my meals in advance which should make a huge difference. I am also going to cut out cheese for a bit, I love it but I eat too much. I am aiming for a decent workout tomorrow morning and maybe one tomorrow night if I feel really motivated. So, I am getting back on track and I am happy about that, and I am definately taking it a day at a time.

I'm going to regret this tomorrow

I did not make it to the gym last night, I came home with a horrible headache and pretty much vegged out in front of the tv. This week at work is brutal, and it has become clear that this is not the best week to give up on coffee. So, instead, I am scaling that back and trying to have only a cup a day, which is far more practical. However, today was a better day (well other than the eight hours I spent in court). I did not have the best workout this morning, but convinced myself that I would come home tonight and go running. When I came home, I kept putting the working out off, but I finally dragged myself over to the apartment complex gym and did some squats, stretching, and 20 minutes of jogging on the treadmill. I am going to be sore in the morning. Still, I was reminded of why I do not like working out at night, the crowds of people who take over the gym. I am so used to working out in the early morning hours with no one else around that it is a shock when there are other people there. I still get the automatic "fat girl in a gym" feeling, like I should go around and personally inform everyone that I work out everyday and this is not some fluke and that I know what I am doing. It is a knee jerk reaction to being in an exercise room with other people and usually being one of the larger people if not the only one. After a few moments the feeling passed and I hopped on the treadmill and began jogging. Frankly, ultimately it only matters what I am doing in my life and not what they think about what I am doing with my life. I am really pleased that I went tonight, it was a good workout and I need to do something to shake up my routine a bit. This week, so far, I already have two more workouts than normal under my belt and that is really good news. Tomorrow, I am going to lift weights in addition to my morning workout and then thursday, hopefully, I will manage some extra cardio. Slowly but surely I am getting back on track and it is about time. But I am going to be sore in the morning.

The good, the bad, the brunch

The problem with weekends is that they are rife with good intentions that never entirely come to fruition. While I did manage to replace my chair and vaccum, I never did deal with my thermostat issue or check out gyms. Not to mention this morning did not quite meet the definition of no carbs and clean living. I have a good excuse, I had two of my close friends over for Sunday brunch and girl bonding. So, there were homemade muffins, coffee, eggs, fruit salad, quiche and bacon. I had a little bit of everything and you know what, I'm not sorry about it. One meal does not derail my whole diet and having balance and a real life is important to me. I did work out today, which for some reason I find horribly hard to do on weekends, I jogged for 20 minutes and did another ten minutes of brisk walking. I have not been running in a while and I can tell, because at the 17 minute mark I began developing a horrible stitch in my side and I had to stop at 20 minutes. However, this is still a triumph given I almost never manage to actually do anything on the weekends. I am going to do situps tonight as well and hopefully tomorrow I will manage two workouts over the course of the day. Tomorrow, I go back to clean living and healthy foods and I chalk up any excess today to the joys of having a real life.

Well so much for that

Well, in case anyone was wondering, the answer to the question of how long I can make my living room chair survive is that I can't salvage it. I tried very hard and after much experimentation with nails and glue it has died a sad death (well part of it did anyway). So, saturday I have to go buy a new (more expensive) chair and get it delivered. I'm slightly bitter about this fact, but it has to be done. Besides I do have a $1000 cushion in my checking account for these sorts of problems (plus $500 in a savings account). It occurs to me that I have never before kept a monetary cushion in my checking account, so hey go me. On the plus side, I get to hang out with my girls tomorrow (well I work with one and she is back from vacation and the other is in town for the holidays) and it is Friday. So, that should improve my mood. I am still on track (mostly due to the repeated mantra in my head that I will not eat sugar) now I just need to improve on the working out aspect of my life. I have lots of things to do this weekend, I am making pumpking soup and freezing is (yes I realize my timing is off on the whole pumpkin thing since they were in season like three months ago but I found a really interesting recipie), buying loads of interesting tea to replace the coffee, hunting down a new chair, possibly looking at gyms, get the apartment maintance guy to come and look at my apparently broken thermostat,and trying to get the rest of my life in order. I need to workout and by workout I mean run because that never happens during the week, I just can't make myself run at 4:30 in the morning and I need to vacum like a maniac. I realize those two thoughts are not connected but that is how my brain works sometimes. I am off to bed, I will be back tomorrow.