Playing Catch Up

Hello Everyone,

Well today's run was less than spectacular. I felt like I spent the whole time trying to get my legs to catch up with my mind which was really optimistic for once and kept saying, "go! push, push, go! go! go! go for 2 miles! go for 3!" The only problem was my legs apparently wanted to be back in bed. It was just a fight for the whole 1.2 miles I clocked in. Every step was a struggle today. I don't know if I didn't stretch well enough last night so I was more sore than I should have been, but it wasn't my A game for sure.

I tried the same route I took yesterday, only I did it backwards because it starts on a down hill which is nice but then the rest of the run is uphill....almost the whole way. I'm not really sure how I thought that it would be easier than yesterdays run but it was a struggle. I also know I complain about hills a lot but these are serious hills. I'll have to take a picture tonight to show you the type of hills I'm talking about; they are no picnic.

On two of the really steep sections I also had to stop, catch my breath, and continue up the rest of the hill, which got to me and I started getting discourage which was reflected on the last section of the loop. But I'm still feeling good that I didn't quit and finished the loop. Today is another day and I know that this is going to take time, dedication, and most of all just more practice. I'm not a runner, I never have been so I will just have to keep pushing forward and trying my best. :0) Haza!Long lived optimism!!

After the run I was feeling less than thrilled with the way it went so I decided to relax a little and stretch on the porch enjoying the beautiful morning. After a quick stretch for my legs I headed inside to the living room where I knocked out 50 crunches and a 30 second low plank. I NEVER do crunches at home because I hate them.....almost as much as I hate pushups.....but I am turning over a new leaf and I know that if I never practice I'll never get better so with that in mind I started with 2 sets of 25 and then did a 30 second low plank hold. After that I did a nice long full body stretch and hit the showers.

For breakfast it was 2 scrambled eggs with a pinch of Parmesan cheese, black pepper, and salsa, with an English muffin and coffee.

It was delicious. I LOVE putting chunky salsa on my eggs. I love the little zip of spice and peppers, tomatoes, and onions are perhaps my 3 favorite vegetables, aside from peas, but if I could figure out how to include peas in my breakfast I would! But anyway, breakfast is my favorite meal and today it was great.






For lunch it's soup and crackers and my new book! The soup is Progressive beef and vegetable. I love the progressive soups for lunch because you can eat an entire can of coup for 220 calories. It really fills you up so you don't really need much else, although today I am including a few oyster crackers. :0)


Lunch Time: Well the soup was only OK. The soup yesterday was a lot better. The best part today was honestly the oyster crackers. Ugh. And I forgot my healthy snack so I'll have to keep myself in check when I get home and have an apple or something before dinner. I know the lunch picture doesn't look good....it was a beef based broth but it was OK. Notice the left over soup and the empty bag of oyster crackers. :0) Oh and I know the Tupperware dish looks immense and before you ask I swear it wasn't full when I started, it was only half full but it was the only sturdy plastic dish I could find to put it in this morning. I got a few pages more in to my book but I find if I start reading sometimes I can't get focused at work again because I want to keep reading so I only read a few pages and then turned it off. I logged my calories into the myfitnesspal ap and now it's back to work. Paul texted me and said he's cooking a new spaghetti recipe for dinner which I'm looking forward to but I already know I'll have to tread lightly. Pasta is truly a weakness of mine but I'm in charge or the vegetables so I might do an eggplant bake or just a quick salad and make sure I load up on salad instead of pasta. Wish me luck! I'll need all the will power I've got to not grab seconds of the pasta.

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For Olive

Well friends the end of the day went great yesterday until about 5pm. As I walking out of the office, I got a text from Paul saying that he didn't think his cute guinea pig Olive would make it through the night. And it is with a heavy heart that I say just before midnight last night Olive passed away. Olive was getting older, we estimate she was around 7 years old and she had had some health issues so while we knew she wouldn't live forever it was still hard to watch. There is just something so heartbreaking about losing a pet. They are the perfect examples of unconditional love. They love you no matter what and don't care if you are fat, skinny, tall, short, silly, or anything, they love you just as you are and love you with all their hearts. Olive was no exception to that. She would squeak and squeak when you came into her room and loved eating vegetables and orange drops. She was a wonderful pet and she will be missed. After she passed Paul and I both agreed that she should be buried in the backyard by the daffodils but since it was almost midnight by that time Paul is going to do that today while I'm at work. It was really hard on Paul last night to lose her since Olive was his pet and he has known her since she was born. Paul used to work in a pet store and was there when she was born and picked her out of the entire litter. He bought her, took her home, and has been in his life for the last 7 years. It was a hard night, but both Paul and I know she is in a better place, hopefully one filled with limitless vegetables and orange drops. :0)

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It now seems odd to make the transition back over to what I ate yesterday but in the spirit of the blog and accounting for all my meals and exercise I'm going to anyway. I figure, life is hard and things get in the way but hopefully part of the point to my blog is also learning that you can still reach your goals even when life throws you curve balls. Just because there is one set back doesn't mean you need to or should undo everything you are working for.

Dinner Time: Once I got home yesterday I went up to see Olive and Paul and I spent some time with her. Paul had actually been making a spaghetti sauce that was sitting on the stove stewing so the good news was we could spend some time with Olive and not worry too much about dinner. After a while we put Olive back in her cage and decided we should probably eat something. So we went down stairs and made some thin spaghetti to go with the sauce that Paul had made. The sauce was a 4 generation recipe that Paul got from a friend online. It's Mama Antonucci's recipe so you KNOW it's going to be awesome and it totally was! Instead of being sweet it was just flavorful. I don't know why but lots of canned sauces add sugar to marinara sauce and they really shouldn't. There is no reason to, and if you add the right spices you should NEVER need to add sugar to your sauce. This sauce is a perfect testament to that was perfect and all it included was: water, whole tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, bay leaves, garlic, Italian spices, and 1 stick of peperoni cut up in pieces. It was PERFECT! The best sauce I've had and I liked that there were no weird ingredients like other sauces I've seen. It just stuck to the basics, water, tomatoes, spices, and a little peperoni.Clearly Mama Antonucci knew what she was doing. :0) The other good thing was it made a TON of sauce so we packaged up the rest and froze it. It's always nice to have sauce ready as a stand by for dinner on a busy night. 

Dinner was delicious and the best part was I kept my word and only had one serving. That might not seem like such a big deal but the fact that I stuck to a small portion and only had one while eating pasta is HUGE for me! I LOVE pasta and is a weakness and this is the first time that I didn't go back for more and actually had a properly sized portion. Although I did end up putting a second scoop of sauce on my plate and just ate the sauce but I limited my pasta like I wanted to so I was proud with that achievement. With dinner I had a glass of wine and later had one more....and maybe there was some apple schnapps in there somewhere too. ;0)

We were up late talking about Olive and I don't know if it was an emotional reaction but I started munching and I ended up eating a peanut chew tiny candy bar, you know the bite sized ones, and 4 small chocolate covered pretzel bites. This was strange for me because I usually don't eat anything after dinner but I guess I was craving chocolate and it was probably a bit of emotional eating too. Around 12:30 we finally hit the sack and went to bed.

So a bit of a rocky end to the day yesterday but I was please that I didn't get totally derailed in my plans to be healthy and while the little chocolate snacks weren't great and the multiple glasses of wine could have been avoided I was please with my day and exercise. Till tomorrow friends.