Real Foods Challenge: Day 17

I had a five-miler on the schedule today, and since the snow melted yesterday, I decided to go to the high school (outdoor) track and recalibrate the Garmin foot pod. I didn't know this, but one of my readers pointed out that indoor tracks are measured differently (from the middle lane) rather than the inner lane like an outdoor track. So my calibration was probably off when I was running indoors a few days ago. I'm probably not as fast as I thought. Bummer.

But at least now I know. I went to the outdoor track and ran two laps (800 meters). Then I did 4.5 more miles, for a total of 20 laps around the track. When I think of 20 laps, it doesn't sound like much, but it was boring. I like the indoor track much better. But I really need to go back to running on the road, at least for most of my runs.

512 calories burned? I'll take it!  (Do you think 2/3 of a loaf of banana bread has less than 512 calories? Yes? Okay, good.)

Tomorrow and Sunday are both rest days, but next week I'll probably be doing a couple of dreadmill runs because my kids are off of school all week for winter break. So I'll be interested to see how accurate the treadmill is compared to the newly-calibrated foot pod.

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After I showered and dressed, I had to go to H&R Block to sign my tax papers. My aunt works there, so she does our taxes for us. We're getting a $4,400 tax return, which is about what I expected. I want to put it toward our debt, but we desperately need new carpeting, and I think we're going to do that. We've had the same carpet since we moved in in 2003, and we've had dogs, cats, two babies (now children) in that time. So you can only imagine all the years of baby spit-up, milk, food, dog pee, cat puke, and other stuff that is lurking in our carpet.

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photo source

Jerry and I were talking about giving something up for Lent. Lent begins next Wednesday, Feb. 22nd. We're not Catholic, but I do like to give something up to practice the self-discipline. When I was losing weight, I gave up white flour/white rice/white pasta (basically any refined grains) and I discovered SO many new foods. It was very eye-opening for me.

I like to pick something that is going to be the most difficult for me to give up. Can you guess what it will be this year? I'll give you a hint. It makes up approximately 95% of my diet.

Yep, peanut butter. Well, more specifically, NUTS. This isn't set in stone, so don't hold me to this, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to give up nuts for Lent this year. It will be the most difficult food to give up. Anyone else giving up something for Lent?

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Real Foods Challenge: Day 16

Tomorrow is the day that I would have been leaving for Florida to go on a 7-day cruise with my mom, my sister, and my sister's best friend. It was about a year ago that my sister asked me if I'd like to go on the cruise with them, and after thinking it over, you know what I said? "No, I think if I am going to spend the money to go somewhere, I'd like to go do a really cool race--maybe a marathon in Napa Valley or something like that."

BWAHAHAHA! I turned down a 10-day trip with my mom, my sister, and Audrey because I would rather RUN? What the hell happened to me when I lost the weight?! ;)

I'm still happy with my decision not to go. I've got an awesome Ragnar Relay planned, as well as a three-day trip to Cleveland for a marathon. That sounds like much more fun to me. Strange, right?

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So this morning I went to the rec center to ride a stationary bike (to hopefully work on my cadence). I went to the cardio room, and there were a lot of women in there chatting really loudly (which is fine with me! I was just surprised to see anyone in there). There were three bikes in front of the room, but they were all recumbent (which isn't ideal for what I was using it for). But I made do with what they had, and I got on one of the recumbent bikes.

After spending a good two minutes fiddling with it to get it turned on, I finally got going. And I was SO BORED I wanted to shoot myself after two or three minutes. But I was too embarrassed to get off that soon, so I decided to stick it out for 10 minutes. They had two TV's on, but one was PBS (a children's program), and the other was ESPN (kill me now). After 10 minutes, I got out of there and went upstairs to the indoor track to run.

I didn't have my foot pod with me, because I wasn't planning on running, but I just used my Garmin as a stop watch and pressed the lap button every time I went around the track. I noticed I was running right behind my friend Alicia for a few laps, and keeping pace with her. So I caught up to her and ran with her the rest of the 3 miles. Well, it actually ended up being 3.5 miles, because I forgot to push the lap button 6 times, haha.

Running with Alicia made the time go by fast and it was actually pretty fun. She's faster than me, so I was running at more of a tempo pace than an easy pace, but it felt good. I ended up with a 9:13/mi average pace, with splits of 9:07, 9:14, 9:18, and 9:10.

Running on the indoor track is almost like getting a new toy. The novelty of it makes me excited to run! I'm sure it'll wear off in no time, though ;)

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When I got home, I made this recipe for "real food" banana bread. It is sweetened with honey, and it turned out SO good!! I was very impressed.

I'm glad I came across her site. The only reason I clicked on it was because it's called "Cookie + Kate"... that totally caught my attention! ;)

I bought something at Kroger today that had me very excited to try--

It actually didn't disappoint me, either. I added a few drops of Stevia extract and about a teaspoon of heavy cream. It was pretty chocolatey and definitely a good novelty tea! I went to Kroger specifically for this item, because my friend Andrea sent me a text yesterday with a picture of it. We like to show each other our good finds :)

When Noah and Eli got home from school, I ALMOST caved and quit this challenge. It was really tempting. Eli just celebrated his 100th day of school in kindergarten, and the kids all had a project where they had to bring in a plastic bottle filled with 100 "things". They could be cotton balls, tooth picks, dry pasta, Legos, whatever. When I asked Eli what he wanted, he said "Reese Cups". So we filled a bottle with 100 miniature Reese Cups and sent it to school.

I was hoping he wouldn't bring it home, but he came home with it today. The boys wanted to eat them all, of course, but I told them they could have three per day. But I just kept thinking how badly I wanted to open one after the other and eat them ALL. I love me some Reese Cups!

I went so far as to ask Eli if me and Daddy could each have one, and he said sure. Then he took two out of the bottle, and gave one to Jerry and before he could hand me the other, Noah grabbed it from him and ate it. I took that as a sign that I would totally regret eating one, so I didn't. I know that one of those would have let to the whole box of chocolates on my dresser, too ;)

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Real Foods Challenge: Day 15

Running on the track this morning was so much fun! I wasn't really sure what to expect. There were about 6 other people there, but they were walking (and the outer two lanes are dedicated to walkers, the inner lane for runners). The track is 1/12th of a mile, so you have to run around it three times to equal 1/4 mile.

I spent the first half-mile calibrating the Garmin foot pod. And I was right--it was off when I used it on the treadmill. But once I calibrated it, it was right on target (I was counting my laps to be sure).

After that initial half-mile, I started my intervals. I set the Garmin to 1/4 mile intervals, so I would be running 3 laps fast, then 3 laps slow (5 times, which would be 2.5 miles). Because the track was small, I felt like I was flying around it. I was lapping the walkers constantly. I had no idea what my pace was, because I vowed not to look at the Garmin until I was done.

I was shocked when I finished and looked at my splits:

My pace for the first three fast intervals was under an 8:00/mi... I don't know that I've ever done that before (without being on a treadmill). Of course, running on an indoor track is much easier than running outside. There are no bumps or cracks in the road, no hills, no wind resistance, perfect temperature... but I'm still happy with my splits!

When I uploaded my workout info, I noticed that now that I wore the foot pod, it showed my "running cadence". I had to read up on this and educate myself a little. Running cadence is basically your foot turnover rate--how many strides per minute. And according to what I've read, mine needs some serious improvement.

Having a high running cadence makes you a faster runner. When you want to run faster, you should work on faster steps rather than longer strides. My cadence today:

Ideally, that average should be above 90 spm (or 180 if you count every step). The article I linked to above said that bicycling is one of the best exercises to increase your cadence. I think I'll try and bike when I can on my fourth run day (per week) instead of running. It's only a 3-mile run that I'll miss, and I think I will benefit from the cross-training. It's not really ideal biking whether in Michigan right now, but I can use a stationary bike at the rec center if needed.

I've never been a "gym person". Today was actually the first day I used our rec center membership and we've had it almost a year ;)  Jerry wanted the membership, and it was only $100/family for an entire year (much cheaper than the average gym). Running on the track was fun and I definitely want to do that again.

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I'm now over the hump and more than halfway through the Real Foods Challenge. It's getting easier in some ways, and harder in others. Easier because I don't have horrible cravings for sugar, but harder because I feel SO limited in my food choices. I know that it's my fault--I need to branch out and eat different things. I'm just so used to eating the things that I really want, things that really sound good to me. There are snacks that I consider "okay" and I enjoy them, but I certainly don't look forward to them--like fruit, or cheese, or hummus.

I actually think that this is one of the reasons I was successful losing weight. I didn't eat things that didn't excite me. Sure, I like hummus, but I don't LOVE it--so I didn't really eat it. By choosing foods that I really loved and looked forward to eating (like a piece of Ezekiel toast with peanut butter), I always felt so satisfied. I made every calorie count ;)

I'm really NOT a picky eater, I promise! I will try anything over and over and over again until I finally like it. Take yogurt, for example. I've tried yogurt 1,000 different ways and I still hate it. But I'm always willing to keep trying.

I tried counting calories today, but only lasted until about 2:30 pm when I felt like I was going to starve to death. Maybe just mental? I didn't go overboard though. I forgot how much work it was to weigh everything out! My food log:

Breakfast--overnight cinnamon raisins oats (not great, so I won't bother posting the details)
Lunch--salad with chicken, balsamic vinaigrette, and feta
Dinner--"grown-up hamburger helper mac and cheese" --a "real" food recipe! This was good.
Snacks--one date-nut ball, chai latte, popcorn, apple, 2 dates

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RECIPE: Whole Grain Blueberry Pancakes

There are tons of whole grain pancake recipes floating around, but I could never really find one that was good enough to be a go-to recipe that I absolutely loved. So I created my own "real food" recipe, and they were so delicious that I had to write it down to become my go-to recipe for pancakes.

I've written this recipe for one serving, since I usually cook breakfast for just myself. But it would be easy to multiply the recipe.

Whole Grain Blueberry Pancakes

1/3 c. whole-wheat pastry flour
1 Tbsp. wheat germ
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. honey
1 egg white
1/4 c. milk
1/4 c. frozen (or fresh) blueberries

Combine the flour, wheat germ, and baking powder in a small bowl. Add the honey, egg white, and milk, and stir until combined. Fold in the blueberries. Pour batter into three pancakes, and cook over medium to medium-high heat in a skillet (with a little butter or oil to prevent sticking). Top with a touch of butter and pure maple syrup.

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Real Foods Challenge: Day 14

I know I said I wasn't going to mention my weight until the end of this challenge, but I really must do something to avoid gaining any more. My weight is climbing almost daily, and I'm past my "panic weight" of 137. This morning, I was 139.5. Fucking pistachios. And dates.

I used to snack on a piece of Ezekiel bread with nut butter; now I've been snacking on dates (way more than a serving) and nuts (again, more than one serving). They're just so small and not-filling that it's easy to get carried away. But I'm afraid to take them away, because then what will I eat?!

I know that common sense would tell me to just limit my portions of those foods. I've tried that, and I just seem to be incapable of stopping. I was actually thinking of counting my calories for the next two weeks of this challenge. I was browsing around SparkPeople today, and it made me miss logging my food in the nutrition tracker.

On the other hand, I've been doing really well maintaining my weight range without counting calories that I'm afraid to screw that up. I think I'll try counting tomorrow and see how that goes.

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So today is Valentine's Day. Jerry and I have never really celebrated it, simply because I'm too cheap ;)  I get mad when he wastes money on flowers or cards (on ANY day, not just V-day). When we were watching Grey's Anatomy on Thursday, though, all the characters kept eating chocolates--and I said to Jerry, "I want Valentine's Day chocolates! I'm always on a stupid diet for Valentine's Day, and I've never in my life gotten chocolates like that."

Then this morning, when Jerry got home from work, I said, "Thanks for the chocolates" (teasingly, because I knew he didn't have any).  He said, "What chocolates?" And I replied, "You know, the ones that husbands are supposed to buy their wives for Valentine's Day." So he went into the bedroom and brought out a huge, tacky, heart-shaped box of chocolates and a card. Hahaha, I was surprised--and so disappointed that I couldn't eat any of them!

They are going to sit unopened on my dresser until March 1st, when I'll probably eat all 14 oz. of them for breakfast ;)

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Tomorrow, Jessica isn't able to do our usual interval run, so I think I'll do it alone. It's hard to run fast outside when the ground is covered in snow, so I'm going to use the indoor track at our high school rec center. It's great for sprints, because you have to go around the track 12 times for one mile. So I'll sprint for a lap, then jog for a lap--18 times.

I'm going to bring my Garmin foot pod with me and see how accurate it is. I might even be able to calibrate it--not sure if I need a 1/4 mile track or if any measured track will do.

The last time I used that track was the only time I used it--on the first day of softball tryouts in the tenth grade. I decided to try out for softball, and never would have done that if I realized that we would have to run laps. I was horribly embarrassed, because I was extremely out of shape and couldn't run. After one lap, I made an excuse to the coach that I had a dentist appointment and had to leave. I never went back.

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My food log was all out of whack today, because I was basically snacking all day without real meals. But it's safe to say that the majority of it was dates and nuts. I think I'll go on SparkPeople right now to plan out tomorrow's meals!

I did make a yummy breakfast worth sharing--whole-grain blueberry pancakes. They were so good that I posted the recipe on my recipes blog.

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Real Foods Challenge: Day 13 (And a 10 mile long run in the snow)

Wow, what a great day!! I definitely feel my mood improving. I spent the morning kind of dreading my long run today (10 miles) but knew I'd feel better once it was done. I was in the mood for cold oatmeal today, so I made chocolate oatmeal and put it in a peanut butter bowl...

Just smear peanut butter all around the sides of a bowl and freeze for about 15 minutes while you prep the oatmeal.

This combination was 1/2 c oats, 1 Tbsp. chia seeds, 1/2 c milk, 1 tsp. maple syrup, 1 Tbsp cocoa powder

Just mix the oats and throw them in the fridge for about 10-15 minutes to thicken. FYI: It will only thicken that quickly if you use chia seeds--without the seeds, it will still be very liquidy (unless you let it sit overnight). To eat it, you just scrape down the sides of the bowl when you eat the oats, and get a little bit of peanut butter in every bite.

Since I was meeting Jessica at noon for our run, I was debating whether to eat lunch before I left or when I got home. I prefer to run on an empty stomach, so I decided to wait on lunch. I did eat half a banana when I walked out the door, just so my stomach wasn't growling. And I grabbed a couple of medjool dates to take with me.

I've never in my life used Gu or any kind of gel like that. Even for my half-marathon, I just had water for my training runs; and during the race, I just had a little Gatorade. So I'm really nervous about fueling during the marathon. I don't want to get an upset stomach, but I know that I will need to have some sort of fuel for my really long runs. Today I chose to try the dates--they're pretty much pure sugar, but they are still a "real" food.

Jessica, Julia, and I headed out on our run, and I immediately wished I had worn my Icespike'd shoes. The sidewalks and trails were covered in snow and ice, which made for very tricky stepping...

Yep, this is what we were running on

We went slowly and carefully, and I was feeling so great that the time went by fast. I brought my camera along to take some pics for fun. I saw all these geese, and of course they startled and flew away when we approached.

We took a pit stop because we felt way overdressed. It was 30 degrees out, but I was really hot about a mile into the run. I was wearing a thermal-like shirt under my fleece, and decided I wanted to ditch the thermal but wear the fleece. So this involved stripping down to my sports bra to make the change. Jessica did the same, and Julia was our "lookout" person. I suggested a picture, but Jessica said no way, sorry ;)

I was getting a little thirsty after about six miles, and I did what any normal runner would do during a long run in the snow...

Mmmm, snow.

Snow never tasted so good!! I ate a couple of snowballs and was good to go again. I was getting a little ahead of Jessica and Julia, so I reached my hand up while I was running and took a pic of them:

Jessica was really not feeling well--her back was hurting, but she pushed on. I ate one of my dates at around mile 8, and while I didn't feel any sort of energy boost, my stomach didn't hurt from it. So I'll probably continue to use the dates for fuel.

When we were done, Julia took a picture of me and Jessica to capture our first double-digit run for marathon training:

That's supposed to be the number 10 ;)

By the time I got home, it was already 2:45--which would mean a very late lunch! We eat dinner at around 4 or 4:30 (because of Jerry's work schedule), so I just decided to eat something very light. I was craving a big, crunchy, juicy apple... enough so that I stopped at Kroger on the way home from Jessica's to buy one. I had that for lunch along with a couple of pieces of cheddar cheese.

Not much of a lunch, but it was delicious and I was still hungry for dinner an hour and a half later. I had put a pork roast in the slow cooker (yes, we just had that for dinner not too long ago, but they were buy one get one free at Kroger last week). So we had the pork, with applesauce, sauteed Brussels sprouts, and mashed sweet potatoes (I just peeled and boiled the potatoes, then mashed them with a little maple syrup). It ended up being a delicious, comfort-food dinner.

I think I've been cooking my Brussels sprouts a little longer each time I make them--I love when they get a little burnt brown and crunchy!

Food log:
Breakfast--chocolate oats in a pb bowl
Lunch--cheese and an apple
Dinner--pork, mashed sweet potatoes, applesauce, Brussels sprouts
Snacks--1/2 banana, popcorn with oil and salt

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Real Foods Challenge: Day 12 (Trying lots of new snacks)

Almost always, after two days off of running, I start to get the urge to run. I don't think my body likes having more than two rest days in a row. Today was technically a rest day, but I really felt like running, so I decided to give the Garmin foot pod another try.

I dressed in my running clothes and took out the foot pod. I crossed my fingers as I turned on the Garmin watch, hoping that it would pick up the signal from the foot pod. No such luck. I had the watch scan for it over and over, and nothing. I changed the battery. Nada.

As a last resort before I put it back in the package, I thought, "What if I need to move around with it for the watch to sense that the foot pod is moving?" Makes no sense, but I was desperate. I gave the foot pod a shake for a second or two in my hand, and viola! The watch picked up the signal.

I decided to set the treadmill at an easy pace and leave it for three miles to see what the discrepancy was between the foot pod and the treadmill readings. I set the treadmill at 5.7 mph (10:31/mi pace) and ran the three miles according to my Garmin, which said I was going faster than the treadmill.

I have NOT calibrated the foot pod, so I'm not going to question the accuracy until I calibrate the foot pod on a track. But I've always wondered how accurate my treadmill is, because I always feel like I'm working much harder than what it reads. A 10:31/mi pace today felt more like a 10:00/mi pace. According to my Garmin, I was running a 9:38/mi pace. I don't think I was going THAT fast. Anyway, here were the results:

2.76 miles; 10:31/mi pace

It will be interesting to see the difference after I calibrate the foot pod. I'll do the same "test run" and compare the numbers then. I'm guessing it'll be somewhere in-between the two... more like a 10:00/mi pace.

I'm glad I ended up running because I had forgotten that I signed up to run three miles as part of Lori's Healthy Heart Weekend. I didn't have anyone around to take my picture, so I'll just have to make do with the Garmin picture.

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My food log was all over the place today. I snacked a lot. I tried out a couple of dessert recipes made with "real" foods. One was terrible. The other was good--not great, but definitely better than the first. The first one I made was called Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge. Sounds awesome, right? You all know how much I LOVE the chocolate/peanut butter combo. However, it ended up tasting like banana with the texture of refried beans. Everyone in the family tasted it and agreed to throw it in the trash.

The second one was called Chocolate Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies--which was basically just a Larabar-like recipe, only it uses raisins instead of dates. I rolled them into balls instead of making them in cookie shapes.

I liked these, but Jerry and the kids did not. I think they would be good for a post-run snack. I used my mini food processor and made half the recipe so that I wouldn't be a pig again and eat them all. (Well, I *did* eat them all, but it only made the four small balls you see above). I don't think I could ever make dough-like balls of anything and not eat it all at once.

I made shrimp for dinner, and it was really good! I sauteed it in a little butter, then added a touch of cream and garlic and parmesan cheese--so it was kind of like an alfredo sauce. But only enough sauce to lightly coat the shrimp. Then I had sauteed Brussels sprouts on the side. You'll be seeing the sprouts a lot, because I bought a huge bag of them at Sam's Club :)

Food log for today:
Breakfast--usual oats cooked in milk with dates, walnuts, and pure maple syrup
Lunch--leftover fajita
Dinner--shrimp with alfredo sauce, sautéed Brussels sprouts
Snacks--dates, pistachios, spoonful of peanut butter, a bite of "fudge", peanut butter/raisin balls shown above

I feel like I've been blogging way too much about food lately--it's only because of this challenge I'm doing. Next month I'll go back to normal stuff.

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My mood is definitely starting to improve, and I actually shared a few belly laughs with Jerry today. However, I'm filled with dread (but maybe a little excitement!) about tomorrow... I have my first double-digit run of marathon training! Ten miles, and it's supposed to be a low of 12 degrees and a high of 34 degrees. Jessica and I decided to wait until noon to run so that it's a little warmer, and it's supposed to be around 30 degrees then.


We got dumped on with snow a couple of days ago, so I hope that the trails are clear. I'm not sure if I should wear my Icespike'd shoes or my regular ones. Oh, and speaking of my running shoes... yesterday, when I was working on my FAQ page, I was going to include a link to my running shoes on Amazon (a lot of people ask what shoes I wear).

So I went to Amazon to include the link, and I noticed that there was only one left in stock of my size. They were only $80 (because they were the 2011 model), so I ended up ordering them instead of linking them ;)  I don't need shoes right now, but I know I'm going to in about a month or two, so I figured I'd just do it and save $20. The 2012 model is even more expensive, at about $110. 

So anyway, with a 10-miler tomorrow, I definitely am going to lay off the wine tonight! I still haven't touched the stuff since last Sunday. I don't even know that I'll be ready to drink wine again at Winers this month! ;) Definitely going to stick to less than 10 ounces from here on out.

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Real Foods Challenge: Day 11

Today was much easier than the past couple of days have been on this challenge. I kept super busy all morning, and I think that helped me to not think about food constantly. I spent the entire morning working on revamping my FAQ page and I created a page called 'Directory'. I hope this will make it easier to find things on my blog.

Despite having my FAQ page for the life of the blog, I still get e-mails from people asking me, "Do you have any weight loss tips?" or "How did you lose the weight?" and it makes me want to pull my hair out. I don't mean to offend anyone that may have asked me those questions, but I just felt like I was answering the same thing over and over and over again. The answers are all over my blog. Hopefully with the reorganization, it'll be easier to find answers.

I think that no matter what I say, a lot of people are still looking for me to give a magical answer. The answers I have to give aren't good enough, because they are common sense and not what that person wants to hear.

But all of this led me to consider doing a Q&A post once a week or so. Basically, I will pick a reader question (or two or three) to answer once a week. Is this something that would interest you? The questions can be about anything at all, not just weight loss. If you have a question you'd like me to answer on the blog, just send me an e-mail with the subject "Q&A". I'll just include your first name (unless you ask me not to).

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I'm finally over my salad kick! I had a salad almost every single day since Christmas Eve, and I'm finally done. I've mentioned this before, but I go through phases with food sometimes, which is why I tend to eat the same things for breakfast and lunch every day--until I move on to something else.

My food log today:
Breakfast--oatmeal cooked in milk with dates, walnuts, and pure maple syrup
Lunch--leftover fajita
Dinner--polenta with parmesan cheese, sauteed mushrooms, sauteed Brussels sprouts
Snacks--dates with peanut butter, pistachios, popcorn with oil and salt

Dinner was so good! I never want to make polenta because of the way it smells (I think it smells like a farm while it's cooking); but I always love the way it tastes and I tell myself to make it more often. Even my kids liked it, and they don't like anything!

Notice that my food log didn't include any of the date balls I made yesterday. That's because I ate the last one before bed last night. I ate almost all of them! Jerry had two, Noah had one, and Eli had one. That means I had five. I could feel all that fiber in my belly when I woke up this morning, too.

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I was planning on running three miles on the dreadmill today, and I was actually kind of looking forward to it so that I could try out my Garmin foot pod. I got my running clothes on and read the instructions for the foot pod, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to make it connect. It's *supposed* to be the same as the heart rate monitor, where you just turn on the Garmin and it senses the connection. I never had a problem with the heart rate monitor.

I read the instruction manual for the foot pod and the Garmin itself, and it wasn't helpful. I searched online, but apparently nobody else has had that problem. I got pissed off and put the pod back in the package to return to Amazon. I'm bummed :(  Maybe tomorrow I'll try again. I was so frustrated that I just took off my running clothes and skipped my run altogether. It was an "optional" run this week, so it's not too bad--I ran three days this week.

I've just been so on edge lately, and getting irritated about everything. Jerry even said, "Man, I can't wait until March 1st so you quit being so irritable!" I'm counting the days, too. I'm almost halfway done.

My biggest craving so far has been a Mrs. Fields cookie with frosting, followed closely by a cupcake from Whole Foods. I will be a much happier person when I can have dessert again. "Real" dessert; and by "real", I mean fake. With chemicals and additives and food coloring and all that stuff. ;) 

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Real Foods Challenge: Day 10

I just ate the most amazing dinner! I feel like the Mexican version of Susie Homemaker, because I made fajitas from scratch--and when I say "scratch", I mean I cooked a whole chicken, made my own fajita seasoning, and even made my own flour tortillas. After making those tortillas, I will never buy tortillas again! They were delicious.

I got the recipe here. It was very simple, with just a few ingredients: whole wheat flour, oil, salt, and water.

The recipe makes 12 tortillas (sorry the pic is so dark)

With fajita stuff inside

But let me back up to breakfast. I decided to have something different for breakfast, just to keep my food log a little more interesting. I should have stuck with what I really wanted, which was my usual oatmeal. Instead, I made eggs with mushrooms, peppers, and cheese.

I felt so sick after eating it. I was really nauseous for some reason, and I had heartburn--which I NEVER have. Tomorrow I'll go back to oatmeal.

I was still craving something sweet, and you all have given me so many suggestions! I decided to make a version of homemade Larabars. I have a big bag of dried dates in the fridge from Sam's Club. Inspired by this version, I added chocolate :)  So I put 1/2 pound of dates + 1/2 cup almonds + 1/3 cup coconut + 3 Tbsp. cocoa powder in the food processor and made some chocolatey Larabar-like balls.

And then I proceeded to eat THREE of them. I wish I could be satisfied with one, but it was so good that I had another and then another. Jerry commented that they taste just like an Almond Joy. I told the kids that they were "brownie balls" and that got them to at least taste one. Eli didn't like it, but Noah asked for seconds.

I also kept eating small handfuls of pistachios whenever I'd go into the pantry. So I decided to remedy that problem by portioning out the Sam's Club-sized bag of pistachios into little single-serve cups:

There. Problem solved. I haven't touched the pistachios since I did that this morning.

My food log:
Breakfast--eggs with mushrooms, peppers, and cheese
Lunch--usual salad with chicken, sunflower seeds, feta cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette
Dinner--homemade chicken fajitas
Snacks--pistachios, date balls

Today was a rest day from running. I was supposed to do three miles, but since I ran pretty hard yesterday, I'm just going to do the three miles tomorrow. I'll do it on the dreadmill so I can try out that Garmin foot pod that I bought.

I felt so sick all morning and afternoon that I just ended up playing solitare in my pajamas all day. Not very productive. I haven't been sick in probably almost a year, so I really hope I don't get sick now. Especially since I've been eating "real" food this month.

Jerry took the boys to the mall today to see Star Wars in 3D. I was so tempted to have him bring me a Mrs. Fields cookie. I said, "I don't have to tell anyone--then it won't count!"  Haha, I wish. I truly AM curious to see what the effects are from this little experiment with "real" foods, so I'm not going to sabotage it in any way.

I deliberately haven't mentioned my weight at all since the challenge started. I've been documenting it when I weigh myself, though, and I'll write about that at the end of the month. I'm not at all doing this challenge to lose weight, but I thought it would be interesting to see how my weight is effected. Pistachios, date balls, and all!

Jerry is off work tonight, so we're going to watch a movie--I think Saw V. I love scary movies!

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Real Foods Challenge: Day 9

I'm really starting to hate this challenge. I'm dying to eat something sweet--and I mean SWEET like sugar, not sweet like a medjool date or honey. The first six days or so weren't bad at all, but the last few days have been awful.

I'm extremely tired and lacking energy, my skin feels greasy and is breaking out like a teenager, and I've turned into a superbitch. If anything, I was hoping that eating "real" food would make me feel better, not worse. When I was trying to think of something to make for dinner, I kind of flipped out and yelled to Jerry that I was quitting the stupid challenge--but I didn't, of course. I'm going to stick to it for the entire month.

But just for the record, I'm NOT happy about it.

There, tantrum over. I never did think of something decent for dinner, so I had shredded wheat with frozen blueberries. I don't like shredded wheat (unless it's frosted), so I just ate the blueberries and milk. And too many pistachios.

So my food log looks strange, but something like this:
Breakfast--usual oats cooked in milk with dates, walnuts, and maple syrup
Lunch--usual salad with chicken, almonds, feta cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette; piece of homemade cinnamon raisin bread
Dinner--couple bites of shredded wheat, blueberries, milk, pistachios, 3 medjool dates
Snacks--pistachios, and probably something else tonight (not sure what yet)

I'm going to write out a food plan for tomorrow so I don't feel like I'm always scrambling for something to eat when I get hungry.

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On a positive note, I finally get to spill the beans on a project I've been working on for a couple of months. Shortly after my surgery, a man named Rik e-mailed me. He's a reader of my blog that lost 90 pounds and had the same surgery as me. He also became a runner, and he's done a few Ragnar Relays.

I've been wanting to put together a Ragnar team ever since I ran the one in 2010, but I'd be lost as far as being a team captain (it's a lot of work!). Rik said he'd captained a team before, so he would be willing to do the busy work if I could help come up with a team. We thought it would be really fun to put together a Ragnar team of people like us--that had lost a significant amount of weight and become runners along the way. I sent out invites to people that immediately came to mind (people whose blogs you may even read), and after some planning, we are "officially" registered as of today...

We are going to be running the Ragnar Relay Key West in January 2013!!

I am so psyched about this! I'm really excited to meet everyone. We are all strangers to each other from around the country, so this should be really interesting.

We're still waiting for some of our team members to confirm, but so far, here is our list of confirmed runners:
Moi, of course ;)
Rik
Mary from a small loss
Jen from From FAT to FINISH LINE
Andrea (a reader of mine who I "met" via e-mail... she was on Oprah!!)
Allison (an online friend of Rik's)

The course starts in Miami and finishes in Key West. My brother Brian just ran this one last month and said it was awesome. So this is how I'm going to be kicking off 2013!

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Okay, I just took a break from writing this to go for a run, and I feel so much better now. I had a four miler scheduled, but I decided to do intervals. I decided to run (and try to PR) a 5k next month, and I want to get faster before then. (Anyone else doing the Corktown 5k?) So I'll be doing more speed work. Today I did four miles broken up into: warm-up, then 1/2 mile fast, 1/4 mile slow (5 times).

The half-mile intervals were HARD. I wanted to quit so many times and just run slowly, but if I'm going to PR a 5k, I'll have to run about an 8:41/mi (which will give me a sub-27:00 time). But I'm really hoping to get a sub-26:00 time, which would mean a 8:21/mi pace. So I have some serious work to do in the next four weeks!

My pace for my 1/2 mile splits was: 8:22, 8:44, 8:24, 8:53, 8:45. That's an average of 8:38/mi. pace. It felt so hard that I was thinking, "I really don't need to PR. What does it really matter? This isn't even fun." But it DOES matter, because I wrote it on my 30-in-30 list, and I really want to do it.

Speaking of the list, I got to cross one off today... and it was totally unintentional. I did a nighttime run! I was just about to head out the door at 6:00, when I thought I'd better grab my reflective vest from the Ragnar just in case it got a little dark. Well, it actually got really dark pretty quickly, and I was glad that I grabbed the vest.

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