Brie Fit

I get a full unicorn sticker today!

I also win an award for self control.  My newly adopted, “If it didn’t walk in the door in your lunch bag, it’s not walking out the door in your tummus” rule worked its magic again!

I was invited to a breakfast this morning, and instead of going and eating delicious greasy biscuits and eggs and sausage, I ate my cereal beforehand and settled for a cup of coffee.  (Which totally does not count, because I would have had my own personal coffee, and this was a mere substitute, and whatever, it’s just coffee.)

I also resisted delicious breakfast leftovers all day, and was happy with my decision around noon when the grease congealed in the sausage pan and turned the whole thing into a Jell-O-esque brick.

Lunch:

Nothing exciting, but fresh and delicious.

Also, I joined DailyMile.  Follow me, or whatever you call it.

Snack:

After work, I went to the gym.  I felt like lifting, but also had a bit of a running itch, so I decided to run sprints between supersets.  I did:

• 400 m sprint: 2:07
• Superset: 3X deadlifts (12 @ 80 lbs) and shoulder press (12 @ 30 lbs)
• 400m sprint: 2:05
• Superset: 3X lunges (24 @ 50 lbs) and lat pulldown (10 @ 60 lbs)
• 400m sprint: 2:04
• Superset: 3X overhead squats (12 @ 40 lbs) and upright row (12 @ 40 lbs)
• 400m sprint: 1:59
• Superset: 3X dumbbell snatch (12 @ 25 lbs) and bicep curls (12 @ 20 lbs)

And that was that.  Pleasantly taxing.

And then it turned into the best day of my life when I got home.

Okay, so that was a bit of hyperbole.

Tim…is kind of a quintessential lawyer.  He follows rules, and this extends to his food preferences.  He is what I refer to as a strict constructionist.   This means that, if you are out of hamburger buns, and hamburgers are on the menu, well, it just does not belong on a slice of bread instead.  This also means that you eat breakfast for your first meal of the day, and never again.

(He also claims to be traumatized by school lunch breakfast for lunch—soggy eggs and the like.)

But I love breakfast.  I eat breakfast for lunch all the damn time.  And I would eat it for dinner all the damn time too if Tim didn’t have this rule.

So, last week, I made puppy dog eyes and stuck my lip out a bit and he agreed.

And I think he liked it!

I had an English muffin, eggs over medium, bacon, and watermelon.

Tim had bacon, peanut butter toast, and poached eggs (his new obsession).

Speaking of which, he has requested that I ask the blog world if anyone knows how to poach eggs without excessive amounts of white foam appearing.  Any ideas?

Did you eat hot lunch at school?  What were your favorites and least favorites?

It was an unexpectedly late night last night and I didn’t sleep well.  Bear with me.

I fancied up my Greek yogurt breakfast today with flavored raspberry Chobani instead of plain yogurt. 

I’m liking the yogurt for breakfast thing lately, but I think I’m actually ready to bring back breakfast cookies, which I ate pretty much every day for an entire year.  Maybe I will pick up the supplies at the store next week and mix things up?

(For those of you who want to know how I make a breakfast cookie—roughly 1/2 to 2/3 cups old fashioned oats, 1 tablespoon-ish of nut butter (snort), 1 scoop chocolate whey protein, a few splashes of milk, and mix-ins like dried fruit, coconut, etc.  Splash in the milk bit by bit until the mixture is crumbly, not wet, press into a plate/container and refrigerate overnight.  Voila.)

Anyway, for lunch we were going out for a co-worker’s birthday today.  At 1 pm.  Which meant we wouldn’t be eating until at least 1:30, which is way too late for me, so I had a morning snack today.  Unorthodox!

For lunch we went to Blanc Burgers.  I had a turkey burger with spinach and swiss, and sweet potato fries.

Burger was excellent, fries were underwhelming, service was terrible.  It took us two hours to have lunch, and the restaurant was half empty.  The server was very nice, but forgot several things and was slow as molasses.  I think I’ll opt for takeout next time.

The upside of a two hour lunch is that the afternoon went by really fast.

The downside of a two hour lunch is that I was too full to run.

The upside of not being able to run, and eating a protein packed lunch, is that I had an excellent lifting workout.

I don’t remember what I did, exactly.  I think I did supersets of overhead squats/lat pulldowns, shoulder presses/dumbbell snatches, deadlifts/lateral raises, and step-ups/bench press.   I don’t remember the weights I used, but it took about 45 minutes and I was sweaty afterwards.

The weird part was that my left side felt very weak.  When I did Crossfit with my buddy a few weeks ago, my thumb and forearm felt numb and tingly for about two weeks afterwards and is just now starting to feel normal again.  Today I had a lot of trouble keeping that side under control and it felt very weak.  And I also have a very twitchy left eyelid for the past two days.  Hmm.

For dinner, we had chicken tacos, to which I added a few blue corn chips and fresh cantaloupe.

I have decided that I’m terribly bad at figuring out how much produce we need for a given week.  It’s Wednesday, I shopped on Saturday, and I’ll run out of fruit tomorrow.  Blech.

Anyway, I’m exhausted and I’ve instructed Tim to tuck me in at 9 am.  Hopefully some good snoozing tonight will send my twitchy eye away!

What was the worst service you ever got at a restaurant?

Whew!  Today was a crazy, but fun, day.

I started out the morning by sleeping a bit late (9 am) and then going up to grab a quick breakfast. 

I had a miserably stale cinnamon raisin bagel, some pineapple, and some bacon.  There was a really tiny spread available, so options were limited.  Womp womp.

Then, I wasted time putzing around my hotel room for awhile.

Then I worked out.

My legs are sore to the point of waddling (I did lots of squats, lunges, and deadlifts on Wednesday), so I took it easy with half an hour on the elliptical and about 20 minutes of upper body lifting. 

For lunch, I hit up the Highland Bakery, which came highly recommended.

I had trouble finding parking, which I figured was a good sign.  As I went to take my seat at the counter, I noted that the breakfast dishes looked and smelled awesome, so I went for breakfast for lunch.

Sometimes simple is the way to go.  I had an egg sandwich with white cheddar on the most amazing rosemary garlic bread with a side of fruit.  I seriously wanted to buy a loaf and stash it in my bag.  The sandwich was otherwise good—you could tell the ingredients were fresh, and the service was good.

For dessert, on the way out, I picked up a mini donut.  How cute is this?

It was suprisingly awesome for something so small, and was the perfect size for a little dessert.

Afterwards, I headed to the World of Coca-Cola.

I was a wee bit annoyed with the pricetag—$16 for entry, plus $10 for parking was kind of lame.

It was fun to see all the Coke memorabilia.

Some days I really feel like I could use a brain tonic, don’t you?

There was also a tasting room, which was frankly just kind of a mob scene with a very sticky floor.

I did get a Raspberry Diet Coke from this fancy little machine, though.  I wanted to like it, but it reminded me of some unfortunate incidents with raspberry vodka in college.

After the World of Coke, I went to the Martin Luther King, Junior National Historic Site, which was free, with free parking, and was much more awesome than the World of Coke.

I also had an apple.

Anyway, the MLK historic site was incredibly moving.  Definitely worth a visit if you’re in Atlanta.

Afterwards, I went shopping, and walked out of both Lululemon and Sephora empty-handed.  Someone give me a cookie, quick!

I was pretty pooped after all that, so I just had a quick Panera dinner.

Ham sandwich, and their new lemon chicken orzo soup, which I LOVED.

I would have liked to try something a little more adventurous for dinner, but frankly, after awhile, eating alone at restaurants gets a little depressing.

Now, I’m spending the rest of the evening watching TLC in my hotel room.  Tomorrow, I plan to work out and then I don’t know.  I have some work in the evening and have a late night flight home, so we’ll see!

What’s your favorite way to see a new city?

Today was just…off.

I was too lazy to pack a lunch last night, so I just kind of improvised in the morning and threw shit in my lunch bag.  Like a breakfast sandwich, cantaloupe, and yogurt.

And I was still hungry so I had some baked chips. 

I did have the foresight to pack a slice of homemade challah for an afternoon snack, which I smeared with peanut butter, and was excellent.

After work, I had another crappy gym session. 

Part of the problem is that I was just indecisive.  I ran for awhile, and then lifted for awhile, and ran for a little while, and then left because I was feeling nauseous AGAIN.   I usually have a cast iron stomach, but the last few days it’s definitely felt a little bit off. 

So, it was generally an unfocused workout  but, you know, at least I did something.

I got home and attempted to make sweet potato fries but I dropped them.  See?  Off day.

So dinner wound up being leftover pulled pork, roasted potatoes, and the last of the cantaloupe because I’m going out of town and Tim doesn’t like it.

For some completely idiotic reason, I put myself on a 7 am flight tomorrow morning, so…I’m off to pack!

God, I wish I could just not title blog posts.   Least favorite part of blogging ever.

Another birthday present today!

A fun assortment of organic snacks, liquor-filled chocolates, and whimsical baking gear from my boss.  She really knows me well, huh?

(No sarcasm.  She really does!)

I was late to work today because I got my teeth cleaned at the dentist this morning.  They saw on my chart that it was almost my birthday and they gave me EXTRA toothpaste and floss.  Happy birthday to me!

In other news, my teeth are still totally awesome.  Cavity-free!  Woo!

I’ll give you three guesses as to what I had for lunch.  First two don’t count.

Ding ding ding!

I also had some trail mix for snacktime.

Okay, so it’s confession time.  I’m kind of sucking at tracking my calories lately.  I’m just tired of it.  I’ve been doing it for about six months and that seems to be about the general length of time I can track before I start feeling annoyed with the whole process.  I haven’t really tracked regularly for the last few weeks, just a few days here and there, and I’ve maintained my weight, so I think I’m going to just track part-time—3-4 days a week or so.  If I start gaining weight, I’ll go back to full-time, but I think I’ve been doing pretty well as is.

Moving along.

I unexpectedly kicked my own ass at the gym today.  I wasn’t planning on a super hardcore workout but one happened anyway.  I love those days. 

See how sweaty and jacked I am?

Here’s what I did.

Warm up: 5 minutes on treadmill, increasing pace .1 each minute, start at 6.5, end at 7.0 (total: .55 miles)

Set 1:  3 X 12 back squats, 105 pounds

Cardio Interval: 3 minute sprint, increase pace .1 each minute, start at 7.0, end at 7.2 (.35 miles)

Superset 2: 3 X 10 lat pulldown at 60 pounds, 3 X 10 shoulder press at 40 pounds

Cardio Interval: 3 minute sprint, increase pace .1 each minute, start at 7.0, end at 7.2 (.35 miles)

Superset 3: 3 X 10 deadlift at 55 pounds, 3 X 10 dumbbell bench press at 40 pounds

Cardio Interval: 3:30 minute sprint, increase pace .1 each minute, start at 7.1, end at 7.4 (.40 miles)

Superset 4: 3 X 10 bicep curl at 30 pounds, 3 X 10 upright row at 30 pounds

Cardio Interval: 3 minute sprint, increase pace .1 each minute, start at 7.0, end at 7.2 (.35 miles)

Totals: 51 minutes, 458 calories burned, 2 miles

It was seriously awesome.  I rested very little between sets to keep my heart rate up, and I almost puked on the last two sprints.  Normally I think puking while working out is silly, because hello, it’s kind of supposed to be enjoyable, but sometimes I really like to push the envelope.  My upper body is totally shaky.

Dinner was also pretty great.

Chicken parmesan burgers, sweet potato fries, and roasted mushrooms.  All delicious.

Ack!  I have packing to do!  I’m heading to DC in the morning and have a jam-packed schedule so I don’t think I’ll be doing a blogger meetup, unfortunately—I have dinner with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law (and a visit with my cutie nephew) tomorrow night, breakfast with sorority sisters (Alpha Chi Omega, represent!) Saturday, work all day, then dinner with buddies Saturday night.  And a red-eye home Sunday morning.  It’s going to be a crazy whirlwind kind of day!

For fun, since I’m going to see her soon, here is a vintage photo of me doing sorority stuff back in the day with my buddy Brooke (who I also saw at the Disney Princess Half Marathon!).

I had braces until the day before my college graduation!  Awkward. 

Speaking of awkward, here is the oldest photo of me on Facebook.  Halloween 2005.  I dressed up as a skanky cow.  I was such a hot mess.

Were you in a fraternity or sorority?  Which one?  Or did you think they were totally lame and a way to buy friends?

You know, I don’t claim to be a seasonal eater of any kind, but I have to say that having soup for lunch when it’s 96 degrees out is just a stupid idea.  Sorry.

I also lived on the edge and ate expired yogurt!  Of course, I consulted Twitter first, and they said it was okay, so I went for it.  Still good!

Also, I had a big sweet tooth today.  Whoops.  I chowed down on a See’s Chocolate Lollypop after lunch—I picked up three of these at LAX because they are amazing, and clearly, they won’t last long.  I also had a ZBar before I headed to the gym.

I had a good workout today.  I ran for 5 minutes on the treadmill to warm up.  It was dumb, because I started out at my standard 10:00/mile pace, and then went up to a 9:14/mile pace, and was like, “aw, shit, this is actually NOT super hard,” and then went up to an 8:47/mile pace, and I was like, “okay, this is kind of hard, but not awful.”  Part of my problem with running is that my pace varies so wildly—some days, a 10:00 mile feels like a challenge, and other times I feel like I could hit sub-9 miles without much trouble.  Bah.

Anyway, I lifted some weights for awhile, and then did 15 minutes of HIIT on the elliptical.  Good times.

Dinner was leftover Bolognese from Monday.

In other news, my birthday is coming up.  I’m usually a huge birthday fan, but for the first time, this year, I’m kind of not excited about it.

When I was in second grade, I was quoted in the newspaper as saying that I wanted to be an “international gymnast until I was 27, then retire and become a geologist until I’m 46, and then retire and become a talk show host.”    (True story.  My second grade class did a postcard collection and I got interviewed.)

I’m not really sure what’s bothering me, other than that I feel like 27 has always kind of been my mental block between “just out of college, still young and fun!” and “okay…adult time, what are you doing with your life?”

Anyway, I have this theory that even-numbered ages suck, and odd-numbered ages are good.  All major bad events in my life have occurred when I was an even-numbered age:

• Dad died (8 years old)
• Grandpa died (8 years old)
• Bad accident requiring stitches (12 years old)
• Grandma died (16 years old)
• Horrible breakup (22 years old)
• Start of law school/depressed period (22 years old)
• Marathon training shin injuries (26 years old)

And all awesome things have happened when I was an odd-numbered age:

• Win HUGE spelling bee (9 years old)
• Win history fair and state essay contest (13 years old)  (shut up, I was a dork)
• Rose Bowl parade with high school band (15 years old) (I said shut up)
• Graduate high school (17 years old)
• Graduate college (21 years old)
• Meet Tim (23 years old)
• Get Buckley (23 years old)
• Graduate law school (25 years old)
• Pass the bar (25 years old)
• Get Milhouse (25 years old)
• Get a awesome job (25 years old)
• First half marathon (25 years old)
• Get married (25 years old)

Obviously, there are a few outliers, such as “First marathon (26 years old)” and “Get Southpaw (24 years old)”, but by and large, this is a trend.

So maybe I should be happy to turn 27?  I’m working on it.

I’m hoping to put together a blog get-together in DC that will hopefully involve birthday cupcakes and/or dinner.   If you’d be at all interested in celebrating with me, leave a comment!

Today I accidentally kind of ate the same thing for two meals in a row.

It wasn’t really planned, because this was the lunch I was supposed to eat yesterday, but bailed on in favor of delicious chicken and hummus.

Greens+Annie’s Bernie-Os+Greek yogurt for lunch.

Then there was trail mix mid-afternoon.

And also way too many undocumented swipes from the giant bag of pita chips in the break room.

After work, I tried to work out.  But it was just one of those days where it wasn’t clicking and everything felt off.  I lifted, allegedly, and my knees felt weird and my shirt was itchy and it was hot and I kept coughing.  I don’t know.  I did some squats, deadlifts, shoulder presses and rows, half-assed the elliptical for awhile and headed out. 

You can’t win ‘em all, folks.

Dinner was a repeat of lunch, kind of.  Greens and pasta.

Still delicious, though.  I’ll plan better tomorrow!  I have grand plans for a fun homemade lunch.  We shall see.

I just booked my flight to Boston to see my bestie in July—I can’t wait!

What meal could you eat on permanent repeat?

I’m not in the mood for much of anything today. 

I went out to lunch with a friend and ate an entire order of pesto cavatappi and chicken from Noodles and Company  and I wasn’t even full afterwards. 

On the plus side, I have a friend now.  I think.  This is news because I have zero friends in Kansas City that aren’t Tim.  We talked about boys and shopping.  I think that counts.

I had a great workout today.

I wanted to swim, but I forgot my flip-flops and the idea of wearing ballet flats in the pool shower was not appealing.

So, I lifted.  Each set of 2 exercises was a superset.

• 3 X 12 barbell squats at 135 lbs.
• 3 X 12 deadlifts at 70 lbs.
• 3 X 10 dumbbell shoulder press at 30 lbs.
• 3 X 10 dumbbell bent-over row at 30 lbs.
• 3 X 10 lat pulldowns at 60 lbs.
• 3 X 10 step-ups at 20 lbs.
• 3 X 10 barbell bicep curls at 25 lbs.
• 3 X 10 upright row at 25 lbs.

And I finished it off with 10 hard minutes of intervals on the treadmill—alternating 1 minute running easy at a 10:00/mile with 1 minute running a hard 8:03 mile. 

I burned about 450 calories and I have a feeling I’ll be sore tomorrow.

I’m having some serious trouble coping with life lately.  I hate to sound like an emo asshole, but it’s true.   I’m tired of just saying I’m stressed here on the blog; I’m a basketcase.  Southie has stopped eating again and has the dry heaves and I’m freaking out about that and I am in a constant state of panic about where our life will be in August.   I miss my family and I just want to go out for a margarita with my best friend, who is halfway across the country. 

So…I apologize for my lack of gusto lately.  It’s a rough time for me and I’m having a hard time getting it up for blogging.  I know it’s temporary, and I’m trying to trust God but the worry is just sucking every bit of emotional energy I have.

What do you do when you’re feeling completely overwhelmed?

Because I’m going to San Francisco!

Great start to the morning!  Looks like I’ll be heading to San Francisco for the Nike Women’s Half in October, along with my sister and some dear internet friends.  I’m looking forward to Tiffany necklaces and chocolate!  Woo!

I actually had an opportunity to run a free 5K on Saturday using LivingSocial Deal Bucks and passed.  I’m a little raced out lately, but I’m happy to have some down-the-road plans firmed up now.

In case you forgot what my daily breakfast looks like, here it is again:

It’s really amazing how much of my daily food intake happens on this stupid, ugly fake wood desk.

Lunch was another turkey sandwich, berries and yogurt, and pineapple and grapes.  And a Hershey’s kiss.

We are officially done with turkey.  We threw out some dark meat today, but here is a cost analysis of our $15, 10 pound turkey.  We ate the fruits of the turkey:

• Sunday night for dinner, roasted
• Monday at lunch (sandwich for Brie, plain for Tim)
• Monday for dinner, reheated
• Tuesday lunch (sandwich for Brie)
• Tuesday dinner (in tortilla soup)
• Wednesday for lunch (sandwich for Brie)
• Wednesday for dinner (reheated, for Tim)
• 2 meals of tortilla soup in the freezer

So…$15 for 13 meals for 2 people=$1.15 a meal.  (Like you care.  But it’s good to know that we can make big stuff like this and not be flushing money down the toilet.  It’s actually probably more cost efficient than the individual chicken breasts we buy!)

For a snack, I brought one of these muffins that I made over the weekend, which I smeared with half a tablespoon of peanut butter.

They are just okay.  Does anyone really love blueberry muffins?  I had a craving, so I baked two dozen of them, ate one, and then I was like, “Hmm.  I have 23 blueberry muffins.  Now what?”  (For the record, three are in the fridge, five in the freezer, and the rest are in my co-worker’s tummies.  Although it took a really long time for them to take them all.)

I had planned to swim today, but Tim and I had to switch things around to tend to Milhouse so I did a shorter workout today.  I messed around with weights using Susan’s Full Body Workout #4 for about 40 minutes.  I am not coordinated enough to do a plank shuffle on a medicine ball, FYI.

Anyway, some fun stuff came in the mail today…specifically, my lululemon order!

I can see why people are addicted to this stuff.  The jacket and pants fit perfectly (I got size 10s in both—could have maybe gotten an 8 in the jacket, but I like that it’s a bit big so I can layer underneath) and are really made well. 

I haven’t bought anything but work clothes for the last two years or so, and my casual wardrobe is pretty much nonexistent—I think I’m going to try to bulk it up gradually with more lulu stuff this summer!  I’m eyeing some tanks and tees for layering—you can’t beat the basics, and I’d rather pay for ones that will last!  Free shipping FTW.

Also, my mom sent me an Easter care package that contained two very similar knockoff purses (a “Ferragamo” and a “Longchamp”) her friend picked up in Hong Kong.

Also a cute little fake pearl necklace.  Fun!

Dinner was random.

Two eggs, a chunk of cheese, a pile of roasted carrots/asparagus/mushrooms, and some leftover mashed potatoes made into some kinda-sorta potato cakes.

It was delicious and hit the spot!  Roasted mushrooms and asparagus were especially succulent.

Now…TOMORROW I’m going to swim, and I can’t wait! 

And there will be no turkey.  Thank goodness.

Do you do a lot of shopping?  What kinds of stuff do you buy the most?  Since I’ve only been working full-time for almost two years, I’ve been trying to build that wardrobe, but I’m definitely ready for some fun casual clothes!

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

I just feel like April has been an epic shitshow for eating and exercise (and, consequently, weight).  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE running half marathons, but…

• March 28-April 1: tapering
• April 2: half marathon
• April 3-6: recovering from half/light workouts
• April 7-10: traveling
• April 11-15: tapering again
• April 16: another half marathon

So, I’ve pretty much been tapering, recovering, or traveling for the last three weeks.   I feel like I’ve been doing nothing but light elliptical workouts so as not to trash my legs.  I miss hard, sweaty workouts!

Also, today’s eats sucked because I was an idiot.

I threw my cereal milk in my lunch bag today, but…no cereal.

I had to stop for gas anyway, and picked up some HFCS-laden Raisin Bran Crunch at the gas station.

Options were slim.  It was this, donuts, honey buns, or a hot dog from the roller grill.

Fail.

At least I remembered my lunch.

Cheese, pineapple, egg white sandwich, Greek yogurt.

After work I lifted upper body weights for 20 minutes and spent 20 minutes on the arc trainer.  It was boring, but my legs feel fine.

I’d planned on making black bean burgers, steamed veggies, and brown rice for dinner.

And then, in idiot moment number two, I realized we had no black beans.  We ALWAYS have black beans.  Except for today.

So Tim suggested hot dogs and macaroni and cheese and I went with it.  We didn’t have any other decent protein source in the house that could be thawed quickly and I was too tired to be more creative.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.  Today was kind of a lose.

However, I did do something I’m excited about!

Since I started blogging in August 2009, I’ve had “take a swimming lesson class” listed as one of my Goals.   

I can swim, sort of—I am an excellent backstroker, can tread water for days, and do some sort of half-wit freestyle.  I did a bit of this back when I lost weight, but haven’t been to a pool since late 2008, probably.  But I have always envied people who swim laps.  It’s so peaceful and I think it would be a great way to cross-train, especially in the summer!  I have access to a college indoor/outdoor pool, so why not use it?

Anyway, the exciting part is that I contacted the aquatics director about getting a few lessons—either classes or one-on-one.  I don’t think I need a LOT of help, but I do have some trouble coordinating the whole kicking/stroking/breathing thing.  Hopefully I’ll hear back tomorrow and can start swimming this summer!  (If I don’t, I’m going to figure it out on my own.)

Stupid idiot menu:

Make me feel better: what was your idiot moment today?