Ok, so: I had all these great plans to write a follow-up post to Tuesday’s rant – but then I woke up with a gnarly sinus headache, which has drained away all my brainpower. I’m working on a giant cup of coffee in an attempt to revive the contents of my cabeza, but it’s slow to start this morning.
So, failing the level of cognitive function needed to write something actually, y’know, think-y, I’m going to focus on our dinner recipe adventures of late.
As you may recall from last week’s Great Crock Pot Experiment, the rate of return on those recipes was loooooooooow. 1 out of 4 = no likey.
We decided to opt for a different approach this week: we picked two Crock Pot recipes and two stove top recipes. The one stove top recipe we’ve tried so far (chicken with sage browned butter) was a quasi-win, in the sense that following the recipe exactly to the letter didn’t produce the results we’d hoped for — but once I improvised a bit, it turned out well.
The one Crock Pot recipe we’ve tried so far, however, was another fail. I don’t understand how this is possible, y’all: I use the Crock Pot all the time for soups and stews during the winter, and they turn out beautifully. Chicken Marsala made in late May, on the other hand, does not.
There’s obviously something veeeeeeery different between the way certain foods react to slow cooking; chili, for example, loves it mightily. Dishes that are generally made on the stove or in the oven, however, appear to be made that way for a reason.
So, with all these Crock Pot shenanigans going on, I decided that the remaining Crock Pot recipe — Coq au Vin (chicken with red wine sauce) will be made on the stove instead. We’re gettin’ sick of the barely edible dinners, so it’s time to stage an intervention.
The remaining recipes this week are the aforementioned Coq au Vin, which I’ve loved since the moment I first tried it in my junior high French class (really, anything with red wine sauce is almost guaranteed to be awesome), and Chicken Saltimbocca, an Italian recipe that I’ve been wanting to try for aaaaaages.
Meanwhile, in the name of cookbook test-driving, last night I also checked out two new culinary tomes from the library: another Barefoot Contessa book and the Epicurious Cookbook. As I was checking out, the woman working the check-out desk commented on how much she loves Barefoot Contessa — and in one of those awesome made-for-TV moments, she and I said in unison, “She’s just so calm.”
This, I think, is one of Ina Garten’s best qualities: in addition to seeming totally down-to-earth, genuine, and just plain nice, there’s a certain Zen to watching her cook. Unlike other shows where the hostesses are entirely too perky — or, in other cases, frenetic to the point of stressing me the eff out while they cook — watching Barefoot Contessa makes me feel like I’ve just had a glass of sangria and am chillin’ in a hammock. So, to put it mildly, I’m excited to try these recipes.
I’ll post an update on these culinary adventures once I’ve tried out said recipes — but in the meantime, I have questions for you lovely people!
Do you have a favorite cookbook or cookbook author?
Do you ever watch cooking shows?
If so, which one do you like the most — and which one makes you run screaming for the hills whenever it comes on? (For me, the latter award goes to Rachael Ray. I can’t deal with her, like, at all.)
First of all, I just want to say that y’all are rocking my world with all your awesome comments on yesterday’s post. You people are freakin’ amazing! Seriously, folks, this is why I love blogging. Being able to pour my thoughts into a post is wonderful on its own, but it becomes exponentially more so when that post can be a source of shared connection for other people. You guys are awesome!
And now, to quote my loves at Monty Python, for something completely different: What I Ate Wednesday! Thanks, as always, to the lovely Jenn over at Peas & Crayons for hosting this little cyber-potluck.
Breakfasts
My breaky habits stay uber-consistent during the week: coffee and toast while writing, and then a green smoothie made with kale, spinach, Vega protein powder, frozen fruit (banana, strawberries, and mango), and almond milk.
That said, though, things get fun on the weekends — that’s where I break from my routine and, y’know, go wild in the kitchen. (You know your grandma-status tendencies are being taken to new heights when “going wild” involves cooking on a Saturday morning.) This Saturday, I decided to cook one of my favorite breakfast treats: blueberry pancakes. I used King Arthur Flour’s GF pancake mix, almond milk, and egg whites, so these babies are both gluten- and dairy-free:
One of my favorite bloggers referred to these as pancake porn, which a) is totally apropos, and b) made me laugh my tuchus off — so, to say the least, that’s what inspired the title of this post. Bow-chika-wow-wow, y’all.
Aaaaand, for the sake of posterity (bow-bow-chika-chika), one more pancake porn picture:
Ooooookay, moving on…
Lunches & Snacks
Since I take my lunch with me to work each day, I’m pretty consistent about my foodstuffs. I always take a Pamela’s Whenever bar, Greek yogurt with Udi’s GF granola, an apple, and, because it’s preposterously easy, soup with added veggies. I recently discovered Quest Bars, too — and ehrmagherd, they’re just as awesome as everyone says. Win!
Beverages for the day have stayed consistent too: half of my morning smoothie (I make a huge one and split it between breakfast and lunch), iced coffee, and the occasional Kombucha. Seriously, y’all, I need to win the lottery so I can afford to have Kombucha every day. I freakin’ love these things.
As for snacks, I have some go-to faves: Trader Joe’s kale chips, GF pretzels, and GF granola. *Drools on self*
Dinners
Aaah, dinner: my favorite meal of the day! I’m usually staaaar-viiiing by the time dinner rolls around, so I’ve been pretty stoked about these meals. The offerings have included black bean soup with roasted chipotle-spiced sweet potatoes, chicken with sage browned butter (I took tons of pictures of this, only to find that the camera’s memory card was still in my computer — gah!), and chicken with onions and cream of mushroom soup.
Desserts
Need I even say it? Fro yo 4-evah, peepz. Gawd, I love this stuff.
I was going to write a post today about our meal plan for the week, but last night as I was working out, Brandon went to pick up the mail — and when he returned, I saw that this month’s issue of SELF Magazine had arrived.
I’ve been a subscriber for a few years now, and although I originally liked it, over time I started finding that reading it makes me feel like sh*t. So, a few months ago, I decided that I wouldn’t renew my subscription when it expires this summer.
It hasn’t expired yet, though, and the June issue arrived last night. Upon seeing the cover, it pissed right the eff off.
You see, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about weight, health, body image, and fitness. I feel like almost all fitness and health information is geared towards weight loss and the aesthetics of being thin and toned, as opposed to the noble goal of simply being healthy and strong.You don’t see magazines talking about getting strong, you see them talking about burning calories. They don’t talk about how running can enhance your cardiovascular health, they talk about how to get skinny in time for beach season.
This, in my book at least, isn’t cool.
Look, I know that skinniness sells (whereas words like “cardiovascular” make peoples’ eyes glaze over). I get it. But really, I find that the emphasis on being thin consistently makes me feel awful.
I exercise all the effing time and I eat well (boneless, skinless chicken breasts and steamed veggies are my homies), but I have curves. Lots of ‘em. I don’t have a perfectly perky tush, my child-bearing hips make me look like I was built to be Michelle Duggar’s understudy, and I was genetically graced with a stomach that, despite an unending number of crunches and hours of Pilates, will never be perfectly flat. Maybe I’m wrong here, but I suspect I’m not the only one in this boat.
Anyways, back to last night: there I was, sweating like a wildebeest after a hard workout, standing in the kitchen while quietly seething about the magazine cover, and shaking with both muscle exhaustion and fury. It was a sight to behold, I’m sure.
Just as my ragey-ness was reaching critical mass, I decided to take a Sharpie and write my rebuttals all over the magazine cover. To explain where I got this idea, for about 15 years now, my best friend Susie and I have been writing witty, funny, and occasionally caustic commentary all over magazine ads we find ridiculous (and then sending them to each other at random, because nothing perks up a crappy day like an unexpected trove of advertising snark from your bestie). So, I decided to do the same thing with the cover of this month’s SELF:
Let’s take a closer look, shall we?
First, I’m sick to death of celebrity fitness tips. CELEBS HAVE PERSONAL TRAINERS, PEOPLE. Their careers and very livelihoods depend on them looking fantastic, and they hire a boatload of people to help them stay that way. Trainers, cooks, dieticians — you name it, they’ve got it. And yet, there’s this ridiculous idea that they work out just as much as anybody else and lead otherwise normal, pedestrian lives. I call bullsh*t on this. Celebs can give us all the “secrets” they want about their fitness routines, but nobody talks about the fact that it usually involves hours of the moves they describe in the pages of these glossies. (And I don’t know about y’all, but I have neither the time nor the desire to work out for 2-3 hours per day. I tap out after an hour, and then I go do other things that benefit my health such as hanging out with Brandon, cooking dinner, reading, or writing.)
Next, the issue of beach bodies: I’m so. Damn. Tired. Of hearing. About. Beach. Bodies.This is where the fitness-for-aesthetics vs. the fitness-for-health issue really gains momentum: if you spend all year working out and eating well, why this emphasis on going super-uber-epic-hardcore for summer? If you can run a 5K, lift heavy things, and you’ve been known to slurp down green smoothies on a daily basis, aren’t you already in good health? Oh, but wait, that’s not what really matters, is it? What really matters, friends, is that you look good in a bathing suit.
Adding fuel to the fire is the whole “It’s June, people! No more procrastinating!” motif. Oh, you’re totally right! In addition to everything else I’m doing, I need to lose weight and get super toned, like, yesterday! Gosh, staying active and healthy throughout the year — not just for the summer — was a seriously slacker move, wasn’t it? Thanks for the reminder, y’all! I’m sure I’ll make people fall over in disgust when I roll up at the pool with my regular body; that said, I take full responsibility for the horrors that ensue as a result of my procrastination. (*Screams internally*)
As for the alleged “miracle foods” that “practically lose the weight for you,” this is another area where the eat to be healthy vs. eat to be skinny issue fires up. Look, eating to be skinny just plain sucks. I’ve done it more than once. It drains all the joy out of life (or at least it did for me) when you have to weigh, measure, and account for every ounce of food that passes your lips. It makes food the enemy. And, in my mind at least, foods like steel-cut oats, chia seeds, nuts, beans, Greek yogurt, and lean protein should never be the enemy.
With that in mind, why not tell people to focus on eating whole foods for their inherent health-enhancing value instead of for their metabolism-revving properties? Why not encourage people to focus on nourishing their bodies with foods that pack a walloping dose of nutrients, instead of eating particular foods because they “practically lose the weight for you”? Oh, that’s right: because, once again, what really matters is that you look hot.
This one really got me. Of the seven cover features, five were weight-related. The two that weren’t were in a small font, with plain black & white text, which means that compared to the other large-font, color-blast headlines, these were the ones meant to garner the least attention. The eye is drawn towards the bigger letters with bright backgrounds, not towards the small b&w text. So, the two topics that genuinely relate to health rather than being skinny are fully intended to be afterthoughts. Awesome.
So, to say the least, I was mighty angry. It made me think of one of my favorite documentaries, Miss Representation (the trailer is below): if the media is both the message and the messenger, what do fitness magazines say to women?They say that it’s not enough to be healthy and strong – you have to look good in a bikini too.
Chances are, if you subscribe to a fitness magazine, you’re pretty active. You probably take good care of yourself, eat your veggies, and get your blood pumping at least few times a week. And yet, five out of seven — a whopping 71% — of the feature articles are about weight loss.
What, exactly, is this supposed to do for women’s self-confidence? While many of these feature pieces are published in the name of empowerment, I feel like what they really do is make women feel inadequate for their lack of a bikini body/Brazilian tuchus/washboard abs. This is not okay.
Suffice it to say, I’m now doubly committed to not renewing my subscription when it expires this summer. I’m saying no mas. I’m done with buying into a media message that makes me feel like crap and tells other women that they’re not good enough — that being athletic and healthy plays second fiddle to the holy grail of a tight, tiny, and toned bikini body.
There’s a phrase in Arabic, khalas, that roughly translates as “no more,” “it’s finished,” “I’ve had it,” or simply “enough.” As I Sharpied the daylights out of the magazine cover, I found that I was saying it over and over under my breath. Khalas. I’m finished. I’ve had enough.
Good morning, y’all — I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend! Did you do anything special?
That someecard just about sums up how I feel about Monday mornings. I’d love to be one of those people who doesn’t feel like this when a new work week starts, but alas…if you were to ask me whether I’m ok with the weekend being over, I’d be all:
Anyways, despite the general lousiness of Monday morning, I had a lovely weekend! It was strangely busy yet not busy; we had a lot of domestics to take care of, so I ran a lot of errands.
While I know this makes me a complete weirdo, I’ll full-out admit this: I really like running errands. Getting out and blazing through my to-do list like General Sherman through the South just plain makes me happy. I love being productive, even if it just involves routine life maintenance tasks — so errands actually make me a happy cowgirl.
The only thing I don’t like about errands? The fact that there’s never enough time in which to do them. The fact that I can only do said errands after work and on weekends is cramping my style, y’all. I’m not feelin’ it. Sadly, though, I have yet to win the lottery — so the chances of me being able to morph into a lady of leisure any time soon are about nil.
Le sigh.
Anyways, despite the time crunch this weekend, there were some fairly marvelous moments. Thanks as always to Katie from Healthy Diva Eats for hosting Marvelous in My Monday!
First and foremost, I got my hair did on Friday night with a new stylist, and she’s freakin’ awesome.
I had some failed attempts at a selfie in order to display the haircut, since I’m no bueno with selfies (as you can tell, I was concentrating too hard on taking the picture to, y’know, smile — oops!). This one is the best one that actually shows what my haircut (just past my shoulders with long layers) looks like.
Anyways, this haircut was extra exciting because I feel like a really good stylist is a rare find. This is especially true since I have super-thick hair (and loads of it). People have been known to get a bit slap-happy with the scissors and wind up butchering my tresses — or, in the case of a guy who was making a futile attempt at doing my hair for a friend’s wedding a couple years ago, threatening to cut it all off and shave my head. (No joke. Homeslice actually said this. I was unimpressed.)
But I digress! The “hashtag, winning” motif continued on Saturday, when we started the day with GF blueberry pancakes.Y’all, they were so effing good. I love these things. King Arthur Flour wins!
That afternoon we saw Star Trek: Into Darkness, and yo. It was awesome. (Also, can I just say that Chris Pine is dreamy?) I’m really excited for the other movies coming out this summer, especially Man of Steel and Despicable Me II. It’ll be the perfect way to spend the oppressively hot and humid DC summer!
While running errands on Sunday, I managed to pick up this adorable mug from Marshall’s. (Marshall’s is a close second to Target as one of my favorite stores — there’s such awesome stuff there, and it’s all so cheap! *Claps hands, squeals in delight*) I’m going to take it to work for some gigantic mugs of tea. Yeah, I know that tea isn’t exactly a summery beverage…hence the summery mug. A girl’s gotta be seasonal somehow, amirite?
And now, with the weekend officially-for-real-no-shizzle over, I’m off to get my sweat on. Hope everyone has a fabulous Monday!
Did you do anything special this weekend?
If you went shopping, what sort of new loot did you pick up?
Are there any summer movies you’re particularly excited about?
I hope everyone’s weekends are off to a good start – what are y’all up to this weekend? Is anyone planning to see the new Star Trek movie? (Not gonna lie: I’ve been looking forward to that for months – I can’t wait to see it!)
In addition to our Trekkie plans, I’m excited to do some cooking that will, pleaseohpleaseohplease, yield better results than this week’s Great Crock Pot Experiment. GF blueberry pancakes, Mexican breakfast scramble, and these banana bread protein bars from Oh She Glows are all on deck — the kitchen will look like a disaster area once I’m done, and I’ll probably start weeping when I see all the dirty dishes, but oh well.
On the workout front, I decided to go running yesterday and give my muscles an extra day of recovery before my next lifting session. I fired up my beloved Charity Miles app and busted out a few miles for Girl Up, a United Nations Foundation campaign that enables American girls to help raise awareness and funds for UN programs focusing on women and girls in the developing world. (How cool is that? I seriously wish these sorts of things had existed when I was a teenager, because I would’ve been all over this like white on rice.)
Anyways, since I ran yesterday, today’s workout will involve getting my strength training on. For now, though, I’m doing some reading while enjoying a cuppa joe.
I apologize for the fact that there are so many articles in this week’s round-up. There are just so many good ones, and I couldn’t decide which ones to post…so I posted all of them. (Sorry, sorry!) I figured this would allow y’all to decide which ones you want to read instead of me deciding for you. It’s a mo’ betta approach, right?
HAPPY FRIDAY! The weekend is once again almost upon us, and I’m pretty effing excited.
I’ve got big (well, insofar as my grandma-status goes) plans for this evening: I’ve got a phone gabbing session scheduled with a family friend in Colorado as soon as I leave work, and then I’m gettin’ my hair did this evening. I’m going to a place near our new apartment, and it got great reviews on Yelp…so here’s hoping they handle my tresses well!
As for the Great Crock Pot Experiment and Operation: Time Management, overall I feel like this week was a win.
On the time management front, I felt much more on top of my schedule — and even though I often needed to push my morning workouts into the evening, it wasn’t hard to do. Dinner was ready as soon as I got home, which meant that working out didn’t feel all that daunting (there’s something about working out after chopping veggies and cooking that feels waaaaaay more onerous than just working out and then eating dinner).
I also really appreciated being able to rely on frozen/pre-chopped veggies, which made my life a lot easier. I saved a ton of time and effort by just opening up a bag of veggies (as opposed to rinsing, peeling, chopping veggies, and then washing knives and cutting boards), and I seriously enjoyed that.
As for the Great Crock Pot Experiment, the results were a mixed bag. Our verdicts on the recipes were thus:
Enchiliada Casserole: Meh. Kind of dry yet mushy, and pretty seriously lacking in flavor. I might try this one again with significant modifications, but I’m not sure.
Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic: We weren’t a fan. Brandon wound up ordering pizza instead.
Beef Carnitas: A good one! We approve!
Mediterranean Chicken: This was a monstrosity. It was straight-up deplorable, y’all — which, considering that I make this on the stove all the effing time, is a fairly spectacular fall from grace for this dish. I choked down my serving because I felt bad wasting so much food, but Brandon couldn’t get past the second bite.
The fact that the Crock Pot recipes were 1 out of 4 is, um, really demoralizing!
It looks like I have a steep learning curve to climb before I really get the hang of cooking things other than hearty winter soups and stews. (I bust out the Crock Pot all the time in the winter, and I have no problems with chili/tortilla soup/insert fall or winter food here — but apparently other entrees are a different matter.)
In the interest of continuing to find ways to cut back on cooking time, I checked out some cookbooks from the library for a bit of culinary inspiration. I won’t be able to go Crock Pot-crazy every week, but if we can find good recipes that I can prep on the weekend, then that’ll definitely help. In the library mix:
I looooove Ina Garten, and I’ve heard good things about Ellie Krieger — so, I’m excited to try these out!
On a separate note, I’ve been trying to increase my protein intake as part of TNROLFW. To that end, I decided to try out three different kinds of protein bars this week, just to experiment and broaden my protein-y horizons.
I scoured the offerings at Whole Foods, and I eventually decided on these three: Luna Protein in Mint Chocolate Chip flavor, a Perfect Fit Protein Cookie, and the Quest Bars I keep hearing about.
The reviews?
The Luna Protein Barwas uh-maaaaay-zing. I’ve desperately missed Luna bars in the 5 years that I’ve been gluten-free, and I was beyond excited when I saw that they had a GF line of products. I haven’t tried the other flavors, but the Mint Chocolate Chip was delicious! It tasted just how I remember Thin Mints tasting, and I wolfed it down.
Verdict:
The Perfect Fit Protein Cookie was ok. I think I was expecting a legit cookie, which probably raised my hopes and set the bar a bit too high. I suspect that if it was just a straight-forward protein bar, my expectations would’ve been lower and I would’ve been pleasantly surprised by how cookie-like it was — but since it’s marketed as a cookie, my brain had a hard time reconciling this information with my taste buds. I kept thinking “Aw man, this cookie tastes like a protein bar! Oh, wait…”
Verdict:
The Quest Bar was surprisingly delicious! I tried the Coconut Cashew flavor, and I was really impressed. When I opened it up and saw that it looks alarmingly blob-like, my first thought was “Really? This is what everybody raves about? This looks heinous!” I then veeeeeeery skeptically tried a teeny bite…only to be wowed by the sweet and salty taste. It’s effin’ good, y’all! I also wolfed this one down, which is really saying something.
Verdict:
Anyways, I’m off to do this morning’s workout (kickboxing + more lifting) — but I hope everyone has an awesome morning! TGIF, people.
Have you ever tried Luna Protein or Quest Bars?
If so, what flavors do you like?
What are your favorite cookbooks?
Do you have big weekend plans?(I’m dyyyyyyyying to see the new Star Trek movie – SO EXCITED!)
Ever have one of those nights where you sleep horribly? I had incredibly weird, messed up dreams all night, and I woke up multiple times thinking “Holy crap, thank God that was just a dream. That was awful.” It must’ve stressed me out something fierce, because my jaw hurts from having kept it clenched all night. Brain, stop being such a hater!
Anyways, on to more pressing (and uplifting) matters: the carnitas were a success! Many thanks to Jenna at Eat, Live, Run for the fabulous recipe, because after a few days of decidedly meh or outright no bueno meals, the carnitas were a welcome (and much-needed) win. I’m hopeful that tonight’s recipe, Mediterranean chicken, will be good too — of course, I’ll keep y’all posted.
In other news, I was late to the party in finding out that it’s National Women’s Health Week — but better late than never, amirite? Women’s health is a topic near and dear to my heart; between gynecologic cancers that have affected women in my family, friends who’ve struggled with fertility troubles, and my burgeoning interest in maternal health in developing countries, nearly every aspect of my life has been affected by women’s health issues. So, y’know, the fact that there’s now an entire week dedicated to these issues makes me do a happy dance.
As part of this effort, women are encouraged to make their health a priority by taking five key steps:
Visiting a doctor for regular check-ups and preventive care screenings (an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, y’all!)
Getting active (gettin’ your blood pumping = happy fun times!)
Eating healthy (because your body will thank you profusely)
Paying attention to mental health, including getting enough sleep (*raises hand sheepishly, looks around*) and stress management (*raises other hand sheepishly, looks around*)
Avoiding unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, not wearing seatbelts (ok, am I the only one who haaaaated riding the school bus because, among other reasons, there were no seat belts?) or bicycle helmets (your body can’t function without your brain — protect your noggin!), and texting while driving (because texting while driving is basically like driving drunk, and that’s not okay).
I’m really excited about focusing more on strength training — I love how strong I feel when I lift. I hope to work my way through TNROLFW this summer, and maybe once the fall rolls around I’ll be able to kick butt using just my pinky toe. (Or something.)
I also want to do a lot of hiking when we visit Colorado this summer; I haven’t been home in almost 18 months, and I’m incredibly excited to visit for my dad’s 60th birthday festivities. While I’m there, I also want to hike the Manitou Incline– it’s not far from where I grew up, and it’s a hard-core hike. Knees, ready yourselves!
While I’m not on vacation, though, I want to take time each day to go outside and get some sun. I work in a windowless office, and I’m convinced I’m going to get Rickets — Rickets, I tell you! — as a result of my working conditions. I drink lots of Vitamin D-fortified almond milk, but I know I need some sunlight synthesis as well. If I can take even 5-10 minutes to go outside during the day, I’ll be really happy.
Lastly, this girl needs more agua in her life. I’m really, really, ridiculously bad about my water drinking habits, and I’m trying to change that. I bought myself an Aladdin cold sipper so I can drink cold water in the office without having to worry about the bottle sweating all over my desk, and I’m hopeful that it’ll help with my H2O-chugging efforts.
Anyways, with all that being said, I now have to get to work — I hope everyone has an awesome day, and happy almost-Friday! Tell me…
How do you help ensure that you get lots of water? (I’ll take any help I can get with this!)
How have women’s health issues affected you or impacted the lives of women you know?
Good morning, y’all! Being that it’s Wednesday, I’m super-excitedly rounding the last corner of the workweek into the home stretch before the weekend…as usual, it can’t get here fast enough!
Before getting into my WIAW offerings, I want to give a quick update on Operation: Time Management and the Great Crock Pot Experiment. Yesterday was a bit (ok, a lot ) of a fail. I had a ton of trouble trying to publish yesterday’s post, since WordPress kept deleting the content. (Thank God I’d written it all in Word before pasting it into WordPress! If I’d lost all that content for good, I would’ve been weeping my eyes out, rending my clothes, and sitting under my desk in fetal position.)
Anyways, it took me a full hour to finally get the post to publish properly — and by that point, there was no time for me to do even a quick workout. I was late to work again, and while dinner (chicken with 40 cloves of garlic) was a-cookin’, I knew I’d need to stay late and then come home and work out. C’est la vie!
Once I got home, I tested out my new fitness ball (!!); I got said fitness ball because TNROLFW calls for a number of exercises (i.e., the prone jackknife and the stability ball crunch) that rely on it. With that in mind, I decided to invest the $15 in this beauty:
Brandon was, um, a bit wigged out by the fact that it’s pink. We share the study, and I’m the proud owner of a pink desk chair — so when this baby rolled up (pun intended), he looked worried.
B: Wow, dude. It’s really pink.
Me: *Giggles, claps hands in excitement* I shall make my half of the study saturated in pink! Muuuahahahahaha!
Once I was done informing Brandon of my diabolical plot to pink-ify my portion of the study, I did the Fitness Blender Cardio Bootcamp and Cardio-Infused Standing Abs Workout while the veggies for dinner roasted away in the oven — and hooooooly crap, was it ever a hard workout! It was only 30 minutes, but I was sweating like a wildebeest and breathing harder than I’ve ever breathed during a 45 minute elliptical session.
A super-sweaty post-workout selfie, replete with the pink stability ball!
Then we had dinner, and I’m sorry to say that the chicken with 40 cloves of garlic was no bueno. The garlicky taste was great, obviously — but I added white wine to the mix so it would have some cooking liquid, and I think that made it taste weird. I also cooked it for waaaaaay too long, because it was incredibly dry. Fail!
This morning, though, I’ve turned the page on yesterday’s blunders and am ready to start anew with this recipe for Beef Crock Pot Carnitas from Eat, Live, Run. The meat is marinating as I type this, and soon I’ll throw all the veggies into the Crock Pot. We’ll see how things turn out this evening!
Anyways, with all that being said, it’s time for What I Ate Wednesday — thanks, as always, to the lovely Jenn from Peas & Crayons for hosting!
Breakfasts: There’s my ever-present coffee and GF toast before my workout — and while during the week I’m incredibly consistent with my post-workout fruit and kale smoothie, I tend to mix it up on the weekends. I’ve shown y’all a bajillion smoothie pictures, so I’ll focus on the weekend breaky foods: GF blueberry waffles served with a side of scrambled egg whites, spinach, and reduced-fat cheddar cheese.
Lunches and snacks have included Greek yogurt with GF granola, Pamela’s bars, apples with almond butter, cantaloupe, salad with chickpeas plus a creamy dill dressing that I whipped up over the weekend, and one of my favorite concoctions: Thai cole slaw (made with cabbage, carrots, romaine lettuce, cilantro, and GF peanut sauce).
Dinners have been all about the Great Crockpot Experiment, and thus far they’ve included enchilada casserole and the aforementioned uber-fail (le sigh!) of chicken with 40 cloves of garlic with roasted veggies. The chicken may have been no bueno, but the roasted carrots were delish!
Oh, and then there’s my Friday night dinner: I broke every rule in the healthy living book — I’m a big proponent of the theory that all healthy food and no crap makes Jack a dull boy (or, in this case, Lillian a dull gal) — and had wine (in my super-sophisticated regular glass, because I didn’t feel like having to hand-wash a wine glass…Friday nights are my nights of laziness and sloth) and home-made pizza on GF pita bread. Laziness and sloth FTW!
Desserts have had a bit of a change-up, too:we ran out of fro yo (gasp, horror!), but I want to use up all the food in the fridge/freezer before we get more. With that in mind, my desserts have consisted of mango sorbet and cherries — both are absolutely delicious, and it turns out that I don’t miss my beloved fro yo at all.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, y’all.
And now, of course, I’d love to hear from you lovely folks!
Do you indulge a bit more on Friday nights and/or weekends?
What are your go-to indulgence foods?
Have you ever been disappointed by a recipe that you were all kinds of excited about?
Do you mix up your breakfast routine on the weekends?
First and foremost, let’s do a recap of Operation: Time Management – Day One.
While drinking my coffee, I put together the Enchilada casserole — and it was all set and ready to roll by 0600.
Between 0600 – 0700, I put finishing touches on yesterday’s blog post, and then did a short and intense workout: 11 minutes of intensive cardio kickboxing, followed by 20 minutes of The New Rules of Lifting for Women (which I’ll refer to from now on as TNROLFW, because I live in DC and am fed a steady diet of acronyms).
The only problem was that I was still was late for work, but I was so spectacularly productive before leaving the apartment that I totally didn’t mind having to stay late in order to compensate for my late arrival into the office. WIN!
Once I got home, dinner was ready to be served up as soon as I walked in the door. It was freakin’ awesome. There was so little to do! Hooray!
And, with that, I also wanted to say that I loved all your comments on yesterday’s post. Kate brought up an excellent point about feeling alone in time management struggles:I always struggle with it and then think, “Is is just me? Why does everyone else have their act together yet I can’t seem to figure it out?” I think she hit the nail on the head with that: there’s a ton of pressure to make it look like you’ve totally got all your shiz together, even in the face of an insane amount of stuff to do and a general feeling of discombobulation.
Full disclosure: I tend to spend a lot of time feeling like a hot mess. I sprint to the bus stop each morning, my to-do list looks like it’s expanding faster than the universe, and despite using a planner and a bajillion to-do lists, I forget more appointments and tasks than I’d like to admit. As you can see, Operation: Time Management was borne out of an increasingly dire need to make things a bit more manageable.
Just as Kate said, though, I often feel like I must be the only one who feels like this. Everyone else seems to be so put together, organized, and polished, and many people present an image of being 100% in control. They put in an hour on the treadmill each morning, show up at work looking perfectly polished, run around all day and barely eat, then go home and cook dinner in well-appointed and perfectly clean homes.
I, by contrast, can’t eat anything without wearing it, I hurriedly work out in the mornings, and, well, see the last paragraph about sprinting to the bus stop and my cosmically huge to-do lists. I wind up feeling like I’m the only person who can’t seem to get it together.
However, when I actually talk with people one on one, it turns out that almost everybody feels overwhelmed and discombobulated. This got me thinking, and I started to realize that there’s tremendous pressure in modern society — and I suspect particularly on women — to appear capable of doing ALL THE THINGS and doing them perfectly.
It’s a vicious case of superwoman syndrome: despite the inherent limitations of time and the human body, many women feel that they need to do a bajillion things flawlessly.
This perfectionism, both the self-imposed variety and the kind brought on by societal pressure, can be totally soul-shredding. One of my favorite psychologists, Brene Brown, writes about this in I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t):
“If most of us stopped to examine the expectations we set for ourselves, we would discover that…our concept of perfection is so unrealistic that it can’t exist in one person. Instead, it’s a combination of pieces or snippets of what’s perceived as perfect.”
For me at least, when I try to do everything and do it well, I wind up doing a fraction of what I wanted to accomplish and doing it poorly. When I get caught in the trap of superwoman syndrome, I start thinking that I should be able to work, cook a delicious dinner from scratch, sweat through a long workout, and do some fabulous writing — but the fact is, unless I develop a mutant superpower that allows me to sleep no more than 3 hours per night for the next 60 years with no adverse side effects, it’s just not going to happen.
It’s easy to feel ashamed when we don’t live up to this impossible standard – and that shame probably pushes people even harder to maintain the appearance of perfection. It’s a vicious cycle!
So, then, how do we break that cycle? According to Dr. Brown, the best way to do this is to be vulnerableand authentic.
Vulnerability sounds scary, but it isn’t anywhere near as terrifying as it sounds. Not to be confused with weakness, Dr. Brown notes that“Vulnerability is simply defined as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. To be human is to be vulnerable.”
Authenticity, meanwhile, is “a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.” Authenticity grows out of vulnerability.
Choosing to be vulnerable and authentic – especially in the face of tremendous pressure to be engulfed by superwoman syndrome – can be scary as all get-out, but it’s worth it. As Dr. Brown so beautifully puts it,
“When we spend our lives waiting until we’re perfect or bulletproof…we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable, we squander our precious time, and we turn our backs on our gifts, those unique contributions that only we can make. Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience.”
So, in the spirit of Dr. Brown’s research, I’ll say this: as writing and blogging have started becoming bigger parts of my life — and, thus, bigger priorities, Operation: Time Management has become a necessity.I often feel like I’m failing at adulthood,but I’m hopeful that this project/series of experiments in time management will at least help me feel like I’m in a better place with all this. I’ll keep y’all posted on my progress and the results of my experiments!
Lastly, I hiiiiiiighly recommend checking out Brene Brown’s TED talk from last year on this very topic – it’s one of the most highly-watched TED talks in history, and for good reason!
With all that being said, I hope y’all have a fantastic day! And now, some questions for you:
If you were to make an effort to be more vulnerable and authentic, how would you go about doing it? Would you talk openly about your struggles? Would you rather talk with a handful of close friends and family members?
In what areas of your life do you feel you can become more vulnerable and authentic? Struggles with body image, career choices, or time management are a few examples (and they’re the things I struggle with), but I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter!
Gaaaaaak! I’ve been trying to put up a new post about Operation: Time Management, but for whatever reason, Word Press keeps losing all my content. *Headdesk* I’ll try re-posting it later — please stay tuned!
