Bomb Diggity!

Another "Ask Me" answer at the end of this post.

Mornin'! Hope you had a faboosh Easter weekend and ready for a new week! I am a little sleep deprived myself but nothing a little (or a lot) of coffee won't take care of. I can't believe the weekend is over already!

We had a wonderful family get together yesterday. Lots of good eats and egg hunting fun.

And of course, can't forget the Lamb Cake! (before)

After. I got a tad carried away with the powdered sugar. Oops.

I could have done a better job at taking photos! Big Boy was such a pro at hunting Easter eggs. He did not mess around at all. The Lover helped Baby Boy but out of the four grandkids, Big Boy meant some serious business. I'll have to watch him like a hawk around all that candy. Ok, ok. More like I have to keep myself from sneaking Big Boy's candy!

The kiddos were a tad hungover this morning. Neither of them wanted to wake up. Poor guys. I slept in a bit as well. Mondays are so tough but my breakfast smoothie made it all better. I've seen this floating around the blog world for awhile and recently decided to give it a whirl.

Chocolate Cherry Bomb! It looks like sludge but 'tis delish!

My CCB contained:

• 2 cups spinach
• 15 frozen sweet dark cherries
• 1T chocolate syrup
• 1 banana
• 1 cup rice milk
• 3 handfuls of ice

Sooooo good! It's a nice change from the Green Monster. Onto my "Ask Me" question.

What is the one thing you can't run without?

This is a toughie! I feel like I carry so many things with me when I go for runs. When I leave the house (or office), I carry my MP3 player, cell, key and water. I can certainly do without the player but my absolute "must have" would be my cell phone. You never know when you'll need it! There have been a couple times I've been out by myself and got a creepy vibe from someone. I totally hate when I leave without the cell.

How about you? When you head out for your bike/run/swim, what do you always have with you? Sorry this is so short but it's time to get biz-ay. Also, stay tuned . . . Blogger is making me very unhappy so I'll be switching to Wordpress soon!

2 Legit 2 Quit

Hey, heyyyyyyyyy! Who remembers that song by MC Hammer? I am doing the Hammer dance as I type this. All I am missing are my Hammer pants. Yep, I totally had the Hammer pants! I heard "2 Legit" on the radio this morning and I was jamming. (Another "Ask Me" answer at the bottom of post!)

OK total tangent lol. Anyhoo, yesterday recap first. I got a wonderful 4 miler in and I'm not sure if it was because I was wearing my running skirt but I was really in the groove. I had fewer allergy-induced coughing breaks. It was a "dreadmill" run. Still windy in OK-Sizzle.

Lunch was a simple cuke and Laughing Cow Swiss sammich with grapes on the side.

 

I also snacked on some Oikos Honey yogurt.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong but I think my eats need some tweaking. I was ravenous yesterday! I just couldn't seem to get satisfied. So when that crazy ass hunger hit, I ended up going loco on my dinner.

Seriously, I had 3 servings and ended up getting beyond full. I was SO hungry. My quick stir fry contained:

• baby corn
• water chestnuts
• noodles
• green onions 
• fried tofu
• soy sauce

This morning, I woke up not feeling super hungry but I still prepared a filling brekkie to take to work. I'm going to experiment and see if I need more protein or what the dealio is.

I promise it's not just a big bowl of apples :0). My refreshing and cool breakfast contains:

• 1/2 cup plain non-fat yogurt
• 1 diced apple
• 1/2 cup Kashi Sunshine cereal
• 1T coconut (of course!)
• 4 chopped almonds

Let's see if this holds me over well! OK on to the "Ask Me" question:

"How do you work out during the day without getting sweaty and disgusting?"

I DO get sweaty and disgusting! Since I work out/run on my lunch break, I usually just wear my hair in a pony and call it good. My secret weapon: Baby Wipes. Yep, it's a shower in a bag (basically). I also pack my deo and body spray. After a run, I'll wipe off all my make up except my eyes. If I have a meeting afterward, I'll touch up with some power but if not, I usually just go face-commando. Or should I say "skin commando?" As soon as I get home and get the boys settled, I take a shower and get so fresh and so clean-clean. Yes, it is kinda yucky that I don't get a complete shower after my run but eh. I do what I have to lol!

For you peeps that work out during the work (or school) day, what do you do? Or are you lucky and have showers at work? JEALOUS!!

Hump Day Happies

Goooooood morning! How are you this morning? I feel awesome - albeit congested  but it's getting better! First things first, recap to last night's dinneroo. Also, another "Ask Me" answer at the end!

For The Lover and the boys, I made pork chops with apricot and tomato chutney. (my measurements are guesses!)

Ingredients:

• 2 - 3 pork chops
• 1 can diced/crushed tomatoes
• apricot preserves
• red pepper flakes
• thyme
• S&P

I started by heating some oil (a bit less than 1T) in a skillet. Then sprinke S&P on the pork. Place chops in skillet to brown until you get a nice, brown crust.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. To the skillet, add a can of crushed tomatoes. My favorite brand is Hunt's Fire Roasted w/ Garlic. :) For just two chops, I didn't use the whole can. I saved about 1/4 cup for part of my dinner.

Add apricot preserves, red pepper flakes and thyme to the skillet. Bring to medium heat (you need some boiling action but not too much). Stir mixture and scrape up bit of chop left in skillet. Reduce the mixture until it's a thick, chutney (or salsa-like) consistency. Top your chops with the chutney and bake for about 10 minutes.

It's always a hit at our house. For my dinneroo, I was craving breakfast! I made a simple baguette pizza topped with scrambled eggs, diced tomatoes and shredded cheddahhhh. I had both!

I am totally out of spinach. Boohoo. I didn't mind too much since I was stahving this morning. Luckily I had made Overnight Oats. I was SO ready to eat this beast when I got to work.

Overnight Oats were prepared with:

• 1/4 cup non-fat plain yogurt
• 1/4 soy milk
• 1/2 cup dry oatmeal

Mix ingredients well and store in fridge overnight. The fun part is you can add anything your little heart desires to it! Mine were topped with 1T of shredded coconut, a sliced banana and a few hunks of almond cranberry vanilla clusters. Divine!!

On to the next question: "exactly how much weight do you think you've lost?"

I've lost between 40 - 50 pounds over the course of a 15 months-ish. Slow and steady, baby!

EEEEEK! I have a disgruntled employee coming to see me. Wish me luck! And a question for you: Do you get along with your neighbors? We have great neighbors. They are currently speculating on our sex life? Since we got bunk beds for the boys, they think we're trying for a girl now. That makes me laugh! And scares me a little bahahaha.

A For Effort & An "Ask Me" Answer

It is an absolutely gorgeous day today. I was so pumped to lace up my shoes and hit the road for a 4 miler. However, not even 1/4 mile later, I'm huffing and puffing. W.T.H. I'm sure I looked awesome bent over and hacking in front of the office lol. I pounded out 2 miles - with a few lung rattling coughing breaks thrown in there - and headed back. Hopefully the doctor will call me back soon. Benadryl, you are not cutting it for me! It still felt great getting out and getting my run on though!

Pre-run snack were grapes and come chocolate mint tea.

For lunchie, I'm having leftovers. But VERY delish leftovers.

• tomato & lentil cous cous
• steamed broccoli
• chickpeas

Throw them together in a bowl. Easy, peasy. For dessert, I'm having Oikos Chocolate flavored yogurt. Jealous? LOL.

My first question (I broke it down into 3 parts): "i want to know your AHA moment!" 

I addressed my "aha" moment a bit in this post. I always knew what I should or shouldn't be doing to lose weight/get healthy. But I never truly felt ready to tackle my unhealthy habits until after I had Baby Boy in 2008. It's actually a little funny because most people assumed my new love of running was because I was a few months shy of turning 30. Like, maybe it was a mini mid-life crisis? But no matter who tells you that you need to get your act together or how much you tell yourself, you have to be completely READY to tackle those bad habits and form good ones. I realized after years of struggling with weight and poor body image that you CANNOT overhaul everything in one day. Past Retta had to learn in baby steps to tackle one thing at a time.

I started slowly by keeping a food journal. I was breastfeeding Baby Boy so I didn't want to do anything crazy and drastic by slashing calories. I kept it around 2000 for the day. I'll be honest. When I started the journal, I didn't care about the quality of food as long as I stayed at our around 2000 calories for the day. When I look back on it now, I realize how crazy I was. Not for keeping the journal - because it worked for me - but becasue of the mentality I had about food. I was ingesting crap but felt ok about it because of calorie count. (I'm totally rolling my eyes at Past Retta right now). I could definitely tell my crap intake was affecting my workouts so I slowly started phasing Crap out and bringing more unprocessed, whole foods in. I noticed how much better I felt physically and my endurance got better as well.

Another big lesson I had to learn was to FORGIVE myself. Instead of totally beating myself up because I had Swiss Rolls (by the way, Past Retta was obsessed with those!) for dinner, I had to tell myself, "You'll do better with the next meal. It's ok and let's move on." You certainly wouldn't tell your best friend, "Wow, you are a fat pig!" so why the hell would you tell yourself that? Once I moved past that, I started working on the "well, I just messed this meal up, might as well mess up the rest of the day and start tomorrow." Why wait for tomorrow? Start NOW. :0) If I keep putting it off, I won't do it.

Overall, it's a slow and steady process with a few hiccups along the road. I still "mess up" but Past Retta no longer drags me down. Present Retta is at a healthy and happy place and still continues to learn. Now, when I look in the mirror and feel negativity about something - say, my stretch marks - I tell Present Retta, "You carried two babies in your body. They are healthy, smart and the loves of our lives." Or if I'm feeling a little down about my pace time, I have to remind myself that just a little over a year ago, I couldn't even run for 30 seconds!

What plans you have after the marathon?

To be announced at a later date! But I may have something interesting teehee.

"When we're getting a tattoo. :)"


Baby Sis, you make me laugh. Let's plan on when the breastfeeding days are over for both Big Sis and me. And after your wedding.
 
Seriously, I could not have gotten this far without the support of my family and friends. That includes my work family as well! Big smooches to all!!
 
Did you have an "AHA!" moment? What or who inspired/inspires you?