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.

Dilemmas

Whew! It's pretty warm in the OK-Sizzle today! Currently 72 degrees (LOVE IT) but the wind is blowing at 25 mph. Killer.

So this morning both boys were in great moods. It makes for a wonderful day, I'm tellin' ya. The only glitch  was when Baby Boy planted his foot in his toxic diaper. Big Boy had a big laugh over that. It was pretty funny but gross.

Can you guess what I had for breakfast? Yep, a GM fixed the usual way. I know it's boring but it is really satisfying and holds me over for hours! Not only that but it takes almost no time to make and travels well. I do the the occasional green speck in my teeth but that's why I keep a toothbrush at work. Haha.

My run was a little earlier than usual today. I kept it indoors since the wind was a bit crazy and I wanted to last longer than a 1/4 mile before hacking. I did super well until the 2 mile mark. I thought I would be fancy and throw some speedwork in there and that was my downfall. I kept up the speedwork with a few breaks to cough catch my breath.  I got 4 miles in today and it was a nice and sweaty sesh!

Lunch is super simple and satisfying.

• apple & Swiss sammich
• cukes & tomato salad on the side

There is an oily shine to my bread because I nuked the cheese for a tad too long. Oops! I brought some grapes for dessert but they may have to be for a snack later.

Onto my dilemma: For you Blogger users, do you have issues with your pictures uploading correctly? Yesterday, I had so many issues! Not only that but on a daily basis, Blogger turns my pics sideways even when it was uploaded from my camera correctly.

I've also noticed that when I comment on Wordpress users' blogs, no issue. I've been told that when people try to comment on mine, they are prompted to sign up for a Google account. Annoying!

Anyhoo, what do you think? Blogger or Wordpress? I am tempted to switch! OK off to fix my hot mess of a face and hair before my meeting. Have a faboosh day!

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?

I'm BACK!

GOOD MORNING! I am back, holla! Did you miss me? I definitely needed this break to relax the noggin. I also took the opportunity to really focus on the family and workity work. I must confess that I also took a break from training. That was very much needed as well. So, what else have I been up to in the mean time?

A little of this: (Vampire Academy & Vampire Beach = Mediocre)

A touch of that: (New Moon is the second DVD)

I totally loved Angelina Jolie in Wanted. James McAvoy = HOT for me. I loved him in Becoming Jane with Anne Hathaway. Love, love, love. New Moon was good but not awesome.  The books are much better. But I still geeked out like a teenage girl, not going to lie to ya. The Lover knew I had been wanting to see New Moon so he went and rented it for me. That's true love! I wonder if he put on a trench coat and dark sunglasses first haha.

There was also a lot of organizing and cleaning going on. We cleared out Big Boy's room and set up the bunk bed. Big Boy totally loves it and we're still working on Baby Boy's transition. I know it's not a great pic but I couldn't back up enough to get the whole bed in.

Baby Boy's room is now the playroom. It's a work in progress and it's scary. So out of control. I'm not really sure how they still have so many toys since we got rid of tons during the garage sale.

And of course, I had to tackle this never-ending beast!

I feel refreshed and ready to tackle the blog and training again. Unfortunately, my allergies are still out of control. I looked it up on-line and the tree pollen is really high. Damn you, trees! And of course, damn you Oklahoma wind for blowing it all around! So I'm relying on my inhaler and Benadryl for now. I'll have to get my booty in to see the doctor though. Bendadryl makes me so sleepy and I don't think the boss will appreciate seeing me slumped over my desk with drool running out of  my mouth (since I can't breath out of my nose). Bahahaha!

I was really craving a good, ol' Green Monster today.

My GM contained:

• 2 handfuls of fresh spinach
• 1T shredded coconut
• 1 banana
• 1.25 cups soymilk
• 2 handfuls of ice

I missed my GMs! However, I am not a fan of soymilk. Soymilk is pretty big in most Asian cultures but I have never really liked the taste of it. It just tastes funky to me. I bought it because that's what Wal-Mart had available. More than likely I won't buy it again. It feels weird saying I don't like soymilk but I love tofu and other soy products.

What's your favorite milk? I prefer rice and almond milk! Yummers! Have a faboosh Monday, ya'll!

Holla!

Hey guys. What's up? Hope you're having a great day! So after some thought, I decided to take a blog break. I promise I'll be back SOON. I've gotten some wonderful questions and can't wait to answer them. Keep 'em coming! I'll still be tweeting in the mean time.

Holla at ya'll later! Check out the lovely ladies/gent on my Blogroll. They are amazing!

Writer's Block & "Ask Me"!

Afternoon, lovelies! Work is WERKing me! No joke. My brain hasn't been very focused today. I decided to get my run in, hoping I could clear my head. Before my run, I had a bowl of grapes (forgot to take a pic!) and 1/3 of an Amazing Grass bar.

Chocolate flavor? Woohoo! Love this flavor and a great pre-run snack.

So even though I had this faboosh view, I called it quits after 2.5 miles. I'm just glad I got some mileage in.

So pretty. It's so nice to see things getting green. But spring also means the return of this for me. Darn seasonal allergies!

My lunch was WEAK! I actually brought soup but the thought of eating soup after a hot run, PASS. So I had my sides and snack for lunch instead.

Carrots, hummus and pumpkin yogurt with a banana. To make pumpkin yogurt, you'll need:

• 1/4 cup non-fat plain yogurt
• 1/4 cup pumpkin puree

Mix and voila! I have used brown sugar or topped with granola for sweetness but I passed on that today in favor of the ripe banana. It was the perfect amount of sweet. I know this won't last and I'll be hungry very soon. I may turn orange from all the carrots and pumpkin in my diet recently!

I have a confession. I am totally suffering from writer's block! Do you have those moments? I even do it when I write work and personal emails.

So my question to you is, what would you like to see more of on RunRettaRun? More recipes? More training? The reason I started my bloggie was to inspire other mamas out there to get their fitness on, even though it's tough to balance work/life. After all, a happy mommy means a happy family. So you let me know what you'd like to see!

I also got inspired by Melissa's Q & A sesh on her blog. So I'm opening the floor up to questions about me, The Lover, the job, the boys, my weight loss, my "aha" moment . . . feel free to ask and I shall answer. Post the question in my comments section or email me at RunRettaRun AT yahoo DOT com.

I'm looking forward to hearing feedback. Thanks, peeps!!

Fist Bump

Gooooood morning to you! Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday. I got slammed with work - it's our busy season. Then Baby Boy needed me once we got home. Poor dude. He's teething and it must be a doozy. He is not a happy camper. He's been waking up at night quite a bit and that is not like him at all.

Last night, The Lover and I were discussing the sleeping sitch. He and Big Boy have been sleeping in the living room and Baby Boy and I have been sleeping in our bedroom. Why? Well, we are waiting for our bunk beds to come in and are counting down the days to April 2nd! The sleeping situation is temporary and it sucks! Big Boy said he wanted to share his room so the boys will sleep in one room and Baby Boy's room will be the play room. Sounds like a great plan to us. :0) Before bed, we were saying how it felt like we are roomies right now so we did a fist bump before hitting the hay. We're dorks but it makes it fun.

Both boys were great this morning and I actually got to work earlier than usual. Shocking! For brekkie, I made Pumpkin Overnight Oats.

My oats contained:

• 1/2 cup dry oatmeal
• 1/4 cup non-fat plain yogurt
• 1/4 pumpkin puree
• cinnamon
• pumpkin pie spice
• 2T soy milk
• diced apple

So satisfying! And for you pumpkin lovers, it's like having pumpkin pie for breakfast. I know I keep saying that but I'm a Pumpkin Addict.

I'm looking foward to my run today. My new shoes feel great! OK, must get crackalackin'. Have a wonderful day!

Do you and your lover have quirky things/jokes that you do? Feel free to share! I love having inside jokes with The Lover.