At the breaking point

I love my animals, but I am at my breaking point.

We purchased trash cans with lids to keep the dogs from getting in them & eating things. Capone has figured out how to nudge the lid up with his nose.

This morning, Callie decides she's going to compete in the Indy 500/50m hurdles (we have a baby gate set up at our door so she can go in & out). Not only that, apparently they've added a Wild Card portion to it where she's prepared to climb up door frames.

We must have ghosts in the house because last night Capone barked his head off at nothing. In a dead sleep & this dog barks LOUDLY. He makes my heart skip a beat even when I'm prepared for it.

He is also now grabbing things off the counters and anything you leave on the coffee table is fair game. Athena actually licked the enchilada on my plate THAT I WAS HOLDING when I wasn't paying attention.

Personally, I think they're bored & have cabin fever. These are old dogs but they better learn some new, more polite tricks. It's supposed to be warm this weekend, so these puppies are staying outside!!

Portion Control

I work at a gym and one of the things you may be shocked to learn about us is that when it comes to nutrition, we're not the premier authority on the subject.

When people sign up for personal training, a lot of times part of their issue stems from poor knowledge of nutrition, and unfortunately, we are only really equipped to handle the physical part.

That being said, we've finally been able to hire Nutrition and Dietetics student interns and it has helped our facility tremendously.

Today at our staff meeting, our current intern presented a topic to us:  Portion Control...Never Diet Again!

Such a novel idea.  I'll be honest, at the beginning I thought to myself, "Yeah, yeah, what is she going to say that I don't already know."  But by a couple of slides in, I changed my tune.

She had some really good attention grabbers:  70% of all American women are either overweight or obese, Queen size beds are actually bigger now than in the 60s(?), clothes sizes are bigger now (I may wear a size 12 now but back in the day it would've been a 14 or 16), bagels nowadays are 3" bigger in size than what they used to be, etc.

I know what I'm supposed to eat or at least I thought I did.  She had some really good correctly portioned fake food as visual aids.  Really.  My salad should be that size?!  I should only have 5-6 oz of meat and that's what 3 oz looks like??

It was pretty amazing.  She also had dinnerware that was correctly portioned.  Holy moly...that's an 8 oz. cup of milk...and how big are the Taco Bell drinks that aren't even "supersized"??

I admit I was intrigued, so I went to the interwebs searching for "portion plates".  I found this one that I was about to buy on the spot:

Then my husband says, "Check out that typo."  Of course he did.  I wouldn't expect anything less.  And then I find these that would definitely do the trick:

I just would really like to consume the nutrients I should be consuming while limiting those I shouldn't.  I hate that I hardly eat any fruits or vegetables.  Cereal for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, some cheesy pasta concoction for dinner.  I'd like to be a well-rounded nutritionista (not in the literal sense).

BUT THEN *angels sing and the heavens part* I found this:

 How cool is that?!  Portion control plates that aren't intuitively portion control.  Plus they're porcelain, plus they're dishwasher & microwave safe.  Haha!  I just think it's the best idea ever and I'm sorry I didn't come up with it.  It's called LIFE-style Portion Control Dinnerware System by Precise Portions.  Too bad it's $120 for a set of 4.  Perhaps I will be sticking to a cartoony melamine plate.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share that with you all (y'all for you southerners).

In other news: today marks day 2 of 1.5 miles.  I'm starting to feel stronger, but my time is still a lot longer than I'd like it to be.  I have 1 mile to do on Friday, so I'm hoping to get my husband to run with me to keep my pace up.  I hate to put him through that torture though.  Was that in his vows?  I think it was.

P.S. The other thing I'm going to do is switch from soymilk to almond milk.  She was raving about almond milk and I'm getting pretty sick of soymilk.  Yay for almonds!

Another addition: Check out this video on the plates...it's pretty cheesy, but oh well. They also have a website: www.preciseportions.com

Why Precise Portions? from Rob Collins on Vimeo.

1.5 miles done

Today was my first day of 1.5 miles.  I'm finding it hard to be positive right now.  Like my coworker said, "It's the journey, not the destination."  Yeah, but! 

It's hard not to get discouraged when your knees are aching from a measly 1.5 miles.  It's hard not to get discouraged when everyone else around you is running 2+ miles like it's a stroll in the park.  It's hard not to get discouraged when the only people you pass on the track are walkers.  It's hard not to feel discouraged when your husband calculates your estimated mile time and it's around 14 minutes.  Whaaaa?!

I feel like I could go faster, but I'm afraid of burning out and not being able to complete the length I'm supposed to do.  What's more important, running the entire thing at a pace I can handle?  Or doing a walk/run at a good clip?  No se.

I'm hoping my 1.5 miles on Wednesday will be much easier like my second 1 mile run.  I'm also hoping my 1 mile on Friday will seem like cake so I can work on building up my speed.

On a side note:  my homemade smoothies always make me feel like I'm eating well.  Juice, greek yogurt, & frozen fruit.  Yum!

Please excuse the mess

I made the fatal mistake of changing my blog layout...no telling when I'll get it back to my liking.

Path to 5k

Got through another mile yesterday.  Met up with my coworker at the gym and she did two while I did one.  I can't wait til I'm there with her.  The plan for the next two weeks is to get up to 1.5 miles.  I don't see that as all that daunting, so that's cool.  I really hope I'll be able to boost my speed some too.

The mile I ran yesterday was a little harder than Friday's mile.  I got a stitch in my side which sucked.  Anyone know how to prevent or work through that?

My thoughts on why it felt harder:

1. I ate at 11:30 and I started jogging around 2:15.  Is that enough time to digest?
2. There weren't as many people at the gym to keep my mind occupied.
3. The air at one side of the track was much warmer than the other.

I need a super awesome playlist too.  Anyone have any suggestions?

I downloaded the active.com iPhone app and went through and 'favorited' a bunch of races.  I hope C will be down for some...I know I won't do it unless he goes with me.  Or maybe my coworker would go with me.  At any rate, I'm excited about it.  I think this could be a really fun (and healthy) new hobby.  It would be neat to work my way up to 10ks and half marathons.  We shall see.

Books

I finished reading Watchers by Dean Koontz.  I actually enjoyed it quite a bit...a bit odd, but definitely better than what I'm reading now.  I've heard great things about Nelson DeMille, but I'm struggling to get through Wild Fire.  It's about an American plan to nuke two cities in the U.S. so that we can nuke Islamic countries.  So far it's just been a bunch of talking about the plan and not much action.  I hope it picks up soon.  And even if it doesn't, I'll still trudge through it because I'm the type to read a book start to finish no matter how much I hate it.

Shockingly, (because I typically read only one book at a time) I'm also reading The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.  I really hope I find some spark of genius in there.  I didn't know it at the time I bought it, but it seems this book is more about coming out of credit card debt.  Which doesn't really help us because my husband is about to pay off his last credit card.  So the only debt we'll have is our mortgage and student loans.  I'm only three chapters in, so maybe later on I'll be more happy with it.  So far it's just been three chapters of him touting his plan.  I suppose that's what you sign up for when you buy a book based on a plan.

Run #2 Not So Complete

So I promised my coworker & friend (she's super cool, so I'll consider her a friend) a while ago that I would go to Zumba with her today.  I didn't think about this until this morning when it dawned on me that today is supposed to be a mile run.  Had I prepared accordingly I could've run this morning.  This evening is out of the question since I'm working on my thesis.  Let's just let that set in...working on my thesis.

Back to my story.  I go in to work this morning and I tell her sorry, gotta bail on you today.  And she says oh no no, I'm not letting you off the hook that easily.  So she tells me, do Zumba today, run tomorrow, walk Friday, and then run Saturday.  The original plan was to run today, rest Thursday, run Friday, then walk Saturday.  She was pretty convincing, so I did Zumba today.

And the reason for this post.  It is so much fun.  I know you probably hear that over and over, but really, it is.  Although, I could see it not being very much fun if you don't have a good group that likes to be silly.  And I'm not so sure it would be as much fun doing it in your living room either.

Moral of the story:  try Zumba at your local wellness facility.

Day 1 Complete

I am going to run a 5k.  Always wanted to, never have.  My wonderful brother created a training plan for me.  I started this plan today.  Run 1 mile. 

I am not a runner.  I have not run since...since...more than a year ago. 

I "ran" a mile today.  I don't know what my pace was, but I did it.  I almost passed out after I finished my final lap, but I did it.

I am proud.

I shall run 1 mile again on Wednesday.

I wish headaches didn't exist.

I've always wanted to make every recipe in a cookbook, so watching Julie & Julia 'inspired' me.  I just looked through my cookbooks & realized I don't really have a cookbook that's conducive to that.  I have a Paula Deen cookbook (signed by her btw), but my first thought (& why ultimately decided against using that one) was that my husband and I would surely gain 50 lbs by the time I was half way through it. 

After careful thought & consideration, I decided on "Blondes Have More Fun...Cooking" that I purchased for pennies at our local bookstore.  I flipped open to the first recipe under "Main Dishes" and find: Jack's Fat Hen & Yellow Rice.  "Boil cut up hen in salted water with chopped onion, celery, garlic, and bay leaf.  Cook until chicken is tender."  At this point I conclude this won't be happening because: HOW THE HECK DO YOU KNOW WHEN THE CHICKEN IS TENDER?!  Maybe it's just me, but I need time frames people!  I need rules!  Regulations!  Temperatures!  I think I'm going to reconsider this every recipe thing.

Just in case you were wondering, my New Year's resolution is to floss every night.  I missed last night, so I guess I'll have to floss twice tonight.  ;oD

On sad news, I go back to work tomorrow.  Actually, it's not that sad now that I think about it.  It means I can work out again & get some much needed socialization.  I have been in such a funk lately!

On really sad (& weird) news I was reading an article this morning on the front page of the Asheville Citizen Times about a guy who shot himself in Georgia after being confronted by police after he shot and killed his (ex?)wife & hurt her sister outside of a motel in Cherokee.  I quickly realized this guy was the same guy I worked with at a different hotel in Cherokee.  He didn't seem like a terrible guy but I definitely wasn't surprised with this news.  Makes me cringe with the thought that I went out to his truck once to see his cat.  I know, that's weird, but it made perfect sense at the time.

Alright, this headache has gotten to be more than I can bear.  Talk atcha later--and good luck with those resolutions!!

Hello 2011!

I've been MIA for a while...not sure whether I just haven't had much to say or I'm burnt out on technological life.  Both perhaps?

My sister had to yell at me to play my turn on Words with Friends.  Not sure what my deal with that was...I think it was because I was consumed with playing the best words possible & winning.  Needless to say, it took tons of time & therefore became not very much fun.  Now I'm just playing whatever word comes to mind (most of the time) and I'm enjoying it again.  Yay!

My husband bought me a to-do list app for my phone the other day.  It's call Epic Win & I think it was designed with me in mind.  They describe it as a role-playing game where you level up, collect loot, etc. as you complete the tasks on your to-do list.  Totally cheesy & totally me.

The house is pristine right now.  Bed made, dishes done, office clean, chili cooking, rolls rising...is it because of my new app?  I'm placing my bet on the thesis I don't want to face.  Moving on.

We watched Julie & Julia on our Netflix Instant Queue today.  I have to admit, I'd love to do that (just the working through a cookbook bit--not the blogging about it bit) but it'd have to be from a cupcake cookbook or something like that.  :o)

Two people asked me over break if I'd consider becoming a veterinarian.  I used to think I wanted to go that direction but after working at a vet clinic and hearing over and over how difficult it is to get into vet school, I decided against it.  Recently I've struggled with "my path".  As I've grown older I've come to realize, I'm smart, I can do it.  I haven't had much confidence in my capabilities up until now.  I'm contemplating looking into the programs at NCSU after I graduate.  I glanced at their website a couple of days ago & was surprised at how many options they provide.  My thoughts on this are:  What's the harm in trying?  I don't want to go through life thinking, "What if...?"  I'd also love the prestige...I'm sorry, but I don't want to be doing the grunt work of an administrative assistant my whole life.  I've spend the majority of my life in school, why not take a break?  If I've truly found where I need to/should be, it'll be fine. 

What am I passionate about?  What makes me happy?  My dogs.  Animals.  Doing wonderful things for all creatures, great and small.