food hangover

Posted in Food & Drink, beer, fitness with tags , , on February 8, 2010 by Marie

Yello.

So I’m taking a break from eating — the stupid Super Bowl forced me to eat my way through a metric ton of melted cheese…it may not look special, but let me assure you: I make a damn fine batch of white cheddar queso.

Also scarfed a buttload of Pat’s famous blond chili…

and of course the mighty Dread was there to wash it all down!

So today I cleaned up my act and put the brakes on the eating binge..

Lunch was a handful of my favorite trek mix from TJs — the sweet and savory mix of vanilla and peanut better chips, nuts and cranberries.

And I made a really good batch of beet juice, with apple, ginger, celery and carrots.

So pretty!

I’m not trying to starve myself or anything, I just was not hungry at all today. I was stuffed to the gills with cheese and beer and it was a nice change to eat light and try to get back to that normal healthy balance. Some people say when they eat a lot it makes them feel even hungrier the next day, but I just felt fat and full. :-)

I’m going to do my workout in front of the tv tonight — some light stretching, crunches and pushups. The hammy feels much better but my groiny is still killing me. I’m supposed to run tomorrow so fingers crossed this thing goes away on it’s own. I feel like I spent all of 2009 dealing with my sprained ankle, and I just don’t think I can cope with another injury this year.

And, sorry I’m not very interesting or witty tonight — I think the creative juices must have leaked out of my ears and pooled around my head in a sticky, congealed mess while I slept last night. Tomorrow will be better.

Peace!

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dessert for breakfast

Posted in fitness with tags , , , , on February 7, 2010 by Marie

So Kloé must have been reading my mind — I was griping about being sore and stiff yesterday and then I read up on her latest challenge – stretching! Wooooord.

So I tuned in for about 30 minutes of MTV’s Jersey Shore marathon this morning and I did just that (throwing in a few enthusiastic fist-pumps). I have a couple of tender spots on my left leg: my hamstring area and -after consulting an anatomy chart online- what I think is either the pectineus or brevis adductor (aka my groiny). It just feels like a band of tightness going across. Not comfy. So I focused on those areas. The hammies are easy to stretch but the groin muscles are a little bit trickier.

I don’t know jack about yoga, but I’ve picked up some of the basic poses, and the cobra, lunge and bound angle poses have proven great for stretching the groin muscles.

I’ve been meaning to start practicing yoga regularly, but there’s not a studio in my little town — the closest one is about 20 minutes away; and the ones that come highly recommended are all the way across town. I have come to despise the gym and I really don’t wanna go there anymore but I need to figure out what I’m going to do instead — and soon. Hubby and I only pay about $33/month total for our gym memberships, but that’s still $16.50 down the drain every month that I don’t go. Blah.

I made an uber decadent waffle for breakfast –I used lowfat greek yogurt, raw unsalted almond butter, cinnamon, maple syrup, banana and some blended almonds left over from the last time I made almond milk. It’s just the puree that you strain through the cheesecloth — instead of throwing it away I’ve been using it as a topping. I swear the waffle is under there somewhere…

And a nice, hot cup of coffee with almond milk…

We’re having a few friends over later on to watch the SB — since we hate the Colts, nobody in Indy wants to hang out with us today (!), so it’s going to be low-key. I picked up a couple of new beers and a quart of Patrick’s famous Brick Street Blond Chili — it has actually won awards and I can’t wait to gorge myself on it later.

Have a great day — go Saints!

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moon over my (aching) hammy

Posted in Running, Wine with tags , , , on February 7, 2010 by Marie

First of all, I have to give a big up to my neighbor Butch for snow-blowing our driveway this morning. I think I’m going to bake him some cookies.

I ran five miles in the snow and now my left hamstring is killin’ me. Actually, it was a little tender before I ran and now it’s worse. (Though, on a lighter note, my ankle doesn’t hurt at all! Meh.)

Sidenote: There’s a dude in my neighborhood who I see running all the time. He’s middle-aged, a little thick, and pretty slow but he’s dedicated as hell. I didn’t even know where he lived until I ran past his house today while he was shoveling the driveway. He yelled to me, “good job!” and gave me a salute. It totally made my morning. Maybe I’ll make him cookies too. Health cookies, because he’s a runner.

Even though we got about 7 inches yesterday, the run wasn’t too too bad. There were a couple of deep drifts (and some 30 mph wind gusts, ick) but the plows came through last night so the snow was pretty packed down in most places and there was minimal ice.

I actually felt pretty good after running but I probably didn’t stretch enough and I’ve been getting progressively stiffer all night. I’ll probably close out the evening by icing my thigh in bed with a glass of wine.

And we’re supposed to get even more snow next week –

It’s supposed to start around 1 a.m. Monday, so my drive into work Tuesday should be just FANTASTIC.

And, just a few thoughts about the Super Bowl:

A) I hate the Colts;
B) I think it’s lame that the Super Bowl has turned into a platform for social commentary. I know some people are complaining it was unfair for CBS to reject the ManCrunch ad, and I’m inclined to agree, especially since they did choose to air FOTF’s Tebow pro-life ad, but if you’ve actually seen the ManCrunch ad, it’s just kind of silly and ridiculous. I just don’t think it’s meaningful enough to be a significant setback for the gay rights movement.

My theory? ManCrunch made an idiotic video on purpose. They knew CBS would reject the ad and the ensuing shitstorm combined with the “REJECTED” video going viral on the Internet would be much more effective (and cheaper) advertising than a Super Bowl ad could ever be. It’s almost too easy.

But what do I know.

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A box dinner kind of night…

Posted in Food & Drink, fitness with tags , , on February 5, 2010 by Marie

Blah.

Soooooooo tired and crabby tonight. Fridays are usually one of my rest days but today I feel restless and wish I could have gotten out for a run or something. All I did was work and eat.

I did make a fantastic dinner –

Found this new box of soba noodles at TJs a while back and we dug into it tonight -

It would have been fine on it’s own, but I added some chicken, mushrooms, broccoli, cabbage and celery just so I’d feel like I was actually preparing a meal and not boiling noodles and making sauce from a seasoning packet. That’s just too close to college for comfort. Oh, and of course, the Asian hot sauce. Hubby calls it the rooster sauce.

Makes any meal.

After scarfing more noodles than I should have, we watched that Paranormal Activity flick everyone’s been saying so much about…it was pretty damn scary. Reminiscent of the first Blair Witch. And obviously, since it’s filmed in that guerilla/documentary style, I’m not giving anything away by saying that it ends abruptly. That’s it.

If there’s less than 4 inches of snow on the ground when I wake up tomorrow, I’m going running. If there’s more than that, I’m staying inside and making up for the crunches/plyos that I didn’t do yesterday.

I’m also hoping to muster up the energy tomorrow to present a decent recap on last night’s beer tasting – Double IPAs. =)

And now, I will leave you with something a friend sent me that I thought was hysterical – 6 adorable cat behaviors with shockingly evil explanations.

G’night!

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going places with hot air

Posted in Food & Drink, Running, fitness with tags , , , , on February 3, 2010 by Marie

Spoiler alert: if you are my mom or anyone else who may be offended by candid discussions about bodily functions, you probably shouldn’t read this post.

Okay, for anyone who’s still reading, let’s continue…

My first day of work was pretty terrific…aside from all of the paper work, overload of information and orientation activities.

I have a cute, little office all my own — this is a big deal as it is my first work space that contains a door. (And now that I have one, my door policy is going to be: “CLOSED.” Just kidding!)

But seriously, I am going to ROCK communications and marketing for this company. I couldn’t be happier.

So, a good day except for the debilitating bout of, er, dyspepsia that struck me immediately after consuming half a can of Amy’s Lentil Soup, which I enthusiastically packed into an insulated lunch sack this morning along with some Puffins and a spinach slurpy. (Shame I don’t still have my Care Bears thermos and lunch box.)

Yeah, I’m a dork. But I never claimed not to be.

Everything was going just fine until I was about 10 minutes into my soup and started feeling some minor discomfort that progressed into awful, bent-over, wrenching abdominal cramps. It was THE worst upset stomach I’ve ever had aside from food poisoning. This was not just a little casual gas, folks; I mean, little beads of sweat broke out on forehead.

It lasted pretty much the rest of the day, despite drinking hot Passion tea and water like it was going out of style.

Lame!

Naturally, I came home and tried to misdiagnose myself via WebMD. Turns out it could be anything from gas to peptic ulcers to cancer. (Yeah, that peptic ulcer photo has nothing to do with peptic ulcers but it came up on Google image search and it was much easier to look at than all the other peptic ulcer photos.)

Undaunted, I chomped two cherry flavored Gas-X and headed out for a five-mile run. For some reason I thought it wasn’t cold outside and I didn’t wear enough gear. My body was okay but my ears were frooooozen. The sweat on my head froze and I had little chunks of frost in my hair and eyebrows! But for some reason, I felt as if some otherworldly force was propelling me…hmmm…at any rate, I feel much better now. Maybe all I needed was a long hard run.

Anyhoo, I’m sooo warm now and I’m about to go watch Idol and do as many crunches and PBs as I can muster!

Peace -

UPDATE:

Core/Plyo Challenge:

Tonight: 360 crunches and 20 PBs

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I could get used to this

Posted in fitness with tags , , , on February 2, 2010 by Marie

Day 2 of unemployment: woo hooo! Too bad I have to go back to work tomorrow. I was just starting to enjoy being a lady of leisure…

Snowboarding yesterday kicked my ass! I did pretty well — we did mostly the blues; one blue-black (a difficulty level that they seem to have invented since the last time I was on a ski slope. That makes me sound old: “hell, back in my day we only had three levels and we were grateful for ‘em!”)

Yeah.

I only had one bad fall (along with many lesser falls). I was getting off the lift and fell backward, trapping the board underneath me. I had to release my front foot from the binding before I could get out of there and for several agonizing seconds, my knee was bent under me in a way that knees are not supposed to bend. But I iced it last night and it seems just fine today.

The rest of me is a little sore – been a while since I hit the slopes and some new muscles got tweaked yesterday that I apparently don’t use that often. But I’m pretty sure I burned about a jillion calories…and had a blast doing it.

Core/Plyo Challenge update:

Sunday: 150 crunches and 10 PBs
Today: 180 crunches and 10 more PBs.

A lot of work to do before Thursday — going to have to kick it into overdrive this week. :-)

Now I’m off to do lady-of-leisure things like shopping and pretending to do some light housework.

Later!

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never been happier to see the sunshine

Posted in Food & Drink, Running, fitness, movies with tags , , , , on January 31, 2010 by Marie

‘lo -

Before we head out to Perfect North I’m debating a quick run in the neighborhood. Yes, it’s 10° outside and it doesn’t sound too fun but I ended up not running yesterday (Kate wanted to do a 9 mile trail run and I wussed out), so now I’m feeling guilty.

We probably won’t actually hit the slopes until tomorrow – I think today will just be a kick-it-at-the-lodge kind of day. Maybe some ‘tubing if we get really ambitious. So I need to do some physical activity before we leave.

Also, we’ll have this minty friend in a coat pocket – an essential for any winter getaway:

I know what you’re thinking: Peppermint Schnapps? Grossy! But try pouring a little into a cup of hot cocoa after skiing all day. You’ll thank me.

Yeah, then I realized I could see my reflection in the flask and things got out of hand:

I’m sure there are some metaphorical implications to this photo (just ask Candy Finnigan), but my old camera never would have taken a picture this clear — you’d just see the reflection from the flash and that’s it. (Mom, Dad, aren’t you glad I’m putting your Christmas gift to good use?!)

Moving right along…I did not sleep well last night.

We watched a French horror film called Martyrs, and it was unsettling, to say the least.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a fantastic movie. Wow. I’ve probably never been more impressed and disturbed at the same time, and I’ve watched a LOT of horror movies. A LOT. I was beginning to think they’re weren’t any more truly scary movies out there. There are scads of pop-culture splatter films like Saw and Hostel, nickednamed torture porns, but this movie went far beyond that of gratuitous hollywood gore. Some movies take you down one set of tracks only to suddenly switch directions on you. With this movie, as one blogger put it, “you look down and realize that the tracks have disappeared…”

I don’t want to tell you a lot in case you wanna see it for yourself (which I don’t recommend unless you’re extremely thick-skinned and into that type of thing), but I’ll just say that this film switched directions so many times I couldn’t even begin to guess what was going to happen next.

But yeah, never been happier to see the sunshine. Hubby was working the midnight shift, and he joked that I should watch the movie again after he left, and turn off all the lights and unlock all the doors just to make it that much scarier. Ha, funny. But I was by myself when I woke up around 5 a.m. and could NOT get back to sleep. Luckily I had my poor, defenseless kitty to protect me.

Core/Plyo Challenge update: 120 crunches yesterday and 20 PBs. MAN, those things are tough. (Hubby calls them suicides.) It doesn’t look that difficult on the surface, but I was out of breath and breaking a sweat after just a few of them! Awesome.

Have a great day everyone, peace!

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everything your body needs…

Posted in Food & Drink, Running, beer, fitness with tags , , on January 30, 2010 by Marie

Morny -

First order of business today was a smoothie. Kiwi-strawberry-blueberry-banana.

I neglected my kiwis this week and they were getting a little soft. Good advice: whenever you have fruit that’s about to turn on you, just throw it all in a blender.

Yesterday was my last day of work! I start at the new gig next Wednesday…

The gang got together and gave me a really nice send-off. They brought breakfast for everyone in our department and then last night we all went over to my local watering hole, Booney’s. The place just opened and they have one of my favorite beers on tap – Bell’s Two Hearted. Good times…but now I’m paying for it. I didn’t get tanked or anything -only had two beers- but I didn’t drink any water — bad, bad, BAD! My brain feels like a dried-up sponge right now. Must rehydrate!

So now I’m chugging water and having a couple of Clif’s Shot Bloks with my smoothie – not only are they great for running but they also do the trick for hangovers too! All those yummy electrolytes…

I just texted KATE – hoping she will be up for a nice long run this morning. Hint, hint, Kate.

Then tomorrow the hub and I are off to hit the slopes! Being from New Mexico, I always thought it was kind of a joke that there are actually places to ski in Indiana – but it’s not that bad. They have a mix of real and man-made snow right now and all the runs are open. I can’t wait to get that board strapped to my feet!

In the meantime, maybe I’ll get started on Kloé’s latest torture challenge – a really brutal core + plyo workout. My upper body strength is really pathetic right now so this will be a great way to work all of me at once! Thanks Kloé!

Have a great day – peace!

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Girls night

Posted in Running, Wine with tags , , , on January 28, 2010 by Marie

Gahhhhh!

So, yeah I did not do any crunches last night which means that in order to hit 1000 by the deadline of midnight, I have to do at least 190 crunches right now!

Blah…okay, I’m going to do it. In just a minute…

I had a great girls night tonight – ran four miles with my buddy Kate and her two German Shepherds, Sierra and Luna.

We took a break from the rugged trails of Eagle Creek and hit the Monon, a nice paved road that stretches across about 15 miles of Indianapolis. Usually that trail is packed with runners and bikers and dog walkers, but this evening we were the only ones out there. Weirdy. Might have something to do with the fact that it was 10°F outside…

Then we shared bottle of wine and a pizza at Bazbeaux – which really is the BEST pizza in all of Indy – and gossiped for a couple hours.

Good times!

And now I’m off to get those crunches out of the way and then hop into bed. Tomorrow’s my last day of work – new job starts next Wednesday! I was able to swing a couple days off between gigs and this weekend we’re heading down south to a place called Perfect North to do a little skiing/snowboarding – woot, woot!

Life is good. :-)

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Grand Cru 101

Posted in beer, fitness with tags , , , on January 27, 2010 by Marie

I seem to be having a case of the Fridays, which is why I opened a beer on a Wednesday…

This is the Beast Grand Cru by Avery:

Notice the very short, tulip-shaped tasting glass. It is the ideal vessel for this type of beer, which is best consumed in small doses.

It smells like a barley wine, but according to wikipedia, the term grand cru has been used for beers, especially in Belgium, to indicate a more elaborate version of a brand.

I’ll say.

Just look at it. It looks – and tastes- like rich molasses. Also a subtle tartness just underneath. Definitely hints of caramel in there too.

Seriously, drink at your own risk. Especially if you’re planning on doing crunches later…

Core challenge ends tomorrow – let’s all do 300 crunches tonight!

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