Manic Monday

Happy Monday, readers! I’m in a surprisingly good mood considering the weekend is over, probably because this weekend was one of the best we’ve had in a while. We had our husband-wife time Friday night, time with my family Saturday and time with my husband’s family Sunday, including some of his family we haven’t seen in a year. It was so nice spending quality time with everyone.

Family time in South Louisiana (and probably everywhere) means lotsa food. I knew I would eat some things I usually don’t eat, so we worked out twice as hard and just kept our portions in check. Here’s a breakdown of our fabulous weekend.

Friday, I got home from work around 5:15pm to be greeted by my dressed-and-ready to go husband. He was “starving”, so I freshened up and we were out the door. We went to a place called Walk-On’s which is pretty much a fried food heaven. Oh and it’s a sports bar too. I was determined to eat a burger since that’s what I was craving, so I ordered a turkey burger with no cheese, no mayo, add lettuce, tomato, onion and a little mustard. It was amazeballs. My husband got a steak and I tried not to fight him for his twice baked potato. We then went to the movies to watch “The Campaign”. I have to say, as much as I don’t care for Will Ferrell, that movie was hilarious. We rarely pick good movies so we were pumped.

Saturday morning started with a gym session. We both ran on the treadmill then I hopped on the elliptical and my husband did some arm work. I got my hair cut while he did some work at his mom’s. I then had lunch at Subway (I always get the same thing: ham on wheat with lettuce, spinach, onions, one tomato—don’t ask, and spicy mustard). Did a little grocery shopping for my Saturday afternoon project and to refill my work snack stash.

Saturday night my super fun aunt and uncle invited us over for dinner. She didn’t say what she was cooking, so I wasn’t sure where to keep my calories at, but I did know it would be something delicious. She asked me to bring dessert, so I decided to be ambitious and use a springform pan we got for our wedding to make homemade cheesecake. I know, I’m nuts. I found a Pinterest recipe for Salted Caramel cheesecake with a chocolate crust. I know, to die for. I knew I’d have a piece but it would be small. Gotta indulge sometimes, folks. Good thing I didn’t dwell on it because the recipe called for a whopping two pounds of cream cheese (that’s four packs), two cups of sugar, a cup of sour cream, chocolate cookie crumbs, etc. I did swap out low fat cream cheese and light sour cream, but It couldn’t have helped that much. It was a pain in the a** to make, but surprisingly I didn’t ruin it! In fact it was delicious! It wasn’t pretty, but here’s a picture I was able to snap.

Luckily, we were able to bring the un-eaten half to my inlaws Sunday so it was not left for my grubby little hands to sneak into at our house. I’d make it again only for big holidays.

My aunt made corn grits, a sinfully delicious pasta and salad. I had a little bit of everything, and of course a small slice of cheesecake.

Sunday morning I had another run, in which I was EXTREMELY proud of. Let me start by saying that for most runners, ten minutes non-stop is nothing. But for me, who started off practically flying ninja style off the treadmill after one minute of consecutive running, it’s a big deal, ok? I’ve done about half of the couch to 5k program but never could get past 5 minutes of running. Ashamed to say it, but I gave up because I never thought I could go farther than that. Well, I don’t know what hit me Sunday but I just kept going. And going. 10 minutes later I was still running. I started with a ten minute brisk walk, ran for ten minutes, walked for five, ran for three, walked for five, ran for three, and cooled down for 10. I was so proud. Now I see why people who run half and whole marathons get this overwhelming since of pride and emotion when they finish their race. It’s such an amazing feeling doing something you didn’t think you could do. I can’t wait to get to thirty minutes and an hour and maybe even three. My goal is to just keep going and see how far I can push my body. It’s an exciting feeling, yall! Here's a picture of me, soaking wet and beet red but feeling amazing!

(not sure why I am not allowed to rotate this picture, tell your neck I'm sorry!)

The last few minutes of the running sucked, but these songs got me through it. Odd mix, but hey, whatever works!

Here is a new healthy snack I've discovered. For those of you former fatties who used to love potato chips, myself included, this is a great alternative. You can have 38 of these for about 110 calories. I got the ranch flavor and they grew on me. Now I love em!

Hope everyone has a great week!