Seasonal

I am definitely on another breakfast kick.



I missed fruit and yogurt. Lots. I get stuck in a carb-obsessed groove every now and again, when I can't fathom why in god's name I would ever CHOOSE to eat fruit and yogurt when I could have a doughy bagel.

And then something happens, like, oh, I don't know...not being able to fit into my pants because I've coupled the carb-obsession with slacking at the gym AND eating more than a few handfuls of chocolate chips while doing my holiday baking.

And then one day, I force myself to walk PAST the bagel bin and straight to the cooler and grab a Fage 0 and some fruit salad. (Okay, in an ideal world, I would be packing myself a little tupperware full of fruit and Fage from home, but I decided I'd rather spend Sunday watching Annie Hall from bed than go grocery shopping, so I'm out of just about everything except for broccoli and frozen chicken.) And I die a little inside at that exact moment, but then once I get up to my office and dig in, I'm like - "FRUIT AND YOGURT! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?"

I will say I never waver from my iced coffee obsession, though.



Last night there was a weird crowd at the gym. It's been blissfully empty for the past week or so - it's as if everyone in my development decided to resolve to avoid the gym instead of attack it. It's been nice - no waiting for a treadmill, not feeling guilty if I decide to do more than 30 minutes of running or whatever. Last night, I hopped on the bike for 25 minutes on the "random" program, followed by P90X shoulders and arms.

And it was just me, a random cardio queen who is ALWAYS there and spends hours on either the bike or the elliptical, and two muscle-y dudes. I'm not one to feel awkward at the gym, but something about these two guys gave off a major creep factor. The one guy parked himself less than a foot away from the rack of dumbbells that I use, which meant I had to interact with him in order to change up my weights or whatever. The other guy alternated between doing sets of bicep curls (my favorite kind, where they use momentum and flick their hips in order to lift weights their biceps are not capable of lifting) and using an unoccupied machine to stretch his hamstrings. The entire time, the two of them were talking to each other, and I couldn't shake the feeling they were talking about me. It wasn't helping matters that I kept catching Uncomfortably-Close-to-Dumbbells dude in my peripheral vision with his head facing towards me. I couldn't hear a word since I had my headphones in, and I did my best to tune the world out and focus on lifting...but eeeesh. It was just weird and I kept obsessing over whether I was doing something wrong, or did they think I was a January-only-gym-bunny, or...GAH.

I hate crap like that. I NEVER worry about that kind of thing, and I (clearly) love to people-watch at the gym, too...I don't know why last night was so weird. Oh well.

I don't know about you guys, but this is turning into the longest week EVER. I cannot believe it's only Thursday. Do any of you have a three-day weekend? I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to take Monday off and I'm thrilled to pieces about it.

Snack Break

A while ago, I made a comment about how nothing goes as well with plain yogurt as fresh berries.

That's not completely true.



I LOVE PEACHES.

Day of New Things

Apparently, today is a day of adventure for me.

(More importantly, it is my last day of work for the week -- since PhillyGuy and I are leaving for a weekend in NYC tomorrow!)

For some reason, I've decided to try some new things today.

I headed out this morning in that oh-so-bizarre combination that the weather this time of year makes necessary: a skirt and Uggs. (Look, I'm so sick of tights -- and it's going to be mid-60s! That means it's OK to wear a skirt with bare legs! Unfortunately, a 38-degree morning is NOT really flip-flop weather. Hence, the oh-so-chic gray Uggs.)

For some reason, I decided to vary my usual route to work. Instead of cutting through Fitler Square and that area, like I usually do, I headed straight down South Street to 20th. That meant that I didn't pass Good Karma, my usual coffee place -- instead, I hit up La.Va, which I've passed a thousand times but have never stopped in. Verdict? I prefer Good Karma, but only a little bit. They're both a bajillion times better than Starbucks -- not that I dislike Starbucks by any stretch of imagination. But after trying a real, handmade latte, Starbucks tastes...well...corporate.

Anyway. My next change-up for the day? Breakfast. I'm out of yogurt, so I sliced up some strawberries and packed those up with a little baggie of granola, figuring I'd just stop on the way to work and pick up a container of my go-to Chobani. Except the grocery store I stopped at only had two or three containers of Chobani left, none of which I wanted (2% plain, 2% pineapple, and one lonely nonfat strawberry, which I'm sick to death of). They DID, however, have a massive variety of other brands of yogurt. I was intrigued by this:



(Forgive the lousy blackberry picture.) Skyr? Icelandic-style yogurt? The ingredients list looked good, so I grabbed the pomegranate/passionfruit flavor and headed out.

Verdict? MAN, is that stuff tart. It's a little bit of a different texture than Greek yogurt...more of a thick custard texture than a sour cream texture. With the strawberries and granola mixed in, I really liked it -- but plain it was a bit much, even for me. For the whopping $3.29 per container, though, I don't think I'll be making this a regular habit.

Next on the list of changes...well. Guys, I started this blog for a specific reason: to help keep myself accountable in losing the 18lbs I let creep on over the past year. Instead, it seems like it's been a venue for me to record justifications for having several lousy weeks in a row. That's not really what I had in mind, you know?

In honesty, I don't know WHY I've been letting myself be lame like this. Some of it had to do with my nagging knee, but not all of it. I worked late a few times, not getting home until 7:30 or later, but nothing stopped me from getting up early to work out in the mornings instead...except for my desire to sleep in. This has GOT to stop. Because let me tell you, justification ain't helping my ginormous thighs fit back into my suits, you know?

I'm almost embarassed to admit this, but...well...PhillyGuy and I bought P90X. Yes, that DVD set with the d-bag-ish infomercial. He's at his breaking point, too, and we decided together that this was something we'd do -- TOGETHER -- to get past this lousy stage we've let ourselves fall into. Do I need a 13-DVD set to show me how to work out effectively? Nope. Do I need the eating plan that it comes with me show me that eating less crap and more veggies and egg whites is going to help me drop body fat? Nope. But, here's the thing about me -- I just do better with a program laid out for me. I tried the whole keeping-myself-accountable thing, and while I generally do fine MAINTAINING that way, I never get anywhere new with it. This isn't limited to losing weight, of course -- I know that I need to do speedwork and tempo runs to improve my race times, but without a specific week-by-week plan, I don't work out the way I should and, shockingly, my race times don't improve. By contrast, give me a Runners' World SmartCoach plan that tells me to run X miles at Y speed on day Z, and what do you know, I PR.

So here I am, with an overpriced DVD set, a door-mounted pullup bar, and a husband to accompany me on what I hope will be three months of getting my ass in gear (and, preferably, getting my ass back in that navy suit I bought in April 2009, none of which fits right now).