She Says Tomato

Who am I kidding? Everything makes me crave Chinese food! 

I used to work at a place where 75% of our group was comprised of people from China. When we would order out and say we were getting Chinese food, they would all laugh at us and say “that’s not Chinese food”, because they came to work every day with a beautiful layered concoction of rice, meat and vegetables. (Note: they were also all thin…coincidence? I think not).

So no, the fried everything and heavily-sauced meat mixtures aren’t really “Chinese food”, but they are delicious (and fatty and ridiculously high in sodium, etc)

Enter WW recipe for beef and broccoli. Let me tell you something:

MAKE THIS. It tastes just like takeout!!!

Make it for your husband/wife/kids/mom/friends/enemies or anyone else in the universe. It’s flawless.

Get these things:

2 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch, divided   

1/4 tsp table salt     

3/4 pound(s) uncooked lean trimmed sirloin beef, thinly sliced against the grain   

2 tsp canola oil     

1 cup(s) reduced-sodium chicken broth, divided     

5 cup(s) uncooked broccoli, florets (about a 12 oz bag)   

1 Tbsp ginger root, fresh, minced (I couldn’t find any, so I used powdered)  

2 tsp minced garlic

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste   

1/4 cup(s) low-sodium soy sauce   

1/2 cup(s) water   

Mushrooms (optional, about half that package)

Sesame seeds

Beer (to drink while you cook…treat yo self!)

Once you have all that, do this:

• On a plate, combine 2 tablespoons cornstarch and salt; add beef and toss to coat.
• Heat oil in a large nonstick wok or large deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add beef and stir-fry until lightly browned and cooked through, about 4 minutes; transfer to a bowl with a slotted spoon.
• Add 1/2 cup broth to same pan; stir to loosen any bits on food on bottom of pan. Add broccoli and mushrooms; cover and cook, tossing occasionally and sprinkling with a tablespoon water if needed, until broccoli is almost crisp-tender, about 3 minutes. Uncover pan and add ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes; stir-fry until fragrant, about 1 minute.
• In a cup, stir together soy sauce, remaining 1/2 cup broth, remaining 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch and water until blended; stir into pan. Reduce heat to medium-low and bring to a simmer; simmer until slightly thickened, about 1 minute.
• Return beef and accumulated juices to pan; toss to coat. Serve. Yields about 1 1/4 cups per serving.

Aw, yeaaaaaahhhhh

I think I came up with the MOST innovative of ideas yesterday. Fact is, my building is about 0.1 miles long, separated into 3 sections by double doors. It is also 6 stories high, and I live on the first floor.

My workout (after my run) was to run/walk/run (the three sections) down one floor, take the stairs to the next level, walk/run/walk down the next floor, stairs up again, run/walk/run, etc. Every other set of stairs I used as an opportunity to stretch my calves and hamstrings. If I hadn’t just come back from a run, I would have run the whole hallways.

Same thing on the way down. When all is said and done, it’s a little over a mile (not including the stairs).

The pros:

• If the weather is crappy, it’s not like I have to wait for a hallway to open up like a treadmill.
• If I hit a stinky patch of hallway, I sprint through (speedwork!)
• It’s safe.
• No hills.
• It couldn’t be any closer, and I’m always less than 0.1 miles from my door (and water/bathroom/etc).
• Stairs=crosstraining!
• When the doors between the sections are open, it looks like The Shining, which scares me, which creates adrenaline and makes me run faster, thus increasing my heart rate.

The cons:

• I feel like I’m creepin’
• No fresh air and nothing to look at.
• The Shining hallway concept FREAKS me out. Like…FREAKS ME OUT.
• If people see me, I have to stop and walk because…well, it’s weird what I’m doing, right?
• Those random smelly hallways are very smelly.

I feel like this is a good alternative to keep things fresh (well, maybe not so fresh in the hallways with my sweaty self running through) or when I just want to do a mile or so, but how long do you think I can keep this up before someone notices? And if they do, is it wrong? I mean, I don’t see any “no running” signs in the hallway…

I went for a 2.5 mile run yesterday, and again I had wooden, numb feet after ~1.5 miles, which got progressively worse despite my stopping a few times to shake them out. Once they start falling asleep, I can’t get them fully awake again until I’ve stopped running.

Why does this happen? Why do they fall asleep right as I’m hitting my stride and no longer gasping for air? You are pissing me off, feet.

I have thoroughly searched Dr. Internet (my main source of medical information, obvi), and there does not seem to be a general answer for this problem. I’ve also gotten some advice from you lovely running folk. Some say shoes, many say lacing, some even say spinach (actually, no one said that but I’m kind of craving it).

I have tried the following (to no avail):

-Different shoes (2 different brands, totally different types of sneaks)

-A slower pace

-A different stride (smaller, faster steps rather than bounding steps)

-Treadmill, road and trail

-Inserts (blister festival after 1.5 miles, and when I took them out the sleeping started, but I don’t know if it’s because I took them out or because it had been 1.5 miles. Classic chicken/egg scenario.)

-Different walk/run patterns

-Stretching before

-Not stretching before

-Hills/no hills

-Lacing my shoes from the top down (so awkward-looking)

-Lacing my sneaks super tight

-Lacing my sneaks super loose

I really do get a lot of suggestions about the lacing, but I’m fairly sure it’s not a circulation problem. It seems to be more of a nerve that is getting pressed thing. I would like to find that nerve and get that nerve a cup of coffee.

Side  note: I know I just said I don’t think it’s circulation and this may not have anything to do with anything, but I remembered that when I was little, my feet used to fall asleep when I would play outside in the winter with my friends, and then I would fall. Luckily it was winter in Massachusetts so I would usually fall onto a pile of snow. However, it got a little embarrassing (I was probably like having a narcoleptic friend…now you see me, now I’m laying down), so my mom took me to the doctor, who made the great rule that I had to come inside every 20 minutes for a foot rub and a sock change. That time interval is strangely similar to the current troublesome time interval. Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled blog post…

I have a couple more options to try before I have to go visit the podiatrist (who has the huge fun purple chair):

1. Try inserts again, but with my shoes tied very tight so they don’t slip and cause blisters

2. Try the inserts after 1 mile

3. Try one more type of laces (Xtenex), which don’t tie and are stretchy.

Abrupt stop.

Sometimes I remember the most random shit about my childhood.

Today I remembered that my mom used to always say, “keep that up and I’ll put you in traction.”

Once I got to be a little bit older (and nerdier, and more of a pain in the ass), I researched what traction actually was (picture below) and went as far as to ask my mother to further clarify her threat.

“So Mom…when you say that, do you mean you will hurt me enough to make it so I need to be in traction, or do you mean you will physically restrain me by taking me to the hospital and literally putting me in traction yourself?”

Her response: “Ask me again and you’ll find out.”

(I never found out…I was brave, but not that brave. My mother is bad ass.)

ALSO, while looking for a Google image of traction, I found this wonderful blue thing. It says “You wrap it around your neck and then go to town with the handheld pump until it’s inflated enough to relieve pressure caused by pinched nerves, tension headaches and osteoarthritis.” I NEED IT.

I feel like I haven’t posted food pictures lately…very unlike me. It’s certainly not because I’m not eating any.

Breakfast today was a cherry smoothie: cherry yogurt, frozen cherries and pomegranate juice. It was simply delightful, and I didn’t take a picture because my phone is getting overrun with pictures of smoothie ingredients.

My lunch today is a Weight Watchers recipe for a cold tomato/mozzarella/basil/pasta salad that I found to be a zillion times better heated up, combined with a couple of ounces of lemon garlic pork tenderloin I had left over.

I have such conflicting feelings about hot cherry tomatoes (heated up hot, not spicy hot). My mouth is telling me I should eject it simply for the texture (so smushy and that hot, squirty juice…barf), but my taste buds overrule that decision because they are always delicious. Always!

I feel weird.

I needed to get in a couple more miles of running last night in order to get (almost) to my goal of 6 miles per week, so I dragged my ass to the gym. Crappy things happened there:

• It smelled bad.
• It was crowded, so I had to wait 10 mins for a treadmill (which I did on a bike)
• I tried out some new inserts in my sneakers to help with the feet falling asleep thing. They sucked, and gave me dime-sized blisters on the bottom of my feet. I despise blisters.
• I had set the treadmill to run 5K, and when I paused it to pull out the inserts it reset so I wasn’t sure how far I had gone.
• My socks were too short, and kept slipping down into my sneakers. That shit right there can single-handedly put me OVER THE EDGE.
• I felt like I was running on lead legs, and I was sucking wind big time.

Then I went home, and things took a turn for the bizarre:

• I never took off my headphones or stopped my iPod when I left the gym and walked home, so I sat there on the couch for a good half hour, just staring out the window and listening to tunes. It was weird not to hear my apartment noises, just the music. I liked it.
• After I took a shower I did something I rarely do…I just had one little thing for dinner. It was 5 small turkey meatballs in marinara sauce, but I didn’t add pasta, veggies, salad, or any other course which felt weird. Yet I was satisfied in terms of hunger, so clearly I’m usually eating way too much, even though it’s healthy stuff.
• After I ate, I laid down on the couch and fell asleep watching Eyes Wide Shut. Those creepy piano melodies that play throughout are majorly creepy when you’re falling asleep to them.
• I woke up at some point and didn’t know what time it was, but I made the executive decision to just stay sleeping on the couch, with all of the lights and the TV on.

Now I just feel weird and out of sorts. Am I even awake?

Also, I’m so very hungry. I think I’m going to move lunch time up an hour.

Ramble, ramble, complain, groan.

I’ll stop being a big back of suck after this post…promise.

Lost 0.8 lbs.

Considering the food and drink massacres that happened on Friday and Sunday…I’ll take it.

Also, ran 5.5 miles…not enough.

Meh.

To anyone who can’t find any food to eat today, it’s because I ate all of it yesterday. Yes, all of the food in the universe was consumed by me. And, no, I didn’t track a bite of it. Nor did I run…and for that one day in time, it was all good. It’s not the first “eat everything/track and do nothing” day I’ve ever had, and it won’t be the last. It was planned, it was necessary, and it was awesome.

In addition to the Patriots playing in winning their last game before yet another magnificent appearance at the Superbowl, I had my monthly Cards with Canucks…where, you guessed it, I play cards with my favorite Canucks (my mom, my aunt, my cousin) and a couple of my other friends thrown in for good measure (and more betting money).

I’m not going to go into full drawn out delicious detail about the menu options, but I will just leave you with this picture, from Round 1 of Operation Eat Everything. Feel free to focus on the bag of celery if it makes you feel better.

Other things that happened yesterday/this weekend:

-I went to a brewery on Friday night for a tasting and tour. Loved it.

-I then followed that up with dinner with my lovely friends followed by a superb hour of watching other people sing karaoke at the bar. Heavenly.

-On Saturday I learned that my super awesome new car is JUNK in the snow, but I took it as an okay to bench myself during snow storms going forward.

-On Saturday night I stayed in, made a lovely WW recipe of caprese pasta salad (seen above in the middle) and some pork tenderloin, and watched The Shining for the zillionth time. Still terrifying.

“Danny, come play with us. For ever and ever and ever………..”

(no more on this post…the author has run screaming from the room)

Not only am I normally a ‘glass half full’ type of girl, but I’m also a “be thankful you have a glass at all and stop looking for things to complain about” person.

In truth, terrible shit happens to people all the time and you can absolutely take the time (it’s not hard to do) to find the reasons why something sucks. However, it’s just as easy to find the silver lining, for lack of a better phrase.

I’m not going to get all preachy on you, but I will show you some of my day-to-day silver linings.

1. Towel Warmer: Someone very awesome gave me this for Christmas and what a treat it is! Each morning, I step out of my shower and wrap myself up in warm snuggly goodness. I pretty much look like a fabric softener commercial, towel all up around my shoulders with a blissful smile on my face.

2. This is a double good thing: My new L.L. Bean hearth-side slippers in persimmon (fun color alert!!!) topped with my fat-ass lap warmer. Oh, and the Pats.

3. The view from my office window. (My birdseed brings all the squirrels to the yard.)

4. Finding random vanity plates that make me giggle, then walking into dinner and having my friend ask if I saw Ploopy. Mind melding.

5. Wearing fun jewelry, like my octopus!!! My friend Steph got this for me, and I was honored that someone would see this and think, “Tammy.Needs.This.”

There are many, many more things that make me stop and smile throughout the day…what are yours? (photo reply! photo reply!!!)

Edit: Thought I had enabled photo reply, apparently not. Use your words. ;)

I had FLARP (fantastic ladies’ awesome running practice) planned with my friend Tobey. Both she and I are competitive and would therefore never cancel FLARP for weather purposes, so I knew there would be no excuses.

Seeing as it was hovering around 23F and windy enough to blow your socks off, we discussed the possibility of only doing 2 miles, but secretly we both knew we’d do 3. And you know what? At the end of 3, when we had just run the final bit uphill with wind in our faces and I had a legit line of snot running from my nose to my ear (which was frozen), we got to our cars and at the same time both sighed, “awesome.” Because it really was.

My feet kept falling asleep while we were running (why does that happen? I don’t like it) and I had to stop a couple of times to wake them up. I’ve tried different shoes, tying them looser/tighter, different socks…what else? It happens after about 2 miles. At the end I ran the final 1/4 mile with both feet completely dead. It was scary (I kept thinking I was going to take the biggest digger because I couldn’t see or feel the little bumps on the sidewalk) but BOOM. Did it.

We did concede to skip the 5 minute cool-down walk in light of the weather, which made my feet wake up while I was driving. That was not awesome.

When I got home, somehow I didn’t feel tortured enough, so I found a 35 minute ballet barre workout to do. HARD, especially on just runned-on (ran-on?) legs, but awesome.

Hot shower, hot meal of mushrooms, onions and a black bean veggie burger and warm bed.

The end.

I literally had to say these words out loud to myself a little while ago. I was sitting at my desk, stressed as can be and fighting with data (as you know, a battle that can not be won).

As I found my hand reaching again and again into a bag of pretzel chips (they’re not healthy if you eat 15 servings), I realized that I was not helping myself. So I stopped, breathed, and threw the bag away. Enough already.

I made myself a nice cup of tea, grabbed one of the meditation CDs that arrived last week, and turned off my desk lamp. I stared into the eyes of my wise owl and took 10 minutes to listen to a relaxation meditation.

Phew. It worked. Carry on, then.

Confession: I totally distracted you yesterday with my pretty purple smoothie and dark thoughts about solitary shoes and dead kittens, but if we’re being straight up here (which we are) I had my weigh-in yesterday.

I gained 4.4 pounds. What the FRACK.

HOWEVER, I did track all of the foods I ate allllllll week long and I did go out to dinner the night before weigh-in where I consumed about 7 truckloads of sodium. So there’s that. I’m not going to get discouraged; I’m just going to keep going.

On the bright side…I ran a little over 6 miles, right on target. :)

Oh, scale. You can be such a dick sometimes (as illustrated below).

What do you see here?

I saw this in my parking garage the other night and had to wonder; am I the only one who thinks only bad things when I see a lone shoe abandoned somewhere? Sneaker on the side of the road? Oh, a runner must have gotten hit. Beat-up woman’s flat in the parking garage? OH, some poor girl was probably abducted while coming home late and was carried away kicking and screaming. Tennis shoes tied up and hanging on an electrical wire? Some cute little nerdy kid was probably getting bullied and the bad kids made him take his shoes off. (To add insult to injury, his mom was probably pissed at him because he lost his shoes and they were expensive).

Let’s just fully cross over the line then and get it all out, shall we? Truth: when I see an abandoned box or bag on the side of the highway or the woods I also assume it has (hopefully not) dead kittens in it. I don’t stop every time because my logical sense tells me it’s unlikely, but I do look for movement just in case.

My mind. It’s not always a swimming pool full of rainbows.

p.s. I spend the majority of my time on highways visually following the paths of skid marks to find the collision marks on the guardrails or in the soil. I also look for blood. Ok, it’s all out I think.

Blueberry yogurt, sweet cherries and blueberry pomegranate juice. Additionally, purple straw and purple underwear (not pictured).

Antioxidants like whoa.

Yesterday:

• I woke up early and cleaned my house
• I had four of my lovely lady friends over for a late breakfast of smoothies, mini bagels, muffins, fruit salad and laughter
• I went to the gym and ran a 5K on the treadmill in 40 minutes (including 5 minute walking warmup)
• I came home and did squats post-run at my brother’s insistence that it would be better (as many as you can do for 20 seconds/rest 10 seconds for 4 minutes)
• Learned that “better”=”rubber”
• Took a hot long shower and got into my comfiest, coziest sweats
• Cleared out my DVR
• Watched the Patriots make a complete mockery of Tim Tebow and the Broncos
• Went to bed and slept for almost 12 hours. TWELVE HOURS.

Today:

I’ve been a complete

and I don’t plan on doing anything different.

Junior prom, baby. Any chance you’re distracted enough by my date’s haircut to not notice my Chiquita sleeves? No, I didn’t think so.

I first met Tobey last March, when my friend Mego (my usual race buddy) introduced me to her on the morning of the Ras na hEireann U.S.A. 5K last year…here are the three of us getting ready to race (Tobey is in the middle).

Tobey (who has the most endearing dimples way up high on her cheeks) almost immediately declared herself to be ‘the most unfun person in America’, but I charmed her with my absurdly inappropriate humor and decided she would be an excellent work-in-progress at the very least.

SO ANYWAY, cut to a year later and Tobey has become a friend. She’s also a great motivator and supporter of my running and fitness goals. When she read about my mileage goal this year of 350 miles (after she scoffed at the small number), she asked if I’d like to start meeting her one or two nights a week to run at the office park where she works to run a few miles. Anyone else who wanted to run would be invited as well.

I’ve always been a solitary runner for the most part, so I was curious to try out running with a partner. I see women running together and chatting, and I always think it looks awesome. However, I was worried that Tobey (who runs fast) would be miles ahead of me and I would be left behind, all

However, Tobey was a true gentlewoman and kept her pace to match mine (thank you again, Tobey) and it was fab.u.lous. We decided that our running group, even if it was just two people, obviously needed a name, and Tobey suggested FLARP*:

Fabulous Ladies’ Awesome Running Practice

Done.

First FLARP meeting in the books last night, 3 miles run in icy slush. It was a completely different experience than running alone, namely in that all of the little issues you seem to hone in on with your body/legs are much more muted with conversation. I’m also terrible about running or walking in a straight line (I typically use whoever is next to me like a bumper to keep me on track), so I felt like my core had a good workout trying to balance and not to knock poor Tobey off her feet with an unintentional shoulder check.

*FLARP was absolutely named after the goo in the plastic can that makes farty noises.

(That’s me on the left)

My brother’s girlfriend got me all sorts of goodies from Tea Forté for Christmas, and just in time to help with my new pledge to make more time for my mental peace. The original flavor names, fascinating tools, vibrant colors, fragrant scents…everything is so beautiful.

I find that having my own ‘tea time’ at work every afternoon using these things rather than the ol’ Lipton in a plastic cup routine is comparative to the feeling you get when you shop at a high end store where your clothing is individually wrapped in luxe tissue paper a beautiful bag with soft corded handles vs. shopping at Marshalls where all of your things are unceremoniously dumped into a plastic bag. Both put a shirt on your back, but one is surrounded by a special package that makes you feel kind of important. Also…Apricot Amaretto tea is a bit of an improvement as an afternoon snack over a cup of Peanut M&Ms.

Cheers! Namaste, ommmmmm.