On Wednesdays...

I hope you all wore pink today!

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I didn't.

I totally spaced off the tenth anniversary of Mean Girls. But, considering the fact that I'm stuck in high school for the rest of my life, I think I pay enough homage to that flick.

Not only did I not wear pink this morning, but I barely pulled myself together enough to look somewhat presentable. I woke up this morning more tired than I think I have ever been. Conferences last night truly did me in.

I chugged my coffee but still had a hard time waking up. It was a rough morning.

But, the day got better.

After my afternoon professional development, I headed home to change and grab the Scheel's gift card that my aunt gave me for Christmas: I need a new race outfit, after all.

Side note: you should never, ever, ever wear new clothing on race day. I, however, don't like to listen to solid, tried-and-true advice. Instead, I like cute, new clothes.

Unfortunately, Scheel's did not have the Under Armor tops that I like, so I headed to my favorite place for workout gear, Old Navy. I had some Super Cash burning a hole in my pocket, and I ended up getting over $100 worth of goodies for $60: two sports bras, one pair of capris, and three workout tops. I was pretty stoked.

Then, I met one of my bowling buddies out for dinner. His birthday was yesterday, and we needed to celebrate. Per his choice, we hit up Sakari for some delicious sushi. After, we headed to our last bowling night of the season.

And now I'm about ready to pass out. :)

Breakfast:

This looks oddly similar to yesterday's, doesn't it? Well, friends, that's because it is exactly the same: three eggs scrambled with sauteed mushrooms and onion and topped with avocado and salsa.

Lunch: I didn't even bother to take a photo of my lunch because, like breakfast, it was the exact same as yesterday's. I need a little variety in my Instagram masterpieces. Again, it was a super-delicious burger, sauteed mushrooms, and avocado. (Oh, and I also ate an apple.)

I'm pretty sure those burgers are going to be a fairly regular item on my menu. Holy yum.

Snack: MB forced two pieces of chocolate (mini Krackel bars) down my throat. Just kidding: as I mentioned before, this was a choice that I made.

It was, however, not a choice I needed to make. I could've refrained from eating the chocolate and would've been just fine.

Dinner:

Clearly this was a Whole30 break, but it was oh, so worth it. We ordered four rolls: the godzilla, the dynamite crab, the avocado, and the spicy tuna. And, we devoured all of it.

Snack: On the last night of bowling, we always have "fun night," where a strike only requires nine pins (for men) or eight pins (for women), and people bring lots of goodies to share. Well, I had approximately zero ounces of self-control tonight, and I indulged in a cookie that one of my teammates made as well as a small cream puff bite.

Again, I could've totally just passed those up, but I did not. It was completely my choice, but wish I had thought about the choice I was making before I absent-mindedly grabbed for the treats.

I am in no way saying that eating the chocolate at the meeting or the cookie(s) at bowling was wrong and something that I shouldn't have done; I am saying that it is something that I could have thought about a bit more in order to make a more cognizant, less habitual choice.

But you know what? Tomorrow is a new day. :)


What is your favorite high school movie?

The Breakfast Club is a definite winner in my book, but I absolutely love Mean Girls, too. Oh, and 10 Things I Hate About You. And Can't Hardly Wait.

Clearly I have an unhealthy attachment to high school...

True Confessions

As the title implies, I have a confession to make.

I'm not sure what the cat has to do with her
husband being away, but...
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I totally strayed from Whole30 today.

But here's the thing: I do not feel bad about it.

I have been feeling pretty crappy all week, and I have had pretty much no appetite whatsoever. Last night was especially bad allergy-wise, and today was a long day: teaching followed by a tennis meet that lasted until around 7:00.

I had chicken and pork chops in my fridge to cook for tonight, but neither one of those huge hunks of meat sounded good tonight. The only thing that sounded somewhat palatable, in fact, was Gusto pizza.

So I said screw it. I have been eating next to nothing lately, and if I want to eat Gusto pizza, I'm going to eat Gusto pizza.

Katie (BFF), Shaw, Kate, and I headed to Gusto after the meet -- and then we swung by Orange Leaf. I definitely ate some fro-yo, as it was something I had been craving for a really, really long time.

I was such a little kid. Nom nom nom.

Two things about breaking my Whole30 regime:

1. The crap food is no longer in my system. It lasted there approximately one hour before quickly making its exit. (You're welcome for sparing you the details.)
2. I have not yet noticed any allergy issues today -- nor did I really notice any in St. Louis. Is it possible that my body is reacting to not having some sort of food in it? Does it need wheat or dairy or something else that I have been "depriving" it? I don't know.

I guess it's something to consider.

But anyway, here are today's eats:

Breakfast:

I was one of those people today and nearly forgot to eat my breakfast. I'm telling you: I have had no appetite at all lately. But, I remembered with about ten minutes left in my planning period and ate my scrambled eggs, avocado, mushrooms, and jalapeno. I also ate a banana right as the kids were walking in.

Lunch: I ate a small portion of leftover Moroccan Meatballs and cauliflower rice. Honestly, I just had a few bites. I just wasn't that hungry and just wasn't feeling it.

Snack: At the tennis meet, I ate some of the all-natural fruit snacks that I bought for running fuel, an apple, and a Key Lime Pie Larabar.

Dinner:

I had the Il Figaro pizza from Gusto. This is my favorite, and it had been off the menu for several months. It tasted okay tonight -- not nearly as awesome as I remember it.

Even though it was just okay, I ate the entire thing. Yes, yes I did.

And then I ate this:

It was half Wedding Cake and half Salted Caramel, topped with marshmallow stuff, cookie dough bites, graham cracker powder, and peanut butter shavings. I didn't fill my bowl too full at all, but I did not even eat the whole thing.

The splurge today was totally worth it.

Ladies' Weekend + A Giveaway

This weekend was absolutely wonderful.

On Friday morning, my best girlfriends and I headed to St. Louis and met up with Alicia's sister, Tamara. We figured Alicia getting married was the perfect "excuse" for a super chill ladies' weekend/bachelorette party.

Me and BFF: backseat buddies.

About six hours after we left Des Moines, we arrived in the 'Lou and immediately started wandering since we were a tad too early to get checked into the hotel.

First, we headed out to eat, as we were all a bit hangry. We started walking toward the Arch and stumbled upon the Brewhouse Historical Sports Bar.

I was still trying to be relatively Whole30-compliant, mainly because I didn't want to spend the duration of the trip in the bathroom.

So, I first ordered a vodka-soda with lime and sucked that down like there was no tomorrow. And, I got a little tipsy. I mean, when you don't drink for 47 (or something) days, that'll happen.

After that was gone, I ordered a strawberry cider from Crown Valley Brewing. It smelled exactly like Pop Rocks and was really, really tasty: not too overly sweet, but just enough.

For lunch, I opted for a create-your-own burger with two patties, mushrooms, onions, jalapenos, and avocados. I ate it without the bun and only had a few French fries. I was pretty proud of myself for not "straying too far" for lunch.

After lunch, we headed down to the Arch since it was only a block or so away -- and absolutely gorgeous outside.

It was very arch-y. I mean, it was cool, I guess, because it's a national landmark and all, but it wasn't anything super amazing. It was definitely neat to see, and it was pretty cool seeing it from pretty much everywhere in the city.

After we did our requisite site-seeing, we headed back to the hotel and checked in. The rooms we got had a pretty freaking awesome view:

Yep. This is literally from our hotel window. We saw directly into Busch stadium, and who was playing? The Cardinals and the Cubs.

It was crazy.

And, it was pretty good people-watching from 18 stories up.

After we all freshened up for a bit (and ate some snacks and drank some wine), we headed out for another walk around the city as we headed toward Bridge Tap House & Wine Bar for dinner.

Unfortunately, they didn't take reservations, but we were able to steal a reserved table (and the reserved table tent that we used to indicate our VIP status the rest of the weekend) at the front of the bar, where we enjoyed a bottle of bubbly.

We really liked the ambiance of the bar, as it was super chill and classy. When we were seated at our table upstairs, however, our love of the ambiance changed a bit: it was sooooooo loud and pretty crammed together. We could barely hear each other from across the table.

What the restaurant lacked in acoustics and space, however, they made up with in food.

Holy yum.

For an appetizer, we ordered a couple of different cheese & charcuterie plates: the manchego with quince paste plate and the belletoile brie plate that came with an amazing orange marmalade.

For dinner, I opted for something somewhat Whole30-compliant: Braised Pork Belly w/ succotash, crispy celery slaw, and rosemary-garlic glaze.

I apologize for the horrible photo: lighting was a bit tricky.

The loads of lima beans obviously weren't super Whole30, but I feel like I did a pretty good job overall. And, it was really, really tasty.

We also split a bottle of malbec during dinner.

On our way home, we goofed off in the sculpture garden a bit because, well, we're 30-somethings on a bachelorette party. What else would we do?

They had two bunny statues, so of course, I had to pose with one of them. (Since we saw children twerking on the statues earlier, we figured sitting on them was just fine.)

On Friday night, we turned in pretty early, as we had a big day planned for Saturday. (Oh, and we're old and somewhat responsible.)

Tamara, Alicia's sister, somehow scored us free breakfast at the hotel, so we headed downstairs bright and early to cash in on that:

Again, I did a pretty darn good job: loads of fruit, bacon, sausage, and eggs. The eggs, however, were most definitely from powder, and I ate maybe half of them before saying no thank you.

I also may or may not have inhaled a cranberry muffin -- and loved every single bite of it.

After breakfast, we headed out for a stroll around the city yet again. The ultimate destination was the City Museum (again, we're 30-years-old: what else would we do?), but we took a few detours along the way.

First, we went to Left Bank Books, a really cute independent bookstore in downtown. Katie finished her book on the drive down to St. Louis and needed a new one, and we all just love looking at books. We definitely killed about 45 minutes there. Sadly, I only bought a couple of cards: the books were quite pricey, and I didn't want to carry 'em around all day.

Second, we stopped at MacroSun International, a really cute fair-trade store that specializes in clothing and gifts from Southeast Asia.

I spent a whole $2.00 on some new Nag Champa.

Finally, we made it to the City Museum. Essentially, this is a huge-ass playground. The museum is 600,000 square feet of sculptures of unique and found objects, all of which children and adults can play on.

First, Alicia, Tamara, and I climbed up a treehouse-type structure until we were at the very, very top of the building.

Yes, I realize this is not the outfit to be wearing.

We had to shimmy through tiny spaces, across wrought-iron rungs, and over and under various limbs. And then to get down, we had to slide down a twister slide, something I haven't done for, oh, 20 years.

But that tiny slide was nothing compared to what we did next:

The three of us climbed ten stories just to slide down the biggest slide ever.

And then I was super sweaty and decided to chill outside with Mindy and Katie -- where I had a cider beer (that tasted like porta-potty) and, I'm not going to lie, a Snickers bar. It was sooooooo good.

After we had had our fill of playing (and children screeching), we headed across the street to Alpha Brewing Company, a taproom that my sister's college roommate and her husband opened last year.

We loved the space, especially the garage-door patio.

It was decorated really cool with a lot of wrought-iron fixtures and old coins.

And, most importantly, the beer was pretty darn good. I was very, very impressed.

I obviously couldn't decide which beer to order, so I opted for a flight. Five samples only cost eight dollars. How awesome is that?!

After drinking quite a bit of beer, we decided that we should probably find something to eat. So, we walked down the street to Pi Pizzeria, home of President Obama's favorite pizza in St. Louis.

It was so, so good.

First, I ordered the Pi Squared cocktail, some combination of vodka and basil and I don't know what else. It was so good, though, that I may or may not have had two.

We also split a couple of appetizers: Pi Bites (fontina, mozzarella, volpi prosciutto and rosemary, breaded and baked with a spicy tomato sauce) and Roasted Vegetable Bruschetta (portabello mushroom, zucchini, red pepper and red onion, with ricotta cheese and balsamic reduction, served on companion bakery rustic bread). Both appetizers were to die for.

For d

We had the Thin-Crust Maplewood, which was mozzarella, spicy homemade Italian sausage, cherry peppers, fontina, and fresh basil; and we had the Deep-Dish South-Side Classico, which was mozzarella, sausage, mushrooms, green peppers, and onions.

Holy cow.

There was zero caring about Whole30 happening here.

You guys. If you're in St. Louis, please hit up Pi. I promise you won't be disappointed.

After a delicious dinner, we headed home to freshen up for the night -- and to take advantage of the free-drink coupons Tamara was also able to score.

Mindy (my friend from summer orientation at Drake -- 13 years ago!) and me

BFF, me, and Mindy -- the three roommates

Me, Tamara, Mindy, BFF, and Alicia -- the whole crew

After getting ready in the room, we enjoyed our free cocktails (a vodka-soda for me) while people-watching the prom-goers enter the hotel lobby. Let me tell you the theme of prom dresses this year: lots and lots and lots and lots of bling and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of tulle.

We finished our drinks and walked a mile or so to the arena where we saw Chelsea Handler's show (and drank yet another beer). I thought both Chelsea and her opener were quite hilarious. I know Chelsea is super raunchy and very non-PC and inappropriate, but I enjoyed her for the most part. There were a few things I wish she would've left out (the R word, for example) since I think she's hilarious without needing to be offensive, but oh well, I suppose.

She was quite different than when I saw Jim Gaffigan a few weeks ago: that's for sure!

After our comedy evening, we headed back to the hotel and were asleep by 11:00. That's how we old ladies roll.

This morning, we woke up for another free breakfast

Mostly healthy again, minus the biscuit and gravy and muffin.

before hitting the road.

We stopped for a gas station lunch (ice-cream Snickers and caramel popcorn -- oh yeah) about halfway home, and I walked into my house around 3:00 this afternoon.

It was an absolutely wonderful trip with the best friends in the universe. I need more ladies' weekends in my life. Love those girls.

But now: back to reality. :)


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How do you get back on track with nutrition (and fitness) after time away?

Tips for Eating Out (and Still Being Healthy)

When I first started eating truly healthy (i.e. Whole30), I was hesitant of eating anything that I did not cook for fear that it would be non-compliant. I was so terrified of eating out, in fact, that I only did so three times: once on Day 19 and twice on Day 26.

It turned out that restaurant-eating was not quite as troublesome as I thought it would be -- since I followed a few guidelines that I set for myself. Because they helped me so much, I thought I'd share them with you. You can thank me later. :)

1. Do your research.

As soon as I set up a date with friends, I look up the restaurant online and check out the menu right away to figure out the options from which I can choose.

I know that the first restaurant to which I ventured (Palmer's) would be fairly easy, as it's a deli where you can essentially create your own meal. So, I built my own salad with Whole30-compliant ingredients, ensuring that I did not order lunch meats (for fear of added preservatives), raisins (for fear of added sweeteners), or pre-made dressing (for fear of all of the above).

2. Don't go to the restaurant starving.

If I know that I am going out to eat, especially somewhere that serves chips and salsa (my weakness) or bread beforehand, I make sure that I am not starving when I arrive. First, that means that I stay well-hydrated throughout the day, drinking tons and tons of water, which definitely helps to stave off hunger. Second, if I'm even a teensy bit hungry, I grab a snack -- a small handful of macadamia nuts, a Larabar, an apple, etc. -- before I head to the restaurant, just so that I'm not absolutely famished (and therefore tempted by everything) when I sit down to order.

3. Don't be afraid to ask questions.

If you are unsure of what a particular ingredient is or are curious as to what exactly a certain dish contains, ask. The restaurant staff should be knowledgeable about their product, and if they are unsure, they should be able to ask the chef.

When I ventured out the second time (to New World Cafe), I had pre-selected my meal, Cauliflower "Cous Cous" Salad, but wanted to be sure that their lemon-garlic vinaigrette was compliant. So, I simply asked if it had added sweetener (and the answer was no).

If you are ordering a "house salad" at a larger restaurant, definitely ask what ingredients it contains, as often it will be filled with cheese, croutons, and other less-healthy options.

It's also totally fine to ask questions about how your meal is cooked: for instance, what type of oil is used to saute the veggies, whether the meat is grilled or fried (if it doesn't already say), etc.

4. Ask for omissions and/or substitutions and/or additions.

After doing research to eat out at my third restaurant (Gusto), I decided that the Fromage Bleu salad looked delicious; however, it contained blue cheese. So, I kindly asked for the blue-cheese salad without blue cheese. (I got used to asking for the such-and-such hamburger without the hamburger when I was a vegetarian many moons ago, so this was nothing.)

When I head to a fancier restaurant with friends, which is bound to happen sooner or later, I will likely ask for substitutions: a second side of veggies instead of mashed potatoes, a house salad with oil and vinegar instead of soup, etc.

5. Make conscious choices.

While I maintained a very strict diet while completing my Whole30, I will not be doing so forever. That being said, eating -- even at restaurants -- is no longer a "free for all" but rather a time to make conscious decisions rather than "slip ups" or "exceptions." For instance, if I have a nice dinner planned, I may consciously make the decision to have 1-2 glasses of wine prior to going. I will not "accidentally" order a bottle of wine -- or even a glass of wine -- without consciously weighing that decision.

Additionally, if I order an appetizer or a dessert, it will be because I made that decision prior to heading to the restaurant. It won't be simply because everyone else is or because it just looked good: it will be a deliberate choice.


The list could go on and on and on, but five is a good number to start with. :)

What are your tips and suggestions for making healthy choices while still enjoying a nice restaurant? What do I need to add to this list?

A Quickie

I am all about the awesome post titles this week, huh?

As long as I crack myself up...

This morning, I left you all waiting with bated breath regarding the cost of groceries this week. Wait no more, friends: I spent a total of $103 at Trader Joe's and Hy-Vee. Truthfully, I thought it was going to be a lot more since I had to grab quite a bit of meat as well as some staples (spices, arrowroot powder, etc.), so I'm pretty pleased with just over $100.

Today was good:

• I was interviewed (by a Drake journalism student) about this ol' blog
• I went grocery shopping with BFF
• I lounged around this afternoon and caught up on Parenthood since I passed out in the middle of it last night
• I went out to dinner with Mags

Oh, and I did this:

Mags, Linds, and I went to see Jillian Michaels at her Maximize Your Life tour. (This was pretty much the best data team meeting ever. I love those girls so much and am so thankful they're in my life.)

I know this may surprise all of you, but this is what I did during her two-hour presentation:

Both Mags and Linds made fun of me for being that girl, but Mags totally asked me for my copies of my notes. Yessssssssssss! I seriously think I took about 10 pages, and I'm so thankful I did: say what you want about Jillian Michaels, but she was so inspirational, so motivational, and so real.

I got a lot out of her speech, and I promise to share it all with you sometime in the next couple of days.

Also, I totally have a girl crush. She has the most smokin' hot bod I've ever seen, and I want her perfect hair. That is all.

Since I am going to wake up at 4:30 tomorrow for kickboxing, I'm going to wrap this up quickly tonight.

Breakfast:

Paleo Oatmeal. Yum.

Lunch:

Leftover Shrimp Fried "Rice." Yum.

Apple with almond butter. Yum.

Side note: I was quite hungry today. I wonder if my lack-of-appetite-after-working-out hits me the next day. I hardly ate anything yesterday for the amount of running that I did (simply because I wasn't hungry), but today I was quite famished.

Dinner:

Sesame-Crusted Tuna Salad w/ Spinach, Cashews, Oranges, & Spinach (from Star Bar). YUM.

I have frequented Star Bar more than any other restaurant in Des Moines, but I have never gotten this salad (probably because I'm always so focused on ordering something that comes with Star Fries -- seasoned tater tots in the shape of stars).

This was seriously ridiculously good (the citrus vinaigrette was to die for), and I envision myself going there much more frequently (if that is even possible) now that I know that it exists.

I hope you all had a wonderful and restful weekend, and I will "see" you bright and early tomorrow morning!