I sarted off my day today bright and early! I was up before 8am (which is way too early for a weekend) and headed off to my hairdresser. I got my first haircut in a year. I think I took the whole growing your hair out for your wedding thing overboard.  I just got a half an inch taken off and some layers put in but boy did it feel good. I got home and did this workout real quick before my friend Leah visited:

old pic from last summer!

Leah is one of my bridesmaids and we had some wedding things to do.  We went up to Wilmington to pick up her bridesmaid dress and then I showed her the wedding venue. Then we came back to the house for some crafting.  On the menu....Vintage Lace Lanterns

source (found on pinterest)

All we needed were some balloons from the dollar store, lace fabric from JoAnn's and fabric stiffener.  Leah later pointed out that the name of the fabric stiffener was Stiffy hahaha. Amazing!

All we did was brush the fabric stiffener on the lace fabric and place it on the balloons. Tomorrow when they will dry I'll pop the balloons and hope for the best. We are hoping to hang them outside of our wedding venue.  They are up to dry in our garage as we speak.

After the crafting we went out to dinner and then Leah headed back to New Jersey :(.  Then Matt and I went to pick up my new insoles.

Im currently walking around the house in them to try and get used to the new support. I'm going to the gym tomorrow morning and am hoping to get a short 1 mile run in with them just to see how they feel.  Then I will ice my foot when I get home. I'm trying to get better with this ice thing.

The rest of the night I'll spend with my puppin snuggling up watching a movie.

Tomorow is superbowl sunday and even though I hate both of the teams playing we are still having people over to watch.  I will of course be making the famous Vitale Family Hotwing Dip.  All of my friends are obsessed with this dip.  I got reemed out on New Years for not making it and trying something different...sheesh.  I will provide the recipe tomorrow....not the healthiest thing in the world but boy does it taste good!!!



The Results Are In...

Today was my podiatrist appointment! I've been having pain in my right big toe joint since November when I was training for my 10k.  Well I finally have answers.  Basically my first and second metatarsals are too far apart which is causing a bunion to form at the joint of my big toe. 

He said the normal angle for between the big toe bone and the second toe bone is 9 degrees and mine is 13.  It was crazy to see it on an xray just how much room there was between my first and second toe. I could fit a whole other toe between them (by the way I'm horribly sorry for those of you who hate feet...because I'm atually one of those people myself).  He said I also had a case of Hallux Limitus or decreased range of motion in the big toe...sweet.  So there's not a whole lot I can do about it unless I want some surgery that will take me 8 weeks to recover from NO THANKS.  He said it was most likely hereditary since I have it so young...thanks mom and dad!  He prescribed me some New Balance insoles for my running shoes and gave me a sample pack of some anti-infammatory cream.

I was hoping he would give me some sort of quick fix, but it look like I'm just going to have to learn to live with this :(

I left the doctor and headed to Joann Fabrics to pick up some supplies for some wedding DIY I will be doing this weekend (more details to come).  And then I headed to Saladworks to pick up dinner because I was starving.

Mixed greens with tuna, hard boiled egg whites, broccoli, cucumbers, blue cheese and craisins with light balsalmic dressing. 

Tomorrow I have a haircut at 8:30am.  Then I'm hoping to get a quick workout in before my friend Leah comes to visit and do wedding activites all day!!

Proof That I'm A Grazer

Today I really did graze all day. I ate 6 small meald today which is not unusual for me.

Breakfast: 6:30am

1/3 cup old fashionede oats, 1 container apple cinnamon nonfat greek yogurt (amazing by the way), splash of milk, 1 tsp chia seeds, 1 tsp wheat germ with a spoonfull of almond butter, craisins and granolla on the top.

Mid Morning Snack: 10am

An apple and a half of a kashi granolla bar left over from yesterday

source

Lunch: 11:45am

whole wheat pasta, homeade falafel (fail), snow peas, carrots, and carrots.

AND

mini 100 calorie cliff bar. obsessed with these lately

Pre-Workout Snack 2:30pm (hate being hungry at the gym)

banana and handfull of utz pretzels

WORKOUT!!!

I went to the gym and took it very easy on my foot. I did about a half hour of weights concentrating more on my arms and abs and then I hopped on the stationary bike and then the eliptical for a total of 35 minutes. 

Dinner 5:30pm:

Leftover arctic char from Sunday night with brussel sprouts and rice

Snack 7:30pm

cut up pear with a scoop of nonfat greek yogurt, apple butter, peanut butter and crumbled cliff bar

Now that's a lot of meals.  Happy Hump Day!!

Ouch My Foot!

Today started out....well very interestingly.  We have oil heat here and last night the oil ran out.  We made it through the night without freezing but getting ready in the morning I was miserable.  I do not do well with cold.  Even Champ was cold so we put his scarf on.

Manly men wear camo!

I think I was so flustered when I left the house that I forgot my lunch!  I ran home during one of my 30 minute incubations (thank goodness I live close to work) because I worked really hard the night before trying to think of something differnet to eat for lunch.  Different than my usual. This is what I came up with.

I cooke up some whole wheat pasta, carrots, snap peas and green pepper and then added some egg whites and cheese in at the end. YUM!!

AND THEN IT HAPPENED.  So I'm sitting at my desk, I go to get up and think "ow my foot really hurts." Awesome.  My foot has been so good the last 2 months, and now the pain is back...and I didn't even do anything! Bah! This afternoon as I was hobbling around at work I decided to call the podiatrist and make an appointment for this Friday.  Fingers crossed that he doesn't tell me I can't run.  That would be the worst. 

Since my foot was bothering me I decided just to go for a walk with the dog today after work.  It was soooo nice out today I couldn't just sit inside.

We walked 2.5 miles around the hood. 

Then I started on dinner. On the menu tonight, our favorite black bean burgers.  For some reason they turned out huge and extra mooshy this time around.  But they still tasted good.

Sweet potato fries on the side.  Baked them at 400 degrees for 30 minutes and sprinkled them with salt, pepper and cinnamon.  After dinner Matt and I watched an episode of weeds. I wasn't sure if I would like it (since I'm not a pothead) but I actually really do.  We needed to find another show to watch since we are done with Lost and Dexter.  Then it was time for a snack.

I chopped up a pear and then topped it with one spoonfull each of apple butter, natural chunky peanut butter and plain nonfat greek yogurt.  I'm in love with this combo. 

I'm going to head to the gym tomorrow but stick to low impact activities like lifting and the stationary bike.  Time to go ice my foot!

If anyone has ever had pain around the joint of their big toe I would love some feedback. 

Falafel Fail

I've been trying to find some more interesting luchtime options than my usual peanut butter and apple butter sandwich or ginormous salad.  I actually found this recipe on pinterest for falafels.  I had everything that I needed already, so that was another plus.  The recipe I used was loosely based off of this recipe. 

Falafel Recipe

1 15oz can garbanzo beans drained and rinsed

1/4 red onion diced

handfull fresh parsley

2 cloves garlic

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp whole wheat flour

Add all ingredients excpet baking powder and flour into a food processor. Process the mixture until it forms a paste (this is where I had some difficulty).  Place mixture in a bowl and mix in baking powder and flour.  Form into small patties and cook in a nonstick pan coated with cooking spray until they are golden brown.

I think these would have been perfect....if my food processor actually worked properly.  It chopped everything up, but I couldn't get it to form a paste.

So when I tried to cook them they of course fell apart.  I might have been cursing my food processor at that moment.  Good news though...they still tasted really good. Nice and garlicy.

Perfect addition to one of my giant salads. 

Today was just another Monday. Work went by pretty fast and then I headed to the gym.  I was in the locker room getting changed when I got this text from Matt....

...Come Play Mommy

How could I resist a face like that??? I went through my workout faster than usual finishing in a little under an hour and then raced home to hang with my little man!! I swear this is going to be a million times harder when we actually have children.  This is something Matt and I talk a lot about.  We think we'll alternate gym days so someone can be home with the baby. And a plus...our gym has a daycare attached!! One of the reasons I love our gym.  But that is very far away at the moment so we don't have to think too hard about it!

One day down, 4 days to go!





Unexpected Run

Our wine tasting last night was so much fun.  The wine itself wasn't too great actually, but I enjoyed the company and the dinner that followed.

enjoying our wine

We ended up getting a bottle of the dry reisling to take home which was included in our groupon.

Afterwards we headed to Kennet Sq (the mushroom capital of the world) for dinner. I was looking through the menu and the grilled tofu for some reason looked really good to me. This was my first time ever eating tofu so I was way outside my comfor zone.

Grilled tofu, lentil pilaf, broccolini, coconut curry dressing. Final verdict...I loved it!! It was all in the dressing.  It wasn't as mooshy as I thought it would be which was good for me because I tend ot have texture issues.

On Sundays I usually try to do something a little more interesting for dinner since I have more time and energy to put into it than during the week.  Matt and I went to a local fish market on Friday night and picked up some Arctic Char.  I had no idea how to cook it so I did some searching online. First I roasted an entire head of garlic for an hour at 350 degrees. Then I put the garlic into our food processor and mixed it with 2 tbsp of lemon juice, 1/8 cup canola oil and 1.5 sprigs of rosemary. I spread that on top of the arctic char and cooked it at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Some of the best fish I've ever had. This sauce would work well on any fish especially salmon since it's so similar to arctic char.  I roasted some sweet potatoes on the side and cooked some brussel sprouts on the stove as well.  I decided to make an entire meal of it and made a little something for dessert.  I made two of Chocolate Covered Katie's Single Lady Carrot Cake Cupcakes.  All I did was double the recipe. So quick and easy.

A little undercooked but still good.  Matt likes his baked good mooshy...so strange.

The best part of today...Matt's foot is finally starting to feel better so we went for a run around the neighborhood together!! We did our 3 mile loop and stopped once so Matt could stretch.  Running with Matt is always a good workout because he is a lot faster than me.  I really have to work to keep up with him. It was a good end to the weekend.  Back to work  tomorrow....but in the back of my head all I'm thinking is 6 days until I see my wedding dress :)