Weekly Eats: Monday Jan 29 - Sunday Feb 4

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  Showgirls and weight loss edition

Weekday Breakfasts:
Breakfast Burritos

Cereal bar and string cheese (breakfast al desko)

Avocado toast

Weekend Breakfasts:
Homemade Egg McMuffin

Cereal Bar, orange, and string cheese

Weekday Lunches:

(See last week's post for deets)
MWF: Thai Sweet Potato Noodle Bowls

T&H: Pasta with sundried tomatoes and artichokes


Weekend Lunches/Meal Prep:
Saturday: the last serving of Pasta with sundried tomatoes and artichokes

Sunday: Sweet Potato, Corn, and Black Bean Enchiladas.  I caught wind of these via Hungry Runner Girl and knew this was going on the menu. 

Janae recommended a brand of salsa that she found at Target, but I couldn't find it at mine so I grabbed Archer Farms and was very happy with it.

The filing was so pretty.  The recipe calls for cilantro and red pepper as a garnish, but since most of these are destined for leftovers, I mixed them into the filling.

I used Target brand green enchilada sauce.

My only mistake was making a single batch of the recipe.  That won't happen next time.

Weekday Dinners:

M&T (family meals): Leftover tacos from Sunday.

W (date night): I haven't made baked ziti in a long time.  Although I love it, my memory was that my husband liked it but wasn't obsessed by it, so I thought that we'd have it for dinner and then I'd route the leftovers to the freezer for lunches.  Well...my memory was incorrect.  I slid a plate in front of him and watched the love bloom in his eyes.  There was no way these were going to the freezer or my lunchbag.

H: Baked ziti.

F: You guessed it, baked ziti.

Weekend Dinners:
S (date night): we were out of baked ziti, so it was dinner at the Mexican restaurant where we had our first date.

Su (family meal): Beef stew with a small loaf of Italian bread on the side.  The 2nd time we've made this.  My changes to the recipe: added two bay leaves, cut the onion down from OMG-are-you-kidding-me-three-onions-for-six-servings-of-soup to half an onion, and I didn't brown the meat.  The next time we make this, I'll brown the meat just to be sure that we're not missing out on anything.  Just like the first time we made it, it seemed to be done at the 90 minute mark. 

Other:

Workouts: standard fare of treadmill walks and runs but oops I skipped weight lifting this week.

Watching (from the treadmill): A Place to Call Home

Watching (from the couch): Band of Brothers, Seinfeld, Clue, The Sinner and...Showgirls.  Huh?  What?  Ever since we saw Twin Peaks, hubs and I have been daring ourselves to watch this.  Why?  Kyle MacLachlan.  Hubs knows him from David Lynch movies, I know him from Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives. I was trying to reconcile Agent Cooper to Trey MacDougal and my working hypothesis is that Kyle fell victim to the Showgirls curse.

So...there are bad movies and then there are movies that are so bad that they're good.  Showgirls doesn't quite make the cut as a good bad movie, it's just bad.  But 2 hours and 10 minutes flew by, we howled with laughter, and somehow it was just one of those experiences that we needed to have together.

We followed the movie up with Everything Wrong With...thank you YouTube! 

Reading: This Must be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell.  I'm kinda into it/kinda skimming.  I wanted one more "regular" book to read before I go back to thrillers.

New Year's Resolution/Goals Update

Now that we're one month in, let's check in on my health goals (spoiler, they're all on track).  In reverse order:

• Work on sleep quality.  I've started listening to Mediation Oasis podcasts at night and they work like a champ.  Recommendation via Theodora.  Back when she posted about them, I was in grad school and was so stressed out that I couldn't sleep.  I've had a good track record for several years, but increasingly my brain just isn't ready to go to sleep and I can toss and turn for hours.  The podcasts are between 10-20 minutes long and they get my head in the right place to sleep.
  
• Use my standing desk more.  We have adjustable desks at work, and I kind of wore myself out with long periods of standing and got out of the habit.  I set the small goal of two 30 minute sessions per day, usually first thing in the morning and right after lunch.  And I've really gotten into it.  I'll often stand again mid morning and last thing before going home, sometimes with another afternoon standing shift.  I can't say that I stand this much every single day (meetings n'stuff), but I do it more often than not.
• The Year of the Pushup.  100% on track with the goal of doing 100 pushups a week (specifically 3 sets of 10 pushups every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday with an extra 10 in there somewhere).  There are days when I just don't have good form, but overall I'm feeling stronger.
• Weight loss.  Yes!  The background: I'm 5'5" and was overweight as a child.  I lost 50# in college and am happy to say that the top 30# never came back, but man those last 20 like to try and sneak back on.  Here's how I think of my weight:
• over 140: hell no.
• 135-140: where I am most of the time.  Nothing wrong with this weight, but nothing right with it either.  Some of my clothes don't fit.
• 130-135: probably my best weight, easy to maintain.  All of my clothes fit.
• 125-130: my happy place, but I never maintain here for very long.
• below 125: my head likes it but my body won't stay here. 

So anyways, I've been in the hell no zone for a while.  I'll work really hard to get below 140, then take my eye off the ball and zip right back up again.  My weight gain started at my previous job due to work stress but I got smart and changed the job and ended up working for a wonderful company.  And here's the problem.  Let me tell you about the perks: casual dress and free snacks.  And you can begin to see why I kept the job stress weight.  I wear jeans everyday, so I have a little more growing room than I had in slacks or dresses.  Lunch every day.  Snacks on demand just a few steps away.

Here's what I'm doing to lose weight:

• Exercise: no changes there, run 3x week/lift 2x week.  Keep doing what I'm doing.
• Food: I track everything I eat by writing it down in a small notebook that I carry with me.  My goal is to eat 1,500 calories a day, but the reality is closer to 1,800-2,000 calories.  As long as I continue to lose weight, I'll stick with this.
• There are no "rules" to what I eat, apart from staying away from the office snacks.  Anything goes as long as the weight keeps coming off.  When we had the birthday party a few weeks ago, I had cake.  And on every other day of the month that wasn't a party I didn't have cake.
• Weigh in every day.  Even if it's a "bad" day.  Knowledge is power.
• We're doing a weight loss challenge at work.  Every Monday I weigh in on the gym scale and send my weight to a coworker.

My goal for February is to lose 3 pounds, getting me down to 137.  Why such a small goal when I just lost 5 in January?  Because I know myself.  Some of the 5# was Holiday Bloat, and I don't have that now.  The real challenge is staying the course now that I'm out of the hell no zone.

Your turn:

• What are you cooking this week?
• What are you reading and watching?
• Be honest, have you ever seen Showgirls?
• How are your New Year's resolutions going?