Romance package plus workout

Saturday was husband’s 37th birthday, and we celebrated with a night away from home. My mother agreed to watch our girl.

I did a little research on some B&B’s out of town, but we finally booked the “romance package” at the local Sheraton in Tyson’s Corner. It included a bottle of wine, a platter of cheese and fruit, plus breakfast for two and a late check out.  This being a holiday weekend, we knew traffic too far out of town may be a disaster. My husband only wanted to get just the room (to save money), but I insisted on the romance package.

We arrived shortly before 6:30 p.m. to check-in, and I mentioned my husband’s birthday, and voila our room was upgraded! They asked what kind of wine we wanted, and my husband spoke up and said red. I’m not much of a wine drinker myself.

Up to the room we went, and within a half an hour, we were delivered a beautiful assortment of cheese, crackers, strawberries, and these other little fruit that resembled mini green apples. They sort of tasted like apples too. We had planned to leave the hotel for dinner, but after filling up on cheese, we decided we would share a bite of real dinner downstairs.

The lobby and the restaurant were pretty deserted, and we were the only diners. After Thanksgiving said the waitress, it’s dead. Husband wanted fish & chips, and I wanted a side salad, so we shared both. I mentioned to the waitress about my husband birthday, and after dinner she presented him with a slice of cake with a candle on top! Luckily, he shared with me. It was banana chocolate chip cake with a crème filling that was divine.

After dinner we did a quick tour to view the pool and fitness center. Our plan was to hit both. To our surprise, we also noticed three racquetball courts, but two were being used as storage, and only one was opened. A sign said to ask the front desk for racquets, but we never got around to asking if the one available court, was really open for racquetball or not.

We pre-ordered our breakfast for the following morning and choose the “All-American Breakfast” with a choice of eggs, meat, bread, juice, and beverage. I had scrambled, he had sunny side up. I couldn’t decide between a Danish or muffin, so we checked both boxes and decided to share.

It arrived promptly this morning at the time we specified, the presentation was beautiful, and the food was delicious. We hit the mall and enjoyed a movie, Love in the Time of Cholera, and a small lunch afterwards.

Heading back to the hotel, we decided fitness center first, then the pool. The center had two treadmills, but only one worked. It also had two bikes, but only one worked. They also had weights so I decided to do cardio on the treadmill, while husband did weights. I did about two miles walking with one short run, plus put little time on the one working bike. We finished our workout, showered, changed, and jumped in the pool, and finished off in the hot-tub.

I’m not used to the royal treatment, and it was a great mini-vacation away. The best thing about my birthday present to him was that I got to enjoy everything too.

We may do this again for my birthday in six months.

Friday is Buy Nothing Day

The day after Thanksgiving is lovingly referred to as Black Friday. I know I have fond memories of spending turkey day at my sister and brother-in-laws browsing the paper ad flyers, with my sister and aunt hunting down the best bargains and making a game plan for which stores to hit in which order. They had kids to buy Christmas presents for, and I had none.

Now I do have a kid, but I refuse to inherit the madness that plagues a large majority of my family. Shopping and over consumption.

Not only do we have a tendency to over consume food, but we also have the same with tendency when it comes to bargains.

This Friday, we are staying at home, and I’m making a game plan to spend the day with my daughter and husband. We will not be hitting the stores. That includes shopping for food too.

I do however have plans to hit the road. I’ll be walking and working off some of the goodies I consumed on Thanksgiving.

For the holidays, my husband and I will not be buying gifts for one another, and I think my younger sister and I agreed not to purchase as well. I already have a few little things for my daughter, but we plan to spend Christmas morning enjoying one another’s company and food, instead of gifts we don’t need or use. I hope to teach her the lesson that spending time with family is more important than presents.

Check out the Buy Nothing Day campaign at Adbusters, and see how you can join the 24 hour moratorium on consumer spending. I especially like the credit card cut up, although they warn that carrying scissors in public could get you arrested as a “terrorist”. Or watch the North American Piggy ad on YouTube.

Next step for me, Buy Nothing Christmas.

Happy non-shopping holidays!

Turning walking into jogging

I watched the PBS special Marathon Challenge a few weeks ago, and it inspired me to try to run. Not a marathon mind you, but just start running. Vera was cool; she had lost over 85 pounds before starting the program. Betsy wanted to loose weight, so that’s why she started training.

I learned during the program that man could outrun his meals way back in the day, but if I had to outlast my next meal, I don’t think I’d be eating very much.

One of my friends, B, downloaded a spreadsheet and passed it along to me to begin a running program by alternating walking with running. It has a plan where you run for 2 minutes, walk for 4 minutes, and gradually increase your running over 9 weeks till you can run for 30 minutes straight.

I finished my master’s program, so need a new challenge. I bought a sport watch, a Timex, and bought a few pairs of running shorts on clearance. These are my first, and I found them interesting to try on. I ran in a pair yesterday, with no underwear, since they have ones built in. The little pocket inside for your key was cool too. 

I came home yesterday evening, and the temp on the local sign said 64 degrees. It was nice, so I decided to take a walk/jog! I put on my shorts, sports bra, t-shirt, pedometer, placed my keys in my underwear and hit the pavement before 5:30 p.m.

This was my second attempt at the walk/jog thing. My last one was over a week ago, last Monday, but then I got busy with my classes at the gym. I got home before 5pm, so it was still light out then, but yesterday it was already dark.

I started out with a walk down my street, heading towards the main road. When I reached our tennis courts, I started jogging. I did not bring my watch. I huffed and puffed till I got too tired and then walked. I alternated this walking and jogging thing for what seemed to take forever. I headed out of my sub division, on the main road, down another side road, turned around and heading back home.

I arrived home sweaty, at about 6 p.m.; imagine my surprise when I thought I had been gone for nearly an hour, and it was only 30 minutes. That’s after I had stretched too.

I logged about 4,000 steps on my pedometer, so about 2 miles. On my way home tonight, I drove and restarted my odometer to estimate how much I had done. It was exactly 2 miles.

The running shorts did not perform as good as I expected. The underwear part was nice, but I still had the riding up the fat thighs thing going on, but luckily it was dark so no one could see. My sports bra however, did perform very well.

So I did it again tonight, but this time in pants. It was much colder and windy out. My hips hurt, my shins hurt, but I’ll try to increase my running till I can run the whole two miles. Hopefully I’ll be able to do it by the end of January.

Thankfully my pants did not ride up. I much prefer running in them over shorts.

Maybe I’ll try a 5K in 2008?

I better wait and see if I can make it to January first.

Culture Jam book review

Culture Jam

I started this book, Culture Jam How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge – And Why We Must, towards the end of grad school, and just picked it up again and finished it this past week. I’ve wanted to read it for a few years now, and finally got around to it. It’s authored by the founder of Adbusters Magazine, Kalle Lasn.

A few points I found particularly interesting and relevant to food, fat and consumerism. In the chapter, The End of the American Dream, Lasn writes about postwar America and says “People gobbled takeout and started getting fat.” He concludes the chapter with a story of Elvis getting fat, and his death “Elvis devoured pills and fried-banana-and-peanut-butter sandwiches, suppressing the pain of being Elvis and seemingly trying to lose himself inside his own expanding girth.”

He likens the Elvis story to the old American Dream. “Our bodies, minds, families, communities, the environment – all are consumed.”

He also writes in the chapter Demarketing Loops about uncooling fast food, and uncooling the fashion industry. The book was published in 1999, and I had forgotten some of the advertising campaigns he mentions, but reading about them brought back memories.  He writes about the 1995 Calvin Klein campaign where young models were filmed in basements and were so offensive they were investigated by the U.S. Justice department.

Interspersed with the text are samples of his spoof ads and un-commercials including the Obsession Fetish 30 second TV spot.

I loved this paragraph,

“The first stage of demarketing our bodies involves realizing the true source of our self-esteem problems. It’s important to understand that we ourselves are not to blame. Body-image distortions, eating disorders, dieting and exercise addictions….They’re are responsibility, but they are not our fault. The issue is primarily a cultural and corporate one, and that’s the level on which it must be tackled. We must learn to direct our anger, not inwardly at ourselves, but outwardly at the beauty industry.”

The book is a little dated, but still very relevant. A lot has changed in 8 years, but we are still facing the environmental crisis that we were back then, including the assaults on our minds, bodies and the environment by corporate America. 

Shut down your computer, turn off your TV; pick up this book and read.

Crockpot time – Moroccan Chicken and Lentils

I forget how much I love my crockpot until fall and winter comes along. I never break it out during the rest of the year, but it’s so easy to make dinner with a slow cooker!

Since I’m done with grad school, and trying to do better with this weight loss thing, I decided to try and plan some meals this past week. This involved me looking through my freezer and panty to see what it held, and what was going to expire soon.

I had a new bag of lentils plus about a half a cup of lentils left over from last year in my panty. In my freezer, I had about three bags of frozen chicken parts. One bag of breasts, one of thighs and one of breast tenders, all from Trader Joe’s. I don’t have ground red pepper, so I substituted a few red pepper flakes.

I’ve made this for friends before, including once for my best friend from high school who married a man from Morocco. He said it tasted authentic and they enjoyed it. It’s from my Weight Watchers 5 Ingredient 15 Minute Cookbook.

When I stayed home and made it, the timing worked perfectly, but since I work a full day, this time I may have cooked it a little too long, the chicken was a little dry.  The carrots that were on the bottom were nice and moist though.  I’ll work on the timing.

Moroccan Chicken and Lentils

Ingredients
8 ounces baby carrots	3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups uncooked lentils	3/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 1/2 lbs frozen chicken tenders	1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
2 (14 1/4 ounce) cans fat-free chicken broth	1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons minced garlic

Directions:

Place the carrots in the bottom of a 4-5 quart slow cooker. Pour the lentils over the carrots. Arrange the frozen chicken tenders on top of the lentils. In a separate bowl combine the tumeric, ground red pepper and cinnamon together and sprinkle evenly over the chicken. Pour the 2 cans of chicken broth over the arrangement.

Time: Cook on high for 5 hours, or cook on high for 1 hour, then on low for 7 hours.

Serves about 4-6. A 1 cup serving is 5 points. With the lentils, it’s very high in fiber.

Fat workout clothes and sports bras

Fat fashion is kind of an oxymoron. Try finding workout clothes that look decent, fit comfortably and are affordable in plus sizes. One of many issues is that in addition to being fat, I’m also tall and frugal.

I did have some pretty comfortable Curves workout shirts from my days working out there, but don’t really like wearing them to my new gym. Also, when doing jumping jacks and arm stretches above my head, my fat belly tends to hang out and is quiet embarrassing. I needed to find some new workout shirts. I looked at the tag in one of my Curves shirts and it had the label Quail Hallow, so I did a search and found some at Care Free Casuals.

They have plain scoop necks or v-necks and are only about $4 each, so I bought three. They are cut generously and long enough to hide my gut most of the time, and come in a long sleeve version for fall and winter.

I usually wear biker shorts or comfortable pants when working out, but finding sports bras is also difficult if you are a size D. They can run pretty high too if they are good ones. The sports bra Oprah recommends, Enell, is $60 per bra.

I went to try one on this weekend at Sports Her Way (which was referenced on the Enell website), took it to the dressing room and did a little jogging in place. I wasn’t that impressed. It performed about the same as my other sports bras from Target.

I did need a new sports bra though, so I bought one on clearance for $24. Yesterday I went for a walk and alternated running in there too, and it performed pretty well.

I’ll stick to my cheap sports bras.