Well, I ate the tacos as planned (and they were good!), but I got so much done that by 1PM I was in need of a break. So I grabbed Heath and headed out for a jog. We went 2.25 miles, me jogging, him walking. He did an excellent job both of walking nicely on his leash (thanks to the Gentle Leader) and of not freaking out when we were jogging on the sidewalk next to the road. When he was a puppy I made sure to take him for walks along the road so that he wouldn’t be freaked out by cars later in life, and it seems to have worked–he is sufficiently wary of them, but okay with walking five feet from a car going 50 MPH.

I didn’t have such a good jog, though…I should’ve known that two hours wouldn’t be enough for five tacos to settle in my stomach! Today was the closest I’ve ever come to being sick on a run. In fact, I contemplated turning around a few minutes in and walking back, but I decided to push through and managed to finish and to not be sick. But boy, I thought about it…

Heath did slow me up a little–when we picked up the trail, he moved to my right side and wanted to stop and sniff things. And he decided he needed to stop and pee. I tacked a little extra onto the end of my jog (enough to get me off the trail) to make up for it.

After we got back, I quickly devoured a plum, which helped settle my stomach.

I love plums and was happy to see that Whole Foods had a bin filled with them. And not the little tiny ones Harris Teeter’s been selling, either! I bought three for snacking.

After our run/walk, Heath was tired. He took advantage of the sudden cleanliness of my bedroom floor to spread out.

Poor dog. He’s all legs.

Then he decided to jump on my stripped bed and fall asleep in the sun, which may have been the cutest thing ever.

Except that later he did this.

That one judgmental eye was following me around. I felt thoroughly chastised for no good reason.

I took a nap with him in the afternoon (maybe he was mad because I woke him up?) and then got back to cleaning. And cooking. I made a big pot of rice, since there’s a lot of rice on my menu for the week. I also went ahead and chopped up the green pepper and onions that I’ll need for meals on Monday and Tuesday, since I already had everything out for stir-fry.

Rice and stir-fried green peppers, onions, and strip steak, with lemon-garlic seasoning. I mixed everything together before I ate it because the rice was unseasoned and tasted bland. It was fine in combination with everything else, though.

And I had some grapes.

I think I’m going to stay up for another 45 minutes or so and work on the laundry, and maybe have a yogurt…but I’m definitely going to bed at 10PM. Gotta get up and go to work tomorrow, plus I’d like to get a little extra time in to help make up for Monday. I’ve been checking the weather for next Saturday’s 5K and it looks like it’s going to be clear and in the upper 40s…I was worried after all the snow…!

I love tacos. These were so good. I’m having more for lunch tomorrow. Mmmmm tacos…

I made a menu plan for the week (again–didn’t work last time) and headed out to Whole Foods and Harris Teeter. Whole Foods was a madhouse. I was so happy to have a list so I could grab what I needed and leave! I didn’t realize that tomorrow was the Super Bowl, plus it was Saturday morning, plus it was randomly snowing outside, so the store was packed. The lady in front of me spent just over $400 on her order! My basket of food was only $40, and $10 of that was yogurt!

For dinner, I had blue corn tortilla chips, carrot sticks, and dip made from cream cheese and chili.

Oh, and some grapes.

I decided that for me, it’s cheaper to just buy a little container of grapes from Whole Foods than to buy one of the several-pound bags that you find in produce departments. All those grapes always end up going bad. These were nice and fresh tasting, plus there were three different kinds (green, red, and black).

The blue corn tortilla chips I picked up had no salt added. I didn’t realize this when I picked them up, but I was glad when I realized that was the case. I’m always crazy thirsty after tortilla chips…not this time!

Another reason I may not be thirsty…

Last night, on a whim, I decided that decaffeinated Crystal Light, while not inherently healthy, has to be better for me than drinking diet cola all the time. I’ve tried drinking only water and I can’t do it–I have to have something sweet to drink. So I did a little Crystal Light recon online last night and picked up three packages of Crystal Light On the Go–one in fruit punch (very tasty!), one in pink lemonade (slightly less tasty, but still tasty!), and one of the new Lemon Lime Fitness kinds that has added electrolytes. I’ve really only ever had Crystal Light before when it was available in my college cafeteria (which was affectionately known as “the Rat”), and I didn’t really like it then, but I’ve already gone through two of the On the Go packets since lunchtime, and I diluted them (20 oz of water instead of 16 oz), so I’ve already had more water today than I would’ve if I was just drinking straight water. Yay…

Not saying I’m never drinking diet soda again, just that I’m going to try harder to reserve it for special occasions, as a treat.

Also, my Nalgene bottle is pretty awesome for mixing Crystal Light. In fact, I think I might have been better off money-wise if I’d bought the packets of Crystal Light fruit punch that you mix up as quarts…need to remember that for next time.

The only other beverage I bought at the store was a bottle of Pom Wonderful Cherry Pomegranate, because I want to try it. That stuff was expensive–$3.99 for a 16 oz bottle (although the Teeter had it for $3.79 this week)–so I was glad to see that it’s good for a while after you open it.

Something new I found at Whole Foods…

I noticed last time while stocking up on Liberte Mediterranee yogurts that Whole Foods had added French Vanilla to their stock. Today I found Apple Crumble sitting on the shelf! Of course, I had to grab one to try. It was crazy delicious! And I was very happy when I checked the ingredients and found that there was no granola (or wheat) involved–I think the “fruit preparation” consisted of apples, raisins, cinnamon, and rice starch. (I’m not quite ready to try going wheat-free for a couple of weeks, but none of the items I have on my menu this week contain wheat. But if someone brings donuts to work this week, I’m totally eating one. Glad we cleared that up.)

Part of this evening has been spent watching Hoarders and cleaning…I don’t know how I ended up with so much junk. It’s not like I enjoy shopping. My living room is actually pretty clutter-free and has been for a while, I just keep putting things that belong in other rooms on any available surface. My kitchen tends toward entropy, and my bedroom is the same. I’ve got another half of a trash bag filled with mostly paper trash to throw away, and I cleared probably half of my bedroom floor and gave it a good vacuuming. There was dog fur, everywhere…I was shocked at how full the canister on the vacuum was based on how small an area of the floor I vacuumed. It’s no wonder my bedroom makes me want to sneeze…tomorrow, I must clean the kitchen!

I slept in until 9:20 this morning–ahhh!–and had a lemon Larabar for breakfast. Then I headed out to Macy’s in the rain. We did get a little bit of freezing rain before I got up; there was slush all over my steps and on the windshield of my car. In fact, it rained all the way to Macy’s, during the two hours I spent there shopping, during the drive home, during my nap this afternoon…and it’s still raining!  There’s water everywhere!

My first trip to Macy’s was a success. I headed to the petites section as soon as I got there and found racks and racks of 70% off clothing. I ended up finding three different styles of slacks in three different colors (gotta get away from wearing black all the time!) and a pair of (black) jeans. Unfortunately, I could only find one petite-sized shirt that I liked and it didn’t really fit that well, and when I checked the price on it I decided that it wasn’t worth buying.

One of the reasons I hate shopping is that it’s so hard to find shirts that fit, an experience to which I’m sure other women with big busts and small waists can relate. I was expecting to walk out with nothing but the pants, which was all I really needed. But then I managed to find a couple of shirts in the regular section that fit!

Check me out! I’m a preppy!

Okay, this shirt…I walked by it several times on the rack and thought it was very cute, but the only size left was large and I figured that even if it fit in the bust, there was no way the rest of it would work. I tried it on and was happy to find that it fit nicely, and that the camisole I had on under it looked good with it. Then I wandered back out onto the floor and saw a zebra print camisole and immediately grabbed it and tried it on with the shirt. Yay for layering! This combo is my favorite purchase of the day, and to think I almost didn’t try on the shirt!

So I got three pairs of slacks, a pair of jeans, two shirts, and a camisole, for $99.33! One of the pairs of slacks was $4.60! I happened to show up on a day when you could donate $2 to the American Heart Association, get a red dress pin, and save 20%, which is what pushed me under $100 (I saved $19.31 by buying that $2 pin!). The camisole is the only thing I paid full price for–it wasn’t on clearance and didn’t qualify for the 20% off. The total savings on my receipt: $181.77. Whoo-hoo…I told the cashier that I would definitely be back!

I was starving when I came home and almost stopped in for some Chinese food, but it was raining and I didn’t want to wait. And then I couldn’t find anything appetizing, because I haven’t been to the store in a week and a half, so I had a piece of smoked gouda and half a cup of cereal. Then I took an awesome nap and when I woke up I seriously considered going to the store for the ingredients for tacos.

But it was still raining. So I ordered Domino’s.

And it took 55 minutes for my order to arrive. I was starving and annoyed when my food arrived, because Domino’s has an order tracker on their website and I knew that my food had sat at the store for 20 minutes after it was done cooking. But I gave the driver a big tip, since he got it here quickly once it finally left the store and it was pouring outside.

Since I didn’t eat much today, and because you have to get up to $10 before your order qualifies for delivery, I got the chicken bacon ranch sandwich, a bag of Doritos, a Diet Coke, and a molten lava cake.

As I wrote in the comments section about my order, I was shocked that it was still hot after sitting at the store for so long. It was good, though. I ate it while watching Up, which I almost quit watching after 15 minutes–what a sad way to start a movie! It was very good, though.

I was going to find another episode of Hoarders to watch tonight, but I think I’ll save that for tomorrow afternoon…Groundhog Day is on Bravo (again)!

I had a quarter of a cherry cashew Pure bar before my run and apparently that was enough to keep me from getting the cramps that I tend to get if I run on an empty stomach, but not enough to give me the heartburn (? I guess that’s what it is…) that I get when I eat too much before a run. Good to know…I finished the Pure bar after I got to work. Which was a little later than I intended, because after I took a shower, I crawled back into bed for a catnap and woke up ten minutes past when my cell phone alarm was supposed to go off! Eep!

Jamie made the mistake of mentioning Cloo’s Coney Island this morning, which is where I wanted to go yesterday. So of course, we ended up going.

I’ve only been to Cloo’s once before, during my first week of work. My brother took me out to lunch to celebrate my new job! I think it was 11:30 or 11:45 when we got there that time and it was crazy busy–barely any seating–but the staff still managed to not only get our order right, but they somehow brought everyone’s orders to the correct tables. How they manage to recognize everyone, I’ll never know…

Today we got there around 11:15 and it was empty. Of course, we sat at the next to last table in the very narrow seating area, and the next group of people that came in just had to sit at the table between us and the wall! I hate it when that happens–tables should follow the restroom stall rule! (Which is: if you’ve got room, leave a stall/table between you and the next person!)

Jamie’s fries ended up in the middle of the table again…

Don’t worry; in keeping with my three-months-with-no-potatoes challenge, I did not touch. But I sure looked…

Since I had a hotdog yesterday, I decided to order a double slider with cheese, all the way.

All the way included ketchup and mustard (a tasty combo that I haven’t had in a while!), grilled onions, and pickle slices, which I promptly removed. I only like the essence of the pickle, not the pickle itself! (Pickle essence is what makes Chic-Fil-A sammiches ubertasty, by the way).

Anyway, I was happy with my burger. It was perfectly sized and delicious. I love a good cheeseburger!

Sometime during the afternoon, I started to eat a peanut butter Larabar, but it had that weird taste that I’ve been getting from Jamfrakas bars. I’ve been checking the dates and all my bars are well within the expiration date–maybe I’ve just grabbed a bad string of bars? The lemon ones have never tasted funny. Hmm…

There was much candy eaten this afternoon as well. Gotta stop!

I didn’t make it home until 6:30PM and my dinner didn’t get done until after 8PM! I popped the top on a jar of Trader Joe’s salsa con queso, heated up a few spoonfuls, and ate it with the dregs of my bag of blue corn chips and some carrot sticks. I was impressed by the nutritionals (15 calories per 2 tablespoons, as opposed to 90 calories for the Pace Four Cheese salsa con queso I have in the fridge), but I had to stop eating it after a point and go cool off my mouth with some vanilla wafers–it was hot!

Dinner was completely random–a chicken tender topped with the remains of a bag of veggie fried rice, baked in the oven (foreeeeever), and then topped with some butter ’cause it was too dry.

Tastiness!

We’re possibly expecting some freezing rain tonight…nice. Here’s the deck of my apartment.

Guess those last bits of snow and ice will still be around tomorrow!

Tomorrow I’m hoping to make my first ever trip to Macy’s! I got my tax refund back a day early and I need to get some new clothes, and apparently Macy’s has a good petite section. We shall see…I hate clothes shopping!

Last night’s lack of post was due to a number of factors: I didn’t get home until after 6PM, I was really, really tired, and then The Biggest Loser was on from 9-11PM instead of 8-10PM! I was so annoyed. So, so annoyed.

Anyway. Let there be food.

Here are the brownies I made on Monday night.

They did not turn out so well. I was hoping to be able to take them to work, but ended up disposing of them myself (fortunately, it wasn’t that big of a pan of brownies).

Oh, there’s a picture of Heath.

Dog is not food.

I’ve been munching on Larabars for breakfast. Yesterday I sent my minions (ha) out to get me lunch.

…okay, Jamie and a co-worker were going out to lunch anyway and I asked them to grab me something. This is the fajita burrito from El Cerro (where there was a fire recently!). It looked a little different than the last one I got but was delightful just the same.

They went all out with the to-go bag of chips again.

Seriously. I’m one person! There was a big container of salsa in there, too, which was hot hot hot! I grabbed a big handful of chips to go with my meal and then trucked the remainder of the bag and the salsa down to the breakroom and left it for wandering scientists to devour.

Mid-afternoon, I may have walked to the local store, bought this thing of donuts, and eaten the entire package.

May have. I mentioned in my last post that I’m considering laying off wheat/gluten for a couple of weeks to see if I have an allergy, and I think I’m subconsciously trying to stuff my face with wheat-filled things. These donuts weren’t even that good. Bah.

Today during lunch, I was craving a hot dog. I thought about walking over to Cloo’s Coney Island, a local hot dog shop, but I couldn’t remember if they were still cash-only or how much they cost and I only had $6 in my pocket. Instead, I drove to Cook-Out for a footlong with mustard and onions.

Judge me if you will, but this photo represents progress. Cook-Out has a combo where you can get an entree, two sides, and a drink for about $5, and it wasn’t long ago that I’d go to Cook-Out and order a cheeseburger or chicken tenders, double fries (or fries and onions rings…they also count corndogs and chicken nuggets as sides!), and a Diet Coke. It’s just the way I’ve always done things–I go out for fast food and get the combo, because it’s easier to order (well, not at Cook-Out), and a lot of times I justify it as being less expensive–after all, that cheeseburger and Diet Coke I had a couple of weeks ago cost slightly less than it would’ve cost to get the combo and get the two sides. I’ve finally come to realize that it might be less expensive, but it’s not worth it in the grand scheme of things to buy more food than I need to eat and then to eat it all because I bought it.

So today, I wanted a hotdog, and I got only a hotdog, and it was good. And it didn’t have the added calories that would’ve come from eating a double order of fries (potatoooooes) or onion rings.

Right, enough being deep. Jamie snuck into my cube this afternoon and took a picture of me, which I half-cropped before I realized that the glare from the lights effectively hid any top-secret government information that you should not be privy to. (Ha!)

Sadly, you won’t be seeing many more (or at least not nearly as frequent) pictures of my lunches out with Jamie. Her hard work has paid off in the form of a job offer in a different division of our agency (still nearby, but in a different building instead of on the other side of my cube ). Yay for Jamie! She very much deserves it. But sad, too–who will go out to lunch with me now, or come with me on walks during breaks, or drive with me to the farmers market during lunch? Who will look really embarrassed when I start taking pictures of my food?

I’m sure I can find other people to look embarrassed when I take pictures.

I may even be brave and take pictures at Jamie’s goodbye lunch next week…

Dinner tonight was short and sweet (small and savory…?). Flat iron steak and some Harvest Hodgepodge veggies from Trader Joe’s, sprinkled with buttermilk ranch dressing base.

Lest you think my dinner was too small, please note that I ate candy all afternoon while stressed out and then had the last of my brownies when I got home.

Well, I guess I’m going to bed now, because I thought the finale of Launch My Line was at 10PM as usual but it was at 9PM. What is with TV’s randomly changing schedules? Fortunately I caught the last 30 seconds so I know who won (yaaay!).

Anyway. To bed.

I did no slip slidin’ away today, although I did watch a few more cars slip around the parking lot. I didn’t sleep well last night (maybe it was that Diet Coke I drank after having no caffeine for days?) so Heath and I took a nap in the late morning/early afternoon, to the sound of snow sheeting off the roof. When I woke up, the parking lot looked a lot better, although it’s just going to refreeze again tonight…

Lunch was the last of my pizza leftovers and the final two bowls of veggie beef soup.

I really liked how the soup turned out, especially with so little beef in it. I cooked the beef in the pot with some olive oil, then took it out and cooked some of the veggies in some more olive oil, then dumped the beef and the rest of the veggies and some water into the pot. That basically deglazed the pan, so while the major flavor in the soup’s broth was tomato, I could definitely taste beef as well. I think next time I may use even less beef and shred it to disperse the beefy flavor even more.

After spending part of the day curled up next to me in bed, Heath spent the rest of the day curled up in various places on the floor.

He’s not a fan of the camera. If you couldn’t tell.

Dinner was a late affair–I ate it while watching House! I made spinach pasta with pesto sauce, then topped it with broccoli and shrimp that I’d sauteed in olive oil with lemon garlic seasoning.

Man, that broccoli’s green! I swear there’s pasta under there.

See?

It was tasty.  I have leftovers if I remember to eat them.

After dinner I had some more of these vanilla wafers from Trader Joe’s.

They are crazy good.

You’d never know from the amount of wheat-based foods that I’ve eaten today that I’m considering avoiding wheat/gluten for a couple of weeks in the near future. Preferably after I get my boxes of Girl Scout Cookies. (I’ve got two boxes of lemonades coming, mmm.) And definitely after I eat the brownies that are currently baking…

–

Eh? What’s that? You want to see  Heath eat some cake? Okay.

He’s barking (though it’s more like wuffing) intermittently because there were two people in the parking lot screaming. After he was done I discovered it was two 20-somethings (bah! peer-aged whippersnappers!) sliding around on the ice. Interrupting my dog’s close-up! Psh!

I had some water and a lemon Larabar for breakfast, but I didn’t take a picture because lemon Larabars all look the same. Instead, enjoy this video of Heath in the snow.

Sunny and blue skies! I walked a couple of miles to Kroger to get some fresh ingredients for soup, then carried them (in my Feeding America reusable bag!) a bit under three miles back. I took a different route on the return trip that allowed me to check out the roads. The main road is accessible and if I can get out to it tomorrow, I can go to work–but that’s a big if given that it’s going to be 10 degrees out and all the melted snow is going to refreeze into ice!

I’d eaten some mini peanut butter cups before setting off on my walk, and I was starving when I got back. I had some Diet Coke and a lemon Larabar.

Then I set about making soup! There’s nothing like nice warm soup when it’s cold. My favorite is potato soup, but since I’m still off potatoes for another couple of months (31 days today!), I can’t make that. As delicious as it sounds. Mmm…

Sorry, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah, soup that fits within the context of my challenge. Well, I’ve been thinking about the soup my mom used to make that was part of the South Beach Diet. It was crazy good soup and I decided I wanted to make it, but whenever I tried to Google the recipe I kept getting recipes for the cabbage soup diet soup. So I called my mom and she sent me the recipe!

It’s a vegetable beef soup, but I overloaded on the veggies and kept the beef component to a minimum–I only put about two servings’ worth of chuck steak into the entire pot of soup. It’s full of onions, celery, green beans, carrots, cabbage, spinach, and tomatoes…and in fact, the only thing in this soup that came from a can was the tomatoes! One thing I like about this soup.

If I like soup, I eat a lot of it, which is a problem with heavy, cream-based soups like potato soup. One bowl of potato soup is a caloric nightmare–I can put away three in one meal easy. But when this soup was done, I ate three bowlfuls and didn’t feel the least bit guilty–how can you feel guilty about eating all these low-cal vegetables!

In fact, I had another three bowls for dinner.

Sooooup…

—

Today is a special day in the Story of Heath–it’s the second anniversary of the day I got him from the animal shelter! Though I prefer to say I sprung him from the clink.

I got Heath when he was four or five months old. He is now a gangly two-year-old who, apart from his tendency to get excited and jump on people (and lick them), is one of the most well-behaved dogs I’ve met. When I brought him home two years ago today, he laid down in my floor and I looked at him and smiled and told him he was a good boy, and he looked at me and wagged his tail like it was the first time anyone had said a kind word to him. But he really is a good boy!

So good I made him a cake!

A cake that made me want to throw up!

It was a banana cake, made with whole wheat flour. I cannot abide banana bread, and the smell of banana + whole wheat flour = ugh. I tasted a little piece of the cake and it tasted like dog biscuits smell. Bleh. But I cut him a slice and dropped some icing made of cream cheese and peanut butter over the top and crossed my fingers that he’d like it.

Ugh…

He went in for a taste…

and…

…approval! He finished the bowl. Good thing, ’cause there’s more sitting in there on the stove that he’s going to need to dispose of…

Me, I had some of those ubertasty vanilla wafers from Trader Joe’s.

We’re looking at a delay until 10AM tomorrow at work, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to get out at that point. People have been going in and out of my apartment complex, but pretty much as soon as the sun went down and the temperature dropped the parking lot turned into a giant sheet of ice. Guess we’ll see how it looks tomorrow! I’m headed to bed anyway, I’ve got a headache and there’s no sense in sleeping in tomorrow and messing up my schedule for the rest of the week…

I had a mug of hot cocoa and some cereal after Heath and I got back from our walk.

I always take Heath for a walk in the snow–he loves the stuff! Usually the snow builds up on his beard and in between his toes. This time, he had a whole snowball accumulating on one of his front feet! He kept stopping to try to lick it off.

Check it out. Snowbeard!

I ended up having to carry him part of the way back to my apartment because he wouldn’t walk anymore. Poor baby! When we got back inside, I used a warm, wet dishtowel to remove the snow from his foot, and then helped him out with the snow in his beard.

After a little while, I left him in the apartment and went for what turned out to be a 4.25 mile walk in the snow! I love walking in the snow, and there was a good bit of it.

When I got back, I swept the snow off the stairs to my apartment, then popped dinner in the oven.

I mixed up mango salsa, black beans, onions, and cut-up chicken and baked it in the oven. I also took some rice out of the freezer, added some water and a garlic cube, and cooked that in the oven as well. It turned out to have a weird texture and needed some butter because it was so dry, but the salsa and black bean chicken was good.

After dinner, I had three of these vanilla wafers from Trader Joe’s.

Heath’s been doing this all afternoon.

Poor cold puppy!

I fell asleep last night shortly after arriving home from work (maybe around 6PM?) and when I woke up at 4:30AM to take the dog out, there was snow. Several inches of it. And still falling. Whoo-hoo! The only bad thing about this is that it happened on a weekend–maybe we’ll get an ice delay on Monday morning? Better not hope for that, though–there’s always work to be done, and it doesn’t stop when you lose a day in the office!

Yesterday’s Thursday’s lunch came from Quizno’s, because not cooking dinners when I was supposed to all week screwed up my schedule of leftovers for lunch.

This had the potential to be a really good sandwich, but the Quizno’s near work is really hit-or-miss. After I handed my credit card to the cashier I pointed out that my sandwich (or what I thought was my sandwich, but turned out to be Jamie’s sandwich, even though I ordered before she did, but it didn’t matter because my sandwich was still wrong), which was supposed to be a turkey, bacon, and guacamole sub, had neither bacon nor guacamole on it. They may have also mixed up the cheese. It was an okay sandwich, but I think from now on if I want a sub at work I’ll suck it up and go to Subway, where you’re supposed to hover over them while they make your sandwich–where it is, in fact, encouraged! [Edit: To clarify, because I just realized that sounded like Subway was inferior--I actually like Subway more than Quizno's, but Quizno's is within walking distance of my office and while there are two Subways that are easily accessible within my lunch half-hour by car, it's still easier to just get up and walk across the street to Quizno's. But is it really easier if they keep messing up orders?]

Thursday night I got home at 6:30PM and had no desire to cook. I ordered a pizza. A large pizza with grilled chicken, mushrooms, onions, and green peppers. From Papa John’s, as evidenced by the garlic-butter sauce.

You know what’s funny? I held off on adding bacon to this pizza because it was already pizza and I didn’t want the extra salt or calories. Then I ate half (seriously, half) of the pizza on Thursday night.

I was hungry?

Well, I was.

Friday I woke up around 3:30AM and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I started getting ready for work. Got there at 6AM and stayed until 4:30PM–a fairly productive 10-hour day–and had a Pure cherry cashew bar for breakfast and a piece of pizza for lunch. Had nothing for dinner, because I fell asleep last night before I could eat it. I’m getting ready to make nachos, because I don’t care if it’s 5:30 in the morning–there’s snow, and that’s a good enough reason to make nachos.

I got my copy of Fitness magazine the other day–a free subscription from MyCokeRewards–and noted with interest that Jenna Wolfe, an NBC Weekend Today anchor, had gone on a 30-day “detox”  diet. But not one of those ones where you only drink spicy lemonade or whatever–she did this:

“I cut out certain foods: dairy, yeast, refined sugars, commercially prepared condiments, bread, peanuts, vinegar, gluten, beef, pork, veal, alcohol, and chocolate…I ate ‘clean’ foods–fresh, organic produce; free-range poultry; wild-caught fish; gluten-free bread; nuts; and complex carbs…and meal-replacement protein shakes.”

At the end of the (very brief) article, she notes that she lost 10 lbs, dropped 6% body fat, and lost four inches from her waist. But “most important, I’ve learned how to eat only when I’m hungry.”

I finished reading her story and thought, “Wow, that’s pretty cool–that’s how I’d like to eat all the time.” Well, minus the meal-replacement protein shakes–but replace that with raw whole food bars and I’d be good. Problem is, I don’t have the willpower for that. (Do you know how much candy I had yesterday at work? I think not eating potatoes has only increased my craving for carbs!) But then I was thinking, well, say I don’t have the willpower to do it for a month–maybe I have the willpower to do it for a week? And if I could make it a week, maybe then I could make it two, or three, or four? Sometimes I eat really, really well, and sometimes I eat very poorly, and I can definitely tell the difference…

Well, I’m hungry and I’m going to go make junk food for breakfast, now that I’ve gone off on that little ramble…