Fun with Food and Fitness

As I somewhat mentioned in my last post, it turns out, you can't just skip exercising in lieu of extra margaritas for a few weeks and still fit into your white skinny jeans in quite the same way. It's sad. So sad. But I've repeated the experiment over and over this summer and it remains true. So on Sunday, with a new registration for a 50% off Class Pass deal (10 classes a month for $52!) and a beautiful, healthy new recipe saved in my recipe folder for Monday, and the knowledge that accidentally stepping on the scale on Monday revealed the the middle number of my usually very consistent weight had changed, I was RECOMMITTED to healthy living.

At least until Thursday when I skipped a workout, had a perfectly good meal planned, but accidentally found myself with the kids at R Taco for happy hour 50% off queso, guacamole, and margaritas.

I have no regrets.

But in general, it appears I'm not 28 with a metabolism revved up to hummingbird levels through stress. I'm happy, well-rested, and require more exercise and less melted cheese to continue wearing all of my own clothes. Blergh.

Luckily I do like exercise, it's just hard to feel motivated when it's 112 degrees outside (not an exaggeration; my wunderground app is telling me it "feels like 112" and it DOES) and frozen margaritas are so much colder than that.

Winston just cannot even

I'm still teaching my barre (my first and forever fitness love), still doing Orangetheory (just upped my membership back to 8x/month; if there's anything I hate it's not using things I've paid for, so I will use the HECK out of those 8 classes), and still doing yoga (though my discounted pass just expired to Core Power my very favorite yoga studio so I'm waiting until summer is over and I can commit to 3x/weekly classes to make the fairly pricey monthly membership worth it). But I needed something new. Something to be excited about and obsessive over.

Enter Class Pass. For those who haven't used it, it's a thing studios opt into to fill up empty space in classes. You pay a monthly fee to get a certain number of classes, and depending on your package, you can visit each member studio a certain number of times. So with my 10 class/month membership I can use any studio up to 3x, forcing you to mix things up and try some stuff you might not otherwise. Like surfing!

Tuesday found me surfing the studio waves in Fort Worth's City Surf studio. It was a SUPER fun class. You're on a surf board strapped to 3 giant bouncy balls making for a very unstable surface for pilates, barre, yoga, and general fitness moves (burpees on a surf board! oh yeah/no). Loved it.

The whole time I was on the board (and jumping off it), I was reliving happy memories of our awesome family vacation to Hawaii when I was in college. We all surfed and we were so proud to get up on our boards and thought we were surfing such HUGE waves... only to look at the pictures later and be shocked to see these tiny little 3" rolling water ripples we were shakily cruising over.

crushing it

They crack me up every time.

I've done Megaformer classes, pilates, barre, yoga, and surfing. It's been great. Almost as great as a frozen margarita. (If it's in your area and you want to sign up, you can use this link and we both get $30!).

So speaking generally of clothes and fitting into them, I had the following text exchange with my mother on Thursday because she is adorable and more fashion-forward than me.

Then I posted it on facebook on Friday and realized everyone thought SHE was recommending the faux leather leggings to ME- which, to be fair, is totally something she would do, but no, it was me seeing some killer leggings and thinking "wow, those are great but too fashionable for me, I know! I'll send them to my 60-year-old mother!"

She bought them. Gigi = my style goals.

And now back to food. Here is our menu from last week. Monday's meal was amazing. Thursday's was too.

Monday: Sunshine Lentil Bowls. LOVED THESE. James got home late from swim lessons, exhausted and starving, and his first words after taking a big bite were "This is fantastic." And then he ate everything while barely talking again until he was done.

Notes: (It's a lot of things to make, but the result is filling and wonderful and brought joy to my soul and stomach.)

• Dressing: made precisely as described (well, I probably used less olive oil; I really like the taste of vinegar) in the recipe and it was so good I'll put it on everything I can going forward. I need to blend my dressings more often.
• Potatoes: I diced a bag of small potatoes into 6-8 pieces, tossed them with olive oil, kosher salt, and fresh ground pepper, and roasted them at 450 degrees for about 20 minutes.
• Green beans: I cut them up into 1" pieces from fresh and then put in boiling water for 2 minutes before dumping in a strainer and running cold water over them.
• Lentils: Cooked by Trader Joe's, reheated in the microwave for 3 minutes by me.
• Goat cheese: Made by the gods and crumbled into little pieces by me as a delicious final flourish. (Then Cora finished the rest of the log; girl loves her some strong cheeses.)
• Eggs: I used this recipe, as linked in the blog post. They were AMAZING. I thought I knew how to make scrambled eggs, but I did NOT. Make these last; you want everything ready- whether warm or room temperature, then add the eggs, pour over dressing (and lick the dressing from the blender, you know you will) and eat immediately.

Tuesday: Easy Crockpot Chicken Enchilada Chili. Delish, always. Added chips, cheese, avocado, cilantro, and fresh lime juice on top.

Wednesday: Tacos/taco salads. Classic beef taco meat, served in whole wheat tortillas or on a bowl of lettuce with all the toppings, salsa, black refried beans, and Mexican rice. I actually always eat these vegetarian because I don't understand the appeal of fairly plain ground beef, but James LOVES them and it's easy and cheap, so why not?

Thursday: This was supposed to be my new red beans and rice recipe, but R Taco happened. Oops.

Friday: DATE. NIGHT. We are eating here and I am counting down the seconds because I've been dreaming of their food since I ate there with my mom over a month ago. (Also something for the children our nutritionist nanny will make more healthy than required.

date night selfie!

date night selfie, round 2!

Saturday: Landon's 10th Birthday Party! So all his favorite things: Costco pizza, cheese balls, watermelon, and ice cream cake. I'm trying a new recipe for the cake (or "recipe" because it's more arranging than cooking), but it looks good chillin in my freezer and was super easy! There will also be a candy bar with all the finest gummy and sour candies. You only turn 10 once.

Sunday: Skinnytaste's Naked Persian Burgers with roasted potatoes because the burgers are amazing and refreshing at the same time.

Monday: Crock Pot Red Beans and Rice. What we were supposed to eat Thursday, this is my new fave red beans and rice recipe. So easy and so cozy and delicious. Even though it's a million degrees outside, there's still something wonderful about this simple, homey meal.

The kids are having some downtime before Landon's nighttime swim party (originally planned so the kids could swim with glow sticks, but worked out extra well on this insanely hot day). We've got 200 glow sticks, an underwater laser light fountain, an eclectic playlist carefully curated by Landon, a giant container of cheeseballs, and lots of water games ready to go. Looking forward to some double-digit partying!