Self-Inflicted Wounds

Remember how I was all “I’m so good and Christmas was a breeze this year with regards to my diet!” earlier this week?

Yeah. Drunken Frat Boy was in full force on Christmas Eve. Here’s the start to that night of eating all the wrong things:

Oh Baileys Irish Cream, you complete me.

But it’s also full of sugar and cream and whisky. Delicious, delicious whisky.

Which then led to appetizers of the meat and cheese gift set we got from family at the first Christmas gathering. Then shrimp and angel hair pasta with sun-dried tomatoes and broccoli in a white wine sauce with a side of cheese bread. And champagne.

Dessert was cheesecake and more Baileys.

Needless to say I was hungover in both food consumption and booze consumption the next day.

Not learning my lesson from Christmas Eve, Christmas Day was spent with the hubby playing Super Mario 3D Land, shoveling the driveway, and more rich foods and wine. I made scalloped potatoes with ham* using almond milk in a butter-based roux. I added a handful of sharp cheddar to the sauce too – turned out amazing. But I’m pretty sure eating the equivalent of 2.5 potatoes in a creamy sauce for dinner isn’t the best idea.

Sure enough, stepping on my Aria scale the next morning showed I was up 4lbs from before the holidays. All in all, not bad (trying to be positive!) – but Drunken Frat Boy really made his mark. Hopefully now he’s sleeping off his hangover and will leave me be for a while.

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This week I’ve been ramping up my running training in preparation for the Polar Dash 5k on New Year’s Day. I already did the packet pickup, so I got my hat already. The scariest fucking penguin hat in history:

Caption courtesy of Mel Choyce. It's fucking true.
Caption courtesy of Mel Choyce. It’s fucking true.

Perhaps I’ll run faster if I visualize that hat chasing me. Actually, most people wear that hat during the race…so they WILL be chasing me. *shudder*

Now I don’t normally run races in the winter – the last time I ran anything between October-April was the Santa Run, a fundraising event for the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis. It was only a 1k race, but you get to wear a red Santa suit and run en masse down the street. Awesome fun.

Santa Run 2008

Sadly, they don’t do that race anymore. Well, calling it a “race” is a bit of a stretch – it was more of an excuse to be ridiculous and to “warm up” at the Irish pub afterwards. 🙂

This year (well, technically *next year*), I’m running the following races in this Ortho Race Series: a couple 5k races, a 7k, a 10k, and a half marathon spread throughout 2014. The first 5k is the aforementioned Polar Dash, the 7k is the “Get Lucky” race on St. Patrick’s Day.

For those of you who don’t know, that’s in March – a.k.a. still winter in Minnesota.

I’m looking out to the forecast for New Year’s Day, and it’s not looking pretty: a high of 3F (that’s -16C) that day. That’s cold.

I think my goal for this one will be to finish. Not sure how fast I’ll be bundled up like the kid from “A Christmas Story.” 😉

Wish me luck!

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* The ham was leftovers from the family Christmas – my sister wouldn’t let us leave without taking some. I had made a huge batch of homemade ham and bean soup for the freezer too.

** the post title courtesy of Aisha Tyler. You should read “Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation” – it’s hilarious. No, it’s not an affiliate link – it’s just a great book.

Christmas Bullets

Yesterday, I had my family’s Christmas gathering. We never get together on the actual holiday – too many in-laws are psycho adamant about having the holiday on the holiday and my parents don’t care. They just want us to get together.

With five kids and their spouses/families – it makes getting together tough sometimes. Most years it gets into January before we’re all free to get together for a “Christmas” dinner. But luck shined on the Sonnek clan this year and we got together mere days before Christmas!

The only issue is navigating the culinary no man’s land that is our potluck dinner. The dinner typically consists of:

  • Ham
  • Turkey
  • Sour cream potatoes
  • Cheesy scalloped potatoes
  • Dressing
  • Some Cool-Whip and pudding-based “salad”
  • Dinner rolls
  • The cranberry sauce that retains the shape of the can

Now that doesn’t sound too bad. However, I failed to mention the pre-dinner buffet of hors d’ovures: sausage/cheese wontons, shrimp cocktail, and my normal contribution of crudités (fresh veggies, pickles, and olives).

Then there’s dessert: chocolate cake, angel food cake, three different types of pie, cheesecake, a plethora of Christmas cookies, and other assorted sweet nibbles.

Then the giant box of these:

Oh sweet little nuggets of deliciousness, GET IN MAH BELLY.
Oh sweet little nuggets of deliciousness, GET IN MAH BELLY.

Bite-sized cream puffs? OH LAWD NO.

My drunken inner frat boy LOVES these things. And I ate some. Just not as many as I *wanted* to. I was also pretty restrained with the dinner and dessert portion of dinner. I didn’t take all the potatoes I wanted, I skipped the bread and the sugar salad, and I only had cake for dessert.

The best part about dinner yesterday was that my sister was also trying not to EAT ALL THE THINGS. That made it easier to not be bullied into being a Christmas pig*.

Since my family’s Christmas is over with and we don’t go to New York for my husband’s family Christmas, plus we purposefully have no plans for New Year’s Eve** this year, I’ve dodged the Christmas holiday bullets pretty successfully this year! GO ME! 😀

I’m now going to trek out to the grocery store (OH LAWD SAVE ME FROM KILLING EVERYONE) to pick up some healthy options for food for the rest of the week and will not leave the house until sometime on the 26th or 27th.

How are you coping with this year’s holiday assault of all the foods and drinks? Any successes to share? Failures to cry about? I’d love to hear them!

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* Don’t get me started on that one. No wonder I struggle with my weight.

** I’m also running a 5k New Year’s Day, which is why I’m not partying at all NYE. I’m insane enough to do this in a Minnesota winter, I don’t need the added burden of being even slightly hungover on top of it.

Wot’s All This Then?

This is a place where I’m going to chronicle my ups and downs of getting fit as a forty-something woman.  Including my love of colorful language.

(Seriously, you guys – I swear A LOT.)

For years, I’ve exercised my figurative ass off in order to be able to “eat/drink whatever I wanted.” As I’ve discovered by being at least 20 lbs overweight, that shit only works in your 20s.

“You can’t out train a bad diet. Also, put down that beer.” ~me

As someone who loves to cook and loves to eat (and drink!), this shift from burgers & fries, pizza, and eating whatever the fuck I wanted to is going to be tough. When I say “tough” – I mean it’s going to suck. Hard.

(That’s what she said?)

I’ve never had a problem with the exercise part of “diet and exercise” – I’m a runner, I do karate two times a week, I’ve done a triathlon and I love being active. The problem is that I eat like a college frat boy. And that frat boy is drunk.

I’m now going to put all this technology* I have to use and finally make myself accountable for the bad behavior and stop the denial that I’m no longer in my 20s and that being fueled by chips and wine isn’t a recipe for success. It’s a recipe for deliciousness, but also a recipe for not being able to fit my fat ass into a pair of jeans.

(The downside of working from home: you can wear lounge pants all day and not notice your butt has expanded like a rising loaf of bread. Mmm….bread.)

See what I have to deal with here? That inner frat boy is really fucking annoying and very, very persuasive. Curse you, you loud-mouthed jerk!

I’ll probably fall flat on my face more often than not and I’m sure I’ll whine like a kid in the grocery store that didn’t get the Hot Wheels car they wanted. But, every great journey starts with a single step.

Hopefully that step isn’t off a cliff. 🙂

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* More on the technology I use in an upcoming post!