I need to eat at home more often

Yesterday started off badly but ended up being a good day. It started badly because of an on-going argument that I’m having with my mother regarding the purchase of the house. We argued (for the millionth time) on Monday night, but I went to sleep upset about it and the upset feeling was still there when I woke up.

I brought my workout clothes to work and during my lunch break, I went to the office gym and did the following interval workout on the treadmill:

3 minute warm-up
2 minute jog at 5.5 mph
1 minute run at 7.5 mph

Repeat jog, run intervals 5 times
3 minute cool-down

This ended up being a little over 2 miles in 23 minutes, I’m not sure of the exact mileage.

After that I did some abs. I have a confession to make. I’ve been slacking a little bit on the Ab Ripper X DVD of P90X. The Ab Ripper routine is a 15 minute DVD that is supposed to follow whatever strength DVD you might be doing for the day. Problem is, after I finish a 60 minute strength routine, the last thing I want to do is pop in another DVD! So, to make up for the fact that I didn’t do abs after shoulders and chest on Monday, I did a routine yesterday. I did 12 sets of each and then repeated the routine.

in and outs
bicycles (forward)
bicycles (backward)
reverse crunches
lowering legs (I have no idea what this is called. When your legs are at a 90 degree angle when your on your back and you lower them to the floor and back up.)
oblique v-ups (12 each side.) I found this to be much easier on one side than the other for some reason
oblique twist (12 each side)

I was a sweaty mess by the end of all this and my mood was much better too.

After work, I met Jason at Men’s Wearhouse so he could get fitted for his tuxedo! Scratch another big thing off the wedding to-do list! After that, we decided to go to Muss & Turner’s for dinner. I’ve had this gift card there for over a year. We’ve never used it because although the restaurant is near my office, it’s not near our house. Since dinner was basically free, we decided to get more expensive things than we’d normally order.

We started off with a cheese plate. We had the brie and the cheddar which came with two types of jam.

For my entree, I had the halibut.

Jason told me that his meals never get any blog love so here you go. He had the steak.

Muss & Turners is one of those restaurants where I can appreciate that the food is good, but it’s food that I don’t really like. Nothing on the menu jumped out at me at all. Everything seemed to be very heavy on the meat or fried or in lots of oil (see pictures above to illustrate that last one). Very Southern style cooking, which I’m not particularly fond of. Nevertheless, we had a nice time.

But.

I feel like I’ve been eating very poorly for the last two weeks or so and this needs to stop immediately. Between going to MD and my birthday, there has been a lot of going out to eat and with that came a lot of drinking. I’m declaring this celebration officially over! Obviously, I don’t want to gain weight before my wedding! But secondly, we are going to need a lot of stuff for the new house and we should be spending our money on that, not restaurant food and drink! Somehow I need to figure out a way to not go out much but not turn into a hermit either.

Enter home cooked meal for dinner. I finally made the black beans and rice that I’d planned to make on Sunday night with a side of carrot fries. A co-worker gave me the bean recipe and I have no idea where it came from, but I’ll share it since it’s so basic.

I coated the carrot fries in olive oil and ranch seasoning. They were okay, but I definitely prefer sweet potato fries. I guess these are lower calorie though.

Black Beans and Rice from Lee’s Co-worker (tweeked a little)

2/3 white onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp canola oil
1/2 tsp oregano
2/3 cup water
1 can stewed tomatoes with mexican seasoning
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup uncooked brown rice

• Heat oil on medium-high heat. Saute garlic and onion in oil for 5 minutes.
• Add oregano, water, tomato and beans. Bring to a boil.
• Add rice, return to a boil. Then let reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
• Remove from heat. Let sit for 10 minutes.
• Pour generous amounts of Frank’s on rice.