Psalm 34:8–Taste and see that the Lord is good!

So apparently I’m quite the salesman, given my success at Bonnie Ruth’s, Oil and Vinegar, and convincing my parents to go to Torchy’s again today.  That’s right ladies and gentlemen…Torchy’s two days in a row.  And I can still walk/function correctly.  Booyah.

Abby went to Portland this morning for Lindsay and Luke’s wedding, and I have to admit…sending me a picture of the beautiful scenery was freaking mean. Shame on you…it actually made me miss Colorado a ton.  I got up earlier than I’m used to in order to get her to the airport, then came back and made it a few hours before I needed a nap (otherwise work just wasn’t going to happen) so my schedule is a bit off now…hence posting this at 11:15.  I guess I’m getting on Israel time early?

Breakfast–Omelette with three eggs, jalapeno, onion, bacon, asparagus, and some Sriracha. It was REALLY good.

Lunch–The aforementioned Torchy’s, round 2.  I had another Crossroads and a Brushfire…the Brushfire was amazing.  Possibly my favorite, although more testing must be done…its a rough life I lead.

Dinner–Peanut butter and grape jelly and a piece of chocolate praline cake from Bonnie Ruth’s.  I missed my friends so I ran over there during break to “get some cake” and talk to everyone.  Really the cake was just a bonus.

Tomorrow is my last day of work for a good long while (my next paycheck should be, um, robust) and then we pack for Israel. It’s been a while since I packed for a trip this long and since I packed for international travel, so it could be quite the adventure.

Shout out to #numberonefan Leah.  Figure out some way for us to come visit for free.

Have a good one!

I accomplished everything I wanted to get done today, just not in the order I expected.  This is not uncommon, especially during the “summer” when Abby is here with me and I don’t necessarily have to get everything done before she gets home anymore.  Unfortunately–and I truly am ashamed about this–the reason things got a bit wonky had to do with two movies: Days of Thunder (probably forgivable, but man I dislike Tom Cruise) and Major League: Back to the Minors (completely unforgivable and potentially cause for a beating).  Thanks to Chuck, I’m now a huge Scott Bakula fan, so I feel like blaming all of this on him is completely acceptable.

Seriously. Major League 3. What is wrong with me?!

Breakfast–Frosted Mini Wheats with a banana.  I needed a good shot of fiber, and that slightly sweetened hay delivered like a champ.

Lunch–Salad with honey roasted walnuts, red pepper, chopped bacon, and a passionfruit-lime dressing.  I also got a phone call from Jordan during lunch just checking on me, which I greatly appreciated.  I’m pretty sure he doesn’t read this (partially because it involves Facebook, which he loathes) but in case this finds him–thanks man.

Snack–I had some cherries.  They finally went on sale at Market Street, and lo and behold, they sucked. A bit, um, squishy for my tastes.  I suppose there will be some jam appearing in the near future.

Dinner–Salmon en papillote, courtesy of my mom’s brilliant ideas.  I took some asparagus, snow peas, orange bell pepper, and some incredible Copper River Sockeye salmon, dressed all of it with a honey-soy-sesame marinade, wrapped it up in parchment and threw it in the oven.  Of course, for the third time (out of the three times I’ve attempted this…) the “suggested” cooking time wasn’t even close to enough to get the salmon done, so really it was just a crapshoot to guess when it was done.  It was freaking delicious though, served on top of some quinoa.

Dessert–Finished off the shortbread, some sliced cherries, and a scoop of Cherry Garcia (my ultimate store-bought ice cream weakness; my homemade chocolate is still the best ice cream ever).  It was excellent…and I may have to make some more shortbread.

Exercise–See, this is out of order.  I went about 20 minutes on the elliptical while watching Grimm with Abby.  If you haven’t watched Grimm and you like fairytales/mythology, get on it.  Good show. I also had the freak occurrence of my calorie counter (MyFitnessPal…its awesome) coming out almost exactly even tonight. I was one calorie off out of 1800…I was allowed 1800 and consumed 1801. Not bad.

Work tomorrow, and a haircut. I hate haircuts, but the whole Israel thing means I need to look less…disheveled. Have a good one.

Um…so apparently I used to write a blog. I was reminded of this fact a few times over the last 50 days (give or take…its been 48 since my last post) and yet never really had time or brainpower to crank out a post until now.  In the last 50 (48…whatever) days, here’s what’s happened:

–Abby graduated from Optometry School.  That’s right: I’m married to a doctor.  We always thought there would be another Dr. Henderson, but I have to admit I didn’t see it happening this way when I joined HOSA in high school.

–Disney World. It. Was. AWESOME.

–Finished my Church History II class with a solid B.  With everything else going on, I’ll take it and run.

–Went to Houston for graduation, stayed for the amazing friends.  I also think I made 3 dozen cookies in the span of 36 hours, including a giant pizookie that was so good it was mistaken for brownies more than once. A brownie made of cookie dough people! It was amazing!

–Saw The Avengers and watched all of Series Two of Sherlock.  The Avengers, as you all know by now, was incredible.  Sherlock was just freaking mind-blowing.  If you haven’t seen it, find the series and watch it. I’ll wait. I even promise not to disappear for another seven weeks. Scout’s honor!

–Both of my knees went on the fritz.  It got to a point where, while running on the treadmill, both of them hurt badly enough they went numb.  I thought I was going through the wall behind the treadmill, but I got it stopped in time.  Exercising became dangerous, and that’s no bueno.

–Most importantly, my dear sweet grandmother Colleen Durrington passed away.  That’s really what started this absence…its hard to care about food and weight loss when your heart hurts.  One distraction led to another, and well…here we are.  Miss you Grandma.

I have noticed something interesting though.  If you don’t know me or haven’t been following me longer than 48 days, I’m a student at the Graduate School of Theology via ACU.  We often talk about the idea of our souls crying out to God…if we drift from His presence, there’s this almost insatiable longing that brings us back at some point, or drives us a bit bonkers through denial.  My body started doing the same thing about eating healthy, working out, and getting back on track…I was literally craving exercise, salads, vegetables, etc.  Just like I know its good to listen to my soul, its good to listen to my body.  I’ve had two straight days of pain-free running, salads for meals, lots of vegetables, lots of cooking…and I feel great.  Tomorrow’s weigh-in isn’t going to be good (I was at 219.2 the last time I checked, or 9 pounds higher than my low of a few weeks ago) but I’m at least back on track.  I feel like I fell asleep and drifted for a while, and then a couple of days ago my body woke up and resumed normal function.  I feel good…and that’s way more than half the battle.

Breakfast–Wafflewich.  Grape jelly, peanut butter, and two Nutrigrain Eggos. Boom.

Lunch–Salad greens with some sunflower seeds, honey roasted pecan pieces, red peppers, BBQ roasted chickpeas (homemade) and some salad dressing made of Lime oil and Passionfruit vinegar.  My job is very good to me.

Exercise–Ran for twenty minutes, burned around 200 calories, hit some good inclines, and no pain.  Just trying to get my muscles stronger…I don’t want that happening again.

Dinner–Peppercorn-crusted tenderloin, lyonnaise potatoes, fresh green beans sauteed with garlic and red pepper flakes, and a glass of cherry green tea.  It was fantastic, and getting back in the kitchen felt great too.

Dessert–Homemade almond shortbread (about a 2″x1″ piece) with some macerated apricots and a homemade caramel drizzle.  Like I said, getting back in the kitchen is marvelous.

Tomorrow I work some, continue getting ready for Israel (Oh yeah…We’re going to Israel in a week!), and weigh-in.

Have a good one…it’s good to be back.

Well hello there.

You may remember me.  I write a weight loss blog.  Well, usually its about weight loss.  Occasionally I screw up and its a weight gain blog.  It happens.

I haven’t exactly had the greatest couple of weeks, hence my lengthy absence from this space.  Rather than blabber on about how bad life has been blah blah blah here’s a rundown of what has happened.  It’s an explanation/apology for abandoning you, my dear readers:

–Got fired from Bonnie Ruth’s.  ”Conflict of Interest” was the official reason, thanks to Dolce, but it felt a little weird all the way around. No sweat though, because

–Got hired at Oil and Vinegar.  I was unemployed for two days. Not bad.

–Had my Church History II midterm.  It. Was. DIFFICULT.  Pulled off a B, and frankly I feel lucky with that.

–Started writing my Church History II paper.  Twenty pages on Pope Innocent III and the Fourth Lateran Council.  Get excited people.

–Had a hold placed on my ACU account, making it very difficult to get transcripts for my teacher certification.  Got it taken care of after calling and explaining to the medical clinic that A) I don’t live in campus and B) I haven’t been on campus for more than 24 hours combined the last 2 years.

–Abby got in a wreck, although it wasn’t her fault and she didn’t get hurt.  Messed the car up pretty good though.

–Participated in a private Food Creates Community and put together my first full composed dessert as Dolce Pastries.  It went well, but its never easy work.

–Have another event this weekend where I’m cooking for 280 people.  Another first!

–Abby went to Jacksonville for 3 days, and is going to Fort Worth for 4 more this weekend.

All of this has led to two developments:  1) I have developed my stress-induced insomnia.  I just can’t get to sleep at night because I can’t turn my brain off.  That, in turn, has caused some weird fluctuations with my weight (as well as eating fast food and sugar and a lot of bad stuff).  I’m incredibly lucky that through some smart choices I’m back down to 211 lbs, even though at one point I was up to 215 in the last week.  I’ve still got the goal of being under 210 by Disney (3 weeks!) and its still attainable.

I’ll try to jump on here later in the day and give a food report.  Have a good one.

And how.

Today in Dolce Pastries world, I made chocolate covered salted caramel cups.  Twice.  The first time they were ruined because of some really funky “chocolate” from Whole Foods.  The second time, after a refund from Whole Foods and some better product, they turned out to be absolutely incredible.  You should check them out, and poke around the Dolce website if you haven’t yet.  I’ll wait.

So while this isn’t necessarily a weigh-in post or anything, I ate a lot of homemade candy today…which means Tuesday should be interesting.

Breakfast–Three cinnamon roll minis (about an inch and a half in diameter) and two strips of bacon.  It still boggles my mind that I can eat three minis and feel fully sated, and yet if I eat just one regular cinnamon roll (about the same amount of roll) I am convinced I need to eat more.  Our minds are probably our biggest allies and enemies in weight-loss…I need to get mine under control.

Lunch–Homemade stir-fry with carrots, onion, spinach, and sweet potato on brown rice with a sauce of soy sauce, Sriracha, and a splash of honey.  I ate too much of it (the opposite problem of breakfast…piled it all on my plate, ate it all) but man it was delicious.

Dinner–Rigatoni with beef and arugula.  I know it sounds weird, but trust me–it was fantastic. And I kept my portion size under control!

Dessert–Three or so of the aforementioned chocolates.  I had to try them all…

Tomorrow is day two of my unexpected three day weekend.  We’re going to have some fun up here in rainy North Texas!