Steak Niiiight! (Weigh-in)

Feb 15, 2012 by Gretchen

Steak errrrverywhere! As if taking me to Ray’s the Steaks on Saturday wasn’t enough of a Valentine’s Day celebration, right? Well, last night the new man in my life also showed off his culinary tactics with a homemade steak dinner!

Seriously impressive, right? Sean really went all out. The surf ‘n’ turf menu included filet with a balsamic & red wine reduction, sauteed shrimp, loaded mashed potatoes, and green beans. It was all him, too! The only thing I helped with was a modicum of slicing and dicing.

Though, to my credit, the clove of elephant garlic that I minced was a total beast. See the size comparison to the QUARTER next to it? Biggest effing garlic clove ever!

Since I was, for once, not the one bustling about the kitchen (a gift in and of itself!), I spent my time getting giddy over last night’s episode of Glee (I know how bad it is, just let me love it, mmkay) and ogling myself in the mirror. I made my first attempt at doing a true smokey eye with makeup, so I was very proud of myself, ahaha. I felt mildly whorish when I was putting on layer after layer of eyeshadow (there’s like 5 different shades going on here!), but I really like the final result. Not bad for my first try, right?

Anyway, in addition to the incredible meal that I got to enjoy, Sean also made a delicious from-scratch dessert: chocolate mousse!

I died. So yummy, but nice and light after that decadent meal. Of course, my enjoyment of the meal was slightly mollified by the thought of my weigh-in in the morning. Pairing last night with the wine festival from Saturday didn’t put my hopes very high. As it turned out, however, this really is my week! Observe:

Starting Weight: 246 lbs
Last Weigh-in: 192.6 lbs
This Weigh-in: 191.4 lbs
Difference: -1.2 lbs

Huzzah! Another pound down and another pound closer to my pre-holiday weight. Not sure if it’s just because my body hasn’t registered all the extra wine weight yet, but I am most certainly NOT complaining! I’m also sure that this loss will be rapidly undone by this weekend’s impending trip to Harry Potter World (SQUEEEEEE!) but we’ll cross that magical bridge when we come to it. After all, you know there’s no way I’ll be able to (nor would I want to) pass up a few butterbeers and cauldron cakes! And at least I’m heading to Florida on a high note!

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Social Whirlwind (Weigh-in)

Feb 8, 2012 by Gretchen

This week is crazy. I love it, but it’s crazy. I literally have something to do and someone to meet up with every single day this week. And I am by no means complaining — not at all! — but five straight days of social eating and drinking (more than that, if you count the weekends on either side!) is certainly not the norm for me. And given this morning’s post-Super Bowl weigh-in, it’s not doing me any physical favors either. (Emotional health is on the up and up though!)

Last night was a two-fold social celebration, starting with happy hour with my dear friend Lara! We went to Chef Geoff’s in Tysons, which despite it being a fairly upscale restaurant, had some pretty good happy hour deals!

Check out the size of her beer! Superbeer, indeed. We also got some extremely healthy appetizers to nom on while we caught up — wings & fried pickles. Heh.

Not content to have those kind of nutritional goldmines (ha!) comprise my entire dinner, a couple hours later I went to dinner with Ben, his girlfriend Taylor, my roommate Erin, and my new manfriend Sean (who yes, I’m sure you’ll be hearing about in more detail later. ) And where did we go for dinner?

I mean, do you even have to ask? Koi Koi, of course! Just can’t get enough.

For once, we actually ordered an appropriate amount of sushi for the five of us and I didn’t leave completely overstuffed (because you know that if there is sushi in front of me, I am going to eat it — full or not). Still, the sodium from the soy sauce and edamame, paired with Friday’s book club, Monday night’s decadent dinner AND the Super Bowl SnackFest 2012… well, we all knew that this week’s weigh-in wasn’t going to be particularly inspiring.

Starting Weight: 246 lbs
Last Weigh-in: 192.4 lbs
This Weigh-in: 192.6 lbs
Difference: +0.2 lbs

But! It wasn’t as bad as I was honestly expecting! Huzzah! (It’s the little victories, y’know?) I’m probably holding on to quite a bit of water today, so my goal will be to drink lots of water, flush out my system, and check back in on myself in a couple of days to see if it’s made any difference. Hopefully it will have, and by next week I’ll be another pound or so down! That said, if my social life keeps being as active as it has been (and I sure hope it does!) I’m going to need to figure out some new ways to be social that don’t necessarily include mindless calorie consumption. Maybe I’ll have to instigate an at-home happy hour policy where we cook our own healthy apps, haha!

What are your suggestions for things to do with friends that don’t orbit around eating out?

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Tono Sushi (Weigh-in)

Feb 1, 2012 by Gretchen

Sorry for the late post this morning, friends! I met up with an old friend last night and we had so much to catch up on that it ended up being a much later night than I originally intended! That’s the mark of having some great conversation though, isn’t it? Looking at the clock and being flabbergasted at how much time has gone by? Love it.

Tiffany and I went to JMU together (go Dukes!), but despite us both living up in DC since graduating, we haven’t seen each other in almost four years! After some Facebook back-and-forth, we realized we are actually going to be in Orlando (and, subsequently, HARRY POTTER WORLD!) at the same time later this month! Figuring that we shouldn’t have to wait until we’re in different states to meet up, we made plans to get dinner at Tono Sushi in Woodley Park.

Tono Sushi is right around the corner from where Tiffany lives, and is her favorite place. I can see why! You know that I love me some Koi Koi, but I have to admit that this place was pretty great. They start you off with a little complimentary bowl of soy and sesame marinated bean sprouts, which were delicious.

And we followed it up with an order of edamame, naturally.

The main even was the sushi, of course. We each picked two rolls: pickled daikon and spicy crunch tuna for her, salmon & scallion and spicy crunch salmon for me!

I got the spicy crunchy roll on her recommendation and it was spot on. I know it doesn’t exactly qualify as “healthy” sushi, but daaaaang was it good! The fish was so fresh, too, and the price was awesome! I always expect to spend a fortune getting sushi, but this place is SO reasonable. I only ended up spending about $15, and that’s including tax & tip! If you’re ever looking to try a new sushi place in the city, I heartily recommend this one.

We headed around the corner to her apartment to hang out, ham it up in front of the camera (I mean, have you met me?), and continue chatting. A fabulous Tuesday night, all in all!

Bonus: I ended up snapping this pretty awesome picture of her during the self-timed photo madness, hehe. The shot above is actually just a test shot I took while I was working out the timer, but I kind of love it. Gorgeous, isn’t she?

Okay, so before I head off, onto Weigh-in Wednesday business as usual:

Starting Weight: 246 lbs
Last Weigh-in: 193.8 lbs
This Weigh-in: 192.4 lbs
Difference: -1.4 lbs

Woot! Another pound down, another step back in the right direction. Onward and downward!

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Technogeek

Jan 25, 2012 by Gretchen

Oh hey. Remember when I accidentally kicked my computer in the face and then spent eight months complaining about it?

Well, I finally decided that I’m a grown-up (who has officially destroyed her credit card debt — roar!) and did something about it. Nerd alert!

Thanks to a few of my (even nerdier) friends, I did the possimpible: I ordered individual parts for a computer online and built it with ~~Ben’s~~ my bare hands.

Okay, you caught me. I didn’t do most of the actual wiring and connecting and whatnot. But I did hunt down bargain prices for all the pieces, and I paid close attention to what my brother was doing as I documented the entire process in photos. Turns out, it’s really not all that hard! I feel like my cred as a self-proclaimed technogeek is finally starting to rise. You know, for a girl.

True, it’s no glorious Macbook Pro. But it didn’t cost me any of my appendages, and it’s a PC that can handle my awesomely nerdy games as well as allow me to edit photos without having to navigate around the spider cracks down its screen. Also, the screen is my TV. So it’s huge. That’s what she said. Somebody stop me.

Even though there’s no way that a PC can ever be as sexy and gorgeous as a Mac, I did try to make sure there was at least something going on with it aesthetically. Just be proud of me for skipping the Hello Kitty keyboard, yes? Ahaha.

Not everyone was as confident in my ability to actually do something this technologically savvy right, but the joke’s on them…

Since they’re the ones who are going to have to deal with the glare off of my GIANT AWESOME TV SLASH COMPUTER NOW. Bwahahaha!

DON’T JUDGE ME.

All in all, it should lead to good things. I’m going to hang onto my Macbook as a secondary option. I still plan on getting a new one sometime down the road since this one is over four years old now, has a battery life of roughly seven minutes, and, you know, the whole screen thing is still an issue. But for now, this works out! I still have something (semi) portable for when I need it, but a higher-end machine for higher-end stuff. Hooray for progress!

What’s your machine setup? Mac or PC? Laptop or tower?

PS: I didn’t forget my weigh-in this week. I just didn’t feel it warranted a big announcement since it was almost exactly the same as last week. A -0.1 loss, bringing me to 193.8. Not much fun, but given all that Chinese New Year celebrating I did, I’ll take it. Ah well, keep on keeping on, eh?

Steak Niiiight! (Weigh-in)

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Social Whirlwind (Weigh-in)

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Tono Sushi (Weigh-in)

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Technogeek

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