A couple good weekends in a row

So I haven’t written a blog in a couple weeks so I will try to get caught up from the last 2 weekends. I will start with 2 weeks ago, what I can remember at least. On Friday John and I followed our usual routine after work. Come home get in comfortable clothes and sit around while having some pre-dinner drinks. We try to wait until 7 or 8 for dinner because we know after we eat and have a couple drinks we will fall asleep like losers. This Friday night though we were suppose to go to a bar near our house and celebrate one of John’s coworkers birthdays. I had received several bottles of wine from my birthday guests last weekend so I decided to try a new kind. Either I had an empty stomach or this was a very strong wine because after a couple glasses I was lucky I made it to the bar. This bar has the best food so we got pork sliders and another appetizer to split. I am not sure food settles well on top of wine because after we hung out for an hour I felt a strong need to get home and lay down. Everyone else went to another bar and I thought John would stay out late but an hour later he was back at home. He doesn’t want to admit but he just doesn’t have the wild energy he used to have and likes to fall asleep early like me.
Sat. we managed to pull ourselves together and get up early for a hike in San Diego county. We hit the road around 8:30 and John had already insisted that we research the perfect breakfast place to try before our hike. We stopped at a little place called Moma Kat’s and decided to share 2 entrees. John has a quirk in that we have to order entrees that we both want and split them, sometimes this gets annoying but it was fine for breakfast. We split a chorizo omelet, hash browns, and biscuits and gravy, all cooked to perfection and totally tasty. We were pretty full when our second item came out called Supreme French Toast. Brace yourselves this will make you hungry. It is a cinnamon roll (kind of like a honeybun) 2 of those dipped in French toast batter and then cooked on the griddle. In other words it is like French toast with a cinnamon roll inside. I have ¼ and John finished the other ¾. (someone has since informed that something similar might be available at IHOP, not as fun). After all this it was time for our 7 mile hike. Needless to say our stomachs didn’t appreciate the order we chose to do things that day. The trail was inland San Diego and there was no shade or clouds so it was a pretty hot hike to the top. When we finished we at least had the satisfaction of maybe working off part of our breakfast. John is hooked on finding the best little restaurants where ever we go that is why every trip for any reason is paired with a food stop off. Luckily I am a foodie as much as he is so this works out well. We both decided to skip lunch that day and we tried a take-out Italian place in town for dinner and it was pretty tasty, considering we had no leftovers. The big Italian meal put us to sleep pretty early that night. The next day after church though we tried another new spot (new spot means new for us not for San Clemente) in town El Jefe. We ate a ton of Mexican food but were slightly disappointed with the lack of spiciness. Then after my Mexican lunch I had to do a 12 mile run as part of my Marathon training program.
So keep in mind when you read the mass amount of food we eat these 2 things: 1)I ran 7 miles Friday morning, hiked 7 miles Sat., and ran 12 miles Sunday. Even though I might not do this much activity every weekend John and I both workout at least 5 days a week and are very active, this is mainly because we want to be able to eat all the crap we want on the weekends. 2) My blog mainly describes our weekend activities and are not reflective of what we eat or do during the week. John and I both take our lunches to work every day which is a salad for me and a sandwich for him. We also make dinner every night with a main vegetable item. We don’t eat out or eat fast food during the week so we really enjoy these things on the weekend. I can tell you how many calories are in 90% of what I eat and now John knows a lot too and as a result eats we eat a lot more fruits and veggies. We also split a lot of meals when we go out to eat which helps cut out a few calories. We both have a major sweet tooth and having a sweet after each meal is a guilty habit we do indulge in everyday.
Basically I feel the need to make a health disclaimer here. I am a strong believer that eating lots of fresh fruits, veggies, whole grains, and lean meats are the key to a healthy life. I am so happy that John has become a healthier eater too. Not only are these habits good for your waistline but I believe they key to long term health. On the weekends I often am miserable after eating indulgent meals and know I would feel better if I cut back but I am a food addict and can’t stop. I don’t believe in special diets and don’t feel guilty for indulging on the weekends I just know that my body will treat me better when I treat it better. Just because John and I know how many calories might be in a fattening food doesn’t mean we don’t eat it, it just means we are conscious of what we are eating. If I eat really badly all weekend I know it is going to make me gain weight, I can’t just get on a scale Monday morning and act surprised. We all have to be responsible for our own health and lack of knowledge is no excuse. This is also why I am an active person. I know it is not something you always feel like doing and a lot of people dread working out but it has to be part of your routine. I really feel like it is a major part of physical and mental health. You don’t have to be a runner but we all have a responsibility to try to keep our bodies healthy so that if we do get sick from something serious we are in the best possible shape to fight it off. Being healthy might not stop me from getting cancer one day but it might be what helps me beat it. Now off of this soapbox and on to what we did/ate this weekend.
I think we both needed a lazy weekend. Friday night we tried a southern style restaurant called Iva Lee’s, we split the meatloaf and potatoes with a mushroom gravy. It was very tasty but the best part was the shrimp and grits which I am not usually a grit person but this was good. Top that off with some super sweet cornbread and we were in heaven. Do you know what is between us and the restaurant (which we walked to) about 3 yogurt stores so of course we had to stop on the way home. By the time we got home and finished our ice cream it was lights out. Saturday was gorgeous so we went to the beach, did I mention John made us chocolate pancakes for breakfast, not choc. chip but straight choc. batter. Very delicious. John surfed while I laid out and then he ran home from the beach while I went home laid around. We managed to wander down to the annual art/craft fair in town but since I wasn’t in need of hand beaded jewelry or homemade baby items or tied dyed shirts we didn’t purchase anything. To compensate for the choc. pancakes we didn’t really eat lunch so we were starving by 5 and John wanted to try this pizza place in town called First Class Pizza. We called ahead and spent about 3 phone calls and 20 minutes on the phone trying to order our pizza. All we could do was laugh at how out of it these people were and now we had to go in to pick up the pizza and hope they didn’t spit in our food. I am convinced it was everyone’s first day. We ordered the Porker Pizza this included ham, sausage, pepperoni, cheese and meatballs. It was more like eating a hamburger than a pizza. I feel like I would have liked the pizza if I could have tasted it under all the meat. There was so much meat that John took half of it off to make his omelet for the week. Now that he has to be at work at 6:30 he makes a huge omelet on Sunday night that will last him like 3 days and he just takes it to work for breakfast in the morning. Luckily our eggs weren’t part of the recall. Sunday we decided to get some In and Out burger because we haven’t had it since we moved out here. It was very delicious but the line is like 10 cars long which is a little crazy. There is a secret menu you can look up online for In and Out and we made sure to do our research and use as many secret phrases as possible during our order. For dinner on Sundays we usually cook and John was sweet and made dinner. We had Tuna, zucchini, broccoli, and green beans. I made the sweet carrots. All our veggies were fresh from the farmers market that day. It was very delicious and the perfect partner for a new episode of True Blood. We are such creatures of routine. Think John is getting worse than me. Did I mention I will be home this weekend for Katie Bo’s wedding! I know this blog is really long so I am just going to stop now, thanks for sticking it out if you made it this far. I promise the next blog will have very little discussion on food or exercise. Did I mention I ran 12 miles this Sunday too!