I love Food. That is All.

Have you been watching this?

It's on Friday nights, on ABC. I've liked Jaime Oliver since he was doing The Naked Chef on the Food Network several years ago. He's cute and likeable and cooks - what's not to love? You just want to give the man a hug and maybe pinch his cheeks. Maybe I'm just getting old, wanting to pinch cheeks and stuff. Anywho, it's good. He basically is going to the unhealthiest town in America, based on government statistics, and trying to teach the residents about real food and how to get back to eating healthy, but eating good stuff at the same time. He goes into the schools, he goes into their homes - it's awesome. You can actually go to abc.com and watch all the episodes that have aired so far. There's so much to learn for everyone involved, including Jaime. It's a really great thing he's doing.

If you've been reading this for any length of time, you're pretty much aware that I love me some food. You're probably also aware that I've been working my way towards being the best person that I can be - to others, to the world in which I live, and to myself. That includes trying to eat more "real" foods and less processed stuff. In the past year I've started to read labels more and more, past the calorie and fat counts where I would stop before. I read ingredient lists now. Sodium counts. I don't just look at fat grams or calories, but try to figure out if they are in balance with each other. (seriously - 100 calorie snack packs with 8 grams of fat are NOT a good choice) I'm reading about food, watching documentaries about food, going to Farmer's markets, and cooking from scratch more and more.

Jaime Oliver has rekindled the flame of interest in me that may have been starting to wane a little bit. I signed his petition (maybe you can too? just takes a minute!), even though I don't have a child in school, because I've worked in a school and have seen firsthand the junk that kids are given. It really is gross. I'm working towards eating mostly "real" foods, and cutting out as many processed foods as possible.

I no longer use Splenda, on which I used to heavily rely. I quit buying Yoplait yogurt, because although I am a fan of their low calories and large variety of flavors, I cannot abide by the high fructose corn syrup they use. On the rare occasions that I drink a soda, it's usually one made with cane sugar. The last box of cereal in this house has been consumed and now we're having steel cut oats for breakfast. Once the tub of margarine is gone, I'll be making my own spread using real butter and local olive oil. There is actually a bottle of real maple syrup in my cupboard right now.

The eating is REAL GOOD around these parts nowadays, folks.

This is what we had for dinner tonight:

That is spinach, prosciutto, and avocado pizza on a whole wheat crust. I used leftover sauce from the last time I made pizza using Kate's recipe which I had stashed in the freezer. I made it with onions, heirloom tomatoes, basil, garlic and shallots. This is seriously the best pizza sauce I've ever eaten! The crust is Pioneer Woman's recipe, only I used 100% whole wheat flour instead of all purpose. Obviously it wasn't as good as white flour crust, but it wasn't bad either, just different. The avocados were tossed in a little lemon juice to keep them from browning and also to give a little extra flavor. I used mozzarella and Parmigiano Reggiano as my cheeses.

This was SO GOOD! I loosely based it on my favorite pizza from La Grande Orange in Phoenix. They actually use basil, but I didn't have any. I did have some spinach that was starting to look mighty sad, so I used that instead. It was probably healthier anyway. I also skipped the lemon zest since I already had the lemon on the avocado. I have more prosciutto in the fridge and another avocado, along with the second half of the pizza dough, so we'll probably have this for dinner again tomorrow.

And to think - just a few months ago I was buying pizza dough in a CAN. HA!

Of course, you can't just eat all this good food without consequence. I've been sticking to my Couch to 5K program really well so far. If my husband isn't telecommuting on the days that I run (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) then he comes home for lunch and watches the boy while I hit the treadmill. This has been incredibly helpful in getting me to stick with this, and I'm so grateful he's willing to do it. Today he wasn't able to take a lunch break so I had to wait until he got home from work to go run.

Let me tell you, the later in the day it gets, the lower my motivation to get off my butt and do anything gets. It's terrible. By 6:30 pm, I had a serious case of the "I don't wanna's". My motivation was totally gone. I was ready to just say forget it and not go.

But then I had a realization - this is not about having motivation. It's not about searching for or finding motivation. It's about making a conscious decision - this is what I have to do because I made a commitment. That's one of my personal rules - if you make a commitment to something, you MUST follow through. Therefore, my motivation, or lack thereof, was irrelevant. Whether I went or didn't go was based on a decision that I was consciously making. Yes I will or No I won't.

So, long story short, I went. I hauled my fat, lazy, not wanting to run butt across the apartment complex and got on the treadmill. I forced myself to finish the last workout for week three of my nine week program, and do you know what? I'm so glad I did. I'm proud of myself for sucking it up and going and getting to add another mile and a half to the little scorekeeper I added on the right sidebar of this blog.

People are starting to tell me that they admire my motivation. That they wish they could find motivation like I did. That they want to know how I got motivated. Honestly? I have NO motivation. Every day that I run, I hate it. When I'm walking and the chime sounds for me to start running, I mutter curse words under my breath. I hate being hot, and I hate sweating, and I hate panting for air like a dog. I hate that my knees hurt with every step that falls. I hate that I'm reminded how fat I am when I stretch and can't pull my knees to my chest because my gut is in the way. I hate every moment that I'm doing this - with the exception of the one when I'm DONE, when I get to say that I did this, I finished this, I made it. Right about then I feel pretty dang good.

That's a big part of the reason why I like that the app I use posts my runs on Facebook and Twitter. I feel like it's giving me a little bit of positive reinforcement, and hopefully if those notices stop, someone will notice and say something. I guess it keeps me accountable. I also decided to start keeping an album on Facebook of my screenshots after a run so I can see how I'm progressing. In just the few that I have so far, I can already see slight improvements.

Am I running to get fit? No. Am I running for my health? No. Whenever I've been asked to list my ultimate fitness goal, it's always been to get to wear a really slutty Halloween costume. I know, that's terrible, but it's true. That's changed now. I'm running because I love butter. REAL butter. And bacon and sugar are good too. I'm running because I want to prove that I can do this, and that I'm not a fatass quitter who finds sticking to commitments impossible like some people I used to know. Maybe that makes me shallow and petty, but so be it.

The fact of the matter is that I'm a third of the way through this program, my knee is feeling slightly better, and I don't feel like I want to die halfway through my thirty minutes like I did at this time three weeks ago. I think that's pretty dang awesome and it's all because I decided to choose to finally get off my butt.