Dinner, Biggest Loser Style

Since the whole family is now obsessed with the show, I went out and bought the Biggest Loser Family Cookbook. It appears to be a nice assortment of not-so-bad-for-you foods prepared in appealing and healthful ways--not too gourmet, but also not totally fat-, salt-, sugar- or taste-free.

For our inaugural meal, I made "Contemporary Peppered Chopped Steak". Not only did it look remarkably like the photo in the book, but James, Madeline and I all thought it tasted GREAT (and Yes, we had green stuff with it, too, in addition to the brown rice on the plate).


I'm notorious for altering recipes even as I try them out for the first time, but I managed to keep myself in check this time. My only substitution was to use cranberry-pommegranate juice instead of grape. It's what we've been drinking lately, and I think it was brilliant.

Meanwhile, Alan had a regular burger and made a miniature one for Jeremy (that's not really a lot of ketchup, it's just a very tiny patty and a trimmed-down slice of cheese!)...



...which he apparently loved looking at so much that he hardly ate any of it.
He's been sick, though, so I'll give him a break.

Countdown to MDI

Most of you have heard by now, but here's the official announcement:

ALAN AND I ARE REGISTERED TO RUN THE MDI HALF MARATHON!!

We have a countdown timer on the blog (hopefully it's working) and one on the desktop pc at home [246 days and counting], and I have clever little motivational posters at work and at home that read:

Less than

[36]

WEEKS

until we run the

MDI Half Marathon

I'll switch to days once it's below 100.

I added photos, but didn't have anything remotely athletic looking of myself so I used these:

Nancy's Brave Plan

I don't feel very brave as I type this, but since Alan let the cat out of the bag by telling Jenn our ambitious running plans I'm feeling pressured to finally write this post, which I've had percolating for several weeks now. So here's my plan:

Goal 1: Become a "runner", specifically, someone who can run 1.5 miles 3 times per week by April.
Method: Hal Higdon's 30/30 plan
Additional tools: HH's Beginner Runner's Guide (arrived in yesterday's mail), new sneakers (Alan and I bought them for each other for Christmas), new sports watch (birthday gift from Alan)...do you sense a theme here?

Goal 2: Run a 5K Memorial Day Weekend (or thereabouts--still looking for a local race around then, or maybe Alan and I will just set a date to run that distance by ourselves and let our weekend house guests baby-sit/cheer us on).
Method: Hal Higdon 5K training plan, beginning April 4th (which is why I need to be able to do goal #1...).

Goal 3: Run and/or walk the MDI HALF MARATHON in September (I can't believe I'm actually saying this! I'm anxious for the online registration to become available so I can't back out!)
Method: Hal Higdon Half Marathon training plan starting in late June; run the Fourth of July 3K as part of training.
Additional tools: Alan, Emilie, Jenn, everyone supporting me along the way...right guys?!?

Goal 4: Run the Turkey Trek on Thanksgiving Day.
Method: Try not to be in an air-cast, and get my baking done ahead of time!

And it's not just talk and buying stuff: I did the 30/30 Monday, Wednesday and Friday last week and I'm actually excited to clean off the bulletin board and post my training calendar!

Well, that's it folks: my first ever training plan and my first ever blog about running.

Yikes.