An Ode to Jillian

The excitement has just been non-stop in my life! This week has had some major events. 

1. I returned to the 5am run! 

I included that exclamation point as a "fake it till you make it" sort of thing. No one is really excited to get out of a nice warm bed to run in dark, sub - freezing temperatures, but it's better than not running at all! Monday morning I jumped right in and knocked out ten miles at a 9:30 pace by sunrise.

I had some crazy anxiety about this run,  the type when I was training for my first half, the "OMG how could I possibly run ten whole miles??" type. Which really didn't make sense, since I'd run 18 miles less than 48 hours prior, so I knew I could complete the distance. But it had been almost 3 weeks since I last dragged myself out of bed at the crack of dawn to do anything, so it was intimidating.

Tuesday was a much easier watchless 5 miles, which oddly felt harder. Go figure.

2. I ate chicken! That I cooked myself!

Technically I already did that when I consumed mass amounts of buffalo chicken dip on New Year's Eve. But I don't really count that since that chicken was covered in cream cheese, blue cheese, cheddar cheese, and Frank's Red Hot, and I think even old shoelaces would taste good in that mix. 

Like most women in their 20s (I need to start saying that more, since I have less than six months before it's yanked away from me forever), I have a pretty good idea of what foods I need to eat to get that bikini body and what foods will make a fat cow. But I gave up meat so young that I never really learned which ones were for fatties. In my meat eating journey, bacon, burgers, and hot dogs have all been winners so far. And, it seems that meat follows the patterns of all the other foods, which is that the best tasting are the worst for you. So, while the idea of chicken still seems a tad gross, I decided to try it in the interest of not dying of a heart attack by age 35.

Yesterday, I made Sarah's Chicken Taco Soup in the crockpot. I loved the soup, and thought it was cool that beer was in it, but  the chicken? Not so much. It was in no way the recipe, that was fantastic, it was just my own neurosis. The chicken was all shredded up and mixed with other stuff, but eating it still freaked me out. I left a bunch at the bottom when the rest of the soup was gone and I couldn't bring myself to eat the chicken on its own. Sorry to all the diehard carnivores, but I would have preferred the vegetarian version on this one.

3. SHE'S BACK



I've made my love for Jillian Michaels no secret around here. I may have mocked her for saying you should gargle with sugar water to avoid dessert cravings, but I'm just a simple school teacher, maybe if I had a multi-million dollar career based on my rock hard body I'd resort to drastic measures too. I still adore her. I listen to her podcasts every week and constantly drop little tidbits about her life to Eric as though we are real life BFFs (because in my mind, we are) "Oh, Jillian doesn't like Crossfit. Jillian's going on a ski trip for Christmas."



Therefore, her return to Biggest Loser on Sunday made me unbelievably happy. Eric and I aren't huge reality TV fans. We don't watch the Bachelor, because frankly, if you've seen Flavor of Love, no other dating show is even worth it.



But the Biggest Loser is amazing and without it this fall, we had nothing to live for on Tuesday nights. I'm going to go ahead and put a bold statement out there and say Jillian is my favorite trainer. Bob is kind of deep into the Crossfit cult right now. I love Dolvett, he's gorgeous, but I have my own gorgeous black man, AND he snubbed my sister by not retweeting her on her birthday. Jillian provides me with funny and informational podcasts, killer workout DVDs, and she's sexy. Sorry Dolvett, but unless you start cursing more and assisting me in other areas of my life, I'm on Team Jillian.

Now we've only watched Sunday's episode, and I've heard Monday's gets pretty nuts, but I still don't think anything will sway me. 

If you watch BL, who's your favorite trainer? 

Any other Flavor of Love fans?

What meat should I try next?