Happy Valentine's

The kids with their Valentine's Loot!

So ten measly days is all I lasted with my no sugar thing. I don't know what happened. I was doing so great. I had such great motivation. And then Saturday February 13th came. I went for an 11 mile run at 6 am and my stomach seriously rebelled against me. I hit about mile nine and my stomach just cramped and hurt sooooo bad. I was running with Sarah and I felt so bad because she had to wait while we stopped at a gas station. So anyways, I told her to go ahead and I ran the last 2 miles, feeling sick the whole way. Then I got home and curled up in my bed and had to make many trips to the you know what. So what was up with me??? I don't know! I seriously wonder why this happens. Every once in a while when I do a long run I get so sick! Does anyone have any ideas why this happens? It doesn't usually hit until after mile 8, and when I do get sick like this it lasts the whole day. It is soooooo ANNOYING!!! I have some theories:

1. possible dehydration? Maybe I need to bring some gatorade?

2. Possibly I ate way to much fiber during the week? Because I seriously ate SO healthy all week but too much fiber can be a bad thing sometimes...

3. or maybe something is wrong with my stomach? but i have googled this issue, and it seems to plague a lot or runners...so what to do!?

anyways, I felt so sick and sorry for myself, my in laws were in town, and Jed ended up going skiing. And then I just said forget it, I need something to settle my stomach. So I ate a bowl of rice chex, but that doesn't have too much sugar, but after that, I just kind of said oh well. And then that night I got to go on a date with Jed. We doubled with Zac and Carlee, and the fun thing was we went to Farrs ice cream. I decided I needed to treat myself to ice cream. It was really fun. If you haven't been there, I thought it was a cool setup. There are tons of different self serve soft serve machines, so you can sample them all and then they have a toppings bar and you can throw in whatever mixins you want. It is really fun! Then you just pay by the ounce. Definitely YUM. Oh and we also went to see Fantastic Mr. Fox, there was nothing else that wasn't crowded and that was at the Movies 8. It was really quite funny I thought. It was totally Jed's kind of humor. And it is definitely not really meant for kids, nothing inappropriate but just more a cartoon geared towards adults.

What else is new? Jed was out of town last week, so that was a bummer. I made sugar cookies with the kids one day, which was super fun, but didn't eat any because that was before I ruined the sugar diet! :)

We went to Chuck a Rama with Jed's grandparents, Jed's parents and Zac and Carlee. Somehow we have gone there like 5 times in the last 5 months, WEIRD! I don't even like it, but the kids LOVE LOVE LOVE it! They say "Can we go to the place where you can have anything you want?" It was so much fun to have Jed's parents here. I always love it when they come! We watched the Olympics and played Rock Band, and ate good food. They always bring such fun things for the kids to do. We made valentines, and the kids had so much fun ringing the doorbell and running and leaving things on the porch over and over. We went on a walk to see the animals down the street, which was nice. The weather has been beautiful!

So as far as the no sugar thing...I learned a lot of good tricks. I might try it again sometime. I won't say I hated it, but I couldn't ever do it for 3 years! Ha ha. So maybe you thing I am totally weak, which maybe I am, but 10 days is decent right? (I just have to make myself feel better! :) I did learn how you can substitute honey in a lot of recipes, which was cool. I will post some of the recipes if anyone wants. My friend wanted this pumpkin cake recipe, so I will post that.

Great Pumpkin Patch Cake

from The Feel Good Cookbook

1 cup honey

1/4 cup applesauce

2 eggs

1 tsp each vanilla and salt

2 cups pumpkin puree

2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1 TB cinnamon

Mix well, pour into a greased 9x13 pan. Bake 35 minutes at 350. You can put cream cheese frosting, or you can put rich vanilla cream sauce on top. Obviously my kids and everyone liked the cream cheese, but for the no sugar thing I liked the sauce.

Rich Vanilla Cream sauce

Boil until thick:

1/3 cup honey

2 TB cornstarch

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup water

Stir in a serve immediately:

1 TB Butter

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup coconut milk

Some of the other tricks I learned was there was still a lot to eat. Here were a few yummy things I thought made the 10 days a little more fun. I took pics along the way to document and remember...

I made chicken curry sweetened with honey instead of white sugar.

I made crepes sweetened with honey instead of sugar and just put plain non fat yogurt and strawberries on them for dinner one night

I ate Fiber One cereal with strawberries (be very careful with this one! It has a LOT of fiber but no white sugar)

Also some yummy banana oat mini muffins with just a tiny bit of honey, hardly any oil (like 2 TB). I love these, but they are the best right out of the oven.

Z said something a little disturbing this week: He did something to bug C, hit her or something while we were on our date, and my mother in law, Cathie, said "Z, what do you have to say to C?" Obviously she was expecting him to say sorry, but no. He said in a mean voice "SUFFER!!!!" and she said "What did you say?" and once again "SUFFER!!!" I have no idea where he learned that word. I'm a little concerned...

C said something funny the other day when she woke up. We had put the kids to bed and then went to play Rock Band, because it is Jed's new fun thing to do. Well in the morning while eating breakfast she said in a super grown up voice "SO, did you have fun playing Rock band last night?"

I LOVE MY KIDS!

Anyways, got to go watch LOST with Jed! I totally feel like a bad cold is coming on I am so sad! Especially cause Jed has to leave me and go to work tomorrow!