It's OK!

Happy Friday! Like R. Kelly says, "It's the freakin' weekend baby about to have me some fun!" The weather has been amazing the past few days. This morning was no exception. I ran five miles and it was the best run I've had in a long time. I think Melissa's got her groove back!

Dinner last night was delicious. I took a tip from Shannon and mixed a wedge of Laughing Cow Garlic & Herb with spaghetti squash. YUMMMMYYY!



I also grilled up a veggie burger and broccoli in tomato sauce with chopped garlic. Like I said, yummy :)

Being Friday and all, it's time for It's OK! Inspired by Glamour Magazine's "It's OK..." feature where they assure us that our weird little habits are completely normal, I'm dedicating this post to assuring you it's okay to do the following this weekend:

It's okay...

• to sing to your puppy when you're home alone with him. It's not like he's Simon Cowell.
• to cook too much and end up eating the same thing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
• to insist that all of the books on the bookshelf be in order by color.
• to be walking along, break out into the Soulja Boy Superman dance, and then continue walking normally.
• to enter my giveaway!

I'm about to leave work and head to school to take a test. Let the weekend begin! Good luck to my friends running in NYC this weekend. You ladies (and gents) are going to rock it!

For The Birds

Hey y'all! I hope everyone had a great day. I did! I received some great news on the professional front earlier this week and every day has gotten better since then. I'm not comfortable talking about it on the blog yet because it's work related, but once things are sorted out, I'll let you in on the news. I'm sure you understand. I received a few emails today about why I would be upset if I lost weight because of my tooth problems. To make a long story short, I've lost a lot of weight over the past few months and am trying to gain it back and a few more pounds. I've increased my calories and have been strength training, but it hasn't been working out so great for me. I just want to feel comfortable in my own skin again (and fit in my clothes) and it's very frustrating. That's all. I'm not sick or anything...thanks for your concern though! Enough talking about weight...that's boring and I have a giveaway to talk about!

I've decided that going gluten free is for the birds. Every time I eat a gluten free product like bread, cereal or pasta, I have terrible diarrhea for days. I know it's from the products because the only time it happens is after I eat a sandwich using gluten free bread, after I mix gluten free cereal with Chobani, or make a gluten free pasta dish. Any other meal, I'm fine. I don't know what is in these products (xantham gum perhaps?) that my body is rejecting, but I'm not eating them anymore. Yes, I could stick to the gluten free challenge and not eat bread, pasta, or cereal, but I know myself and a month without some sort of bread or pasta will only lead to a binge. I fear that even attempting to go on with the gluten free challenge would be very triggering for me. I don't want to ever start the cycle of binging and purging again nor do I want to restrict anything from diet.

I know a lot of people benefit from a gluten free diet and some people just happen to like rice noodles over regular noodles. I have a few unopened gluten free products that I'm giving away to MelissaNibbles readers. My loss is your gain! My first giveaway is for Notta Pasta.



Notta Pasta are gluten free, straight cut rice noodles. The winner of this giveaway will win a box of spaghetti and a box of linguini! To enter: Leave a comment below saying how you would prepare the noodles, link back to the giveaway on your blog, or tweet "I want to win Notta Pasta from @MelissaNibbles." That's three chances to win! You don't need to be a blogger to enter. I'll pick a winner at random on Thursday, March 25th at 8am.

Three Things Thursday

Good morning! I keep thinking it's Friday today. I wish! I have a massage appointment Friday that I'm really looking forward to. Oh my gosh...next Friday I'll be in Nashville! Woo hoo! I can't wait for that. I wonder if I'll run into Dolly Parton...

After work yesterday, I decided to do the Core Fusion Pure Abs & Arms dvd. It's definitely not getting any easier! I'm still loving it though. I know I'm getting a great workout if it's still challenging me. This morning it was beautiful outside so I took advantage of the weather and took a 30 minute power walk around my neighborhood. I wanted to do some yoga after, but didn't have enough time. I'll probably do it after work though. I need to relieve some anxiety and yoga never fails to help me with that. Yoga For Runners from yogadownload.com is my favorite yoga practice right now. Anyway, after my morning walk, I ate my breakfast with the sun shining through my windows.

1/2 cup oats, 1/4 cup cottage cheese, 1/4 cup pumpkin, cinnamon, banana and white chocolate chips. I got a really good can of pumpkin on my last grocery shop. I don't know what they did differently, but it's sweeter and has made my breakfasts this week super yummy!

Since it's not Friday...it's Three Things Thursday!! Here's what's driving me to drink this week:

1. Fabric Shower Curtains. I don't have one in my shower, but I hate these things with a passion. They're mainly found in crappy hotels (a.k.a the hotels in Melissa's budget). It takes forever to take a shower with one of these things as your curtain. They blow into the tub while your showering, sticking to your legs and bringing in the cold air. I spend more time fighting off the fabric curtain than I do showering. I hate these things. I think I'm going to bring an extra shower curtain to Nashville with me just in case.

2. My Teeth! They still hurt. They're getting better, but it's taking forever and it's driving me nuts. I still have to eat squishy foods or else my cheeks get all puffy and I look like a chipmunk. Sometimes I just say screw it and eat whatever I want and deal with the pain later. It's worth it because I need my eats! Seriously though, the healing time needs to speed up. I'm scared that when I weigh myself for my strength training challenge, I'll have lost more weight because of my darn teeth. I'll cry if that happens. Actually, I know it has and I'm not looking forward to the weigh in. Maybe I'll just skip it this time and save the box of tissues.

3. Intrinsically Mean People. I know everyone has their moments (myself included) where they aren't the best person they could be and say or do things that aren't nice. However, there are people that live their lives angry at the world, put down their friends and family in order to feel better about themselves, are always complaining, are never wrong, and no one can ever live up to their standards. I try to give people like this the benefit of the doubt, but the truth of the matter is that it's not okay to walk around putting people down and making them feel like crap because of your own insecurity and issues. I don't need people around me who are rooting against me and make me feel like I'm worthless. The people you surround yourself with make you who you are. Being around negative, mean people only makes you negative. I can do bad all by myself (Tyler Perry taught me that!).

What's bugging you my friends?

Eating Like A Toddler

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Are you wearing green? I'm not. I forgot. Oh well. I had a much better run this morning than yesterday. I ran 4 miles and no one jumped in front of me. Yay! I've been experiencing more soreness in my legs than usual after my runs this week. I think it's because I'm running outside and it's just taking a little getting used to. Yesterday and today I filled my bathtub halfway with freezing cold water after my runs. I jumped in for about two minutes because that's all I have time for in the mornings, but it's still enough to shock my muscles and help take care of some of the soreness. I follow the two minutes with deep stretching and it really helps. You should definitely do this if your short on time, but want to relieve some muscle pain. It works!

Last nights dinner was very tasty. I made spaghetti squash. I'm finally starting to like it, it just took about a year to grow on me.


I mixed the squash with a few spoonfuls of plain Greek yogurt and topped with mozzarella cheese. For my side, I roasted broccoli and carrots then mixed them with spinach & artichoke hummus. Kind of random, but it was delicious!

You're probably wondering what the title of this post is all about. Well, have you ever watched a toddler or baby eat a meal? They tend to eat slowly, will smile or make a face if they really like the food, and always stop when they're full. Sometimes a baby will refuse to open his mouth for another spoonful if he's full. What happens as they get older? Most of them end up in the clean-plate club, cleaning their room for an extra snack, or eating their broccoli for ten more minutes of tv time. I know I did. I never ate for hunger as a kid. Honestly, I've screwed my hunger signals up so bad that most of the time I can't even tell when I'm full. I found this article with some tips from Cari Corbet-Owen, clinical psychologist and author cum presenter of Mind over Fatter Workshops in Cape Town, South Africa, on how to avoid passing on bad food behaviors to your children.

My favorite tips from the article are:

• Don't use food as a bargaining chip. I like this idea because I don't think children should associate food as a reward for cleaning their room or if they finish their carrots they get extra tv time.
  
• Be careful about the message you portray about your own body. If you're always on a diet and saying bad things about your body in front of your child, they'll think of food as something they should feel guilty about and start turning a self-critical eye on their own body.
• Don't try to control how much your kid eats. Sure, you might worry that they aren't eating enough, but if you're always making your kid clean his plate, they may end up doing it every time they sit down to eat just out of fear that they won't be able to eat when they're actually hungry.

What are some tips you have to avoid passing on bad food behaviours?

I Will Punch You In The Face

Howdy folks! I hope your all doing well. I have a funny story to tell. Well, it wasn't funny when it happened, but now I'm laughing about it. I started my morning off with a 5 mile run. Everything was going great, I was in my zone, listening to my tunes and just enjoying my run. Then all of a sudden, some guy (probably in his 40's) who was grabbing his morning newspaper, JUMPS in front of me, waving his arms laughing and blocking my path. He thought he was being funny, but he scared me! He practically gave me a heartattack. I mean, who does that? I was running at a good clip and had to put my arms out in front of me to stop from knocking him over. I was pissed and yelled in his face, "I WILL PUNCH YOU IN THE F*CKING FACE!!" I kept right on running and didn't look back. Who does that?! People like that are why I don't want to live on this planet anymore. I highly doubt he would've done that if I were a guy you know? I'm strapping a switch blade to my ankle from now on. Don't mess me with people.

Anyway, dinner last night was delicious. Monday is sweet tater night and I look forward to it every week!


I prepared a black bean burger topped with Laughing Cow and ketchup and steamed some broccoli to go with my sweet potato. YUM!

I've seen the term orthorexia a lot in the news lately. Orthorexia is an obsession with eating only "pure" or "healthy" foods. I was researching the disease earlier today and everything I read kept leading me back to this February article from Time Magazine.

The article focuses on a young woman named Kristie who would only eat raw, 100% organic foods. She went into treatment after reaching a low weight of 68lbs. The article really got me thinking about the blog world. We take pride in our healthy habits, but are some of us taking it to the extreme? It seems like every month there's a new trend. Vegan month, juice cleanse, raw food week, etc...is this really a way to try a new lifestyle or is taking on a new challenge every month or week just another way of restricting food? I'm conflicted on the matter because I know I'm doing a gluten free challenge to see if it affects my fibromyalgia pains. I wouldn't be doing it otherwise, but it's not like I do these sort of "challenges" all the time. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on orthorexia and the blog world...

Googling My Ass

So another week begins...I hope you guys had a great weekend. I managed to get a few things done. I studied for my bio class, got my hairdid, went out to eat, and watched a few movies. It rained all weekend so there really wasn't much else to do.

My teeth were finally feeling a little bit better last night. I've been craving something with crunch for a long time now and thought my teeth were ready to handle something more than mush. I decided to eat the last Lean Cuisine Spinach & Mushroom Pizza that was in my freezer. It wasn't gluten free, but one pizza isn't going to make a difference and I hate wasting food.



Oh, this guy was delicious! I think I enjoyed it so much because it's the first time in weeks that I haven't been in complete agony when trying to eat something of substance. Yay! I think the dry sockets are almost gone. I have an appointment this afternoon to get them checked (I just went on Friday too). Hopefully, I won't have to go back and I can keep on enjoying normal meals like this. Well, a gluten free version next time of course.

I started today off on a healthy note with a 30 minute torture session with the elliptical and I'm going to do Core Fusion Pure Arms & Abs after work. Remember how I was concerned about how the elliptical makes my butt bigger while running seems to lean my lower body out? I was curious to see if I was the only person this happened to. I consulted my Bible...Google. I Googled "elliptical gives me a big ass" and it turns out, I wasn't the only one with this issue. There were a ton of workout forums filled with people asking the same question. Some answers said yes and some said no, of course no one had any research to back up their info. However, I did find this article written by a personal trainer, Jillian Horton, answering the question. Jillian says that people might think they're getting a bigger butt because the fast twitch muscle fibers are recruited and they have potential to increase in size. Just because they have potential to increase, doesn't mean they will. She says that if that were the case, anyone who engages in physical movement that requires short bursts of energy would be bulked up. I believe Jillian since she's a pro, but I also believe that everyone responds differently to different exercises. I think my booty will be okay. Exercise isn't going to make it grow, eating too many calories will.

Have a great day everyone and if you're in the market for a heart rate monitor, I'm still selling mine!

Making It Legal

Happy Sunday folks! Has everyone sprung ahead? I started spring off right with a 5 mile treadmill run. I was sad to head back to the treadmill after being able to run outside a few times last week. It was pouring outside when I woke up so I had no other choice than to hit the treadmill. It wasn't too bad though because I had some good tunes going.

Last night I had my first gluten-free dining out experience. My friend and I went to Legal Seafoods. It was kind of a fail on my part to put effort into a full gluten-free dining experience. I didn't even ask for the gluten-free menu and just ordered what I knew was gluten free. I felt like I should've at least asked for and ordered off of the gluten free menu for blogging purposes, but I really wasn't in the mood for making a production out of things you know? Next time I'll put more effort into it. Anyway, I ordered the jumbo shrimp cocktail and a house salad to which I added goat cheese.



The shrimp were huge! Everything was incredibly fresh and delicious. I love Legal Seafoods. You really can't go wrong there. They're a local chain, but I think they're the best in Boston. Rhode Island is my favorite place to get seafood, but if I'm in MA and in the mood for seafood, Legal's is where it's at.

I've been gluten free for one week and I have to be honest and admit I don't see or feel a difference yet. I'm sure it takes more time though so I'm not giving up just yet. There's one weird thing that's happened that I wasn't expecting though. After I ate gluten free pasta on Wednesday, I had some bad stomach pains and have been going to the bathroom nonstop since. Sorry if this is gross, but hey, everyone poops. It's now Sunday and it hasn't stopped. I've taken Immodium to help the problem, but I'm wondering if going gluten free could give me irritable bowels. Anyone have experience with this or any suggestions as to why I'm feeling this way? Thanks and enjoy your day with my poo in your thoughts!!