Kung Pao!!!

It's morning, sooo....

And it's a Farmers' Market morning, sooo...

For a split second, I actually thought Sidney had gotten me two burritos. After all, she set them right in front of me and then walked away. But, she eventually came back and claimed one of the burritos as hers. Just as well, I still had mine.

A little while later during the market, we had a cookie we couldn't sell, so we ate it. Sidney handed me a piece that was about a quarter of a whole cookie.

Not wanting to eat this many carbs and calories, I took one bite.

Then I took another.

I was able to restrain myself further, but I estimate that I ate about an eighth of the cookie. That's not too bad.

When we got back home, Sidney's mom informed me of a chicken she had bought at Sam's Club. After having been assured that it wasn't a live chicken, I got it out of the fridge.

I carved off some of the breast, and it ended up being about 8.5 ounces.

I got some hummus out of the fridge and proceeded to dip my chicken into it. I don't know if you know this, but hummus is actually very good!

Later, for dinner, I had some chicken that needed cooking. I wanted to try something new, so I looked up some recipes. I found one for Kung Pao Chicken that sparked my interest. It turned out that we had all the ingredients, so I got started!

First, chopped the chicken into little cube-ish pieces. Then, I shook them in a bad full of cornstarch.

Then I dipped them in some whipped eggs. Then they went into a pan with hot oil in it.

They were only in the pan for a couple minutes, just enough for them to brown slightly.

Then into a pan they went.

Next, I mixed up the sauce. It called for hot sauce, but I decided to use Buffalo sauce instead. Into the Buffalo sauce went some (a lot of) brown sugar and a little vinegar.

Then I poured the sauce over the chicken and tossed to coat.

The chicken then went into the over for an hour. I mixed it around about half way through just to make sure the chicken was as evenly coated as possible.

What came out of the over looked and smelled really good.

I added some parsley and sesame seeds for garnish because I'm fancy (not really).

And, to get a little extra brotein, I had another brotein bar for dessert.

I also had a bite of Sidney's strawberries and whipped cream.

And I also had a very small piece of a leftover Devils Chocolate cookie.

Saturdays are always good food days it seems. And even though I didn't eat a lot, I enjoyed what I ate. That being said, I did have moments where I wanted to eat an entire buffet. But I powered through, encouraged by dreams of lean!!!

Arrowhead 5K

Run, baby, run!

Today was the day of the Arrowhead 5K at Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the Kansas City Chiefs! Knowing that I'd be doing a lot of running later in the day, I decided to sleep in...

...until 0600. I got up right at the crack of dawn. Why? For the promise of cherry pie, of course! And what is the most important part of a cherry pie? The crust?

No.

The cherries!!

And in the Grinter household, store-bought cherries in a can simply won't do. That's why they have this:

The Montmorency cherry tree growing in their front yard has produced an exceptionally bountiful batch of cherries this year, and they need to be picked. They've been picked and picked, and still there are hundreds of pies still hanging on the trees.

I picked cherries for about an hour, and I found it to be extremely relaxing. I ended up with a big bowl full of cherries.

And this was the precise moment the relaxation ceased. For now came the necessary part no one really likes. I had to pit all these cherries. 

This actually took longer than picking the cherries! My hands and everything around me were all sticky, several of the cherries were teeming with worms (and the worms' digestive products), and I just wanted to be done. And eventually I got there. I filled two bags full of cherries and threw them in the freezer where there were already about 8 pies worth of cherries. Now there's about 10 pies worth! Cherry pies for DAYS!

But, having finished this early morning activity, I decided it was time to eat something. And by something I mean  the only thing I ever eat in the morning:

A short while later, Sidney got up and came upstairs. Last night, we had agreed to share a special treat for breakfast...

What a great way to start the day! I finally calculated about how many calories are in one of these things, and it ain't pretty. In this particular batch, Sidney multiplied the recipe by 1.5 and ended up with 6 servings, and that came out to be just under 700 calories...in each one! It's a good thing we split this one!!!

Fast forward past me going to class and all that jazz, and now I'm getting ready to head to my parents' house to begin preparations for the 5K. Before I left, I grabbed a brotein/fiber bar.

I had yet to try this flavor, and, with 3 grams less fiber than the other flavor, I had high hopes for the taste.

The verdict: still not that great, but noticeably better than the other flavor. This one is much more tolerable.

When I got to my parents' house, my dad offered me a slice of Cajun turkey deli meat. It was really good, in part I'm sure because of how much salt there was!

And finally, as a final pre-race preparation meal, I had what my dad called a "steroid chicken leg." These legs were huge. This one weighed 3.85 ounces.

And with this, we were off. We were on our way to Arrowhead to sweat profusely in the evening heat and humidity.

We got there, parked, and went to pick up our race packets. I was number 417.

And then we were off!!

There were really quite a lot of people running this thing.

We passed by some cool sights along the way...

The race took us up into the stadium and through the concourses...

We passed through the Chiefs Hall of Fame, and right by this beauty:

And, after winding around courses and the 4 spiral ramps, we ran through the tunnel and out onto the field. The finish line was set up on the 50 yard line!

After the race, they had provisions to make sure I didn't lose too much muscle.

It turned out to be a beautiful night.

My dad, worn slick from the race, found a nice comfortable spot to relax.

Eventually, he peeled himself up off the turf and plopped down, triumphant, right on the arrowhead at midfield with his brother and my uncle.

It was a family affair!

Something else that was very cool was that they had the locker room open for people to tour!

Finally, I found someone whose name reflects my infinite quest!

After leaving all this fun and games, I needed to eat something. I didn't need a lot of food, but I needed something.

I had another brotein/fiber bar...

...and one of the new-fangled "Naked Chicken Chalupas" from Taco Bell.

It was actually really tasty, and I just wanted to eat like 10 of them. But I didn't. I ended my day there, hopefully a little leaner than the last.