Where's the beef?

After much deliberation, inner self-talk (hmm...), and countless GChat debates with a fabulous co-worker/runner/healthy eater (most of the time), I have decided to give up meat for Lent, with meat being all forms of beef, pork, and chicken (I tremble as I type this...).

This is coming from a girl who grew up in Texas eating meat every night of the week, and who, although I love vegetables in all shapes and forms, loves for my protein to come well-done and consumed with the appropriate condiments. It is for this reason, that giving up meat is an absolute sacrifice for me. Several/tons of thoughts accompany this sacrifice:

-I'm interested in seeing how different my body might feel over the course of the next six weeks.
-What if I don't eat meat for 6 weeks and decide I like it better that way!?
-What if The Boy doesn't like all of the veggies that I make for our meals?
-How in the heck am I supposed to find enough good vegetarian recipes to keep me interested for six weeks?
-Will I break my record for how many bean and cheese burritos can be consumed in X amount of time?

Au revoir, beautifully medium-well done steak.

Adios, you gorgeous roasted chicken, you.

Cheeseburger, my love... we shall reunite so soon. Sort of. Not really. Mwah.

Today, my appetite fully embraced my sacrifice, asking me to indulge in every possible meat-related item I could find. My fellow temp-veggie friend and I decided to embrace not only our last day of eating meat, but the purpose of Fat Tuesday as well. In short, we booked to Boloco and said See ya! to the burrito bowl. No sirree, it was all flour tortillas, white rice, and MEEEEAT.

Feast your eyes, my friends.

It was DE-LISH for sure, and so worth the calories. Since I made it 4 miles on the treadmill, I came home and ate a leftover hamburger patty, along with Lean Cuisine's Fajita Style Chicken Spring Rolls. I basically opened the freezer, saw the three tiny little spring rolls, and thought "Yep, I'm sure gonna want THOSE before 40 days are over!" and so they were nuked. I then made a pork tenderloin and red beans and rice for supper. It was fab and comforting and lovely and easy! Sadly, I also covered all of my meat bases over the course of 38 minutes.

On an opposite note, my first 5k of 2011 is rapidly approaching! As in, I'm running this Sunday. Holy schmolies. Caitlin and I are hiking over to pick up our race packets tomorrow after work (!!!) and we plan on being fully obnoxious and having photo shoots with our packets and race numbers before we part ways for the night. This should be a really fun time (I mean the race, but picking up race packets should be a barrel of fun as well!)-- it's an Irish/St. Patrick's Day-themed 5k and 6000 people run it. Again, holy schmolies. I'm feeling pretty good, conditioning-wise, and am hoping that my race time will shorten down a bit once I get on the course and my adrenaline kicks in. Regardless, we'll both be outfitted in sparkly shamrock tattoos (courtesy of Caitlin) and will be pumped for the pub crawl afterwards!!

Alright, my lovelies. I'm off to bed. There's a craving for bacon-wrapped filet pounding through my head/tummy, so I'm brushing the teeth and tucking in for the night. T-minus 47 days before I try out the meat again!

G'night, y'all.