Mary had a little Lamb

 And so did I...for dinner!

Garrison and I found some organic eye of lamb loin marked down at Wegmans so we jumped on that and got two! 

Guess what. Even the most google-savy person can't find a satisfactory "eye of lamb loin" recipe.
But I found Inna Garten's recipe for a 6lb lamb leg...that'll do right? At this point in writing, I have not eaten this yet.  I decided I should halve the recipe and that'd be acceptable.

Oh wait. This isn't a 3 pound lamb loin. This is like HALF a pound! We'll see how this goes.

Three garlic cloves, 1 tablespoon of rosemary, half a tablespoon of sea salt, a dash of black pepper and a tad of butter pulsed in my little "food chopper" (it wasn't enough to put in the food processor).

 The eye of lamb loin. Guh animal flesh. This is really why I could stand to go vegetarian. I hate handling raw meat!

The next step is to basically massage the rosemary garlic paste all over poor lamby's leg. I tried to touch it as little as possible. This is the paste I scooped onto the meat.

  I'm spreading the paste on with a spatula for as much as I can get away with.

I had to give in and touch it. My ring came off first. 

After I was finished massaging baby sheep's loin eye, I had to let it sit at room temp for 30 minutes to an hour.

Red skin potatoes tossed in olive oil, salt, and 3 sliced garlic cloves. I probably should have left this out. I was supposed to put the whole cloves in unpeeled. I forgot and peeled them. Oops.

My little lamby ready to go into the oven! The 6 pound leg was supposed to roast at 450 for at least an hour. This was well over the internal temperature for medium in 20 minutes.

 

The next step was to cover the lamb with foil and let it "rest." I thought it was put to rest well before it reached my grocery store but oh well. While this rested, I finished roasting my potatoes.

After it's lamb nap, I started scraping the paste off because I was afraid of dying from too much seasoning.

Dinner is served!

I thought since I had pretty much overused my blue and white speckled plates that I should bust out the white ones. The result lacks color. I suppose I'll live.

I was really concerned that this would be way over seasoned and overcooked but to my pleasant surprise, it was still tender and had some pink in the middle. The salt was a little overbearing but the rosemary and garlic weren't causing my mouth the trauma I expected. The potatoes were damn near perfect.

This is definitely a different kind of meal for us. I honestly can't recall the last time we had meat and potatoes with nothing else for dinner. This isn't the most balanced of meals but definitely a rarity especially on a day when I had cupcakes for lunch.

Talk to me: Bahh bahh black sheep, have you any wool?

What's My Motivation?

Pinterest has proven to be a fast way of circulating information, both helpful and, well, not so helpful. With healthy recipes, fitness tips, and work out pictures a plenty, we might even say Pinterest can help us reach our fitness or weight loss goals. But lately I've seen a few pins that have bothered me big time.

These memes are supposed to help us become motivated to work out. They suggest that when we're tempted to slack off, we need to imagine what positive things other people will say when we've reached our weight loss or fitness goal.


Losing weight is hard. It's hard to say no to the cookie. It's hard to get out of bed early in the morning to  work out. It's hard to make choices that glaringly contrast those of friends who are staying up late, drinking, ordering pizza, and binging on ice cream. Willpower does not come easy. I feel it's important to have a phrase to repeat internally when motivation is low. But I have a big problem with mantras that connect fitness success to the accolades and congratulations of others.


Between my sophomore year and senior year of high school I slowly became overweight. From my senior year through my freshman year of college, I lost all that weight. I don't remember every single workout but I do remember every comment someone made about my body- because that's exactly what a compliment on weight loss is! People looked at my body, noticed that it had changed and told me what they observed. Though positive and well-meant, I was terribly offended by every compliment.

"Wow you've lost weight!" was supposed to be followed up with "Thank you," but I never felt like thanking the compliment-giver.
"You look good," in my mind translated to, "You looked bad before."

The world did not open itself to me once I became skinny again. My insecurities didn't just go away. I wasn't 100% happy all of a sudden. Changing the shape of my body did not change the beliefs I had about myself.

If a friend of mine asked for my help in keeping her motivated to lose a few pounds, I wouldn't dare to bait her with anticipation of all the compliments she'll receive. So why would I do the same internally? Do we have to look a certain way in order to be loved and accepted? If we really need to hear words of affirmation, we must make our needs known in our relationships.

The reason we should take care of our bodies is not so that our friends will tell us how hot we look. We should aim for our own optimal weight or fitness levels so that we are healthy and that we can enjoy life without any hindrances. Perhaps that includes feeling happy about the way you look but that, too, is an inside job.

Talk to me: Have you ever gotten compliments on your weight loss? Do they make you feel good or bad?