It’s Valentine’s Day and I’m in prep. Soooo…this is fun. Obvi, I recognize Valentine’s Day is a whole thing invented by Hallmark and blah blah blah, but who doesn’t love getting fancy and feeling loved?

My very first Valentine’s Day with Tyler, we didn’t have a ton of money, so he spent all day and cooked me spaghetti, which is legit one of my favorite dishes. He even cooked garlic bread which you could smell down the hallways of the building.  The apartment was tiny; when I arrived it was lit up with tiny candles and had an adorable checkered table cloth. He was dressed up, wearing nice pants and a button down, which also resembled my all time favorite celeb crush, Chris Meloni (OR Elliot Stabler if we must mention him by character). As I think back on this,  I remember feeling so loved, but equally important -how good those MOTHER LOVING CARBS WERE.

It never fails that on Valentine’s Day, I start thinking about spaghetti (oh yeah, and my husband). I would likely murder someone and step over their dead body to go to Cunnetto’s, which literally serves tortellini in a trough like fashion.  But, we’re both cutting and need to make some tough choices. We’ll likely eat sushi, but I can’t get spaghetti out of my head. Although this isn’t as Stabler-esqe as my first Valentine’s Day, it is sure a welcome substitute.

Before we begin, I want to point out a few things that are different about this recipe:

*Notice I used chicken sausage rather than regular. This is due to the *high* fat content in sausage.

*Notice I substituted a sauce with diced tomatoes with LOW SALT.  Check the back of your pasta sauces when you buy them. Check for carbs especially. Sometimes something that boasts “low fat,” can mean “high carb” or “high sugar”

*Remember that Better Than Pasta is an oat flour noodle. Learn more about it in my previous post,  bur this pasta is lean and needs flavor yo! If you can’t get behind Better Than Pasta, opt for a brown rice noodle or whole wheat pasta noodle.

Ingredients

As I was running  today, I started recalling when I first started dieting. I actually called my coach and said, “Listen, I really can’t workout four days a week because I have a REALLY BUSY JOB and I can’t run because my knee is messed up, and I really can’t do much cardio because I have asthma.” She was super understanding. When I got there, we didn’t run, but we did plyometrics. I had to take my inhaler twice, complained that the jumping bothered my injured knee, but I don’t know what hurt worse; my knee, my lungs, or my feelings. It was a lot easier to blame my knee and my Benjamin Button-esque immunity system for my lack of ability to workout, rather than admit that I had completely let myself go. Truth: My knee wasn’t keeping me from working out, my priorities and fear were.

I hear this a lot from people. Whether it’s an old injury, a busy schedule, or family commitments, it seems there is always something keeping folks from the life they want. Don’t get me wrong, I go down this path too. Tomorrow I’ll get on a plane and I’ll be gone until THURSDAY. I’ll return Friday for back to back meetings. I was in the throws of a full blown pity party, when I realized that I am complaining about the fact that I have to workout for a competition I SIGNED UP FOR. Two years ago, I was complaining that I was too fat couldn’t go to the gym because I had “too much on my plate.” I did, it was too much food, but my point is that it’s always something.

It took me a long time to face this, and I hope you appreciate it when I say that you are the only person keeping you from having the body you want.

If you decide to stay home and mop the floor and “don’t have time,” to go to the gym, it really just means the floors were more important. What if you didn’t mop them? Would the dirt police arrest you?  If you didn’t go to happy hour with your friends what would happen? Would they unfriend you?! If you decided to skip that episode of Grey’s Anatomy, would it be the ONE episode where they bring McDreamy back from the dead? My point is, we all create reasons why we are “too busy,” or have “obstacles,” but maybe the real reason is that we are (1) afraid we will fail and it’s easier to tell ourselves we can’t and (2) afraid to make ourselves a priority in fear we will let down the people we love.  I can promise you this, if someone really loves you, they will understand. Creating boundaries is healthy, and being healthy means you can love and live longer.

It took me a long time to learn that putting myself first doesn’t equal disappointing people. I can shut off my phone for one hour. I can leave the dirt on the floor for a day. I can freaking tape Grey’s or watch it on the treadmill instead of listening to Tyler ask repeatedly if someone is a ghost which LITERALLY ONLY HAPPENED ONCE.

If you are thinking of excuses this week, change their names to challenges and find a solution. Knee injury keeping you from running? Try walking uphill or an elliptical! I was on a work trip with a coworker and she had MAJOR knee surgery and was doing squats that I CAN’T EVEN do. Why? Because she made her recovery a priority and handled it like a f*cking boss. Too much housework to do? Ask your family to pitch in. No time to cook? Invest in some pre-cooked meals or utilize the crockpot! The possibilities are endless!

What tasks are keeping you from hitting the gym? Comment below and let’s find solutions!

Happy Working Out-

C