Full Glass Weekend

Morning! I’m going into this week with my glass feeling full thanks to a really great weekend. 

The big highlight of the weekend? A date afternoon/night with Matt!

For Christmas, my parents gave us a gift certificate for a couples massage at the Watergate Hotel spa (best gift ever), and on Saturday we cashed it in thanks to their babysitting!

It was such a lovely mini-vacation afternoon – the spa has a pool and hot tub area so after our massages we went and hung out there and it was basically the best.

We’ve been so busy with work and life the past few months in particular we realized we couldn’t even remember the last time we had a date just the two of us… which isn’t good! I want to be more intentional about making time for just us vs. only hiring a sitter or asking my parents to babysit when we have something to go to with other people. 

We planned to get dinner after our spa afternoon but wanted to have the flexibility to walk around a bit and not worry about keeping an eye on the time/rushing (because I feel like the rest of our life is always paying attention to time/rushing), so after we left we strolled down to the Georgetown waterfront and enjoyed an amazing sunset. 

It was perfect timing to be there! 

We ended up deciding to stroll over to Eno Wine Bar for dinner, which is right next to (and apparently connected with – didn’t know that!) the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown. 

It was just what we were hoping for – a cozy and trendy vibe but nothing too fancy since we weren’t super dressed up. Plus, no wait for a table!

Wine + brussels Caesar salad to start:

And then we decided to share their 3 cheese + 3 meat platter, which was delicious. 

Plus some fun bacon deviled eggs!

We thought about ordering an entree to share but we were both satisfied after the hearty appetizers, so we sampled some dessert and called it a night. 

Another big highlight this weekend was getting to meet Christy Harrison, a fellow intuitive eating dietitian who hosts the “Food Psych” podcast, which I’ve been listening to (and recommending to my AnneTheRD clients) for years now. 

Christy just wrote her first book, called Anti-Diet, and my friend and fellow local DC dietitian Heather helped her organize a book tour/Q&A event here in DC on Friday night.

Here’s a write up about the book from Amazon:

Reclaim your time, money, health, and happiness from our toxic diet culture with groundbreaking strategies from a registered dietitian, journalist, and host of the “Food Psych” podcast.

68 percent of Americans have dieted at some point in their lives. But upwards of 90% of people who intentionally lose weight gain it back within five years. And as many as 66% of people who embark on weight-loss efforts end up gaining more weight than they lost. If dieting is so clearly ineffective, why are we so obsessed with it?

 

The culprit is diet culture, a system of beliefs that equates thinness to health and moral virtue, promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher status, and demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others. It’s sexist, racist, and classist, yet this way of thinking about food and bodies is so embedded in the fabric of our society that it can be hard to recognize. It masquerades as health, wellness, and fitness, and for some, it is all-consuming.

 

In Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison takes on diet culture and the multi-billion-dollar industries that profit from it, exposing all the ways it robs people of their time, money, health, and happiness. It will turn what you think you know about health and wellness upside down, as Harrison explores the history of diet culture, how it’s infiltrated the health and wellness world, how to recognize it in all its sneaky forms, and how letting go of efforts to lose weight or eat “perfectly” actually helps to improve people’s health — no matter their size. Drawing on scientific research, personal experience, and stories from patients and colleagues, Anti-Diet provides a radical alternative to diet culture, and helps readers reclaim their bodies, minds, and lives so they can focus on the things that truly matter.

If you read anything this year, I highly recommend reading this book. 

After the event was over, I joined a small group of local dietitians + Christy for dinner. We walked up to Convivial – I’d never been there before!

We shared a lot of appetizers (pictured above) and then I had the trout amandine for my entree.

It could have used some rice or something, but the flavor was delicious and reminded me of my Almond Crusted Tilapia! 

Great night of networking – it’s always fun to meet more fellow local RDs, and I loved getting to know Christy! 

Another highlight from the weekend was a great long run with my friend Sokphal. My half marathon training buddy Kathleen is out of town, so I was glad Sokphal was down for some double digit miles! She’s training for the same race, so it worked out well. 

We met up late morning on Sunday and it was absolutely gorgeous out. 

We did a massive DC loop as usual, taking in all the sights. 

You guys – this is the first time I’ve run double digits (aka 10 miles) in 3 years! I was so pumped.

I forgot to re-start my watch at one of the lights, so here’s a picture of Sokphal’s watch to document the moment. 😉

Thanks for the miles, girl! Fingers crossed the weather is like yesterday come race day (end of March – we are doing the DC Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon)!

Matt and I had plans to make turkey chili at home last night, but it was so gorgeous out we ended up having an impromptu playground + beer garden playdate with my friend Jen and her fam instead. So fun!

And yes, I ate out for every dinner this weekend… I’m okay with that. 🙂 We usually eat in pretty much all week so it’s fun to go out more on the weekends! Although we don’t usually go out THIS often! 😉

I will leave you with two photos of our Saturday morning pancake breakfast – the first is the Instagram shot (I took a few bites first, heh)… 

And the second is the real life shot with the enormous kitchen mess in the background! (This is after cleaning up a few things first, too!)

So just a reminder as you go into Monday that behind every fancy/perfect photo of food you see on the Internet/social media… there’s usually a massive kitchen mess. 😉

I’m trying to work on letting it go and not cleaning things up immediately, so while the kitchen looked like this I sat on the couch and relaxed with Matt and Riese and read stories, played with toys, read the paper, etc. It was a lovely start to the day. (Related: another book that I recommend is Drop the Ball – I’m just about finished reading it and have found it really interesting and helpful!)

I’m off to tackle some to do list items today and to have some AnneTheRD client calls. We are also getting suuuuper close to launching my new site design… ahhh! Lots to do but I’m hoping we can have it live within the next couple weeks!

Have a great day and see you guys back here on Wednesday! 

Please note there are Amazon affiliate links in this post.