Whew! (Part 1)

I’d have liked to start this post off with “I made it”!!!  But I’m still pretty far from done being super busy and stressed.

In fact, the only reason I have time to write this post is that it’s raining and I’m holding off on my 8 mile run until tomorrow in hopes I won’t have to do it on the treadmill.  If tomorrow morning is rainy, I’ll be putting in some awful time on the treadmill.  I’m not even sure I can do 8 miles on it – I seem to have a lot of issues running on the thing now that I’ve been running so much outside.  My entire stride is different and I struggle a lot.

Let’s see…. Monday….

Monday’s run was…. bad.  I hadn’t slept much the night before… and by that I mean about 3.5 hours.  In fact, I’ve had issues sleeping all this past week and it really sucks.  I felt tired and stressed and I don’t know why but that usually makes me push myself too hard and yep – that’s exactly what I did.  My average pace was 5.3 mph when I’ve been hovering around 5.1 for a long time.  All I could think about was how tired I was and how I would likely end up in bed by 7 pm (and yes, yes I did).  It didn’t feel right.  My body felt tired, I felt out of sync and out of breath.

So I stopped.  I felt bad about it but not terrible.  I figured my lack of sleep had  more to do with it than anything.

Tuesday I had a two hour long department meeting after work.  We’re working on a big project to redo our curriculum (years of being in No Child Left Behind’s looming shadow has led to too big of a focus on standardized testing which led to teachers being encouraged to cram as many facts into student’s heads as possible which led to very little learning and very few thinking skills being taught – now we’re just saying to heck with it and getting back down to teaching the thinking skills).  I’m super glad my district has come around on this.

You’d think it would all be sunshine and roses when some teachers get together and get to improve their curriculum for the good of the students, yes?

No.

I’m pretty much the only one really on board in my department of 4.  I’ve got a bit of support but not in the form of any real willingness to do the work…. which is…. frustrating.

That’s me (if I were male) pretending my poor hapless laptop is a coworker.

I truly meant to work out on Tuesday.  I got home two hours later than usual determined to work out to relieve stress.

And then I couldn’t find a sports bra.

Fine, I’ll wear a regular one.

And then I couldn’t find the shirt I’d planned on wearing (yeah, to work out in… major tragedy, yes?)

Fine, I’ll wear a different one.

And then I found out my cat had peed in my basket of clean clothes I hadn’t had time to fold and put away.

And I put on my pj’s, put the clothes through the wash twice (because once doesn’t get the smell out) and stress ate for the first time in ages.

I won’t even tell you the stupid amounts of food I ate or the poor quality of it.

I will tell you it made my IBS act up (well, I’m pretty sure it’s stress coupled with too much grease).

And that, my friends, kept me up all night in pain.  Another night of no sleep.

I’ll save the rest of the gripes for another post.

Sunday Link Love

Sooo, I’ve had an incredibly busy week and as such I haven’t been the best reader this week.  I do, however have a couple of links which will be relevant in my upcoming posts

1. Vegan Bacon Recipe @ No Meat Athlete I’ve posted this link before but this time it’s going to be relevant because I’m totally soaking the beans and buckwheat to make my very first batch.  I figured the 3 day weekend is the perfect opportunity to try something new.  Also, I’m dying for a BLAT sandwich and I am loathe to actually buy real bacon.  (Mind you, I’m still at the point where I’d likely eat real bacon but if I have a decent substitute… it might be bye bye bye!)

2. The 9 Spots You Must Treat to Stop Chafing @ Just Your Average Joggler With my 7 mile run I encountered chafing for the first time.  This experience will be discussed in a future post.  However, as I scanned the internet for advice on what parts to use the anti-chafing product on, I stumbled across this post and jumped for joy that someone had spelled it out for me.  Thanks!

There you have it!  You can expect a discussion about chafing and vegan bacon this week!  Wait… maybe I shouldn’t have put them in the same sentence…..

I just realized there is no “end”

An interesting thing occurred the other day.

I went to a conference with 5 of my coworkers and we headed out to lunch afterwards.  Two of them picked the place as they wanted somewhere they could look up the weight watchers points on their meals.  This is fine by me.  I spent a lot of time figuring out where I could eat based solely on the availability of calorie counts.  I totally get it.

As the six of us sat down and perused the menus the two started talking about weight watchers points, one started talking about some other point system and tried to figure out how the two compared so he would know what to eat.

The woman I wrote about here started talking about how everyone should order something low fat.  (Some things never change.)

The guy next to me ordered a salad and got in an argument with the weight watchers girls about whose order would have more calories.  And then in the end… those two girls ordered what they wanted anyway and said “screw weight watchers.”

I was pretty amazed at how much kerfuffle went into ordering food.  I couldn’t help but say “Wow, are you guys all on diets?”  And you know something?  They all denied it.  The weight watchers girls said “well it’s a lifestyle change”  (and I agree) and the guy with the points said it’s “just something my wife does”, the woman who toted low fat is always on a diet and the guy next to me didn’t respond.

Throughout it all, I just can’t help but think it should all be easier.  Eating well should be second nature and we shouldn’t have to try so hard to eat well when dining out.  However, for any variety of reasons (and woah are there many) this isn’t the case.  It’s tough.  Six people sitting around a table at a restaurant each with their own method or trick to preventing weight gain and each of us struggling between ordering what we really want to order and what we know we should order.

Me?  I ordered what I wanted, nixed the fries for veggies and ate half.  In the end I was the only one to leave food on my plate despite gargantuan portions and I left with a feeling that, despite all of their hard work and preparation and counting points… none of them really “got it.”

How can any of us really find a normal and healthy balance with food, society, weight, our bodies, nutrition, health and exercise when there are thousands of diet plans, thousands of special diet foods and products, produce which is more expensive than band-for-you processed and refined foods and no clear method of how to teach proper diet and nutrition to the masses?

How are any of us ever really going to get it?

How are we ever going to break the cycle of dieting, weight gain, reliance on frankenfoods and general ignorance of healthy eating?

How are any of us really meant to have a healthy relationship with food when I am beginning to doubt that having a healthy relationship with food is normal? (Or at least a healthy relationship with healthy food.)

Sometimes, it all seems…impossible.

 

I love Saturdays

Seriously, can it get any better?

I always intend to sleep in a bit on Saturdays, especially now that the weather is cooler and I’m not trying to beat the heat for my run.  However, it just seems as though I can’t contain my excitement and I’m awake even before my alarm would go off on a week day. 🙂

Today’s run: a mere 3 miles per my training schedule.  Last week was my epic 5 (which the Garmin ate) and next week will be a fantastic 6.

I’ve noticed my stride is a bit messed up after attempting to run on the treadmill Thursday (another epic fail which makes two horrible runs this week).  I tried not to stress about it as I seemed to initially get better and THEN make things worse if I concentrated on it too much.

And, in case you want to know what I look like at 5:45 am while I’m waiting for the sun to rise so I’m not running around in the dark (which I totally used to do until a number of people yelled at me about the horrible things which happen to women that early in the morning).

Still sporting my bondiband (still love, love, love it) and with a newly acquired vest for mornings such as this one where it’s too chilly for a t-shirt and yet much too warm for a sweat shirt.  It’s a cheapo vest bought for a tiny amount of money as a practice run on if I’ll like wearing such things.  I think I’m giving the whole vest idea a thumbs up.

I found myself craving some gloves as my hands ended up being the only part of my body cold… anyone out there know of good gloves for that sort of thing?  Do I need special ones or will any old pair of gloves do?

And for breakfast this morning: Peanut Butter Waffles courtesy of The Non-Dairy Queen.

Yup, that’s a tractor plate.  Don’t. Judge. Me.

The waffles were good, not quite what I was expecting but pretty healthy all things considered.  I topped them with some real maple syrup – which ended up being too much sugary taste which sorta put a damper on the whole thing.  I will probably make them again and just top them with some mashed banana or something.

So there you have it, a fantastic Saturday morning, complete with pumpkin spice coffee (which I bought at the store and made after a LOT of Twitter talk about pumpkin spiced lattes and which, I can assure you, are likely one million times better than my coffee, which sorta sucks).

I can’t wait to have some good week day runs this week and go for those 6 miles next Saturday!

Fewer Choices = Staying on Track

Every once in a while I actually glance over the hot posts on the wordpress.com page.

There’s usually some good stuff there and even if I don’t necessarily read the entire post (I skim, I skim) it’s fun to get outside of the weight loss/healthy living blog world in which I’ve immersed myself and take a gander at what the rest of the planet is blathering on about.

This led me to read this post. And while it may not initially seem relevant to what I talk about here… it totally is!  Allow me to quote the pertinent bit:

Dr.  Haltzman shared some research with me about the negative effects in our consumer society of having too many choices—which may lead to increased expectations and lower satisfaction. A book called The Choice Paradox by Barry Schwartz shares research that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. (I will have another post about this topic soon, because there is much insight to glean.) I’ll cut to the chase and reveal that people are happier with the choices they make when there are relatively few choices from which to choose.

This reminded me of something my sister once said to me which went along the lines of (and I loosely quote) “I just do much better with my food when I don’t have a lot of choices.”

So the two of these things together got me thinking and I totally do the same thing with my food choices.  I limit myself as to my options, and as a result, I’m pretty happy with the way I eat… most of the time.

I literally eat the same thing for breakfast every day.  I also eat the same thing for lunch every day.  It’s a nice routine and I’m definitely not the sort of person who gets tired of things easily (obviously).

Plus, when I do want to switch things up a bit… I can.  I do actually have a couple of options of what to eat for breakfast.  Similarly, I have a couple of options as to what to eat for lunch.

The key word there is couple.

The key result there is this:  I rarely, if ever, feel dissatisfied with my breakfast or lunch.  In fact, I am unable to think of an incidence where I actually found myself dissatisfied with either.

What do I find myself dissatisfied with?  Dinner.  Hands down.  Dinner is where I change it up.  Dinner is where I try to be creative.  Dinner is where I usually slip up calorie-wise.  Dinner is where I could claim to be unhappy after a meal.

When I have fewer choices, I stay more on track and I feel happier/more content with what I’ve got.  Apparently it works with relationships too.

Who knew?  There apparently IS a recipe for success in life…. and it’s not a complex equation.. it’s simple subtraction.

A party over here… a party over there…

Ok so it’s not actually a party; it’s a gathering.

Don’t I sound incredibly grown up when I say I don’t party?  No?  Ok, it was worth a shot.

Anyhoo, I’m planning a gathering; a girl’s night in if you will.  It’s going to be fantastic.  Some girlfriends, some food, maybe a little wine (mmhmm, I just might have a glass, shocking as that is) and some great conversation make for a great night.

Sounds fun, yes?

Welcome to me being a crazed lunatic.  See, I never do things like this.  I never have people over to my house.  I never invite people to do anything.  I don’t talk on the phone… you could say I’m a bit of a recluse.  I just get focused on my own thing and I tend to forget the rest of the world until it’s time for bed or something.

Anyway… since I’ve sent out the evite, I’ve been completely psychotic.  I check the evite pretty near every half hour.  Why?  Beats me, I have opted in to the option where it lets me know via email if anyone RSVP’s.  I think I’m checking to see who has looked at theirs and then freaking out when they haven’t responded yet.

You know, like a sane person would totally do.

So, aside from my evite insanity and weird highschoolesque fear that no one wants to come to my party… I’ve begun to think about food.

You know, one of the main things girls like to do when they get together and gab is eat.  Everyone is bringing a little something so I’m not responsible for all the food, but I am responsible for something fairly substantial….. and I’m at a complete loss.

Back in the day I could throw down a party food favorite with the best of them.  Something naughty.  Something fattening.  Something laden with both grease AND bacon and possibly even something a little sweet along with some salt to make it that to-die-for dish.  (I might possibly be off a bit on the ingredients there.)

The problem?  I sorta want to figure out how to entertain AND stay with healthy, vegetarian dishes.  I have a lot of stuff I eat which just doesn’t really scream “gathering of girls approved.”

So now?  Now I’m scared they won’t want to come to my party and even if they do?  I’m scared they won’t like my food.

Completely ridiculous?  Yes.

Doesn’t mean I’m not out for a great recipe I can use which is healthy, vegetarian and yet will still get the job done.

Anyone out there got that?

I Scream… You Scream….We All…Say Goodbye?

I knew this day would come.

My love affair with ice cream has lasted a long time.  My first day at Curves, when asked what food I couldn’t live without… my answer, immediate and decisive was “ice cream.”

And the look on Ms. Size Zero’s face when she peered over her chart at me said “Hmm I hope you don’t wonder why you’re overweight.”

Ice cream and I go way back.  I remember college pity parties spent with a friend and a couple of pints of Ben & Jerry’s.  I remember celebrating fantastic events with blizzards or sundaes from Dairy Queen.

What’s not to like about ice cream?  It’s been so controlled during my diet.  My 150 calories of ice cream a day… the thing I claimed “kept me sane” and on the straight and narrow.  I eat my ice cream every day and then I don’t have the urge to binge on it.  (You know, like I did after Atkins when all I wanted in the world were some sugary goodness carbs?)

Only… ice cream is currently betraying me.  My little cone after dinner?  My 150 calories of super yummy goodness?  It’s begun to turn on me.  What once satiated my need for the creamy goodness now causes something a bit more sinister to occur.  Lately, I’ve been having my ice cream and then feeling something like this: omgomgIwantmore!  MORE!  Iwantanother!  Gimme Another!  I need more!  I deserve more!  I. Must. Have. More!

And, you see, I’ve given in a couple of times.  And, well, I know that’s not right.  And so, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe my ice cream isn’t triggering some sort of over-eating mechanism inside of me.  Or perhaps it’s making me crave stupid stuff (like more ice cream).

I don’t know precisely what it is.

I just know it’s got to stop.

And so I’m saying it right now… the words I never thought I’d utter (willingly, anyway).

I think I’m going to try to take a month off ice cream.

I just can’t justify eating something which makes me go so crazy.  There are alternatives.  I’ve got mango sorbet which makes me squeal with delight and which I seem to have self control around.  There’s chocolate, of which I have gobs in my freezer and seem to go days without thinking of touching.

And then of course, there’s the notion of having no sweets after dinner and breaking that stupid habit.

Whatever the case, there are alternatives and I know it.

I feel a bit like I did when I decided to quit smoking.  Something about it was making me feel dissatisfied and so I went with the feeling and maneuvered myself into quitting.  I may be far more addicted to ice cream than I ever was to cigarettes, but I think the concept is the same.  I need to run with this feeling of “woah, this isn’t right and I should do something about it” while I still can.

Besides, it’s just a month.  It’s not forever.  It’s a month.  If after a month I decide to eat ice cream again, that’s fine.  Hopefully I’ll be a less frequent ice cream connoisseur but if it’s daily again, well I hope I’ll at least have freed myself of the crazy craving for more which suddenly seems to be coming with it.

I can do this.

I can do this.

I can do this.

I can do this.

Screw you ice cream!

Sunday Link Love

Busy, busy and busier with school back in session.  I only have two links to share with you because my google reader is full of crapola I still need to read.  I like these though and that’s what matters.  Next week I hope to get my google reader to say 0 a few times.

1. First up we have Endurance isn’t Only Physical with Labor of Love – This one made me feel good because she admits running is hard and she does some serious running.  I like when others admit they find something hard and I find it hard also.
2. Next is Fooducate with a thought-provoking post on how backwards food is in America. Should We be Happy?  It’s not our fault we’re fat.

Sometimes I wonder….and then I realize…

I read an article on a link between insulin resistance (type II diabetes) and Alzheimer’s Disease (you can find it here).

After being mildly depressed as Alzheimer’s runs in my family and, like my grandmother always was, I’m scared of developing the disease.. After that passing depression I had a thought which occurred to me:  Why are we just now figuring this stuff out?  Why didn’t we know all these correlations between a poor diet and other diseases (aside from heart disease) before?

And then it sort of hit me:  People in general have never really eaten this poorly before.  We’ve never really had the option to eat this poorly before.

We live in the age of processed, prepackaged and convenient.  There are people I know who won’t drink water out of tap.  Ever.  Doesn’t matter what tap it is.  They feel water out of a tap is “dirty.”  Somewhere out there some marketing genius is laughing all the way to the bank.  But honestly, this is the age we’re living in.  These things haven’t been around for ages.

So it’s only now that we’re beginning to correlate all sorts of horrible things with a horrible diet.  Insulin resistance?  For most of us it’s completely avoidable.  Eat well.  Eat good healthy foods in reasonable amounts and you really won’t have to worry about it.

The kicker here is I was once worried about it.

When I had all my medical problems with my abdominal pain and kept going to the gynecologist to try to figure it out.  Somewhere before the exploratory surgery and the internal ultrasound the words insulin resistance were mentioned regarding my weight.

It wasn’t even the first time.

And so yeah, I’m kicking myself a bit for being so stupid.  Sure, I never actually got told I was insulin resistant but I’m sure I was heading down that path… and apparently that path can lead to me being 6 times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s.

If I weren’t already on my path to bettering my health… this would have been the kick in the butt to get me started.

Reading this article, for me, was like finding a link between my biggest fear and who I used to be.

Do I feel relieved?  Not yet.  Do I feel sad I was on such a path and increasing my chances of my number one fear?  Absolutely.  Do I wonder if some damage is already done?  Sure.

Nothing to do here but wait and remain vigilant in my new lifestyle.  Today I’ve just gotten one more reason to keep going.

A party, a fountain, and a heart rate monitor….

A friend of mine had a graduation party Saturday.  After a couple years of hard work she’s gotten her Master’s Degree.  I’ve found parties are now a time where I think about my eating a lot, make choices I don’t usually make during a regular week (you know, like cake and chips) but I also find myself making choices I wouldn’t have made before…..

Such as passing up most of the food I’m not dying to have.

I mean, seriously.  You walk into a room full of food and there are things you are definitely wanting a bite of…….

….you know, like cake and cupcakes.

And then there are the things you can pass up….

I’ve never understood the allure of macaroni salad.

And yes, the chips?  The chips I nearly passed up until I saw they were sour cream and onion and then I got a hankering… which went away fairly quickly as I ate a few.  At any rate, I pass up a lot of stuff now I likely would have just thrown on my plate before.  My original meal was a sandwich and a bit of some potato thing.  There were a variety of dips there which didn’t look too appealing so I passed them up rather than trying them.  Sadly the veggie tray had been mostly picked over before I got there so I didn’t grab any of that either.  I went back later for the cake and chips.

I guess if I were comparing my eats to before I did remarkably well.  I’d have stood in the kitchen munching all night (food was the meaning of the word party).  Instead I enjoyed lots of great conversation, a bit of naughty food and today I’m eager to get back to the usual routine.

After the party fizzled (around 7:30 pm, it had been primarily a family thing) I did something I’ve actually never done before.  (Small town girl alert!)  I went into Chicago at night just to look at the city all lit up.  I ended up in Grant Park and then, naturally, hanging around Buckingham Fountain.  Soooo pretty!

Certainly the type of environment which made me wish for a better camera!

I hung out there for quite a while.

And even I have to admit, nothing quite beats the beauty of Chicago all lit up at night.

Truly fantastic, even if I did have to tinker with all of these photos to make them look fairly decent.  Seriously, wanting a better camera now (you know, for the two times a year I venture somewhere interesting).

Unfortunately, as I wasn’t anticipating doing a bunch of walking, the trip back to the car proved…. painful.  The walk to the park wasn’t half bad.  The walk back is when the blisters finally appeared.  My poor feet!  By the time I saw the car again I wanted to hug it.  I mean, there are some snow boots in the trunk for those winter drives on days when the roads are bad and I might possibly get stranded but I never thought I’d consider putting them on to tromp through Chicago in August!  Had there been anything else I’d wanted to do Saturday night, I totally would have been sporting hot, sweaty snow boots… and you know… acting like I’m totally not doing anything strange.

All in all I had a magnificent time, cake and all!

For those of you in the know about the giveaway over at The Giggly Bits my letter to give to you is: T     And the next blog is Brandon’s over at A Healthy Dad.  As I’m writing this on Sunday morning I cannot actually link you to the specific posts (as they’re not yet published and if there is a way to do this I’m far beyond the realm of knowing) so be sure to look in Monday’s post!  Those of you NOT in the know about the giveaway and in the need for a heart rate monitor, you should go check out the details!