Run, Eat, Date, Sleep

Today’s afternoon was spent at my grandfather’s house with parents, my aunt, my cousin Susan, and my grandfather sorting out some of his belongings because a major gas company has bought his house and land to tear down and build a gas station. It’s very sad for the whole family because my grandparents lived there for over 50 years together. But the time has come to go through his things and distribute them among the family members. I’m very excited about the things I was able to take home. Here’s just a little bit of what I got…

My grandmother's adorable apron

A beautiful hand painted bowl. The bottom says "Occupied Japan". Could be kinda valuable.

My grandmother's jewelry box

While the items in the jewelry box may not be monetarily valuable, they’re priceless to me. My grandmother has been gone for a few years now, and I’m so happy to have some her belongings now. It makes me feel closer to her. *tear* Plus, I’ve never had a proper jewelry box, so it’s about time I have my own!

I also got some furniture and other items, but I haven’t unpacked them yet. So more pictures to come!

But for now, I’m making mashed butternut squash. Here’s the beginning of it…

My first attempt!

I’m on a cleaning kick, so I better get back to it before my motivation to clean my house disappears!

Hello there, lovely bloggies!

Today started out with a yummy not-so-green monster with protein powder, amarertto coffee creamer, a banana, and soy milk. I don’t even know why I didn’t put the spinach in. I tossed around some laundry and then got ready for a short run. This was my first run outside on pavement with my new shoes. The first mile was a little rough with some ankle pain, which I’ve never had during a run. But it subsided after my first walk break. I did 10/1 intervals (I didn’t do the last walk interval) and did 3.1 miles in 33 minutes (a 10:38 pace). I felt like the wind gods were conspiring against me. I was running against the wind no matter which direction I was running. My lower back immediately let me know it wasn’t happy though. I forgot to do my hip openers and yoga moves before running today. Ooops! As soon as I got home, I did some yoga and my back cracked big time! I think it said “thank you”, but I’m not too sure.

What’s your pre-run ritual? Stretching? Yoga? Fuel?

After my run, I heated up some Amy’s pizza for lunch and got a call from my mom asking if I wanted to grab a smoothie with her since she was going to be coming to my neighborhood to pick up a gift card to a salon. What a wonderful surprise I had a strawberry-banana smoothie, while she had an orange-banana smoothie. And we shared a delicious sandwich made with turkey, pesto, brie, and granny smith apples on multi-grain bread (I took the turkey off my half). YUM! We chit-chatted about our Disney vacation, work, and random stuff. We’re so excited for our trip!!!

One of my things on my to-do list today is to revise my packing list. One of the things I need to think about is an “after the race” bag. My mom is going to hold a bag for me while I run, and I need some things to be in this bag like:

• dry tshirt and shorts
• comfy sandals
• Gatorade
• Larabars

I know Disney will have water after the race, but does anyone know what they’ll have as far as protein? I wish I could have my mom keep a chocolate milk for me, but it won’t be kept cold enough. I wish I knew what Disney will be serving to us afterwards. I know we’ll be eating at Rainforest Cafe for lunch that day, but I want to know that I’ll have something to eat right afterwards. I’m getting paranoid and anxious now.. can you tell?

I still need to get a lot more done today:

• Fold laundry
• Watch Food Inc. on Netflix
• Catch up on Lost
• Revise my packing list

I’ve been reading The Non-Runner’s Marathon Guide for Women, and I just end up shaking my head at it. This woman is clearly inspirational because she’s a marathoner, but most of the book is about how much she hates to run. Sure, she’s making it funny, and I think she thinks she’s funnier the more she writes about hating running. But seriously? There are other activities she could have done if she wanted to get off the couch. Stop having a piss-poor attitude. Maybe the book gets better. Who knows? Oh, and I’ve been told not to follow the training plans in the book, so if you do grab this book to read sometime, don’t even glance at the training schedules. They’re useless, or so I’ve been told.

Do you have any good book recommendations for running marathons? I need to get myself mentally prepared for what I’m about to register myself for! (When I come home from the NYC Half, I’m registering for the WDW 2011 Marathon!)

Oh, another thing on my to-do for sometime this week… Spray tan! I know this makes me seem all “Jersey Shore” but it needs to be done. See?

I’m incredibly pale! I looked down at my legs the other day, and they almost looked green! Maybe it’s all the spinach… hehehe.

Ok, time to start cleaning my house!

6 Days!!!

Today was an unexpected snow day, so I spent a majority of it on the couch with my laptop on the hunt for new running blogs to read. I’ve always seen the little “ad” for Tall Mom Club, but I always thought “there’s no way I can run 1000 miles in a year” so I never joined. But I took the plunge today and joined

I figure with all of the races I’ll be running and the training for them… and I plan on training for the 2011 WDW Marathon (yes, the full marathon!) , I’ll be able to run 1000 miles in a year. Right? Well, I’m up to 70 miles so far. So 930 left!

I’m totally failing on my goals today for the Cute as Bunny Challenge. I’m supposed to track my calories and drink 66 ounces of water every day. Yeah, neither have even been started today, and it’s 7pm!

And one last thing… the half-marathon nightmares have started. Ya know the ones where you wake up and think you missed it? Or the ones where you are halfway in between two porta-potties and you crap your pants? Yeah, those have started. Joy.

One week from today I’ll be in my hotel room with my lovely mom at Disney’s Port Orleans Riverside Resort!

I’ve been meaning to do this for a few months, but I finally put some clothes on eBay that no longer fit me. So, if you’re a size 12 or 14 and interested in bidding on my dress pants (all from The Limited), check out my listings please They’re all very gently worn and in excellent condition. I feel good getting them out of the house, like I know now that I can’t go back to them.

I ended up eating a lot more calories today than I normally do, but hey, I ate when I was hungry. Dinner ended up being polenta with refried vegetarian beans, guac, and plain Greek yogurt. It was the first time I tried that all together, and it was really good! I really want to try this recipe for Mexican Polenta Pie (vegetarian version). Calories consumed today was a little over 2000… burned zero. Drank 66 ounces of water (my goal).

I left my mom a little note today while she was out picking up lunch…

In case you’re wondering why I’m leaving all of these Operation Beautiful notes around, I made it one of my 101 in 1001 goals to leave 50 of them around for people to find

My Athleta order came in yesterday. However, the tank is too tight, so I’ll need to work on losing my “muffin” before I wear it. Booo. But that works out because my new running skirt didn’t match it anyway. Not that I care about matching for a race, but you know what I mean. But I think the hat is a keeper!

Ok, I need to go to bed so I’ll be well-rested for tomorrow!

8 days until I leave for Disney World!

With only 8 days left to go before I leave for Disney World for “Tiarathon”, I’m feeling rather stressed. I never like to leave work for too many days. The place can’t survive without me, ok? For a while, I was very stressed I couldn’t find my free Disney tickets. I almost lost it last night and literally cried because I couldn’t find them. There’s just no way I can fit park tickets in to the budget right now.

But I found them!!!

They were in a bedside drawer for some unknown reason.

I gave my mom her own copy of the race information, and she’s been making out a schedule for us so I can get to the expo and race on time, as well as attend the blogger meet-up and pasta dinner on Saturday. We’re also checking out office space in Celebration next Friday. Woohoo!

But a big thing that’s stressing me is that I need to make a big decision at work.. [the rest of this has been deleted]

Today’s a rest day for me, so I’m very excited knowing I can go home and just lounge on my huge, fluffy sectional and just read blogs and watch American Idol all night!

As far as intuitive eating goes today, I’ve been feeling full all day, so I haven’t really eaten much. I brought a veggie burger bagel sandwich for lunch, but I didn’t feel like having the veggie burger, so I toasted the bagel and put some margarine and jelly on it instead. Totally hit the spot. And I had a cup of chick peas for my 11am snack. Delicious! And for my 3:30 snack, I’m munching on chick peas again. This morning’s breakfast was a Green Monster made with:

2 handfuls fresh spinach

1 scoopy chocolate protein powder

1 tbsp. flax seed

1 cup soy milk

1 banana

2 tbsp. Amaretto coffee creamer

ice

The Amaretto coffee creamer, although not that healthy, gave it a nice kick and made it taste like a dessert. Delicious! And if you’re all wondering about the spinach in Green Monsters, you can’t taste it at all!

Tonight’s dinner will probably be Amy’s Kitchen Pesto Tortellii with a spinach salad. Mmmm.

Time to get back to work and try to destress.

So I followed the advice of a few of my lovely, loyal commentors and went to the gym for a date with Tread for a speed workout. I’m sure my version of a speed workout is drastically different than those of “real” marathoners or whatever, but it works for me. I did 30 minutes of 2/1 intervals of run/walk. For the running parts, I started at 6.0, and then for each new interval, I bumped it up another 0.1 until it got to 6.5, and then I started over again. To me, that’s speedy since I normally run at 5.4-5.6 on the treadmill. I finished 2.68 miles in 30 minutes, and 11:11 pace. I felt pretty great! I worked up quite a sweat, and my shoes didn’t bother me at all. Well, I do have a pretty new blister on one of my toes, but it happens.

On to intuitive eating… I did really well today listening to my hunger. I found that I ate pretty often throughout the day, which I can only assume means that my metabolism is working faster, which is a good thing! I consumed 1667 calories and burned 336. Feels like a good day to me!

My mom surprised me today with this note…

My mom and I work together, and she knows I’ve been leaving Operation Beautiful notes around, so she left me one on a file she wanted me to review. How sweet is she?!

When I was done changing in to my running clothes in the gym locker room, I left a note for someone to find

I got another compliment at the gym. I was approached by a guy at the gym a few months ago and he said in passing “getting skinny, huh?” But tonight, he said he could tell I’ve lost more weight, and he asked how I had been doing it. So sweet. Made my night!

Time to do my 15 minutes of cleaning and watch some AI. Night night!

9 days until I leave for Disney World!

“I run because it’s so symbolic of life. You have to drive yourself to overcome the obstacles. You might feel that you can’t. But then you find your inner strength, and realize you’re capable of so much more than you thought.” –Arthur Blank

I’m really glad I posted last night about Intuitive Eating. It’s really changed my attitude towards what I’m eating, when I’m eating, and how much I’m eating. I’ve tried really hard today to listed to what my body needed. I usually get a hunger pain around noon, and I usually put it off because I’m so slammed with work that I don’t want to put the work aside to focus on me. But I felt hungry today at noon, and I put eveything aside to go make myself a veggie burger sandwich on a bagel thin. It totally hit the spot.

However, just 5 minutes ago, I remembered there were Reese’s cups in the office somewhere, and for a minute, I thought about finding them. But then I thought “is my body telling me that’s what it needs right now?” And you all know the answer was “no”, so I went back to my office and started back to work. I looked at my water bottle and told myself I would have to drink 2 of my water bottles before I let myself indulge in a sweet. Well, I probably won’t even be in the office when I’m done with my second bottle of water, and I won’t be tempted anymore.

Well, there’s more snow on the way. Joy! Do you hear the sarcasm in my typing? I hope you do. As of right now, we’re expected to get 4 inches of snow, but who knows if we’ll get more. I was hoping to go to the grocery store tonight to pick up a few things, but now I’m not looking forward to it because of all of the crazies who need to stock up on everything before a snowstorm.

I plan on going to the gym tonight to either ride the stationary bike or do a speed workout on Tread. Do you think I should do a speed workout during my taper?

This is going to be a short post because I’m attempting to go to bed at a decent time.

But I’ve been intrigued by the Intuitive Eating stuff I’ve been reading a little bit about.

So what is intuitive eating? Intuitive Eating teaches you how to create a healthy relationship with food and build a wisdom about your body.

The first principle is

1. Reject the Diet Mentality Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.

And I think I’ve got that one down. But the next one is

2. Honor Your Hunger Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for re-building trust with yourself and food.

I need to work on this one. I get to the point where I’m so hungry that I start to binge. I need to “check in” more with my hunger.

I tried to eat today only when I was hungry, but I don’t think I listened to what my body wanted. The only thing I heard was “I’m hungry”, not “I’m hungry for this or this”. So when I calculated up my calories, it came up to a little over 1900 calories, a lot more than what I used to eat just a few weeks ago.

I was eating 1200 calories a day when I was seeing the weight loss doctor (and believe, I know that’s low), and I successfully lost about 24 pounds in 8 months. Now that I’m not seeing him, I’ve tried to refocus my thinking on what my body needs instead of putting a limit on it. But, I’m watching the scale creep up, and that scares me!

So I’ll be back to write more about Intuitive Eating, and I’m going to just go with the flow this week and eat when I’m hungry and try to be more in tune with what I think my body needs, rather than what I think I want to put in my mouth (ok, that came out pervy.. sorry).

Night night!

So last week’s starting weight was…. 177.2

This week’s weight… 177.

Not exactly the one pound loss I was shooting for. But, I was down to 174.6 on Sunday (the day after my 11-miler). I’m a big fluctuator, and I have to admit I pigged out after that long run. That’s why I weigh myself every day, but I don’t really have any feelings towards the scale if I gain a little or lose a little. It is what it is. The most important thing is that I’m running farther than I ever thought I could, and the number on the scale can’t diminish the pride I feel for running 11.6 miles.

I also didn’t completely make my goal of drinking more water. I wanted to drink 3 of my water bottles per day, which is 66 ounces. I think I missed one day, and I only drank 2 bottles that day. Otherwise, I did pretty well.

So this week’s mini-goals are…

• Keep drinking at least 3 of my water bottles every day
• Track everything! I’m going to be doing it pen and paper style now instead of doing it on the iPhone via the LoseIt! app.

I started off this morning with a delicious Green Monster!

It was:

1 banana

1 tbsp. flax seed

1 scoop chocolate protein powder

1 cup soy milk

2 handfuls spinach

LOVE these drinks! I seriously wake up wanting one! I think it’s time to add some new ingredients

Today’s a rest day, so I plan on cleaning up the house tonight! Oh, and I should maybe look for my Disney tickets and my packing list! I am a former Disney cast member, and I still have 2 free tickets to use, but I can’t find them anywhere! ACK!