A little gift for my workout bag...

Because sometimes the grocery store is in between the workout and home.

About life, and such....

One little trip to the grocery store and a night spent chopping and prepping, and the food experiment is back on. Admittedly, I feel better. Not just physically better, I actually feel better about a lot of things. I guess a little change of scenery can work wonders. (though, I think it was more of the time spent with great girlfriends that really did the trick)


And so it is that I find myself in a bit of a lull. Most of the things that added stress to my life have subsided (if only temporarily). I don't have any immediate travel plans. And I'm not currently a slave to any extreme training plans. Ho hum. What to do?


What I am trying not to do, is what I would normally do in this situation -- make frantic plans. I've been stressing about how to fit in one more ski trip, and where to go this summer, and what race to do and how that fits into travel plans. And what the heck am I doing with my life anyway, and where is my career headed. And well, this is how the hamster in the little wheel in my head works. He's on crystal meth. He doesn't slow down. You get him started thinking about one little thing, and the next thing you know you're in TOTAL FREAK OUT mode.


So I am trying not to freak out right now. I'm trying to just be patient. And enjoy a little down time. Enjoy having a free night to go to the grocery store, and chop vegetables. Time to read. And find new recipes. And maybe organize photos. De-clutter filing cabinets. All those things that piled up when I was running around the globe, or just out running.


Maybe its a little spring cleaning bug, but now feels like a great time to just get life in order. And oddly enough, I think this will help my training. It will reduce the number of excuses, anyway.

Cheater, cheater!

So, I fell off the wagon this weekend. As can be seen by my brunch, pictured above -- breakfast burrito with egg, beans, avocado and the ever-evil, cheddar cheese. Also included, a big dollop of sour cream on the side. And OMG, it was good. I maybe could have done without the cheese, but a breakfast burrito with no sour cream? I'm pretty sure that's criminal. (*it should be noted that I ate only a fraction of this burrito, it was ginormous)

And yes, that's a mimosa. Don't you wish every day could start with champagne? Is brunch not the best meal ever invented?

To be honest, I cheated before brunch. But it is really hard to stick to an obnoxious eating plan like this when you're traveling and staying with friends. And seeing how eating these forbidden substances is not going to make my head swell up and pop off due to some wacky allergy or other food related illness....well, I didn't have it in me to be a total pain in the ass all weekend.

So I cheated.

Could I have stuck with it? Probably. Its a challenge, but not impossible. Did I feel like sticking with it? No. Did I cheat at every possible opportunity? No, but bottom line -- I failed in the willpower department.

However, I'm not going to let it completely derail me. I'm back on the plan tomorrow. No excuses now that I'm on my home turf and in control of what's available to ingest.

And on the topic of ingestion....I think more importantly than the no sugar, no dairy....there needs to be a "no more than you need" clause added to this little meal plan. Because in the first week, when I thought I would see a decent weight loss by simply changing what I was eating, I was only 1 pound down. ONE. ONE POUND.

And soon there will be this --
In which, I will be photographed a couple hundred times, standing next to my precious little bride of a sister. At which time I would like not to look like the giant hulk of a spinster sibling standing beside her.

And so starts food tracking, and calorie counting....and serious, no excuse workouts. I've been working out, but certainly not to the shrink-my-ass-into-a-bridesmaid-dress level. So now -- it is time.

I just hope the weather will cooperate so I don't have to dig to the deepest depths of my soul for motivation. So mother nature....are you listening? Help me out here. I'm not asking for much....just 45 degrees or so, and some sun. Okay, thanks.

PS It should be noted that I have still not had coffee. Even though it was rainy, and dreary all weekend (i.e. perfect coffee drinking weather). So there were some small victories.

Oh, coffee....how I miss you

I think I need coffee in my life in order to be a normal, functioning, human. Really. I MISS COFFEE. I thought I could deal, I really did. But I daydream about coffee shops. I envy those smug people meandering around caressing their little cups in the morning. I mean first the caffeine, and now the sugar. I have no (legal) stimulants left. I'm going insane.

I think this is probably the part of rehab where people go back to the crack. That first week is just mind games. You're excited about your new goal. You still optimistically think you can pull it off. You're changing everything so its all new and exciting.

But by 10 days in, its not new anymore -- its annoying. And you're not over the detox hump like you thought you were. And you really, really just want to go out for brunch on Sunday and eat a damn waffle with your soy latte like the rest of America. But you can't, because waffles have both sugar AND dairy. And if you're getting that soy latte....you might as well order up some heroin. Because you are OFF THE WAGON. And you know coffee is just a gateway drug.

So....that should sum up how things have been going lately.

Have a great weekend! I'm off to Chicago!

And that's doing what to my body?

On one of my many recent excursions to the grocery store, I picked up a box of Yogi Detox Tea. I was looking for something without caffeine, the detox was just a side benefit. I figured while I'm ridding myself of sugar and dairy, might as well purge some other toxic garbage from my body too.

Much to my surprise, the stuff tastes pretty good. Also to my surprise, the tea cleaned the accumulation of limescale from the inside of my coffee cup. (its the cup I leave at work, and sometimes leave water sitting in overnight. Water evaporates. Leaves limescale.)

I had taken the cup home and put it in the dishwasher and still couldn't get the limescale off. I've also left other teas in the cup overnight even, with no similar effect.

So that got me kinda freaking out a bit, what is this stuff? And what is it doing to my body if it does that to my coffee cup?

But then, can it really be worse than some of the other stuff I eat that I don't even think twice about -- like fettuccine alfredo, for example. I do love me some cream sauce. I know its bad for me and I still eat it. So why am I getting all excited about organic, all natural, calorie free tea? Silly.

So bring on the detox. I'll have shiny, clean internal organs to match my shiny, clean coffee cup!

Has your fruit smiled at you lately?

As I grabbed an orange to snack on, this happened at my desk. Aww....fruit love.

strange things and total randomness

I was ravenous all weekend. Could not eat enough. Then today -- could care less about food. Hunger *POOF* gone.

Strange? I'm not eating anything different today than I did all weekend. Its pretty much all rabbit food, all the time.

I'd like to think this means I kicked the sugar cravings. But it seems too early for that. More likely that I have found my body's limit for spinach intake. Maybe the idea of eating just isn't that exciting anymore when you know you're just going to be eating more spinach? Or -- will I shake things up a bit and eat and apple with peanut butter. Oooo, the suspense. Perhaps I have bored my mouth to the point of indifference?

In other news, I have no idea how I'm going to get to 100 push ups. Push ups are hard. And I have wimpy spaghetti arms. My quads, however, seem to be in terrific shape. I could do lunges and wall sits all day long. And that helps me....oh, not at all for pretty much anything I have on my plate for the summer.

And speaking of summer, do you know how many times my tentative plans for the next six months have changed? It feels like hundreds. So many things floating around out there, that I have yet to commit to a race. And aside from all the other wacky plans in the works, I'm just finding it hard to find the motivation for racing in general. I need to get to the root of this. But now is not the time. Now is the time for bed. Good night. I'm off to dream about spinach.