Lately:

Terribly busy at work, doing NaNoWriMo, hoping to still drop a few before being a Maid of Honor in January, still trying to keep up with my Google Reader! :)

Some Things

Ack, another week has gone by with no posts from yours truly! I've been busier than normal (except this might become my "new normal") like I wrote about recently, and on Thursday I came down with a yucky cold that I'm just now on the downslope of. I hate being sick. I know that no one likes it, but I swear I'm more incapacitated than the average person even with a mild cold. Hate it.

However, last week I started a little experiment wherein I challenged myself to not buy any food during the week. My fridge & pantry were stocked and I wanted to see if I could really take advantage of that, not just planning out my lunches and dinners but actually planning out everything down to the last bite - i.e. not running to Rite Aid for a granola bar before a workout, as I am prone to do! I thought this challenge was pretty smart because it would impact my finances, obviously, but also my waistline: since I don't keep many "quick" foods/snacks around my apartment, it forced me to really think about what sort of nutrition I'd need for my daily activities and make meals and snacks that were more about good fuel (i.e. an Ezekiel muffin with almond butter a couple hours before a workout) than feeding lazy hunger (i.e. Cheez-its from the vending machine that wouldn't even last in my tummy till the workout).

Now, I did pretty well with this challenge for two days - until two girlfriends & I went out for drinks and I bought a pint of Belgian pilsner and an order of the most amazing appetizer ever, Beer Buddies. Ah, well. Wednesday went pretty well, too, until I went to a two-hour spin class and was about to gnaw my arm off afterward, so I stopped by Pita Pit instead of waiting to prepare something until I got home (which was, actually, probably a good choice). And then I got sick. So, my life got in the way, and that's actually a good lesson as well. Sometimes an idea and a little planning isn't enough to carry you through - you need really excellent planning and a lot of motivation. Next time I try this (could be this week, actually) I'll push a little harder.

Elsewhere in my health & fitness world... I seem to have gained a few pounds. I have only been weighing myself once a week lately, to avoid any mind games the scale might try to play with me (more on that later, maybe), and this morning I noticed a wee gain. It's nothing to really worry about but I am still wondering where it came from. PMS bloat, maybe. Does illness make you retain water? Sudafed messing with me? Can my mucus alone weigh a couple pounds? It feels like it! Ewwwwww.

And so as to make this not just a text-only entry, here is a picture from when I was making tomatillo salsa with cayenne peppers - both things I grew all by myself in my garden. So satisfying! So fun!

FOR the record

This is as far as I've gotten menu planning this week:

pork chops
frozen chicken
tofu
black beans
frozen falafel balls
cheese

green beans
kale
collard greens
cabbage
butternut squash
sweet potato

oats
brown rice
quinoa
tortillas
various pastas
various sauces


...any ideas?

Daily Life

I last wrote on Monday - the last day I had a chance to slow down! My work life picked up speed this week. A LOT of speed. Without going into too much detail, I'm now working on something that makes me a lot more happy and fulfilled than before, but the trade-off is that I don't have much time to slow down. I have a hard time when I'm not able to easily pause and breathe and take moments for myself, so that's something I'm going to try to work into my days next week.

Another impact of the busy-ness is on my eating. I posted a Facebook status update this week that I'm "on the busy diet." I don't want to kid myself though, because while I'm certainly eating less, both in frequency and amount, but I know I've visited the candy bowl quite a bit this week and opted for easy and fast options that weren't always the healthiest. SO. I just have to adjust accordingly to a more fast-paced lifestyle. I know it can be done.

Being busy also makes me crave really hard workouts. Spinning + a personal training this week helped my blood keep pumping and my spirits up.

And also, blogging obviously suffers when I'm busy. I have a hundred-ish Google read entries I'm going to go catch up on, right about... NOW!

Footfootfoot

I've been struggling a bit with consistency, still. I had to work this weekend, which always makes me grumpy and lethargic, and certainly interrupts my routine... especially when it's a not-well-established routine! But I'm trying to plan out some workouts this week AND spend some time cooking/prepping food.

On my last entry about running, Emily and Rachel commented and I thought I'd respond to their comments on here, since both were related to my plantar fasciitis.

Emily mentioned Vibram Five Fingers, which I know she is a big fan of, and wondered if they'd be awesome or awful for my feet. I read some reviews and apart from one guy who self-diagnosed his PF only after switching to the shoes (should I call them shoes?), a lot of them are positive. In fact, I saw some reviews that said switching to these from regular running shoes CURED their foot issues! Which seems so strange and counter-intuitive to me, since my doc insisted I wear shoes with cushioned & sturdy soles and never go barefoot (heartbreaking). But I bet it's about strengthening your foot. I'll have to think about this more and do some more research. (For the record, I have high arches and I also over-pronate, which is a funky combo.)

Rachel asked if my feet hurt when I both run and walk. Yes! After my walk yesterday my heel ached for a good few hours, but then I iced it and it went away. Go figure. (I'm rolling my eyes at myself right now.) But I'm willing to bet that if I had inserts and new running shoes, I'd have almost no pain when I walk. It's only the running. Which also kind of tells me that a lot of this problem has to do with my stride - I'm probably a heel striker. Sigh.

That's all on feet for tonight. More tomorrow! But not on feet, hehe.

On Empty

from visitspokane.com

I walked from my apartment down to the river today, around noon, when it was under 40 degrees out but the sun was shining vibrantly overhead. Spokane is beautiful in the fall. Not quite as shockingly pretty as some of my deciduous-tree-heavy east coast friends have it, but pleasant nonetheless. It was a good walk to do some thinking.

As I wandered through my neighborhood, downhill toward the river, I realized that the last time I ran that route, it was early summer - probably June. And I was shocked to think it had been so long!

In the spring, my love-hate relationship with running turned much more towards the love. I started running a lot on my own but also joined a running club. I was hitting a lot of milestones and getting analytical about my performance and enjoyment. My spring running season culminated in accomplishing a major goal - finishing a 12k.

But then my foot started hurting. A couple hundred bucks in co-pays and doctor pills & two cortisone shots, I don't really know that much more than I did on that day back in early June.

I haven't run more than short distances since then. And it's been okay, because I've had lots of other stuff to do, like biking. BUT I MISS RUNNING! I really do. The main thing standing in my way right now is finances, to get things like this:

and this:

I just need to DO IT! Of course there's always the motivation factor, too, not just money. Motivation to: buy the stuff, stretch & ice regularly (to minimize pain), and integrate the runs back into my workout and daily life. But I think it's worth it. Don't you?

Ten Years Ago

You know, eighth grade was probably the worst year of my life. Combine family upheaval with adolescent angst and you got an unhappy Rachel in 1998-1999. As I've gotten older I've found that this isn't an incredibly unique state for a 13-14 year old! Sigh.

I recently came across some old photos from the summer after eighth grade, when I was fourteen-and-a-half, on a camping trip with my cousin's youth group. And while it prompted a lot of introspection that didn't have to do with this, I did take note of what my body looked like and tried to remember what I felt about it at the time.

I'm so blessed to have never had a terrible body-image, but I don't know any eighth grade girl who has impeccable self-confidence, especially when it comes to her body. It's a sad thing, and I'm sure we all have ideas about the reasons why that's the case. But I don't have very specific memories about how I felt about my own body back in those days. I do remember some times when I thought I was too fat and I should just stop eating... that would last about one dinner of white rice until I was done. I also remember that my general framework, the basic lens through which I looked at the world, was that I was bigger than all the other girls.

But was I?
Looking at these pictures, I really don't think I was. If I recall correctly, those khakis were Gap size 8 (and that was before they started adding 1% stretch material to everything) and likely a medium junior's t-shirt from Target or something. I probably weighed around 20 pounds less than I do now - maybe 140ish (and I haven't grown taller since then, darn it!). But I still thought I was just plain too big. I'm sure I was bigger than a lot of girls - there are still plenty of barely pubescent 13 year olds - but looking at these pictures... I was just fine.


I can tell that I wasn't as muscular as I am now (or even as I was in high school) by the way my legs and arms look, but I have the same basic body type - not disproportionately big on top or bottom but still not a very defined waist. I'm thinking about this stuff because I'm wondering how my 2009 body would look minus those 20 pounds compared to this 1999 body. It's interesting.

I don't know how to solve the issue of poor self-esteem in young women; that's another issue or even another blog. But I do know that looking back on my own personal history helps me understand myself better now, in everything, but also in the areas particular to this blog. Now: time to forge ahead...

Bread & Pumpkin

In sweets news... look what I found! I heard that there was a pumpkin shortage, or something? And then at my local grocery store I noticed that the cans of pumpkin pie filling were all out, and of course the second I saw that I wanted to bake. So I did a little investigating, and it turns out that this store keeps regular pumpkin (not jarred pie filling) in a different spot - not in the baking aisle, but in the canned veggie aisle! I found yoooooou, pumpkin.

But before I do some baking - wherein I plan to bring most if not all of what I make to work, or give away, for the record - I discovered this special treat that I almost wish I hadn't, because it's so delicious. A slice of Nature's Pride bread, a little butter, a little honey, and cinnamon:

Mmm... bathed in the glow of my TV. Ha! I have to really resist eating two of these at a time. Another grocery store story: I grabbed a pack of Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches from the freezer case because they were on sale, and then thought to myself, No! You are going to eat all of these if you get them! Too tempting! Put it back! So I did. (This is a common occurrence at the grocery store.) But then of course I make this treat, which has just as many calories as a Skinny Cow. So. There you have it.

Not so Sweet

Update: Ack. I ate pretty terribly this weekend. I don't think I went over on calories too much - but then, I didn't track. I can list maybe five or ten things, little or big, that I "shouldn't have" eaten. So that's kind of a bummer.

Momentum, I tell ya. It's crazy. I know that my poor eating choices started on Friday night because I stopped by Walgreens for a diet Coke (which is not currently on the list of bad choices, unfortunately?) and a bottle of water and some gum and I spied THIS:


Eeeeek! You know, most of the time I don't even feel that candy is a huge temptation anymore. I guess I grew out of it? I still have a sweet tooth (uh, obviously) and I still like, say, a mini Snickers from the candy bowl at work, but gummies and sour things and hard candies aren't my favorite things anymore. Which is good, because I don't think I've started to become more attached to another vice to compensate :)

Buuuut I spied these babies and didn't resist. I ate about a third. And then another two-thirds. Ha!

So I think that created a sweets momentum, because I ate a good amount of fruits & veggies and whole grains and protein this weekend, but also lots of sugar. Sigh. And it's also really easy for me to see that when I don't have sugar, I turned to... bread!

It's not like any of this is a surprise to me but it's kind of interesting to be able to observe it fairly clearly in myself. At any rate, I did something active every day this week (and every day since last Tuesday, I think?) which hopefully offset a little but of that eating. Meh. I'm not overjoyed with myself right now, but it's okay. Next week will be a lot better. I'm still on my way.

First Day of the Month

Here are the goals I made for myself last night, and how it went:

+ make oatmeal for breakfast (I had toast this morning since I'd left my Thermos at work and it DIDN'T CUT IT!)
= Heck yes! I made my regular "work oatmeal" and ate it while catching up on my email. I even managed to fix a mug of Starbucks Via (that I got from a sample), which was halfway decent, and let's face it - if I get a caffeine boost before I even get to work, it's always a plus.

+ make a turkey sandwich, apple, and yogurt for lunch
= Yup. Turkey, pepperjack cheese, cucumbers, spinach, and pepperoncinis on 12-grain bread, a gala apple, and a Wallaby dulce de leche yogurt.

+ pack some kind of snack for pre-workout (Wasa cracker + almond butter?)
= ...I didn't end up eating the yogurt with lunch, so I had it about an hour before I worked out.

+ pack my gym clothes & supplies and complete at least 30 minutes of cardio
= Booyah! Packed my clothes and hit the gym after work. I did, with a nice warm up and cool down AND some foam rolling, 15 minutes on the stepmill and 20 minutes walking on a 10 incline on the treadmill.

+ stick to only half a beer if I go out after work
= I didn't go out and I haven't consumed any liquid calories since my coffee this morning... but I would really like a beer. And I have some Sierra Nevada in my fridge. But I'm not going to drink one, nope!

+ make dinner using leftover chicken & stuff
= After a carb-y breakfast and lunch, I decided to fix myself purely veggies + protein: an omelet made of Eggbeaters and a sprinkle of cheddar, a grilled zucchini, some leftover chicken, black beans, and about 1/3 of an avocado.

I like making daily goals! Much easier to break it down to the tasks I want to complete in one day and then knock 'em out. However, I think I could probably create longer-term goals, and then evaluate whether or not my daily goals are achieving the bigger ones.

That's all for tonight, because I'm getting a little screen-weary.