The death of a legacy

Well. I'm sad to say I have finally had enough.

That's right.

I'm killing the salad I eat every day for lunch.

I've never enjoyed a salad so much. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I ate it every day for lunch for nearly 3 months. Maybe you remember it from a previous blog post?

However, today my taste buds couldn't take it anymore and I had to come to the conclusion that I need a change in my daily salad-ing.

I need your  help to bring to life a new salad! What do you suggest?

3- HALFWAY!!!

I cannot believe I am officially halfway to the Spartan Race!

Thank you for your support and encouragement in this process. August has been a tough month and I really need more accountability as I move on from here. Since I am now 3 months away from the race I am beefing up my training. I'll try and blog about that soon.

Wonder what the Spartan Race will be like? Wonder no more! I have created a video that perfectly breaks down everything I will be going through at the race!

Oh I would walk five hundred miles... or maybe just 3 and a half..

Hey! So this is cool!

Yesterday we had a health fair at my company and lots of vendors were giving away neat stuff. In one of my goodie bags I got a pedometer!

Today I tracked how many steps I take. In my work day alone I walked 3 and a half miles!

My work day was particularly busy, but how cool is that! No idle desk sitting for me! I'm a girl on the go!


As far as the kidney infection front is going I'm feeling better. I'm still not 100% though. I worked out for the first time in a week today and I couldn't do much more than 20 minutes without hurting internally. I'm just going to have to ease myself back in.


TOMORROW! There will be a more in depth blog! I just wanted to share this neat-o fact with ya'll!

TMI?

BOOOO. I have a kidney infection GROSS. 

Sorry. I probably should have warned you before dropping that bit of knowledge.  This blog is titled TMI? (Which stands for Too Much Information) because it contains TMI.

There. Now you've been warned. Continue if you must.

During my 2 weeks of vacation I drank large amounts of coffee in the morning,  had a beer every night, and had very little water inbetween.  Also, I didn't take bathroom breaks when I should have. (because seriously, who wants to stop hanging out at the glorious beach to walk back 2 blocks to your house to go pee?) All of this resulted in a caffeine and alcohol cocktail brewing in my bladder.  Again. TMI?

 This past week it came on slowly.  My lower sides started to ache, and by Tuesday of this week I hurt A LOT.  I finally went to a doctor Wednesday who was sure I had an infection that had spread to my kidneys. Fun, right? 

So, why am I sharing this with you? Because my doctor also told me to "Take it easy. Take a week or so off of exercising to give your body rest". So, I'm down for this week.  In addition, I can only drink water or cranberry juice. NO CAFFEINE. I know right?? How's a girl supposed to survive???

Now I find myself frustrated for feeling lazy, and sad because I don't feel good.  An old coping technique has kicked in that might throw me off of my training... I cope by eating junk food.

Yesterday I ate 6 cupcakes and a piece of cake. I KNOW RIGHT? I need help! I need accountability!

I made this cake as a prop for a filming shoot we were doing yesterday. I ate so much frosting while making it! GROSS!

So, I'm trying to be okay with taking it easy.  In the midst of that, I need to actually take care of myself and not drown myself in junk.  Easier said than done right now.

On the bright side, during my vacation I gained 5 pounds. When I weighed in on Thursday I was back to my pre-vacation weight! Wahoo for a one week turnaround of 5 pounds! Now let's just see if I can keep it off in the midst of this crazy binge!

All this to say. If you see me eating something that you think I shouldn't be.... don't be afraid to talk to me about it. Of course, if you want to be dramatic you can always smack it out of my hands..... But I can't promise my husband won't retaliate. :-)

Keeping Score

As a child I never participated in any sports, I never enjoyed gym class, and when I did participate in any sporty games I was too self-conscious about my bad performance to care about the game.  Therefore, sports analogies were always L-O-S-T on me.  However, I recently had a huge realization that was a great analogy for my fitness mentality.

My husband and I have been gone on two weeks of (glorious!) vacation. Here's a few pics:

A little bright for us...

During those two weeks I allowed myself to truly relax, and that included a complete relaxing of my diet and exercise routine.  However, I didn't feel too bad about it.  It's healthy to allow yourself breaks.  Nonetheless, I did gain some weight.  (5 pounds) I expected to lose it pretty quick as I got back into the routine of healthy eating and exercise. To my dismay though, I have found that having the knowledge that I have gained a little weight has made me more prone to eating unhealthy, or deciding not to exercise.  It's been something that was on the back of my mind, and then yesterday I felt I got a huge understanding on what's going on.

Because I have been getting in better shape I recently started to join in on a weekly ultimate frisbee game my husband plays in every week.  Don't let the title fool you, this is no elementary school toss-the-frisbee game.  No. Every Saturday 20 muscly, intensely fast, guys get together and don't stop sprinting for almost 4 hours.  The game is sort of like basketball and there are a lot of turnovers and LOOOOOOTTTTTTTSSSS of running.

As I was playing the score was constantly being announced.  As the game got intense I started to notice that when my team was winning I was encouraged. My defense was stronger and I felt the need to play my best so that we would win.  (albeit, my best is still not the greatest, but I'm learning) However, when we were down I suddenly could feel how tired my body was. In those moments I didn't want to push myself harder. It felt like I wasn't going to win anyways, so why not give into defeat?

When I walked off the field a thought struck me: Why does the score affect the way I play?

Now let me break it down onto a level that might hit home a bit more.  Why do I let what the scale says affect the way I treat my body?

If you grew up in America, and especially if your a girl who grew up in America, then you're all too familiar with the power of the numbers on a scale.  'Weighing in' is almost always traumatic. Every girl has an ideal number in their brain, and the sad thing is most of the time we truly believe we can't be happy unless we are at that number.  That's just like the game.  We all want to win when we play the game, we all want the score to be in our favor, but the second that it's not we are devistated.

Why do we allow the score to have such power over our lives?  Going back to the game analogy, if every player on my team had not known who was winning, and instead had played their very best the game might have even ended differently! 

So. In case you're just as lost in sports analogies as I can be I'll break it down into this:

No matter what you weigh in at each week, you should still live every day to your best.  

If you are daily striving to take the best care of your body, I guarantee it will be a game changer that leads to a definite win.