Another half marathon done.....

Grad school really gets in the way of important things like writing about fitness, nutrition, and running.  A whole month has gone by and my running has gone to a higher level, my homemade cooking, and spending time with my family has all taken a front seat and my priorities feel like they are on point.  The half marathon went well and I finished 60 seconds within my time from last year.  This tells me that I have not had enough time or effort to train this last year but the same is good to me.  I finished wearing blue and am proud of the finish in 2:38. 

As I enter the last six months of grad school I have only three credits per quarter which are internship credits with some course work.  It is a steep decline from ten credits a quarter, so this is a welcome change for all of us.  Now I can focus MORE on my running, health, up coming licensure, and credentialing exams.  All this while spending some fun in the sun with great family and friends this summer. 

My grocery shopping has been going well.  I maybe walk down one aisle in the store, otherwise all of the food we buy is fresh produce and organic products.  I am cooking a lot and baking even more BUT I think this is the best thing I can do for my family. 

I have a 5K coming up in June but no other races right now.  I would like to run another half this year and may look into one in the fall but I hear it is hilly and well.....hills scare the crap out of me.  Wha.....!  Wimp city. 

Please remember all of those who have given the Ultimate Sacrifice on this Memorial Day.....

Progress.....

Right before my 30th birthday, I weighed in at 202, right after a 7 mile run.  Of course, birthday celebrations and some drinks later, today found me at 206.  Back to the basics I go and started with a nice 3 miler this morning in the pouring rain.  I find it fascinating how much my body reacts to alcohol and one day of eating comfort food.  I imagine a balloon blowing up!  I ordered a gently used KitchenAid Artisan model mixer for my birthday.  I am about to burn out hand held mixer number 2 in 2 years.  This will be nice as I also ordered cast iron bread loaf pans. 

I am up for some new ideas for homemade makin'.  I am on the hunt for some good recipes to further add to my growing freezer of goods.  I think I will start with soups.  Until next time, get out there and run!

Homemade Makin'

It was a productive Sunday around here. I made 4 loaves of whole wheat bread, 12 whole wheat tortillas, and peanut butter. Oh, the peanut butter is so rich and yummy and I can only handle a little at a time. It feels good to add another homemade product to our kitchen. I also just connected with an old friend that is a beekeeper as a hobby and woila, arrangements for honey.

I started at 213 pounds and weighed in this morning at 205. I have not been hungry once. NOT ONCE. I shake my head. My run on Sunday was supposed to be a 6 miler and was shortened to a 4 miler due to lightning, yikes! My run felt good and strong, could have easily gone much longer than 6. Getting excited for my half marathon coming up. My goal of 15 pounds down by my birthday is looming over my head. I have 7 pounds to go in about 2 weeks. Not sure if I will succeed, but I am going to try!

My kids have been eating more veggies like Kale and carrots and so far so good. I would say about 95% of our meals over the last two weeks have been 0 processed foods which feels good. I did spend a lot of time in the kitchen on Sunday but it was truly worth it. Now, if this pesky grad school work would just do itself I would have a lot more time to bake/cook. I am also waiting for our juicer to arrive which should be any day now. I know NOTHING about juicing but know that the kale, carrot, and apple smoothies I have been making in the morning make me feel great so I am hoping juicing is just as well.

Cutting Your Food Budget?

Reading such fine blogs as 100 Days of Real Food and Food Babe has really sky rocketed my thinking about the way my family eats. When I began my internship (unpaid) in March, the first thing we cut was our food budget. Now, granted, the eating out part of our food budget needed to be wiped out entirely, but the rest for the grocery store was cut too. As I have been on my own journey to a healthier attitude and body, I began to look at around to see what others are doing. I love my fair share of running/fitness blogs but even more do I love now the blogs about eating real food and how to get the best foods to feed your family. Why did we cut the food budget? What is more important than what we put into our bodies?

For so long I have wanted an iPhone. Because of our change in income, I really struggled to see if I could justify the purchase of it. Struggled? Over an iPhone? Yes. But I did not think twice about using coupons and buying the cheapest food possible so we could afford other things. What?! Sadly, this made sense to me and to my husband until we really sat down and started thinking this through. It does not make sense anymore.

Although we are far from 0 processed foods today, we are getting there. Even me, the Diet Coke lover, could not even stand the taste just yesterday. It burned my throat. The things we have done so far are:

Make 4 homemade loves of whole wheat bread each Sunday

Stopped buying canned items. Frozen veggies and fruits now.

Make our own pancake mix

Make waffles/pancakes from scratch then freeze them.

Things we will be doing as of today:

Shopping only the perimeters of the grocery store.

Increasing our monthly food budget.

Juicer on it's way and will start juicing/smoothies

Wheatgrass growing

Making homemade cereal (which is in the oven now and it smells so good).



My running continues to be good and getting better each week. As of this morning I am down about 7 pounds from the start now. I feel lighter and great and I know that while improving my eating will only improve my running. It seems it is all falling into place now.

The World of Healthy

Last week I was able to hook up with a friend of mine that got me started on Herbalife. She brought her scale with so I could really watch how my body changes. I am not sure the brand of this scale, but it did not only measure pounds. Bone density, visceral fat, and BMI to name a few. Whew. The moment to see all of those numbers was depressing. Even though I have made progress, I am reminded that I still have a ways to go. Maybe this has been my issue for the past few years? As I have slowly lost weight since my first son was born, I have lost weight and then felt comfortable where I was at. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I am still down about 5 pounds from the time she weighed me which was the beginning of last week. A little ham at Easter dinners made me gain a little water weight. Anyways, while were measuring me and having dinner we had an important conversation about eating more during the day and I do believe this has made all of the difference. It is hard to transform your mind into thinking that not eating much and going to bed hungry are all appropriate items in the equation to lose weight.

Also, while researching and planning healthy meals and snacks, I came across Food Babe's blog. Juicing. To me, this sounds like a fun topic to get into and to start doing. The issue: the price of a juicer. I don't want to buy a cheap juicer and have to replace it. I want to juice veggies the most. Kale, broccoli, spinach, carrots etc. With my garden this year this process will be less expensive but for now, I am searching for a middle of the road reasonable juicer. I have looked on ebay. Not sure if I want a used one either.

Also, today I am able to go for a run as I have not been able to since last week because of the holiday travel and craziness. Ready to hit it again!

Melting.....

Instead of professing my melting status that my body feel that it is doing I wanted to blog more about the science of changing eating habits and the initial effect the body goes through. I am not a doctor or a scientist so I will blog via links that can describe what is going on with my body at the moment. It has been 2 whole weeks since I have started (re-started) the herbalife shakes 2x/day and the herbal tea 2x/day. I have also been running 3-4x/week the last two weeks including today and this weekend. So you see, we are really in the very beginning of this transformation and I wanted to know why I feel so good, and also feel like the inches are coming off. My guess is that most of the melting feeling is the release of toxins and water weight. Let's see.....

Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D. from the Mayo Clinic wrote an interesting series on how the body loses fat and caloric intake vs burn. Also, the Livestrong Website provides a good explanation of why water weight is the first to go during a new nutrition plan. It seems that the water weight my body is currently losing is the loss of water from the muscle protein. Also, increasing water intake to 2.7L (for women) is also a key in aiding the weight loss process.

It's funny because here it is 12:05 and I am not hungry although I know my body needs to eat. With my old style of eating, I would over indulge, mostly at night, not eat in the morning, and maybe something in the afternoon. Most of my calories would be consumed at night with nothing to burn them with. Funny, sad. I am learning. It seems that education really is the best defense against weight gain and unhealthy habits. Huh. I am sure that someone has told me that a time or two (a hundred) throughout my adult life.

I am looking forward to my run tonight. It will be a nice end to the day after being home with the kiddos all day.

References
1998-2012 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER). http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/slow-metabolism/AN00618

http://www.livestrong.com/article/387437-why-do-you-lose-water-weight-first/

The Wind.....It Blows.....

I had a great run yesterday.....and by great I mean it kicked my butt literally and figuratively. We had strong winds here in MN yesterday and boy did I feel it. I ran from my house to the nearest town which is 4 miles. This is a hilly route and each time I headed up a hill BAM! the wind hit me with such force I felt like I was running in place. But I kept going. Could it be a metaphor for life? Maybe. More so than that it was more of a stubbornness that overcame me. I finished in about 50 minutes which is not bad considering the wind.

I am feeling very good this week. Still doing 2 Herbalife shakes a day and the meal I have chosen to eat is lunch time. I did this for a very specific reason in that if I eat a meal at night, it will be a big meal and I will probably snack too. I do get hungry right before bed and I have grabbed a teeny snack but I am not even sure I am hungry - I think I am bored. The shakes make me feel good and I don't get that shaky hungry feeling during the day. I do love this product.

Next run is set for Friday, 4 miles. Then Saturday easy run of 2 miles and Sunday long run @ 5 miles.