New Year's Resolutions in July

It is not unusual for me to be inspired by my sister. She's pretty amazing. But today I was reminded of her inspiration when I checked my mail, and that in itself seems worth sharing.

What did she inspire? A new year's resolution that is still going strong today, July 29th. Let me repeat that...I made a new year's resolution on January 1, 2015, that is still in full force on July 29th (and may even be getting stronger). 



Before you are too impressed (and you may already be blown away), I make three resolutions every year. I don't remember why three. I've been doing that for as long as I can remember. Maybe it's in the hopes that one will stick? Anyway, here are the other two for 2015:
1. Blog more.
My last entry was September 2 2014. I just checked.
2. Work out more.
My last workout was...ummmmmm. I don't remember the last time I worked out. I've had my moments. They've been sporadic, but I've had them. Gina says we're going jogging tonight at 8. That is yet to be seen, but I guess there's hope for me yet.
Anyway, my point is that you can see how well the other two resolutions have held up.

But my third resolution is still going strong.

3. Give gifts when gifts need to be given. Don't save them for birthdays or holidays. When you see something that calls someone's name, you get it and you give it. When you see a deed that "needs" to be done for someone, you just do it. You don't wait for an occasion.


That's it. It's that simple. Give gifts. Often and freely. Just. Give. Gifts.


I say the idea was inspired by my sister because I'm pretty sure she screamed it at me during a fight we had during the Christmas holiday. This fact makes me giggle now. The screaming isn't the point though, and I can't remember what I screamed back (because clearly my retort wasn't as deep and philosophical and inspirational), but I was moved by her sentiment. Plus, she's scary when she's mad.

I had no idea the impact it would have on me and my daily demeanor. Giving a gift really can brighten your day. It has been so much fun, and you would be surprised at the silly things that you notice around you that become gift ideas. It doesn't take a lot of money to give gifts. Gift ideas come in all kinds of shapes and sizes.

However, I do enjoy a good dose of online shopping from time to time...thus the mail reference above. Today I received a package that held three gifts that I am so excited to deliver. Donna, Kelley, and Barbara, you're on deck!

My newest twist (and one I highly recommend to each of you)?

Ninja gift giving!



So far, I suck at it. I keep getting caught. Seriously, I'm a really bad ninja, but I'm going to get better. 

30 Things I Learned From My Whole30

I'm just finishing up day 30 of my Whole30 challenge (after wolfing down Paleo corn dogs for my celebratory dinner). The idea came about after I read It Starts With Food by Melissa Hartwig. It's a great book, and I highly recommend it. It changed the way I think about food, but it did not even come close to preparing me for the drastic changes that would come about through my Whole30 experience. 

The basic rules of the challenge are these: no processed foods, sugars, or alcohols. It's basically paleo on steroids because you also aren't allowed natural sweeteners like honey or maple syrup. No baking (even paleo friendly) and no soy, canola, or beans of any kind. If you're like me, you're wondering what's left. Well, I'll tell you. Meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and what I now refer to as good fats.That's it. Simple enough to understand. Not so simple to do. 

I talked a few friends into taking on the challenge with me, and the rest is history. I feel better. I sleep better. I have more energy (even early in the morning). That whole food as fuel mumbo jumbo? I get it now. I see food differently, and I use it differently. 

This list is just a small glimpse of what I learned in 30 days:

1. You don't have to be a good cook to be a good cook. Careful planning and quality ingredients go a long way in making you look like a wiz in the kitchen.

2. My food NEVER looks like the picture that accompanies the recipe. Are those really pictures of the food cooked using that actual recipe? I'm not convinced.

3. Sugar is definitely the magic ingredient in BBQ sauce and ketchup. Some things just can't be peleoized, and I have come to terms with eating them anyway (starting tomorrow).

4. The food industry is systematically designed to guarantee our sugar addiction. Bastards! 

5. I have more will power that I ever would have imagined. Truth be told, I would have put my money on me caving on day 4. 

6. Sugar cravings are just that - cravings, and they will pass. They will suck, but they will pass.

7. Eating out on Whole30 is just sad (and next to impossible). It's just easier to eat at home and be sure of what you are putting in your mouth. 

8. The traditional idea of "breakfast foods" is bogus. Dinner leftovers for breakfast are the way to go, and it's a great way to get your morning protein in. 

9. Gina S. is a better cook than I am, but I'm a much better cook than I would have ever guessed.

10. I don't miss alcohol. I'm sure I'll have a drink from time to time, but I thought I would want a beer a minute past midnight of Day 30. Nah.

11. I also thought I would be fiending for cheese, but...nope. I'm going to remain dairy free. 

12. I may actually be a morning person. Don't tell Chipper Gin...I said MAYBE.

13. Sleeping through the night is a beautiful, beautiful thing.  Who would have thought changing your eating habits could affect your sleeping habits so drastically.

14. I have become one of those people who get excited talking about food and ingredients and nutrition. Ugh!

15. Bacon is a magic elixir. Without it, life is sad and meaningless. And as a wise friend recently told me, the only limiting factor in eating it is how much someone will cook for you. He's right.

16. Legumes are characterized by a nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their root (or something maybe not remotely close to that). Yah, I finally had to ask a science teacher because every time I said I wasn't allowed to eat legumes, people asked me what legumes are. And...I couldn't answer...had no idea.

17. A peanut is a legume. Nope...not a nut. Who the hell named it peanut then? C'mon, George Washington Carver! All that research and you couldn't change the name while you were at it?

18. Coconut is a yummy sweetener. I love the meat, the water, the milk, the cream. It's really quite multi-functional.

19. Life is much more enjoyable when you focus on what you CAN eat instead of what you can't.

20. I've eaten more mayonaise (homemade paleo, but still), oil, avocado, and fried foods in the last 30 days than I have in the past year (or more). It seems to go against everything I learned in all of those Weight Watchers meetings. No wonder we are an overweight nation. We're confused. 

21. Coconut oil has a gazillion uses (maybe more). 

22. I can survive without weighing myself daily. It only bothered me for like the first week. Now, I will be weighed and have my measurements taken on Thursday, and while I know these 30 days were about detoxing my body and not about losing weight, I BETTER have lost some weight (or more importantly, inches). 

23. Everything (including the Whole30) is easier when you do it with friends.

24. I cooked more in the last 30 days than I've done all year (28 of 30 nights, dinner from scratch). I'm telling you, success is in the planning. Sunday prep time was essential for me EVERY week, and I'm going to continue that habit.

25. There is a lot of empty space in my pantry. There just aren't that many pantry-stable foods that I need any more. But my refrigerator, on the other hand, is stocked and colorful.

Which reminds me...

26. Eating more colorful foods is important. It's not just a health thing. It's a visual one.

27. What I perceived as hunger was never about food or hunger. It was about boredom. 

28. Sugar is everywhere. It's not the cake and cookies and obvious foods that are the problem. Packaged foods in general are sneaky. More sneaky than I ever realized. For instance, one can of tomato sauce will have sugar and the one next to it won't (for the same price). French's mustard doesn't have sugar, but almost all other brands do. WHYYYYYYYYY???

29. There are way too many names for sugar: dextrose, fructose, barley malt, cane juice, disaccharide, fructomyl, isomalt, maltodextrin, etc., etc., etc., blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda...It's all sugar! Call it sugar, people!

30. One day at a time...that's how you get it done!

Leave It All On The Bridge

Serious runners, read no further. In fact, if you are even a semi-serious runner, you may want to go ahead and delete this web address from your browser history (before any of your runner friends find out you were here...they may judge). I am about to throw around that word again...progress. It's a little embarrassing to use that word when I was so slow to begin that there was really nowhere to go but up, but I don't care. Progress is progress, and man, have we made some.

If you read my last post, you know that Gina and I were very excited when we could maintain our marathon pace for 3 miles (as we should have been). That was week two of our program. We told ourselves during the first week that our pace didn't matter; we were all about the miles and getting our bodies moving. And then it happened. We got a little better while we were busy not thinking about it.

Week Two: Maintained marathon pace (13:43) for three miles
Week Three: Ran three miles in 39 minutes (13 min/mile avg. pace)

Both of these were exciting and encouraging moments, but neither prepared me for what we were about to push ourselves to do.

 

 

Why we chose to make our FIRST 10K one with the word Toughest in the title is beyond me, but we did. Our first 10K included crossing the Kemah bridge 4 times...yup...4 times. We had practiced running the bridge a few weekends before the race, and after crossing it 2 times during a 3.1 mile run I wanted to puke and murder Gina (not necessarily in that order). Nothing in me thought I could finish a 10K that included going through that torture 4 times.

 

The run lived up to its name. It was TOUGH! Half way through, soaking wet from the rain and feeling near death, Gina gave me our time for the first 5K. We had run the first half of the race in 39 minutes. Yup...you read that correctly. We had matched our best three mile pace while going over that damn bridge twice. It was a hopeful moment, but at the same time, I thought, "Well, that's all good and fine, but there is no way I can keep this up." 

 

Toughest 10K Finishing Time: 1:18:46

 

Do the math! Other than those pesky 46 seconds, we maintained our pace for the second 5K of the race. It was a proud, proud moment. We had gone into the day worried that we might be so slow we would not be official finishers (and had come to terms with that fact), and we ended up running it in record time...a record we set when there were no bridges involved, by the way.

 

When push came to shove, we left it all on the bridge. We got it done. Maybe only because the medals were so damn cool that we REALLY wanted one and were seriously worried that they might not give us one if we took too long.  But hey, motivation is motivation.

 

We've talked about that race several times since then...especially when we don't want to finish a daily run (or start for that matter). Gina kept reminding me that day that at least we weren't in a tunnel (flashback to traumatic Spartan moment), and now, when training gets the best of us, we have, "At least we're not on a bridge!"

 

 



That challenge showed us that maybe we really can do this. I'm bad about getting down on myself for being so slow. I apologize to Gina on a regular basis for holding her back, but when it counts, we know we can push ourselves beyond what we think are our limits.

 

Sunday night we joked as we ran our 4 miles that we were going so slow it felt easy. We didn't care. We just didn't want to push. We were dragging ass and were OK with that. We didn't even listen to Run Keeper because we didn't really want to know how slow we were going. We just wanted to relax and go at a slow, comfortable pace.

 

While we were busy being comfortable, we shaved two minutes off of our fastest 4 mile time.

 





Even Slow Progress Is Progress

It dawned on me today at work that I was not dreading tonight's three-mile run. I was not sore from yesterday's four miles, and at that point I was not wishing Gina would be abducted by aliens. That was a big moment for me, as I usually wish strange and horrible things upon her several times a day in anticipation of even our shortest runs...much like the torture I wish upon Elaine on boot camp days. *Exercise makes me mean. I'll turn on you in a heartbeat.

And just when I reached this positivity milestone...what did I do? I went home after work and took a nap. And I woke up from that nap dreading those three miles. I usually dread the first few steps most of all. But, true to motivational form, Gina showed up right on schedule and made me go, and monitored our pace, and told me I was doing great (even when I wasn't), and pushed us through.

The result? WE DID IT! We maintained our goal pace. In fact, our average pace was six seconds under.

Miles: 3.01
Average Pace: 13:43
Duration: 41:15

Now, to what I call a "real runner," those stats will not seem impressive. For me, they are. They do not represent my best times, but they represent an improvement on my recent times. Today, that's what I choose to concentrate on. Progress...slow, steady progress.

Way to go, Gina! I'm proud of us!

And So It Begins...

Today is Day One of our 20 week training program in preparation for the Houston Marathon. While I struggled with the first day's assignment (3 miles at an easy pace), I am convinced that I can actually do this...that I will do this.

I mean, hey, anyone who has known me for any amount of time would never have believed that I would go from here...



AP Scoring, June 2010

 

to here...

 

Semper Fi 5k, August 2013





in just three years. And while those three years have been an amazing, albeit difficult, journey, I think these next 20 weeks are going to push me beyond my limits in ways that will alter my journey permanently.

 

Yesterday, I looked up the pace leaders for our marathon pace group. First, let me explain: Our goal time is the six hour cut-off for the course. We just want to be official finishers, so our goal time is 6 hours (or I guess, technically it is 5:59). To do that we have to average a pace of 13 minutes and 45 seconds per mile. Finding out that there is a 6 hour pace group was a pleasant surprise. There are other runners like us out there! We have our own pace group and awesome pace leaders. One of our team leaders has summited Kilimanjaro and run the Houston Marathon 35 consecutive times. Another one runs all of his marathons carrying an American flag. These amazing runners have finished various marathons in times I can't even imagine attempting, and this year they are devoting themselves to helping runners like me...well, just survive and cross the line. I find that inspiring.

 

So, tonight I struggled, but I will get better. Jen Rhines, Olympic marathoner, once said in an interview, "Life and running are not about times but about the experiences along the way." I'm going to have to agree. Gina reminded me several times tonight to stop concentrating on my time and focus more on the fact that I was still running. For that advice, I am grateful. And as another friend reminded me, I just have to "keep swimming. Just keep swimming" (and hearing Dory singing it in your head helps too).

 

Happy Day One, World!

 

Today began a journey that will end on January 19th at the George R. Brown Convention Center.

It's sure to be an interesting ride, so stay tuned.

 

Today's Run: 3.01 miles @ an average pace of 14:18 per mile for a total of 43 minutes.

 

 

 



"Womanhood - It takes guts."

Today I thank God (and my brother and sis-in-law) for a quiet afternoon spent floating in a pool reading a good book. It's a rare moment these days when I get to read something just for fun, but today I got to do just that. Don't get me wrong, I love reading professional books and even most of the books assigned through my course work, but let's face it, they are not what I would pick up during a mindless excursion through a fun book store. So today I decided to start a book I picked up during my last visit to Austin's Book People (quite possibly one of my favorite places in Texas). I threw the book in my backpack, hopped on my bike, and headed to my brother's for some quiet time soaking in the sun and the water.

The book is Run Like a Girl by Mina Samuels, and it proved to be the best thing I packed for the day. I knew when Samuels referenced one of my all-time favorite writing books (Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott) in her first chapter, that we were going to get along just fine.

Remember that last post where I whined about sucking at running? She read my mind (doubtful my blog). "Look at it this way: less than half of all Americans exercise regularly. If you cycle, or play tennis, or swim, or do yoga three or four times a week, you're not 'ordinary'...even if you don't (probably, especially) if you sometimes don't achieve what you set out to accomplish - you're not ordinary" (13).

Andre Gide once said, "[Wo]man cannot discover new oceans unless [s]he has the courage to lose sight of the shore." Samuels says in the introduction that she wrote this book for women who have lost sight of the shore and found it again. As one of the many, many women out there trying to find the strength to swim that far out, I thank her for inspiring me today.

Don't have much time to devote to this post, so I'm going to keep it short. Gotta get back to reading! I would, however, like to share of few of my favorite lines so far. I hope that you find inspiration in her words as well. Inspiration to take a walk, make a healthy choice, or maybe just to go to the bookstore.

Either way...I hope her words at least give you reason to reflect.

"Human beings, by changing the inner beliefs of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives"
(cited as William James,12)

"A woman's physical strength cannot help but become psychological strength" (15).

"When you meet another woman, do you begin by sharing your accomplishments or do you bond over the process of belittling yourselves" (20)?

"I turned my back on my own resistance. I owned my own strength just a little bit more" (44).

"I had a long list of adventures and achievements I thought I'd do later when I established my so-called real life more firmly: climb a mountain, go backpacking, travel to every continent. Run a marathon and write a novel didn't even figure on the to-do list. They were on the 'I can only dream of that' list. I had no idea yet that to do the things I wanted, or even dreamed of, was only a matter of courage, the courage to believe in myself" (49).

Gotta get back to reading now. Maybe I will share more of my thoughts after I finish the book, which I'm guessing will be about 2 a.m.

The Fitness Promised Land...Where is it?

Earlier this week a friend asked me how I got here. She meant how did I get to the point where I like working out. She knew me when I got winded walking to my car. She has seen my transformation and is in the midst of her own. Now it seems that she, like many of us, is feeling disheartened with her progress.

But the truth is...I haven't gotten there. I'm not even convinced I ever will. Don't get me wrong, I'm always proud of myself for working out. Always! But...I still hate it. It sucks. It hurts. I'm not getting faster. I'm not getting stronger. In fact, I'm not really sure I'm accomplishing much at all. But (and that is a big BUT because it's what keeps me going) I feel like if I keep doing it, there will come a day when I will see results.

I have friends who talk about a magical runner's high or how great they feel when they work out or even how great they feel after. I got nothin'! Well, that's not true. I've got sucky results and low numbers posted on the results board at the Crossfit box I joined recently, and I've got the occasional tear shed when I have to lift my arms to put on deodorant. Seriously, the other day I considered cutting off my sports bra with a pair of scissors because I didn't want to pull it over my head. Where is my endorphin rush? Where is my high? Where is that awesome feeling Shaun T. keeps promising me?

I saw this picture on Facebook recently, and my first thought was, "If only!"

 

 



OK, I'm through with my rant. I'm frustrated, but I will keep going. I've come a long way, and I have to keep believing that I will get there. I don't exactly know what I mean by there, but I guess I'll know it when I feel it (when I can smile at the thought of running or going to the gym). I know this is a lifestyle change and there is no end product or final exam. I just want to learn to love it. It will get better. I know it will if I keep at it.

I will make it to the fitness promised land or die trying.

On a more positive note (told you the rant was over)...

Another friend reminded me last week of something I told her several years ago. I was leaving school and rolling my cart behind me (empty I guess), and I told her that I brought my cart with me to school everyday so that I would have an excuse to take the elevator and not have to climb the single flight of stairs to get to my classroom. I told her that if I didn't have any books or papers I would just throw my purse in there so it didn't look empty. I don't remember telling her that, but I do remember thinking that. I NEVER went to school without that cart for that very reason. Wow!

So there you have it, B. I'm not there. You're not there. Hell, we may never get there (wherever or whatever that may be), but we will get closer. If you need some encouragement, find your "cart." Take a minute to think about the old you. Maybe look at a picture. Think about some change you have made and then pat yourself on the back. Then go workout. It's OK if you dread it. Do it anyway...and cuss...it helps. :)