Good to Freaking Great {some thoughts on healthy living}

A big thanks to goodnessknows for sponsoring this post (and contributing to this grad student’s emergency vacation fund!).  

The well-documented link between mental stability and physical activity is one I won’t drudge on about here.  In short, mental health and physical health are intertwined just like the pastel colors in those rainbow bagels I see all over the internet these days.  Basically, bagels are my therapy.  I MEAN EXERCISE.  Yes, exercise.  And by therapy, I simply mean that I am happiest and most emotionally stable when I get some form of exercise each day.  I joke that like a dog, I need walked twice a day.   Even small amounts of exercise (like walking) boost my energy and mood.

Goodness Knows #tryalittlegoodness

Of course this all sounds wonderful, but the truth is that when life gets crazy, exercise is the first thing to disappear from my routine (followed closely behind by healthy eating), and in those high-stress chunks of days, I feel my happiness dissipate — not to depression, but to numbness.  I become numb to the world as I focus with champion-like intention on the task at hand.  You see, I’m what my dad calls a “go-getter” always seeking out some thing, some goal, and hunkering down till I obtain it.  A goal-getter, really.  I know this about myself, and actually, I like this quality.  But, each time, after the smokey stress cloud clears, I look back on the weeks or months that have lapsed and am often disappointed that I let so much life pass me by; that my mission for mindfulness was yet again neglected; that I sacrificed those things that help me be my best me.

Goodness Knows #tryalittlegoodness

I’ve got my sights set on this balanced rainbow bagel of life as I head into what will surely be the most stressful couple of months this gal has tackled yet.  As the great Mr. Tolle, my 10th grade biology teacher, proclaimed: “organization is key.”  And thus, I’ve organized some thoughts on my health goals for the fall.

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My Top 5 tools for Healthy Living

Oh, January.  I love the start of a new year.  It reminds me of the whoosh of relief you get after a huge exam mixed with the excited butterflies of a new relationship.  Once we cross over that line in the sand, we are all bubbling over with hopes and goals and visions of doing things differently in the new year.  It’s no wonder healthy eating and exercising are such popular topics this time of year.

Healthy living has been a priority for me for the past few years, in fact, it’s one of the reasons I started this ole blog (check out my take on healthy living here).  My life struggle is balancing my love (obsession?) of food with my desire to maintain physical health.  It sounds like an oxymoron, but I truly believe it’s obtainable.

As a creature of habit, there are a few tools I use religiously, day in and day out, to help me in my quest for health.

CaptureIf you’ve ever tried to lose a few lbs, you know the first step is getting a handle on the amount of calories you consume each day.  Plus, I’m a numbers girl, so I need to see the numerical nutritional breakout of my meals to understand if what I’m eating is really as healthy as it looks.  I’ve been using MyFitnessPal since 2010.  It’s an awesome tool for tracking calories consumed and burned, plus it has a huge nutritional information database.  I also love that you can input and save recipes to the site (p.s., this is how I compute the nutritional stats for the recipes posted on the blog).  The site also has a weight tracker, goal setting features, and smartphone aps.  It’s COMPLETELY free.  LOVE IT.

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CaptureAt least a couple times a week, I’ll catch someone staring at my hip before they point and blurt “what is that thing?!”  I love my fitbit, and I’ve worn it daily for over a year now.  In a nutshell, the fitbit is a pedometer that tracks your steps, distance, stairs climbed, calories burned, and even how well you sleep at night.  AGAIN with the numbers.  I know.  The newest fitbit model synchs your activity data wirelessly, which I am oober jealous of.  Once the data synchs, you can log onto the fibit site and see how your activity measures up to your goals plus you can challenge your friends.  My personal fitbit goal is to log 35 miles per week and a minimum of 10,000 steps a day.  If I see I haven’t reached my daily goal when I get home from work, I find an excuse to get moving.  I take out the trash, I vacuum, I’ll go to the mall and do a few laps (yes, really).  Whatever it takes to get to my goal.  It all adds up.  Another feature I love:  the fitbit displays random words of motivation.  Things like “WALK ME” or “I LIKE YOU” or “MISS YOU” when you haven’t been moving enough lately.

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Charlotte Rock & Read 5K {giveaway}

As a kid I LOVED to read.  My ideal Saturday was spent curled up in bed with a good Goosebumps book, followed a couple years later by marathon Fear Street sessions.  Then I went to college, and my love of reading was overshadowed by the ominous presence of textbooks in my life.  I managed to squeeze in the Harry Potter series toward the end of college, just before the CPA exam invaded my life, leaving in its wake an intense repulsion for books.  I guess you could say I broke up with books for a few years.  I didn’t really feel like I was missing out on anything until someone introduced me to the Twilight saga…  and that old love came fluttering back ripping me away from that desolate bookless place.  I never looked back.  Next to work and home, the library is the place I visit most each week.  Memoirs, books on cd, cookbooks, books about chefs, books about learning to cook, books about anything involving food whatsoever—all of them have a daily presence in my life now, and I can’t imagine how I survived without them.

Since moving to Charlotte, my love of the library has exploded.  This could be due to their awesome iPhone app, or that I can walk there on my lunch break, or that when I tweet the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, they tweet back.  (yes!)

Given this obsession, I’m very excited to participate in the 3rd annual Charlotte Rock & Read 5K on Saturday November 3rd.  All proceeds for the race benefit the books and materials budget of Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.  Besides the great cause, the Charlotte Rock & Read is an awesome race to run because there will be music at every mile and a festival at the finish line including FOOD and MIMOSAS!

ROCK AND READ

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Let’s lie down.

I went for a run the other day.  It was my first attempt in two weeks.  I set out with the admirable intention of running 6 solid miles, and as I flew through those first two my goal seemed completely attainable, easy even.  But then something happened around mile 2.3. My breathing became heavy and forced, and my legs moved slowly as if dragging two-ton shackles.  I slowed to a walk.  Step. Step.. Step…. My mind spun. “Ok, I’m stopping.  I’m stopped.  I’m not running, because I stopped…  I’ve never stopped mid-run, but now I’m stopped, and here I am.”  I looked around–at the street, the chipped sidewalk, then the grass.  Everything seemed to tilt, like I’d just taken my turn in a game of dizzy bat.  “I’m sitting down now, sitting down.  I’m sitting down.  And now I’m lying.  I’m lying down.  Is it laying down or lying down?  I don’t know, and I don’t care because I’m lying down in the grass.  This isn’t my grass… this grass I’m lying in, it isn’t mine.  I hope they don’t mind, those people whose grass this is.”  I lay there, arms and legs sprawled out to the sides like a beached starfish under the shade of a tree.  Through the canopy of branches and leaves I could see the clouds floating calmly across the blue sky.  And I lay.

I guess, sometimes, you need to lie down.

So I did.

It was unexpected and unplanned, just as I unexpectedly and unpredictably laid down my pen, my books, and my thoughts over the past few weeks.  It has been three weeks since my last blog post–at least that’s what the calendar tells me.  3 weeks.  Where have I been?

I know I went home to Ohio, I went to the beach, and I went to Ohio again.  I know that I pondered, I caffeinated, and I mourned.  We all mourned.  But where have I been?  Where have all my thoughts been hiding?  I haven’t been present, or focused, or active in any which way, so where the heck have I been?

And what the heck have I been eating?

 

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9 things I learned while training for a half marathon

When I first started having knee problems about two years ago, I went to see an orthopedic doctor.  After a lengthy round of Q&A and a few X-rays, the doctor simply concluded that “some knees just aren’t made for running.”  Really, doctor?  Apparently the x-rays didn’t show the stubbornness that fills my bones like a tough impervious marrow.  From that day forward, I’ve wanted nothing more than to run farther, longer, and faster than I had the day before.  I love running, and I wanted, no, I NEEDED to prove that doctor wrong.

In December, I signed up for the Charlotte Racefest (my first ever half marathon), but after four long months of training ending with yet ANOTHER knee injury, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to run it.  This time around, I hurt my knee doing lunges in a bootcamp class at the Y.  When will I learn?  I took it easy the entire month before the big race, but when race day arrived I still wasn’t confident I’d be able to run 13.1 miles.  At that point, I only had two 10-mile runs under my belt.

Since I’d already forked out the cash for the half marathon, I decided to at least attempt to run it.  During the race, I tried not to think too much about my knees, but as the miles ticked by I couldn’t help but feel dumbfounded that I was still running.  Most of the race was shrouded in a euphoric haze, but as I neared the finish line I started to feel nauseus.  My pace slowed, and I began to feel dizzy.  With every step, the looming finish line appeared to be one step further away.  At that moment, the BF jumped out from the sidelines smiling and hooting and clapping his hands like a crazy man.  I was so close.  I put my head down, dug my heels in, and pumped my arms.  Seconds later I crossed the finish line clocking in at 1:56:58–literally seconds below my original 9-minute mile goal!

As I hobbled to the sideline, I could do nothing but let out an exasperated “BOO YA.”  Some knees just aren’t made for running, my ass.

Here are the top 9 things I learned while training for my first half marathon:

#1  101110-165-013Buy good shoes.  This one is #1 for a reason, and I can’t stress it enough.  The first time I hurt my knee, it was completely and solely due to the fact that I was wearing a cheap pair of old cross trainers.  I urge you to go to a real running store and hop on the treadmill.  Have the sales associate watch your running patterns and check to see if you under or over pronate your ankles.  Is your stride too long?  Are you heel striking?  (I was!)  Don’t buy shoes based solely on the sweet color or the cool gel thingy in the heel.  It’s hard, I know.  I LOVE my Asics Gel Nimbus 13’s, and plan to get a new pair this month!

#2  Create a plan (brownie points if you use Excel).  When you’re training for a long distance race, especially if it’s your first one, you can’t just approach it all willy nilly.  Are you serious about completing the race?  Yes?  Well then sit your butt down, do some research, and create your plan of attack.  Make sure to factor in short runs, long runs, and those extremely important recovery days.  Check out my half marathon training plan here.

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