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Monday, January 25, 2010

Grateful for exercise.

Good morning, I hope you are all having a lovely start to your week!

I have a pretty empty day today (just teaching a lesson!) and I am so excited about having the time off. My weekend was very busy and did not include a whole lot of sleep. It was a pretty emotionally draining weekend too, and I am hoping this week is slightly less so. (Guys, need I say more?) What did you do over your weekend?

Anyway, I've been working out A LOT recently and I've realized that it's my stress relief, the thread holding my life together, if you will. OK, that sounds a bit over dramatic, but seriously, I feel much better about everything in my life after a long hard workout. Yesterday for example, I ran 5 miles in the morning and another 5 in the afternoon!

(Nothing MAJOR is going on, in the grand scheme of things... especially with regard to events like the Haitian earthquake or something like that. And I will be OK. Just to clarify.)

Anyway, the running group was super cool! I got there late (had trouble finding it) and I just started running on my own because at least I as there, at a nice park, and I wanted to run. And I did meet up with one of the runners that had invited me. So that was cool and I assured him that I would be there next week on time! (Although I have to play at my church, so I have to postpone it until the following week...darn it!) But it was nice to get to talk with other runners a bit (although I'm still in disbelief that I call myself a runner!) And after church, I just felt the running urge again, so I went to my gym and ran around their (tiny!) indoor track, where one mile equals 15 laps!! I did another 5 miles and yes, I counted the laps. :)

It probably didn't hurt that I put some new excellent work out music on my iPod. I am currently IN LOVE with Josh Ritter and I got his live CD from a show he did in his home town in Idaho. My favorites of that CD include:

-Good Man
-Harrisburg
-Kathleen
-Snow is Gone

Check them out if you want new workout music! In fact, I should do a post on workout music soon, because it's so important to me!

Quickly, onto food. Because I need to get to the gym...I *might* even try swimming today!

Delicious and nutritious breakfast this morning:

-eggs
-sauteed kale, zucchini, mushrooms and spinach with EVOO and cheese on top
-Green drink (from TJs) with a little of this added:

I was at a marathon training seminar and they said that there has been some preliminary research done on tart cherry juice benefiting runners. Has anyone heard this? Anymore information for me?!

Saturday was a super busy day for me. I worked almost straight from 9am to 11pm! I stopped at Bruegger's for a veggie bagel sandwich which was OK, but they FORGOT the cream cheese! (And I was eating in my car, so I didn't notice while in the store!) How lame!


Plus the pickles. (I've been trying really hard to add more sodium into my diet because I've been getting dizzy after only 3 or 4 miles of running and I end up with that gritty layer on my skin, which means that I'm a salty sweater. And naturally I just don't get very much sodium. So I've had to make a conscious effort to vamp it up and the dizziness has improved!)


I got a free sample of Glowelle's supposed "beauty drink", whatever that is.


It sounds a little suspicious to me, and it didn't taste very good (sorry!) but it had some good antioxidants + rehydrated me after running. And it was free! So I drank it. I wouldn't buy it though.

On busy days, I've been eating a lot of these. They're hands down my favorite bar ever!


Seriously, how could you not love something with so much chocolate?!


Here's a random bowl of oatmeal that was on my camera:


(There wasn't as much AB as it looks like on there! Promise!)

It's the usual oat bran, cottage cheese, AB, frozen berries and honey!

Finally, I received these cookies as a gift. They are from Taiwan and they're pretty good! I LOVE trying foods from other cultures! It is so exciting and I *wish* I could travel more and try more different foods and have more experiences of other cultures! What is YOUR favorite food from another country that is truly part of their culture? (Going to a Italian Restaurant in America doesn't really count, neither does "French" fries.) :) What was the most interesting thing you've ever eaten from another culture?



Alright, I'm off now. Have a great day!

5 comments:

  1. I definitely appreciate exercise a lot, too. Since I'm not in a music ensemble any more, running has become my main stress relief. So, I completely understand!

    Glad you found the running group. It sounds like that'll be a great way to train and get to know other people.

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  2. That luna bar looks really good! You are quite the RUNNER!

    <3 jess
    xoxo

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  3. WHAT?!!! I'm pissed off for you. NO cream cheese?! What is that? What's a sandwich without cheese? Though they did pile on the veggies, yum.
    Glad you have a healthy stress reliever...just don't overdo it, Lisa! :-)

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  4. My fave food from another culture? Probably cous cous. I recently tried it and am in love with it! And hummus . . .I could go on and on lol.

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  5. Congratulations on all the running. I feel a bit inadequate now! It took me years to build up to 13.5 miles and to do it in 5 months is incredibly impressive.

    I'm so excited to find your blog as we seem to have similar intakes and activity levels...although you can run .5 mile further than I ever have ; )

    Thanks for your amazingly sweet comment. I am trying to figure out how to get myself out of the mess I am in right now, but words like yours help immensely and I can't emphasise enough how grateful I am.

    I know you're loving the exercise right now but just a word of warning: please don't get hooked into it as I have. It leads to injury, misery and compulsion and I really wouldn't want to see such a lovely person as yourself get sucked into the same mindset that I have. Just take care of yourself, okay?

    *hugs*

    ~Jess~

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