Life, Love, Violin

Eating with friends

2011-08-09T22:51:00.003-04:00

I have gotten to share two lovely meals with friends in the past two days! Yesterday I went to Thai food and ordered the Red Curry with Chicken. It came with bamboo shoots, baby corn and basil leaves and was served with white rice. I enjoyed it, but I should have stuck to their Green Curry that is absolutely phenomenal! (Sorry-no picture. We were talking about some pretty serious things and spent a good four hours talking!)

Today though, I enjoyed the "Psychedelic Burger" from a local restaurant called Fuel and Fuddle.

(Image source)

The burger is a grilled portabella mushroom and cheese burger, where you can taste the delicious chargrilled-ness of the burger. :) It was served with lettuce and tomatoes, and a mix of sweet potato and regular potato fries. Although for an additional 50 cents I could get all sweet potato fries, which is what I opted for, of course. There's just something spectacular about sweet potatoes in French fry form! And here it is in all its glory (I promise the burger is in there!):

(Image source)

Anyway, it is so delightful for me to have meals with friends. I feel like this is exactly what I was talking about in my previous post which is that food is SO MUCH more enjoyable in the company of good friends, rather than alone which is how I spent much of the past 7 years preferring to eat. I feel that nothing strengthens friendships more than eating together. And I hope to share many MANY more meals with people I love.

Where's the last place you went out to eat at? What's your favorite thing on your favorite restaurant's menu?

A strange, wonderful phenomenon

2011-07-25T20:25:00.003-04:00

So something I've noticed in my eating habits lately. I don't obsess over food as much as I used to. Let me clarify that statement, and explain why I think that's a good thing. You see, I've already talked about my anorexia and my disordered eating that followed for many years after that. Even after recovery, I was still self-destructing in that I was limiting amount of fat or calories or whatever. And recently, even though I've been securely recovered, I've still been working out a lot (including training for and completing a marathon) and so food has been of great importance to me. Now, I'm definitely not saying that it's no longer important, because it is, obviously and I still love many kinds of (real) food.

BUT...

The nice thing is that recently I have noticed that food is...just food. And by that I mean that I've still enjoyed food (especially when eating with friends, which is in stark contrast to how it was with my ED) but it's no longer something that I obsess about. I mean, I still like to cook (mainly to have good food around) and obviously I still appreciate nutrient-dense food for what it does for my body and energy levels, but there are many other things in life that bring me more joy than eating does (and it never used to be that way.) This is not to say that I don't still get a little panicked when I'm really hungry (I do, and I think that's my body's response to the anorexia of a long time ago) or that I would try to eat less on purpose for any reason (because I absolutely would not do that.)

But my hunger signals have been more normal than ever. My hypoglycemia is better controlled than it has ever been. I have started eating more meat (from free range and organic farms) and I have noticed that this really makes me feel so much better. And between adding meat back to my diet, and the fairly high fat level that has been a mainstay in my diet for the past several years, I'm doing great! It is so refreshing to finish a meal and be DONE, rather than trying not to go pick at other food throughout the day. (I still eat way more than just three meals a day, but am more satisfied after each one.)

I think this is all to say that this seems like the end of the last ED-related symptom (for which I'm incredibly grateful!) and it's been eight years since I was first diagnosed. So if there is anyone reading this with an ED, I encourage you to hold on and keep fighting for true health! You don't have to be utterly obsessed with food for the rest of your life, as long as you are willing to honor your body and truly give it what it needs (including fat and protein and enough calories) and accept that your set point might be higher than you want it to be. The mental and emotional freedom that comes with not being obsessed with food 24/7 is so incredibly worth it!!

KLUTZ!!

2011-06-04T22:32:00.005-04:00

In an extreme demonstration of grace and sure-footedness, I totally face planted while running yesterday! I have NO IDEA how it happened. I think I may have misjudged a curb. But come on...I just ran a FULL marathon! And while out on a 4 mile jog around the neighborhood, I end up falling and cracking my knee open in the process!! Granted, it was dusk, but it was still utterly humiliating, as I was running across a street so there were a bunch of cars stopped at the red light. And --PLOP-- just like that, I was down! Remember, I used to be a gymnast!! I DON'T FALL. I can't remember the last time I fell, save for some black ice two winters ago. And my knee was bleeding enough that a RANDOM STRANGER in a car pulled over and asked if I was OK because he and his friends saw the blood. (I had to walk about 1.5 miles back to my car!) And then, when I thought things couldn't get any more embarrassing, I somehow mistook the stranger in the car for a close friend (he looked freaking identical!) and was pretty confused for a few moments. They probably thought I was some drunk slob, when really I was just out for a run! Geez.

Wanna see it?

WARNING: blood and general yuckiness. Skip the rest of this post if you're queasy.

LAST WARNING.

OK, here it is in all its glory:

Yeah, nice right?! (Notice the New Balance Minimus shoes! I ran the entire marathon in these! Excellent!)

And this is what I finally got it cleaned up to, after picking out the gravel and washing it:

Kind of swollen, and still oozing some sort of clear liquid (what is it?!?!) but it will heal soon enough. My pride however?! That will take a lot longer to heal.

By the way, you totally have permission to laugh at me; I am too! :D

Be well. Don't face plant. (<--- New slogan?! Lol!)

Please share your clumsiest moment! Any funny running stories? Other funny klutz stories?! My knee awaits company! :)

Marathon sponsors?

2011-05-23T20:14:00.002-04:00

Sooo, I have a tiny problem on my hands. I officially ADORED the Pittsburgh Marathon and I am itching to sign up for another FULL marathon...SOON!

But they are so dang freaking expensive!!

Even the "cheap" ones are around $75, running up to $100 or more. Just for the entry fee! Not including the gas to drive there (not that big of a deal) and the motel room! I realized today that I'd have to pay for two nights at a hotel because well, I'd be somewhere around mile 19 when check out time rolled around!

Crap.

So this is my official announcement that hopefully falls into awesome hands via the power of the interwebz. I need a marathon sponsor. Badly. Hey, I could take pictures of and review the course and the four people who read my blog could learn ALL about it! What's not to love?! Seriously, we could be a dream match! Email me at: dietsbite@gmail.com. That's my real address.

Or, more realistically, I could just start saving money and pay for the damn thing myself.

Have you run any marathons or half marathons? Which ones do you love? Which ones have you heard good things about?

Thanks. I'm going to go back to drooling over Columbus Marathon, Marine Corps Marathon (sold out! the nerve of it!), Grand Rapids Marathon (helloooo, visit to my sister as well as having moral support on course), Akron Marathon, Air Force Marathon, and Philadelphia Marathon.

And maybe cry in the corner a little bit in jealousy of all who are running in them.

I DID IT!!

2011-05-18T13:27:00.003-04:00

I ran the Pittsburgh Marathon in 5 hours, 14 minutes, and about 30 seconds!! I AM THRILLED!! I almost started crying as I crossed the finish line! It was truly an exhilaration like nothing I've ever experienced!

It is so strange to think that something I worked so hard for is over! These past 5 months were hard. I was juggling working, taking an Intermediate Algebra class (that was study-intensive!) and still making the time to train for the marathon. I turned down many social hangouts in order to run or study or sleep. And it was all worth it!! I can't help but compare the marathon to real life: sometimes like around mile 18 it just seems so hard and hopeless, but you just have to keep going. You can't give up just because you don't feel like doing anymore. And for me specifically, I am hoping my career change will bring the same sense of satisfaction. I am NOT giving up on it, even though it's hard and may appear foolish to many people. (I am "wasting" so much time and money on classes!)

I am almost unsore and I am ITCHING to sign up for another marathon! Right now running seems like the small beacon of hope in my currently semi-depressing life. Not to be all Debbie-downer, but I am extremely discontented with my life. Of course, that's why I'm working to change that, but it will be several years before I've even completed the pre-requisites. And I'm hoping that running marathons and half marathons will provide me things to look forward to and to break up the monotony of every day life. This is another reason I run.

Have a great Wednesday! And tell me:

What's the hardest thing you've accomplished in your life? And what thing are you the most proud of?

Why I Run

2011-05-09T13:59:00.003-04:00

Why do I run?

It's a question I think about a lot. Almost every day, really. I run because it's hard for me. Every single mile I complete is a challenge both physically and mentally. Without fail, I'm usually ready to stop running after about 1/2 mile. But there is a kind and determined voice inside of me that says "Keep trying. You can do it. Don't give up." And this is extremely significant because for the first 23 years of my life, that same voice was a malicious, self-loathing one that only told me multiple times each day how ugly, fat, stupid and worthless I was. Where the change happened, I'm not exactly sure. Yes, it was definitely after the several year struggle with anorexia, then bulimia, along with chewing and spitting, binge eating, and restriction for years. But after I was recovered from harmful eating habits, I was still plagued by just-as-harmful thoughts toward myself and others. I hated myself and my body this time not because of what I weighed, but because of the fact that I "couldn't" run. I directed my self-hate to getting better at running. Although I did improve at running, my mentality was still extremely punishing and I only drove myself to shin splints and a stress fracture. It looked good on the surface ("Running is healthy!") but I was still tearing myself apart emotionally.

To be quite honest, I don't know exactly the moment where the change happened. But I suspect it happened after I realized I was running myself into the ground, not based on 100 mile weeks, but on my attitude. It likely happened when I realized I literally drove my boyfriend away from me due to this new, slightly more creative form of disordered eating/mentality. It definitely happened when I renewed my promise to be kind to myself, in part due to the wonderful fitness blogs out there. (healthytippingpoint.com, operationbeautiful.com, ohsheglows.com, among others.) And it happened when I realized that harming myself and making running an idol is a sin. And it happened in so many little things. It happened when I accomplished my goal of running a 5K without any walking breaks. And when I was forced to take last summer off because standing, much less running hurt so much due to the stress fracture. Ironically it happened when I had some "WTF are you doing?" moments while running. And it happened when I heard "I Run for Life" by Melissa Etheridge.

In other words, I now run because it makes my soul happy. Running keeps me healthy, physically and more importantly, mentally. Running forces me to be kind to myself, especially if I am to complete my goal of the Pittsburgh Marathon this Sunday! Running gives me an outlet for stress relief and provides me something that I can be proud of in my life. Every single time I complete one more mile, I am thankful for who running has helped me become. I consider it a blessing that it was and still is hard for me, because I never take it for granted. I want to inspire others to be kind to themselves, whether it is through running, or nutritious eating, or learning to voice their opinions, or learning that it's OK to say no, or that it's not selfish to get all nine hours of sleep that your body may require. I run because I can and I want to.

And that's why I'm running 26.2 this Sunday!

Be kind to yourselves!

The perfect egg sandwich

2011-04-26T09:27:00.005-04:00

Yay, time for food pictures! I've been on an egg and cheese sandwich for...months now! Seriously, the combinations are endless as too what kind of cheese to use, on what type of bread, spinach or arugula, and spices to put on the eggs! Which of course has given me the oh-so-perfect excuse to try a bunch of different cheeses from Whole Foods and my local grocery store (they actually have a good selection!) Here are a few I've tried:

(Ignore the price per pound! I actually didn't know it was that much! Oh well; it's delicious! It has a coffee crust --brilliant!-- and lavender in it! Talk about gourmet...best thing about buying food for only one person is that I doesn't get that expensive overall. And by the way, this cheese is SOOOO flavorful! Almost too spicy/sharp but in a good way. I don't know how to describe it better than that!)

And another kind:

Also very tasty!

So the perfect egg sandwich "recipe" is:

1) Cook an egg stove top with whatever spices you want. I'm partial to garlic pepper, cumin, curry powder, and/or dried basil.

2) Put ketchup (organic obviously) on the bread/english muffin/whatever, along with your vegetable of choice. I use spinach and/or arugula and AVOCADO when I have it!!, but sliced tomato would probably be good as would sauteed kale/collard greens/chard.

3) Flip the egg over, add cheese of choice, turn heat down and let it finish cooking + let the cheese melt.

4) Transfer the egg to the sandwich and enjoy!

This is what the finished product looks like:

Or this:

Yeah, they're that good. (That's the coffee crusted cheese above!)

Other eats included two turkey burgers (on different days!). I got the pre-made ones from Whole Foods and this one included sun dried tomatoes and gorgonzola cheese. Somehow I trust meat from Whole Foods way more than I do from any other store. And honestly, I'm trying to get myself to eat -a little- more meat (health/nutrition reasons-I honestly believe we are omnivores and meat is a good source of so many nutrients!), so this was a good way to do it.

My trusty arugula again, and sweet potato fries on the side! YUM. This was my immediate post-22 miler run food!

Followed by these:

And this mixed into a bottle of water:

Later I ate a package of my favorite frozen veggies:

And most recently, I've been enjoying hugely decadent bowls of oat bran!

This was also after running 22 miles--I can eat whatever I want! :) And it's actually pretty healthy! This is strawberries with P B and hazelnut butter and a few raisins and chocolate chips. Totally nutritious...but there may or may not have been moaning while eating this! :)

And this bowl is toned down a bit, but still delicious! Same two kinds of nut butter, and SO DELICIOUS coconut milk ice cream! I'm going to patent that idea or adding it to oat bran. But in the mean time, you're welcome to steal my idea!

Well, off to teach! While I'm gone, let me know

What meals/creations are you currently loving?

Long run: done

2011-04-24T12:40:00.002-04:00

I completed that 22 mile last long run this past Thursday! I'm not going to lie...it hurt and I'm pretty nervous about the full marathon. Oh, and I run SLOWLY...and take lots of walking breaks. But I did it and I'm confident that I can at least complete the marathon, which is my only goal!

Anyway, time to study. More food pictures to come!

Blessed and Happy Easter to All!

This is what a bad run looks like

2011-04-18T13:03:00.003-04:00

So, I'm still training for the Pittsburgh marathon. The whole thing! As in 26.2 miles.

I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea when I signed up, but the Runner's World Quote of the Day today was something to the effect of "Running a marathon gives average runners the chance to be more than average." And I liked it! It's certainly true! I am a sllllow runner, I never ran in high school or growing up, I take lots of walking breaks and it's still hard for me, but dammit I'm out there and doing it.

Anyway, I am planning to do my last long training run off 22 miles this Thursday. Holy crap...22 miles?!? But, I've completed one 18 mile training run, and also a half marathon. (2:25:xx in absolutely wretched conditions...4 hours of sleep, legs were sore from gymnastics, and it was 20 degrees outside. Oh, and I got lost on the way back to my car and ended up walking another 3 to 4 miles to find the darn thing.) Anyway, after that, unfortunately I had to take the past two weeks off due to some strange but intense pain in the bottom of my foot. It feels better now (*knock on wood*) and I've done 2 short runs in the past week.

Today, I ran four miles and am taking tomorrow and Wednesday off. (For me, running every day or even every other day isn't really an option...just not how my body works.) Anyway, the point of this post is to list all the ways in which today's run sucked and how I can learn from it to help other runs (coughThursday22milercough) be better. Or you could also consider this your list of things NOT to do before a run:

1) Sleep only 6-7 hours a night for the week before. Especially when you know your body requires 9-10.

2) Unintentionally eat way too little food the day before. (Stupid work-related busyness.)

3) Wear clothing that you realized was too warm for conditions, thus allowing major dehydration by the end of said 4 miles. Hello swollen fingers. Not good.

4) This is totally TMI but I really needed to poop by the end. Uhh, yeah.

OK, got it. I'm going to REALLY try to sleep a lot this week! And obviously keep eating like I normally do (read: a lot). Yesterday really was just an off day but I was surprised by how much it affected me today.

And now, back to studying Algebra. If you're the praying type, please pray for me on Thursday. I'm honestly a little scared of the distance but I want to do this so badly.

Classes, rain, life, blahblahblah

2011-04-16T15:58:00.005-04:00

It's a rainy, gloomy day here. I'm trying to study, but too tired to be very productive. And I'm playing a symphony concert tonight. It's the last one I'll be playing for a long time most likely, as I'm stepping down from it in order to concentrate on teaching (which pays way better!) and my classes!! I am now registered for Sociology 101 for the first summer session. (I can't believe I never took that in undergrad! I did about a bazillion other General Ed classes, but somehow that slipped through the cracks.) And for the second summer session I'm taking Biology 1. (The real one, for science majors as opposed to the wussy Biology class I took as a music major!) It's going to be like 8-3pm Mondays and Wednesdays, but then it will be done. I'm grateful for community colleges that allow me to do all the pre-reqs I'm going to need! But unfortunately, I was looking at said pre-reqs list and I will be taking classes for a long time. I am determined to keep working for it though. No one said it would be easy, but I have a really strong feeling that it will be worth it.

In other news, I've been trying to cook more. I mean like actually cook, not just keep throwing together random (albeit delicious) bachelorette style meals for one. So I tried making Indian butter chicken and it turned out great! I eat very little meat, but I think my body actually prefers it, so I bought some organic chicken breasts (about a pound) and used a spice packet, butter and water to cook. If I can do it, anyone can!

Served over quinoa (by far my favorite grain or pseudo-grain!) with sauteed greens. And Magic Hat beer, obviously.

I should study for the next hour. Darn it.

Update

2011-02-08T19:22:00.004-05:00

I haven't updated my blog in forever, but I'm continuing to follow the healthy living blog world and I actually do want to be a part of it, despite my failure to maintain this. Anyway, an update is in order. Life has gotten marginally better since my last post. En route to becoming a registered dietician, I've taken Introduction to Computers, Pre-Algebra, and Intro to Nutrition, and am currently taking Intermediate Algebra. Math is so not my strong suite. But this is the last math class I'll have to take, hopefully ever! I'm looking over my schedule on-line and trying not to get discouraged over how long it will take me to even complete the one year post-baccalaureate program, in addition to the 2 year masters. But I want this for me. And I want this for those that I will be able to help in the future. It's frustrating to be paying out of picket for all my classes, but I'm trying to take it slow and steady.

Anyway, this was a quick update as I'm so sick. Yesterday I had a fever that topped out at 102.2 and although thankfully it's down to about 99.2, I still don't feel good. No energy and my head still really hurts. The worst part of all is that I can't taste anything!! :( This is terrible for a foodie, like myself! I've been trying to get LOTS of fluids in me and also to eat somewhere close to enough calories. I made this for myself and finished the box between yesterday and today:

Thank goodness for Annie's Mac and Cheese! Other than that, I've had a few bowls of oatmeal with PB and berries, a pumelo grapefruit, an orange, and a slice of toast with PB. IN TWO DAYS. Obviously this is nowhere near enough calories, but I'm trying. Every bite hurts. :( Fluids have included a crap ton of water, 2 glasses of greens powder with water and about 6 big mugs of fruit tea.

I had to cancel all my work for today. Gosh, I hope I'm better tomorrow!

Remaining positive

2010-10-21T09:53:00.003-04:00

The last couple weeks have been tough. Not gonna lie, they've been two of the hardest weeks I've been through recently. I found out that an ex-boyfriend is dating someone else, and I realized I definitely never got over him. I feel so silly for even typing that out...it seems like such a junior high thing to be sad over. But I've been working on truly moving on, not just saying I have moved on, in my mind and I'm ready to let it go.

Another reason this week sucked is that I had won Brooks running shoes and shorts via No Meat Athlete's giveaway but then I put the award certificate postcard in my outgoing mailbox and it got ruined by rain/wind/storms!! :( Talk about an epic fail!! I contacted Matt (the author of No Meat Athlete) and I hope desperately that I'll be able to get a replacement. But I understand if I can't. Lesson learned: put the damn thing in a REAL mailbox or better yet send it freaking certified mail. Right. Got it...1 pair of running shoes and cute shorts too late! :(

Anyway, because my heart had been set on a new pair of Brooks, I decided to just suck it up and buy the pair that I had wanted. In having won them, I went to a local running store to try on the different models and see what might work the best. I am VERY hesitant to wear any running shoes other than Vibram FiveFingers, as my pair of Mizuno Wave Riders gave me a horrible shin splint/most definitely stress fracture that required me to stop running for over 4 months this summer! Annnyway, it turns out that those motion control shoes weren't the right kind for my feet. GREAT. Just my luck...the owner of the running store who had fitted me with them was confused as to why he had suggested those and 3 employees said these would be a better fit; my feet weren't rolling either way as I came off the ground in these. So, I bought them, after realizing the chances of getting the free shoes and shorts (which were cute-I would have selected these!) were essentially gone.

Here they are in all their glory. They're the Brooks Ghost 3 model.

And now it is time for me to take them out on a test run. And also try to get some happy endorphins from said test run!

Sitting in traffic on a Saturday morning

2010-10-16T11:34:00.006-04:00

Well, it's Saturday morning and I canceled two students after sitting in traffic for an hour due to a freeway closure. Oh joy...don't you wish you lived such an exciting life as mine? You were probably doing something like sleeping in and then eating homemade pancakes, or running, or shopping, or well...I guess it wouldn't have been hard to have a better Saturday morning than mine.

But, on the plus side...now I have time to blog! :)

I am the most excited about the same breakfast that I've been eating every morning for a few weeks now! It's an egg sandwich with melted cheese (your choice--I've been eating a lot of cheddar but also mixing it up!), avocado (super important!), spinach and ketchup.

I've been trying lots of cheeses for fun. I love them all! If you really want to send me cheese, I won't turn it down. :)

And with coffee, of course. Yeah, I totally took a bit before I took the picture. Oops. And yes, that is a monster coffee cup! Kind of perfect for me. :)

As Fall ~~approaches~~ is here and it's getting to be ridiculously cold for this California girl, I've been eating lots of soup. This is Amy's lentil, and it's basically the least photogenic food there it. Sorry.

There's an amazing cupcake shop in town that just came out with their new Fall flavors menu. So when I saw Pumpkin Maple, ~~it took a lot of begging and pleading from them to get me to try one~~ I just had to try one.

It didn't disappoint. The frosting is all buttery and rich and delicious.

Lastly, I have a visitor who lives under my house!

OK, well I'm off to study Algebra and Nutrition and make some banana bread and some lemonade. But not the kind you can drink. I hope you're having a lovelier Saturday than me!

Of only two things I'm sure

2010-10-01T13:40:00.003-04:00

I hate the confusing times in my life. I am being hit HARD by the quarter life crisis which I wanted to believe that I avoided so delicately, by being focused on my goals from the time I was little girl. I have (had?) always wanted to be a violinist. I practiced hard in high school. I practiced through rough family times. I played the violin through the worst years of my anorexia. I went to college for violin performance. And grad school, too. At the age of 21, I received my masters degree in violin performance. By that time, having worked through grad school, I had enough students and gigs to support myself with the violin.

I should have lived happily ever after.

Except that I didn't.

For about 4 years now, since about the 2nd semester of grad school, I have been BURNT OUT. Big time. Ever since graduation, I've kept hoping that that would go away eventually. That I would start to love the violin again. That I would look forward to practicing. And that hasn't happened. To clarify: I still LOVE certain aspects of playing the violin. I love teaching students who care and who practice, but that's about 4 out of roughly 30 students I see weekly. In many of the other lessons I teach, we mainly just sight read because they haven't practiced, yet again. I also still enjoy playing with the rock band I play with. Their shows are exciting and deeply fulfilling to see so many people truly enjoying themselves. Lastly, I enjoy certain weddings. I d really love being able to provide music for a glowing bride and to make the musical aspect of her wedding easier on the bride and groom.

BUT, that's it. There are so many aspects that I no longer enjoy. I don't enjoy working 7 days a week and still barely being able to pay the bills. I don't enjoy having almost totally useless, yet still luxuriously expensive private health insurance and having no prospects of ever having better health insurance for the rest of my life. Similarly, I don't really look forward to continuing to have 0 days of paid time off, for both sick and personal days combined. And a retirement account? That's a joke. I don't feel like I'm really helping anyone at all. I don't even feel a sense of personal fulfillment most of the days that I work, AND I don't really make very much money to do it. Certainly not enough money to support a family, which I would like to be able to do someday.

And therefore, I am announcing that I am returning to school to get my master's degree in nutrition and then to study and become a Registered Dietician!!!

I have already started classes, which means that I am currently taking Algebra and Introduction to Nutrition, while still working full-time in music, subbing at a school and baby-sitting. Yes, it's busy and stressful. But, I want to do this, for me. This WAS NOT a rash, impulsive decision. I have thought about returning to school for several years and finally signed up for a summer course this past summer. I am currently paying for classes privately, which of course if expensive and sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. But I believe in the depths of my heart that it is.

Ultimately, my DREAM and my PASSION is to become an RD in order to work with people suffering from eating disorders. The years of my life that I suffered from anorexia, then bulimia, then ED-NOS were truly the worst years of it. Every day was a living hell. I was in physical pain ALL THE TIME, everything from migraines and bloating to charlie horses that were so bad that I would wake up in the middle of the night in tears. My hair fell out, especially during recovery. I was cold during the 100 degree days of summer. Additionally, I was tormented by thoughts of food and calories and weight. I assumed people were always looking at everything I ate, and that bothered me. I was mentally and emotionally SICK. I was extremely mean to myself, constantly putting myself down. I was also not a fun person to be around, as I would snap over every little thing, partially due to the fact that I was starving. Literally.

Through God's grace, He saved me both physically, and several years later, mentally as well. He sustained me through some dark times and now I can truly say that I've been living for several years! My decision to become an RD has nothing to do with my former obsession with food, and everything to do with wanting to help people. Men, women, young and old. Anyone whose life has ever been affected by an eating disorder. It will be a LONG ROAD, as I have virtually no science background, but it is one that I am excited to take. And I will be blogging about it. I'm not sure exactly what the future will look like; in fact, that brings me to explaining the title of this post. With all of the confusion I feel in my life, I am only sure of these two things:

1) God has been faithful to me, and will continue to lead me where I should go.

2) Nutrition, exercise and healthy living have become VERY big passions of mine, and I want to turn them into my career!

Other than that, I'm just going to have to have faith and hold on. I hope you'll come along with me for the ride. But in the meantime, I want to leave you with one of my favorite quotes, which is a line from a song by the band Kutless:

"It doesn't matter what you've heard. Impossible is not a word. It's just a reason for someone not to try."

In case I have any readers left

2010-08-03T10:20:00.001-04:00

I signed up for the 2011 Pittsburgh Marathon!

The FULL one.

What was I thinking?!

Happy Father's Day to all dads!

2010-06-20T10:06:00.004-04:00

What did you do with and/or for your dad today? Mine is across the country, so I'll probably just send an e-card and call home.

Here's my delicious smoothie breakfast, which I've been having almost every day first thing in the morning!

This one is:

-milk
-yogurt
-spinach
-hemp protein powder
-fresh strawberries
-fresh grapes
-frozen blueberries
-Peanut butter

And on Friday, I went on a bike ride that accidentally turned into 3 hours! Whoops! I definitely wasn't prepared with enough food and water (two dates and 1/2 a bottle of water doesn't cut it!)

But I came home and devoured the most beautiful sight ever:

I had three quarters of it and the remaining quartet was consumed a few hours later. Gone, just like that! But I will CERTAINLY be buying it again, because it was one of the most delicious things I've eaten recently. I only wish it had a whole grain crust and that it didn't cost so much $$$. But Amy's, you are looked upon fondly and I look forward to trying your other pizzas and really, all of your other products.

I haven't run on my leg for 3 1/2 weeks now, and it still hurts quite a bit, some of the time. (For example, I feel it heavily if I take even 3 steps to run across a street!) Does anyone with experience of a stress fracture know how long I should take off? (I can't really see a doctor because my health insurance is crappier-than-crappy but I'm assuming it's a stress fracture at this point. I know my body pretty well.)

Well, I'm going to crawl into bed and read. It's only 10:30pm, but I'm ready to call it a night.

Tempermental camera

2010-06-09T08:27:00.007-04:00

Hah! So my camera decided to give me back all my pictures today! Very funny, camera, OK? But hey, at least I have good pictures now!

So let's jump right in to some of my food over the last few days, that I wanted to show you before. A few nights ago, I made a dinner that felt fancy to me:

Sole fillet-
brussel sprouts with hummus,

chips and salsa and of course, I rocked this white wine.

(Don't mind the coffee pot in the upper left corner--my counter tops are small!)

I mixed salsa with Greek yogurt (it's REALLY good, especially for cutting the heat from more spicy salsas) and dipped multigrain Food Should Taste Good chips into it.

And my other extremely successful dinner of this week was Indian food! (Or at least, the easy but healthy and delicious kind!)

I prepped a whole pan of zucchini and mushrooms and sauteed them a bit in EVOO and garlic:

Then I dumped this Kook's Vindaloo sauce over top of them and let it simmer for a long time (~20 minutes?)

The sauce is quite spicy, but lucky for me, I like spicy! :) What's your opinion of spicy food?

Isn't it beautiful?!

Over top of brown rice I made that was a sample in my Pittsburgh Half Marathon goody bag. It came in the most adorable little single person, 4 oz bag.

I think I had 2 or three (small) platefuls of this:

'Twas delicious!!

And most of my breakfasts lately have included smoothies, as I discovered the appeal of the Green Monster. (I'm only like 3 years late, I know...!)

Full fat cheddar (I don't buy lowfat cheese any more!) on whole wheat, with a blueberry green monster and coffee! Most of my breakfasts have looked exactly like that, except for sometimes I put Peanut butter on the toast if that sounds better on any given morning.

And one slightly different breakfast (on Monday before my 40 mile bike ride) was:

Slathered in ketchup
OK, I'm off to shower and then go teach. Tomorrow I'm taking my car in to get the brake pads replaced! They are SOOO worn down and desperately need to be replaced!! Here's to hoping that I get to both teaching studios safely today! Luckily, I really don't have to drive all that far (probably a totally of 15 miles today) so I should be OK. UGH though--not fun having your car shudder as you try to stop!!

Have a lovely day!

Dying camera

2010-06-08T00:04:00.005-04:00

Ugh, my camera is either at or near the end of its life! :( Not cool camera, not cool. I swear, I've been taking great pictures of amazing food, and it just deletes them for no reason! Grrr!!

I will try to resolve its issue soon (or just buy a new camera!) so that I can show you some delicious food! I mean, today I went on a 4 hour and 11 minute bike ride, so I obviously had to eat some good fuel. On the actual bike ride I just had a Nugo bar (a locally made protein bar that's delicious!) and 2 dates.
(sorry it's so small; it's courtesy of Google Images, and they are all small)

But for breakfast I had a lovely egg/veggie/cheese scramble, a slice of toast with white chocolate dreams PB.
Magic, right there. :)

When I came home I inhaled a leftover tupperware of brown rice with sauteed zucchini and Indian sauce of some sort (forget what it was called). Plus a bowl of puffed kamut and Optimum blueberry with skim milk and a big blob of peanut butter. Plus some more strawberries and a banana with PB. What can I say, I was hungry, and I had to immediately start teaching violin for 3 hours, so I wanted to stay nourished through it.

After teaching, I had dinner with my friend: 3 (smallish) slices of bread with EVOO and spices for dipping, a bit of fish, whole wheat pasta, corn and a small side salad. Finished off with a small bowl of frozen yogurt.

It was delicious and I feel GREAT! (It's amazing how many calories biking requires, while being much easier on my body than running!)

OK, while I'm lame and have a dying camera, you should check out this giveaway for Tanabars.
And this one, for cute workout towels.

And hopefully I'll be less lame soon!

For now, I'm one tired girl, so it's bed time. Good night!

One more try at this blogger thing

2010-06-05T20:05:00.005-04:00

The title says it all. I really want to give food blogging another chance. I read enough blogs and I eat good enough food that it deserves to be blogged about. So I'm back, and I apologize for the long break.

My May was crazy! But it's over and the BEST thing is that I moved to my OWN, one bedroom apartment!! I love it! And the view from my back yard isn't bad either:

Lately, I've been working out A LOT. For a couple of reasons. 1) It's my stress relief, 2) It's fun to accomplish goals and 3) I made my hobby my job, so I definitely need other hobbies.

In early May I ran the Pittsburgh Half Marathon and it went OK. It was a rough race, with a high humidity and it started raining by mile 1.5! Additionally, I started the race way hungry and felt faint by mile 3, so big problems for me. All in all, my time could have been a lot better, and it could have been MUCH worse, so I'll leave it at that. Unfortunately, my shin splints have been bothering me so much, and I'm going to give running a rest for now, while still keeping up with all other forms of working out that I can do.

I'll post more about working out in the next post, but let's just say I've been doing 1-2 hours a day FOR FUN, so obviously I've needed to increase the calories I've been eating. (Today's workout was 30 minutes of rowing, 20 minutes of abs conditioning, and 30 minutes of the stair stepper at level 10.) Here's a sampling of the deliciousness.

Breakfasts have been a lot of these:

1 egg, a couple of egg whites, cheddar cheese, sauteed mushroom and spinach and toast with jam. Epic, pretty much.

When I crave something for 3 or 4 days and the feelings won't go away, I know that it's then time to buy it...PIZZA in this case!!

I love Kashi so much, it's not even funny! This was the first time I had actually purchased any of their pizzas, and of course they did not disappoint! It was splendid and I ate 3/4 of the pizza the first night. The next day I had this lovely dinner:

Food Should Taste Good chips are MY FAVORITE chips BY FAR. Like, I barely even look at other chips on the shelves! I still haven't tired their sweet potato, olive or chocolate ones, and I MUST do so, AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

What is your favorite flavor of Food Should Taste Good chips? What do you pair them with?

Finally, two desserts I have enjoyed recently:

Green and Black's Organic Dark 85%: Some of the absolute best chocolate ever! Way rich on the tongue and full of complex flavor! It's hard to describe the flavor, except to say that when I think of pure chocolately goodness, this is what I imagine. I will definitely be buying this again!

And a free brownie:

As always, this is only a small sampling of what I eat. I'll try to post again soon. In the meantime, I'm going to go read this book:

It is very interesting and I think that in the best possible way. Quite fascinating, actually, to discuss the sacred feminine in a religion (Christianity) that has been dominated by patriarchy for SO LONG.

What good books are you currently reading?

Moving time!

2010-04-10T17:49:00.002-04:00

I am so excited to be moving to my own house (still renting) in about 3 weeks. My current roommates are absolutely unbearable, disrespectful and some of the most obnoxious people I've ever had the misfortune of knowing. They are messy and lazy and have recently minded my teaching lessons at my house, despite KNOWING that I am a violin teacher and they told me that was OK from before the first day I moved in. I will be in my own one bedroom house and it will be amazing! :)

Also, I have signed up for two more 5Ks, one on Saturday April 17th and one on Sunday April 25th, which will be exactly 1 week before the Pittsburgh Half Marathon, which I am doing. What can I say? I just find organized races to be SO EXCITING! Way more fun than just normal running! The first 5K supports an agency that looks to end child abuse and the second 5K is just a fun family run with pizza, subs and beer offered afterward. But in both cases, one of my friends who is not a runner is signing up for them with me! I'm so excited to be able to run with my friends and introduce them to it, considering how much of a beginner I was just a couple months ago, and that I still think of myself and a novice, at best.

I've been enjoying several runs around a 5.4 mile loop on (paved) riverfront trails that are GORGEOUS, and I'm going to try and do 2 loops (10.8 and I'll add a mile in downtown hopefully) sometime this week, for my last long run before the half marathon on May 2nd.

Injury Update: I'm SO pleased to say that my shin seems to be hanging in there quite well. I assume that I am one of those people whose bodies really is NOT designed for running and therefore I can probably only run 3 days a week tops, if I want to stay even semi-injury free. (The shin is kind of always questionable but definitely not the intense shooting pain that forced me not to run for 2 months.) I bought new insoles and they seem to be helping. The gigantic blister is almost healed and I think wearing double layer socks solves that problem. So I've bought 3 pairs and they are extremely comfortable to run in.

I'll include some food pictures in the next post. And when I'm on the trail, I'll take some pictures of the most beautiful city in the world. (Pittsburgh, for anyone who's wondering. Now you know. Don't stalk me. Hehe.) But I just wanted to check in now. I've been teaching A LOT, and babysitting a lot as well. Which I'm doing tonight. But it's for an AWESOME family, so it will be good.

Have a great weekend everyone! I'm off to comment on blogs right now!

First ever half marathon!!

2010-03-28T16:45:00.003-04:00

I am so pleased!! I finished my first half marathon yesterday in 2:20:19 and DIDN'T HAVE TO WALK ANY OF IT!!

I was NOT even closed to prepared for it, due to having had to take A LOT of time off to heal my left shin. **Actually, I just double checked the timing on-line and my chip time was 2:18:50!** I have literally ran about 6 times since January and my longest run was maybe 5 miles. I refused to withdraw from this event, so I just kind of went and hoped for the best!

I was expecting to have to walk some of it, but it felt really good after the first 5K and then after 8.1 miles, and even up to mile 10 things were going OK. When I hit mile 10, I decided that I was not going to walk any of it, so I just buckled down and kept going. The problem was that I started feeling pain in mile 10. I have a GIGANTIC blood blister on my right foot, due to new insoles that seem to be helping my shin, but were rubbing my foot wrong. I had run in the before, but not nearly as long of distances and obviously they aren't fine. I'll need to try to heat-customize them again, as I already had done with the right foot, which is the one that was giving me problems.

Warning: GROSS picture!!

Yeah, gnarly! I know. I've gotta make those insoles work out for me a bit better! (It really DOESN'T hurt at all! Sweet!)

Anyway, the course was GREAT with two times around a 5 mile gorgeous lake that had only minor rolling hills and an extra 5K loop with one fairly big hill on it. The organization of the event was WONDERFUL and I felt like it was an excellent race as my first half marathon!

It started to get really hard for me at mile 10, but by that point I was intent on finishing strong. Unfortunately I didn't drink enough water on the course and I did finish strong, but was really dizzy and could barely walk afterward. Luckily my friend was there and I was kind of just holding on to him to not fall down.

They had water stops every 1.5 miles on the course and most of the stops had Ultima sports drink, too. And they provided E-Gels at miles 4, 8 and 11. I grabbed a gel at 4 and saved it until mile 7, and then grabbed one at 8 and saved it for mile 10. (At which point the race got a lot harder for me!)

They had lots of port-a-potties (and they were flushing units! Fancy schmancy!) So that got a big thumbs up from me.

And I met a cool guy at the start line who I ended up talking to until mile 4 when we parted ways. So, everything together made for an AMAZING first time half marathon experience!

And here's the finisher's medal:

This past August (8 months ago) I could not even run 2 blocks without being winded! If you had told me that I would complete a 13.1 miles on March 27th without walking any of it, I probably would have laughed at you. It's almost surreal for me, just remembering back to how difficult running was just a few months ago. And I know that my pace isn't extremely fast, and that many people finish a full hour or more before me, but I am REALLY FREAKIN' PROUD!

And I CANNOT wait to run my next half marathon in just over a month on May 2nd!

The funniest part is that I had a long day yesterday after the half with my students doing some recitals in the afternoon and evening, and I was DYING from sore legs (and they're VERY stiff today!) But I had to be all professional and everything, so I just sucked it up and tried my best not to limp on and off stage and around my students. :D

And I don't have any food pictures from yesterday, but I had an amazing brunch of spinach quiche, spinach cheese fontina, and waffles with chocolate chips and pecans + lite maple syrup. And for dinner, my friend and I went to a new (for us) restaurant where I ordered a snapper-like fish (forget the name) with couscous, green beans and a red pepper sauce and we split an appetizer of mac and cheese with duck confit! It was all SOO good!

For now, I'm off to get some other work done, but I hope everyone has had just as amazing of a weekend as I have had!

I'm baaack!

2010-03-26T14:53:00.007-04:00

I'm home from Missouri and it was a successful recital! I had a great time rehearsing with the pianist, and then performing, as well as getting to meet and talk to some students and faculty at the college! It was all very exciting and I would love to do more recitals like that in the future. And the hotel I stayed at was so beautiful!

A king size bed all to myself? Check. And an entire bathroom in which I can spread out all my little bottles of lotion and stuff? Double check. Swwweeet.

And a beautiful atrium.

With a fountain and glass elevator, which made me feel really high-class.

I did my morning runs down the Historic Route 66!

And spread some Operation Beautiful love along the way, including at all the airport bathrooms. :)

Before I left, I treated myself to a St. Paddy's Day cupcake from a local bakery. You can be jealous; it's OK.

(Eaten during one of my long teaching days.)

And on a completely different week, I bought a salted caramel cupcake from a different bakery! I promise, I actually do eat a lot of veggies and non-sweet things, too! :)

(And I made it last 3 days, so there! ;-)

The promised healthier stuff, including my marvelous lunch from today:

-Cod from Whole Foods, cooked stove top in EVOO with salt, garlic and pepper (my first time cooking without someone else around--it was seriously so easy and it's really not THAT expensive at WFs)
-brown rice
-broccoli and peas
-avocado

It was AMAZING! And I have 2 more pieces of frozen fish for similar meals!

And a different meal:

-tempeh
-sauteed veggies
-carrots

Also delicious!

My work was giving away free bouquets of flowers from Trader Joe's that they were just going to throw away! So these have been decorating my table for the past week:

I think they're lovely! :)

Finally, one more chocolate review:

This chocolate is very smooth, while still having some subtle complexities. It is very rich, while being perfectly balanced in sweetness. Good mouth feel and melted quickly in my mouth. It would pair very well with some red wine. Overall, it's excellent!

OK, I'm playing a fun indie rock show tonight and then tomorrow is the half marathon! I'm kind of nervous for it, but also quite excited! Wish me luck! My only goal is to finish, as I am HIGHLY under trained due to the left shin injury forcing me to take so much time off. I'm just telling myself:

"Run when you can, walk when you must, crawl if you need to. Just don't give up!"

Concertizing and other fun stuff

2010-03-12T15:49:00.003-05:00

Again, I am sorry for an extended absence. I really do miss you all! Recently, I have been preparing for a fairly large recital in Missouri and most of my attention has been on that. Additionally, I am now a part-time violin teacher at a local school here and have been trying to take care of clearances, FBI fingerprinting, a health check and more. So forgive me. I will still be blogging, but probably not until after March 20th.

However, rest assured that my blog world silence is only because my life is so full of exciting and wonderful opportunities right now! I am incredibly grateful for the work and experiences that I have now and will report back in a little over a week with stories of success and inspiration!

In the meantime, I'm trying to start running again, after an extended break because I had a VERY bad shin splint in my left leg only. I kind of suspect it was actually a stress fracture, as the pain radiated from my shin up to my knee and down to my big toe and top of my foot. I have tried to rest it. I took 3 weeks off entirely, and before that only ran twice since December. I just purchased insoles for my running shoes yesterday with a much higher arch and it seemed to be much better today on a 6-ish mile run. Only problem is that I have a huge blister, but the inserts are heat customizable, so hopefully that will be taken care of soon!

Aaaand....

I'm supposed to run my first half marathon on March 27th!! I have NO IDEA why I impulsively signed up for it, but I am determined to complete it. Even though I know that I am grossly under trained.

See Girl Run!! For fun and to prove it to myself!

Well, I hope that everyone's lives are as beautiful and wonderful as mine is right now, because life is truly a gift and an exciting one at that! Take care of yourselves while I'm away!

P.S. If you want an excellent book to read I'd suggest:

New Feature: Chocolate Reviews

2010-02-22T10:11:00.006-05:00

Good morning! I hope you all had a great weekend! I had a very busy week, hence the lack of posting. This weekend I played an awesome show with a guitarist and drummer that didn't even start until 10pm! So needless to say, I was up very late both for the show and to hang out afterward, as is the custom in the rock performance world! Went to bed at 4:30am (LATE, even for me!!) and woke up at 9am to watch Office Space, which I had never seen (it's great!) and then went about my long (but fun!) work day. I taught all afternoon and then my kids (aka students) at one of my studios had their big concert of the year and the orchestra that I have helped start performed at that event. Anyway, I am back posting today, obviously.

"They" always say to blog about what you know. I love food blogging and the wonderful bloggers I've gotten to know through it! So a new thing I'll be doing on here is regularly reviewing all the kinds of chocolate I eat. (Because I do eat A LOT of it!) Chocolate doesn't make me gain weight easily and doesn't screw with my blood sugar levels the way other desserts do. Probably because of the fat in chocolate and for the fact that I buy reasonably dark chocolate which has limited sugar + fiber! SCORE! So without further ado, I present the first chocolate review. Consider it my contribution to your taste buds! :) I know, I'm sooo helpful!

"Beaucoup Berries. Rich Dark Chocolate, Cranberries, Cherries & Vanilla"

7 Grams of fiber and 50% DV of iron! Cool!

Dagoba gets major points for a cute label! Above reads "You can deprive the body but the soul needs chocolate." Amen!

And "The Art of Chocolate Alchemy." I really enjoy it when companies put cute little slogans/interesting trivia/funny paragraphs on their packaging!

Look at that beauty!

I had a coupon for it at Whole Foods so I think I only paid around $1 for it. (Can't remember--sorry. I will start including the prices of the chocolate in these reviews.)

It is excellent! I like the very slight tang that the cranberries give it, among the hints of cherry and vanilla and mainly exceptionally smooth chocolate! And all of Dagoba's chocolate comes from organic sustainably grown cacao beans, which I can definitely support!

I can't wait to try their other chocolate bars! Also, I have two more kinds of chocolate to do reviews on, but for now I should get to the gym and then practice, before teaching, so I must end here. More posts coming soon though! :)

What is your favorite brand of chocolate? Any recommendations for me?

Running Music, part 1

2010-02-08T11:49:00.006-05:00

Good morning! Yay--I'm actually posting 2 days in a row! Thanks for all the recent comments by new readers! I really love getting them! It totally makes my day, so I just wanted to say thanks!

So I wanted to share some of my running/workout music with you and I would LOVE to hear your workout play lists! Please share them with me! Do you have separate lists for different activities (running, strength training, yoga, etc)? Any other themed play lists? Do you have any particular favorite artists or genres? Especially lesser known artists that I can familiarize myself with. I always enjoy discovering new music, so comment to your heart's content!

Here are some of my favorite songs/artists, specifically for running. I have blogged before about how I am working hard to improve my running (although right now my shin is in serious trouble and I'm staying off of it for the next 2 weeks to even have a shot at running my first half marathon on March 27th!) But ordinarily, I was trying to run 4 days a week between 3-5 miles, plus a long 10-ish mile run once a week. So that's a lot of time and good music makes it so much more fun! I thrive with good music and it really motivates me so much more than if I had to run without it. It also provides the energy to keep pushing through (all of my songs are quite upbeat) because at this early stage in my running, with my extremely limited abilities, I am pretty much dying after the first 1/2 mile and anything thereafter is simply a mental and physical battle.

So without further ado, this is my all-time favorite songs list (part 1):

-Viva La Vida by Coldplay As a violinist, I am immensely biased toward excellent songs with strings in them!

-Lose Yourself by Eminem Always inspiring. It gets me just angry enough to keep pushing!

-Kick Drum Heart by The Avett Brothers
A peppy piano-driven song!

-Drunken Lullabies by Flogging Molly
And many other songs of theirs! I'm pretty sure I could do an entire long run of Flogging Molly songs! They are extremely upbeat Irish punk rock, for those not familiar! Other favorites include: Kilburn High Road, Rebels of the Sacred Heart, Requiem for a Dying Song, What's Left of the Flag, Tomorrow Comes a Day Too Soon, From the Back of a Broken Dream, and many more.

-Erasers on Pencils by Ceili Rain (a lesser known, but incredible artist) -These Things Have a Way of Workin' Out by Ceili Rain
Hard to find these songs, but worth buying the CD for. They are uplifting both lyrically and musically. I could loop these and be content for a long time. -Henrietta by The Fratellis
Another indie-punk band. I think maybe I have a large inner punk kid in me! :) Seriously, high energy and fun. Also recommended by them: Flathead, Chelsea Dagger, The Gutterati and Creepin' Up the Back Stairs.

-Plasti-Queens by Geoff Byrd
Nice and funky, with cool lyrics.

-Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous by Good Charlotte
This was popular when I was in high school, so I listened to it a lot. Good beat.

-The Middle by Jimmy Eat World
"It just takes some time, little girl, you're in the middle of the ride, everything is going to be alright." Great lyrics, great beat, so uplifting! One of my most comforting songs!
-Leave Me Alone by Hanna Pakarinen
Another artist who is harder to locate. But totally worth it. She's Finnish (I think) and has an excellent voice plus catchy almost rhyming music. Also check out Go Go and Stronger Without You by her.
-Jesus Loves You by Stellar Kart
I know it's a Christian song, and I don't want to offend anyone, but it's high energy and string-driven, so I love it! I can't say I'm a huge fan of the name, though!
-Fatima by K'Naan -Wavin' Flag by K'Naan
K'Naan has a cool voice and excellent instrumentation! I mean, a sampled trumpet riff? How many songs can boast of that? And his lyrics are great, but sad. Especially Fatima; you have been warned.
-Face Down by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
A very sad song that deals with domestic violence. But it handles it maturely and it helps me push through!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't want to overwhelm anyone, so I will end this post here. While I was typing, I noticed how long it was getting and I decided to break it into two (or more) posts. There are many more artists on my running play list, so I'll try to post that in a few days.

Before I go, want to leave you with a few more snow pictures!

My street!

You can barely tell where the cars start!

Big foot. Or just me being silly. :)

My poor little car! I hope the poor thing starts when I need it to!

A cleared sidewalk.

Most of the city is still shut down and most of my evening students have canceled. So I'm just staying at home all day, practicing and blogging. I do need to get some major practicing in, due to that Missouri gig that is coming up!

I might try to walk to the gym again. I ventured there yesterday and got a decent 30 minutes on the SciFit machine + 60 minutes of strength training. (Trying to stay off my shin!) Plus the walk which should have been 20 minutes was 45 minutes each way!

In the meantime, if you're snowed in (or even if you're not) here are two CHOCOLATE giveaways! (Hook me up! You know how much I love my chocolate! Wheee!)

-The Voracious Vegan is giving away some awesome Sweet Earth organic vegan chocolates!
-Mambo Sprouts is giving away fair trade organic chocolate!

I hope everyone is staying safe and warm! Spring is almost here!

Snow-pacolypse!

2010-02-06T21:29:00.008-05:00

Holy Snow!! Geez, we got about 18 inches dumped on us overnight! As in, in one night only. As in, on Friday at 2:00pm, it was totally dry and snow-free outside! Here's what I woke up to:

My front steps!

And the view from my back porch.

Do you have snow where you are? And if/when you are snowed in, what's your favorite way to spend the day?

I had a very productive day! ALL of my lessons at both studios were canceled, and pretty much the entire city was SHUT DOWN. (Bars, the symphony, even STARBUCKS!, etc.) So I took advantage of it and slept in! (I slept from 11:00pm to 10:30am on the first day in forever that I haven't set my alarm!! Gosh, what's wrong with me? How can I possibly need that much sleep?!) I also did 2 loads of laundry, changed my sheets, dusted a bit, organized my room, vacuumed, and got a lot of practicing in!

In the morning, I talked to my parents for a long time and made breakfast:

A virtuous yellow pepper with avocado, parsley and hummus + 2 eggs with organic ketchup!

And for some carb-y deliciousness, I snacked on...ahem...several chocolate chip cookies that I made yesterday.

(The letters LJ are on many things above so that my roommates don't eat my food!)

Plus a little baking =

(I have been overdosing on these cookies which are SOOO good! Also, my workouts have been drastically cut, due to the weather and a VERY sore shin all week. I have barely worked out at all, so I'm counting on the old metabolism to keep things going! Woo! Yay for a 23 year old metabolism! Lol!)

And apparently I was in a baking mood all week, because several days ago I made these:

Neither the cookies nor the brownies have an actual recipe! I just sort of threw some stuff in a bowl, mixed it together and baked them. Being thoroughly prepared to throw them both out if needed, I was pleasantly surprised to taste both of them and find out that they were excellent! Maybe I will try to recreate them next week and actually write down the recipe...what a novel concept, I know.

Anyway, onto the non-sweet foods.

Power snack extraordinaire:

-peas
-broccoli
-PB
-reduced fat swiss cheese
-avocado

Another classic snack:

And some excellent meals:

-sauteed veggies as the base (cabbage, onion, red bell pepper, spinach + EVOO)
-avocado
-tempeh
-hummus

**I had a bunch of food pictures on my camera, so I apologize for having to go through these quickly.**

Some random lunch this week:

Tuna, avocado and hummus sandwich.

Close up of the veggies:

Last week a friend invited me over for dinner, and he sent me home with leftovers which fueled me for a long day of teaching on Saturday (a week old...what a bad blogger!)

This was a mixture of shrimp, veggies and a teriyaki sauce over noodles. It was extremely delicious!

Back to sweet stuff now. It always cracks me up when bloggers say "I'm such a chocoholic. I usually have at least one piece every day!" Pfff! Assume that I *regularly* eat between 100-300 calories of chocolate daily. Or more. Oh yes I do! I'm not at all sorry and I do not regret any delicious bite.

Here's proof, although these were not all eaten in the single day.

(From a local bakery...love supporting local businesses!)

Some of this 90% bar went into this bowl of oats:

And one more:

I have been drinking red wine most nights at home. Currently enjoying this bottle:

Which I bought for one reason only: the cute penguin on the bottle! Some people buy wine based on taste, or brand, or year or price...I buy based on how cute the label is!

I am again sorry for such a long post! Bear with me. I will try to do more frequent and therefore shorter posts!

I'm off to read for a bit before bed! I'm skipping church tomorrow because I honestly don't want to drive anywhere that's not absolutely necessary! So it will be another day to sleep in! Goodnight!

On opportunities and life.

2010-01-29T12:13:00.006-05:00

Wow, the title sounds super serious, and I guess to a certain extent it is. I've had a lot on my mind recently (partly responsible for the running) and I've been doing a lot of thinking.

On the good news end of things, I had an AMAZING opportunity presented to me, as a violinist! I will be performing some works that a colleague of mine wrote at a university in Missouri in March! It's going to be very exciting, and I definitely have my work cut out for me in learning the pieces! (They are quite difficult!) I am super excited!

On the other end of things, I broke up with my bf over 2 months ago and we were going to remain friends, but now he is acting less and less like that's going to be possible, at least not for a very long time. I don't get it! You know who I am...why did you say that you were committed to remaining friends if you really didn't mean it? I know that I am partly responsible, because I've gotten a little emotional a few times and he feels like he's hurting me. But seriously, I'll be OK, even if I did miss him a little in a boyfriend way, while we are hanging out as friends. Whatever. I DON'T want to be that whiny little ex-girlfriend, so I'm giving him as much space as he needs. He knows my number whenever he wants to call.

Whew. Felt good to get that off my chest.

One of the (many) reasons I know that I am 100% over my eating disorder is that I haven't felt any need/urge to engage in any unhealthy behaviors over the break up and/or the general male population being slightly infuriating in the past few months! Yes, true, I'm exercising a lot to take my mind off things, but I'm eating plenty to make up for it, and I'm approaching exercise from a positive mental standpoint of "let's see what I can accomplish today" and/or training for my first 2 half marathons and I can honestly say that the thought of how many calories I've burned really almost never crosses my mind, except to make sure I'm getting enough calories. (I.e. extra large breakfasts before long runs, energy gels and/or honey packets during exercise, extra sleep to help my body repair, etc.)

OK, onward to one of my favorite topics: FOOD! :)
(And just a note to any new readers, this is NOT EVEN CLOSE to all of what I eat in a given day. I simply don't have time or inclination to take pictures of absolutely everything. Maybe one of these days it would be a fun project for the blog.)

Here is breakfast today, *x2* (as in 2 bowls roughly this size)

-frozen blueberries and blackberries on the bottom (hence the purple milk!)
-skim milk (unmeasured)
-Kashi GoLean original (unmeasured)
-PB (probably a bit more than a TB-not exactly sure)

*This bowl times 2* I was hungry after yesterday's workout which made me feel really bad ass:

I did all three triathlon sports! *What's the best workout you've gotten in recently?*

At my first day of swimming in God knows how long (like at least 4 years!), I was dying after just one time across the pool. I kept at it for 12 laps (300 meters) and then called it good. :)

So then I did about 30 minutes of arms and abs conditioning. **The former gymnast in me actually really loves sit-ups, push-ups, strength work, etc! Yes, I know I'm strange!**

Then, with a lot of extra time on my hands (I was barely teaching yesterday!) I hoped on a stationary bike and rode an easy 7 miles in roughly 33 minutes.

Got home (ate a Luna bar on the way home from the gym), grabbed this lunch of grilled cheese (full fat, of course!), avocado, hummus and spinach:

And drank this mixture:

Then I was off running, literally.

My church has a (small and informal) running group so I decided to check it out. Keep in mind that it's ~20 degrees here, and there was snow and ice all over the track! It made me feel very hardcore, like Dean Karnazes running over Antarctica! :)

I ran roughly 4.3 miles in a 55 minutes. My pace is slow. I'm OK with that. It was just cool to do all three triathlon events in the same day! My sister is a much better swimmer than myself, and we've talked about doing a sprint triathlon together. I think it would be super kick ass and I'm hoping that it'll happen over this summer! Nothing official yet that I'm training for! (Especially since I have A LOT of ground to make up in the swimming department!)

Anyway, onto some other food that was eaten recently.

Several breakfasts that are all quite similar. (I go through nut butter like it's my JOB!)

And lunches or snacks:

Lentils over sauteed veggies.

Much better when topped with hummus!

(I top PB bread with frozen berries--doesn't everyone?)

Finally, some recent running gear purchases:

(Super excited about this top! And by the way, Marshall's and T.J.Maxx are excellent for finding cheap but good workout clothes!)

And on a random note, I found some awesome washcloths at Target there's 6 of them for just $10! My roommates seem to have absconded with the ones that I had, so I bought these, as I can't find the ones I had!

Sorry for the really long post! Hopefully you made it through the whole thing!

Here's a few giveaways to enter:

Marlene's Lift Your Sole giveaway.

Oh Nuts giveaway.

Nathan's Hydration Belt.

Have a great day! I've got to get some practicing in!

Grateful for exercise.

2010-01-25T12:04:00.007-05:00

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!

I did it: I ran 14 miles!

2010-01-20T00:09:00.005-05:00

I DID IT!! I EXCEEDED MY OWN EXPECTATIONS AND RAN 14 MILES!!!

*Calms down*

OK, sorry about that! But I am extremely excited and pleased! Because I am the runner who COULD NOT run even 1/2 a mile about 5 months ago! Remember this post? Or this one?!

I struggled with running for a long time. I got winded and had to slow down. Now granted, I was running too fast and I was extremely impatient with myself. But I kept at it, blindly pushing aside negativity and discouragement and kept plodding along. It wasn't always easy, and it's still NOT. I still *want* to quit after less than a mile. Every single step is still extremely difficult for me. Running does not come naturally to me, but it does come. I have had to work hard at it. I have been running at least 2 or 3 days a weeks, maybe 10-20 miles each week + my normal cross training (LOVE my Expresso bikes, and of course strength training...that comes MUCH easier to me!)

In the coldest days I ran inside. Whenever it was even reasonably warm, I'd go outside. I tried to just run as much as possibly could, and I walked when I had to. I still almost can't believe my progress. I'm not exactly a professional athlete or anything, but I am still stunned with where I am at today.
I WANT to keep it up!
I want to go farther.
I want to continue getting better that myself.
It's exciting.
It's hard.
And it's worth it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After yesterday's run, I ~~have been hobbling around all day like an old lady~~ am incredibly sore. So I stopped by a local running store to buy the stick. This:

It is amazing! My right outer shin and both of my quads are killing me...in a good way! I love the feeling of being sore. It's AMAZING!

I also picked up a few flavors of GU gels that I can't wait to try on another long run.
(I bought the Tri-Berry, the Vanilla Bean and the Chocolate Outrage...hope they're good!)

But while I was there, I was talking with the team members and they were all so supportive of my running and encouraged me to join their local running club.

*jaw drops*

"Lisa?" "Join a running club?!"

Uhhh...

"OK!"

And so, I am TERRIFIED, but strangely excited for Sunday morning. (They also do tempo and interval runs on Wednesdays but I won't be able to make very many due to my work.) But I AM going to go! I don't know what to expect but they assured me that there are all levels of runners there, including people slower than me (didn't know that was possible! Hah!) and I'm going to do it! I really want to meet other runners locally, and it will make the long runs more fun! So we shall see what that brings!

Anyway, I am headed to bed. I would love to put up a real post, but I have been baby-sitting many mornings and I have to get up early again to watch the most wonderful, sweet, adorable little girl. And then go straight to teach from 2-8pm!

So I'll catch up on all your blogs tomorrow night!

Death by chocolate!

2010-01-17T20:18:00.005-05:00

I hope everyone has had a good Sunday and an excellent week! You all ready for a new week? Bring it on!

Tell me: what are you looking forward to in this coming week?

For me, I'd have to say that I'm looking forward to my long run tomorrow (it's going to be 43 and NOT snowing plus I have the time so I'm going to ~~try to~~ do 13 miles! Yes! An entire half marathon! I feel confident...wish me luck!)

Additionally, I am looking forward to just another week of work...I only felt like this past week I was finally mentally back. And I do like my daily structure of teaching, etc.

And finally, I am looking forward to good food! Like the following....

I have to tell you about an incredibly exciting bowl of death-by-chocolate oat bran that I made:

Different angle, same meal:

Seriously, this is the most healthy, yet chocolately thing I've ever eaten! (And I have a SERIOUS sweet tooth!)

What in this delicious bowl?

-oat bran
-pumpkin
-cocoa powder
-1/2 to 1 packet of Truvia
-cottage cheese
-1 square broken up of Lindt 90% dark chocolate (!!)
-tiny bit of raw honey
-almond butter

OMG!!

Yes, I'll be making it frequently!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Despite all the chocolate, I have also been eating my vegetables...promise!

This was sauteed broccoli, spinach, and mushrooms with hummus, and garnished with tomatoes and carrots.

This one was a veggie and egg scramble (veggies were yellow squash and spinach) with salsa and a piece of spelt toast with Almond Butter.

And here's another excellent meal: eggs with full fat cheddar cheese, a piece of tofu I had baked with soy sauce, lots of sauteed spinach with cracked pepper and two pieces of spelt toast, one with almond butter and the other with cheese and hummus!

And then this...was leftover from a restaurant that I went to with a friend. It's a huge stuffed manicotti filled with ricotta and mozzarella and is INDESCRIBABLY delicious! I'm really at a loss for words! It rocked me world, and I wish I could eat a huge plate of it with all of my fellow bloggers also partaking to get to share in the experience!

(I had 2 of the same size ones and the restaurant and just brought home the 3rd one. When I reheated it, I added steamed spinach and half a piece of bread [that was also leftover] to it to make a meal!)

...

I eat a lot...obviously! I've been realizing (again) that I eat far more than most women I know! After years of ED/DE when I counted obsessively, I was finally able to break the cycle! So now, I have no idea of my exact calories (and I'm sure it varies quite wildly, day to day) but I'm guess I average around 2500. I am reasonably active and I have a fair amount of muscle. I love strength training way more than cardio. (That's the former gymnast in me speaking!) Anyway, the point is, I'm finally OK with my body simply requiring more fuel. When I was "recovered" (technically, but definitely not emotionally!) I tried to limit my calories to xxxx per day. I was grossly underestimating my own personal needs and I ended up binging quite frequently, simply due to extreme hunger! I have found that the only way for me to prevent binging is to consistently be eating more than I ~~think~~ thought I "should".

(And obviously, I don't post everything I eat on this blog! In real life I am actually eating every 2-3 hours...no joke! Think Luna bars, PB on carrots or fruit, sandwiches, etc. My body is extremely efficient and I thank it for that, especially after all the years of abuse!)

Alrighty, sorry about that tangent. Back to...FOOD!

Here's a breakfast that I've enjoyed on several mornings of the past week.

-oat bran
-pumpkin
-goji berry trail mix (my favorite, but too expensive for a regular basis!)
-cottage cheese
-almond butter
-raw honey, this stuff:
I found it on the cheap at T.J.Maxx of all places. And this stuff is GOOD!!! It's been making a daily breakfast appearance!! And it's SOOO flavorful that you really don't need very much to add a richness to an entire bowl of oatmeal! :)

Have you discovered any new food products lately that you've been loving?!

(Just a thought...would you be interested in a giveaway of this honey?!)

Speaking of giveaways, if you want to win some Greek yogurt, head on over to Blue Sky World's blog for two different giveaways:

Chobani

and

Oikos

She's so generous that she's also having a giveaway for chocolate!

And now, I'm off to bed so that I can wake up early-ish and run 13.1 miles!!

I JUST learned how to do this:

2010-01-12T22:50:00.006-05:00

~~This.~~

Did it seriously take me that long to learn how to format it? (Talking like months of blog envy of others!) I had to do a Google search. Is this common knowledge, and I am just supremely out of the loop?!

Sad day, people.

Well, not really that sad because I learned how to do it!! Whoo! Expect to see ~~an egregious excess~~ a bit more of it in future posts, because it's brilliant and cracks me up every single time I read about it on other blogs!

I can't believe I just spent that much time on that topic! :) I obviously ~~need to get a life~~ am easily amused.

What's one thing you have learned recently? No matter how seemingly trivial, it'll be way cooler than mine...so let me know!

And now for some lovely eats of the past few days!

My most blog worthy meal:

-sauteed veggies (I bought a HUGE bag of spinach from Costco, which is why you'll see a lot of spinach in the next few days!)
-scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese
-leftover eggplant salad from WF
-Red Wine!! :)

This meal is quite similar...just add avocado, ketchup and crackers.

And yet another one: (I tend to go through phases of eating a certain food/meals frequently. It has nothing to do with ED behaviors; really I'm just lazy and in this case, the sauteed veggies and eggs meals fulfills: cheap, easy, healthy and delicious!)

One night this week I treated myself to a beer that I was looking forward to:

It was ONE OF THE BEST BEERS I'VE EVER HAD! So delicious! I wish I could buy it around me! :( However, I am now making it a goal to try various other cherry beers in hopes of finding a good substitute. It's a reeeally tough mission, but someone's got to do it and I accept! ;)

Moving forward--here's a very typical snack:

(Greek yogurt, Fiber One, almond butter, banana)

and another one:

(apple and AB)

Also, a VERY exciting (to me) breakfast:

(Up close and personal: oats, Greek yogurt, strawberries, AB, and trail mix...and the slice of toast from above is spelt bread with AB)

And another semi-exciting breakfast. (Well not at all, but I get extremely excited about ANY breakfast! It + coffee is why I get out of bed!)

Lastly, I had an Emergen-C packet in their new tropical flavor, which I LOVED! In general, I am a HUGE fan of their products, because they taste great and are so convenient, while providing many nutrients!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I went grocery shopping and came back with the following:

-organic tomatoes (on sale!)
-yellow squash
-butternut squash
-organic baby carrots
-apples
-frozen broccoli
-bananas
-whole grain chocolate cookies and spelt crackers (both clearanced at WF--otherwise I probably wouldn't have bought them due to cost)

And now, I'm heading to bed. I'm REALLY trying to get to bed earlier. Usually I don't sleep until 1 or 2am, but I'm really trying to change that and my goal is to be in bed by midnight most nights if/when I can.)

What time do you go to sleep?

Good night!

Starting a new week off right...

2010-01-11T10:03:00.005-05:00

...with a blog post! :)

Here are some of my delicious eats over the past few weeks. (I know...bad food blogger!)

This is a low sodium canned soup that I made better by adding peas, black beans, and broccoli to it. Nothing like upping the nutritional value! :)

Along with sweet potato fries. I obviously hate ketchup. ;) (It's organic without HFCS, and I've come to enjoy it more than Heinz!)

Many evenings have been spent reading during and after dinner with books and this beautiful candle.

And maybe some of this:

Speaking of books, here's what I've been reading lately:

This was hilarious and brilliant, if a VERY easy read. I smiled a few times at the stories and also sadly noticed that many of them were somehow related to an eating disorder. (I.e. The woman following the Orange Juice Diet who had high potassium levels, the man with Compulsive Overeating, the young girl who ate paper instead of food to keep the hunger pangs away, and the body builder who almost died from an OD of caffeine pills.)

I have just started this book, which many of you may have read. It's excellent so far.

And since I rarely have just one book started, here's the other one I'm currently reading:

This one is written from a Christian perspective, but I firmly believe that many women can benefit from it. It talks about the different lies we believe, such as that we must be superwoman, that we must be loved by everyone, etc. I haven't gotten very far in it, but I like it so far.

Back to the food...!

Many mornings I crave protein/savory. So I made this great spinach omelet with full fat cheddar and a veggie sausage patty.

Then topped it with ketchup! And added coffee to the meal, obvi.

Occasionally Starbucks needs to throw away any pastries that have not been sold due to company policies. However, they are still very fresh and perfectly good. So, having a few friends that work there is HIGHLY advantageous to me, because they GIVE them to me! Here's a yummy chocolate cupcake that I exercised great self-restraint in eating just one half and waiting several more days before finishing it! :)

And to add back in some healthy food, here's a great big salad I made:

-Spinach
-broccoli
-eggplant salad (from Whole Foods)
-hummus
-black beans

And one last snack:

Before I sign off, here are 4 giveaways from Blue Sky World:

-Superfood Powder
-Chocomize Chocolate Bar
-Skin MD Natural Shielding lotion
-Waterpik Ultra Dental Jet

I hope you're having a great Monday!

Am I the only one...?

2010-01-09T20:10:00.002-05:00

Who gets excited for other bloggers running a marathon?! Seriously, I think I'm a little TOO excited for:

Caitlin, Not to play favorites, but this is hands down my favorite blog. Please don't take offense because I read tons of blogs and enjoy them all, but this amazing woman was and continues to be my inspiration to start running longer distances than I ever imagined! I would go on for a while, but I won't so that you don't all think I'm a stalker and call the police on me! ;)
Meghann, whose blog I also follow quite closely. Although somehow I hadn't read her story until just now, and it only makes me respect her even more!
Ashley, who never ceases to amaze me with her races and training!

OK, I really hope I didn't freak anyone out. My intention was most certainly NOT to give you all the impression that I'm some psycho! Really, I'm not! But I am honestly so inspired by these bloggers/runners and I am looking forward to reading their posts so much tomorrow! I will most definitely be thinking about them all morning and hoping they all have an amazing, successful, and satisfying race, which I'm sure they will, due to the hard work they have put in!!

Happy 2010!

2009-12-31T11:20:00.007-05:00

Happy 2010, everyone!

I know I'm quite a bit late in posting and wishing you all a fantastic and blessed new year, but I figured I should get a post up later, rather than never, right? I REALLY do enjoy food blogging, so much, and I want to be better about doing it!

I had a busy December, but I'm back! I spent the week of Christmas in with my sister, which was lovely because she lives 400 miles away (yes, I drove) and it's always good to see her! I played gigs on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year's Eve! I really can't complain, because they are good money and give me something to do when I wouldn't otherwise be working (teaching) and none of my friends are in town. And there's something very nice about sharing the gift of music on a holiday!

I've also been running quite a bit.

I SIGNED UP FOR THE PITTSBURGH HALF MARATHON on May 2nd, 2010!!!!!!!

OK, sorry, I'm done. Can you tell I'm a little bit excited?! Yesterday I ran 12 miles!! I almost feel like I cheated because I did it in 4 + 8 mile segments. (Before and after work.) But it feels like such an accomplishment!! It was my longest total time running ever and I feel pretty good today, except for my right ankle which is incredibly stiff. (Maybe from an old gymnastics injury?!?) My knees barely even hurt! (I am thankful for excellent cartilage in them! I never even had pain as a gymnast!) Coming from someone who could barely run 1/4 of a mile in August 2009 (only 5 months ago!!) this is pretty remarkable! And I get even more excited just looking forward to what I'll be able to do. This just goes to show that with hard work and determination YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU SET YOUR MIND TO!

EDIT: Speaking of post-run pain, check out Emily's awesome giveaway! I REALLY want to win this!

And while I'm at it, here's another awesome giveaway from the Voracious Vegan. (I just started reading her blog and I ADORE it, due to the fact that she lives in Saudi Arabia and has traveled extensively, both of which I find fascinating!)

OK, now what have I been eating to fuel these runs? Well a lot, but here are a few catch up pictures. (These are from a while ago but I promise the next post will have more current ones!)

My usual breakfast: oat bran, cottage cheese, cashews, frozen berries, and almond butter!

And here's another almost identical one:

A very common meal: veggie omelet (broccoli, zucchini, onion in EVOO) with some Sun Chips equivalents on the side!

I snacked on the last of my samples from Larabar! This is my personal favorite flavor (tied with Cashew Cookie!), despite it seeming to have gotten mixed reviews from the blog world.

I was hungry before a workout so I fished this out from the bottom of my purse:

It's OK. A little too chemically for me, but better than nothing.

Lastly, VERY importantly, I bought some bottles of liquor to make winter drinks!

-on the left, a bottle of 101 proof Peppermint Schnapps (I.e VERY strong!)
-on the right, chocolate cream liquor

I mixed them in with sugar free hot chocolate for a great drink:

I just finished this book which was really good. Florence Nightingale is one of my personal heroes and I loved reading what she had to say!

Best quote came at the very end (added emphasis is my own):

I would earnestly ask my sisters to keep clear of both the jargons now current every where (for they are equally jargons); of the jargon, namely, about the "rights" of women, which urges women to do all that men do, including the medical and other professions, merely because men do it, and without regard to whether this is the best that women can do; and of the jargon which urges women to do nothing that men do, merely because they are women, and should be "recalled to a sense of their duty as women," and "because this is women's work" and "that is men's," and "these are things which women should not do," which is all assertion, and nothing more. Surely woman should bring the best she has, whatever that is, to the work of God's world, without attending to either of these cries. (My favorite line!) For what are they, both of them, the one just as much as the other, but listening to the "what people will say" to opinion, to the "voices from without?" And as a wise man has said, no one has ever done anything great of useful by listening to the voices from without. You do not want the effect of your good things to be, "How wonderful for a woman!" nor would you be deterred from good things by hearing it said, "Yes but she ought not to have done this, because it is not suitable for a woman." But you want to do the thing that is good, whether it is "suitable for a woman" or not. It does not make a thing good, that is is remarkable that a woman should have been able to do it. Neither does it make a thing bad, which would have been good had a man done it, that it has been done by a woman. Oh, leave these jargons, and go your way straight to God's work, in simplicity and singleness of heart."

Keep in mind that she was writing (and working!) in the 1840s and '50s!!!

OK, I'm off to go do some work!

I ran 11 miles!

2009-12-14T22:46:00.003-05:00

I BROKE DOUBLE DIGITS TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!

Remember all of my posts about how I struggled with running? Well, I've been working really hard at it, trying to get about 15-20 miles in a week, and I bought an excellent new pair of shoes: (Mizuno Wave Alchemy.) I am so excited about the shoes because my left shin pain has greatly diminished and I have really noticed a difference during and after running!

Yesterday I made an excellent play list and I noticed the weather today was going to be in the upper 40s (high for here!) and NOT raining or snowing! So I took advantage of the day and plotted out a 10.7 mile course on mapmyrun.com. I started running and things just felt really good! I was at a slow-ish pace because I was more excited to see how long I could keep it up for!

About 6 miles into the run, I decided to extend it by a little bit, hoping to push the run to a full 11 miles and when I mapped out this change at home afterwards it came to: 11.16 miles!!!!

My official time was 1:59:52 which only included 3 one minute walking breaks! (Plus about 5 minutes to use the restroom at Starbucks, but I stopped my watch!) Mapmyrun.com said I averaged a 10:40 minute mile or averaged running at 5.6 mph, which I realize is far slower than most of the women in the blogging world, but I'm still pretty freaking proud of it! I also realized that I thrive on accomplishing goals, and I think improving at running has made me exceptionally happy lately! (After I finished college, then grad school, I didn't really have any huge goals--as I had always worked so hard towards those ones!) But my next BIG goal: a half marathon in May 2010!! It is much less scary to think about after having gone 11 miles today!

And I also hope that I can be an encouragement to other beginning runners because 5 months ago in August I could not even run 1/4 of a mile without being completely miserable and out of breath. But I kept at it, and even though I'm not the world's best runner, the fact that I was able to make such an obvious improvement in my ability shows that anyone can, if you're just persistent and stay positive mentally!

I also got to try my first GU gel today! I had purchased 3 when I bought my running shoes because I knew I was planning on running longer distances! So I brought the Espresso Love flavor and I ate it around mile 8 (when I stopped at Starbucks!). Honestly, I didn't love the flavor, but it did an EXCELLENT job of giving me some calories that DIDN'T cause my stomach to cramp up, which is amazing, because almost any food does! I also purchased the Mint Chocolate flavor and the Vanilla Gingerbread Seasonal flavors, as well as a CarbBOOM Watermelon flavor and I look forward to trying all of these on other runs! Now I wish it wasn't getting so cold here, now that I'm really starting to enjoy running outside! If and when I make it back to Los Angeles (my parents live there!) I will be definitely doing a one or two long runs!

OK, I am SOOO sorry for slacking so much on posting! I want to get back to it! And I do plan on posting, so if I still have any readers would you be nice enough to leave me a comment? Thanks!

But now, time to ice my legs! By the way, I played racquetball for 1 hour this evening, just 5 hours after the run! I'm pretty sure that I would die happy if I could just exercise, eat good food, play good music, read good books, teach only the students who practice, and be surrounded by friends and wonderful people my entire life!

I PROMISE, I'll be back with a catch up food post soon!

Rakin' in those 15 hour days!

2009-11-18T23:55:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone,

I'm sorry for the lack of posting (and commenting!) Please don't hate me! ;-)

I am trying to read as many blogs as I can, but for the past few days that has just been a very few at breakfast and that's it. I've baby-sat an extremely adorable and precious little girl from 8am-12:30pm the past two days, then today I taught from 2-8pm tonight and rehearsed for a show tomorrow from 8:45-10:30pm. I've also gotten ~5 hours of sleep for the past two nights and am surprisingly not too tired (although, I am doing the highly scientific study to figure out just how much caffeine one human body can ingest....oops). I also got to the gym on Monday and Tuesday (not today) and I'm proud of me for that!

My day tomorrow looks like:

-Coffee/breakfast with a friend 9-10am
-Gym
-Practice for a show
-Teach 3-4pm
-Drive to teach again from 6-7pm
-Drive to sound check and play an extremely cool show at a local college, 8-11pm (?)

And that's a pretty light day this week! Wheeee! I've been having an EXCELLENT week, even if it's a little busy.

I have another gig on Friday night, then teach all day on Saturday and go to a house concert, then church, baby-sit and an early Thanksgiving dinner with my church on Sunday. So yay for staying busy!

What about you? What's the most exciting thing you have done this week and/or are going to do?

For me, I'd say tomorrow's show is right up there. Because it's rock music that is truly exhilarating to play and I get extremely excited before and during the performance!

I hope you are all having an awesome week! :)

Home from a great conference!

2009-11-15T21:24:00.006-05:00

I'm home and I had a very exciting past four days at a music conference! It was an incredible time of networking with other musicians, booking agents, record labels, concert presenters, and so on. I really enjoy meeting new people, and talking to like-minded musicians so it was a lot of fun for me! I passed out our CD and business cards when people asked for them. There was a great exhibition hall that many companies and musicians had tables at to promote themselves, and there was literally music happening all day, every day! There were musicians all around the hotel (lobby, rooms, etc) who would gather randomly and make music with people who they had just met! I got to play with some guitarists and mandolinists and it was a great experience! Each night musicians would perform for each other in their rooms until 3 or 4am, sometimes later. There were also afternoon panel sessions with topics ranging from songwriting, to public relations, to humor in music and a lot of other things! Very educational! In general, the entire conference was so inspiring of my desire to continue doing music and to make a successful living while doing so! It was such a joy to be there!

I don't have a lot of of food pictures from it, but the hotel we were staying at served AMAZING meals buffet-style, with several options for main courses (on Friday night I remember: chicken masala, trout with baby shrimp, beef something, noodles with Bulgar wheat, and a macaroni dish; on Saturday night I remember: eggplant Parmesan, Italian sausage, ziti, and some chicken, beef and fish dish--I don't remember all very well!), a reasonably well-stocked salad bar with rolls, and MASSIVE amounts of dessert tables, ranging from chocolate cake, to cookies, to pastries, to apple crisp! Additionally, every night we would inundate all of the hotel rooms with live music, and each one offered beer, wine, liquor, CHOCOLATE, cookies, and candy that anyone could snack on.

We also had a great cocktail hour on Friday afternoon, where I snagged about four of these plates (in my defense, I was starving because we had stayed in a friend's room on Thursday night, but we weren't officially checked in to the hotel, so we didn't get dinner on Thursday night or breakfast on Friday morning; I had survived on some almonds and protein bars I packed!)

(Plus random bites of egg rolls, quesadillas, quiche, and pigs-in-a-blanket that servers were bringing around!)

And don't forget the free drink ticket vouchers. Because 3pm is definitely NOT too early for a cosmopolitan:

I might or might not have also had a Bay Breeze, after this drink, because I had another free drink ticket and I didn't want it to go to waste! *That would be tragic!*

I also may have been tipsy after them.... ;-)

Of course, being the foodie that I am, I HAD to try almost all of everything and I exercised VERY POOR judgment in portion control! Hah! I'm pretty sure I'm about 5 pounds heavier than when I left, but there's no way that can all be "real" weight, so I think I should be fine if I watch my sugar for a while, and exercise this week. (And just for the record, I don't regret anything! Yes, next time I might have tried to stop eating when I was full, instead of packing more and more chocolate into me--my stomach hurt MANY times this weekend--but my taste buds are incredibly happy with me!)

I did have a FANTASTIC workout on Friday morning; I went for an hour long jog/walk ("wog") through the golf course that was in back of the hotel. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and I wish I had taken pictures for the blog! I also did a legs workout, with a lot of jumping lunges, which is the most intense leg workout I know, and left my legs throbbing (in a good way!) for about 3 days afterward! (They are still quite sore, on Sunday night!)

Anyway, here are two delicious breakfasts that I had before I left:

-oat bran
-cottage cheese
-cashews (love the super saltiness they add!)
-1 chopped fig
-carob chips
-almond butter

-oat bran
-ground flax
-cottage cheese
-freeze-dried bananas
-carob chips
-PB

My goal this week is to do less mindless eating, but here are some of the mindless snacks I munched on in the past week or so:

I ate some string cheese while baby-sitting one morning. Protein + calcium = yum!

On the way to teaching last Tuesday (I know! Sorry, travel throws off blog posting!) I made an EXCELLENT omelet sandwich with sauteed spinach and melted some cheese, added seasonings of curry powder and cumin and then through the omelet in between two slices of bread to take in the car. I also added some organic ketchup and it was reeeally delicious!

And another Amazing Green bar on my way home from a rehearsal late on evening.

I LOVED this flavor! It even has a chocolatey coating! Woohoo!

Speaking of Amazing Grass, the winner of my contest never contacted me, so I'll be doing another random drawing tomorrow. (I'm pretty tired, and trying to get into bed early tonight to recover from the trip!)

In continuing the week-long chocolate binge (OK, not a binge--a poorly judged eating experience!) that was this week, I had a couple bites of this bar:

And this:

(However, I think my period may be showing up--I'm not really sure, thanks to being HIGHLY irregular--yet another great benefit of anorexia **did you catch that sarcasm?!?!** But I do think that that has something to do with the immense cravings, and the unexplained weight gain. Whatever.)

I tried to get back on the healthy eating track today with an omelet that I made with:

-1 egg, 1 egg white (with cumin and curry powder)
-broccoli
-mozzarella cheese
-avocado
-salsa

And earlier I had a bunch of Kashi crackers--my absolute favorite cracker, EVER, hands down!! Specifically this flavor with the nutty sesame seeds and the crispness to it! If you haven't tried these crackers, I highly encourage you to do so, because you will love life a bit more!

(I ate a lot more than one serving. Oops. Portion control is not my forte.)

And some bread with hummus and cheese as a quick afternoon snack. Nothing like a little carb-loading, even though there won't be any race tomorrow. ;-)

OK, I'm sorry this post is so long and random! I'm off to read in bed and try to get a good nine hours of sleep in tonight! My latest book is the brilliant and hilarious "Bridget Jones' Diary." I have found it incredibly entertaining so far, and I highly recommend it!

I promise to catch up on blog reading and commenting tomorrow! I hope you're all doing super well! Good night!

Getting ready for a conference!

2009-11-11T00:01:00.006-05:00

I'm getting ready to go out of town from Thursday to Sunday for a fairly large folk conference. It's about a 7 hour drive away from where I live, and you can bet that I'll be spreading Operation Beautiful love while I'm there! :) So I'll try to post tomorrow but I make no promises because I have to:

-baby-sit 9:30am-2pm
-teach quite a few lessons (2:30-3, 4-6,)
-play a gig from 7-8pm
-pack (luckily I'm pretty quick at this!)
-scan and e-mail contracts for an upcoming museum gallery opening gig

And now for some food for the past few days. The most exciting part is that I went grocery shopping! Halle-LUH-jah! Some good buys:

Notice the carrots...
And now notice the hummus...

...Let's just say that the two of them make an INCREDIBLE snack combination and I might or might not have eaten 1.5lbs of carrots in 2 days. And my skin may even be orange. Ahem, oops and thanks for not mentioning it again.

But now, to more groceries:

(I haven't tried this bread yet--it's in the freezer, waiting for me to get home from my trip!)

I was Hangry on my way home, and tore into these in the car. I ended up eating most of the bag, before I even took the picture. Oops. :)

Once home, I made a DELICIOUS meal of the Indian entree I bought.

I bulked it up by sauteeing some onions, two small zucchinis and some spinach:

And got this:

(I added extra chopped cashews and white rice leftover from Chinese takeout that obviously didn't make it onto the blog!)

And it was SOOO good that I had the leftovers the next day:

For dessert I made a bowl of Greek yogurt (=love!) with crumbled whole grain chocolate chip cookies from TJs (addictive!) and Fiber One cereal and almond butter!

Before mixing:

Much better:

There might or might not have been a second bowl of this. ;-)
At some point I immensely enjoyed this Larabar sample! I liked the Cashew Cookie a bit more, but this was pretty amazing too and I'd probably buy it again.

Another picture (and another snack-ish meal!) in my car:

Peanut butter sandwich. This was before the aforementioned grocery shopping trip, and was just about the only quick and portable thing in my house! (Actually, there were several of these this week, for precisely that same reason! They were all still delicious though!)

Finally, a simple but yummy breakfast: oat bran, Chobani and PB:

Add coffee, always.

It's a little before 1am, I have to be up at 8am, and before I sleep, I need to attend to the extremely exciting, fulfilling and plain, old, fun chore of folding my laundry! Please excuse me, and hopefully you have something more fun to do like getting a root canal....

Lots of new (fantastic!) products!

2009-11-06T23:59:00.009-05:00

Surprise! I decided to post tonight because I miss you all in the blogging world! Here's some of my lovely eats over the past few days. There aren't that many picture because my appetite disappeared for a few days (weird, that NEVER happens!) but I also definitely didn't take pictures of everything I ate. Here's a few things though.

I wasn't very impressed with this can of soup and won't buy it again. I also eat so little red meat at this point (mainly because of laziness in cooking it--not for any moral or health reason!) that when I DO eat beef my stomach ends up hurting. I picked out the chunks of beef and threw them away. Obviously not too impressed.

On the other hand, this free sample of a kind of cereal that I had never tried ended up being pretty good. It had a slightly disconcerting fake chemical-y taste, but it was still pretty good. I'd give it about 6 out of 10 stars. I might even by it at some point. Actually, scratch that. I'm trying to eat less processed food and foods with fewer ingredients. But hey--it was free, and my policy on free food is NEVER TURN IT DOWN! ;-) It had decent nutritional facts:

My go-to snack. I ate so many carrots last week that my hands/skin turned orange! Not even kidding! Oops. *sheepish grin*

I mixed up another packet of this amazing drink with some 1% milk and some black coffee--mocha style! :)

It was a little bitter so I added one packet of this that I had gotten as a free sample a while ago. It made it slightly better, but I think I'll refrain from adding coffee next time. It didn't work as well as I had hoped.

Speaking of free things (which is THE BEST part of being a food blogger!) LARABAR contacted me last week and sent me some samples which arrived very recently. I always gt excited to see this waiting for me:

And I opened it to reveal:

I was SOOO excited! And I immediately put one in my purse for an emergency snack, which came in handy today as I was running around like a mad woman! I tried the Cashew Cookie and I was SERIOUSLY impressed!! (Somehow, I've never tried this flavor--even though I adore cashews.) Even though the only ingredients are dates and cashews, somehow the texture and flavors were PERFECT! It was quite magical, and no, I'm not getting paid to say that. ;-) I adored it and I WILL buy it again in a heartbeat, especially if it were to say, hmm, come on sale!

(Image used from the Larabar website)

And speaking of new (for me) products, I finally tried this new So Delicious dairy free blueberry yogurt. I bought it because it is sweetened with agave nectar which is low glycemic so it doesn't bother my blood sugar levels as much as regular sugar. I'm normally not a huge fan of soy yogurt at all, but I LOVED this! (Seriously, what's up with so many new absolutely totally freakin' delicious products? Notice how I'm not complaining though!) I would certainly buy this again! It had an interesting texture; kind of like some of the whipped yogurts they (used to?) have out. I thought I wouldn't like the texture but it really grew on me! And the sweet ripe blueberry flavor was incredible! I topped it with a little low sugar cereal and it made a great snack!

I posted an Operation Beautiful note this week. (Actually, I happened to take a photo of this one. I try to post one whenever the opportunity arises.)

Some juice while reading blogs. Vitamin C anyone?

I made a lovely breakfast a few days ago. Nice and nutrient-rich while being pretty light.

I have, of course, been balancing out nice healthy meals like the one you see above with copious amounts of these:

(I apologize for the blurry pictures!)

Those chocolates are taking care of my fat and sugar allowance (har har, it was a joke!) and this Diet Coke is successfully fulfilling my chemical and fake sugar crap requirements. ;-)

I regret none of it. :-)

Breakfast today was the classic "Crap, I'm getting REEEEALLY low on groceries!"

Two slices of Nature's Pride 12-Grain bread with PB and my LAST piece of fresh fruit in the house! (Maybe I'll finally get to go grocery shopping when this weekend from hell is over--not to busy after I make it through tomorrow!)

Well tomorrow I'm teaching a bunch of private lessons (9am-3pm), helping out with a little kids' orchestra (3-5pm) and then playing a 2 1/2 hour community symphony concert. And I have very few groceries, so packing food tomorrow should be interesting....

But I'll worry about that later. Now, I'm off to read in bed for a few minutes and then sleeeeep! Good night!

Amazing Grass giveaway winner!

2009-11-06T11:05:00.002-05:00

Happy Friday everyone! The weekend is soooo close! :) What are your weekend plans? Anything fun?! I am extremely jealous of all of the wonderful food bloggers who are in San Francisco this weekend for the FoodBuzz conference!

Without further ado, the winner of the Amazing Grass giveaway is #19:

Melissa said...: I would love to try the Whole Food Energy Bar

Melissa, please e-mail me within 24 hours so I can get your prize to you! My e-mail is:

violingrad19 [at] yahoo [dot] com

Don't fret if you didn't win! Teri Jo has graciously agreed to give my blog readers a 15% discount on any Amazing Grass order you place by using the code "healthy123" during your checkout on-line.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm sorry that this post also isn't a "real" food blogger post! I have a long day today and tomorrow...taking a long test from 1-3:30pm (details later...it's a secret for now!), teaching from 4-5:30pm and then a dress rehearsal from 7:30-10:30pm with an hour drive each way.

Then tomorrow I teach from 9am-5pm and play an orchestra concert from 7:30-10:00pm, also with an hour long drive both ways!

But I promise I will put up a real post definitely by Sunday, if not sooner! Don't give up on me yet! ;-)

Have a GREAT WEEKEND!!

Happy November, though I'm a little late.

2009-11-02T20:45:00.005-05:00

Hi everyone,

I hope you all have had a lovely start to a new month, or at least a better one than I've had. Basically, I'm having roommate problems (she's doing MANY things that irritate me!), and being the people-pleaser of all people-pleasers that I am, I am UNABLE to get myself to say anything to her. I can't even muster up the courage to squeak out, "hey, do you have a moment to talk now?" I know I should have mentioned some things a long time ago, but I kept trying to ignore them, thinking that I was doing the right thing by keeping the peace and not making her upset. Well, it has tuned into a fiasco where she's walking all over me, and yet I insist on keeping quiet. I WANT to talk to her, and in theory it sounds like a great idea. But we were both home all day yesterday and today and I am NOT able to get the courage to do so. Even just thinking about doing it, makes me start shaking, trembling and breathing heavy! I really don't know what to do, and I don't know why it is so hard for me, and so I've mostly just been staying in my room reading or on my computer (I am reading your blogs!) while she's home.

But even more importantly, and much more disastrously, is that my boyfriend is starting to have doubts about our large-scale compatibility issues, due to how INCREDIBLY uncomfortable I am with bringing up to HER (my roommate) stuff she's doing that bothers me. He's (understandably) concerned with how that would play out in the long-term for us if we were to get married or something. He's worried that I wouldn't be able to tell him if there's stuff he's doing that bothers me, and he might very well be justified in worrying about this. I generally do keep things to myself, usually just assuming that I'm too easily irritated and/or being selfish for mentioning such a trivial thing. (By the way, the things my roommate is doing don't seem trivial; for example, she never locks our front door when she leaves the house, she brought a dog home for 3+ weeks without so much as asking me if I minded, and she regularly uses/moves my stuff without asking me. All of these things to me seem downright rude and unacceptable, and I'd like for them to change.)

The point is, due partly to my extremely sensitive personality, partly to how I was raised (in an extremely controlling environment where open conversation was prohibited) and partly to countless other factors, the "simple" act of saying, "Hey, can we talk about a few things?" is for all practical intents and purposes IMPOSSIBLE for me. And I love doing the impossible--I'm very stubborn, but in this case, it is actually damn near impossible and I don't think I can do it.

Both of these things have made for an EXTREMELY emotionally DRAINING week so far. (In addition to having my car in the shop all last week causing me to miss a rehearsal and forget about an appointment!) I'm spent. Beat. Drained. Trying to remain positive. Trying to keep smiling about...something...anything...life? Health? Friends? It's honestly very hard.

(I also apologize for no food pictures tonight. I just wanted to be able to get some stuff off my chest and I would ADORE any positive feedback you have for me!)

But enough depressing stuff.

How about you? Are you a people-pleaser? Do you care what others think about you? Do you try to keep the peace? And is there anything that you were trying to do the right thing in, that you later learned was really just hurting you instead?

I'm going to leave you with a few more giveaways while I'm at it. Then I'm off to go read my new obsession, the recently published biography of the 1986 U.S. Gymnastics Champion, Jennifer Sey, "Chalked Up". It is fascinating and I'm almost finished, despite starting it on Saturday. :)

Don't forget to enter my Amazing Grass giveaway!

Zesty Cook is giving away a blog makeover!

Balance is Beauty is giving away a variety pack of Glo Bars!

Lucky Taste Buds is giving away Kathy's Krackers!

AnAppleADay is giving away organic hot chocolate!

One Frugal Foodie is giving away two months worth of yummy cereal!

Have a great night!!

Getting my car back!

2009-10-29T22:49:00.005-04:00

Good morning!

I'm so excited because I finally get to pick up my car that has been in the shop since Monday for inspection!! {Yes, it *is* Friday today! In their defense, I think they were doing the best they could, and several repairs needed to be done before it would pass inspection, but it's still frustrating not having my car!}

Here was my lovely breakfast: oat bran, cottage cheese, sliced mango, PB. Simple, but excellent!

With coffee. (Please ignore the messy desk!)

And of course, I had some more Amazing Grass yesterday! (Speaking of which, don't forget to enter my giveaway!) I love drinking these while I'm fighting off a cold, because I know that I am inundating my immune system with nutrients to help it do its job!

Mixed with some OJ.

This was delicious!

I also had about 2/3 of this bar on my way to work:

I think I like the original flavor better, but this was still good!

And another leftover half of this bar. (My snacks are random!)

And one more delicious snack!
The flax is just in the picture because I had a few tsps of it in the yogurt, but you can't see it! Notice the yummy PB coating the spoon handle! I pretty much just don't eat anything with out nut butter anymore! {This is a very good thing!} :D

Well, I'm off to pick up my poor little car that's finally fixed, so I'll leave you with a few giveaways around the blog world! Enjoy!

-Plugging my Amazing Grass giveaway, one more time! ;-)

-Kid Glue is giving away Goji Gourmet cookies.

-Averie is giving away Fruition Pro Bars.

-Jen is giving away Kay's Naturals.

-Jamie is giving away Barney Butter!

-Jamie is also giving away women's running shoes!

-AnAppleADay is giving away a Soda Stream machine.

Amazing Grass giveaway!

2009-10-29T10:49:00.005-04:00

I have had the pleasure of sampling several Amazing Grass products over the past few days. Now it is time for the giveaway! I think blog giveaways are so much fun because we all share a love for healthy living, fitness, and blogging! :)

However, you either have to read my regular post first, or just scroll to the bottom to get to the giveaway. ;-) So without further ado, here's a few of my good eats over the last two days, including a few more Amazing Grass products.

I took and Original GreenSuperfood bar to work on Tuesday and ate it before 3 hours of teaching. It held me over very well, gave me a lot of energy and was supremely delicious. These bars are

Raw

Cold Processed

Alkaline

Gluten Free

Dairy Free

Vegan

And here's what's in it:

Organic Dates, Organic Agave Nectar, Amazing Grass Green SuperFood (Organic Wheat Grass, Organic Barley Grass, Organic Alfalfa, Organic Spirulina, Organic Spinach, Organic Chlorella, Organic Broccoli, Organic Acai, Organic Maca, Organic Carrot, Organic Beet, Raspberry, Organic Rose Hips, Pineapple, Green Tea, Organic Flax Lignans, L. Adidophilus, Alpha and Beta Amylase, Protease, Lipase, Lactase, Cellulase, Organic Peppermint), Organic Cashews, Organic Almond Butter, Organic Almonds, Organic Sunflower Seeds, Organic Dried Cranberries, Organic Pumpkin Seeds, Organic Dried Coconut and Organic Vanilla Extract. Allergy Information: Contains Almonds and Cashews

I also stopped into a grocery store to pick up a gift certificate for my mom for her birthday that's coming up and while I as there I bought this new drink to try:

I work around a lot of kids (I teach at least 20-25 kids every week, from several different school districts!) so I'm amazed that I'm not just always sick. However, it is eventually inevitable, especially at this time of year. I have had so many children come in either actively sick or with a "residual cough" as they call it. So I bought some Vitamin-C rich juice to drink up.

This morning I had the brilliant idea to mix the Mango juice with a Wheat Grass packet!

It was seriously delicious! I can't wait to mix another packet of GreenSuperfood into more juice!

With it, for my breakfast I sauteed 2 small leaves of kale and a bit of red onion. (Trying to emphasize the greens to help my immune system as much as possible!)

I also made a one egg omelet with Monterey Jack cheese:

Yesterday's breakfast was a similar omelet:

Eggs, cheese, kale, avocado, salsa.

With some juice and coffee:

A snack from yesterday. This PURE bar flavor is definitely my favorite! And they were on sale for 2/$3 but it rang up as 2/$4 so I got two bars for a total of $1 from the store! :)

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Alright, now for the most exciting part of this post! A giveaway!

Here's what you can win!

And here's how to win them! There are many ways.
(Please leave a separate comment for each entry!)

1) Leave me a comment telling me what Amazing Grass product you would like to try the most and why.

2) Spread the word!! Please link back to this giveaway on your own blog and leave the link where I can check it out! If you don't have a blog, tell at least 3 friends about it!

3) Add me to your blogroll and/or Google Reader!

4) Follow me with Google Friend Connect

5) Follow me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/gymcat

That's all folks! I'll select a winner a week from today on Thursday, November 5th!

Amazing energy from an AMAZING product!

2009-10-27T14:41:00.007-04:00

I hope everyone's having a great week so far!

Last week, I received an e-mail from Teri Jo at Amazing Grass offering to send me samples of their products for me to try and review on my blog. I received the shipment yesterday and got super excited when I opened it to reveal this:

Of course, I had to immediately try one, as I've seen them all around the blog world, but never gotten to taste them! It was perfect timing as I was due to go play racquetball with a friend and I was hoping for an energy burst! I mean, the list of ingredients is incredible! So many antioxidant-rich greens and fruits and vegetables!

I tried an Original Blend Amazing Meal and mixed it with 10 ounces of water in the shaker that she also provided for me.

Enjoyed with a Chobani yogurt with Uncle Sam cereal.

And the result? AMAZING!

I love the taste and the fact that it mixes well with water, so there are no chunks of powder left in it. And the thing I loved the very most?! Was how much energy I had all night while playing racquetball! In fact, my friend and I ended up sharing the court with extremely advanced players (we aren't really to that level!) and we played an intense game for two hours and this meal provided me A LOT of energy to use up while playing! Never mind that I am SOOO sore today! Or the gigantic blood blister that I got from the intense game. (Eww, I know!)

Naturally, I couldn't wait to try another one, so this morning, after getting a much needed 9 1/2 hours of sleep, I tried this:

This was absolutely delicious! It tasted like chocolate milk, and being the chocoholic that I am, of course I loved it! :)

I will definitely be taking one of bars along for a snack while I'm teaching violin all night to little kids and I'm super excited about trying those, too!

Also, check back to my blog for a giveaway coming up soon. I'll give you one hint: it's AMAZING! :)

So in other food news, I made a delicious omelet for breakfast, consisting of:

-1 egg, 1 eggwhite
-sauteed kale and red onion
-sliced avocado
-Monterey Jack cheese
-WF salsa

The end result was spectacular!

With coffee:

It's OK, you can be jealous! ;-)

I must have really been on a food roll today because I also made a PHENOMENAL sandwich:

-Nature's Pride 12 Grain bread (this is exceptionally delicious bread!)
-tuna w. light Italian dressing
-avocado
-Monterey Jack cheese melted on the bread right after toasting it...like this:
-1 gigantic leaf of sauteed kale with EVOO:
Layer it up:
And the end result was definitely something I need to make again, soon! (Read: tomorrow most likely!)

Here's a deliciously ripe pear that I snacked on yesterday:

Here are three quick giveaways for you all, to keep you busy until I have my own giveaway, coming up very soon!

Jenny is giving away Fiber One muffins! Fiber is good, muffins are good. Yep, I want to try these! :)

AnAppleADay is giving away TSP Spices, that come in little 1 tsp serving sizes!

And Missy is giving away a Progresso Panko Gift Pack! Looks great!

I'm heading off to bed now. Have a good night!

Yes, I am a dork.

2009-10-25T21:34:00.010-04:00

I went to the gym yesterday, to use the treadmill while watching the 2009 World Gymnastics Championships! I had a great time, and a 90 minute workout (roughly 30 minutes running, 60 minutes walking) but I do fear that this officially qualifies me as a gymnastics dork! :)

Anyway, the highlight of my week was the delivery of a case of Chobani Greek yogurt that I won!

It started with a big box that said:

Which I opened to reveal this:

I can't get these in the grocery stores around where I live, so I think it was at this point that the incredibly excited shrieking began! Luckily no roommates were home or they would have thought I was OFF.MY.ROCKER and probably would have started calling around to find a mental facility to commit me to! ;-)

All three flavors have similar nutritional facts and they are quite good! They have a little too much sugar for me to buy on a regular basis (I normally stick with unsweetened!) but they are truly INCREDIBLE! They are so creamy, very sweet but not overly so, and are pretty large portions for 140 calories! I have REALLY been enjoying these and I can't wait to eat the rest of them. As of now, I've tried all three flavors and they are all fresh and crisp tasting, so it's impossible to pick my favorite!

Thanks to Ellie from Inside I'm Still Dancing and Chobani for giving me the chance to try these!

Onward...to several breakfasts I've enjoyed recently.

Keepin' it simple with oat bran, almond butter, and a blueberry Chobani!

Slightly more complex...oatmeal with a banana, PB, blueberry Chobani and cottage cheese. This ended up being way too much food and I saved some of it for later in the day.

Swap the banana for grapes and you've got the same b-fast!

Nothing you haven't seen. Oat bran with cottage cheese, a banana, flax, carob chips and PB. Drool worthy. (OK, I've gotta admit that most of my breakfasts are freakin' amazing and it's definitely my favorite meal of the day!)

With coffee. In case there was any doubt, I have coffee EVERY SINGLE morning, no exceptions, even if it doesn't make it into the picture! :) But in this case it did.

One more...

I went on a cooking spree earlier this week and braved my acorn squash, with the crappy knives that I have in my current living situation. When I finally move out next year, I WILL be buying sharper, better knives! But for now, I made this...

Just roasted with EVOO til they were done. I don't even remember how long. Sorry.

And I made my usual pan of veggies. I added kale this time for variety!

Finally I made a pot of split yellow peas simmered in this:

with a spoon of this:

It turned out great, but sadly the pictures of it did not! :-(

Those veggies came along as part of a meal the next day:

Along with a Chobani and Fiber One cereal:

One more bagel while out and about. (Example of my on-the-go lifestyle: On Saturday I left my house at 8:30am and got home around 1am! Word.) Although this bagel and its side dishes were my Wednesday dinner when I taught from 2pm to 6pm and then drove an hour to an orchestra rehearsal from 7:30-10:30pm!

I try to keep spreading the Operation Beautiful love while I'm out!

Plus my favorite:

Sliced with hummus is good:

But plain is the best!

And:

By the way, I ADORE this particular flavor of Luna bar!! I seriously eat (at least!) one of these ALMOST EVERY SINGLE DAY! (Even though most of the times the pictures don't make it onto the blog!) Yes, I know it's not exactly a whole food, but it's SOOOO delicious and low glycemic so it keeps me full for a long time!

Best snack ever.

And don't forget dessert:

I grabbed lunch with my boyfriend this week. Foot long ham on wheat with cheddar, yes I would like it toasted, please. :)

Many of my nights end with a glass of wine! Resveratrol is important! ;-)

This bag of chips didn't last too long. I guess it doesn't when you count three servings as "dinner" and call it even. *Ahem* Which I might or might not have done. (In my defense I was driving home, ready to gnaw off my arm and didn't have any other food on me. Those suckers didn't stand a chance, anyway!)

Chocolate gelato while reading blogs? Yes, please.

Finally, I've been downing these and Emergen-C like it's going out of style, due to how many kids I tach ever week and how many of them (and their parents and their siblings...) are sick! I'm amazed that I HAVEN'T yet gotten sick!

I'm sorry that this is so long!

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Spreading the Operation Beautiful love!

2009-10-20T21:51:00.006-04:00

Sorry it's been several days since my last post! I've been keeping busy with work, as usual. I've also, as this title suggests, been spreading the Operation Beautiful love! I bought some bright super sticky notes and have been writing and posting tons of notes all over the city, including at my gym and specifically one on the scale at my gym that said, "This number does not determine your worth. You are beautiful!" I saw that it was still up the next day, which made me happy. Anyway, here are some of the other notes I've been posting.

(These were all the ones I made and posted on my wall to take pictures of...they have since been distributed all over!)

Onto food stuff! I've been eating some awesome meals lately!

Like this, Annie's 5-Grain Elbows and White Cheddar mac and cheese, with sauteed cabbage, onion, zucchini and tempeh. This was one of the most satisfying meals I've had in a long time (and I've been eating the leftover for a few days, too but didn't take any duplicate pictures).

Started with this box....

And a pan full of veggies with garlic and EVOO...

Some yummy snacks...

But everything is better with chocolate, right? ;-)

A car snack...on a 2 hour drive each way to play a show. There were 5 servings and I definitely finished the bag by the end of the night. Oops.

Some more Operation Beautiful love!

So far I've been posting them on college campuses (hello rampant eating disorders! I'm trying to be a breath of fresh air!) and in women's bathrooms at every restaurant I go to! I don't really think there's anyone that wouldn't benefit from a little positive encouragement!

I ate a cinnamon roll from Starbucks that was the size of my head...probably a good 500 calories in there or so, but oh my gosh--so worth it! :) And, it was free! What can I say, people? I've got my peeps to hook me up! ;-)

A couple random breakfasts...
and:

and one more:

Plus another bagel-icious breakfast, this morning. (Hey, I promised that you'd be seeing a lot more bagels, right?)

A super healthy dinner...a red pepper and carrots to dip in hummus and leftover mac and cheese + cabbage mix.

And today I had a very HEAB-approved meal:

A yam with AB, and zucchini + tempeh in EVOO. So good people!

Then an apple in the car today:

And finally, a random fudgiscle earlier this week at some point.

Lastly, but definitely not least, I'm going to have an exciting giveaway coming up VERY soon! Stay posted for details! :)

I'm off for the night. Going to grab a quick beer with my BF and some other friends and then get to bed. Goodnight!

Latest inspiration!

2009-10-14T23:25:00.005-04:00

I had a fantastic day today! I'm not sure why, but I've had a ton of energy lately and had some good, if long, days! Today, I played racquetball in the morning for an hour with my boyfriend and then taught/played from 2-10pm! One on my students is a young girl who reminds me A LOT of a younger me. She's INCREDIBLY smart, naturally musical, and a curious about everything. She's also hard on herself, a perfectionist, and gets frustrated easily. She also tells herself that she can't do it, isn't good enough, etc. Hmm, why does that sound familiar? Anyway, last week I spent a lot of time talking to her about how I want her to try to be positive and I outlawed the use of the C word (can't). This week she came back and had improved by an unrecognizable amount! It was absolutely staggering! I could not have been prouder! And it was a good reminder for me that our minds are EXTREMELY powerful! They absolutely have the power to affect what we "can" and "cannot" do. I fully believe that almost all of any battle is mental. On a similar vein, when I was in gymnastics, a long time ago, I looked at the more advanced girls doing back handsprings on the balance beam and I said, "Wow, I'm never going to be able to do that!" And my coach looked squarely at me and said, "You're right. If you convince yourself of that, you'll never be able to do it." I NEVER forgot that, and it still inspires me to stay positive about things to this day. (Example: running!) And by the way, I definitely learned my back handspring on the beam before I had to quit gymnastics! :)

Anyway, onto my eats from today. I don't have pictures of everything, but I had an awesome salad at Whole Foods for a late lunch.

Before that I had eaten a bagel with veggie cream cheese. (And another one yesterday!) I bought a dozen yesterday (half honey oat and half cracked wheat) and the cream cheese had pieces on carrots, tomatoes and peppers in it. I really like it and you'll be seeing more bagels soon and frequently. :)

I decided to sprinkle some FF cheese on for extra protein. Pretty good actually.

I started today off with a great bowl of oat bran:

(banana, carob chips, raisins, PB, cottage cheese)

Yesterday I tried my first Pistachio Larabar and I actually really liked it. I'd probably by it again at some point.

Finally, I made a big bowl of sauteed veggies since I had been severely lacking them yesterday. Zucchini, onion, bell pepper, garlic, EVOO...the usual.

(Rockin' the camera flash and the yellow bowl!)

Here's some more giveaways...pick me, pick me! ;-)

Food Cents is giving away some of her favorite things.

Rebecca is giving away many delicious Newman's Own products!

Amanda and Andy are giving away more Chobani love!

Allison is giving away Nature's Path Products. I love these cereals!

Missy is giving away Halls Refresh, Silk milk and other goodies.

One Fit Foodie is giving away coupons for a free Nasoya product.

Jen is giving away Naturally Nutty Peanut Butter. Umm, yeah--I want these. :)

Wow, that's a lot of awesomeness!

I'm heading off to bed! It's after midnight and I'm waking up at 7:45 to go to the gym with my boyfriend again (workout + another game of racquetball) and then hopefully going to a real running store to get fitted for good running shoes! I want the shin splints to go away! I'll let you know if and what I buy!

Major clothes shopping success!

2009-10-13T10:20:00.012-04:00

Good morning! Finally, a real blog update! I feel like I have so much to share with you after just a few days away. The trip went pretty well. The shows were OK...nothing too special. But I got to try this beer:

(Yes, that does say Imperial Pumpkin Ale-8.0% alcohol! I was definitely tipsy after this!)

And for the only available breakfast I had a boring bowl of PLAIN oatmeal! Toppings, people, c'mon! ;-) (Oh wait, you mean non-food bloggers don't get so excited over adding ridiculous amounts of chopped Larabars, nut butters, granola, fresh fruit, etc?! Oh, why didn't anyone tell me?)

I got home, slept for 6 hours (more like 5 1/2) and woke up to a "real" bowl of cereal, Lisa-style:

But wait! I realized as I was sitting down to eat it that something was missing! One guess....

Peanut butter!! (Much better, by the way!)

I had various unphotographed snacks but somewhere along the way I had this bowl of overly processed vegetable barley soup. (Not that good, but hey, it was cheap!)

And a slice of bread with grated ff cheese on top. (Hence the lack of melting.)

For a random sugar burst, I ate this gummy which was being handed out (along with many other candies!) at work!

Next up was breakfast yesterday...back to oatmeal:

The most exciting part of this bar is that I added 1/3 of a Tropical Larabar! I loved this flavor (first time trying it!) I would DEFINITELY buy it again and instead of some of the other flavors! It tasted so fresh and tropical! (Over the course of the day the rest of the bar found its way into my mouth!)

While out and about yesterday (I was out from 9am-11pm!) I stopped for an Herby Turkey sandwich from Bruggers:

(times 2 for the other half, plus a pickle!)

And I had a lot of food that I didn't take pictures of. Mainly, I PB sandwich that I added one square of dark chocolate to!), a Raspberry Luna Bar, and two huge glasses of milk--mainly for the calories/protein because I was drinking them while teaching since I didn't have time for anything else!)

"So Lisa, what about the shopping success?"

Here it is!

First, a pair of knee high black boots that actually fit my calf perfectly!

And another pair of slightly-higher-than-ankle brown boots:

And my most exciting find...7 For All Mankind Jeans that fit me perfectly...for $39.95!! I couldn't believe it! (I definitely can't afford these usually!)

Onward...a cute Ralph Lauren coat that can be dressed up or down.

And several new tops:

Plus I got a great SUPER warm light blue down jacket (that I'll try to photograph at some point and put on here!) and for EVERYTHING listed I paid $160!! Talk about finding bargains! Woohoo! So exciting for me because I do love to shop! :)

Wow, talk about following that up with something not nearly as exciting...breakfast this morning:

(omelet with sauteed zucchini, mushrooms, cheddar cheese, and bell pepper plus leftover veggies on the side, and sweet potato with PB.)

With coffee, too:

Finally, I had this beautiful, freshly picked, locally grown apple when I was baby-sitting yesterday night.

Since I won Ellie's giveaway of a case of Chobani (so incredibly excited!!) I wanted to make sure to enter all of these, too. (I mean...spread the word for you all to enter! Hah!) So here are some more awesome giveaways.

Taylor is giving away See's Candy! I love this stuff, but it's only available (I think) on the West Coast, so I can't get it near me anymore!

Leslie is giving away some Raw Crunch loving!

I'm off now to get a workout in and then teach all night. See you all later!

Shin splints!

2009-10-12T00:50:00.004-04:00

Hi everyone! This is a lame excuse of a post (no photos, just a lot of me rambling on!), but I just wanted to check in and let you know that I'm back from my out-of-town shows. They went OK--nothing spectacular and honestly not the most fun I've ever had but sometimes work is just work, right? Even when that includes playing in a band. But I tasted an excellent beer with a photo to come, had an amazing (and free!) meal of roasted chicken breast, fingerling potatoes, artichoke hearts, mushrooms and peas (no photo--sorry!) and went for a 55 minute run/walk on Saturday morning.

Other than that, I got home on "Saturday night" (aka Sunday early morning) at 2:30am and went to bed at 3:30am because I wanted to unpack everything! Today after church I went out for a 5.25 mile run. It turned into a run/walk and it took me 58:15. I know this isn't exactly breaking any records but it's a decently long run for me. And I decided to time myself and then to compete against myself, run the exact same course and try to improve my time!

My question for all of you is about shin splints. For me, I only get them on the inside of my left leg and nothing else ever hurts. No knee pain, ankle pain, the right leg is fine, etc. What could be causing this? I've read a little about it on-line and the only thing I can figure is that I need to go get real running shoes from a store where they measure my stride and so forth. I will do this as soon as possible, but until then, does anyone have any advice? I have been icing after runs and it helps a little. Have you ever had problems with shin splints? What did you do about it? Do they still bother you?

Well, I do have some pictures for you from the past few days that I'll try to get up tomorrow. I'm teaching quite a bit though, so it might be late. Now I'm going to read a bit before bed since I have to be up in a little over 6 hours, which is also why I didn't want to put a full post up.

However, in the meantime check out these giveaways:

AnAppleADay is giving away the Gruve Solution workout tool.

One Frugal Foodie is giving away a truly spectacular goodie basket!

Jamie is giving away a reusable grocery bag.

Jamie is also giving away Kathy Ireland Skin Care products.

Good night!

Off for the weekend...

2009-10-09T08:23:00.005-04:00

...No, not off from work! Rather, out of town to play two shows tonight and tomorrow night! (Getting home laaate on Saturday!!)

So I'll leave you with a quick post. Here's what my lovely breakfast is to start fueling a long day. My dilemma is that I want to get a workout in but I always wake up hungry, so I'm just eating now and then hoping a short run/workout won't bother me too much.

-oat bran bowl with grapes, a chopped fig, flax, pumpkin, cottage cheese, and PB.

Some of yesterday's eats included:

My wonderful, sweet, amazing boyfriend brought this home to me on Sunday when I had been having a rough weekend:

Letting the pictures speak for themselves....

I can't figure out if it's prettier with or without the flash, so here's with the flash:

You *know* you want some!

This is by far THE BEST gelato (or ice cream or really any other frozen treat I've ever had. Just throwin' that out there! And it probably isn't long for this world, seeing how it's sitting in my freezer! People, seriously, I can't describe how incredible this is!)

OK sorry, back on topic!

Or rather, going back to being grateful for all of the things my bf does for me, including little surprises he picks up for me without telling me. Like this Halloween Smiley Cookie. There's a restaurant in town know for their original smiley cookies and they do decorations for different times of the year. He and I split this, and yes I know there's probably 400-500 calories in this, and yes, I'm also totally OK with that! :)

A random snack.

Yesterday, I also went out to lunch at a Greek food restaurant with my former roommate and had pita and hummus and a whitefish with tomatoes and spinach topping and rice. And later after teaching, I went over to my friend's house and sipped Gentleman Jack and had one slice of pizza while talking and playing Trivial Pursuit on the Wii! So much fun and I was out until 2:30 then I woke up at 8:15 with my alarm! Not enough sleep but that OK!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For a chance to win some Chobani love go here.

And for the chance to win some healthy and delicious cereal go here.

Alright friends, I'm off to finish up a few things and play two shows. I'll be back on Sunday!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Blown away!

2009-10-07T23:30:00.005-04:00

If you're looking for some inspiration, go read this post! Seriously, it made my day, maybe even my week! I love this girl, so much!

OK, now back to business. :)

Here are some good eats over the past few days. I promise I've been reading blogs and trying to comment. It's harder than usual because my teaching schedule is picking up and I'm working from about 2-10pm more days than not. I can't complain, because I'm staying busy though. I've been a bad blogger though and haven't taken too many food pictures.

Breakfast this morning was oat bran, pumpkin, grapes, cottage cheese and PB. Nothing you haven't seen before.... :)

Because yesterday's breakfast was the exact same thing....

Wow, I'm boring!

Yesterday's highlight meal was scrambled eggs with zucchini, green pepper and mushrooms with cheese and salsa and a side of Kashi pilaf with more salsa.

I have been getting lots of free samples including this, that I ate somewhere along the way.

And I drank this, which was also free:

I received yet another free sample today:

I can't wait to try it! I'm not usually acne prone, but hey--it's free! :)

And finally, I was sitting here tonight at midnight and realized that I was truly hungry, so I got a bowl of Fiber One cereal with half a banana.

Here's one more giveaway for you all: Agave Nectar.

EDIT: And one more for some sweet makeup!

Now, I've got to get some sleep. I'm meeting a friend for lunch tomorrow and then teaching 2-3 and 5-9, so I'm hoping to get a morning workout in! I also have to pack to leave town for two days to play some shows.

Goodnight!

So many giveaways!

2009-10-07T12:15:00.005-04:00

Hi everyone! This post is seriously just to catch up on giveaways that I want to enter! Haha! I'm inspired because I won a bottle of Glam Eyes Mascara from Leah's blog, so now I want to win other things, too! :) I've been teaching a lot and I don't have time to put up a full post right now. {Lame excuse, I know....} Today I'm teaching from 2-8:45pm with an hour break in there to grab lunch and read. So anyway, without further ado, I present the following fabulous giveaways:

Missy is giving away coupons for free Soy Milk!

Nutritious is Delicious is giving away MixMyGranola!

Errign is gving away cool, exotically flavored applesauce!

Naomi is giving away some Annie's lovin'!

Abby is giving away Amazing Grass bars! I want to try these, so don't actually enter!! ;-)

Lucky Taste Buds is givng away delicious soy puddings!

Jamie is giving away Justin's nut butter! (This ends tonight, but I'm glad I entered in time!)

Jamie is also giving away NuGo nutrition bars!

And one more from Jamie...need a brand new pair of super nice shoes?

Jen is giving away a book that looks fun!

More to come....

Have an AWESOME Wednesday! :)

Donut deliciousness!

2009-10-05T11:57:00.003-04:00

Good morning! I had a great weekend and I want to catch up with a food post before going for a run and then teaching 4-8:30pm. I am getting even busier with new students starting; I'm up to over 25 students right now, although I generally (have time to) see 20 per week. It's insane though, and I'm honestly trying to stay calm and keep myself positive. It's hard though, when one student misses a lesson and you realize that you have zero after school hours in which to schedule a make up lesson (especially since they're usually on a tight schedule too!)

Anyway, I had this for breakfast:

-banana bread with PB
-cottage cheese
-plum

Yesterday I made a lovely dinner of more sauteed veggies with hummus, scrambled eggs, and toast:

This was an amazing combination, and I have some leftover veggies so I might have to have this again today! :) I love dry (unbuttered) toast that's salted! Am I weird?

And I was a bottomless pit yesterday so I cut up a Fuji apple with PB.

Then I broke into the donuts that my bf and I bought from a NEW Dunkin' Donuts that opened a 15 minute walk from my house!!! People, this will be dangerous! Now, obviously I don't eat donuts every day. I remember that the last time I had donuts was when I was in Los Angeles last November. So eating something (anything) once a year is not a big deal at all. And the fact is, I have been enjoying my 6 donuts (over the course of a week and I still have 2 left in the fridge--so no binging!) soooo much! I think it's unreal for any food to be that delicious! It still doesn't mean I'm going to become a donut addict, but I *may* have to include one here or there!

What is your FAVORITE totally non-nutritious food? Obviously donuts are right up there for me! Also, almost anything chocolate is great. And chocolately pastries. And once in a while, if I'm in the mood, french fries with ketchup. And don't forget really good beer (lighter lagers are the best.) I'm a foodie and I'm not ashamed to admit it!

Anyway, back to donuts. :) I still have a maple glazed one and a Boston cream pie one, but I had most of a chocolate glazed one yesterday (and a part of a chocolate filled one, but there's no pictures of that one.)

Finally I snacked on this free sample I got. (I don't normally buy these, but one was OK.)

And my totally random breakfast from Saturday:

OK, that's all folks! I'm off to run, then teach. I hope everyone is having a good Monday so far!

A 5K, more giveaways and being a girl!

2009-10-04T18:04:00.004-04:00

Good afternoon everyone! I have had an exciting day so far! Yesterday was one of my friend's birthdays, so we all went out and hung out ridiculously late and I got home and went to bed at 3:30am! The problem with this is that I had to wake up at 5:45am for the 5K race at the Zoo! I was definitely exhausted, but I still ran it in 30:44, which for me is a PR. I know that that time is slow in comparison to others, but I'm trying to focus on the huge improvement I made and not fall into the comparison trap! I have been running more consistently and improve my endurance, and I was so proud of myself after the race today because I felt like my work has been paying off. I literally started sobbing (or trying really hard not to!) at the finish line just because I felt relieved and happy and I was very tired (and emotional--thanks to being a girl! Don't know if the period is going to show up, but I'm definitely VERY emotional today!) so tears are hard to hold off on. But I also am so inspired to keep running. I know that Kath posted this following several days ago, but I wanted to share it anyway, because I thought it was beautiful:

You know the saying that your only competition is yourself? Well I don’t even think you can compare yourSELF race to race because there are just so many variables. Races are not science experiments!!!!!!! Factors like sleep, temperature, HILLS, crowds, GI tracts, fuel, hydration, weather, emotions all create so much variation that you really can’t even compare annual races. This year has a totally difference course with different hills and terrain, so I will do my best to run fast, but to compare myself with last year to a T isn’t a fair test.

Just like weight, calories, weight lifting reps, etc. – we cannot let the numbers override the pride of finishing strong.

To that I say, "Amen."

Needless to say, I came home and took a nap and I still don't feel great. I'll post food pictures tomorrow but today I just wanted to leave you with two giveaways around the blog world.

Julie GoLean is giving away candy! Sweet tooth satisfaction! Woo!

The Good Deal Gal is having a Nature Valley prize pack giveaway!

Have a good night everyone! I'm going to go to Starbucks now and try to get some work stuff done. (Bookkeeping for my violin lessons...being self-employed can be a tremendous pain!)