Why I Run

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!

Sitting in traffic on a Saturday morning

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

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."

Concertizing and other fun stuff

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:

On opportunities and life.

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!

Major clothes shopping success!

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!

Off for the weekend...

...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!

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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!