20 miles, check!

The twenty miler went really well this morning. Stayed on pace the whole time, the weather was gorgeous, and I dressed completely appropriately for once. I usually overdress but I fought my desires and stuck with what I knew would work. Which, by the way, includes the most awesome jacket in the world, which my awesome mom gave me for Christmas. The Nike Convertible jacket. Once it started to warm up, I zipped off the sleeves and handily stashed them into one of the many pockets. Perfection. Anyway, I am definitely feeling pretty good about this race! Not sure I'm going to break 4 like I'm hoping, given the hills and all, but I think it will be a good run, and fun.

My stomach is freaking killing me now though. But, I felt great on the run, and really, that's all I care about.

So, the clean eating thing. I recently read Rachel Cosgrove's new book, The Female Body Breakthrough. It's awesome, and I'm super fired up to do the workouts in it. (Her husband did the workouts for the book The New Rules of Lifting for Women. I just finished these workouts and have noticed a huge change in my body in the past 5 months or so.) The book really encourages you to lift heavy weights and eat clean 90% of the time. Since I am now a full believer of the importance of weight lifting (I guess I should try to do some before and after pics to make you a believer too!), I thought I'd try out the other component. I eat pretty clean already, but I could definitely do better. I've gotten pretty lax about a piece of candy here, a cookie there, a pop with dinner. Eating clean involves eating as close to the natural food source as possible, without additives or processing. So, no white sugar. Also no bread, even whole wheat. Ezekiel bread, made with sprouted grains, is considered ok though, and I am now fully obsessed with the Ezekiel English muffins. So good. She also wants you to eat 5-6 mini meals, and every meal should have a vegetable or fruit, and a protein.

So, as of Tuesday or Wednesday, I've pretty much completely cut out sugar, refined flours, processed food, and alcohol. Alcohol is the biggie and will certainly factor into the 10% splurges I'm allowed to have per week. (I've actually been splurging about once per day, instead of 3-4 times per week, as I ease into it. But they're been mostly good splurges - a piece of whole wheat bread, some low fat microwave popcorn, etc. Nothing horrific if you ignore Thursday night. :P) I have to say, I'm feeling pretty terrific. I think it had a lot to do with my lack of Diet Coke craving. And I haven't been craving sugar either. (I did have some DC and a little bit of candy after my run today, as I know I burned off a gazillion calories.) I have a lot of stomach problems, and I felt really good through my run today.

So, I consider this a big experiment. At least for the next 4 weeks, until my reunion, I'm going to try to eat like this very consistently. I might decide at that point that it's not worth the trouble and extra expense, but so far, it's not a huge shift from my regular eating and I'm interested to see how big of an impact it has on me. I've been reading other things about the negative impact of additives and chemicals on the body functions (especially metabolism), and it kind of makes a lot of sense when I really think about it. So, stay tuned.

diet coke

many of you may know that i've fought my whole life against my diet coke addiction. i finally really cut back a few months ago and I only drink maybe one a week, a treat after my long runs. as i was getting ready for today's 20 miler, I realized I'd need to stop and purchase one for my daily treat today. and then it dawned on me that I haven't even thought about or craved a diet coke all week. before, I would at least crave it a few times a week. not this week! guess this clean eating thing is really working for me! (more about that soon, have to go get dressed for this insane run! the annoying thing is that it's 26 degrees now and will be almost 50 by the time we're done. makes it hard to dress!!)

trying to figure out a quicker way to post photos

i finally have a new camera but it's kind of a pain to upload photos all the time... trying to figure out easier ways. since i don't have an iphone, i can take a photo with my phone and email it to myself...not sure if that's any easier though.

anyway, these are the pretty tulips I bought myself at Whole Foods the other day. :)

From The (anti-)Boring Blog

:)

I only post when I have something good to say. :) well, not really, but it kinda seems that way!

My running group had a time trial today. 3 miles, or close to it. (my Garmin said we were a little shy, less than a tenth of a mile) my time was 22:55. Even with the shortage, that's still under 8 minute miles the whole time. For reference, I ran a 5k (3.1 miles) last June in 25 and change. I wa hungover but I have clearly gotten much faster!!!

In weight news, I had my last weight watchers meeting today, and I lost 7.8 lbs in 10 weeks! I didn't actually follow the program because it didn't work for me, but it did help me re-focus and make weight loss a priority. Now I just have 2 more weigh-ins for my biggest loser contest at work and I can officially not care about the scale. :) more about that later! I need to get to bed because I need to run in the morning since tonight's run was fairly short. I've been having a helluva time getting up in the mornings. :)


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um, YAY me.

basement organization? CHECK.



And if I had time to organize the basement, you know everything else is looking pretty good. :) Everything is not perfect, for sure, but I know where everything is and everything is pretty well organized. I definitely need to do another pass at the organization and also get rid of more stuff, but I feel like I'm in great shape.

Wow, I had the tv on in the background, and they just broke in with a special report about the health care reform bill passing. Kind of amazing. For everyone, I hope it ends up being as great as the people passing it hope it is. :)

Yay!!

Got my wireless up and running at the new place! Woohoo!!! I think I might be a little addicted though...


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Back from the dead :)

Hello faithful readers! I'm sorry it has been so long but I've had some stuff going on.

As some of you already know, Todd and I just broke up. I spent the weekend moving out, and I know have a cute apartment in Grandview. I got the internet hooked up so I'm blogging from it right now. :) This has been a long time in coming though, and I've been really dwelling on this, hence why I haven't been posting much. Hopefully I can get back into the habit though!

On a slightly related note, I LOVE the new Liberty line at Target. All of it. Since I've been spending some quality time there lately getting stuff for the move, I've been able to view (and purchase) several things. For the apartment, I got a great lamp for my bedroom. Although now I'm looking for a second one so I can put them on my bedside tables, and the Targets around here are totally sold out. For me, I've gotten 2 dresses and a shirt. I've really had to restrain myself. :)

I think I'm going to go back to unpacking and organizing now. I'm trying to spend some time thinking and reflecting on my life and all of that sort of stuff, so I'll try to post more often. Thanks for sticking around, those of you who did! :)