Random thoughts

Looks like next week is going to be a difficult week for running...


Yuck!Each one of those days is supposed to be HUMID. There has already been an Air Quality Alert issued for my area. LOVELY! And tomorrow I have a 9 mile run planned. But I'm doing it early in the morning...so it should be somewhat cooler. HOPEFULLY.

So today I was reviewing my weight changes this year. So far, this year has been an interesting year for me. Going from traditional eating, to Vegetarian, and finally to Vegan was a slow process. It has paid off slowly in weight and overall health and the best part is I haven't felt deprived...like I always do when I'm dieting. What I'm doing now seems very effortless and results in modest weight loss each month. Just look...

In the first week of December 2010 I was 198 lbs.
January 2011 - I had brought that down to 185 lbs
February - March 2011- down to about 181 lbs and then I stalled. As March began I pigged out for my birthday and many days after.

Starting in the beginning of April 2011 - I went vegetarian

I didn't record my weight until the end of May 2011 at which time I was 184.2 lbs at This point I start full vegan.

June 2011 I started recording my weight more diligently.
June 8 - 176
June 15 - 174.6
June 29 - 171.8

July 2011
July 8 - 169.4
July 15 - 167.2

Total weight loss so far about 30 pounds.

I'm happy That I've finally found something I can do to lose weight. Something that doesn't require me to count every single calorie or record every single morsel of food. I HATE, HATE, HATE that!!! I'm excited to see how far vegan and running can take me!!

Summer Blahs...

I missed my Sunday long run :o(
Something about an evening of margaritas makes it hard to get up and run at 5:30AM the next day. Who knew.

I've been running strong so far this week, but feeling blah. No air conditioning makes 90 degree weather a little unbearable. I've been trying to adjust my run schedule to run during the coolest parts of the day. It's been crazy. BUT I'm not complaining. If mother nature hears me complain we'll get 8 months of sub-zero temps this winter. It's the curse of living in Michigan.

Since running has been such a crazy sweat-fest, I've been trying to really pack the nutrients into my food.

I got this recipe idea from theAlmostRunner I made it the way she does originally, and it's great...then I got a little crazy with it. This recipe is so easy and so versatile you just gotta start messing with it....and yes, I actually fire up the oven when it's 90 and I have no air conditioning. I'm mental like that.

First the ingredients:
Frozen edamame
Frozen Okra
Frozen Stir Fry Veggies (any frozen veggies will work)
Fresh sliced mushrooms
Raw Baby leaf spinach (chopped)
Fresh Brussel Sprouts (with the ends chopped off and split in half)
1/4 cup - Tamari or soy sauce (slightly more if needed to coat veggies)1/4 cup pineapple juice (slightly more if needed to coat veggies)



To Prepare:
combine veggies, pineapple juice and soy sauce in a gallon size ziplock bag...shake vigorously to coat veggies. This could be done several hours in advance if you add a smidge more pineapple juice...the acid in the pineapple juice will keep the veggies from going brown.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and spread the veggies thinly on a cookie sheet.


Cook for 15 minutes...flip and shuffle veggies then cook for 15 more minutes.

While the veggies are cooking...you can mix up some Quinoa...I had some ready made in the fridge. It takes 15 minutes to cook up so you have time to cook it while the veggies are in the oven. (or in my case...just nuke them to warm them through)


Pull the veggies out of the oven...mmmm...looks yummy!


Combine veggies and quinoa in a bowl and serve...

U-Pick

Yum!
Nothin' better than fresh hand-picked Strawberries!



We took the kids to pick strawberries this evening. It was a good day for it 70's and cloudy so we didn't have the sun beating down on us.



A local farmer does this u-pick every year. I love supporting them...and I love farm fresh fruits and veggies!!


That's my little man picking berries...so cute.


and my baby girl....testing the product. (it's u-pick...not u-eat...lol)


That's me showing Buddy which berries to pick.


That's my hubby holding our bounty...that's 12 pounds worth of Strawberries!! Cost us $15. We'll be eating strawberries forever.

I also started the week out right with a nice 6 mile run this morning. I ran down to the local park and back. Coming back is a challenge coz it's all up hill. Ugh.
I got home just before it started to rain.

Today's Half-Training Run:
Time: 1:21:06
Distance: 6.04 miles
Pace: 13:25

Shopping FAIL

Every day is a new day I'm reminded of my past
Every time there's another storm I know that it wont last
Every moment I'm filled with hope
cause i get another chance
But I will try I will try
Got nothing left to hide

I'm beautifully broken and I don't mind if you know it
I'm beautifully broken and I don't care if I show it.

Beautifully Broken by Ashlee Simpson

So today I went shopping, should have ran my scheduled 3 miles, but I went shopping instead. Things were going great until I stopped by Dick's Sporting Goods to look at running shorts...

At this point I should mention, I don't own a full length mirror. I also should mention that the Vegan diet seems to make you feel amazing and energetic. So I haven't even thought about my body image in several weeks. I've just been running and eating and living life. I know from my clothes that I've been losing weight but I haven't stepped on a scale in a few weeks...I get number crazy. So I have vowed to stay away from the scale until July 1st. all that said...

I walked over to the running shorts feeling like Ms.Thang. I knew I wanted/needed compression shorts for my thigh-flab issues. But I also wanted to get some shorts. then I saw them, shorts with built in compression shorts. How cool. I'm trying them on!

XL? L ? I have been losing weight I'll try them both. And with that I skipped off to the fitting room. Beaming with confidence I grabbed the L first. and put them on, slid them right on! Hell Yeah I knew it! Go Vegan! Go Vegan! Yeah. Then I looked into the mirror... and the party was over. Staring into the mirror I saw my legs. The legs I feel so proud of, the legs that run 9 miles....but, what I felt, and what I saw were not the same thing.


In my head my legs were awesome, powerful, beautiful. But when I looked in the mirror, they were old, and fat. The compression shorts ended in a tender part of my inner thigh and cut in just a bit, enough to really showcase the lovely thigh cheese I was growing there. My mood sunk. I wasn't a runner, I wasn't fit and healthy. I was old, fat, used up, worthless. A fool to believe that true change was possible. I tried on the XL and it was bigger, but the issue was the same. I am a size L and I should be happy about that...but I wasn't. I gathered everything and went back out into the store. Hubby was a bit stunned by my quick mood change, but he caught on to what was going on. I told him I was ready to leave, I wanted out of the store.

An old saga was trying to play itself out again. The words spilled into my brain like the lines of a well rehearsed play. "Not good enough", "Give Up", "Failure". These are all the lines my Internalized Parent/Super Ego likes to feed me. The next step in the play would be the appearance of my Id/Child which would mean crying, eating bad food and feeling depressed...sometimes for weeks. Those two, (parent and child) would battle it out and when the dust settled, my ego would then emerge from the rubble to clean it all up again. That's when I'd "start running again" or "go on a diet". The initial trigger was different each time, but the result was the same, conflict, pleasure seeking, depression, guilt and fear.

We had some different errands to run so hubby took care of those as I sat in the car thinking.

It is true, I'm not where I want to be weight wise. But, that shouldn't negate the the fact that I have lost weight, or that I'm a size smaller now...yeay! My inner thighs do have some cellulite on them and maybe I'm not ready to where shorts that short. But, I'm coming along, I just have to give it time. NOTHING CHANGED the only thing that was different was my emotions. I can choose to look at the positive, or focus on the negative.
It is my choice.

But, You know what? It's all good. Because, I saw this whole thing attempt to play out. I caught it in time to do something different. I realized the trappings of my past, I felt sad for the moment, but I kept to my plan. I did not medicate with food. I reasoned through my emotions and I've got a run planned for Sunday morning. I may still stumble but Perfection is not the goal. Moving forward in health...that is the goal!

Let them eat...Pizza?

lol, yes I'm still vegan. And yes I've been told vegan pizza is an abomination... but hey, don't knock it till you try it! Tonight was pizza night. Yummy pizza which is definitely a favorite of mine. This time, done vegan. It's not hard to make a plant based pizza, and it can be AWESOME. Here's how I did it.

Get a pre-made plant based pizza crust. Yes you could and probably should make your own, but I'm really bad a making dough...so premade crust it is.



1 Natures HiLights Brown Rice Pizza Crust (looks to be about 10" diameter)
1 Jar Eden Organic Pizza Sauce
1 bag of Daiya Mozzarella Shreds
Spinach (chopped)
green pepper (diced)
Roma tomato (sliced like pepperoni)
mushroom (sliced)
black olives (sliced)

I follow the directions for the crust and pre-cooked it then pulled it back out and topped it with the pizza sauce and veggies and viola... vegan pizza.



The Diaya really seems like cheese, and is amazing on the pizza!
Since there were 2 crusts in the package hubby and I figured we'd each cook up one and make it our own way. Well if there is one thing I can say for sure about vegan eating...it is FILLING. So I actually only ate 3 of the four pieces you see in the picture above. We should have cooked up just the one crust after all. Old Pizza habits die hard..sigh. From now on we are going to just make one pizza and each eat half.

As for running, Hubby talked me out of the 5 miler I had planned for today, and into running the C25k W1D2 with him. It was nice to go back to my C25k roots. W1D2 is so easy now. It's amazing how fast my mileage and endurance have grown

Today's Memory Run:
Time: 01:02:20
Distance: 3.26
Pace: 19:07

I'm a believer...

Wow, I really just can't even believe this is me.
I can't believe I'm running like this.
Today I went for my long run and not only did I run farther than ever before but I also ran faster than my normal time by a full min per mile. This is insane!!
This whole process is pretty amazing to me. How someone can go from gasping at running 5 minutes straight to now running for over an hour and a half at a time... it's just mind blowing.

So my plan today was to run 7 miles. That would be 3.5 miles down the trail and 3.5 miles back. I think I must have over shot and ended up going an extra .25 because when I got back to the car runkeeper said we had gone 7.53 miles. Oh well, the extra half mile doesn't hurt. At the half way point I slowed down for just a bit to chow down of some Sharkies
They say "Vegetarian" not Vegan on them, but I cannot find anything animal based in the ingredients. So I guess they're ok.

I do feel that they gave me a certain boost for the second half of my run I felt a renewed alertness come over me about 25 minutes post chowdown. That lasted right up until the last half mile and then it slowly started to fade away. So that last half mile to the car was pretty much all me. Everything I had left.
After my run, my knee was feeling kinda, i dunno.. weird. Swollen, sore, maybe a little poppy, kinda concerning. Several hours later it felt ok but it has me worried thankfully I have this stuff ordered and on its way.

I'm hoping this will help my knee out some. Otherwise, I guess the next step is a running assessment and new shoes. One step at a time.

Sunday Long Training Run:
Time: 01:38:00
Distance: 7.53 miles
Pace: 13:01

Cut the Cheese...

Well I've been vegetarian for almost 2 months now and I gotta say I'm liking it. I have less cravings for food, I feel better, and have more energy. I've been slowly pushing toward Vegan. That is my personal goal. But one thing has stood in my way. CHEESE! "Behold the power of CHEESE!" With my last visit to the health food store I found Daiya and it is nothing short of amazing. But, what is more amazing is...I don't NEED it. I add it sometimes for taste, or lets face it a quesadilla isn't quiet right without cheese. But, I don't add it to EVERYTHING like I did regular cheese. I was a huge pizza addict...5 slices, double cheese. OOoey,Gooey, lovely cheese. When Wendy's had their "Wendy's Cheddar Lover's Bacon Cheeseburger" OMG amazing. But I think more than the food...this was at play. The Food Fix Is In
I'm not trying to go conspiracy theorist on yah. But, hey, something just isn't right here. Four months ago, I was scarfing down pizza and ice cream and ooey gooey cheesy deliciousness and today...meh. Actually the thought of the texture and mouth feel of ice cream for me is less than desirable. Yuck. I KNOW, I can't believe it either...and that thought is in my head!! After all the gimmicky diets, all the fads, all the self hatred all the weakness, all the binging on off limits foods, all the failure. Could it be I was addicted to food? If that's true, then vegan is the only way to go, at least for me. And MANY other American's who struggle with weight and yoyo dieting. We shall see. I'll make myself the guinea pig and start fully vegan today. No calorie restrictions, no measuring food, one 1 rule, no animal by products. I''ll tell you, giving up meat...not that hard really. Giving up dairy...hmm. But I really feel that we've been dooped here. Think about it, anything that businesses could add to their food that could make it addictive would only make them sell more products, and make them richer, come on, really, do you think Coke or McDonalds really care about you? Do you think it's in their best interest to keep you safe and healthy? I DON'T if they can make money off killing us very slowly they will. $$$ Bottom line, it's just business baby. Oopsie, our product gave you diabetes after eating it for 15yrs, well how could we have know that? Not our problem.

Pretty Darn Convincing...

OMG...I can't believe I'm actually considering going vegan. I haven't set anything in stone, but this book make a pretty good case for going vegan.