Allergies

Yesterday I shamelessly carried a roll of toliet paper from the bathroom back to my desk.

I didn't have allergies for most of my life - however, I think I am hitting the jackpot now.  Ugh.  

The past few days have been yucky - coughing, sneezing, running nose, scratchy throat. 

Gross.   

Dan has always had allergies, so he is weirdly happy that I now get to join in his misery.  After both coughing and sneezing, we take turns "shhshhing" each other to not wake Ina.  

Could someone please send a lifetime supply of tissues to our house?  

I tried to run yesterday with Ina, but soon found that I couldn't breathe, so I called it at 2.5 miles.

Today I am taking an extra rest day - and any medication I can find that doesn't cross into breast milk.  

Because I can't let a second of my life go without being captured on the blog - on Sunday my family met to celebrate my niece (weird to say - still getting used to Matt and Cindy being married!) Jayelin's birthday.  Here are a few pictures: 

(Hi Amanda!)

I love birthday parties - an extra day to have the family around. 

Eats

Breakfast - my first smoothie of the season!  In the mix: 1.5 frozen bananas, 2 handfuls of spinach, 1 C frozen berries, 1/2 C Greek yogurt, 1 C skim milk, 1 T peanut butter.

This baby kept me full until lunch.

Lunch - cottage cheese and fresh pineapple with a sweet potato that I stuck in the microwave

Snack - handful of mixed nuts 

Dinner - buffalo chicken and potato casserole following *this recipe*

Girls on the Run Race 2013

Saturday was my first (of hopefully very many) Girls on the Run events.

Like my cheer buddy cape?

The day ended great, but started out, well, interesting.

First, Dan and I were in a tiff.  I don't remember how it started or ended, but the middle involved the task of collapsing the  BOB stroller to fit it in the back of my car.

Dan thought the wheels should come off.

I looked up a video on YouTube. 

After putting the wheels back on we were good to go.  

As soon as we arrived at the event Ina had the biggest blowout to date.  Not kidding - the stuff was in her ears.  We had to strip her down in the parking lot.  

After quickly feeding Ina, picking up my packet, and saying hi to my friends Ashley and Liz I met up with my team.

I met a new girl who I was assigned to run with and supervise before the event.  Her name was Emily.  Emily asked if she could get her hair spray painted.  I secretly wanted mine pained too, so away we went. 

After waiting in line for 5 minutes Emily and I were next up.  I turned down to ask her what color she wanted to get and saw that Emily had her hand over her face and blood dripping out of it.

I almost fainted (not a blood girl) but then pulled myself together and realized she just had a bloody nose.  There was a lot of blood.  A lot.  

I tried to tell her everything was going to be OK and hurried her to find the first aid station.  After asking so many people I finally found the ambulance with a few EMTs who were assigned to the race.  They helped clean her off and hold her nose, but even after 10 minutes the bleeding wasn't stopping.  One of the EMTs said something about going to the hospital.  

Yikes.

The only thing I knew was Emily's first name.  Emily knew her last name, but not much else.  She didn't know her phone number, her address, etc.  I couldn't find her coach in the pack of people.  I slightly freaked out, but finally found the race director who was able to look up her information just as her coach happened to see us.  Whew.  

Emily was a tough girl, but as soon as she saw her coach, someone she knew, she broke down in tears. Poor thing. 

By this time the race had already started, but the race director instructed me to meet the race and go "randomly cheer on girls."  

I met up with the race around the one mile mark and immediately had goosebumps covering my body.  There was so much excitement as girls, women, men, and the rare boy raced around me, cheering each other on.  It was so great to see everyone working together.  I loved it.  

After jogging around by myself for a bit, I found a few girls who didn't have any adults with them and ran with them the rest of the way.  

One of the girls was having a hard time finishing.  It was hard to know how much to push and encourage her to run.  I had already taken one kid to the ambulance, I didn't want to take another.   It didn't really matter though, because once we saw the finish line, she was a trooper and finished strong.  

I don't have words to describe the look of excitement / accomplishment / pride she had on her face.  

I can't wait until next season. Hopefully I will be able to go to a few more practices and get to know my team a little more.  

If you have a GOTR around you, I would strongly encourage you to sign up / volunteer to do something.  Obviously, there is always a story to tell.  

Pictures from Ina's First Time Eating Cereal

Ina's first foodie pic.

She was pretty excited

She loved it - didn't even spit any out.

She kept on trying to grab the bowl and or spoon.  

She thought she could do it herself.

I can't wait to see what other foods she loves!

Click here for the video - it is worth watching just to see her excitement.  :)

My Weight Watchers Simply Filling Review

Good Morning!  Everyone do the Friday dance with me!

This week went by like a tortoise for me - anyone else?

Today I am posting my review of Weight Watcher's Simple Filling plan - their alternative to the calculating points plan.  Howevever, it is a bit anti-climactic because my diet didn't really change. I was already eating fruit, veggies, lean protein, and whole grains.  I used the same recipes I have always used and substituted power food options when I could.  

What did change was my attitude. It was so nice to change things up and not feel the need to calculate the points of everything I was eating, and then add up what I had eaten the entire day. 

I have to be honest here and say that I completely stopped calculating points / tracking.  Although the SF plan includes doing so for non-power foods, I instead ate those in moderation and ate until I was satisfied. 

Let me say that again - I ate in moderation and until I was satisfied.  I have been trying to lose weight since I have been breathing and never, ever in my life have I been able to eat in moderation without measuring / calculating points.  

I wish I could point to what changed, and the only thing I can think of is that I am getting the nutrients that I need by eating mostly power foods, so my body doesn't feel the need to overeat or binge.   

In the six weeks I have followed SF, I have lost 6 pounds.  I know that isn't ground-breaking to most, but a pound a week is recommended when nursing.  Anything more could impact my supply and I don't know what I would do if Ina's rolls started disappearing.

Seriously - don't her arms look like sausage casings?!?  They are so cute I could just eat them!

Here are some other positives I found about SF:

• Less calculating.  I do know however, as I get closer to my goal weight, I will have to be a little more strict with tracking non power foods
• So much nutrition!  I had no problem meeting all of the good health guidelines everyday.
• I weirdly rarely craved dessert - I cannot say the same for a glass of wine.
• SF is truly not a "diet" but a lifestyle.  I could eat like this for the rest of my life and be a happy camper.  

A few negatives:

• I jumped off the artificial sweetener train a long time ago - but WW hasn't yet.  Although SF allows things like diet soda or fat free yogurt flavored with artificial sweetener, I chose not to eat those and hardly consider them "power foods."
• I love fat free milk, yogurt, and half and half.  I can tolerate fat free sour cream.  I don't do fat free cheese, so instead I had low-fat (in moderation) and it worked out just fine.
• I also don't think the low-calorie bread options are all that great nutrition-wise. As Dan says, it is just like eating air. So, when I choose to have bread, which isn't that often, I have a "real" piece of whole wheat.  

Some SF resources:

The Weight Watchers Website

Danica's Daily - a blogger who reports everything she eats and follows SF (and lives close to Nappa Valley - so jealous!)

Carol's SF Creations - a old-school recipe blog.  I love it!

Lastly, I have a disclaimer.  Although I am currently happy with the SF plan, I am sure that I will go back to calculating points later on in life.  I think calculating points / tracking is a great option for losing weight and would recommend it to anyone.  I am going to steal Katie's term and say this is a weight-loss project, and right now SF is the tool I am using to get it done.  

Have a great weekend!

My Tri Checklist

 

Good morning!  Just a quick post before I head into my (early!) WW meeting. 

As it turns out, training for a triathalon takes a lot of planning and preparation.  Unlike running, where, for the most part, I can put on a pair of tennis shoes and walk out my front door.

I posted this list the other day on Instagram.

 

I haven't gotten very far, except that I do have a (free!) bike / trainer.  Now I just need to learn how to use it.  No biggie.  

Last night Courtney and her fam came over for dinner and she was nice enough to lend me a few tri suit / outfit / leotard things.  

Next on the list - sign up for a gym membership and get in the pool.  I am also thinking of signing up for a Masters swimming class, as it has been quite a few years since I have swam for sport, but where does a girl find the time?  

Eats

Breakfast - hard boiled egg sandwhich while feeding Ina - multi-tasking!

Lunch - shrimp - quinoa salad with cottage cheese and pineapple

Dinner - spinach artichoke dip chicken following this recipe with whole wheat spaghetti and roasted green beans.

The picture does not do it justice!

Courtney brought over angel food cake with strawberries and ice cream for dessert. 

 

Super yum!

Run

Ina and I squeezed out 2.5 miles - we ran out of time!

Have a good Friday-eve! :)

Will this Matter in 5 Years?

Lately, I have been getting very upset with myself so I am trying to practice asking the following questions:

Will this matter in 5 years?  Will this matter in one year?  Will this matter tomorrow?

The answer is always no.

Like when I misplaced Ina's Royals sweat-suit pants that match her jacket that she wore to her first game.  I tore apart the whole house looking for them. We still can't find them.  

Although she did look really cute in her jeans.

Or when last night, I made stir fry for dinner.  It was ready and Dan wasn't home, so I put the pan on low with the lid on and went to read Ina some nursery rhymes.  When Dan walked through the door he asked what was burning, and sure enough, the sauce I had made was a black tar at the bottom of the pan.

In case you are wondering, it takes a lot of soy sauce and sriracha to mask the flavor of "burnt."  

Or when I hop / run down the stairs with my coffee cup in my hand and spill coffee on the stairs and myself.  Then do the same exact thing the next day.  

Grrrr!  I get more mad at myself than I do anyone else, and even though I know that all of these are very minor, at the moment I want to scream.  

Please tell me I am not alone.  What do you do to forgive yourself?  

This always makes me feel better.

Exercise

After I completed the Fluidity video I was still feeling antsy, because I hadn't run since Sunday.  So Ina and I went out for a slow 3 miles.  

She loved it so much she fell asleep - holding her plastic keys.

Other Eats

Breakfast - overnight oats with bananas and leftover baklava filling

Lunch - greek taco filling, tzatziki, quinoa, and a cucumber.  

Thought for the day

(source)

Tri Something New Week 1: Barre

It has been a great morning so far.

I woke up to a Kansas City win on my phone,

I actually remembered to pre-set my coffee maker last night and didn't have to blindly fumble with the darn thing to get my caffeine fix, and I have this contraption in my living room.

In the spirit of trying something new each week I asked my friend / neighbor / running partner if I could borrow her fluidity bar / DVD for the day.  

I have read great things about barre-type workouts and knew this would be high on the list of new things to try.  

I popped in the DVD and because I am blindly optimistic, I channeled my inner-ballerina (she was very hard to find) and started at the intermediate level.  Twenty minutes later I was trembling.  

Pros: 

• Low impact - but don't let that fool you.  Low impact does not equal low effort.  Because I run I have strong legs and they were doable, but the core / ab portion of the video had me crying.  
• Low key - I could get used to waking up to this type of soothing working with multiple rest periods for stretching.  I was even able to do the workout in my pajamas.  Ha!
• All over workout - arms, abs, core, and even my legs are tired this morning

Cons

• This is mostly a strength workout - my heart rate stayed pretty low the entire time, which was nice in some ways, but I would always complement this with a run or some type of cardio.  (As opposed to JM videos - she has your heart pounding for 20 minutes straight.)
• Moola - I know the fluidity system is super expensive (Thanks Kim for letting me borrow it!), and barre classes in Kansas City are $20 a pop.  

Want to try a barre workout at home for free?  The Fitnessista has a video you can try - all you need is a chair.    

Eats

Breakfast - I "repurposed" my grandma's coconut iced Devil's food cake by adding Greek yogurt, strawberries and bananas.  

Lunch was leftover Greek taco filling with quinoa, a diced cucumber, and tzatziki sauce.

Dan made spaghetti for dinner while I worked and we enjoyed it on the back patio. 

Thought for the day

(source)