New Blog Site!

I've been working on getting a new blog site set up through Wordpress.com, but I haven't actually been able to follow through with it until today. Please take a minute to bookmark my new blog and subscribe to it at Eat To Live, Live to Run.

I will be posting in both places for a short period of time until all my readers join me on WordPress.

One of the reasons for this change is because I wanted a new blog name. I feel like "Inside Every Thin Girl..." served a purpose for a while, but the focus in my life has changed from losing weight to living a healthy life through diet and exercise. While I still have a few pounds left to lose I want to focus more on my life, my running, my recipes, my family, etc than only weight loss.

Thanks for reading what I have to say! I hope you will join me at Eat to Live, Live to Run.

The Plan

Happy Saturday! It feels so nice to be at home with the family on such a beautiful day. Lincoln even let me sleep until almost 9:00 this morning which is highly unusual, we are usually up by atleast 7:30.

For breakfast this morning I decided to have just a simple bowl of cereal. Quaker Oatmeal Squares with Almond Breeze Vanilla Milk.

I bought Almond milk a few days ago because I've been wanting to give it a try. I'm definitely not vegan (or even vegetarian) nor am I allergic to milk, but I love trying new things so I figured why not? I think it is now one of my new favorite things on earth!

There was a 5K this morning that I thought about running in, but I decided against it for a couple of reasons. I'm running in one next Saturday and didn't really feel like getting up super early two weekends in a row, and I have an 8 mile run scheduled for tomorrow so I thought I'd give myself a break today. I'm planning on going to the gym to do the elliptical today for a change of pace. I miss the elliptical sometimes.

As of right now the plan for the day is:

1. 1 hour Elliptical
2. Buy fresh fruits and veggies (we have none!)
3. Make BBQ pizzas for lunch with leftover chicken.
4. Take Lincoln to the zoo or the park.
5. Clean and organize pantry.
6. Fold and put away about 4 loads of laundry.
7. RELAX!
8. Make Spaghetti Squash with meat sauce for dinner.
   

What are your plans for the day?

Day 2

I'm too exhausted tonight to write much, but I took some great pictures that I wanted to share. We went to the Smoky Mountain National Park today as I mentioned in an earlier post, these are some shots I got.

Tonight for dinner we decided to stay at the cabin and cook out on the grill. I was pretty nervous after seeing the 4 bears earlier this evening on the back porch but they decided not to join us for dinner thankfully. We made: BBQ chicken breasts, grilled mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes and pineapple, creamed corn and leftover rolls from the steak place last night. It was delish! It was just exactly what I wanted and it was much cheaper and more nutritional than going out to eat.

After dinner I was craving something sweet so we drove down the mountain to Downtown Gatlinburg to find something to satisfy my craving. There were all kinds of fudge shops, ice cream shops, candy stores, and bakeries. I almost decided on a funnel cake, but at the last minute I changed my mind and we ended up at Ben & Jerrys. I've been craving pumpkin lately and Ben & Jerrys had Pumpkin Cheesecake Icecream.

It was heavenly! Now if I could just figure out a way to make myself not feel guilty for eating it. I keep going back and forth through my mind between "You are on vacation, relax! You can work it off next week" and "You don't need that and you are not hungry. Have you learned nothing?" I wish I could find a better balance.

I still haven't found any good running spots. I guess I'm gonna be doing some trips up and down the staircase tomorrow to get my cardio in if I don't figure out something quickly. I'd really hate to miss my long run for the week on Sunday, but if I can't find a place that I can safely run with a baby stroller then I'm just gonna have to put it off until I get back home.

But for now ... I'm going to retire to the bedroom with a good book. Goodnight!

What's Going On?

I don't know what the deal is lately, but I have completely lost my willpower when it comes to eating. Thankfully so far it hasn't caught up with me on the scale yet, but I'm sure my day is coming. Lately I have been eating anything and everything in sight, especially at work. I was doing so good at being strong and resisting temptation but all of a sudden I've been chowing down on cookie cake, Halloween candy, Chex Mix (OMFG the Chex Mix!!), and pretty much anything else I can get my hands on. I wish I knew what the problem was.

I wonder if I'm subconsciously sabotaging myself because I'm so close to my goal. Hmmm ...

Thankfully I've still been doing great on exercising. The 1/2 Marathon training program is going great so far. Today I did another 4 mile Fartlek, actually it was really only about 3 miles of Fartlek and 1 mile of easy running. I cut myself a break on that one though because I feel mentally and physically exhausted from some situations that I have been dealing with the last couple of days and not sleeping well, and I know thats why I tired out in my run so quickly.

The good news is that fall vacation begins NOW! Tomorrow we will be packing and preparing for our trip to the mountains. I couldn't be more excited! I can't wait to relax in the hottub with a glass (or bottle) of wine, picnic in the Smoky Mountain National Park, run in the mountains, grill out, and just spend time with my family without any other worries.

I don't have any food pics today so I'll leave you with this picture of my son and I snoozing in his crib together. Isn't he the cutest thing you ever saw? I love that boy!

Convincing Myself.

Its 5:20 am on Saturday morning, its barely 50 degrees outside, its dark, and I'm suppose to be getting ready to go run an 8K. It would be so easy just to get back in bed and be all snuggly and warm for a couple more hours. I need to convince myself that I really do want to go run this morning!

Healthy Food is EXPENSIVE!!!

Yes, I'm still alive!

I'm 50/50 on my goals that I set for myself this week. I haven't weighed myself at all since last Monday morning, so tomorrow morning's weigh in will be a complete suprise. I feel like I did well this week though. My eating was really good, I stayed within my points for the week, and I exercised 6 days. So no matter what the scale reflects I know that I did good.

I wasn't able to completely follow through with my 2nd goal for the week though, which was to track all of my food on my Spark People account. I did really well most of the week while I was off work, but I wasn't able to keep it up with the crazy weekend I had. Working 12 hour shifts really doesn't leave time for anything else besides sleep, run, work ... repeat. I'm not disappointed in myself for not following through on this one, I tracked everything in Weight Watchers atleast so I pretty much know where I stand.

One thing I have been working on lately is a plan to help me save money and pay down my debts. I haven't quite gotten the plan completely in place, but I'm working on a budget and I've been clipping coupons and reading some websites and blogs about money saving tips.

I'm shocked at how much money I spent on groceries last month. I added up all my grocery trips and the total came out to a god-awful ridiculous amount that I'm too embarassed to even repeat because it's literally that shocking. I've definitely got to get that under control! I think once my two week ban on grocery shopping is over, I'm going to start doing my grocery shopping once a week when the new sales ads come out. I'm going to plan all my meals ahead of time for the week based on the items that are on sale at the stores I shop at.

I even made a coupon organizer complete with printed categories labels. Lookie ...

Do you shop with coupons? What kind of money saving strategies do you use?

Goals for The Week

First of all, there is something that has been on my mind that I want to discuss. For all you Biggest Loser fans, last night on the episode when they had to order all of their food out, did you notice that they said to make sure their fruit didn't contain any: bananas, melons, or grapes? I keep thinking that maybe I misunderstood what they were saying. Surely they don't have them on such a strict diet that they can't eat certain fruits! Or do they?

My personal philosophy on fruits and vegetables is that, I didn't get fat eating them and they aren't going to make me fat now. Unless of course, you fry them or saute them in butter. I don't normally count points for fruits and vegetables that I eat raw or cooked without additives.

Every week I like to set a couple goals for myself. My weeks start on Monday (as far as weigh-in goes), so I'm a little late blogging these but thats ok. My goals for this week are:

• To only weigh on weigh-in day.
• To track everything I eat on Weight Watchers and Spark People.

I signed up for Spark People several months ago, but I stopped using it because I felt like it was too time consuming and redundant to track my food on both Weight Watchers and Spark People. One thing I did like about Spark People though that Weight Watchers doesn't have is that you can track all of your nutrients. You can actually see a breakdown of your calorie, carb, fat, and protein intake and measure it against the recommended daily amounts. You can track any other nutrients you are interested in as well.

Lately I've been really interested in not only losing weight, but also healthy living. By this I mean that I'm more interested in the nutritional value of what I'm eating than the Points value. So that is why I wanted to start using my Spark People account again. So far I'm doing really good at staying in the correct ranges for calories, carbs, fat and protein.

My other goal for this week is to only weigh on Monday. When I was younger I was completely scale obsessed; I would weigh when I first woke up, after I went to the bathroom, after I ate, after I exercised, anytime I went into the bathroom. You get the idea. I think this stems from growing up in a househould with someone that had eating disorders. My mother struggled with anorexia and bulemia when I was a child. For that reason its really important to me not to be scale obsessed anymore. I usually want to weigh myself every morning when I wake up, but I realize that there will be normal fluctuations from day to day and that weighing on a weekly basis is much more reliable.

My eats for today included:

Kashi GoLean Crunch with Vanilla Oikos Greek Yogurt


A Gala apple, my fave!


Leftover spaghetti squash with meat sauce, and a side salad.


1/2 of a Green Monster (Yep, thats yesterday's pic again)


Steak with mushrooms, green beans, roasted cauliflower, and
a twice baked potato.

I also had a handful of Quaker Quakes Mini Rice cakes, a Crab Delight snack, and a piece of garlic toast. It really seemed like I ate alot today, but I came in at 1450 calories.

I ran 6 miles this afternoon, and it was extremely hard for me today. I don't know if it was because I ran in the afternoon and I normally run in the morning, or if I was just having an off day. I literally felt like I couldn't have taken one more step though, and I felt all weird and dizzy afterwards. I think my body needed the extra calories tonight because I felt much better after dinner.

$13 Running Socks

These babies are my $13 running socks:

Tim has been raving about these Wigwam socks for weeks now. We went to Kinnucan's a few days ago and I saw them for sale. Tim insisted that I should buy them.

So today I decided to try them out for my run. When I first put them on they felt like HEAVEN. They were squishy in all the right places, fit exactly like I like them, and weren't too thin or too bulky.

I ran 6.3 miles in them and honestly I have to say once I started running I couldn't tell a difference between these socks and my Champion socks that I normally wear which are $10 for 6 pairs.

I'm gonna have to say the verdict on these socks is a big thumbs down. There is nothing wrong with them really, but I don't think they were really worth the money.

Last Weigh-In Day Post

I have decided that after today I'm not going to post my weight every week. I feel like the scale doesn't always reflect the work that I've done and I don't want anyone (including myself) to get discouraged by that. I've been bouncing up and down alot lately, and rather than focus on the ups and downs of the scale I would rather focus on my nutrition and activity.

The bottom line is that I have lost 100 pounds! Whether I gain a pound this week, or lose 3 pounds next week really doesn't matter in the big scheme of things. The important thing is that I'm active and healthy and that the scale continues to ultimately go in a downward direction. I have about 15-20 more pounds to lose and that might take me 6 weeks or 6 months. Who knows? I'll definitely let you know when I hit my goal weight though. I will also continue to update my weight tracker at the top of the page.

So ... for my final weigh-in post, I gained 0.4 lbs this week. I'm not surprised at all by this, if anything I'm surprised it wasn't more than that. I did ok on my activity this week, but I had a couple of rough days with my eating.

I've been thinking about training for a half-marathon. A friend of mine gave me this article out of a magazine that she found. The only problem I have with this training program is that it seems pretty strict. Because of my odd work schedule I won't always be able to do everything as its posted here. I think I could probably use this as a basis for creating my own custom training program though that would fit my work schedule better.

What do you think of this plan? Do you know of any other training programs that might be better? Would it be reasonable for me to change this around to comply with my work schedule better?

Not As Planned

Well so much for that lovely dovey, today is gonna be a fantastic day, nothing can go wrong business I spoke of this morning. For starters my cat barfed all over my house this morning. Awesome! And then when I ran outside to get Lincoln in the car to take him to Gymboree, my car wouldn't start.

So instead of taking him to Gymboree I got to take him to the car dealership and sit in the waiting room for 30 minutes or so while they replaced my battery and charged me $200.

Atleast Lincoln had fun playing with the toys.

And pretending to talk on my cellphone.

After we got that all straightened out it was lunch time. We met my friend, Bailey at Jason's Deli for some grub. I ordered the Mediterranean Wrap with Organic Blue Corn Chips, homemade salsa and a water.

The wrap was awesome! Oven roasted turkey breast, roasted Red Pepper Hummus, cucumber, purple onions, Kalamata olives, Roma tomatoes, and organic field greens in an organic wheat wrap ... whats not to love? The blue corn chips were good too, but if I had known that they were 5 points I probably would have just gotten some steamed veggies instead. I was anticipating them to be about 3 points. I guess thats what I get for not checking ahead of time.

Bailey wanted to make sure I included a picture of her in my blog, so here is a token picture of my friend Bailey with my food.


After lunch we went and picked up our race packets. I haven't really looked to see what's included yet. I also need to work on my playlist ... so more on that later.

I Want To Be a Granola

Granola: An adjective used to describe people who are environmentally aware (flower child, tree-hugger), open-minded, left-winged, socially aware and active, queer or queer-positive, anti-oppressive/discriminatory (racial, sexual, gender, class, age, etc.) with an organic and natural emphasis on living, who will usually refrain from consuming or using anything containing animals and animal by-products (for health and/or environmental reasons), as well as limit consumption of what he or she does consume, as granola people are usually concerned about wasting resources. Usually buy only fair-trade goods and refrain from buying from large corporations, as most exploit the environment as well as their workers, which goes against granola core values.

(I stole that definition from Urbandictionary.com)

Most people who have known me for most of my life will laugh when they read this post. But in my mind, I'm a granola. I care about the environment, about animals, about healthy eating and living, energy conservation, pollution. Sometimes I want to be a vegetarian, except for the not eating fish part. That would just literally kill me. But if it weren't for that I'd probably do it. I'd like to cut all artificial products out of my diet. I'd like to eat only organic whole foods. In my head I'm a completely different person that I am in reality.

The problem is I don't know how. I live in a small southern city. We don't have Whole Foods or organic grocery stores. We don't have organic restaurants. We don't even have a recycling center for goodness sakes! I wish I lived in San Francisco or other places where these things are readily available. I have made some small changes though. I've stopped buying bottled water and instead started using a refillable Brita water filter to reduce waste. I've started using some meat substitutes like Boca Crumbles and Burgers and Morningstar Farms products in place of ground beef, sausage, etc. I try to eat products with no artificial ingredients whenever I have a choice. I've recently really starting loving the Kashi brand products. But there are only a few things available in my area. I've also recently cut out diet drinks and products containing aspartame.

Maybe one day my city will grow and these things will be easier to obtain. Maybe there is even something I can do to help. (Although I don't know what that would be.) Or maybe one day I'll move to a bigger city where this way of life is accepted or encouraged. But until then I guess I'll just have to keep taking the small steps I can with what I have.

I Eat Weird Food in the Mornings

Its 8:39 am, and I'm sitting down to a bowl of salad, fresh fruit and a fat free hotdog. Most people think its super weird that I eat these kinds of things in the morning. I just got home from working a 12 hour shift at the hospital and for some reason I just can't eat breakfast food before I go to bed. It feels like dinner time to me. Apparently its just me though because everyone else I work with eats breakfast when they get off work. Just a little tidbit about me that I haven't shared before.

I have to say that I'm really getting irritated with people asking me "What's your secret?". I know people are just trying to be complimentary and get encouragement in their own journeys, but I swear to all that is holy that I'm gonna blow up on someone one day when they ask me that. It really not that difficult! Everyone knows the "secret" is diet and exercise, but no one wants to do the work. They want a magic pill to make everything better. This is really becoming a huge pet peeve of mine.

A New Toy and The Biggest Loser

This is the new toy that I broke down and bought tonight. Its a Schwinn Joyrider jog stroller. I've been feeling guilty lately about the time that I've been spending away from my son when Tim and I are out exercising. We bought a bike trailer a few weeks ago so that we can take Lincoln with us when we go bike riding in the park. Now that we've both really gotten into running lately I thought it might be a good idea to have a good jog stroller as well.

Part of me feels really bad about spending all this money on the gadgets I've bought to workout with. But then I try to remind myself that although these things probably are technically necessary, they are all investments in my future, in our future, and in my son's future. Not to mention the fact that my husband encourages me. If I even have an inkling of an idea of buying something he's right behind me saying, "get it, get it!". Who can say no to that?!

I'm really looking forward to being able to go for runs in the park with my son. I think it will be a great family time, and it will give my mother in law a break from watching him every day not only while we work but also while we workout.

I did make a couple rules to follow regarding the stroller. I decided for safety's sake that we will only use it when we are in a park, on a track. I'm too afraid to use it out on the road, not only because of traffic but also because of the freaks that are out there in the world. I really don't want anyone messing with me while I have my baby with me. Its sad that the world has come to a point that you have to worry about things like that.

On another note I was super stoked about The Biggest Loser premiere tonight. That show has seriously helped change my life. Its so incredibly motivating! Every year up until now when The Biggest Loser would start I would wish that I could be on the show, that I could make those changes in my life, and be like those people. The ironic thing is that I'd usually watch the show while chowing down on a very unhealthy dinner.

It feels completely different to sit down and watch the show and know that I used to be where those contestants are starting out at, and that I have changed my life, instead of just wishing I could do it. Its hard to explain but my whole life, my way of thinking and everything I'm about has totally changed, and its amazing!

A Very Sad Day

On this day two years ago, one of the most important people in my life passed away. My Granny was an amazing woman, and she was always there for me even when it seemed like no one else in my life was. Her death was especially hard on me because she died when I was 10 weeks pregnant. I actually hadn't even told her that I was pregnant yet, although I suspect that she already knew.

I can remember every time we went to visit we would stay up late at night, laying in her bed and she would tell me story after story. I loved listening to my grandmother's stories of her life when she was a young girl. I remember her telling me about when she got the family cow so drunk on moonshine that it couldn't stand up and how she was so afraid that she had killed it. That was always one of my favorites.

I always loved the way my grandmother talked. She was from the deep south and lived way out in the country. She called paper towels - towlin' paper, and eggplants were called vegetable eggs. It still makes me smile to remember trying to figure out what she wanted when she asked for a piece of towlin'.

Granny always worried about me and my sisters. She'd call us every year and remind us when it was almost time to get our driver's licenses renewed. I still don't know how she kept up with all those dates.

I hope that I never forget all these things about my grandmother. It scares me to think that in 20 years I might not remember all these great memories. Its only been two years and I already feel like I'm forgetting things. It also makes me incredibly sad to know that my son will never get to meet my Granny. I can't wait to tell him about her when he gets older.

RIP Granny - You are loved and missed everyday!

Exhaustion

I keep wanting to write about my freezer meals that I cooked from my new cookbook, but I'm so exhausted I'm not really up to it tonight. I did two back to back 45 minute spin classes tonight with 15 minutes of elliptical between the classes and I'm absolutely EXHAUSTED! I've also been ridiculously hungry lately. I had 2 big binges today ... one on chex mix, and one on tortilla chips. I've already used up most of my weekly points and its only Tuesday! I need to slow down or I'm gonna end up with another gain this week. Well, I'm gonna try to get to bed early. Tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut and colored. Still not exactly sure what I'm gonna do. I have a picture picked out but I keep thinking about chickening out on it. We'll see what happens!

Weigh-In Day

I had a dream last night that I gained 2 pounds this week. But I was ok with it in my dream because I knew I had done everything I could do as far as being active and eating sensibly.

In actuality, I lost 0.8 pounds, and I'm ok with that too. Of course I would have liked to lose more, but I think I'm getting to the point where my weightloss is really going to slow down and become much more gradual. I'm also to the point in my mind where its not as much about the weightloss anymore for me as it is about the lifestyle changes.

Being able to go out and run, take my son to the park to ride bikes, walk around the zoo, enjoy an active lifestyle with my husband and cook healthy and delicious recipes for my family has become my main focus. Now I'm not dissing my scale, please don't tell her I'm talking shit about her or she might seek revenge. I think I just have new priorities.