You are what you eat. I eat what I love. Thus I am what I love :o)

My friend and I successfully completed a full week of clean eating (the week ends at 2:00 pm Friday).  The most significant difference I noticed was my energy level.  Even with daylight savings time, I found myself waking up alert and ready to start the day.  This energy seemed to last the entire day.  Normally I'm beat by the end of the day and barely have the motivation to eat dinner.  I was still tired in the evenings, but not so tired that I couldn't talk myself into doing my night time tasks.  I could definitely feel a positive change.  I think it's important to note the positive changes you feel by healthy diet and exercise habits, not just what you see.  It's easy to focus on pounds lost and waist sizes, but if you focus on healthy choices and the instant benefits that come along, it's easier to stick to it while maintaining your sanity.  I think it creates a healthier outlook too.  Remember it's a journey, not a destination.  Thinking about it this way helps us create healthy, lasting lifestyle changes.

One way to make health changes permanent is to make sure the changes are sustainable.  Before starting a new routine we should ask ourselves, is this something I can do long term?  If the answer is no, we should probably think about finding another way to accomplish our goals.  It's great to have the motivation to work out twice a day, and of course we'll get the results we want more quickly.  But if we can't sustain that level of activity and revert back to old habits, we'll soon find ourselves back at our beginning body fat percentage, if not higher.  A better plan is to do things in moderation.  Aim to work out twice a day twice a week, or everyday for a week every two months.  This is much easier (mentally) to maintain :o).  This is the reason my clean eating goals do not include weekends lol. (In addition there is lots of research about spiking your metabolism with so-called "cheat meals."  Again the important thing is moderation.  We want to spike it, not send it off the page lol).

So several times last week my friend and I pondered over (fantasized about) what we would eat at the end of the week.  I love cheese so I knew my meal would be something cheesy lol.  The other weekend another friend of mine invited me to go to Mondola's.  It was my first time there, but I settled on ordering margherita pizza and IT. WAS. DE. LICIOUS!!  I decided that in breaking my "fast", I would have it again.  But then I had a better idea.  I decided to make it.  I once heard someone say that a good rule of thumb is to only eat junk food as often as your willing to make it :o).  Most of us would be fitness models if we stuck to that.

A perfectly peeled tomato.  Trickier than it looks!

I was a little nervous about trying to reproduce something so divine, but my recipe was simple enough (read: < $$$).  It called for crust, crushed tomatoes, olive oil, basil, and cheese.  I did not have the ambition to make the crust (as I child I baked a lot so I have enough experience to know that it can be difficult and that I'm out of practice lol), but I did want to "make" my own crushed tomatoes rather than buying canned.  This is more complicated than you might think.  You can't just mash up tomatoes, but instead you have to first peel them and then cook them til they are soft enough to be mashed.  I also seasoned them with garlic and herbs since this would essentially be the pizza sauce.

Fresh pizza sauce (Check out my running band on the counter! You might be a runner if... lol)

The most expensive part of the recipe was the cheese.  In addition to Mozzarella, it called for Parmigiano-Reggiano, and the cheapest wedge I could find was still over $6!  Total ingredients came to about $13.  This is about what I would have paid if I had just gone to Mondola's, but of course I have ingredients left over and things are always healthier when you (well, when I) make them at home.

Anyway the pizza turned out great!  I was completely satisfied, though I will get the mozzarella sliced a little thinner next time since it didn't spread as much as I thought it would.  It's been seven days since I ate in a restaurant.  Can I go seven more??

You can do anything!!

You can do anything.  No, really you can.  It sounds so cliche but I assure you it's true.  You may have to work hard.  You may have to sacrifice.  But you can achieve anything you decide to achieve.

A lot of people, friends mostly, have asked me how I started running.  I'm a normal enough girl.  I'm just like them...  Except I run.  So why do I run?  I grew up in Colorado, one of the healthiest places in the country.  Everyone has an outdoor hobby (running, biking, hiking), and it is rare that you see someone who is overweight.  I grew up watching these people.  I knew that one day I wanted to be like them.  Something about them intrigued me.  My neighbor in elementary school used to run around the neighborhood.  I'd see her on the streets regularly.  When I did an internship at the University of Colorado my mentor was a cyclist.  She looked like it (fit).  These people were amazing to me.  We live in a culture where exercise is a chore.  We dread gym class from the time we are little and the mile run is the worst day of the quarter.  I was always intrigued by these people who seemed to see it differently.

In high school I signed up for track my senior year.  I was a sprinter in middle school.  I was actually pretty good I just lacked the interest and parental guidance to stay involved.  4 years later, I was no longer a sprinter.  I ran the 800, and I never broke 3 minutes.  But I enjoyed it.  To get in shape I initially would run 2 miles on my mom's treadmill each morning.  It was so hard.  But I felt so good afterwards.  After my first year of college, I came home for the summer and just decided to go for a run one day.  It had been such a long time and something about being home just made me want to.  I just ran and ran.  Then I clocked the mileage in the car.  I had run 3 miles!  It was by far the farthest I'd ever gone without stopping.  So I set a goal to keep it up all summer.  I can't remember exactly what it was.  It was something like run 3 miles 5 times a week.  And I did it.  Every week the momentum just built.  The more runs I completed the more I wanted to do.  And then it began.

That summer I met another student (now a good friend) who had completed a marathon.  I was in awe. 26.2 miles.  I just couldn't imagine.  So I put it on my to do list :o).  A year passed and I found myself back in Boulder Colorado for another internship.  There's something about that place.  I started running again.  This time I was not enrolled at CU so I didn't have a gym.  Instead of 30 laps on the track (can you believe I did that 50 times in a summer??), I ran outside.  I did this all summer, going to bed around 9:00, before all the other students, so I could wake up and start my day off pounding the pavement.  I would do an out and back that totaled 3 miles.  And then I started doing 5 miles.  I was gaining endurance.  I was becoming that runner I'd always wanted to be.

My college is in a country town in northern Louisiana.  People there do not live an active lifestyle, much less organize road races.  But it's about four hours from Dallas :o).  In my mind I decided the path to the marathon started with some small races (5Ks) in Dallas.  I envisioned myself racing on the weekends, going further and further distances until I was a marathoner too.  It didn't happen.  I was a very busy person as an undergraduate, but the main road block to my running success was me.  I made becoming a runner much harder than it actually is.  We make time to do what we truly want to do.  I didn't make it a priority.  I pushed my running goals to the side and focused on other things.

The many effects of a nonactive lifestyle is another blog entry entirely, but the most obvious one is weight gain.  The following summer I left for an internship (note that it was not in Colorado), and I came back to Louisiana the heaviest I'd ever been, up until that time and since.  I was very unhappy with my new weight so I decided to 1) start tracking my calories and 2) start a 10K training plan.  As I think back to that time now, even though I had no idea what I was doing, I did a lot of things right.  I implemented specific things.  I didn't just say I wanted to lose weight, I figured out a plan that would result in weight loss.  I also didn't look for a quick fix.  I don't think I ever considered weight loss fads, I knew I had to do it the right way, through diet and exercise.  I also didn't come up with a number of calories to limit myself to everyday.  I only used a website to track my calories, and that alone caused me to make healthier choices.  I remember I stopped eating refined grains and simple carbs.  Wheat pasta, wheat bread, nothing white.  Obviously I know a lot more about this now, but I had the right idea.  I didn't actually plan to run a 10K, but the plan I found seemed doable and I enjoy completing things like that.  It was like a checklist of runs to complete.  Over several weeks the weight came off (~20 lbs! oh, to be 21 again, lol), but more importantly I had experienced how easily I could build up to a 10K:

1. Print a training plan.
2. Do the training plan.
3. Run the race.

At the end of that school year (May 2008) I did just that.

Getting ready the morning of my first race

Running the Bolder Boulder 

A little over a year later, I ran another 10K (Oct 2009) and 6 months after that (April 2010) I followed the same simple instructions to run my first half marathon.  And then, in December 2010, I officially became a marathoner :o).  Now I've completed 5 halves and 3 fulls.  I have another full next month.

My second race, Run Austin Run 

You can do anything.  No really, you can.  It may not happen overnight.  The first time I ran more than 2 miles was the summer of 2005 so my journey to becoming a marathoner took more than 5 years.  But I completed it.  People will try to discourage you.  Sometimes it's not intentional and sometimes it definitely is.  A lot of people (who don't run marathons) have tried to tell me that our bodies weren't made to run marathons, and that it's bad for your knees, etc. (a blog for a grumpy day cause I actually really hate that lol).  But there are plenty of other people who will support you and give you the resources you need to succeed.  Starting is the hardest part.  We often put far more energy into thinking about things and procrastinating than it takes to actually get them done.  So just get started.   Make "one day" today.  You can do anything.  No really, you can.