A little free advertising first–no Revolution Tea did not do anything for this. I just happen to like their tea, and I got a free cup for ordering more than 25$ worth of tea during my last online purchase. This is a cup of the Dragon Eye Oolong which I am loving.

I’ve just been pondering the word revolution. It comes from the latin revolutio meaning: “to turn around”. (…according to wikipedia!) That’s what I need right now. And why not on the first day of September. The first day of fall. The year is coming to a close and I’m not much closer to my goals than I was at the start of the year. Yes I’m faster, yes I can run farther. But I’m basically 2 pounds away from where I started. Even if I had only lost one pound a month I’d be 9 pounds down this month and that much closer to my goal.

I’m not sure what exactly needs to turn around–as I said I’ve been regular at working out and my food has been pretty good. I think it’s my attitude that needs to change. I’m viewing these things as a burden right now instead of tools to help me on the way to my goal. Something to be tossed to the wayside when I need a “break”. And yes there’s a certain healthy balance to taking a couple days off of exercise (full disclosure: Even though I said I needed to run Tuesday…I didn’t. I didn’t wake up this morning for my 2 mile run either). It’s not the end of the world if I haven’t counted calories in 5 days. But these are the tools I’m using to get close to my goal. I have to accept that if I don’t use these tools I will not make the progress I want. If I want to start making progress again I need to use these tools.

So starting today–I’m going to keep a food log again. And starting today I’m getting back on that treadmill. Don’t let one day off the routine turn into 2, 3, a week, a month, a year.

Let’s turn around starting today.

Blah.

I think I’m bored with my food choices now. Maybe I just need to shake that up a bit. I added that protein in last week, but a lot of it was egg whites and I ate a lot of cabbage last week too. Those two flavors are fine in small doses but several times a week and I started getting sick of them. Maybe it’s as simple as recommitting to counting calories. There were two days last weekend when I didn’t. I didn’t think I ate very much those days and I exercised a lot both days, but maybe I was missing something there.

There are so many events coming up where I want to look my best. A wedding, a vacation, the holidays, new years. I know I can lose around 10 pounds by the end of the year and I honestly think that’s all it would take to make me feel more confident. I just need to put the work in and not let these small disappointments get in my way.

I spent a lot of time this weekend baking. I made 3 loaves of cocktail bread (I’m totally obsessed with it. Good thing the BF likes it just as much, and we froze the extra loaves.) I also made a loaf of white bread pictured above. I woke up this morning with some stomach issues so I ended up calling in sick to work, and I’ve been nibbling pretty much all day.

Some nibbling was done on this fruit salad. Some on the cocktail bread with smoked salmon. A couple slices of white bread–one with nutella and one with cherry preserves. I had a left over pork chop topped with salsa, a sweet potato. A couple glugs of kefir. A cup of yogurt. A protein shake. 2 coconut macaroons. While this strikes me as an ok calorie day, I’m not sure because I didn’t count calories. I’ve definitely got to get back into that tomorrow.

I’ve also got a 4 mile run tomorrow. Gotta wake up early and get it done!

Eep! Another 5 mile run under my belt! And if you check back you’ll notice this one was run about 1:40 faster than my last! Go me! *boogies*

Before this run I had breakfast. Which consisted of 3 cinnamon rolls. Seriously.

But hear me out! I’ve found that for me, this is the best fuel for my long runs. I used to eat whole wheat bagels or bread with peanut butter and a banana. I would play with the quantities, but that (plus water) was pretty much my long run breakfast for years. I figured it had everything I needed–whole grain carbs, protein, fat, and the banana for electrolytes and what not. Then one day I made a batch of buttermilk pancakes for the BF and I to use up some left over buttermilk. Then I decided on a run. I had so much energy! Way more than on my previous go to breakfast. So now about an hour before any run 5 miles or longer I eat a bunch of refined carbs. Pancakes, waffles, cinnamon rolls. Whatever. I try to keep it all around 300 calories, and it’s usually the biggest amount of refined carbs I’ll have all week.

Total for food today is around 1600 calories. Lunch was a sandwich from this deli place–ciabatta, field greens, chipotle mayo, 2 slices of bacon and turkey–AHhhhhmazing! Plus I stole a few of the BF’s order of fries.) Aside from that I had a few crackers with cream cheese, one coconut macaroon, and half a glass of kefir. Not a ton of food, but it was all pretty calorie dense. Net for the day though I’m only around 1000 cals.

My day has mostly been spent running, lying around recovering from running (while reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), baking, and then late in the evening I went to Whole Foods. Yes, that place is darn expensive, but it’s the closest grocery store to me and they have AMAZING cheeses. And I love my cheese. I’m waiting for the day when I move close to a Trader Joes. I’ve got two that are about 15 minutes away. The whole foods is 2 minutes.

Anyway, above is my haul. I bought a bunch of fruit to make a fruit salad. I’m going to be eating out on Wednesday and Thursday so I just picked up pasta, broccoli and parmigiano reggiano to make this pasta dish I love. Fresh mozzarella and cherry tomatoes to make a little salad. Smoked salmon, and dill to go with the bread I made yesterday–a rye, pecan, and currant cocktail bread. Sweet potatoes for lunch. Yogurt, mango smoothie, and Kefir for breakfast and a couple peanut butter squeeze packs and think thin bars for snacks. Not bad I don’t think! I didn’t really have a great plan for this week since I’m eating out so much, but I think I can put something together from all of this…

Here’s to a good week, Internets!

So there’s this place near my office that does whole roasts and carves them right there for sandwiches. Trust me when I say that the sandwiches are amaaaaaaazing. They pile the meat high and the bread is fresh and delicious and the toppings are really really good quality. The trouble is of course that they can be little calorie bombs. Even without mayo or cheese the bread and meat alone can be close to 500 calories. (And I am NOT a half sandwich type person. I will almost always end up eating the whole thing.) The only solution? Their salad bar! The quality of the ingredients is great, PLUS they cook the chicken that you can top your salad with FRESH. I absolutely cannot STAND most chicken in fast food salads. It’s so pumped full of water and compressed and it doesn’t look like normal chicken. It really freaks me out.

Above is a photo of a salad I normally get. Usually I get avocado instead of egg, but I’m trying to eat more protein so I swapped them and took out the yolk.

Today is a rest day and I’m feeling antsy that I’m not burning calories. I keep trying to tell myself that one or two days off a week doesn’t mean I won’t lose weight. I don’t know it’s my all or nothing thinking coming to get me. I’ve got a 40 minute cross training workout tomorrow. I think I’ll be biking and ellipticalling. Hopefully I’ll have good news for my weigh in Sunday!

I want to address this somewhere. This is a statement I’ve seen over and over again–usually from people trying to sell you their own type of diet (ahem *weight watchers*).  I was thinking about this last night while reading these two related posts.

First, in the interest of disclosure let me tell you I disagree with the original Tweet. If you count calories, fat, whatever, you can still have a healthy relationship with food. What the original author seems to be saying here is “If you can’t just know intuitively that you’re eating too much/too many calories you’re unhealthy.” Uhhh–except the end goal is the same isn’t it? So who cares how you get there? Either you know through experience or “intuition” how much / what to eat, or you use tools to get at the same end result (calorie counting, scale, meal plan, whatever). I’ve done it both ways and I’ve lost weight under both schemes, and I’ve also gained weight back after I gave up both.

Which brings me to the real point of this post. “Diet’s Don’t Work.” Uh…yes they do. “Studies show that diets don’t work.” Umm…WHICH studies exactly? And what EXACTLY where they studying? Because I’ll tell you what. If you actually eat less calories than your body burns, over the long run (barring any medical condition like Cushings) YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE WEIGHT. The rate, and amount is going to differ depending on the exact delta between calories in and calories out and your own genetics, but you will lose weight on any diet where you are consuming less than you are burning.

“97% of people gain the weight back.” Ok ok ok. But why do they gain the weight back? One day they’re following the diet and losing weight, and the next day they do the exact same thing and magically start gaining? NO. They gain the weight back because they stop following the diet. They start consuming more calories than they burn.

So diets do work at their intended goal. They allow a person to lose weight. Keeping it off? That’s a different story.

Look, I’m not saying it’s easy to follow a diet. I should know better than anyone. I lost 65 pounds just by eating less and exercising more. I didn’t count calories or follow any prescribed meal plan. I just stopped eating out and ate really small meals and tried not to snack. I also ran 3 miles a day. The problem was my lifestyle changed. I moved in with a BF that likes eating out more than I do, he also eats larger portions so it distorts my sense of what I should be eating. I got a new job with longer hours and a longer commute and I started cutting down on exercise. I’ve put 20 of those 60 pounds back on. I’m now trying to address these issues and lose those 20 pounds again. But I don’t blame the original diet for not working. It did what it was supposed to.

Whew–I just felt like going on a tirade about those issues. They really bother me when I see them because they’re so trite and pat. People just seem to regurgitate these thoughts without really thinking about what’s happening behind them.

Anyway onto my day–this morning my office had free bagels and free chicken nuggets and biscuits from Chick-fil-a. Those chicken biscuits are like crack. The buttery sweet biscuit, housing the salty fried chicken nugget. I could easily eat 10 of them. I had one chicken nugget and half of a whole wheat bagel with cream cheese instead. Trust me when I tell you that was a victory.

Also as you can see above I’m all geared up to run home from work tonight. I haul in my running stuff in this backpack (which also holds water), then I change in the bathroom and stuff my work clothes in here and off I go.

First off, internet, I went to a baseball game last night and I DIDN’T have beer! Hallelujah! (Seriously–this is a moment to celebrate. I love having a cold beer at the game.) It may have helped that it was actually a bit cool out. I absolutely can’t wait for fall. Spring and Fall are my favorite seasons here in DC. The humidity dies down, but it’s still warm enough to be out and about. And in general isn’t there just something about fall? Cozy sweaters, pumpkin beer, root vegetable soups…

Second off: I did my 2 mile run this morning! Woo! I upped the incline and speed a bit so I may have felt like I was dying a little, but still I’m glad I got up early and got it out of the way. Now I can go home after work with a clean conscious and cook and enjoy myself.

Third: Just want to give you an idea of what my food looks like lately. Not very interesting but clean and whole at least. This is a packet of Kashi 7 Grain Hot Cereal, a small banana, and some raisins. I’m off to down a protein shake now! And get in a lot of water.

This is what I had to resist today internet. The most yummy delicious deep dish pizza in all of DC. I am not one of those healthy people that’s like: “Oh I don’t even crave that stuff anymore! My body only likes healthy raw veggies and seeds! Tee hee!” No. My body like–loves–pizza. Deep dish, thin crust, NY Style, whatever. I will eat it happily. All those carbs smothered in tangy sauce and oozing with cheese…

Ok, I’m drooling. But as I was saying, I like pizza and my office tends to order it a lot. I almost always give in–but not today! I had a protein shake before hand and that already had me full and I was able to resist.

Otherwise today has been going well. I actually ended up running most of the distance I needed to this morning (if you saw my morning tweet). I did cut my run short by a quarter mile because it was getting really late, but I had a really nice run and I felt great!

Let me tell you a little story, internet. Years and years ago when I was young, thin, and spry I used to go to the gym a lot. My gym had mirrors. I would use these mirrors pretty regularly to check my form. Both running and lifting weight. No problem. Then I left that gym and started running outside and not lifting weights as much and well I started putting on some weight. When I moved to my new apartment I gained an amazing new gym. With mirrors. So one day all innocent and naive I was running on the treadmill and I remembered that I had mirrors so I checked me form. Not. A. Good. Idea. Oh my god I was horrified! I was like a windsock! Like a bowl of jello in the middle of an earth quake. Ladies if you are at all sensitive I suggest you NOT try this at home. I of course do it every time I run now because it’s like a train wreck and I just can’t look away. I have this area of my body–kind of my lower back, but around the sides above my hips. Oh my goodness. That little patch of skin was just waving around wherever it pleased!

Today? I looked in the mirror again. And I couldn’t find that little patch waving around. I don’t know if it was what I was wearing, or if I actually lost some fat there but it all looked pretty normal. I felt so good after seeing that–it really put a spring in my step.

Then the scale told me I gained 2 pounds in 2 days. Uh what?

I’m going to ignore the scale for a little while…

Okay, let’s ignore the fact that this photo is blurry. Let’s instead look at the numbers inside! 5 miles people! 5 miles in less than an hour! And this was WITH my self-enforced half mile walk. (I start every run with a quarter mile walk, and end it the same way. Making sure I warm up and cool down ya know. )

This is a pretty big deal to me because I’ve run the Army 10 Miler for 4 years now and I’ve never broken the 2 hour mark. I’m a slow runner, I accept that. But I’ve run the 10 miler in 2:05-2:15 and it’s secretly been a hope, a wish that I could break two hours. With a 5 miler a couple months before the race under two miles–I feel like maybe it’s possible!

Plus that means I ran 4.5 miles straight. I’m constantly amazed at how much I can do. I think I constantly believe that there’s no way I could possibly run more than say–2 miles. So when I do something like this it blows me out of the water. So I’m feeling good!

What I’m not feeling so good about? I ate egg whites this morning. Ugh. Definitely a “food as fuel” moment. I tried this recipe, and while I’m sure it works for her I didn’t have a chance to eat it at home (running late) so I tossed it into a baggie and ate it at work. At which point the steam from the heat made a nice little puddle for the eggs to sit in. Plus the “egg” taste with the sweet was already something new for me. It just did not end well. Tomorrow I may just hard boil the eggs and eat them that way. I love me some hard boiled eggs!

But I did eat them, which goes along with my “protein” plan so that’s good. I’m currently scarfing down some oatmeal too.

I meant to get up early this morning and lift weights (ha! I almost wrote: “lose weight”) but my body was craving sleep after that long run yesterday. I got a solid nine hours last night. I feel pretty spiffy this morning. So I’ll just suck it up and lift weights after work.

Here’s to a good week everyone!

Frothy deliciousness. Some friends were unexpectedly in town–the BF and I decided to take them to this great place in Logan Circle–Churchkey. They have a ton of beers on tap (60 I believe) plus cask ales, and an amazing menu. Of course we had already eaten at this point, but that didn’t stop us (me) from sampling the beers! You can make your own flights and order 4oz of anything. I tried a barely wine, a cask ale and a pumpkin beer. (I love pumpkin beer! I can’t wait for fall!)

Before all of this I had a hair appointment (dyed out the highlights in my hair–I’m back to au natural at the moment!), I picked up my birthday present to myself from Tiffany’s (a silver necklace with a small aquamarine–I love it!), and most importantly (to this blog) I went to the grocery store. I picked up a ton of healthy foods and I have a menu I’ll be following this week. The foods aren’t that interesting–lots of egg whites and tuna, etc. I’m trying one week where I eat more protein so I can see if that keeps me full. I’m not doing low carb–I’m still eating oatmeal and fruits, but I think I need more protein in my diet. I am going to try and do a week without alcohol too. I never drink a lot but the next day I feel a little out of sorts. Not hung over–but not on the top of my game. So we’ll see how these things go.

I will also be continuing with my running schedule this week. Got a 5 mile run on tap today!