Ramblings of A Healthy Chick

It’s hard to be healthy when your house isn’t.

Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I am an advocate for helping those in need. I am STRONGLY encouraging everyone to take a minute and help those who need it. During the month of April, Pfister will donate  a $1 worth of brand new Pfister faucets for every new “like” on Pfister’s Facebook to Rebuilding Together up to $20,000 worth of product for homes in need. Rebuilding Together is a non-profit that provides low-income homeowners with critical repairs that helps keep America’s families in safe living conditions.

Here’s how you can help Pfister and Rebuilding Together reach their goal:

• “Like” Pfister’s Facebook Page and $1 worth of product will be donated Already a fan of Pfister?
• Make a monetary donation to Rebuilding Together through the Friends of Pfister campaign on Causes.com! Pfister will even match your donation up to a total of $5,000.

Take the moment and make the difference

Yesterday, my coworkers and I ran a St. Patrick’s Day 5k. We were pretty excited since this was one of my coworker’s first race! Going together was motivating and greatly supportive. We kicked some hill bum.

I thought this wouldn’t be so bad for me, but boy, it was a personal challenge to get through.

Let me tell you why.

The Back Story:

Last summer, I barely completed Utica Boilermaker 15k. My sister had raved about this race for the past 10 years, and I was excited to see what all the fuss was about. Even though I trained for that 9 mile race, the moment I had to run up my first hill, I had mentally checked out.  I began having trouble breathing due to my anxiety. I had to force my sister to leave me behind because my pace was killing both her time and her legs.  After she left, I had to walk an entire mile just to get my head back into the game.

I finished with these results.

My time bummed me out considering only three years earlier I had crossed the finish line next to my sister for my first race, a half marathon.

So, since that day in July, I have been working towards improving my time so that I WILL run with my sister this summer for the entire race.

The Race Story:

Yesterday, I gained my first official proof that my hard work is paying off.  A couple of my coworkers and I ran a St. Patrick’s 5k.  I have been able to run 3 miles outside since January, so I thought this race would be a cakewalk for me.  Not to imply that I thought I was going to win a medal or complete the race in less than 30 minutes. But, I assumed I would have no problem completing.

You know what they say about some one who assumes right?

Out of the starting gate I was faced with a huge downhill. Great right? Who doesn’t like to run downhill? Unfortunately, halfway through the race I realized that this was an out-and-back run.  You know what that means right?

I WOULD HAVE TO RUN A MILE and ½ UP HILL!!!

My brain tweaked. The same crippling anxiety that I faced in Utica came back with a vengeance.  I slowed my pace, and tried to recover, but I wanted to do was stop and give up. The nice police officer could drive me back right? Or I could walk up the entire hill, and just have a slower race time.

Before I took the walking break, I saw a sign.

You gain strength, experience and confidence by every experience where you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you cannot do. Eleanor Roosevelt

Ok, it was a shirt on a very nice woman. I commented on it, and she slowed her pace and talked to me. I learned more about this woman. She was a local Latin teacher and we bounded over our shared love for dead languages. More importantly, she ran that entire hill with me.

I could not thank her enough, because I now can go into my next race knowing I CAN make handle an unexpected hill.

Proof?

If you notice from the first two pictures, at my half-marathon, I ran the 5k portion in 32:15. Then, last summer, I ran the 5k portion of Utica in 37:56. Yesterday I ran the 5k in…

31:33 Baby!

Yesterday, I ran this race faster than BOTH Utica and my original Half-Marathon—with the evil hill.

This doesn’t mean I can stop my training, but I am glad to know my consistent training is working.

Conclusion

I can do this.

As a daughter of an ICU/Trauma certified nurse, I taught to lift up a vein every time I saw a blood drive.  My work sponsors a blood drive every 56 days, so it is convenient to give back to my community. My suggestion for my blog readers is to consider donating their blood this month as a way to send someone you don’t know a Valentine.

But you have to be ready to donate.  One of the most common ways to be turned away at the donation center is low iron levels.  The American Red Cross will only let you donate if you have a 12.5 iron reading on the day of donation.  Why is that? This is to make sure you  are able to replace the blood you lose swiftly and safely. Other benefits from increasing your iron levels include increasing your body’s ability to carry oxygen and becoming less irritable.

To prepare for donation, you need to do what you can to support your iron levels.  As someone who only eats red meat when she enjoys her Chipotle Burrito once a week, I have had to but some effort into maintaining my iron levels.

Foods that contain iron are (as suggested from the American Red Cross Website):

• ready-to-eat cereals
• beans
• spinach
• beef
• shrimp
• tomatoes
• oysters
• broccoli
• rice
• peas
• potatoes
• watermelon

 This post, like the recipe, will be short and sweet.  One of my dearest friends, Sara Q, was kind enough to send me her go-to lentil soup recipe.  This quick and easy recipe is the highlight of my lunches this week.

First the 411 on the lentil beans. This was my first time cooking with this legume.  A third of the plant is filled with protein that includes essential amino acids.  Check out Wikipedia for more details.

Now, the recipe.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cookin Time: 35 minutes

Servings:  4;  WW PP’s: 4

Ingredients

• 1 cup of dry lentils
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 2 carrots, chopped.
• 2 stalks of celery, chopped.
• 4 cups vegetable stock
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tbsp of olive oil

Directions

Pizza is a weakness of mine.   I always thought that a good crunchy crust is wonderful for my taste buds but not for my waist line.  That is not the case!  I went back to the basics.

I pulled out my recipe book from when I took a cooking class in Florence.  This focaccia bread makes an excellent base for not only pizzas, but is also a great side bread any soup or salad combination.  This ingredients for this recipe is simple- just flour, yeast, water, and salt.  Just kneed ingredients together and allow the dough to rise, and you won’t be sorry.  I made the bread ahead of time so that I will have easy  and yummy dinners for the rest of the week.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Combined Dough Rising Time: 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Bake Time: 30 minutes

Servings:  6;  WW PP’s: 8

Ingredients

Grocery Store Tip: You will find the fresh yeast in the refrigeration section, normally by the cheeses/milk.

• 3 cups flour
• 1 cube of active yeast
• aprox. 1 cup of lukewarm water
• 1 tsp of salt
• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• Slice onion, or the vegetable of your choice.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine cube of active yeast with one tablespoon of olive oil and one cup of lukewarm water.

Combine flour and salt in mixing bowl.

Make a well in the flour.

Add the water mixture gradually.

As soon as ingrediants combine, place on table and kneed until dough is smooth and elastic.

Replace in bowl and cover with a towel. (Avoid placing near a source of heat or a Golden Retriever who may try to eat it).

Let dough raise for one hour.

After this time, divide dough into 6 parts.

Make into six mounds.

Pour remaining olive oil on each mound and coat both sides.

Place slices of onion on top of each mound.

Let riaise agian for 30 minutes.

Punch a few dents with a finger.

Place into oven and bake for 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven, and enjoy!

Focaccia bread makes an excellent base for a personal pan pizza. I topped mine with 2tbsp of ricotta cheese, homemade sauce, and mushrooms.

Can I share a secret?

Appearance wise, I don’t think I look any different than I do in June.

I have evidence which supports the fact my body IS different than seven months ago.

I am down 25ish pounds.  I have lost a total of 17.65 inches. You would think I would notice.

But I really haven’t. I have had some negative body image talk roaming around in my mind.  Mean things, like feeling bad about where I can go clothing shopping or not feeling normal. Being the largest girl in the room. This way of thinking is starting to hurt me. My mental voice is making me feel bad right now. This illogical part of me wants to just give up.

So, let’s put some positives in there.

I do look different from the girl I was seven months ago. Some physical changes such as weight and hair loss. As last summer progressed, I have been feeling more and more happier about myself.  The combination of accomplishing professional goals as well as maintaining relationships with my family and friends, has caused me to have grown up a lot. So, I need to kick my negative voice regarding my weight insecurities to the curve.

Here is how I am going to do it. I am setting an appearance goal to look forward to. Once I reach my healthy weight zone, I am going to try to convince Dyanna Joy from Dyanna Joy Photography to let me hire her for a photo shoot. She does beautiful work in the State College, PA area. In her most recent blog post, she suggested that woman should just have photo shoots to “celebrate who she is, no matter what stage in her life she is in.”

I plan on keeping that mantra in my head to get through this winter instead of negative self talk.

That, and browse Dyanna’s cute pictures of her cat Penny.

Shhh.. don’t tell Casey!

This week has been a little rough on my activity.  I had a couple long work days, and didn’t make it over to Planet Fitness.  Honestly, I think putting over 20 miles in a week messed with my mental mojo.  My left knee was beginning to ache every time I thought about walking.

Lesson learned.  Even though walking for 30 minutes each day might not seem overwhelming, this rigid schedule was too much more me to maintain.

As always, running and walking for me is a mind game.

Last night, a group of my friends had plans to go this delicious restaurant in my area, Bill Sell’s Bold.  As I walked home from work, I thought going to the gym would probably be difficult.  I had less than two hours to drive out  to my gym, get a 30 minute work out in, drive home, shower and then pick up my friend.  But, then, as I was pretracking my dinner, the big 0 for weekly Activity Points on my tracker stared back at me sadly.

So, I threw on some work out clothes, and made my way to the treadmill.  My work out was tough to begin with.  I increased my pace to a 10 minute per hour pace after one work out song.  I figured I could alternate between that pace with a 12:00 per hour pace as the music changed on my Iphone.  However, as the songs changed, I realized the faster pace wasn’t killing me.  So, I slowly increased it.  Wouldn’t it be awesome if I could maintain this faster pace longer than 10 minutes.  10 minutes became 15.  15 became 20. So on and so forth.

I ended up running the entire time.  A total of 3.1 miles in less than 31 minutes.  That is a new record for me!

Last Sunday, my body screamed when I tried running that fast for 10 minutes.  I guess it pays to let my body rest.

On a more important note, I was able to go out and enjoy my 8 Activity Points on delicious tapas!

I enjoyed a seared tuna with maple drizzled sweet potato fries along with a French Martini. Worth every second I ran.

Happy Weekend Everyone!

Look what healthy foods I could buy for 16 bucks.

Weighing in early this week has lead to a startling event: my first gain.  I am up .4lbs this week.

Was this a surprise?  Not necessarily.  As the number popped on the scale, I thought of all the reasonable culprits.  It’s just days before TOM.  Surely its bloating.  Or, I did move over 21 miles this week. So it can also be my sore muscles retaining water.  Additionally, I normally don’t weigh in on Mondays, so maybe it is my natural weight change.

I won’t lie.  The less than half a pound gain did make me feel bad.  But you know what?  I am more than those few excuses.  I just have to realize that gains do happen to good Weight Watcher people.  Now, it’s more important what I do because of the gain.

I  can throw the program out the window, because being on point has lead me to increase (even though ever so slightly) in weight.  Or, however, I can focus that I accomplished lots of good activity this week including group trivia and cooking good German food with friends.

I am choosing to focus on the positive and stay on program.  As I said yesterday, the only alternative is to keep gaining weight.  That is why I marched myself out of my meeting and picked up some staples that were missing from my kitchen.  I have been slacking in getting my good health guidelines.  Now with a stocked fridge, getting my good health guidelines will at least be attainable.

To treat myself and fulfill my good health guidelines this week, I am checking out Chobani’s new flavor Apple Cinnamon. Greek yogurt is a great way to get in dairy that is also loaded with good protein. Chobani’s line of greek yogurt always tastes good.  Can’t wait to try this flavor out for breakfast tomorrow.

My lesson today is that my health is much more than what the scale says. I can’t let it be the end all and be all of how I manage my eating behaviors. I need to focus on fueling my body with good foods. We will see how my week goes.

What do you do after a gain?

Ok, you may be asking what is the deal with the Disney Princess Youtube video. It is no secret that I am a Disney fiend, especially with princesses, so it is always appropriate for a blog post.  But, besides this salient fact, this song’s basic premise is that if you can dream something then it will happen.  This isn’t too far away from this past week’s meeting topic.

Weight Watcher’s urged it’s members this week to make “2012: your year to believe.”  Not a surprising topic considering it was the first week of January. The meeting was packed with people joining due to their New Year Resolutions. My leader went around the room and asked us why we believed we could lose weight this year.  My contribution to the discussion was that I didn’t like the alternative.

The alternative for me would be to overeat and gain weight.  I know I am a smart women.  I should have an intuitive and friendly relationship with food.  However, I don’t.  I currently attribute this to the fact I never feel full.  So, if I don’t keep track of my portions, I gain weight.  In fact, in late October- early November, I gained 6lbs in less than 3 weeks.  All by not following the program.  My propensity to gain weight isn’t good for me. My family history includes Type II diabetes and heart disease.

So I believe I can lose my unhealthy excess weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle by utilizing my amazing support system and focusing on numerous non-weight goals, including training for the 2013 Disney Princess Half-Marathon to benefit a women’s charity.

In sum, I will dream, believe, and sweat these last 29 pounds off.

Now sing it JHud!

Do you believe you can lose weight this year? Tell me why!

When I avoid a problem, I tend to want to overeat.

Yesterday, I really wanted to eat a jar full of peanut butter.

Doesn’t that seem strange, considering I was just boasting how proud I was to have lost 26 pounds?

Well, I became overwhelmed with other things in my life.  I am a stress eater.  In 2008, I actually lost the majority of my excess weight. I was doing fine until the pressure of graduate school got to me.  So I went on an Oreo and Ben & Jerry diet.  This happened mostly because, as a perfectionist, I think I can’t talk to others when I have problems.  Yesterday, eating a jar of peanut butter and going to sleep at 7 seemed like the best idea.

But, I snapped out of it.  Took myself to the gym, and just walked off my stress.  While walking, I recognized that like with my weight loss, I couldn’t see it a s a problem that I relied on others for help.  I spoke to my mom yesterday as well as Josh.  I also broke what was bothering me down into a plan, and prioritized what was important.  It was nice to realize that asking for help was far from a failure, but instead a success.  Hopefully I can keep working on not using food to solve problems where hunger is not the issue.

Thanks for reading.