Gym, Tan, Laundry

Shout out to Jersey Shore (which I do not watch and have never seen, actually)!

GYM: I've been really enjoying my renaissance at the gym. After a couple of lazy weeks at the beginning of March, I've been back and really hitting it. I worked out with Adam today and it was nice to see how far I've come in a relatively short time! We were talking on the way home and I think my ultimate goal is just to be always able to say, "I'm in the best shape of my life!". I thought I was after the marathon, but I know I am in WAY better condition now. If I did marathon training again this summer, I probably could shave about 45 minutes off last year's time. We ran into my favorite gym instructor (and hopefully soon to be personal trainer), Mondale, and I had a brief discussion with him about protein powders. I'm just concerned about my protein intake, or lack thereof, with my aggressive workout schedule. He recommended a powder that I can put in my green monster smoothies and we got some after our workout. I felt like such a mega-tool walking down the street with a huge jug of protein stuff. I promise, I'm not becoming a meathead though!

TAN: We actually had nice weather this week and I did a ton of Avon Walk training outside. Which is awesome, except for the awesome tan that I end up with. Last year I had a total farmers tan and watch tan lines because of all my running on the lakeshore path and it seems I'm doomed for that fate again. Plus, when I run, I find my legs never get tanned to match my arms. I'm not going to lie, I was about 10 seconds away from walking into a tanning salon but for some reason, I didn't want to. I ended up at Walgreen's instead and accidentally bought real self-tanner instead of that tanning lotion that I've used in the past. SELF TANNER IS SCARY. Then I started having all these crazy thoughts about how I was actually dying my skin with chemicals and how could that be any worse than fake'n'baking? I'm in a wedding next weekend in a strapless dress so I guess I'll keep on with the self-tanner and see what happens. It's pretty funny because it makes me insanely glittery when I put it on!

LAUNDRY: I have extra laundry to do this week because we are finally PACKING AWAY OUR WINTER CLOTHES! So happy and thankful for that! There were days that I thought we'd never get here but it is so glorious to sit in the living room with all the windows open. I love it! The really craptastic part is that we keep the off-season clothes in our storage locker in the basement. We went downstairs to retrieve our summer stuff and discovered our lock had been cut and Adam's golf clubs (hopefully that's all) were stolen. I WAS SO MAD because we are 99% sure it was a former tenant that came back to vandalize and burglarize after he was booted out of his property by the bank. What a jerk!

Have I ruined it for myself?

I totally meant to have pictures of our awesome CSA box that we got yesterday but I didn't go and pick it up and my sweet Adam had everything put away into the fridge by the time I got home from yoga (which by the way was hard, but great last night). What is a CSA box, you ask? If you were to google the term, you'd find that CSA is Community Supported Agriculture and the basic premise of most programs is that you (and a group of other people that are into local foods) will make a payment to a farmer before the harvest season (usually June-Oct) to fund their growing season and in return you'll receive a box of that week's harvest each week during those months. I read about it in Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and decided to see what was available in our area. Turns out quite a lot. Anyhoo, I signed us up for a much less money intensive program and we can get a box (or half box like we got this week) when we need it and we just mail a check each week. We get our stuff from a cooperative of farms in Wisconsin and they do their program year round, which is pretty cool in CSA land. It's easy, you sign up, mail a check and pick up at a local hippie coffee shop.

For the good... the box, or really paper bag, we got was full of goodness. Mushrooms, oranges, bananas, a large melon (not sure if it's cantaloupe or honeydew), apples, potatoes, onions, broccoli and some other assortments. I was surprised of the quantity. I also purchased a dozen eggs and they look GLORIOUS, all different colors of browns. And they are supposedly laid by happy chickens in Wisconsin. Cute.

For the bad... ok. My main reason for doing this was to hopefully educate myself on things that are in season and I know that the bananas and melon did not come from Wisconsin in the dead of winter. I realize they are just trying to give us our money's worth during the off-season but I would have rather seen beets (which would have required some research for me to cook with and some bravery since I'm not sure I've ever had any interest in eating them). So, I'm not sure how I feel about getting more of it although it was kind of nice to get a large quantity of produce for $9 and some sweet eggs that won't make me feel insanely guilty about the chickens.


Now, for the sad news. I think I may be on the path to ruining one of my greatest pleasures in life. The worst part about making major commitments to eating as much of your daily diet in healthful, whole foods is that you start not being able to tolerate the not so healthful things you mix in there. The last couple of times we've gone out drinking, I've had a rip-roaring headache in the morning, which is not something that has ever happened to me before. Last night I had a Miller Lite and two hard ciders and my head is bumpin! What is that about? Please don't let this new lifestyle ruin beer for me! Not cool, body. I have been trying to treat you as well as I can so don't let me down.

It's mornings like this that make me so irritated that I don't have an endless supply of real (not Americanized) German beer here. Why do we put sulfites and other crap (that ultimately turns into formaldehyde in your body... yes, the same stuff they soak the pigs and frogs you dissected in school in) in our alcohol here? Grrr.

Enough ranting. Must eat oatmeal and go to the gym to sweat off the beer and hopefully rid myself of the headache.

I've been inadvertantly MIA

Sorry about that!! I started a post on Thursday about probably the most annoying thing in the world to me, ignorance, and I haven't gotten it quite where I want it yet. My dad called and distracted me from finishing and posting it and it never got done.

Then we had a funeral to attend yesterday that was about a four hour drive away. And, you already know this, but funerals really suck. For a basket case like me, who literally cannot stand to see other people crying, funerals are an exercise in attempted holding in of emotions. Which is something I completely suck at. So basically, all you need to know to picture the scene is me, with watery eyes and a lump in my throat the size of Manhattan, trying not to cry myself as that would make me look like a tool. I am struggling with a few things in my non-bloggy personal life that made the funeral particularly difficult to bear but I got through it and feel like I am a better person for getting to spend the weekend with Adam's family. They are a really great bunch and I ended up having about 100 times more fun than I was expecting. I truly feel blessed to be gaining good people in my life at a time when I feel that I really need them.

Yoga is going well, except for the fact that I almost puked about 16 times during my class tonight because we had a little too much fun watching the Cowboys game this afternoon. I was irritated that they didn't win, more so because I cannot stand Brett Favre.

I am still reading freaky food books related to my viewing of Food, Inc. last month but am completely struggling with my diet and attempts to change my way of life. Eating "well" is an expensive endeavour. I'm learning more and more why they call Whole Foods, "Whole Paycheck" but I keep telling myself over and over a quote I read, "Eat less. Pay More.", meaning to spend a little more money on better quality food and the body will adjust and be able to eat less while still getting all the nutrients it needs. I will probably have to get a lot more of my thoughts on paper (and by paper, I mean keyboard and this blog) when I finish a couple more books and have a better idea what I'm talking about. And please don't worry, I haven't gone completely off the deep end here. I'm just attempting to make better choices and it doesn't happen all the time (case in point: Wendy's on our road trip this weekend). My favorite things about the two authors that I happen to be devoting most of my time to (Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan) is that they are real people with a realistic message. Schlosser orders a hamburger in Food, Inc. Why? Because they taste good. A huge part of Pollan's message is about enjoying the foods you eat because we Americans have such a nutrient-obsessed society that we often forget about just eating well and enjoying the experience. Enough about that, more to come later.

So... in short, life is pretty much at the status quo around here. Still cold. Still rocking out at the gym. Still attempting to eat less crap.

But I did go to a funeral this weekend so I only have one message to leave you with, hug your loved ones tonight before you go to bed and appreciate every moment.

A successful weigh in

I had my weekly WW meeting last night and it went well. I tortured myself all day because I weighed in on the Wii Fit in the morning and it didn't read what I wanted it to. Then I remembered the so-called curse of Week 2 on the Biggest Losers and started to freak out that I'd suffer the same fate and have a gain. At my real weigh in, things were right where they needed to be. In fact, I got in trouble with WW Online when I came home and put my weigh in results on the tracker. It says that I'm losing too fast but the computer can't take things into account like the fact that the first week my Thanksgiving weight literally fell off. My loss this past week was much more to standards and it's more like what I'll be expecting on a regular basis.

Part of this is hard because the people that sit in meetings that I "look up to", meaning the ones that are in control of their weight, are often lifetime members that have hit their goal and just come each week to maintain. I realize that for me, this may not be a thing to do for a few months, and more like something I will have to do at least part-time forever. I am not blessed with a high metabolism. If anything, my genes work against me. I also think that a lot of the foods that we put in our bodies now have been processed to make them more inexpensive in monetary cost but they are extremely expensive in cost of the weight they put on our bodies. I am lucky that I have an literal obsession with tracking my points on the computer everyday. I think if I can keep that up to a certain degree over time, that I'll be ultimately successful enough to not put the weight back on. I never want to feel the way I did when I went to my first weigh in and saw that awful number on the screen. For someone at my height, it was not a good number.

I am a little worried about handling everything when we go home to Texas but I set a goal for myself to not have any bean and cheese tacos while I'm there. For those of you who know me, you know that I usually set the exact opposite goal to see how many bean and cheese tacos I can have while I'm home. It's going to be a tough one but those buggers are worth almost 1/3 of my daily points value for just ONE TACO! My mom is going to take me to a meeting on Monday so I can have my regular weigh in while I'm there and I know I can stay on track if I work at it. Since I'll be missing my regular Tuesday butt-kicking at the gym, I'm thinking about bringing the 30 Day Shred home with me.

(just FYI, I am still only on Level 1 because I refuse to move on until I can do the whole thing just like the advanced girl and I still suck at the pushups)

Food, Inc.

After holing ourselves up in the condo all day yesterday (dreary weather and Adam has a cold), we finally watched a movie I'd been wanting to see for awhile last night, Food, Inc.


I'm so conflicted as to how I really feel about the movie. There were so many parts that were difficult to watch and I had to turn my head several times because some of the animal scenes were so bad! I remember in high school history discussing Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and hearing the horrors that happened in the early 1900's meat packing plants. Unbeknownst to most of us, we have the same things going on now in our meat industry but most of the workers are undocumented, illegal immigrants so it's happening in our country and right under our noses and nobody seems to care about it.

They did a scene with a Latino family from California that bothered the hell out of me. They were at the Burger King drive thru because they were trying to make the case that they can only afford to eat off the dollar menu. Later they tell you that the father has Type 2 diabetes and needs two medicines that were upwards of $130 a month each. They show you how inexpensive it is for the entire family of four to eat off the dollar menu, rather than buying "expensive veggies" at the market. I believe this to be extremely unfortunate but only partially true. First of all, if what happens on the Biggest Loser is true, we've seen several contestants completely reverse their Type 2 diabetes and come off all of their medications. If that family had the extra $260 to spend on food, they'd be better equipped to afford what is truly nutritious. Plus, their bill at Burger King was $11 and some change, almost $4 of that was toward two Sprites and a large Dr. Pepper. Instead of drinking the sodas, they could have had water for free and bought quite a few pounds of veggies instead of the burgers and chicken sandwiches. I do see the filmmaker's point (to a point) that the food industry has figured out a way to manipulate everything so that processed foods are cheaper than buying most nutrient-high foods. Just look at bottled water for example, in most places it's more expensive than buying a coke.



As far as personal changes that I want to make, I was horrified seeing the parts about our meat supply. It's easy to see why obesity is an epidemic in this country after seeing Food, Inc. It's not always the quantity of the foods we eat, it's sometimes about the fact that almost everything we eat has been genetically or hormonally engineered to be bigger. I know that we can afford to buy organic. And in reality, Whole Foods is far and away the closest grocery store to our house. I want to start making better choices not only to make my "vote" for our food supply count but also because I feel like I'll be putting better things in my body. It's hard though because so many of the things that are great for the WW Plan are heavily processed. A case in point is the Fiber One bars that many of my fellow meeting participants are in to. Look at the ingredient list on the box of one of those bad boys... I'll stick with the Kashi bar equivalent, thank you! In order to keep the processed foods down, I try to eat lots of veggies. To go back to the Latino family I mentioned above, the mother tried to make the case that the burger filled them up better than eating an apple. I counter with it's all what your body is used to. My first week on WW, I was ravenous all day every day. The second day, we went to a restaurant and I ordered a salad to stay on points and I wanted to punch everyone else at the table for ordering things that I wanted (lasagna, french fries, etc.). I remember feeling SO CRANKY that night because all these veggies that WW considers to be "filling foods" were not filling the hole in my stomach at all. Fast forward two weeks, I can eat the apple instead of the burger and still feel satisfied. My body took some time to get used to this new regime that I forced upon it but now I'm feeling filled up by the so-called filling foods. If that family gave it some time, I know they could live a healthier lifestyle.


This post has really been all over the place but I really struggle with food and how I feel about it on a regular basis. I went all out veg for awhile after reading the vegan-Bible, Skinny Bitch (not vegan though, I love cheese and milk too much and raw food diets, uh, no). I feel off the vegetarian wagon after a trip to Argentina. I had to have the steak!! And it was the best meat I've ever tasted in my life, most likely because it wasn't all jacked up like our beef supply. Movies like Food, Inc. make me want to run away to Europe, where the food and alcohol hasn't been completely processed and tainted with preservatives! I want to buy my eggs non-refrigerated. I want to eat lots of butter and cheese and be skinny like the French. I want to be able to go to a market like this:

In my next life, can I come back as a Parisian?

I want to re-evaluate the choices that I'm making on a regular basis. There are farmer's markets even here in the city and I want to commit to going to them more. I want to start buying organic dairy products for sure and look at the meat choices I'm making. We'll see how it all works out.

And the high for Thursday is 16...

That's what the world looked like outside my front window yesterday morning. Cute, no? Yesterday's snow was not so bad. In fact, it was almost enjoyable (except for the time that I got a Zipcar that couldn't drive in it, I had no idea how awesome my AWD SUV was until I was driving a Mazda 3 that was skidding all over the place). But most of it melted during the day off of the sidewalks and there was just a cute little dusting around.

I woke up this morning and had a bad feeling based on the fact that it was extremely dark in the bedroom. I pulled open a shade in the living room to find more snow and non-shoveled sidewalks. Blast! The weather man just said that we should think of today as a "marathon, not a sprint", meaning snow all day long with the heaviest stuff to come overnight and into tomorrow. Craptastic. We'll do the same thing I did last year and keep a tally of how many times I slip and fall on ice. So far, we're at:

Winter, 0

Jen, 0

Last year, I never figured out how to tally points for myself but I think that I will give myself a point for every time that I start to slip and manage to hold on. We'll see what the score ends up in May when we can safely assume that the snow and ice is done. Yes, I said May, the winter never ends up here.

When I moved here in Summer '08, we had a get together with some close friends and my two roomies where we discussed things we were looking forward to about our move to Chicago. My big thing was the winter: surviving it and becoming a true Chicagoan. I'd lived in St Louis and Northern VA for winters before but this would be my true initiation into a "real" winter. That was before we had the worst winter in 39 years.

This year, I'm so over it and it hasn't even started. I just want to fast forward to the end of winter and be done with it. I'm considering registering for the half marathon in Austin in January just so I have another excuse to go home to TX. I will never understand how people can be natives of this place (well, until next summer rolls around and then my love affair with Chicago can pick up where it left off).

I'll try not to be so cranky about winter but I can't promise anything. I have a slight problem with my extremeties. Adam likes to call my hands and feet "ice talons" during the winter because they get so cold and I like to grab him on the neck to warm them. But I think I just might have the worst internal temperature regulation of any human being because I also sweat buckets when it's about 80 degrees. I just need to shut up and embrace the fact that I am a freak.

This picture is from the train station nearest our house, I'm not sure if you can see it but whomever decided that it would be cute to decorate the streetlights with SNOWFLAKES should be punched. Dude, rub it in much? Were they out of cute bells or wreaths or Christmas trees? Snowflakes would be far more appropriate in a place like San Antonio, where they don't actually have to deal with feet of snow every year.

Now, that I've sufficiently wasted a ton of your time with my winter rants, on to more postive things. I had my first big WW weigh in last night. I pretended that I was on Biggest Loser (finale tonight, go Amanda!) and went to the gym and made myself do a "last chance workout". Good times! I won't go into specifics about my loss but we can say that I lost all I gained during Thanksgiving weekend and a little bit more! WOO HOO! I have a long way to go to get to my personal goal, but when I get there I'll be in a place I never thought I could go.

I know that not every week will be as big as this first one, but not every week includes birthday cookie cake. I'm sure just cutting my alcohol portions made a huge difference. My love for drinking pints of wheat beer is not a good thing for weight loss and I'm learning to treat those types of things as treats and not daily life. Plus, the portion control issue is where I was having the most trouble. Every bar/restaurant here serves delicious tater tots and they usually serve you a portion that looks like 3 Super Sonic Sized portions and I usually eat quite a big amount of them. So, re-learning how to go out to eat has and will be my biggest battle. I'm encouraged and ready. I'm pretty sure that at my weight right now, I wouldn't be able to fit in my wedding dress and my mom would maybe kill me for that, not to mention how embarrassed I'd be. SO... gotta keep working!!

Muffin Top

I had one of those horrifying lightbulb moments this weekend. And by one of those moments, I mean several. Starting with eating that second plate of almost exclusively carbs on Thanksgiving and ending with buying jeans in what is an unholy size yesterday. The new jeans were primarily because I looked in the mirror on Saturday night while putting on makeup and since I wasn't doing the "traditional full-length mirror pose" of sucking in to look good, I saw it. I had/have a HUGE MUFFIN TOP! and I was in jeans that I thought fit me pretty well when I was in one of my fatter phases about 2 years ago. As much as I'd like to attempt to justify this, I don't really believe that jeans slowly shrink over time of washing and drying them. I think, in fact, that I have actually been expanding over time. OH and I broke the belt loop on another pair of jeans on Friday when I was yanking them over my slightly larger bum (maybe because of all those muscles?) and the new muffin top. I'm having some wardrobe malfunctions that are just not acceptable, ok?

Generally, I try to eat healthy but I know my portion sizes need work. Well, portion sizes and the fact that I routinely eat a couple (or few) meals a week at bars. And while bar food may be the most wonderful food taste-wise, it's generally fried and has little to no nutritional value. Ug. Luckily, I like a few vegtables and currently have a mega-obsession with Subway's veggie delite. I know that if I make a few swaps, I can work on this muffin top problem. The problem is that I feel like I am constantly fighting this battle with myself of about 15 flex pounds that are constantly creeping back on. My biggest problem is that the easiest way for me to lose weight is to never work out and just not eat very much which is an unhealthy and not very successful for the long term way to lose weight. SO... I blogged about it weeks ago and after seeing myself in that mirror I realize that I must take action and that action is going to be Weight Watchers.

It sucks but I feel like I need a way to better control my weight. I enjoy going to the gym and working out, I just don't enjoy the way that I constantly feel starvation when I do. And it's unhealthy to yo-yo about with 15 lbs. I would like to lose them and begin to believe that they are gone forever. So, here's your chance to hold me to it. I want to do this and I want to feel like I gave it a good effort and really enjoy looking back at the upcoming onslaught of wedding year photos. And I got a new digital camera as an early birthday present so I'd like to feel really good about the way I look in the new pictures.

Weight Watchers?

I'm semi-embarrassed to admit it but I'm contemplating joining Weight Watchers. I've gained a lot of weight in the past year (or at least I sure feel like it, please tell me that I wasn't always this much of a chunky monkey) which I like to attribute to two things, the marathon and my extra being in love weight. I might have said it before but don't set out to do a marathon if you think it's going to result in massive weight loss because the results are, for most people, quite the opposite. Picture this: you've just run 10 miles (like you do on a regular basis) so obviously you are starving, like African child distended belly starving, so you eat a crap ton and you eat a crap ton of bad food because you're telling yourself "I just ran 10 miles so I literally NEED this bloody mary, buffalo chicken sandwich, mound of tater tots and two beers." Yes, that was me after the Soldier Field 10 Miler and on too many other occasions to count. Like Sunday morning. I had Chicken and Waffles with a Paula Dean-sized dollop of strawberry butter after the 5K.

Back to my original point. I want to fit in my skinny clothes again and fit in them well. In reality, I feel like I have kind of always been battling with my weight. I like to say that I never lost my baby fat, because seriously, I never did! I have always had a pudgy tummy. I've dabbled in several diets and I'd like to say that I generally eat healthy (mostly at home) but when you are a really picky eater and your favorite foods include hamburgers, hot dogs, and fried anything... wait, those are really the only ways I like to eat meat... it's easy to pack on and keep extra poundage. Plus, I am a Carboholic. I could destroy an entire loaf of yesterday's beer bread if I were hungry enough.

I'm not excited about the price of WW. The meetings aren't really in a convenient spot for me either. I'm also contemplating the online version because I am an internet fiend and I figure I can spend less time reading blogs and devote some time to food tracking. I just get freaked out because I feel like on WW I'll be forced to eat a ton of food just to meet my point levels and there are only so many fruits and veggies that I can tolerate. I really just want to gorge on breads and potatoes and other crappy foods that I know are high in points.

Plus, it's so much easier to lose weight by not eating than to eat healthy. Ug.

I accept any and all opinions about WW and really need advice here.

Crunch time

Ten miler today. Knee has been nagging me all week, probably because I was trying to catch up with my plan last week and overdid it.

I am exhausted this morning but determined... off to the path I go!

My old friend, Gyminee (www.dailyburn.com)? I haven't mentioned it lately because I haven't been keeping up with it. There was this whole name change from Gyminee to Daily Burn (which is probably a good thing, Gyminee sounds kind of dorky) and we just lost touch. Meaning I haven't been plugging in any food entries or workout logs. It's so much more constructive for me than some of the trash flight attendant gossip I spend my days reading online. So, back to the grind for me. I have a Luna Bar, 10 miles and a GU all waiting for me. Here's to the left knee not bothering me!

I've been a bad, bad girl...

The Wii Fit officially hates me. I haven't done a weigh-in in over 10 days. My mysterious illness and a visit from Dad and Mikey have seriously thrown my routine. After this weekend, I think I also need detox both from alcohol and bad food. My stomach is very angry with me.

I have to get back on the fitness train now because I have the Soldier Field 10 miler this weekend. I can't wait, you get to finish on the field that the Bears play on and have your name in lights on the jumbotron. They also promise nice Adidas shirts.

As soon as I get pictures ready, I will post about the Cubs game we went to on Saturday. It was awesome, the Cubbies won and the weather was absolutely perfect. I love Wrigley.

Chicago has officially given birth to spring and soon we'll be into full-force summer. It's a blast to walk down the street because nearly every bar and restaurant is open and you can sit in the window and people watch. I love it because it's as nice as eating outside but you also get that fun bar feel and can watch sports games on TV.

After my friend Tracee gets married the first weekend in June, I'm going to officially start a marathon training program. I'm still in the research phase but I will probably end up doing one from Runner's World. That will be the 16 week mark until my race!! YIKES!! :) I am also going to get back into my tracking on Gyminee. I've been very neglectful lately but I figure you have to have the "bad" weeks now and then to give yourself something to work toward. I hope everyone had just as much fun on their weekend as I did!

My new favorite website

I think I previously mentioned it but I have had some relatively inexplicable weight gain lately. As far as I can tell, it seems like I've increased my caloric intake to offset my constant working out. Or possibly because I have a fabulous boyfriend and I'm letting myself go? :)

I don't feel like my eating habits have changed all that much, in fact I eat infinitely better than I ever did in college and high school, but I do have some work to do to get back into some of my favorite summer clothes. Anyway, one of my flying partners recommended this cool website, www.gyminee.com . I was already keeping a makeshift food journal but Gyminee gives you the USDA nutrition info and lots of people have added restaurant and grocery store brand food items. It makes it really easy for me to see what's going into my body every day. You can also track your workouts and weight progression on Gyminee. If you join, let me know and we can be "gym buddies", haha. I need people to yell at me when I have days like Friday (lunch: nachos at Q'Doba, dinner: bleu cheeseburger at a bar, not very nutritionally sound!).