Rate: Vegan?

I'm thinking about going vegan. I'm already a vegetarian and I already avoid cheese because I'm lactose intolerant. But God I love cheese. So I often go on pizza/burrito/cheesy/greasy binges. These typically leave me feeling very, very ill. They're really good for training too (Not!).  I also think calcium is very important. But I really do think I should be vegan. I'm so torn. What to do!? 

I'll leave it to the jury. Should I go vegan? Yay or Nay?!

Run: Beans, rice and broccoli

I am so stuffed. I mean STUFFED. And the best part is, I'm not stuffed with a greasy pizza or massive burrito. I'm stuffed with healthy food. Mmmmmmmm.

I have already mentioned that I haven't been very motivated to run lately, and I think a lot of this is because my runs haven't been very fun. As in, I've been feeling out of shape no matter how much I run,  and I've been feeling tired after only a mile or so. What gives?

Of course I assumed that I've suddenly became the worst, most out of shape runner ever, but then it hit me: DUH. NUTRITION. I'm not getting the nutrients I need!

The past few weeks an average weekday has looked like this:
Breakfast: Coffee, Oatmeal
Lunch: Carnation Breakfast Shake with Almond Milk
Snack: Peanuts, and an occasional vending machine binge consisting of Cheez Its or Crackers
Dinner: About a cup of rice and some veggies, 1-2 glasses of wine

The weekends, of course, look something like this:
Breakfast: Coffee, Oatmeal
Lunch: Tacos or bar food, beer, chips, candy
Snacks: Chips, candy, peanuts
Dinner: Pizza or pasta, chips, candy, wine and/ or beer

Now both examples aren't very nutritious, but honestly I'm more concerned about the former. Although I was trying to lose a little weight, cut out junk food and save money by drinking the Carnation shakes for lunch, I don't think I'm getting even remotely enough nutrients.

See, the thing about being a vegetarian is that I need to be extremely intentional and meticulous about what I eat if I want to feel my best (especially while running). This isn't as easy as it sounds. Vegetarians not only need to make healthy choices, but they need to pair different foods each meal in order to get the same nutrients that someone who eats meat would. For instance, a meal of rice and broccoli is good, but there isn't enough protein. Add black beans, more veggies and possibly some cheese and I might as well be eating a chicken breast. 

The other thing is that although it's obvious a vegetarian must eat a lot of vegetables to make up for a lack of major vitamins one gets from meat, the vegetarian has to eat much larger quantities of those vegetables. Each meal should contain a green vegetable, and not just a handful. The veggies should be a huge part of the meal. They should often be the main course!

With that said, I was definitely not getting enough nutrients during the day, and, especially since I run after work, my runs have been suffering. On top of that, it's practically pointless for me to be restricting myself during the week, because I make up all the calories on the weekend!

So now that I've had that epiphany, it's time to make some serious changes. I foresee something more like this:
Breakfast: Coffee, oatmeal with raisins
Snack: Fruit and nuts
Small lunch: Steamed vegetables, salad, rice and/or tuna
Snack: Carnation shake
Post work (or am): Have a GREAT run
Dinner: Rice, beans, vegetables and dairy (cheese or milk) with some orange juice OR pasta with veggies, olive oil, and fake meat. 0-1 glasses of wine during the week. Splurge a little on the weekends. 

I'm off to a good start. Tonight I made myself a WHOPPING serving of a nutritious and yummy concoction:  1.5 cups brown rice, 3/4 cup black beans, 1 teaspoon of grape seed veganaise, 2 cups of broccoli, 1/4 cup of parm cheese, a few sprinkles of salt, pepper, garlic salt and Mexican chili powder. And a cup of orange juice.

Hopefully I will feel better on my run tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

Run: My return to blogging. Part 2: Why I run

Every once in a while, it’s always good to sit back and remember why we do the things we do. Truthfully, the last two weeks I have not been very enamored with running (I know, great time to start blogging again, right?). My runs have been dull and long. My speeds are slowing and my mileage grows shorter. My motivation is low. It must be. Spring. FEVER.

But taking into consideration my re-entry into the wonderful world of running blogs, I can’t help but think this is a good time to evaluate the reasons I do run. Some are shallow and some run deep, but all keep me moving.


I run because…

1. I have horrible anxiety when I don’t. There’s nothing like a hard workout to get me feeling normal again. You’d think post-great-workout I’d feel tired and lazy… but it’s actually the opposite. I almost always experience clarity in my thoughts and a zealous sense of motivation.

2. I like the feeling of being (seemingly) in total control of my body. I get this feeling especially in my long runs. That cliché “it’s just me and the road” feeling is oh. so. true.

3. When I run, I can eat more. I have been known to eat an ENTIRE 12” pizza all by my little self.

4. I like having calf muscles. They’ve only recently become a part of my life. Let’s give a hand to my growing calf muscles.

5. I’m already in constant competition with myself to improve myself (how vain, I know), so why not focus that energy into the art of running. I run to see myself improving at something. It makes me focus with a strategic plan. Ahhhh, plans. I just LOVE coming up with plans.

6. Running gives me endorphins. I’ve even been known to be that creepy girl smiling in the middle of a run while cars drive by—passengers gawking and scratching their greasy mustaches.

7. It helps me lose or maintain weight. This obviously varies due to the wonderfulness of #3.

8. I like working hard….alone. I was never good at group work in school. I was the kid who would either end up doing the entire project or absolutely nothing. Balance isn’t one of my fortes. Running let’s me work my little buns off and work towards specific goals without the distraction of other people.

9. It’s good for my health and asthma. Nuff said.

10. It’s fun. Racing is fun. Running up hills is fun (and horrible). Sprinting is fun. Running 10 miles or more is fun. Reaching a PR is fun. Watching my body transform is fun. Being in the sun is fun. Running. Is. Fun.

Next: Run: My return to running. Part 3: Evaluation bloggonation station

Rate: Joint vitamins and then some

I've always been really intimidated by vitamin, or health, stores. Let's not get confused with healthy grocery stores. I love those. But stores filled with vitamins, supplements and energy drinks-- those scare me. They look like a store out of the future ya know? All those bottles lined up.. like someday we won't need real food at all. We'll just need to take the little red pill and you'll be full for the rest of the day. Or god, even worse, Brave New World came true and now there's millions of little brain pills to choose from-- not just Soma. Or it's a room full of robot food, or poison or... Kelsey focus.

So my personal trainer made a few suggestions for a multi-vitamin, a protein shake and a supplement to help with muscle building and weight loss. "Great," says self, "I have to go into one of those oddly clean, organized and creepy pill shops. GREAT." Well I did it folks, I faced my fears. And there was a very friendly and obnoxiously healthy sales associate there who wanted to hear all about my need for supplements. Somehow I get on the topic of my knees (great, now she knows your weakness. Don't let her get too close), and she tells me about a vitamin that she gives to the horses she trains to keep their joints healthy. I guess these are really competitive, super-jumping horses that need lots of joint love.
 
And so, she recommends this: The Vitamin Shoppe's Joint Solutions: Glucosamine & Chondroitin with MSM. She says this stuff performs miracles on joints. The holy water for joint pain. Apparently if I take two pills, twice a day, I'll be pain-free in no time. "If this works I'll be thrilled," I say. She replies, "Get ready to be thrilled."

And so I guess this post isn't really a "Rate" post because I have only been taking these miracle vitamins for one day. Or I guess I am moreso rating the Vitamin Shoppe for having the ability to sell me a drawer full of supplements and vitamins. Shit.. I've gone to the dark side.

Rest: Is running your outlet?

Don't ask me why, but I love that pic. So, the weekend was by definition, good.  Had a video shoot that went well, Mr. Wonderful came in town and my roomies (a couple), Mr. Wonderful and I had a DECADENT Mexican dinner (I just love me some Los Dos Molinos) and ended the night at a popular bar. Mr. Wonderful and I went thrifting the next day, and I'd say all around it was a pleasant weekend. So why then, did I wake up the next morning feeling perfectly blasé?

I think this lady may be onto something ---> New Dress A Day

If you read her About Me, she will explain how she was feeling creatively stunted and bored and therefore started a shopping/sewing adventure in which she buys a new dress everyday from a garage sale or thrift store, sews and crafts it up, and then rocks it. Not only is her blog pretty dang cool (thank you Jhen for pointing it out on Facebook), but she seems to be at least momentarily healed from the creativity void she was once so troubled by.

I think I feel a bit the same way. As you all know, I'm very excited about the new job, and training for the marathon and all that jazz. Life is a-okay. But I can't help but feeling like I just haven''t been myself lately.  I'm an extremely emotionally driven person, so when I'm not happy with myself it quickly trickles down into every aspect of my life. Bottom line? I haven't been indulging in my creative passions enough. I've been dressing to be more successful, trying to become wittier to be more social, and writing for advertisements, web pages or businesses. I've been making lists and cleaning my house. I've been making plans every night to appease my friends and coworkers. I've been reading books and articles that I think will make me either more successful or more adept in social conversations.  I haven't been doing anything for myself. Even this blog-- I often manipulate my content into what I think my readers want to read.

I actually love the weirdo, irrational, passionate, impulsive other half of me. I'm not sure how, but I must quickly reconcile my two different worlds. Or maybe, like usual, I'm being overly introspective. Maybe many of you find that running is that emotional outlet; that soothing, relaxing part of your life that makes you feel sane. I love running, I really do. But it's just one compartment of my life. It doesn't have a huge impact on who I am. Am I the only one that feels that way?

Toodles!

Rate: Guest blogging on Simply Fit

It's come to my attention that I maybe, possibly talk about alcohol a lot on this blog... And that is completely A-OK with me.

BUT I have come a long way. My friend, Jay, has his own personal training company and he recently asked me to guest blog for him. Well, I do love blogging! So how could I say no? Although a lot of my FB friends have already seen it, it's a very appropriate "Rate" post because it really made my week a little bit happier (especially since I'm currently banned from running due to the knee problem) and it was great to reflect on how much I've evolved. After reading, maybe you'll forgive my love of beer and wine :)

So read here and tell me what you think. 

P.S. Don't tell anyone that I've only ran ten miles once.. and it about killed me. I will be running ten-milers like crazy soon!

Rest: Sangria Saturday

Saturday was my friend Jose's birthday, and his fabulous girlfriend Rhiannon (who happens to be one of my closest friends) threw him a party... at Mr. Wonderful's house. It was kind of awesome. Since it was at the boyfriends house we could get as drunk as we wanted and invite anyone we wanted, but we didn't have to prepare anything or clean anything. How cool is that? I highly recommend offering your house as a party venue... as long as you only rent it out to responsible hosts. If you get free beer, or shoot, if you charge them rent, then more power to ya.  Rhi was an amazing host and made pasta, cake and [trumpet sounds] SANGRIA! I just love sangria.

Being the sangria connoisseur that I am, I made a recipe suggestion to Rhi, and she ran with it. It not only added some extra charm to the night, but it was delicious. See, sangria is like nonalcoholic beer, but opposite. You think you're drinking some delectable concoction of juice, but you're actually getting wasted. What an amazing trick! So if you're in the mood for sangria (and I know all of you athletes let loose once in a while...) try this little recipe. In the winter, I add about a teaspoon of cinnamon and it's quite yummy.

3 tangerines, thinly sliced
2 lemons, thinly sliced
1 lime, thinly sliced
1 pear cored and chopped
2 kiwis peeled and sliced
1 cup of fresh strawberries, sliced
1 cup of fresh rasberries
1/2 cup of white sugar (or less if you don't want it too sweet)
1/2 cup of Cointreau or another orange liqueur
1 cup of white rum
1/2 cup of coconut flavored rum
2 cups of orange juice
2 bottle of dry, cheap wine
1/2 cup of frozen pink lemonade concentrate
1/2 cup of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of lime juice
Lemon lime soda, to taste (I use about 2 cups but I like it real spritzy)

Enjoy!

Run: Homemade vegan recovery shake

I faint easily. I also get nauseous easily and I have asthma. No. Big. Thang. But I do feel like I need to eat more than the average person my size in order to compensate for my woozy tendencies. In fact, I even feel the need to have a recovery shake after a five, or even three, mile run. On the days when I pretend I’m a cyclist and hit the road on two wheels, I chug through my water bottle within the first 15 miles and by the end (about 30 miles), I’m taking deep breaths in hopes of postponing any medical emergencies before I can get my hands on a power bar or doughnut. It’s kind of pathetic. But really, I require a lot of nutrients so I am always on the look-out for good recipes and dishes.

I’m a pretty busy lady, so shakes are becoming a staple part of my life. I have been determined to find a tasty recovery shake that really helps me feel better. I’ve tried diet shakes, Muscle Milk and more, but all leave me feeling exhausted later. So, I came up with a new recovery shake recipe, that seemed to really work after my five-mile treadmill run yesterday (I've been coming pretty close to my five mile base run days, however I'm still working on the ten mile long run goal) Although I am sore today, I never felt like crashing yesterday. I maintained energy after my run and felt my body getting stronger. Here’s the vegan recipe in case you want to try it. The Life’s Basic protein is a pretty intense flavor that I tried to cover up with the apple juice, so you may want to try a better tasting powder. I tried to stick to the right ratio of carbs, protein and sugar, but I'm totally open to suggestions! 

(measurements are approximate)

2 cups frozen peaches

1 cup oatmeal

1 scoop of Life’s Basic Plant Protein Greens Powder

    * I think this was the key ingredient. I’ve never used protein powder before, and I think it made a huge difference.

½ cup of apple juice

2 cups of vanilla Tempeh milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla

2 teaspoon of cinnamon

Put all ingredients into a blender and add more milk if it seems too thick. Serve cold and enjoy!

P.S. Will some one just drag me to a running club? I can't seem to get myself to do it. Thanks.

Rest: Four Peaks, Postino and Mother's Day

I'm a rather proactive person. I continually am making, keeping and crossing off To-Do lists of all kinds: life to do's, education to do's, daily to do's, career to do's, etc. I enjoy getting things done. In consequence, I get upset when I don't get things done. So I think part of the reason I became so ridiculously bummed out (in the post below) was because I didn't get much done over the weekend. I did, however, have a lot of fun. I'm in much better spirits today so let's take a look at my girl's night, my Four Peaks all day binger and my Mother's Day celebration. They were all pretty darn swell!

Friday was girl's night, and although poor Lauri (my Oregonian friend) was home sick with a cold, Rhiannon and me enjoyed some direly needed girl talk over wine, bruschetta and ice cream at Postino Wine Cafe. Delish! 

 And then came Saturday. One of my favorite things to when I'm feeling lazy is to wake up and watch a movie. I typically get really emotionally involved with whatever film I'm watching and it ends up being a cathartic experience. So, after bawling my way through P.S. I Love You, I headed out to FourPeaks... which was only an innocent beginning to an entire day of drinking. Fun!

And that leaves us with Mother's Day. My brother, his girlfriend and her kids (twins- adorable) came over, and we all drank, cooked and told stories while the kids played in the swimming pool. Midway through the afternoon I realized that I should probably be nice to my future nieces, even though at that point I couldn't even remember their names. 

My yummy vegetarian feist

Our epic salad bar

Dad squaring off with the dog. I'm not sure which one of them is more stubborn...

Me and Momma!

Hope you all had a great Mother's Day! 

Run: You Run How You Eat

If it hadn't been for the giant double mirrors in the trusty boyfriend's his/her bathroom, I might have gone weeks without realizing that my once-decent abs have gone into hiding under a happy, but fluffy, tummy.  It only took a few seconds of gazing into that glossy, self-degrading reflection for "Eye of the Tiger" to start playing in my head. Must have six-pack-- I am AMPED.


So, I began today's strength and run work out with trusty boyfriend's medicine ball. I did some basic core moves and a few varieties of squats and then head out to do laps around trusty boyfriend's gated community. It was like running a track, I imagine, because I was running in circles. I was expecting to have a decent work out due to plenty of rest and lots of energy, but it took about three strides for the stabbing pain to creep into my left side. Am I dehydrated? No. Do I have to pee? No. Oh right, for lunch I ate a bounding bowl of clam chowder, paired with a sandwich and oodles of fries. The sandwich wasn't too unhealthy, but I definitely over ate, and the fried food paired with heavy cream was overly indulgent. Only a few minutes into my run, I'm remembering: what you eat will directly affect how you run (I'm pretty sure I've read that somewhere...). I kept running in hopes that the cramping would go away, but it never did. I ended up running at about the same pace that my frigid legs were growing back my hair.


Wulp, lesson learned. Hopefully this will inspire a healthier diet (which wouldn't hurt the six-pack dreams, which, as I mentioned before I am feeling AMPED about).


To make up for the lazy 30 minute run, I marched inside, picked up the medicine ball and dedicated myself to doing as many crunches and drills as possible until my ab muscles start shaking and my stomach feels queezy. I didn't push myself quite that far, but it was nice to feel my ab muscles get tired for a change. It's been a while since I focused on abdominal stretches and strength.


For dinner, I'm sticking with a protein shake. I've got a big work out tomorrow and the last thing I need is lethargic legs and a bloated tummy.