30 Day Running Challenge

Alas, spring break is over. Alas, I did not gain any weight whilst I was home.

Alas, my roommate and I split a medium cheese pizza at 11pm last night.

I already told you I'm not perfect. That pizza was so good. I was so hungry and I don't get my Financial Aid until tomorrow, so when my roommate and I were driving home from our friends' place at 10:30pm and she was like, are you hungry? I was like, yes. And then we were right by Pizza Time. And she had her wallet. End of story.

Besides making the point that I'm far from perfect (OMGawd I had 2 peanut butter cookies with strawberry ice cream in between them for dessert last night!!!!!!!), I wanted to make this about something else: I really don't like running. Here's why:

1. It's running.

2. You get SO sweaty, so fast, because your heart is just accelerating itself and it's like oh gosh please slow down because I'm working really hard. Oh, you're not going to slow down? Okay, well I'll just keep complaining.

3. You can be running for a solid 10 minutes and just. be. exhausted.

4. You can be running for a solid 15 minutes and want. to. fall. over.

5. You can be running for a solid 20 minutes and then suddenly everything is fine.

RUNNING is so mental. It doesn't matter if you're listening to music or not. You can still hear your own thoughts. And somewhere (at least for me) around 1.5 miles, my body is like, why are we still running? And I'm like, because we can.

So, I've decided that for 30 days, I'm going to run at least 25 of the 30 days allotted. Running is horrible, but it does so many amazing things to my body. And when I say running, I mean at least 1.5 miles. I know that I can run 3 miles, so running 1.5 is really kind of a bitch-move at this point. So the chances of me actually only running 1.5 miles is really, really low. It would keep me up at night if I only did 1.5 I know it. And who knows, maybe by the end of this challenge my distance will be upped. If I could get to 4 miles (or even 5!), that would be a beautiful thing.

Here's hoping, yeah? I know I could though. So anyway, March 26 - April 25. Oh snap. April 25th is my roommate's birthday. That'll be a double reason to celebrate. Eff yeah. So I'm 2 days into it, with 2 miles done each day. I'm giving myself 5 sick days, but I'd like to not use them. Let's DO it!

One Fine Line.

You would think that because I've been dedicated to this little life project of mine for over 110 days now, that I would have learned that fine balance that is give and take. For example, yesterday my mom sneaked me into the gym at the YMCA. Disclaimer: she's a member, I swear, but I am not. However apparently I'm already in the system, which freaks me out a little bit. But I digress.

My warm-up yesterday was 10 minutes on the elliptical for a total burn of 125 calories. After that, some unspoken force came over me and I decided that I would do a 5k run. Have I ever...done that...before...ever? No. Why did it suddenly happen? Honestly, it was a mental thing. By the time I had finished (27 minutes exactly, not bad for my first 5k), I wasn't exhausted. I wasn't crumbling to the ground. I was fine. I just changed the speed of the treadmill back down to a brisk walk and walked for about 8 minutes to just make sure I wasn't going to throw up. Total burn 400 calories exactly and a huge ego boost.

After that I rode a bike a couple miles for 75 calories (you know, because I'm OCD and wanted my machine burns to be an even number). And after that I just went to town with abs and push-ups in a separate room. Solid workout at the gym, yes? Yes. Anyway I'm guessing that total, I burned around 700 calories-ish.

THIS IS WHERE THE BALANCE COMES IN. Oh, no I had a great day nutritionally until about 9:30pm. Did I mention it was St. Patrick's Day? It was. One of my best friends and I split a 6 pack of microbrews at a party. Did I mention there were cream cheese filled cupcakes at this party? There were. There were also plain vanilla ones and plain chocolate ones. Oh, there were a lot of cupcakes. I had half of one. Not bad right? Pretty decent in regard to [drunk] self control.

BUT if that wasn't enough. One of my nemesis-es (what the eff is the plural of nemesis?) showed up at this party. And by nemesis here I mean, very good friend but we pretend to be mean to each other sometimes. Like pushing each other into the refrigerator. What. Anyway, he brought more microbrews. And I had 2 more. OMG. Reflecting on this the morning after makes me really bummed out about myself. The only pluses I can find from this are there were a lot of carbs in the beers, and since I hardly touched carbs yesterday as it was even with the 5k, it was probably a good move to have some carbs.

But you better believe I'm going to bring it in my workout today. I guess my point is, even if you can do some crazy awesome hard calorie burning workout...that doesn't mean you're golden. Learning to balance your input with your output is really, really hard and one of my biggest challenges that I'm working on. But if you can do it, I can do it. Thank you for being my inspiration!

Hold It Against Me Choreography

As promised. My roommate and I went hard today at our "studio". Here is some Britney Spears choreo for you, courtesy of Dima the guy from Israel.

Pick a Passion

No I haven't forgotten about you.

My roommate and I recently stumbled upon this choreographer from Israel who is doing some big things. He's pretty dope, as they say on the streets. Did you know that hip-hop dancing is a really good workout? It's more than just moving your legs. I think that at some point in my [very comparatively short] dancing career that I've used almost (if not all) of my muscles at some point during a hip-hop dance. To quote a recent dance instructor, do you feel it in your core?

Anyway, so our favorite choreographer is Dejan Tubic from LA, but Dima from Israel is quickly on the rise. Plus he's just like, um, hot. Hello. Here's the link to the choreography that my roommate and I are going to be doing in the "studio" (a.k.a. the baller-mirror-lined-private-room-at-the-rec-center) tomorrow. Maybe I'll post a comparison video if we get good enough to film it tomorrow.

But I just wanted to say that, when it comes to working out, find something that you really love doing. Running, playing soccer, dancing, scorpion push-ups. Whatever. Pick something you can get passionate about that involves exercise. That way you want to do it. Have I mentioned that my roommate and I have been getting up earlier to go to our "studio" on Tuesdays and Thursdays than we get up to go to CLASS on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays?! Crazy sheit. Once you find your niche, hold on to it. Dancing for me is a way to forget about everything else that's going on in my life for 20 minutes to 2 hours.

Rhythm of the Body

Yesterday I wanted to try something a little different.

If I go for a run outside versus at the gym, I always take this trail behind my house that's one mile to a nice little park situated on Bellingham Bay. It's an easy run, flat and beautiful between trees with a wall of green on my left and the Bay on my right. It's especially beautiful right now because we're transitioning from winter to spring (so, so, so, slowly) and the birds are starting to make their presence more visible.

So yesterday when I was getting ready for my run to the park and back, I was planning on my first two mile run without stopping when I got to the park. Normally I'll just run to the park, walk around the park, and then run back. Yesterday I wanted to not stop, just to see how doable it was. I also wanted to try listening to my body.

I left my iPod in my backpack, at home, on purpose. I decided that instead of listening to that heart and head pounding bass, I would listen to my heart pounding and the thoughts in my head. And honestly, it was almost nicer than music. I could hear and regulate my breathing. I could settle on a pace that wasn't attached to a tempo coming through my ears. Just me and the rhythm of my own body.

And I did the run, without stopping, two miles. That last quarter of a mile was a battle of willpower; my mind telling me yes and my body telling me no. I knew my body was the wrong player in this argument though. I've run two miles in the gym before, I already knew I could do this before I started. But as I was in that last quarter mile, I started thinking about the tornadoes that just happened in the east and south parts of the US.

I read a story early yesterday morning about a woman who saved her two children's lives by crouching over them as their house blew away around them. She had to have both her legs amputated, but she lived, and so did her children, unscathed. She's never going to run with her own legs again. I have two legs that work just fine, and they wanted to stop running because they're a little tired. But they were fine. I was fine. I kept running. And not to sound all cheesy, but that last quarter of a mile, all I could think about was that I was running for her. For that mom who just gave up basically half her body for her kids.

Think of all the people who can't do what you can do! And we complain because we don't want to walk to x, y, or z. But we complain because we're tired and there are easier and more convenient ways to get there than walking. Ultimately though, your body is yours and you can do things that you probably think you can't do. You just need to realize that you have the potential to do them.

Alliance.

Have I ever mentioned that when life presents me with in-your-face ironies that I get all warm inside and usually laugh out loud. Problematic if I'm in public because then I'm suddenly the crazy girl laughing by herself. Well, it wouldn't be the first time I guess. I'm also one of those people whose memories are invoked via song, and so when I hear a particular song on my iPod and I'm walking home from class and it makes me think of a fond memory, I also turn into that girl with a shit-eating grin on her face, by herself, alone, flying solo.

Wow, I would not want to randomly see myself out in public. I would totally make fun of me. Anyway, when I was on my way home from my soccer game [more momentarily], I was stopped at a stoplight and a college boy walked in front of the car drinking one of those Arizona strawberry-kiwi iced teas. Those have 75 grams of sugar in a can, and they're so delicious that you will suck that whole thing down before you know what hit you.

So this kid walks in front of me tipping it pretty far back, which makes me think he was getting closer to the last 1/3 of his Arizona iced tea. Just drowning himself in this sugar. And then, a man who must have been in his mid to late 40's, zooms past him, on foot in the opposite direction. He's on a run. He looks so great. He's in great shape. He's grinning while he runs. Just the irony of this young kid killing his body slowly with artificial flavors and excess sugar while an older gentleman sprints past him, in prime shape. I liked it.

Well anyway, I joined an indoor soccer team today. Not because I wanted to, but more because it just fell into my lap and I wasn't in a position to say no. I love soccer. I love exercise. It was a win-win. And no pun intended there, because we did win our first game. 6-4. And I'm pretty stoked to report I scored a goal. It wasn't spectacular or groundbreaking, but it was nice and low, to the left corner. It felt so good to be on that turf field again, albeit with strangers who recruited me in a bar.

I wasn't out of breath, I was putting more pressure on the ball than any of the other girls and even some of the boys. It just felt nice to feel the conditioning of my body paying off, and it makes me want to work even harder. Most of them were bent over, out of breath, subbing out every 4-5 minutes. I could have played all 48 of those minutes, no problem. I don't know what was more gratifying, scoring that goal and feeling like "part of the team" or just feeling refreshed running around on Sunday afternoon and pining for the next game before the first one is even over.

I can't wait for our next game next Sunday. And what's even cooler about this team is, they don't know me. None of them know that 4 months ago I would have been lying on that turf field panting for breath after being in the game for 5 minutes. Today was just like a premature preview of what I'm going to feel like when I finally accomplish my goals. And if it's anything like the feelings I had today, then shit, I'm not going to stop until I'm there.

5 Things I Hate to Love.

There are some things that I used to eat without really thinking about. By that I mean, I'd eat and be like, all subconsciously, wow I bet this isn't very good for me but gosh darn it's tasty so I'm going to eat it anyway. I thought today I'd take a walk down memory lane and show you the stats on five things that I knew weren't that great for me but I'd consume anyway if I felt like it.

1. Maple Bar.

These used to be my favorite. This beautiful bar of bliss is packing 420 calories, 19 grams of fat, 62 grams of carbs, and 35 grams of sugar. Did you just throw up a little bit in your mouth? Because I did. I had a dream two or three nights ago that someone made me eat two maple bars. I woke up traumatized and now I know that would really be a nightmare.

2. Apple Juice.

Apple juice used to be my favorite beverage in the world. One time, I literally drank an entire Treetop jug of it. Yes, I was so sick. In 8 fluid ounces, so just one measly glass of apple juice, there are 120 calories and 26 grams of sugar. That's just one glass though. You know how easy it is to just gulp down a glass or two? Not that hard, my friend. Talk about some serious empty calories.

3. Macaroni & Cheese.

You know that Kraft comfort food? Me and my friends would each eat our own boxes of those all the time. Like, all the time. Weekly. Bi-weekly. It was fast, it was simple, and everyone liked it. Prepared with 2% milk, one box of macaroni and cheese had 1200 calories (a little bit under what an average day of calories is like for me), 57 grams of fat, 147 grams of carbs, and 21 grams of sugar. Granted, it did have 30 grams of protein, but I'm willing to guess a majority of that comes from the milk. BI-WEEKLY. What was wrong with me.

4. Digiorno Supreme Pizza

This wasn't a common occurrence, but when it was, it wasn't hard to eat half the pizza. I could have eaten the whole thing if I really put my mind to it I bet. Half of a supreme frozen pizza is 1048 calories, 45 grams of fat, 120 grams of carbs, and 18 grams of sugar. You do get 48 grams of protein from all of that meat and cheese, but for 1048 calories you could find way better sources to get that protein without all of that fat too. Oh God, typing all of this is making my stomach contract a little bit, in pain. And imagine how many calories I'd already eaten in a given day for breakfast, lunch, and snacks if I was having this pizza for dinner. Just, imagine.

5. Two cheeseburgers, medium fries, & Diet Coke from McDonalds.

This was never a super common occurrence either, but this is what I would typically order if I did swing by a McDonald's. It was one of those meals. This meal, total, contained 980 calories, 43 grams of fat, 12 grams of sugar, 34 grams of protein, and 1810 mg's of sodium. Holy balls. Can you imagine the tears my body was crying after I'd finish eating that. And the worst part is, if I was eating that for dinner, I may eat something else later that night just for a little snack.

So, those are 5 habits I've been able to break. I am seriously all about limiting the intake of things you love, so if I ever really wanted anything I just listed, I would have it. I would just have it in moderation. There's no need to eat an entire box of macaroni and cheese. How about instead you grill some chicken and have maybe 1/4 a serving of mac' and cheese with the chicken and maybe some broccoli. There are good alternatives and substitutions for everything! You just have to have the willpower to know about them and utilize them.