20

01 November 2010 by Elizabeth in Fitness

In 20 minutes, I:

  • wrote 1100 words for my NaNoWriMo novel
  • did an awesome interval workout
  • redecorated the bathroom

Pretty good hour.

These Bodies Aren’t Objects

22 October 2010 by Elizabeth in Ideas

I think that we’ve generally agreed that the recent Marie Claire article about health bloggers got it all wrong, perhaps intentionally so.

And, through this mistake, an opportunity was lost.

To me, as someone who has consumed more of this blog genre* than she has created, I see the loss of an opportunity to sum up the significance of these blogs in a single statement: These bodies aren’t objects.

Community = Power?

Why, in the year 2010, should so many young women (and let’s be real here: based on the material in the blogs with the highest self-reported readership and Marie Claire’s “Big Six”, we’re generally looking at middle- and upper-middle class white women) need community encouragement to eat food that nourishes their bodies? Why should it be so significant that we run and take yoga classes?

But we do, and it is. And through this community, through making these facts so plainly visible, maybe we will perhaps escape the gaze.

Because we’re not eating well to make the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.  We’re not running marathons to slim down and “keep his attention”. We are using our bodies for our own intentions, living lives of our own design, taking our health into our own hands.

Triggering?

It’s subversive, it seems, that young women might just want to do what feels good for themselves.  I’ve never seen any of the bloggers of this genre* that I read head into dangerous territory, while women’s magazines like Marie Claire itself often delve into disordered suggestions (lose 10 pounds this week! cabbage soup diet revisited! buy these beautiful clothes that only come in sizes 0-4!). If you have a disorder, reading about healthy recipes, working out, and the occasional calorie count might be triggering, but so are plenty of omnipresent ads and fashion spreads that continue to feature tall, gaunt women whose bodies are plainly unrealistic for those with lives beyond a modeling career.

These young women start businesses, get book deals, and oftentimes earn a living from their blog revenue – revenue generated by their very own, original content and dedication.  Many of them have quit their day jobs to pursue their health passions, or refactored their careers to become RDs, health counselors, yoga teachers, running coaches, and personal trainers.

Not objects. They did not take these paths to become objects.

Do they blog about fashion and beauty from time to time? Sure – readers request it, and it’s not easy to find a woman in this demographic who doesn’t care at least sometimes about her appearance. But their day-to-day focus is on living healthy, balanced lives with their healthy, balanced bodies. Bodies that sustain them, bodies that accomplish amazing feats. They celebrate their strength. THEY EAT.


Not Objects

When does the public eye care about women in this demographic? Should we all aspire to be actresses, models, and pop stars? Even professional female athletes are so often reduced to nip slip photos, ass commentary, and male fantasies galore. Should we constantly seek male approval by vying for our own places in the  scantily clad pantheon or dating our way to fame?

Or could we maybe, just once, en masse, use our (female) bodies publicly according to terms that we have defined for ourselves? Could we be happy with bodies that speak to our own identities and interests rather than the preferences (and/or assumed preferences) of the male gaze?

It’s powerful stuff, when you think about it. It’s empowering.

These bloggers are just regular women. They make healthy choices, but they’re regular women. Healthy role models. Big sisters to the Internet at large. They run races, they sift through superfoods (and get ensnared in health food marketing traps on occasion), they sweat through hours of yoga. They struggle:  how do I balance my life? how can I reclaim these “forbidden” foods? why do my friends think it’s a disorder when I base my meals around vegetables? By doing this in the public eye, they most emphatically say: I am doing this.

Many started blogging for that very accountability and approval. They gave what they needed, and now they’re getting what they’ve given. They’ve made a community, and I sincerely hope it thrives long into the future.

Enough Typing Here

While this could easily be a bona fide research topic, all I’ve written here is a blog post. It’s not scientific; I’ve used plenty of cultural shorthand and paraphrasing. This is just a thought that struck me on my lunchtime workout, and it will likely come up again. Possibly even as that bona fide research. There is real power in what these bloggers do.

Also, it might go without saying, I am tired of how f*cked up women are about food/body image/the right to take up space in this world. I would give anything to see a new celeb mom quoted about loving her days-old, healthy baby rather than whining about losing the baby weight.

(On the somewhat-related topic of women who snark on other women’s healthy habits to their faces, today I say only the following:

  1. It’s an annoying waste of your time, negative commentator. Nothing nice to say = nothing said.
  2. It always sounds like you’re just jealous that you didn’t think to pack a healthy lunch/value your health/plan ahead/escape the Lean Cuisine non-food for lunch trap.
  3. I don’t ever know how to respond; “That Snickers ice cream bar you ate for lunch was tempting, commentator, but I couldn’t do that to my arteries,” doesn’t have the right ring to it.)

*The genre being loosely defined as unsponsored blogs authored by American and Canadian women aged 20-35 about their daily food consumption, athletic activity, and health contemplations.

Thankful

19 October 2010 by Elizabeth in Ideas, Things I Love

I’ve been wanting to catch up here forever. Since last year’s half marathon, since the long gaps that have marked this entire year, since the recent tumult and upheaval that have characterized the last 6 months of my life.

So, hi, blog.

I am terrible with accomplishments. Every time I finish something, I’m spent and pessimistic*.  I’m never happy with the result…at least not until I’ve had some time away from that final product.  To wit:

  • Hundreds of successful photography critiques** in art school that left me doubting everything I believed and made.
  • An embarrassment of riches (not so much the financial kind, though that’s certainly true enough compared to what some have) that have allowed me to stay steady during some of the most unimaginable events of my life…which can be discredited, demolished, and sent into a gust of wind by the amazing power of my self-doubt.
  • Apple picking with my best friend and the love of my life? Not good enough – I should have researched the orchard more, should have made her a commemorative apple-picking tote bag, should have printed a little so-you-picked-20000-apples recipe booklet.

Oh, and of course this blog***.  I thought it kind of sucked.  It might, but only the parts that were forced.  (And the broken images, which I will fix one of these days.)

I looked back at those months when I was more dedicated to posting and I like what I see.  I am still proud of that life.  It’s not so different from life today, which is also pretty reassuring (no major personality fractures…yet), and a beautiful tribute to my silly, anxious brain that likes to play chicken little all too often.

It’s a beautiful time of year, even here in this city that has no real seasons.

It’s a beautiful life, even though the patterns of which I’m a part are often larger than my understanding.

I didn’t talk about it on the blog, but I got engaged in May.  Then I got un-engaged in July.  Neither was easy, but both were the right thing to do.

Having the courage to be un-engaged made so much room in my life, and new blessings flourished all around me.  Long-gone friends returned to me and new friendships thrived.  Family deadlocks dissolved, and together we found the courage to clean up things that had festered for too long. Freedom and peace returned to my life.

I’m so thankful for all of those brightly shining relationships, for the strands that keep me in those webs.

I’m thankful that I had the confidence in myself to let go of things that weren’t working and make room for what my heart always wanted. Religion plays into this, but not in more detail than that on this blog (today :) ), but so does the new man in my life.

That’s right. Yes, it’s too soon. Yes, I beat myself up for weeks (really, until this past weekend) thinking it was foolish, that it was a rebound, that it couldn’t possibly be what it seemed. Yes, everyone and their brother has told me to put the brakes on for a year. I tried to do all of this without “testing” him, but I’m only human…and he passed with flying colors. Like a dream come true.

So I’m thankful that I held out for this amazing gift of a man who has improved every second of every day of my life since I first met him. Everything has fallen into place so perfectly, but with the simplicity, grace, and silence of the midnight snow. No one is forcing anything into a new shape; everything lands and settles just as it should.

I’m thankful for all of the opportunities and education that I’ve had, and all of those who have boosted me along the way.

I’m thankful every time I can go out for a run, after all the years of being sick and sidelined, especially in this gorgeous fall-ish weather.

I’m thankful that I have the money and opportunity to eat in a way that nourishes my body rather than harming it (especially with Angela’s incredible pumpkin spice whoopie pies, which I made gluten-free by subbing the flours for 1 cup brown rice flour, .5 cups buckwheat flour, and .5 cups tapioca starch, along with 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum).

(Yes, I had to photograph them in the dark because that man I mentioned above would have made them all disappear before I could take a photo if he had known they were available.)

And I’m thankful because after all of my years of self-critique, so much has suddenly and sharply come into focus.  I see all my hard work paying off, even though things aren’t always perfect.

I have learned a lot this year, and I could never hope to do it justice here in a single post. I have been waking up inspired again for the first time in years, and I am so excited to go back to doing what I’ve always known I was born to do.

*I tell myself this is okay, because it means I’m giving my all.  Reason or justification? You be the judge.

**Yeah, about the photo critiques and that art school thing…I’ve been doing quick+dirty lazy photos here for the most part.  This may change.

***I have, in fact, been journaling on the web since the ’90s.  This is the first mostly-anonymous, non-personal-life-focused blog effort that I’ve ever put forth, and I think it might end up being the best of all possible blog worlds. Plus, whoopie pies and races and green monsters! Amen.

Strange Joys

25 July 2010 by Elizabeth in Ideas

So, I said things had been going pretty rough.  I can’t talk about that.

But I have to admit that, deep down, I’m a silver lining kind of girl.  I just can’t dwell on the negative.

And, I managed to pull off my first ever french twist a few weekends ago all by myself.  Hairspray was involved, but it lasted through a whole (harrowing) day.  Pretty baller.

I’ve been finding lots of strange, unexpected joys.  Like…I’m really enjoying keeping a house.

I did four loads of laundry, scrubbed down the kitchen and the bathroom, swept, and cooked three meals for five over that hideous weekend.  It was wonderful.  Seeing everything all tidy, down to the dish towels in the kitchen drawer, gives me such perfect contentment.  If you knew me in real life, you might stage an intervention at this point (and if you do know me, don’t bother – it’s a lost cause at this point, because my weekends have been spent arranging flowers, scrubbing baseboards, and re-folding sheets so they better fit the linen closet for some weeks now).

Then there’s cooking.  I’ve always been the chef of the house, but I’ve found a new perspective somewhere.

It’s not just about flavors and ingredients and nutrients.  It’s about nourishment, tenderness, and love.

Making a blank-slate apartment into a cozy home, choosing to make healthy, tasty food – it’s all about giving love in the here and now, and hopefully building up some of that love for the future.  It’s about correcting mistakes from the past and putting the world right again, one dust mite at a time.

I guess I’m already supposed to know that, but clearly I was raised by wolves who didn’t keep a house.

Traditions that endure do so because they’re of value.

Feeling Like Blogging

11 July 2010 by Elizabeth in Food

Well.

It has certainly been a while.  I have been busy committing the most egregious blogger sin: writing posts, then leaving them in a draft state while I “think things over”.

As if I needed to edit that recipe just one more time.

F.

So.  I’m just doing this, because I’d like to.  And there are things going on in my personal life that make this little sphere of food and fitness so very appealing.  Is it unhealthy if you use healthiness as an escape?

Don’t tell me yes.  It’s only one blog post.

I had people in town this weekend.  Family-type people.  So I made snacks:

apps

  • Watermelon chunks, wrapped in jamaican sorrel and topped with goat cheese and mint chiffonade.
  • Caprese skewers with fresh cherry tomatoes, ciliegine mozzarella, basil from my balcony garden, and a tiny snippet of crispy, salty tempeh bacon.  (You could also use raw eggplant bacon.)
  • Hot peppers stuffed with neufchatel and mozzarella cheese, garlic, and herbs from my balcony.
  • Figs, broiled with a touch of sugar and a sprinkle of truffle salt.

I didn’t make the olives or the almonds, sorry.

I also made dessert, but my mother thought it looked like frosted corks (rather than mini gluten-free vanilla cupcakes with vanilla bean frosting and fresh berries), so no photo of those. Yet.

And I made the heck out of these scones, which are adapted from a Giada recipe.  True love, y’all.

scones

Gluten-free Berry Rosemary Scones

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups gluten-free flour, plus more for dusting (I used 1 cup rice flour, 1/4 cup ground flax, 1/4 cup chia seeds, 1/4 cup buckwheat flour, and 1/4 cup garbanzo flour)
  • 3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small cubes (I used half butter, half coconut oil)
  • 1 cup cold almond milk
  • 1/3 cup strawberry jam (**see step 2 below for what I do, which requires about 3/4 cup of fresh berries and 1 T of honey)

Procedure:

  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
  2. If you’re being fancy (and I am ALWAYS being fancy), chop the berries and add them to the honey.  Mash with a fork until jam-like.
  3. Mix the flour, xanthan gum, sugar, and salt.  Cut in the butter (and/or oil – just work it in with your fingers) and mix until it resembles wet sand.
  4. Slowly pour in the almond milk until you can gather the dough into a neat ball.  Depending on the humidity and your flours, you might not use quite all of it.
  5. On a lightly floured surface, pat the dough down until it is about 1/2″ thick.  Cut using a cutter (3-4 inches) or a sharp knife; I used a knife for these triangles, but followed Giada’s original recommendation the first time to use a heart-shaped cutter.  Transfer scones to a parchment- or silpat-lined baking sheet.
  6. Using a wet finger, make a dent in the center of each scone.  Fill with a heaping 1/2 teaspoon of jam.
  7. Bake about 20 minutes or until just golden.

They’re delicious.  The leftover berry topping is fab on yogurt.

Have I been trying to cook myself out of this funk?  A little bit.  The going has been a little rough, but I’ve learned a lot about myself.  And I have miniature blueberry pies in the oven.  More on those next time; I have to go see what 387 items iTunes is downloading.  (????)

(I am perhaps a wee bit behind on everything.  Except work.  Never work.  I can’t keep working until 8 pm.  Project is almost done.)

Oh, and those corks…corkcakes…cupcakes…I’ll post them anyhow.  I made the little skewer decorations as well, thanks to some tips from the Martha.

corks

Gym Oglers

04 January 2010 by Elizabeth in Food

What do you do about gym oglers??  I usually take the high road and ignore them, but this dude’s laser eyes followed me on every.single.squat (180 of them, to be precise) yesterday!  I thought that moving to a farther corner would solve things, but he was more persistent than I gave him credit for :) It didn’t help that he looked like Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation, either:

(Source)

I know y’all have a good solution for this :)

Moving right along, yesterday’s breakfast ended up being quite the use it up winner!  I mixed up the following:

use-it-up

  • Canned pumpkin
  • Goji berry trail mix
  • Cereal and granola odds and ends
  • Marmalade
  • and flax and chia (not on the use it up list :) )

Chopping the trail mix…

chopping-trailmix

…the end result:

use-it-bars

Pumpkin bars!  Sweet, nutty, and delicious, with a little crunch.  For those of you playing along at home, I had to bake this at 375 for about 30 minutes before it would solidify…originally I had thought this would turn into pancakes, but the cereal never really soaked up the moisture like I thought it would.

WB also took care of this little guy:

lone-cookie

(A sugar cookie from last June?)

Off to work…hard to get started after another long weekend, but I have a presentation to make at 10.

So far, so good 2010!

03 January 2010 by Elizabeth in Food, Running

WB and I went for a mega-walk yesterday: 5.5 miles!  It included a stop at Starbucks, where I tried my first-ever green tea latte.  Not bad!  It was really bright-green…my phone was dead, so no photo :(

Our walk took us past one of my favorite stores, where I saw that this silk dressing gown I’d been wanting for a whole year was on sale.  I was too gross to go buy it on our walk, but I sped over after a shower and now it’s all mine!

gown

Dinner was a new year’s day rerun with some canned organic cranberry sauce FROM 2008 (use it up!):

jan2dinner

(Don’t worry, it was still in date.  We’re thrifty, not crazy.)

Today’s workout started with a 55 second plank.  Yep, it beat me – I gave out just 5 seconds before the timer went off.  The biggest surprise was that WB joined me – and held out for the full 60 seconds!  Humbled, I did a few sets of the abs that we do in my yoga class, then headed down to the gym for a “hill run” on the treadmill.  I’ve never tried to run hills on the treadmill before, and I think my plans were…ambitious.  I ended up doing 2 miles that included:

  • 2 short hills (5 min each)
  • 1 long hill (very steep…I ended up walking most of it)
  • 2 x 400 at 10:30 pace
  • a few miscellaneous minutes of running at 11:00 pace
  • one scary moment when the treadmill said my heart rate was only 99

I suppose I’ll just call it a fartlek day.

The rest of today holds:

  • Breakfast – it’s almost noon!
  • Cleaning
  • Cooking for the week (using up loooots of things for lunches!)
  • More quality time with the wii?
  • Coffee!!!!

An additional goal

02 January 2010 by Elizabeth in Food, Running

There’s another goal hovering over us that doesn’t quite rate “resolution” status: clean out the goshdarn pantry.

We’re not packrats in the slightest (I’m very anti-”stuff”), but we accumulate bits and pieces and odds and ends in our pantry and in the fridge (especially in the door), usually things that were purchased for a specific dish or gifts we’ve received that didn’t find their way into our regular rotation. I hate the space that it takes up, but I also hate that it keeps new, fun things from coming into the house.  So, in January (and however long it takes after that), we will be putting some strict limits on what we can buy at the grocery store and farmer’s market, and incorporating at least one “get this out of here” item into every meal.

Some of the highlights of the ingredients to be used:

  • 8 (?) jars of jam/preserves
  • Several kinds of seaweed
  • Goji berries (nothing against them, but they’ve been sitting here for too long because I can’t see them in the pantry when it’s so full)
  • Three kinds of hot chocolate mix
  • More than 100 tea bags
  • 6 kinds of cereal/granola

Nothing too gross or unusual, but lots of things that have gone onto the “do not eat” list for various reasons.  That’s the real challenge ahead of me – incorporating these things into healthy meals and snacks that we’ll actually enjoy!

To start off, we made eggs and homemade refried beans on tortilla chips for breakfast (the chips were the “use it up” food):

tortilla-eggs

Mine felt a little bit naked without salsa or hot sauce, but we can’t buy any because there’s no room in the fridge door.

I also put some orange marmalade (use it up!) in my coffee…no photo, because you really couldn’t see anything special about it :)   She couldn’t see anything special about any of it:

cat-special

After all that settled, it was off to the gym for strength (legs day) and 2.8 miles on the treadmill:

  • Warm up (.05)
  • 11:45 page (1)
  • 2 x 400m at 10:00 pace with 1.5 min rest breaks in-between (.8)
  • 2 x 400m at 11:00 pace with 1.5 min rest breaks in-between (.8)
  • Cool down (.15)

I’m trying to use my “off season” running to increase my slowest pace to 11 min/mile..doesn’t seem too far-fetched, but I only have about 6 weeks left if I’m doing the race in May that’s caught my eye.  I also read an article recently that recommended resting (or cooling down) until your heart rate was about 120, so I’m using that a guide to my rest breaks and cool down.

New Year’s Day

TOAST-nye

We mostly lounged around and played Wii games.  We ate the obligatory lucky black-eyed peas and cabbage:

nyd-dinner

(Maple-seasoned peas, cabbage braised in tomato juice, curried pumpkin soup…surprisingly, all vegan)

We also went for a “short walk”, which ended up being 5 miles.  We found one of these guys wandering in our neighborhood without a collar:

westie

He definitely didn’t seem like the outdoorsy type, so we followed him around, instructing him to go home, until it was dark and getting cold.  He was worn out, so I had to take the lace out of my shoe and make a leash for him.  Luckily, one of his neighbors saw us walking him and showed us where he lives…at least, it was his best guess :)   The doggie went right up to the door to sniff the food dish and lie down, so we figured if he was that comfortable it was a familiar house.  (We even waited another 15 minutes for his owners to get home, but no luck.)  I know I would want someone else to do the same if my cat-baby ever got loose, so I didn’t mind the extra 1.5 miles it took us to follow the dog and make our way home from his house.

Lunchtime…anyone have any healthy recipes that use a jar or two of jelly? :)

Well, hello there! It’s resolution time!

31 December 2009 by Elizabeth in Food, Ideas, Things I Love, Things I have Learned

In a syndrome all too common in the blog world, real life intervened and put this blog on pause.  I’m thankful that all the schedule disruptions were positive :)

Before I begin catching up on the last several weeks, I wanted to jump in with the present moment: new year’s eve!  It’s one of my favorite holidays, in no small part because I loooove to set goals and take the time to reflect on the directions I’m taking my life (and sometimes the directions my life is taking me!).

I learned several things about setting goals this year.  The first: one thing at a time!  (At least for big things.)  I got a lot accomplished this year that had been hanging around on my list for far too long (some of it more than two years) because I focused on one thing at a time.

Next up: have a clear vision of the future.  Not the whole future (no crystal ball in my apartment), but some sort of vision that’s at least a few hundred yards down the road.  The clearer this vision, the more memorable and motivating it is!

Finally: keep track.  Keeping track of workouts, food, and money was a habit I tried to form for several years (in keeping with my fitness and financial goals), but this was the year it finally stuck.  I don’t have a real secret for what changed, but I think the constant motivation of the blog community played no small role!

For 2009, I had one “resolution”: to live richly.  2008 was spent trying to get my feet under me and figure out my job, my relationship, and my family.  That flailing definitely laid the groundwork for my 2009 successes, but I believe I owe more to the calm created by my solo resolution.  Having just “one goal” for the year made it easy when I got stuck – whether I couldn’t make up my mind about what to eat, how to spend my money, what to do next, or what attitude to have, I could just do a simple test: does this help me live richly?

It definitely helps that it was an emotional goal, too, not a rational one…I’ve spent many years failing with rational goals, so I’m finally ready to own up to the fact that satisfaction, for me, is rarely a mental thing.  Once I accepted that, my quality of life increased almost instantly – which isn’t to say it’s been a hedonistic year.  Though I bought myself a pair of Louboutins (oh, the things you missed over the past month or so), I also doubled my net worth, got a much better job, and made good on a lot of promises to my family and around the house.  I just enjoyed it all the more because I was willing to make a life that worked for me, rather than the life I felt would logically be best.

goalsSo, for 2009, I lived richly.  I made myself a list of sub-resolutions that fell under that umbrella: use my journal/planner, prioritize, live in good health, live economically, drink more wine and eat more salad and soup, travel, keep a tidy space, enjoy everything, and slow down. And I did all of those, though the journal/planner suffered some neglect in November.  I also ran my first half marathon, ran several other races, took two glorious vacations with Wonderful Boyfriend, began eating a high raw diet, became a lot nicer to my co-workers, and ditched a lot of things that were weighing down my life (literally and spiritually).  The hardest part was definitely slowing down while still living in the moment, but it’s been well worth it.  (My need for speed comes from childhood, when I wasn’t expected to live very long so I got a jump start on lots of things…that’s a long story for another day, but hey, 28 years and I’m still here!  Suckas!) (And yeah, that’s a whole folder I keep for goals in the picture.  Don’t be jealous.)

For 2010, I’m keeping this resolution.  I plan to live richly for the rest of my life, in fact.  However, my official resolution for 2010 is even bigger than just living richly!  It is:

Nope, I can’t tell you now – for me, goals are like wishes; if you let them out of the bag too soon, there’s no way they’ll come true.  I won’t leave you completely hanging, though, because I have some subgoals that are far more concrete and shatterproof.  In 2010 I hope to:

  • Run a 5k in less than 25 minutes
  • Run a half marathon in less than 2:20
  • Do a pull-up
  • Travel to two places I’ve never been
  • Read a new book each month (I get stuck in ruts and reread my old favorites over and over)
  • Upgrade the things in my wardrobe that should no longer leave the house on my body…and get rid of them
  • Fit a sample size for an upcoming event (it’s not certain, but I have some theories :) Not jinxing this one!)
  • Save 50% of what I earn

I’ll be checking in on these goals as the year goes on – I do daily and quarterly reviews on my own, so I might as well share those in the days ahead.

I’ve been so inspired by the health/fitness/green monster blogging community this year – thank you all for everything you give every day!  (I know who my readers are ;) ) (Don’t I?) (And thanks for hanging in during my unexplained absence.  Patience is a virtue.)

And now, back to this….

nye-spread

champagne-nye

nye-cat

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Uuuugh

19 November 2009 by Elizabeth in Fitness, Food

Not feeling so hot!  At first I thought I was gluten-ed somehow on Saturday, but if that’s the case I was sicker than I’ve been from that in a long, long time.  In fact, I was sick so long (and so very, very sick) that I am wondering if there was something amiss with the tasty raw treats from the farmers’ market.  The gluten-ed symptoms (likely caused by the cheater cheater salsa that had malted barley in the flavoring) wore off after a day or so, and I was left with…well, it wasn’t good.  I didn’t eat at all yesterday, and I missed three runs and a yoga class.  In fact, I had to leave work at lunch and come home to sleep.

On the bright(er) side:

toasts

This is what I will be eating today.  Udi’s whole grain bread, toasted, with a little bit of earth balance.

Without getting into gross details, I have to say that I don’t know how I used to live with gluten!  Before I knew I was allergic, I had zero energy.  When I was 25, I had to take a nap at lunch in order to make it through a day at my full-time office job, and I would still sleep 10-11 hours every night.  I’ve always needed to own pants in a wide range of sizes, because when I get “hit” my stomach balloons up 3 or 4 sizes in a matter of hours.  I’ve really been enjoying not feeling like this!

I did get in a three mile walk last night, though part of it was a trip to the grocery store for some stomach meds.  I never take things like that, but desperate times call for desperate measures, right?  (Or shallow times…my dress for next weekend’s events arrives today and I can’t wait to try it on…but my stomach needs to cooperate!)  And I did some weights this morning – more on that later.

I am off to the office, toast in hand.