Diets/Way of Eating/Being Healthy/etc....

With my reduced exercise level lately (I'm working on increasing it!) I've been thinking about food a lot. Now sometimes it's just because I'm hungry and wondering what I'm going to eat next....but more often it's because I'm thinking about cleaning up my act. I know I have made steps towards that lately, stevia instead of splenda in my coffee, adding in more fruits and veggies, yummy greek yogurt for breakfast, etc... But here's where it gets tricky....a lot of what I'm seeing lately is telling me that everything that I think is healthy, really isn't. For example, many in the CrossFit community have adapted the Paleo way of eating. Paleo basically says all dairy, legumes, grains, and sugar are off limits, completely. So you get to eat meat, and veggies, and fruits and weird substitutes like sunflower butter and other oddities, but no bread/pasta/yogurt/milk. When did milk become bad for you? I'm confused! Aaaahhhh!!!

OK, so out of all of my confusion (I definitely toned it down here - there's so much more swirling around in my head!) here's what I think it comes down to for me. Everything in moderation. I will never survive with a plan that tells me "no, no, no". I'm more about the yes! So yes to veggies, yes to fruits, yes to lean meats, yes to real food, but also yes to milk, yes to hummus (oh my gosh - I couldn't live without it!), yes to vanilla greek yogurt for breakfast (yum!), and yes to a beer or 2 with friends occasionally. Basically yes to being healthy, but also yes to enjoying life and not stressing too much! :)

Aahhh....I feel better already. :)

D-Town not so fun-ness...

I've been gone, and not gone as in "hooray, I'm on vacation!" gone. I was in Detroit. For 10 days. For work. In a warehouse. That's really about all you need to know about that. Not looking forward to having to do 6 more of those roll-outs this year.

In other news.... I'm slowly recovering. I think the progress is way way way too slow, but the doc seems to think I'm right on track. Time for yet another appointment tomorrow so we'll see if I get any exciting new milestones! This morning's milestone was making it through 45 whole minutes on the trainer! Yes, that's right. 45 whole minutes is now an accomplishment....I miss the days when I could ride centuries!

Oh, (and this is totally random but I need to say something about this somewhere!) I caught a snippet of The Biggest Loser tonight and was totally disgusted with it. They had a "temptation challenge", long story short they forced one of the contestants to eat 2,300 calories of almost all pure sugar in a span of about 5 minutes. Gross. Disgusting. Totally wrong. And goes against everything the show stands for....or so I thought. Does it have to be a "game" can't they just motivate and then celebrate people getting healthy??

Ok, that's all for now. This random stream of consciousness blog post needs to be done. I promise to try and be more coherent next time. :)

I apologize...

So I started reading back through old blog posts today....and I realized that all of my posts since November have been about my foot. I'm sorry blog readers (if there are any of you left) that must have been incredibly boring for you. I promise to get better. One quick update though, and then I promise I have something else to talk about today! :)

I am now "boot-less"! Hooray! No more wearing the giant, ugly, uncomfortable boot. I can't even tell you how exciting it was today to wear matching shoes, yes I actually got to wear a left shoe again. (I missed them so much...) I still have to wear an ankle brace (dug out my one from high school volleyball days...glad I held on to it!) The doc even said that I could start swimming and biking (well sort of - I don't really count pedaling aimlessly with no resistance as riding my bike, but the doctor does). Giving myself today and tomorrow to just get used to walking without the boot, but Saturday morning I plan on getting my bike on the trainer! :)

Ok, so now for the other stuff. I got 2 new books in the mail! I'm pretty excited about getting into these. I have heard lots of good things about Born to Run from some friends and Runner's World says Once a Runner is the best novel about running. Good thing I have some plane trips coming up soon!

I won't miss them...

Tomorrow the crutches will stay at home! Hooray! Not going to lie, it is a little painful to walk, and I'm incredibly slow, but it will be nice to not have the crutches. I can carry things, get through tighter spaces, not run into things, etc... generally - far more awesome. Good timing too, lots of fun plans coming up, and crutches just would have been in the way. So I'm ready to suck it up, leave them at home, and move on to the next step of recovery! :)

A test...

This is an easy one....can you guess which leg hasn't been used for over 3 weeks??

Ups and downs....

Recovering sucks...plain and simple, and honestly, it's been wearing on me lately. I finally realized why the other day. I looked at my car and noticed my "Live your passion" sticker in the window. That's it! All of my passions have been slowly taken away from me over the last few months. First running, then CrossFit, then cycling, and recently the ability to even walk and do things for myself. (Yes, I'm having a Debbie Downer moment - deal with it for a minute, ok?)

So now that I know what the problem is, it's time to do something about it. Just because I can't participate in my passions yet doesn't mean I can't still enjoy them. I will cheer others on, and surround myself with people that enjoy the same things that I do.

So if you are a runner, cyclist or CrossFit junkie, expect me to become your biggest cheerleader over the next couple weeks! :)

Can't help but smile....

Lately I need to give myself frequent reminders to keep smiling, and I have to say that this does it every time!

Can't wait until I'm able to take her running again so we can both be this happy!

I promise I'm coming back eventually...

I know, I've been absent from the blogosphere for a while. You would think with all of the couch surfing time I've had lately that I would have found time to write, but honestly, I just don't have a lot to write about.

I had surgery on my foot last week and recovery is proving to be MUCH tougher than I had planned on. The pain and inability to do things for myself is starting to wear on me. So until I am in a happier place and can find positive things to write about, I will spare you all my whining.

Peace out homies...

Thank happy thoughts on Tuesday Dec. 22

Tuesday Dec. 22 - it's going to be a big day - surgery day. I'm not looking forward to what comes after the surgery, mainly the hobbling around on crutches and not getting to wear any of my left shoes - but I am looking forward to getting closer to being healed.

Doctor says 3 months after surgery until I can get back to high impact activity. I'm marking my calendar - March 22, I plan on going to CrossFit in the morning and then running after work. It's going to be a tough and amazingly awesome day! :)

Big news...

So about that idea of wearing the boot and avoiding surgery....well that didn't work out so well. I went in to talk to the doctor again last night, and we decided that surgery really is the best option. This is what it comes down to, even if I can get the injury to calm down now, there is about a 99% chance that it would flare up again at some point when I go back to running and CrossFit. And frankly, I don't ever want to deal with this again. No date yet, but the plan is to get it done before the holidays. There really isn't a reason to put it off, I'd rather just get it done and start the healing as soon as possible! Unfortunately that's the tough part - the healing. Surgery will be easy, but recovery....well, not so much. Probably looking at 4 weeks on crutches, no weight bearing on the foot at all. Then another 2 weeks of light weight - meaning probably looking super awesome and walking with 1 crutch. After all of that I will still have to wait another 6 weeks before I can do any sort of high impact activity. Sorry CrossFit buddies, I'm still out for another 3 months. So sad. :(

So there's the news. I apologize now if I get a little whiny while dealing with this, it's going to be tough, and I just can't wait until it's all done.