October 2012
1 post
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Sugar
I have a love/hate relationship with sugar. On one hand, I love how it tastes, I love sweet foods like cookies and cakes, and I definitely LOVE milk and white chocolate. On the other hand, I know that consuming sugar can be almost like being addicted to a drug – eat enough of it and you start to need a “fix”.
I did some preliminary research on sugar and sugar consumption when my trainer...
April 2012
6 posts
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2012: Moving Forward
This is the fourth and final post in a series where I check in on my 2012 goals. The introductory post is found here.
This week I’ve been checking in with myself and my progress towards making 2012 the “Year of Yes”. I’ve had some ups and downs so far in the year, but I think that taking stock and evaluating myself has been helpful and insightful. It’s helped me...
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Emotional Eating
This is the third post in a series where I check in on my 2012 goals. The introductory post is found here.
As I type this, I am feeling hungry. Like I could rip open a bag of chips or cookies and devour them all. I purposely do not have any extra snacks in my office at the moment for this very reason. When I am in the office, bored, or emotional, I reach for the nearest food that I can...
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Is Inertia Preventing Me from Moving Forward?
This is the second post in a series where I check in on my 2012 goals. The introductory post is found here.
Yesterday I talked about how I’ve been stalled at about 98 pounds lost, just short of hitting triple digits – a huge milestone. My trainer has been telling me that it’s normal to plateau every 15 or so pounds now that I’m so close to my goal weight, but I think that, for me, it’s more of...
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Is Fear Holding Me Back?
This is the first post in a series where I check in on my 2012 goals. The introductory post is found here.
(image via girlatthewell)
Is Fear Holding Me Back?
On the surface, no, fear isn’t holding me back. I’m successfully training for my first half marathon in May and I just ran an 8-mile race. In addition, I work out with my trainer three times per week and we’ve...
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2012
2012 was supposed to be my “year of yes” - saying yes to new experiences, foods, activities, etc. I was going to reach my goal weight by June, run new races and distances, and I started this blog as a way to get me focused on my theme for the year. The blog was also supposed to help me focus on the fact that I don’t want fear to hold me back, my weight to be a defense...
March 2012
27 posts
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“Be daring, be different, be impratical; be anything that will assert integrity...”
– Cecil Beaton
I’ve been a slave of the ordinary lately. And that needs to change.
More to come.
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Yorktown Victory Run
Finished up the 8-miler just before the pouring rain hit this morning. Kept a pretty consistent 12:25/mile pace and felt great. Definitely teared up a little bit in the last mile, overwhelmed by the pride and accomplishment I felt for myself. Also, my previous trainer was running back to help me run the last bit, just like she did last year.
I am too tuckered out to do a full recap now, but...
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Accountability
Just had a trickier than usual 3 mile run with my training partner. It involved more hills than either of us are used to and was partly on a trail. We kept up a pretty good pace despite how warm it still was at 6 and made it through just fine.
At the end, as we were cooling down and walking back to our cars, she said something about how much she hadn’t wanted to run today.
I...
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“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”
– Muhammad Ali
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Half marathon training: day #3
My training for the half marathon has been really sporadic (or, in other words, half-assed), so it felt good to get in 2 great runs this week.
I normally prefer to run alone, particularly for short distances, but this weekend completely converted me to running with a friend. On Thursday, we ran 3 miles and she pushed me into the fastest running pace I’ve ever maintained (a little over a...
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Jumping on the kale chip bandwagon
WHY did I resist the kale chip hoopla for so long?
I’ve been reading about them in magazines, online, and all over Pinterest, several of my friends are huge fans, and yet, until Sunday night, I’d never caved and tried them myself.
Well, the next time there is an epic food trend with everyone raving, unless it’s like, goat brains, I won’t be waiting so long to try it.
I...
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Frustration
I’ve been able to say “I’ve almost lost 100 pounds” for about a month now and I am tired of it! The same thing happened as I was approaching ONEderland - I completely stalled just short of my goal.
I thought that by simply monitoring my dark chocolate almond intake for Lent that things would sort themselves out, but apparently not. It has to be mental, because...
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Guilt
Why is it so challenging for me to accept the occasional caloric indulgence? Over the weekend I went to the movies with a girlfriend to see This Means War, mainly to ogle Chris Pine.
I mean, what’s not to love?
This friend and I have a tradition of sneaking in diet cokes, some adult beverages, and snacks into the movies with us because we both refuse to pay $8 for a 32 ounce soda on both moral...
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Running from a bad day
I know I normally post an outfit photo on Fridays, but I’ve pretty much hated all of my outfits this week and while today’s outfit is sort of cute, it’s raining and my hair looks insane and I have a migraine. So no post on that topic today.
Instead, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about exercise and how I use it to relive stress. Yesterday was really stressful at work (hence today’s migraine)...
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Uncluttering
I’ve been thinking about the image I posted in yesterday’s Afternoon Inspiration a lot lately.
I’ve never been good at uncluttering my life. I have very definite hoarding tendencies, though thankfully nothing as horrific as seen on hoarding tv shows; I just don’t like to throw things away and have a hard time letting go. But I’ve been getting better and better...
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Motivation in the mail (part 2)
Every time I’ve caught myself reaching for more than my allotted 20/day of these
I remember this
and how I want to look in one of these
So far so good. I did a bit of black tie formal dress shopping yesterday and fit into a size 8 at BCBG. Insane.
Hitting the pavement tonight for a run and have all of my meals planned out and ready to go. I’m looking at a good day as long...
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Motivation in the mail
There’s something so magical about getting good mail. After the bills, junk solicitations, and 4 J. Crew catalogues I received, it was lovely to receive several pieces of personal mail. One was a birth announcement from a dear friend, the other was an invitation to a birthday weekend in the English countryside - eek!
Upon further inspection, I noticed the dress code for Saturday:
...
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What would be different in your life?
“If you were living a miracle, what would be different in your life?”
This question was posed to me last week by my therapist – if I woke up tomorrow and my life was my definition of perfect, what would that look like? Basically, my homework was to think about this question and come back this week with specific, positive answers (i.e. what I DO want, not what I DON’T want) relating to any and...
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February 2012
42 posts
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Under the weather
I’ve been under the weather for the last few days – after a month of bizarre weather patterns, last week finally did me in (3 inches of snow on Monday, 82 degrees and humid on Friday). I stayed home from work Monday and Tuesday, and just felt icky in general.
This was me:
Monday evening, however, is one of my thrice-weekly personal training nights and I was reluctant to skip, even though I...
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Black or white
Before I lost the weight, at the height of my sickness, I would constantly try to diet. I’d start out the day so well, eat the right things for breakfast, but inevitably would find temptation during the day and would “cheat”. After I ate whatever my “cheat” was, I’d eat more, rationalizing that I’d already blown the diet, so it didn’t matter if I...
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My favorite meal
As I talked about in this post, routine is key to weight loss success. I eat pretty much the same breakfast day after day and I have a steady rotation of easy, nutritious meals and side dishes that I can whip up on short notice.
One of my most frequent options is a whole rotisserie chicken from Fresh Market matched with either a mixed salad or other vegetable, usually green beans.
Yum:
...
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“Promise me you’ll always remember: you’re braver than you believe,...”
– Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh
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Recognizing there's a problem
I’ve been really down, anxious, and emotional lately. I talked about it in late January (here and here), but things haven’t really improved. I’m working out regularly, my diet is 95% clean, and I’m smaller than ever. But something is lurking that is like a cancer, malignant and eating away at me.
I’ve been in and out of therapy for a long time, dealing with eating...
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Lent
I’m not terribly religious and didn’t realize that it was Fat Tuesday until this morning. However, as soon as I realized that tomorrow was Ash Wednesday, my brain did a weird thing – it immediately started thinking about what I would give up for Lent. I think this was a Pavlov-style reaction from my Catholic-school upbringing (I went to Catholic school until college) where giving up something...
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Half marathon training: day #2
Due to inclement weather last week, I was unable to go for my long run over the weekend. I can do some shorter runs on the dreadmill, but nothing more than 3 or so miles.
So this Saturday it felt wonderful to slip into my running shoes and take off for a nearly 5-miler. The weather was gorgeous and it felt more like early April than February. Since it’ a holiday weekend, Colonial...
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