My Relationship with Running

I have been running off and on for 4+ years. It started when I wanted to lose the baby weight of my 3 rd child and just couldn’t slim down my stomach. Believe it or not I bought a Wii Fit and started running on it. I started off with a very short time in the winter and by the spring I was running 20 minutes at a time on it. The nice weather hit Ohio and I decided to do my first outdoor run…..talk about a shocker. It is completely different running outside on the road compared to inside on the carpet. That first run was a very exhausting day for me, but I was on my way.

Fast forward to 2012….I was pregnant and was walking, running and participated in the Susan G. Komen 3 day for the Cure (20 miles a day for 3 days and camping at night). I felt pretty fit up until 3 months before I was due when kidney stones knocked me down for 6 months….a lot can happen to a body in that time. My 4 th child was born in December 2011 and I wanted and needed to get back on track. I revamped my diet and started running again. It was definitely slow go at first, but I knew that all I had to do was put one foot in front of the other and at a pace I was comfortable with. That first time out I ran a mile and haven’t stopped since.

I signed up for a 13 in 2013 challenge to run 13-5ks in 2013. I have done 10 to date….not to mention the countless training runs I do. The other night I wanted to run 5 miles which is a distance I have not hit before. I started on my journey with a comfortable 68 degrees and a little breeze going. My 18 month old went along for the ride in her jogging stroller and off we went. Somehow along the way I stopped my GPS on my running app and missed part of my mileage which irritated to me to no end. I am a very visual person and needed to see that 5 miles register on my app. Instead I saw 4.25. I finished 4.25+ miles in a little less than 49 minutes. I ran the entire time with a pace of 11:28 per mile. That is not fast by any means, but I was not in this for speed, but for distance. I did what I set out to do and ran the entire time farther than I have ever run. I had my daughter with me and loved seeing her face when we got home and she got out of the stroller. Her smile was priceless.

Next time I will “see” the 5 miles on my app, but for now I am satisfied with what I accomplished. It’s like I said earlier….one foot in front of the other. Once you set a comfortable pace for yourself anything is possible.

HopePeaceFit!

Food Discipline

I was making my oatmeal and peeling a hard boiled egg this morning in the break room at work and someone was there with me that said “now, that’s a healthy breakfast.” And I thought….blog time. We continued the conversation and she said she wishes she could be that disciplined instead of eating a huge piece of pie (as she referred to it) for breakfast. I told her I am pretty disciplined in what I eat and that it didn’t come easy at first. She said she usually grabs a pop tart thinking that it’s a quick on the go “meal”, but then she winds up hungry an hour later. This got me to thinking about what I eat and I thought I would share some of that with you. This week I had oatmeal and a hard boiled egg pretty much every day for breakfast, along with my cup of coffee with flavored creamer (can’t and won’t give that up). I usually make hard boiled eggs every other week as if I made them every week I would get tired of them. Part of the discipline also includes changing up what you are eating. Some people say they get tired of eating the same thing when they are eating healthy. You don’t have to…and shouldn’t be….eating the same things all the time. For me, it’s all about prepping and making sure I have a variety of healthy options in my fridge to accommodate my meals for the week. Some of the meals/snacks I’ve had this week consist of:

· Cobb salad with homemade honey lime dressing (recipe below)
· Celery and carrots with peanut butter
· Taco meat with rice, lettuce and avocado
· Yogurt
· Grilled chicken with green beans
· Nutrigrain bar (not the best, but it filled my sweet tooth)
· Edamame
· Banana
· Protein shake with half a banana, ice, skim milk and peanut butter
· Broccoli
· Pretzels
· Cheesecake (for my Mom’s birthday)

I really don’t track what I eat, so I’m sure there are things I’m missing, but the point is that, if you look, most of what I have is pretty healthy. I don’t eat a lot of carbs and when I do eat them it is sparingly. The thing I want to point out is that I am not hungry when I eat right. The foods I eat are filling and nutritious. When you fill up on things that are full of calories, fat, sodium and carbs your body reacts and craves more thus resulting in the constant hunger cycle. Now that the weekend is here I will have my cheat meals. I must do that so I don’t feel completely deprived and let's be honest...who doesn't love some pizza on a Friday night? What I do notice though is that if I go all weekend and haven’t had enough vegetables I am craving them. My body misses them and reacts accordingly by feeling sluggish.

Honey Lime Dressing Recipe

· ½ cup mayo (I use Hellman’s lite) · 1/3 cup honey · 2 T lime juice · This is very flavorful so I only need a tiny bit on my salad to bring it all together for taste.

Go out there, be active and eat healthy. Your body will thank you. Happy Friday everyone…..Hope Peace Fit!

Today is my Mom’s birthday. I’m sure to most of my readers this is kind of an irrelevant piece of information, but to me, it is monumental. It is just shy of 6 months since my Mom was diagnosed with stage 3A lobular invasive breast cancer. She’s been through 5 rounds of chemo, has lost her hair and is now on shots to shrink the tumor more as well as the lymph nodes that are affected. Her cancer thrives and grows on the estrogen in her body and these shots help to stop the flow of estrogen. She will very soon have a mastectomy. Just last night she was commenting to me that she wants to get the surgery over with. She said she wants the cancer out of her body. I reminded her that the oncologist would like to shrink the tumor and lymph nodes further. I said that she may lose some feeling in her arms or have permanent numbness if they remove the lymph nodes before they have shrunk enough. Her response was quite simple….she said “I don’t care about that…..I want my life.” That kind of stopped me in my tracks and I really didn’t have much of a response. How do you respond to this constant will to live? As usual, her strength and conviction continue to amaze me. Looking at my Mom you wouldn’t have a clue that she has cancer or that she is sick in any way if it weren’t for the fact that she doesn’t have hair. I love to watch her continue on with her life and not let the big “C” word get in the way of anything she wants to do. Today she is at home with my kids taking my two oldest to swim team practice and then taking all 4 of them to the pool. She told me to have our nanny come later this morning as she likes to be there in the morning with the kids by herself. I couldn’t ask for a better Grandma for them. She could easily be laying around feeling sorry for herself, but not my Mom. She does quite the opposite and lives life for all it is worth. So, today I celebrate the life of my Mom and how much she has taught me about love, compassion and perseverance. Happy birthday Mom. I love you.