health

If you want to keep moving, make it happen.

| cheriarmour

Working out this winter has been really hard for me.  I am by no means the poster child for the best worker-outer of all time.

I’ve done it, but it’s been really hard.  It’s a few things I think.  I finished the Chicago Marathon in October, which was amazing.  But once I did that, I felt a little…draggy as it pertained to my workouts.  I got them in, but didn’t really run more than 10 miles following that.

And then, before I found out I was pregnant, but was pregnant, I was really dragging.  I would go to Flywheel for a class, and sort of wonder why I wasn’t really making waves on the leaderboard.  All makes sense now…

But I’m starting to get to the point in my pregnancy where my energy is coming back. My motivation isn’t always there, and that’s annoying, but I do what I can to at least get moving, motivated by the fact that I’m teaching my baby good habits, even in the womb.  (Which is actually a thing, if you’re thinking about having kids/currently in the process of cooking one).

So yesterday, I taught my early morning BodyPump class, and fully intended to hop on the treadmill to get more steps in, but I was really lazy, and ended up picking up some email that I really needed to catch up on, and before I knew it, it was afternoon, and my brother and my husband were asking what we had around the house to eat.  I popped a lasagna in the oven, and while it cooked, I grabbed a step (like a step aerobics step), turned on a 136 bpm mix that I’d just gotten for class, and went for it for like 20ish minutes.  I didn’t run a marathon or solve the issues surrounding world hunger, but it was enough to get my heart rate slightly elevated, and keep me feeling not-crappy for not doing something to get my blood pumping.

12439383_10100721350424943_8439827667549667825_n

All that is to say…

Austin and I get some ribbing from folks, a lot of times family, when we make time while we’re at home to work out.  It doesn’t hurt our feelings obviously, but it’s one of those things that just makes you go “hm” because it seems like, for a lot of people, fitness is the first thing to go when things get messy.  Long day?  Skip the workout!  Happy hour later?  Skip the workout!  Favorite show’s coming on?  Skip the workout!

Which seems really silly when we think about the things we do not and would not skip.

We shower, brush our teeth, go for mani/pedis, go to triva Tuesdays at the wing place, never miss Keeping Up with the Kardashians.  All things that are required in some of our minds.  But we skip something as simple as marching up and down on a step for 20 minutes.  Why?

What if we bumped working out up on our priority list – made it less of a negotiable, and more of something we hate to miss?

What if we made working out, something that we wanted to happen, instead of something that we dreaded?

Need some ideas?  Check out this dope article I read and Well + Good the other day, How Busy Women Make Their Workouts Happen.

How do you find time to move?  

Do you find yourself bumping your workouts down on the priority list?

Trying something new: my visit with a registered dietitian!

| cheriarmour

One of the perks of my wonderful work is that I get free personal training (which I take full advantage of) and visits with a registered dietitian, which I took advantage of starting with a visit that I made yesterday morning.

When I told my mom that I was going to see an RD, she was pretty shocked.  I’m perceived in my family as kind of the weird one who eats really crunchy weird stuff, and as a result, my mom didn’t think there was a need for me to visit with her – but because the visit was free, and because I felt like there were things I could learn from her, I decided to sign up with her and visit yesterday.

I think a lot of times, when you go to see a nutritionist, folks assume that you’re in it to lose weight, but there was more in it for me, and in the days leading up to the visit, where I wasn’t really sure what to expect.  I knew these things:

  • That my sweet tooth is a little louder than I’d like to admit.
  • We could potentially be talking about kids in the next few years, and I’m interested in being in really great shape to get pregnant, continuing in good health throughout my pregnancy, and returning to good shape after having a baby, and I could get help with that.
  • I’d like to have more energy – wake refreshed and ready to do stuff, rather than wanting to cut my own fingers off when I wake up in the morning.

So I was a little nervous to see Katherine (Katherine is the RD), because I as afraid she might be judgey, or condemn some of the unhealthy decisions I make.  I DO eat well, but I really enjoy my diet coke and my candy.  And it’s never like I feel like it would be impossible to give those up, but I haven’t.  But I was really pleasantly surprised at a few things that we got out of our first visit.

Similarly to a good therapist, Katherine did a lot with questions – but not yes/no questions.  Questions that involved me talking…a lot.  I hope I didn’t come off as neurotic as all, but I did talk a lot.

I was really happy that Katherine didn’t tell me to do…or NOT do anything.  She really listened.  And suggested.  And recommended.  But there were no demands.

Katherine allowed me to set my own goals, and didn’t set any for me.  I am going to share my goals with you for sure, but wanted to share with you my experience with an RD.

Have you ever visited a registered dietitian?  What was your experience like?

Mine was inspiring, refreshing, and a reminder.  No matter how awesome you eat, how many miles you run, or how many kombuchas you drink, there is always, always something to be learned from someone like Katherine.  And I really appreciate the chance to get to learn something from someone who’s better at it than I am!

The OBGYN and the kid question…

| cheriarmour

Happy Friday folks.  This week has been a really challenging one.  I really feel like the moon should be full, or mercury is in retrograde, or something is going on that is making people completely bananas.  The number of bizarre interactions I’ve had this week has like tripled, and just finished up with a guy in Jesus sandals and a leather cuff interrupting my time with my laptop, and hitting on me I think.  I don’t know, I’m not always great at knowing when that’s happening to me, but I’m pretty sure it was.

Anyhoo.

Let’s start by looking at the most Indian/Trinidadian salad that has ever existed, shall we?

IMG_0223[1]I made this at Whole Foods, and compromised on the rice I really wanted, and threw the curried tofu with the peas and such on a bed of lettuce.  It was glorious, and I didn’t feel nearly as guilty as I would have with all that white rice staring me in the face.  Also…

IMG_0228[1]Check out this açai bowl I got from Happy and Hale the other day?  They put it on their Facebook, and it looked so tasty, I had to try it out for second breakfast that day.  It’s like some açai smoothie stuff in the bottom, some oats, coconut,  blueberries, chia, and something crunchy.  It was SO refreshing and SO filling.  I definitely would love to figure out how to make this and will definitely blog it when I do figure it out.

My trip to the OBGYN and the kid thing

So, all that food aside, I had my yearly exam at the gyno this year and I made a few observations while I was there.  First, I was impatient, and just scheduled my appointment with the first doctor who could take me, rather than with my normal doctor, and I will not be doing that again.  The doctor acted really strangely, and I honestly think her social skills are just lacking a bit, but that doesn’t always work when you’re conducting an internal exam on someone.  Instead of letting me know what she was doing, she just did it, and she scoffed when I asked her about some concerns I had regarding fertility and use of birth control long-term.  I feel like your doctor is like a medical professional, so they’re supposed to at least wait until you’re gone to laugh at you, but she wasn’t really having that.

Her strange behavior did lead to me think about a few things.

  1. I really would like to do some research on whether my usage of birth control long-term can affect my fertility.  My doctor, after she was done laughing at me, said that that’s not a thing and I shouldn’t be worried.  I’m fine with that answer, but I’m not sure I feel confident in the way it was delivered, and it’s a question that I’d like to pose to my doc, when he has an appointment available.
  2. I may need to switch practices as I start to think about the kid thing.  If there’s a chance that the woman I saw could be delivering my baby, I’m not really too comfortable with that.  I LOVE the guy I usually see, but this woman was just strange.
  3. We’re starting to talk about the kid thing.  Not right this second, and not tomorrow, but I would like to, God willing, have a baby.  There are just SO many factors that play into the decision, and I’m not sure when or if I’ll ever feel like those factors have all resolved, but I think we’re willing to give it a try in the next year and a half or so.
  4. Antibiotics and a healthy…ahem…situation…just don’t agree.  I’ve been eating probiotics like my life depended upon it, and I’m just now starting to get comfortable again   Eessh.

I’m not going to ask you about your personal OBGYN business today, because that’s not necessarily polite, but do tell me what you’ve got planned for the weekend!  I will probably be working since I was sick last week and wasn’t as productive as I could have been!

 

Brokenhearted no more.

| cheriarmour

My boss told me that he wanted me to take Friday off – that I’d been working a ton and that I could use it.

“When was the last day you didn’t do something for the Y?”

I couldn’t really answer that.  Now, I love my job, and I find it incredibly rewarding, so work doesn’t always feel like work, and sometimes I think I let it get away from me and I overdo it sometimes.  Plus my husband works out at the Y, so a lot of times, if I stay late, I get to see him for a while before we both head home to do dinner.

Ok, so at any rate, Friday started like most random days off.  I got up, chugged some club soda, filled up the Kia, grabbed a donut from a local shop, and fell asleep on the couch while watching The View.  I remembered my dad had a stress test scheduled for that day, which fueled a little bit of anxiety for me, but I tried to push it out of my mind and convince myself that it would come back clean.

Rise Donuts

Rise Donuts 2

Kia Soul
Had to…I drove my Kia down 40 to the donut shop with a little bit of sunroof action.

A little history on my anxiety about my father’s heart.

This is going to sound really silly, but I’ve had recurring nightmares about my father suffering a massive heart attack since I was really young.  The first one I remember, I may have been in fourth grade, and I dreamed that my father had suffered a heart attack and I was the one responsible for taking him to the hospital.  The hospital where I was taking him was uptown, and in the dream, I remember getting lost, and not being able to find the hospital as my dream-dad was dying.   The dream freaked me out so badly, it’s stuck with me for the better part of a decade, and I think I’ve had similar dreams since.  So when my dad, months ago, started describing chest pain a few months ago, I was completely filled with dread.

So, I was asleep on the couch when my sister texted about my father’s stress test.  The text was accompanied by a photo of my father in a hospital bed, shooting the thumbs-up at the camera.

During the stress-test, which involves a treadmill and some electrodes thingies, the tech saw something ominous in the reading, and got on the phone with the doctor immediately and rattled off some medical jargon to the doctor which my dad said he didn’t understand.  My dad said at that point, he wasn’t really worried because although his chest was hurting, he’d been experiencing it, and he assured the tech not to worry, that it would pass.  The tech seemed worried.

My dad said that the tech seemed to be masking some panic, and that when the doctor came, the doctor seemed to be masking some panic as he explained to my parents that my father had a 99% blockage in one of his arteries in two spots, and that they would be shooting him up with some dye, shooting a camera into the artery, and then placing some stents in the artery to open it up.  Right then.  Now. Today.  Happening immediately.

Without having applied a single shred of deodorant, I hopped off the couch, brushed my teeth, threw on a sweatshirt, and started the drive down to Charlotte, all the while making calls to get my classes covered and make sure that everything was continuing to run smoothly at work.  I arrived to the hospital, navigated the building, and found my father’s room where he was resting with the rest of my family.

He looked good for having been in surgery, and seemed to be in a decent mood.  I ended up spending the night in the room with him, where I discovered that if you’re looking to get rest, the hospital is NOT the place to do it.  Literally, there was someone in the room every hour or so.  We went to bed around 10:30 on Friday night.  A tech came in around midnight.  The nurse came in at 2 to unhook my dad from his IV.  Around 4 or 5, a nurse with an Eastern European accent came in to take my dad’s blood for blood work.  Around 7, a nurse with no inside voice came in, shrieking and laughing.  And that was that for the night.  I ended the day of too much excitement by having to speak in a strong voice to the nurse who was trying not to feed my dad breakfast.

I think at the end of this episode, I’m a little freaked out.  If anything, this surgery is a great reminder to get checked out regularly.  Though my dad suffers with diabetes, he maintains a healthy weight, eats well, and the doctor told us that the blockage most likely started when he was a teen.  Scary.

Whew. What a weekend, huh?

 

Weekend Buzz + The Best Holiday for Candy

| cheriarmour

I hope your weekend was the tits.

I actually had a bomb weekend because I got to spend time with my husband.  I don’t know about you guys, but a lot of times of the weekends, we make so so many plans that we barely get to see one another.  And by the time we get into bed too late on a Sunday night, we haven’t seen one another more than an hour or two.  This weekend was a little different – I made plans and drank with friends on Friday, and because I wasn’t teaching or anything, we spent all day Saturday together – cleaning, napping, working out, and finally, falling into bed, deliciously exhausted, but together.

Austin’s the bomb.  I love him a lot.  I like spending time with him.

Now.  Let’s talk candy. 

On the way to run yesterday morning, I got into a big discussion with Mama Cheri about candy.  Now, neither of us eats a ton of candy – she for health reasons, and me, because once I start, I can’t stop.  So when I eat candy, I typically do a single-serve York Peppermint Pattie, or the holy grail of candy, a Reese’s Big Cup, where the peanut butter to chocolate ratio is one that is angelic.  So I’m of the firm belief that Valentine’s Day is one of the best holidays for candy.  But I got into this argument discussion with my mother and a friend regarding the best holidays for candy, and they were not in agreement.  So let’s break it down.

The best candy, in no particular order.  

1.  Reese’s – the big cup variety is the best, which I’ve stated time and again.  NOW, the reason for this is that the peanut butter to chocolate ratio.  This includes the trees, the eggs, and the hearts.  All solid choices.

2.  Whoppers – malted milk balls are the absolute best.  Now, there IS a variety you can get at Whole Foods, which makes you feel a little better about stuffing your face because it’s made without HFCS and real chocolate, as opposed to Whoppers.

3.  York Peppermint Patties – the 140-calorie variety that you can commonly acquire at most checkouts at the grocery store.  I mean, DUH.

image via Wikipedia
image via Wikipedia

4.  Pretzel M&Ms.

5.  Sweet Tarts– you can shove these in your mouth by the handful, which makes them really convenient.  But really dangerous, as I’ve found out, because when they’re in the admin office, for example, you might eat them all every time you have to go down there.  Which is not productive.

Now, let’s move on to the worst candies, in no particular order. 

1.  Circus Peanuts – my mother disgustingly loves these.  If you read the description on these, you’ll find that they’re considered some sort of marshmallow candy, flavored artificially with BANANA?!  WTH?! Who would do such a thing?

image via Wikipedia
image via Wikipedia

2. Okay, so I’m having a really hard time moving past the Circus Peanuts thing. But my mother reminded me of these atrocities…

image via Candywarehouse.com
image via Candywarehouse.com

These guys are called Old Fashioned Marshmallow Eggs. There are a number of things that are pretty disgusting about this candy, mainly the fact that the sugar on the inside is suspended in this marshy thing. It’s really disgusting and not acceptable.

3. Jellybeans – they’re just too sweet and sort of pointless. They also get stuck in your teeth, and you run the risk of getting a horrible flavor, which is totally the opposite of the point of eating candy in the first place. Would you ever just go actively seeking out jellybeans? Probably not because they’re pointless and add nothing to your day.

4. Raisinets – I want to know who on God’s green earth decided that they would combine raisins, which are pretty disgusting on their own, and cover them in crusty chocolate? Why would I ever eat that?

image via Wikipedia
image via Wikipedia

So the holiday with the best candy?

For me, hands down, it’s got to be Valentine’s Day because of the variety of chocolate. Yum!

The worst?

Omg, so many worsts here, but I’m going to have to say that Easter provides us with the worst candy because it’s all smooshy and sugary, and that’s just not the way things should be. But Easter, don’t be sad because Easter is going to be closely followed by Christmas, because there is truly nothing fun about sucking on a peppermint stick.

All that said…

How was your weekend? What did you do?

What’s your favorite candy?

Least favorite?

Best and worst holidays for candy?

Staying Fit With a Full-Time Job (and a Baby)

| cheriarmour
This is a guest post, kind of stemming off of a post I wrote last week about making time to stay fit.  I was not comfortable speaking to staying fit while you’re a mom, because honestly, I’m not a mom, and I feel like I’m not necessarily in a position to judge.
Over the past year or so, Chelsie, a good friend, and an AMAZING bridesmaid, has made the transition from being a hard-working wife, to a hard-working wife and mommy, and she’s managed to, in my opinion, find herself in even better shape than she was prior to becoming a mommy, all the while baking, working full-time, and making sure that Evie gets fed too!
So from mommy to mommy, here some tips to staying fit with a job, husband, and baby!
If you know me in real life or if you follow me on Instagram (http://instagram.com/cchlykens) then you know that I bake often.  This fact frequently leads to the question, “But why aren’t you huge!?” When Cheri, who is basically a fitness goddess, asked me to share how I work full time and stay fit I was honored that she wanted my take on things.  I am in no way a professional when it comes to nutrition or fitness.  However, I do know what is working for me.  My daughter, Evie, is nearly 17 months old and I find myself in better physical shape than I have been in, in years.  That is not to say I left the hospital in non-maternity clothing.  I gained the recommended 35 pounds while I was pregnant and it took about 8 months to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight.  I have since continued the journey with the only goal in mind being to be as healthy as I can for my daughter.  I think my methods break down into three categories that hopefully even persons who are not parents can take tips from.

1. Breastfeed

Ok, so this one sounds mom-specific, but hear me out.  We’ve all heard “breast is best” and there are endless studies that show breastfeeding is excellent for babies and their mothers (for more on that HERE http://thecultureofbreastfeeding.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/the-benefits-of-breastfeeding.png?w=640 ).  This, however, is not that post.  When you are pregnant you are supposed to eat 300 extra calories a day to provide your developing baby with enough nourishment. When you are nursing you are supposed to eat 500 extra calories a day. Breastfeeding burns 500 calories, y’all.  FIVE HUNDRED for snuggling with a cute squishy baby (or a cute wriggling toddler who may or may not be pulling your hair and presently has one foot on your throat, or still yet 500 calories for spending some QT with that pump you love, but hate).
toddler
So, you don’t have a baby? You’re just busy and you want to be healthier.  Still a very likely, very valid scenario.  My suggestion here is to take a cue from breastfeeding mothers and limit your alcohol and caffeine.  I love coffee, and in what sometimes seems like another life, I loved bourbon.  I will not begrudge you that morning cup of joe or occasional glass of wine (though I did give up alcohol and caffeine for my entire pregnancy… except for what caffeine is found in chocolate- I have my limits.), but it is something to think about when you are considering calories.  It is extremely easy to drink extra calories without even batting an eyelash and that goes for cocktails and coffee drinks alike.  The same goes for sodas, teas… you know what your vice is.
2. Eat Like A Toddler (or how you would want your toddler to eat in a perfect world)
EvieStrawberries
When introducing solids to Evie we chose to go with a modified version of baby led weaning, which basically means no baby cereal and no jarred foods or purees.  The short answer as to why we went that route is that the nutritional value in cereal is artificially added (it’s “fortified”) and I would rather she get nutrients from a rainbow of foods, not enhanced rice.  She eats what we eat, only in a more baby friendly version, which means our meals have to include things that are baby friendly.  We started her out on single ingredient foods that were naturally the right texture for somebody who only has gums to work with – think avocado, banana, steel cut oats.  As often as possible she ate (and still eats) fresh fruits and vegetables (strawberries created the crime scene above) with no added sugar and no added salt.  When I’m cooking dinner for a discerning toddler (now almost 17 months and quite the foodie)  I can’t throw her just any old junk in good conscience.  Having a child makes you a better person, and in the case of my husband and I, it has made us better eaters.  Before you put something in your mouth ask yourself if you would feed it to a toddler.  I’m not asking you to eat mush, but I think you get the point.  It takes a little planning – you have to buy whole foods if you want to eat whole foods- but it’s so incredibly worth it.  Instead of handing her a pop-tart, I can just as easily (with less than 15 minutes of prep on a prior evening) hand my daughter a hard boiled egg for breakfast.  Grab some fruit or half an avocado and you’re set in minutes!  If you’re just getting started with cooking, simple is best.  Less than 5 ingredients is perfect, raw is absolutely acceptable (carrot sticks as a side? Yes, please!), and seasonings are your friend. I’m pretty sure apples are the original convenience food.  We have excellent resources here in Nashville in our various farmers markets.  The main market is open 363 days a year and we have neighborhood markets nearly every single day in the summer that spring up all over town where we can buy locally grown produce as well as grass fed meats and dairy.  Look around a little, I’m sure these things are available in your area too (Tip: you can sometimes source local free range chicken eggs via Craigslist). Odds are good you’ll be able to support local agriculture and it’ll be easier on your wallet than a health food store.
Like I mentioned earlier, I am a baker.  Another one of my food related tricks is that I have kind of an unwritten rule where I make my own junk food. This allows me to eliminate preservatives for the most part and ingredients I can’t pronounce. The added bonus here is that because I went to the trouble to make it from scratch and use quality ingredients I tend to savor it as a treat a little more. I eat a piece (or two), and ultimately take the rest to work to share.
cake
The same goes for bread as it does for cake.  I make most of our sandwich bread. I don’t find myself chowing down on toast because while simple to make, bread takes time, and time is not something I have a lot of these days.
bread
Side note: My toddler loves curry.  Who would’ve thought?!
3. Rethink Your “Workout”
Just because you don’t have time to fight traffic on your way from the office to the gym, change clothes, kick your own booty in a high impact cardio class for an hour and a half, then swim some laps before heading home doesn’t mean you don’t have time to work out.  I can not block out hours at a time to workout inside or outside a gym.  The number of hours in a day do not exist and I do not have the childcare that this requires.  My husband and I have been on ONE real date since sweet Evie was born and sometimes I feel like I hardly have time to shower.  However, I do have time to take a brisk walk at lunch or after dinner.  I do have time to do 20 pushups or hold a plank until my eyeballs pop out while on the floor playing with Evie (babies think planking is HILARIOUS).  It’s an added bonus when she climbs on top of me to add an extra 27 pounds to my pelvic tilts (if you can’t tell, I’m all about rebuilding my core post-partum) and the same goes for squats.  She has a good time, we get to play, and mama gets in a little extra strength training.  Next time you’re catching up on your Twitter feed do some simple barre exercises (tendu, anyone?).  Netflix has eliminated the commercials for many of us, but if you’re watching regular tv, do something, ANYTHING during the commercial break.  5 minutes here, 10 minutes there adds up, and 5 minutes is better than no minutes.
It’s not perfect, and I don’t think I’ll be writing a best selling fitness book anytime soon, but I hope I’ve provided some insight into what works for me.
How do you stay fit with a full time job?
ChelsieEvie

The definitive list of the 5 worst foods ever.

| cheriarmour

So, in addition to having a horribly irritable stomach, which I’ve shared with you time and again, some may say that I’m a picky eater.

I don’t consider myself a picky eater, especially since I eat a wide variety of weirdly healthy things, but since I was a kid, there are some foods I find absolutely reprehensible, and today, I share these foods with you.

800px-Broccoli_and_cross_section_edit

5.  Cauliflower.

Cauliflower
image via wikipedia.org

There is literally NOTHING that I find okay with cauliflower.  For one, it is a strange color, and for another thing, it looks exactly like the wart on the back of my hand after the dermatologist tried to burn it off.  Why would I want to eat that?  Fun fact:  the only thing fun about cauliflower is nothing.

4.   Broccoli.

800px-Broccoli_and_cross_section_edit
image via wikipedia.org

The green, less-disgusting (but still disgusting) cousin to cauliflower, I hate this more than you could ever know.  The absolute worst way that it’s cooked, is when you’re at a cafeteria-type place, and they cook it by simply boiling it until it’s so floppy that you can’y even get it to stand up straight on your fork.  ADDITIONALLY, when you eat it, it completely tears your stomach into 16 pieces. No thanks.  The only way broccoli is delicious?  No way.

3.  Mealy tomatoes.

800px-Bright_red_tomato_and_cross_section02
image via wikipedia.org

The only time I ever feel like no one cares about me is when I’m eating a salad, there’re tomatoes on it, and the tomatoes are mealy.  It sorta tastes like someone sat on the tomato and then left it out for a day or so before chopping it up and putting in on your salad.

2. The gourds.

image via wikipedia.org
image via wikipedia.org

Now I don’t mind any of the gourds in a bread.  And pumpkin, zucchini, or squash do just fine when you just throw them in a crockpot, and by the time all is said and done everything in there is the same texture.  But when the gourds are only slightly sauteed, and their mushy gushy seeds kind of just hang off of your fork?  Consider my entire meal ruined.

1. Mushrooms.

image via wikipedia.org
image via wikipedia.org

I cannot stress to you enough how badly my life is ruined once a mushroom is introduced into the mix of anything I’m eating.  You know what mushrooms taste like?  Exactly what they look like.  Which is a grey blob from deep in the pits of hell.  The worst part is, that since I’m a vegetarian, everyone assumes I must love mushrooms, and they punish me by offering me a giant mushroom on a hamburger bun. Literally that portabello mushroom sandwich you just offered me?  Just cost you our friendship.

**Honorable mention**

>>I wanna give a shoutout to yellow mustard and to effing pickles even when you didn’t want pickles or mustard on your sandwich for ruining every sandwich the two come in contact with.

>>Another extra special shoutout goes to fruit in my chococlate, without which none of this would have been possible.

>>And finally, I want to thank citrus flavored desserts for making dessert taste like the 409 that you’d use to clean your stove. Sick me out.

Come on, let’s hear ’em!  Comment with the list of foods you hate. 🙂 

#1800 Minute Challenge

| cheriarmour

I saw this on Living in Yellow yesterday, and I totally hope you don’t mind I borrowed your awesome image, but I was totally so excited about the challenge, I had to tell you guys all about it.

#1800MinuteChallengeYou guys know how much I love a good challenge right?  I love a streak during the fall months where there isn’t a whole bunch of racing going on, and this thing proves as no exception.  For this challenge, I (and hopefully you guys when you get into this challenge), we will be doing 1800 minutes of activity between the April 1st through May 31st.  That math kinda filters out to about 30 minutes of activity today, so in my mind, with my training for my two half marathons in April, I am totally ready for this, and totally read to make sure that after my half on April 27th, I don’t fall into a lull where I don’t want to do anything anymore.

Plus, Mama is getting married in August, gotta make sure I’m looking good right?

Head over to Living in Yellow and check out this challenge!

Piggybacking

| cheriarmour

PS, piggybacking was the buzzword of the century when I was in college.  Seriously.  But moving right along!

Piggbacking off of my emotions regarding Rachel Frederickson’s weight loss, I’ve noticed this really weird phenomenon regarding women and their weight.

We can’t win.

In college, I gained a pretty decent amount of weight, which I’ve been really open about here.  But I supposed a lot of people I’ve known in the recent years might not know that.  So anyhoo, at the end of my freshman year, I was at Cram Jam, which was, coincidentally, a late night brunch so you could have fuel to study.  I ran into this girl, Kea, who I’d known in high school.  Kea greeted me by grabbing my stomach, and practically yelling, “Man, you’ve put on some weight.”

The day of Elon’s graduation, I actually graduated wearing this cute slinky skater dress because I couldn’t zip up the floral strapless garden party dress that I’d been intending to wear.  Another blow.

This is what I ended up wearing at graduation when I discovered the dress I wanted to wear wouldn't zip up.
This is what I ended up wearing at graduation when I discovered the dress I wanted to wear wouldn’t zip up. Ouch!

So in my mind at that point, I’m thinking that if I lose the bit of weight that I needed to, the comments should stop, right?

Well.

After losing the weight, I got a few backhanded “compliments” from folks that would get filed in the same manila folder entitled “rude-ass comments that people need to keep to themselves.”  One was when I saw a guy who I hadn’t seen in a while at the gym who stated “I wasn’t sure that was you!  I knew you’d lost a ton of weight, but I couldn’t recognize you!”  But the amount of weight I’d lost wasn’t like hundreds of pounds, so I’m guessing he was just saying that for dramatic effect.  And most recently, a superior of mine directed my direct supervisor to grab me an extra brownie after I went for the salad in the conference room, as she was “concerned about my weight.”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t take a whole lot of stock in what folks say about my weight, for larger or smaller, however I really feel like I can’t win between a girl physically grabbing my belly, and then the uncomfortable levels of attention I started receiving upon losing just a little bit of weight.

So how do you comment on someone’s appearance without making it about a number on the scale?

  1. Don’t mostly.  Seriously, if you’re not good with your words, just don’t say anything.
  2. Try to avoid the words skinny, fat, or anything that is indicative of a number.  One of the nicest compliments I received was from my dad, when he told me how strong I looked after a stint at the camp.  I won’t ever forget that!
  3. If you’re truly concerned about someone’s weight, for bigger or for smaller, ask if they’re okay.  “Are you okay?  I’ve just been sorta worried about you lately!”  Please avoid announcing to the room that they could lose a few or they could eat a brownie.  If someone’s truly sick, your offer of a brownie really isn’t going to help them out.  Just FYI.

So what do you think?  You ever feel like you just can’t win?