1. Train and run a 5k

Have no fear, faithful readers, I have not fallen off the planet. Nor have I given up on this thing. I have diligently gotten my 3 runs in each week. I just completely Week 4 Day 3, so you know what that means??? Half way baby!

If you are not familiar with the Couch to 5k program, it is a gradual build of walking to running. The lady living in my ear buds tells me when to walk and when to run and she's mostly pretty nice about it. Until she makes me run more than I wanna. So far, my basic view is that I hate what I am doing, and longing for the previous week's "easier" run, which I guess means it's working.

This journey has been hard. As discussed earlier, I dislike running. I hate the breathing heaving, the nose running and most of all the shin pain. BUT despite all these challenges, I have made it to halfway point and I have to admit, I'm pretty freaking proud of that.

All whining aside, starting this in the spring is by far the best thing about it. My neighborhood smells like flowers which is so delightful. The air is cool enough that I don't feel like I am wearing a wet blanket but not so cold that my lungs feel like they are going freeze up. And 4 weeks into this thing, I am a lot less concerned with how I look when I run. Mostly, because I am focusing all of my energy on willing time to move faster so the fire in my shins will go out but that is totally besides the point.

When I started this, running more than a minute was tough and now I am up to 5. It's not huge, but I will take it and I'll just keep waiting for that great run I keep hearing about.

1.Train and run a 5k

Week 2 Complete.Hurray!

Week 3 Day 1 in the books as well.Groan...

And I thought 90 seconds was bad. HA! It's cake to 3 minutes. (hmmm.. cake...)

I am not so secretly cursing my parents for not making me go out and run more often as a kid because this sh*t is hard as an adult. Honestly, the things I am struggling with the most are my shin pain and my breathing. I gave some new stretches a shot tonite and having iced the crap out of my shins on Sunday after our run, I noticed a difference. They still hurt but the pain has definitely decreased in intensity. Now, to work on my breathing so I stop sounding like I am giving birth whilst running.

On the plus side, having dropped 15lbs since the last time I gave Couch to 5k a shot, I notice a lot less strain on my knees which makes running slightly more pleasant but only slightly. Also, having a running buddy makes me more accountable. Thanks Hubby!

One of the things I struggle with is follow through and so hitting milestones like completing Week 2 is a big deal for me. Especially with something I don't really *want* to do like, pant and hiss and moan for 2 miles in my neighborhood. And I was especially dreading the 3 min straight run this week. But I did it and for that, I am going to glow with pride. Or sweat. Could go either way.

BTW, running in the rain today was kind of sucky but at least we beat the heavy rain!

1.Train and run a 5k

Week 2 Day 1.

The one where I learn exactly how long 30 seconds is. 

When I was a kid, whenever I said any amount of time wasn't "that long" my dad would always says " How would you like to hang by your toes for that long?" And I feel like I can now change this to "How would you like to run for that long?". Ug. I hate it so much and I want to quit.

This is hard (at least for me, I know some of you pro runners are like Oh it's nothing haha!) but I am not going to quit, despite all of the efforts I make to think of excuses why it would be ok if I did.

One of my goals is to improve my follow through. I have great ideas, I am not going to lie but I am royal suck at sticking with stuff when the going gets tough. (Things, not people. I am loyal as hell to people I care about.) So, as much as I feel like death while I am doing it, I will focus on the sunshine and the warm breeze and that at some point this gets easier.

It does get easier, right?

1.Train and run a 5k

I hate running. I always have. I don't like sweating or breathing heavy and to be very honest, I think I look stupid when I run. With all that being said, I put on my list "Train for and run a 5k" . Why might you ask? Because I'm an idiot who likes to torture myself? Nah. Because at some point I will learn to the love the sweat and learn how to breathe correctly and eventually I won't care about how I look when I run... right?

Couldn't be more accurate

Truth is people talk about running like it's this amazing thing. And I want to like it. I just have get past the panting and feeling like I am dying first, I think. The only way I know to get to that point is to have a goal. So I got a Groupon for registration for the Color Run 5k in June. Knowing myself, I need something to help me stay accountable and that's where you come in, my fine readers. This particular item is going to be a series of posts until June as I train.



Today was Day 1 of the Couch to 5k program. I had wanted to start once I finished the cleanse but it was ass cold. And last week I was fighting off some sinus crapola. So today was the day. And believe me, I tried to talk myself out of it. It was a balmy 40-something degrees when I got off work and it was windy. Maybe tomorrow it will be nicer..... NO. I know if I don't start on a Monday I'll put it off til NEXT week. But I kind of have a headache... NO. It's not that bad and the fresh air will do me good.



So I panted and my nose ran and I just wanted to stop but I did it. 32 mins, 2.06 miles.

The Cleanse...

There is no easy way to say this but I have struggled with weight loss since I had my son. Which was 10 years ago. I never consider myself "fat" per say but I missed my tiny body that I had prior to getting knocked up. The problem is that despite knowing all the things to lose it, I never stuck through with anything. The husband and I tried all sorts of things. Weight watchers online, gym memberships, Slimfast, good old fashion calorie counting but because we didn't see results instantly we always fell off the wagon. We like to eat. And more than anything we are emotional eaters. Bad day? Good day? Celebrations? Eat. Eat. Eat. We are not gluttonous people, we are eating our weight in crappy food or going back for third and fourthsey. But we like food and we are don't like to exercise so well. 

Enter Dr. Bryan. He is our chiropractor and has been talking to us about the Standard Process Cleanse for years. But no cheese? No bread? NO COFFEE? You sir, have lost your damn. But after trying so many things the husband was convinced that this would be the only thing that would work. I finally gave in, convinced that this wasn't gonna work, that we are gonna dump money into something but at least I can say I gave it the old college try.

So this cleanse is suppose to basically detox your body to help you get rid of cravings over the course of 21 days. You do this by only eating fruits and veggies as well as brown rice or lentils for 10 days and then adding in chicken/fish on days 11-21. You should drink at least 64ozs of water daily. No coffee, alcohol or pharmaceuticals allowed. I figure 21 days isn't so long and if I power through I will be back to eating "normal" in no time.

This was one of the hardest things I have ever done. And it was totally worth it. Day 2 was the hardest for me, I had a massive headache that lasted basically from lunchtime to bedtime. I'm fairly confident that this was the withdrawals of caffeine. I had been slowly tapering off from 3 cups a day to just 1. I don't drink soda so all my caffeine comes from coffee but I really really love my coffee.

At first we were not very creative with our meals. Shake for breakfast, salad sans dressing for lunch and more veggies and rice for dinner. This only lasted like 3 days before the husband almost lost his mind. We searched the internet for SP recipes( which Dr Cindy and Mommypotamus helped with quite a bit!) and tried some new things. But by Day 11 both of us we over the moon to add chicken into the mix.

It was hard. I know I've said this already but I want to make sure that I put that out there. Because one of the very awesome benefits of this process is weight loss. In the 21 days I lost almost 15lbs. And when I say that part everyone wants to know what diet I am on. And whereas I went into this thinking it was a diet, I've come to realize this is more of a lifestyle change than a diet. Because when St Patrick's day fell on day 21 I thought well, 20 days is just as good, bring on the green beer! But when faced with said green beer, I declined. And I felt good about that. In fact, when the husband said he wanted to do the Post Cleanse program, I agreed. And I felt good about that, too.

So I haven't resumed my life of caffeine and booze. I try to stay away from processed food at all costs. And I eat veggies like I actually enjoy them. I slipped for the husband's bday and ate 3 slices of pizza and then a bowl of mac and cheese but I felt like such crapola that I don't want to do that again.

If you are considering do this cleanse, my advice would be start weening yourself off caffeine, carbs,cheese and meat first. Also, find a bunch of vegan recipes and try those before you start. This program is way more mentally straining than physical, especially if you eat your feelings like we do. But I am so happy we did this and I truly feel like it was an eye opening experience. I hope you can get as much of this process as we did.

20. Go Vegetarian for a month-Part 2

So it has been a month since I have completed my month of no meat. I also did a cleanse which, I was going to include in this post but feel like it deserves it's own post. But no meat went over so well. I truly felt better, I was really excited to try new recipes and think it definitely help me unearthed a love of cooking I never realized I had. (Back story: My mom is a cook. And if you know me, you know I tend to go against the grain on anything and everything. So when my mother tried to "teach" me how to cook, I formally protested the whole thing. In fact I stood by guns so adamantly I moved into a house without an oven/stove).

 The only thing that could prevent me from go full on meatless forever is bacon. And when I say this to folks, everyone agrees. I know logically is just made of pork but in my soul I'm convinced its actually made of equal parts magic and crack. Nonetheless, I was completely ready to swear off meat forever until we did this cleanse, which involved basically swearing off all things not fruits and veggies for the first 10 days and then adding in chicken/fish on day 11. By Day 11 I needed something tasty so chicken came back. I also ate way more fish than I have ever in my life, which was also odd.  

When we finished the cleanse I thought, I'd go back to no meat and I believe A LOT less meat is my end goal however, we decided to do the post-cleanse program as we reintroduce food back and I'm not prepared to go back to a vegan lifestyle until I can eat everything again.

So far of the 2 List items I've tried, this had the best and most surprising outcome.

20. Go Vegetarian for a month-Part 1

February is the shortest month, in case you didn't know. So that is part of the reason we(the hubby and I) chose this to be the month we go meatless. I don't consider it cheating so you shouldn't either. Day 18 and not completely unhappy with the lack of meat in my diet. I had intended to write weekly on this particular item but as they say, life gets in the way.

So, we have tried some interesting substitutes for meat. Seitan was good, a tad salty and Tempeh(Soy) was not so good. Could very well be the recipes we made, I'd be willing to try each differently. We also gave lentils a shot, which wasn't too bad either.

One would think I should have like 18 new recipes that I have tried but one would be wrong. We did a lot of Subway and some other restaurants where their menu was very extensively vegetarian, ya know with like just black bean burger as non-meat option. But here are the new recipes we tried and respective reviews of each.

Margherita Pizza- We were hungry and lazy and didn't make our own dough but this was pretty good. I could have crushed the tomatoes more but there is something about fresh mozzarella that makes everything better. This is easily an 8 out of 10.

Mmm... cheese...

Tempeh Stir-Fry with Black Bean Sauce-This one took some trouble as I couldn't find the black bean sauce in question for a bit. This was definitely not my favorite recipes so far. I don't care for snow peas and I expected kale to be similar to spinach, which it's not so overall I was disappointed. I'll give it 2 of 10.

Curried Cauliflower and Chickpea Stew-I didn't hate this one at all. If fact, went back for seconds and ate it for lunch the next day. Though, not a huge curry fan it was a nice change from our norm. The hubby actually prepared this one and said it was pretty tedious with the chopping and such and wouldn't make it again. And I'm probably ok with that. We included some Naan with it as well. A solid 5 out of 10.

Lentil Walnut Burgers- This came from the Moosewood Cookbook, which is no longer in print, booo. These burgers were pretty good, similar texture to a black bean burger but a very different taste. I don't like the texture of mushrooms or walnuts typically but since they are minced and squished with the lentils I hardly noticed it. I would definitely make these again and try them fried instead of the broiled. An easy 8.5 out of 10.

Spicy Enchiladas - This recipe calls for chicken but I replaced it with Seitan. This one was very good and not too difficult to make. Seitan has a weird feel to it in preparing the meal but cooked and mixed with everything else, tasted just fine. I'd called it a 9.5 out of 10.

Overall, I am not missing meat, other than bacon too much and could see this continuing though, we shall see how the husband feels about all that.