Ok, so I’ve got two veggie friendly no retinyl palmitate and whole food nutrition and i’m pretty excited to try them. I decided I might as well do a side by side comparison and taste test.
2) They don’t taste that great, very grassy. Which wouldn’t be awful if they were smaller but as you can see– HUGE. I’m supposed to eat two of those at once?
4) I’m jittery. I only had one of each for testing and that was…6 hours ago. I’m wired! Crazy pants. We’ll find out tomorrow which one did it as I’ll be starting off with the Pioneer because of taste.
I think they’re both pretty awesome and I’m excited to make the switch but seriously, Nature’s Plus is so huge.
I’m also trying out a Cal/Mag/Zinc formula which has been working pretty well for me. Again it’s a bit high in sugar and calories but it’s worth it to not be sick to my stomach as pill form vitamins make me. In fact after having the multi’s I haven’t had even a hint of nausea. I’m excited!
Also I get all my vitamins and such from Vitacost!Not only is their referral program good for both of us, you’ll also find a lot of things you probably already use for a lot less than Whole Foods or HEB or other grocery and health stores. Also their generic brands are SUPER cheap, it’s almost embarrassing, but still nice quality.
Ok! Off to bed (which feels weird because my place is 90% packed but my bed is still made hahah) Night loves!
I’m moving in a few days and it hasn’t sunk in how imminent it is yet. I’m being bad about packing and all that but I’ve sorted almost all the other things that go along with moving with the exception of those things that are pesky like address changes on all accounts across the board. For me that’s a lot of things! The good thing is I’m learning my new address quickly!
On the health front–I’m doing pretty poorly as far as diet is concerned. There’s a lot of poor reporting on my part and a lot of bad choices too.
I’m also not working out this week or last because of the move and the tedium of packing. The good news is though– I don’t have RA!
I do, however, again have a thyroid dis-regulation. It’s our favorite phrase everyone!! Say it with me:
sigh. Luckily most of my other labs are in normal range, but my poor diet choices lately definitely show. My cholesterol was higher than normal as was my (non fasting but still) blood sugar. No bueno!
Oatmeal, apple sauce, whole foods lunch with tomato soup, a bit of rice, and carrots and then a nice baked potato this evening.
Anyway, I can’t wait to be settled down and unpacking and back playing with my kinect! I love that thing! I also can’t wait to be out of my flooded apartment.
This weekend it rained quite a bit here in Austin and despite having several towels packed up against the door, my whole floor is sodden near the door. Fantastic.
I come home Wednesday after a triumphant trip to whole foods (where everything is delicious and joyus) to find that someone had made a valiant attempt to break into my apartment.
They didn’t get in, and after a police report, a fight with my apartment complex, and the support of wonderful friends and neighbors I’ve got a new reinforced set of locks/deadbolt/plates and screws so long the guy warned me that the fire department would have a HELL of a time getting in, so don’t go burning the place down.
It’s been stressful, even though they didn’t succeed and ALL of my valuables and sensitive papers have been moved to a secure undisclosed location, it is still a violation of my privacy and has lead me to not be scared but to be angry, more angry than a swarm of Chinese hornets. I’m Texan and just because I don’t believe in cruelty to animals doesn’t mean I extend that same nonviolence to people. In fact, quite the opposite. What I’m most angry about is not the thought that they could have taken something of mine, or tried to attack me, but that might have impacted my cats.
I realized in the hours following I was capable of some sadistic acts, I relished in the thought that if I got my hands on someone I would make them beg for their mother before handing them to the police.
I’d like to thank the Austin PD or being amazing and not writing off my concerns but being open and honest and caring. They didn’t even bat an eyelash when I said, what i’m sure sounded very strange, that i was sitting in my apartment locked in, holding a hammer.
I was, by the way, sitting on my wicker couch, next to my cats, twirling my hammer and thinking about what the hook end could do to a burglar’s eyeballs. Like I said, I was angry.
Thursday I had a nice dentist appointment for my routine cleaning and checkup. It’s nice to have a clean bill of dental health. I haven’t always. In fact I’ve had the worst luck ever but all my amalgams are out and I’ve now just got a pretty set of porcelain and natural chompers that are enjoying the feeling after a cleaning. I cannot stress to people enough how awesome good dental health is. TAKE CARE OF YOUR TEETH PEOPLE.
Friday, however, was my rheumatology check up and another round of blood draws. 7 vials. Let’s see what they show when they show.
However, we discussed my meds as they stand now and what is working and what is not. Basically not much in the way of medication is working. My ultram takes the edge off enough on my bad days for me to function but we’re both agreed the changes need to come from other regimens. I have been prescribed massage hahaha, which I mean he knows I already have a therapist and i LOVE her! But he’s told me I am to do them without excuse, i have the doctor’s permission to treat myself. He’s happy about my blood pressure which was 120/80 in the office, which is text book and fabulous! And really surprising considering that the previous two nights I had ZERO sleep. Even with people staying at my place and even sleeping somewhere else while I had a big burly Australian checking on my cats, I couldn’t sleep. I was really really mad.
I was so mad I actually caved a bit and had tacos from Taco C. HUGE mistake, my body regretted it almost immediately. I’m still a bit nauseated. I forsee watermelon for dinner, clean and refreshing.
Meanwhile– I’m in the market for a new gummy vitamin. Why gummy? pill vitamins make me vomit. I don’t know why but they always have. Gummy or chewable or what have you, i’m looking for one that is vegan and I mean actually vegan. I’d really like one that uses a carotene not palmitate for Vitamin A for starters.
I like having a multi despite having many whole foods with a wide range of nutrients and even things like my Nanogreens which has a great nutrient profile because it makes sure that there are no gaps daily. If I have excess of something that’s ok, my body will eliminate it, but on those days when I could use the boost, it’s there to help me along (we all have days when it’s just like…ugh, oreos, oreos are good).
My current gummy, however, is retinyl palmitate for Vitamin A, which can cause toxicity and is something I’d just like to avoid. You know the worst side effect of beta carotene? you turn orange. Whateve, I can deal with that a lot better than liver failure. Learn a bit more about Vitamin A here!
in fact, i would be totally ok with a daily multi that had NO vitamin A at all. I simply don’t need it in supplemental form and it’s one of the few vitamins that can actually cause issues without trying to OD on it. ( too much of anything is bad but you have to REALLY work at it–like intravenous use– to cause toxicity with most vitamins).
The last few months have been inexcusable. I’ve been busy, stressed, and utterly horrible to myself and so, I’m back because I can’t take it anymore. I let allllllll of that be an excuse to back slide into nasty habits that have only aggravated my pain and illness and thus perpetuated the cycle. I’ve tried to get back on the wagon without blogging but honestly, I’ve not done well without it.
That means that I won a trip to San Francisco but I traded that with my second place buddy (who did AMAZING and won the fitness challenge outright) for a $750 gift card to Greenling.com
During this time I also was searching for a house. This was the start of my undoing. It is immensely time consuming and stressful and in this market I was actually making offers on houses without seeing them because if you didn’t, you’d miss your chance completely. Even so, I won no bids but four and of those they all failed inspections miserably. It was expensive, painful, and quite frankly made me hate my life.
I gave up. Instead in November I’m moving into an AMAZING new apartment that is going to be a little more expensive, a little farther out, but it is: huge, next door to my wonderful friend Sarah, has amazing amenities, and is in a safe and lovely part of town.
I also got myself a new bed because the bed I had since high school was just not doing well for my back. It is fabulous!
During this time I also began to suffer a lot of pain because I made poor choice, stopped working out, was sleeping poorly, and was doing all the things that I shouldn’t be doing that was hurting my fragile health.
I got into physical therapy as it turns out one of my biggest back problems is a nice fat pinched nerve and hyper-mobile L3 and L4. At some point I re-injured my back and that cascaded. It’s improving immensely now!
I’ve got a reliable rheumatologist and he’s immensely helpful and very open to non-drug intervention. He’s supportive of holistic diet approaches, acupressure, massage, and other therapies to manage my pain and my deterioration and hopefully reverse it.
I got myself a kinect! and I loooooooooooove it! It’s so fun and helps me out with my yoga as it can help me correct postures. I also got the whole things for 99$, i think i profited from a broken relationship. I should feel bad about that but having been in the same position all i can think is haha you go girl. I’m so mean!
My juicer died. i might have had a hand in that, so I got myself a high powered personal blender. I take it as a sign that I need to switch to smoothies!
Anyway! It’s all about getting back on track– Healthy, whole foods, plant based deliciousness! I’ve been working on it but it’s time to hold myself accountable and use this as a way to help my mental and emotional health. I don’t like talking to people about it, i much prefer writing about it.
You’ll notice typos and such too and that happens. I’m not writing this for professional reasons, it’s a stream of consciousness. No revision, no sugar coating, no holding back. Occasionally I’ll post something more polished, but you’ll be able to tell those. Recipes and whatnot 🙂 buuuuuuuuuuut for the most part– prepare thyself for typos and silly grammar.
I’m not here just to lose weight (though i could stand it) but to stop just existing and really get my life back. I felt SO GOOD eating right and so shitty eating poorly. Now that I’ve really seen and felt the difference, I cannot let myself go back to the ‘food like’ toxic products. It’s not worth it, I deserve better.
That’s really what this blog is about, reaffirming publicly and daily that I am worth it. I’m worth the cost, I’m worth the time and effort. I am worthy of being healthy and happy.
Believe it or not that’s a real struggle for me. When nothing in your body works, when you feel so damaged, it’s really hard to justify the investment.
But I have a lot of reasons to invest in myself. I have amazing people in my life, I deserve to be healthy enough to spend time with them.
I’m awesome! I’m funny, I’m caring, I’m smart, I’m even pretty! I deserve to take the best care, to have the best food, to heal my body!
I’ve felt full since I woke up. I don’t know why. I’ve eaten despite total lack of hunger because things still taste good.
I might be coming down with something, my head has been throbbing today. I suppose I’ll find out in the morning. That’d be the cherry on the week wouldn’t it? The day I’m supposed to have my first nonraw thing. My one cheat meal in a month. Pancakes. I want you.
But if I do wake up ill I’ve decided that I won’t go into work and I’ll cancel all three of my plans and stay in bed with my juice and tea.
So sorry no post yesterday. I spent the majority of my time at home without power yesterday due to a downed power liner. Awesome, right?
Well no, it made me incredibly grumpy. I therefore spent a good portion of that time being grumpy and shoving clementines in my mouth.
As my friend James rightly pointed out though, at least I didn’t have to worry about cooking anything!
Today was much better though and it ended with a nice sashimi dinner with my friends Amy and Dan. I haven’t gotten to see them in a few years! They’ve both been deployed in Afghanistan and well, that can put a damper on home visits.
Only a few more days committed to 100% raw. It’s been a good experience overall, I think. It’s been a little more socially isolated that I’d have liked to be but I have to ask myself if that’s such a bad thing or if maybe I should have made more of an effort to bring others into the experience.
Friday I have a lunch date with my co-workers at Beet’s, and I’m hoping that they like it. A few are skeptical and only one has expressed excitement and he’s the last place I would have expected it from.
Eating healthy, not eating flesh at every meal, and ENJOYING fresh raw vegetables shouldn’t be seen as weird, unlikely or somehow shameful. It shouldn’t feel like you’re doing something wrong because you’re not being ‘normal’ but I’ve encountered that a lot. “oh…it’s vegan?” , “wait, there’s no meat?”, “what do you mean? salad isn’t a meal” etc
I love meat, I love poultry, I love (some) fish. Eggs, cheese, milk! Delicious sure but wow there really is a whole world out there full of flavorful and delicious things that aren’t from animals or tofu for that matter.
Nuts, dear nuts! I’ve never been a big fan before. I don’t know why really. I don’t like them in baked goods and I’ve never really liked trail mixes and all that but I love them in raw recipes. Cashews! I NEVER ate cashews before, but now I see them as incredibly versatile. Same goes for seeds, it’s incredible. Flaxers! Flax seed crackers! Sturdy and delicious and perfect for thick dips.
There is an incredibly flavorful and vibrant world outside of salted processed microwaved crap that we call ‘normal food’ and the best part is? It just happens to be good for you too.
There are def some products and styles I will adopt forever because they taste so much better than the conventional counter parts. Isn’t that crazy? ‘Health food’ that is better than the so called ‘real thing’ (Hail Merry’s tarts, I’m looking at you!).
Friday I have lunch set up with co-workers as my last ‘raw meal’ on this experiment and that night I’m getting myself PANCAKES from Kerbey, remember those cinnamon roll pancakes? Awww yeah. But then for the next three days (maybe longer we’ll see) I will be back on the juice before I begin my proper mix of raw and clean.
…and btw Beet’s superfood clusters are insanely addictive and delicious and omg i ate three of them this afternoon all at once. AH so good
So, Week 4 is done and tomorrow starts Week 5. Today is supposed to be a rest day but I’ll have to hit the pool because I did not get my laps in on Friday. I hurt my shoulder doing push ups on Thursday night, which just goes to show you, I should not be allowed to do strength training unsupervised! It hurts in the front of my shoulder and it clicks when I move it. Probably not good but I will only pay the specialist co-pay to see the Orthopod if it is something below the waist that prevents running. Everything else will have to heal on its own! In this case, it means I taped a bag of frozen peas to my shoulder every few hours for the past few days and I had Carly apply KT tape in a very colorful pattern to my shoulder. I am not a graceful or efficient swimmer so I don’t suspect that it will make much difference that my shoulder hurts now. I will lurch from one end of the pool to the other, regardless.
I have to admit I was pretty excited about this. Truthfully, I hit this milestone about two hundred miles ago but the Nike Plus app “ate” several hundred miles a few weeks after the Disney Princess Half and I was unable to recover them. I even called the help desk for the Nike app and they were unable to restore them. I was sad, and the girl on the phone was so sympathetic, I am convinced that they train those people in the stages of grief for when runners call mourning their lost miles. I could have manually added back in the miles but I could not remember how many miles I actually had or the days of the runs so, I had to accept it and was still happy to see the 1000.
Then, I hit 90 miles for the month of July. A first for me. On Tuesday, the Half and Full Marathon Training Group resumed at Fleet Feet. I’ve been running in the “off-season” with my old group from the Spring Half and Full Group but I was able to reconnect with several running friends I have not seen since April. We’ll meet new people and it will be fun to do boring track work-outs with a group and have variety for company on long runs. Dimity’s training plan (even the modified version we agreed upon) is a significant amount of miles more than the Fleet Feet plan. I am sticking with Dimity so, that means I’ll have to find friends to run extra mileage with me each Saturday. Sarah, from my regular “off season” crew is training for the NYC Marathon so, I suspect, she will hang in there with me.
My long run on Saturday went really well. First, the weather was mild and nothing like the jungle-like conditions of last week. I ran the first 5 miles with the new Fleet Feet group and the last 7 with my dear friend, Heather. Heather is in the training group, too, training for her first half marathon, the OBX Half in November.
Let me just take a minute to tell you all the reasons why I love Heather. Heather and I met in the Executive MHA program at UNC during the first week. I’ve known her for 5 years but I feel like we’ve been friends forever. I think we immediately recognized fellow Type A folks. Heather puts up with zero bullshit and I love that about her. The entire MHA program is made up of one series of group projects after another and you need people who are going to get it done in a timely manner. Plus, she is crazy smart and gets stuff I don’t, like Excel, math and how to fix Windows computers. She also knows how to make knock-off Sweaty Bands, saving me a gazillion dollars on my Sweaty Band fetish. She can cook, bake, fix a car, and sew. Basically, Heather is a total badass and she is the first person, after my immediate family, I am going to find when the zombies come for us all. Yes, we already have an apocalypse plan, of course we do! She now works where I do and she sorts all my Excel spreadsheets so, that is an extra plus. She is also my personal shopper and buys me things at Costco so I don’t have to drag my kids. My favorite thing about Heather is that she will do races with me and I love, love, love her company. Here is the proof (I have a ton of pictures of races we did together but these are my favorites):
The Ramblin Rose Triathlon in Raleigh in May, Heather was our swimmer (I ran my fastest two miles – ever. Too bad I’d have to keep that pace up for 24.2 more miles to BQ).
She got in this dirty, dirty lake that has been known to have dead bodies in it for the Ironman 70.3 Raleigh relay team (because we have this type of friendship, I e-mailed her news stories about the questionable pollution level of the lake and a dead body that was fished out just a few days before we went out to the lake to practice open water swimming – not making light of dead people, or anything, just giving her a hard time):
Proof that we all made it to the finish line, although my finish was in jeopardy (more on my nutritional challenges in another post). Jonathan was our biker.
Earlier in the week, Heather agreed to run my extra mileage with me so I did not have to run alone. After a pit stop back at the Fleet Feet Durham store from the first 5 miles, we headed out down the American Tobacco Trail for the the last 7. Heather kept me energized, entertained and set a great pace. It was her longest run, ever, and she knocked it out of the park because, well, that is what Heather always does! I started to feel sick to my stomach towards the end of the run (I’ll have a post about my long run nutrition challenges later) and she walked a while with me, never complaining. I recovered and we ran in the last mile, hard. Heather has been known to puke on a run and just keep going. I am not that badass. I have to at least walk a minute or two before running on.
I have a lot of friends, whom I love, and a lot of running friends, whom I also love and also keep me going on my runs, but I really owe a ton of credit for motivation to Heather. She promised to enter the Boston Marathon with me in the disabled division and push me in a wheelchair when I’m 70 and she is 60 so, it sounds like we are going to have lot of running and a lot of friendship ahead of us!
“Mercy”! So, this is what my right knee, my left foot, both sets of shins, both quads and my right glute were all saying to me this week after last week’s long run and Tuesday’s tempo run. I could hardly walk on Wednesday and yet, I ran, again, on Thursday because that is what we do. We follow the training plan e-mailed to us by our coach. Except, when we don’t.
By Saturday’s planned 18 mile run, my residual soreness was still in high gear. It is mostly a stiffness. I feel like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz. I can’t point to any one thing that hurts any more than anything else. My coach, Dimity, was in a van full of other Mother Runners running Ragnar Napa Valley with the BAMR Ragnar team (I tried to win THAT contest, but alas, I won the 26Strong contest, instead, and now I am in pain, instead of drinking Pinot Noir in Napa), so I could not e-mail her to ask her if I should make up my own cut back week and scale back the mileage. I also had the Ramblin’ Rose Triathlon as a relay team on Sunday morning, and while it was only a 2 mile run, and we did not care about placing, I still needed to be able to move in a forward motion. Then, there is the Rock N Roll Montreal Half Marathon on Sept. 28 and, I don’t want to fly to another country, be child-free with my husband for the first time in two years and not be able to walk, much less run the half, where I am hoping for a new PR.
I iced, foam rolled, medicated, rubbed with a Ben-Gay like substance that does not smell, religiously from Thursday morning through Saturday morning. I was still sore but I could walk without hobbling. What should I do? How does one reconcile one’s Type A brain with one’s 43 year old-been-training-for-a-marathon-for-11-weeks-high-mileage body? Of course, one asks all of her running friends what she should do, seeking permission to cut back! The universal response was to cut back. So, I did, and I only ran 12 miles on Saturday. I feel bad about it from a training perspective but I know it was the right thing to do. I have not had a chance to tell Dimity, yet, but I suspect she will back me up on this one and help me figure out what to do for Montreal. I also suspect my hoped for PR is in jeopardy but, I think I can handle it because, I don’t want to jeopardize the grand prize of finishing Philly. I may skip Tuesday’s training run this week and just go with Sissy for a light shakeout run on Thursday morning before we board the plane on Friday to fly to Montreal. We’ll see. I see my massage therapist tomorrow and she has magic hands that can fix a lot.
Here is proof that the Nike Plus Run app sometimes has a mind of its own. There is no way I ran a 5 minute mile during Saturday’s long run! Seriously, I don’t know which satellite was tracking me on this run but I certainly hope it is not one used for national security or to track the space station because it is wonky.
The Ramblin’ Rose in Charlotte was fun, with Heather as the swimmer and Carly as the biker (Team Two and Half Women). The run course was very strange, through the parking lot of the aquatic center, some weeds, some gravel, a major highway, a bike trail and a field. It was certainly not my fastest two miles and, I was hurting most of the way but, we finished! We also got free containers of my favorite brand of hummus at the end (Roots Hummus – made in small batches in Asheville – I could just eat it with a spoon, no chips needed). I basically run for hummus, I guess. Heather had the second fastest swim of all the relay teams because she is a rock star. I’m proud of Carly because she PR’d on the bike!
This morning, I feel better than I did yesterday. My right shin and knee are still sore but, if I take it easy this week, I may be ready to go for Montreal. I certainly hope so.