Return

It's been a long, strange almost-year.  A lot has changed about my life; I'm now living with family.  Still doing yoga, occasionally.  I found a studio that offers a morning Mysore-style class where you don't have to commit to 3-4 days a week in the studio.  I keep hoping that this will translate into getting back into a home practice, but now I'm even having trouble getting out to class on Sunday mornings.  I'm going again tomorrow.  I'm training for a half marathon, which is a week from Sunday.

And I've gained 10 lbs. since last I wrote.  Intuitive eating isn't working so well because I'm not sticking to healthy foods.  I'm torn because I know that CRON triggers my OCD tendencies (or enables them? I'm not sure), but something has to change.  I'm less than a year from 30 and I feel like my body is starting to show it.

I have a new friend, too.  A special friend.  And yoga is one of the things we do together.  And running.  And a lot of dancing.  I think that's good for me, just physically, but he's also good for me emotionally.  So I'm going to try to improve myself, and I think that improving my body will help my mental state, at least a little.  So maybe I'll start just logging my calories.  I won't be fanatical about it (I don't have a scale here), but I'll just try to get an idea of what I eat and try to make it a little healthier.  I've already started taking a food-sourced multivitamin and a vitamin D3 supplement, so maybe I won't have as many issues with hunger since I'm already getting decent micronutrients.  We'll see.

Revelation

I'm still all new to this Ashtanga yoga thing, but I realized that part of the vinyasa sequence that I found on ashtangayoga.info is greyed out.  Oh, I'm not actually supposed to do the full vinyasa between every posture in the primary and finishing sequences?  Cool.  So I guess I'm in the process of refining my personal practice.  I'm doing primary series (should I capitalize that?) up to Purvottanasana, along with all the warm-up and finish postures.  I love the flow and connection to the breath on which Ashtanga focuses, and I definitely stronger and more limber.

After my morning practice, I had a sticky bun that I brought back from my dad's yesterday, along with some fruit salad that my step-mother sent home with us.  It was a good sticky bun.  I have a long tango lesson this afternoon, so I'll just have a grilled cheese for lunch and then I'm planning a nice chicken dinner since the meat farmer at the market has fresh chickens today.  I hope we get a chicken.  Might not be the absolute best day nutritionally, but I should stay under calories.

Family Get-Together

I spent the day with my dad and step-mom at their place today.  We went over at 9am (I went running first) and had breakfast, followed by my husband teaching my stepmother to bake bread and then spending time outside with my dad installing a new stereo in his truck.  I was a little concerned because they said they were going to pick up "some fruit and muffins for breakfast."  Ugh.  Carb central.  But they had lots of stuff, including Greek yogurt and some cheese.

And I even convinced my stepmother to make a salad bar for lunch!  I did have a big blueberry muffin and a croissant, but it wasn't too bad nutritionally, especially considering that I ate two full meals there.  Also, I've mostly stayed far enough under calories this week that, even if I go over 2000 today, I'll still average out under that for the week.

Dinner is soup with kale and an egg, though.  I don't need much after such beautiful breakfast and lunch.

Epic Salad

That's what my coworkers are calling the massive concoction of greens, veggies, eggs, and avocado that I've brought for lunch most days this week.  I basically stopped trying to fit it all into one tupperware.  My largest container is 5 cups and I can almost fill it twice with my salad-makings.  Today's salad had:

60g baby spinach
70g romaine lettuce
50g raw kale
100g grape tomatoes
75g sliced red bell pepper
135g diced cucumber
2 boiled eggs
1/2 an avocado

Plus, olive oil and vinegar to dress.  It works out pretty well if I stuff the greens into the 5-cup tupperware and bring the rest of the veggies separately.  Then I eat the first half of the greens with avocado and eggs and the second half with tomato/cuke/pepper and oil-and-vinegar.

I had an hour-long lunch meeting today, so I'm finishing the last bits of my salad now, over an hour after starting it.  I also had apricots and cottage cheese.  Not terribly caloric, but the whole thing feels like an absolute feast.

Ugh, sore musings

My run this morning was definitely not good.  I wonder if I really need those 100g of protein I'd been getting every day.  You'd think 80-90g would be enough for a woman my size, but I guess I do more exercise than I thought.

Of course, it could also have something to do with the lump of nasty bruisedness on my shin.  Although, I didn't actually feel soreness in my legs, just an overall heavy, dead feeling.  My body is fighting back against all the things I make it do.  But I *like* being active.  So my lazy body can just deal.

I'm definitely planning on making cookies for breakfast next week.  I kind of want to make chocolate pudding sometime soon, too.  Maybe tomorrow, even though we still have ice cream.

I"m going to see Cowboys and Aliens tonight at midnight.  We'll see how that goes; I'm saving my iced coffee for an evening treat to fight my natural urge to pass out around 9:30pm.  And I'm going to have to figure out how the heck I'm going to drag my tired ass to the gym tomorrow morning.

Got my yoga done after running this morning.  I definitely feel more limber after a post-run yoga session than when I just do some static stretching for 5 minutes.  Yum, post-yoga limberness.

Stillness

My office lights just went off on me again.  They installed motion sensors last week and the combination of my very sedentary job this week (reading text books and doing calculations) and the fact that the sensor is technically behind a corner of my desk means that the only thing that triggers the lights to come/stay on is when someone enters/leaves the room.  I forget that the lights are on at all, until they go off.

I guess I need to be more active?  I can't wait until construction is over and I can go back to the lab.

I had my giant veggie sandwich for lunch with a few baked chips.  And some ice cream.  I took part of the sandwich and some of the chips to go for an afternoon snack.  If I get dizzy in capo this evening, it certainly won't be from hunger.

Coffee musings

Just sitting here sipping my coffee and planning my day.  Wednesdays are tricky-fun because I have capoeira and I go out for lunch with my coworkers.  Thankfully, we tend to go one of two or three places, and most of them have calorie counts available on the web.  This week, I want to go to a deli nearby that has a massive vegetarian sandwich that's only a little over 500 calories.  I'll probably get that with baked chips (I love potato chips) and save half the sandwich to eat right before capo.  I'm still concerned by the fact that I got dizzy and had to leave early yesterday.

I didn't have any cold-brewed coffee left today, so I had regular warm coffee, but I decided to doctor it up into what I think of as "Guruji coffee" after Swami Satchidananda.  Once at his ashram, I went to the puja at his tomb in the morning and the prasad was always based on things he liked to eat for breakfast, including a cup of very sweet milky coffee.  Apparently Guruji had a massive sweet tooth.  It was then that I decided I could be easier on myself sometimes about what specifically I ate.  So today, I put lots of sugar and milk and a little vanilla in my coffee.  It seems appropriate, anyway, since Wednesday is also my most relaxed morning, so it's when I do my full personal yoga practice with meditation.  It was even nice enough today to open a window in my yoga room.

Accountabilibuddy musings

(or, "I'm not CRed, I'm just a little CRON-curious")

Okay, maybe I'm running out of modifiers for my musings.  But I was thinking a little bit about that awful South Park episode where I got my title/subtitle on my drive in to work today.  This blog is a bit like a CRON buddy, someone to whom I am accountable at the end of the day.  Already last week, there were a couple of days where I didn't have an extra snack because it would have put me over my calorie goal without adding anything nutritionally or socially.  Specifically because I would have to blog about it in my dailies.

Felt very chill in meditation at the end of my yoga practice this morning, especially considering I went running first (rajas up the blood).  Then I had my new breakfast of Greek-style yogurt, fruit, nuts, flaxseeds, and honey with another iced latte, this time with hazelnut extract and a bit of raw sugar.  Yum.  Fiddled about in CRON-o-meter designing a breakfast cookie based on a carrot cookie recipe from 101 Cookbooks, and altered to reflect the fact that it's summer and the markets are just full of cheap zucchini.  So, zucchini cookies.  For breakfast.  Next week.  Should be fun.

Post-market musings

I'm just back from the farmers market today.  I had a farmer marvel at the quantity of kale I consume (actually, he marveled that my husband and I eat so much, but husband admitted that I eat most of it).  I also did Bikram yoga again.  Definitely not going back once my Groupon is finished.  I found an Ashtanga studio in DC that's reasonably Metro-convenient and has a schedule that fits mine, although I won't be able to go 4+ times per week, like a lot of Ashtanga studios seem to expect.  I just feel too wrecked and slightly high when I finish Bikram, as opposed to the blissed-out energy I feel when I go through the fundamental poses of Ashtanga at home.  I'm hoping an actual teacher will up the bliss quotient.

After yoga, I was feeling nosh-y (Bikram high, I had the munchies), but I abandoned my original idea of stopping at Einstein Bros. Bagels and getting a bagel thin with strawberry schmear.  Instead, I was going to get a banana and a bagel and maybe some milk at the market across the street and have half a bagel with peanut butter and banana and milk in my iced coffee (cold-brewed overnight, yum).  But then, in the milk aisle, I saw that they had quarts of chocolate milk from my favorite creamery, so I completely forgot about the bagel and just got a banana and a quart of chocolate milk.  Whole milk.  Dairy bliss.

So yeah, a banana, 2 Tbsp. peanut butter, cup of coffee, and 2 cups of chocolate milk later, in addition to my pre-yoga almonds and dark chocolate, I've had 900 calories before 11am.  So I'm waiting on lunch, which will be light, and probably skipping dessert tonight.  But my tummy is so very, very happy.  That's what a half a quart of chocolate milk will do.

This week, I'm trying something different; I'm going to try to eat lacto-ovo-vegetarian for breakfast, lunch, and snacks, and then have meat only at dinner a couple times this week.  I might even try eating vegetarian if we go out for lunch on Wednesday.  I can do it most places we tend to go.

Oh, yeah, look out for my cold-brewed iced coffee recipe on Sparta Athletika.  It's way yum.

Home-baked bread and post-run musings

I went for a run this morning.  It was over 80 degrees and 75% humidity at 7am.  Yay, heat wave!  But I made it.  I wanted to get out earlier but I was hungry when I woke up, so I had some sesame rice crackers before heading out.  The salt was good for me, anyway.  Just had my fruit, yogurt, and nut bowl for breakfast.  It's kind of nice to run in extreme weather because only the really fit and dedicated people are out and they're mostly really friendly and supportive.  I'll do yoga later today to unwind before the party tonight.

My husband is making a loaf of bread this morning, so I'm definitely going to have a slice later.  Yeah, pretty empty nutritionally, but it's really, really worth it.  I pretty much only eat bread once a week when he makes it fresh anymore.

Party tonight.  But it's an open house, so I could just nibble on veggies, maybe a little dip, and have a glass of wine.  If there are shrimp or some other kind of protein source, I'll go for that, too.  It's at the house of some family friends who used to do Zone, so they're not entirely unconscious of health, which is good.  And I know them well enough to know that as long as I have a drink in my hand, they won't ask if I need anything.  So the biggest challenge will be drinking slowly.  It's not so much that I like to drink as that I enjoy the taste of alcohol.  I can try telling myself that the more I drink tonight the worse camel pose will be in the morning.

Oh, since it's Saturday, I figure I'll post my weekly biomarkers (7-day averages):
Weight: 133.5 lbs.
Temp:  98.5F
HR:  56 bpm

Smoothie musings

I'm having my post-lifting smoothie right now and planning my day.  I find that entering my planned day into CRON-o-meter helps me figure out what I want to do about snacks if I get hungry outside of meals.  Friday nights are pizza night for dinner for me, so I'm making homemade pizzas, which means my carb and calorie counts at dinner will be quite a bit higher, so I can adjust snacks accordingly.  This morning, I also added a bit of dark chocolate to my pre-workout snack, and I know I have a party to go to tomorrow night, so I'll probably try not to snack anyway.  This is where a lot of tea helps.  I'll probably save my morning tea for 10:30 or 11am so that I can wait and eat lunch later.

My smoothie this morning is delicious:  frozen mango, yogurt, vanilla whey protein, flaxseed, milk, and spinach.  Yum.  Last week when I gave blood, the nurse was really surprised when I said I ate spinach for breakfast -- it was in my smoothie!  I try to eat a veggie at every meal, even breakfast.  I can scramble them into eggs or whiz them into a smoothie.

Morning scramble musings and post-run asanas

For some reason, CRON and yoga seem intimately linked in my mind.  There's something very yogic and austere about eating only what you need and no more.  Also, a lot of CRON practitioners are vegetarian or mostly vegetarian, which is very yogic (though I am not).

Anyway, I got up this morning and went for my run, which I do 3 times a week, and then did some standing poses, seated forward bend and twist, and an inversion.  I've found that doing a brief yoga session instead of just stretching helps me feel more recovered from my run.  Maybe it balances the rajas?

Then, I made my morning scramble: 2 eggs, spinach, shiitake mushrooms, and a slice of cheese.  I eat this with yogurt, blueberries, and flaxseed.  It was delicious, but I'm thinking about switching to a yogurt/fruit/nut bowl next week, if only for variety.  We'll see.  Also coffee.  I came back from my European vacation this spring with a new appreciation for coffee.  But I've been waking up earlier than my alarm a couple mornings in a row now, so I might consider switching back to tea.  I have a wonderful Rishi Masala Chai that I love, and I also want to get a new tin of their Pu-erh Ginger.