Sunday, July 24, 2011

It's all good.

Though my knees are aching and my head is pounding and my body is completely fatigued ... it is: all good.

As I type we're having a down pour. Such a welcomed down pour.

After days without a real rain, combined with record breaking heat temperatures I have nearly given up on my already poorly soiled garden. Maybe there is hope for it after all.

Wally and I have spent the weekend tearing apart our soon to be rec room in hopes of omitting the paneling and making it a comfortable place to have a family room where kids can play and in the mean time (more importantly) movies and video games can be enjoyed.

Of course just like with any home improvement project this one quickly grew. We went from taking down loosely placed panelling and painting to repairing corners, filling a billion tiny holes and the unexpected disaster that was our once new (though very much despised by Wally) oak par cay flooring.

Apparently the issues Sweet had with my workout bench (that he got out by marking the workout bench) had seeped through the padding I had down for a workout area and sat on the wood, producing rotting flooring and even some mould.

Indeed our work (mostly Wally's work) multiplied.

Impressively though Wally was able to rip out the old, remove the mould and relay new tiles (that were left by the old owners) all himself. And though we had hoped to have had the room painted by now it should be ready to start tomorrow and with a little hard work should be done in a couple of days.

As for me, I've been busy experimenting a bit more with vegan baking recipes. Actually I just realized they were vegan a couple of weeks ago even though I've been trying many of them for a while.

As I've shared my struggles with you regarding food and my recent decision to enlist some help of good friends and very small attainable goals, I've also been hunting down some more variety in my clean eating pursuits. They've been going VERY well too!

In the past few weeks I've found amazing: Brownie cookies, peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip peanut butter cookies and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Just to name a few.

I've also found some great frozen cookies that are clean and easy to make and of course my favourite clean blizzard (soft serve made from a frozen banana!!!). Not to mention the clean granola I just made and cant' stop nibbling! Mmmmmmmmm.

I'm learning great tools and techniques to help me with my self control and how NOT to get down on myself for my vast imperfections. I feel really good. REALLY good about things.

In fact here are a few things I DON'T feel:

* Like I have to hold my breath until I loose a certain amount of weight and can eat the foods I really want.

Instead I am finding great (and I mean GREAT) clean versions of recipes I love and I feel no guilt about it and for some reason I am so much more able to keep my one clean treat a day rule no problem (of course, right now my idea of 1 clean treat is 2 or 3 cookies, they're small!!).

* Like I can't do it.

As I mentioned before I have chosen very attainable goals and from the reading I've done in food counselling the best way to achieve your ultimate goal is to break it down into much smaller goals that seem like no problem. Once I've aced those I can make change them a bit to get myself further to where I want my lifestyle to be.

* Fat, bloated or like a loser.

Nope. Instead I feel healthy, in control and successful (no, 'in control' isn't really related to 'bloated' ha ha!!)


In other news.... today was my 'long run' day and I completed once again my longest run yet = 4.5 miles.

I did well mentally through it and was able to actually just run and sort of enjoy my smutty music rather than feel like a Sesame Street Character rhyming off numbers every 30 seconds.

Overall my body co operated except for the last mile I felt as though I could literally lay down and fall asleep. No, I didn't feel like dying, just sleepy. AS Wally pointed out a product of not enough carbs - something every girl wants to hear!! (Btw, I had cottage cheese pancakes with fruit sauce mmmmmmmmm).

I was even more impressed that I finished as the air conditioning in the women's only section didn't seem to be working and it was much more humid in there than the rest of the gym.

I am beginning to realize that reaching a further distance will take the gusto out of you for the rest of the day. I need to be prepared for that in the next couple weeks as I get to my 6 mile goal (2 weeks!!! Although I just realized today that 10 K is actually 6.25 miles - boo!!)

Oh yeah and I can't forget to mention that I actually SIGNED UP for my 10 K race today!!!!! As did my new running buddy for that day! I'm so excited, scared and excited and scared :)

Tomorrow I am also starting to train with a friend of mine once a week. She's going through college to be a personal trainer (she was also my first piano student - weird!!!!) and I got thinking about how she might want some practice and I could use a new perspective while I train to be a trainer. Of course it's MUCH more affordable than signing up at the gym and we both get to learn as we go. I'm looking forward to being pushed again and doing some new things.

Well, Wally's watching a movie downstairs I might just go read a book or fold some laundry (so exciting!!). I love down time.

Cheers!