Just getting it done, period

              This past weekend was a holiday weekend and I had 16 miles planned for yesterday, Sunday but my body said, "NO way". Now being 3 weeks away from marathon #9 I could not just NOT run! So I slept in, had a nice morning making myself new earrings, sipping coffee with my hubby and listening to him respond to every cool article he came across in the paper. The morning was glorious. After my kids sent off to bed I left the house and drove 5 minutes to the 24-hour gym I am a member of and ran for 4 hours until 1am. While running, I watched 3 or 4 episodes of Project Runway season 9 and then the newest episode of Walking Dead, which was heartbreaking and thank God it was hreathbreaking, cause it kept me awake and kept me from thinking how tired I was. I ran out of Gu  at home except for one yucky flavor and lost all my salt pills for some odd reason but had enough salt pills in a pill box I used for the last marathon, so I used those. So yes, I ran 4 hours and had 3 bottles of water, 4 salt pills total and only 1 yucky Gu. The gym has unlimited 10-minute hydro massage which I took full advantage of right after finishing and boy was it pure heaven....one can adjust the settings so I basically got a 10 minute bum massage, heaven!! 

                 I got home at 1:30am and made myself a quick and COLD burrito roll with cheese, chicken, and cream cheese, I know, disgusting. But it hit the spot. I took a hot, hot shower and was happy to learn that I had minimal chafing thanks to the KT take I had my 10-year old apply earlier in the night, she's a pro at applying this stuff, you'd think she's a PT. I put on a huge sweatshirt and placed a towel over my pillow and went to bed and slept with a huge smile on my face. I did it. By not making it such a huge thing in my head I managed to do something that if thought over too much would certainly seem crazy. By the end of the night I had burned 1,240 calories and I did not quite know how to put that into my MyFitnessPal app, a calorie/nutrition app I use to monitor what I eat. I chose to just give Sunday 3 hours and Monday 1 hour. The way MyFitnessPal works is that it gives back to you the calories you burned as allowance for more food. I felt this was a good solution for it only gave me 310 calories extra for the next day and the allowance for the Sunday I could not really use up seeing as all I wanted to do was go to bed. 

Green juice cleanse

Celebrating 4 years of no antibiotics, no strep throat and no flu or flu shots.

          While making my juice today I came to the realization that this is the 4th year I have been juicing vegetables and fruits. I am celebrating four years in which I did not get plagued with my twice-a-year illness of strep throat chased by strong antibiotics. Four years of not getting the flu or even needing a flu shot. I have to confess though, I have never had the flu shot, neither has my hubby or my kids...ever! I strongly believe that although my kids do not drink the juice as often as my hubby and me, they still reap the benefits from our juicing. I can only credit that to them benefitting from perhaps a raised family-wide immunity that stems from our our juicing.  I now juice about twice a week and generally make my juice from apples, carrots, ginger, celery and beets. Here is a pic of my mom's Breville juicer. To make a giant pitcher I used 2 cored apples, 2 lbs. of carrots, a thumb-sized piece of ginger, 2 medium beets and 1 lbs. of celery. I took pictures of everyone in the house at the time drinking it. I had two 8oz. glasses. When home we too have our own Breville juicer. 

Tastes best with some ice!!

Totally enjoying my juice!!

My beautiful mami drinking her glass of juice.

My son tasting it.....when he was a toddler he'd drink tons of it. He's become a bit more picky with age. 

              My daughter drinking her juice....she will have a glass usually IF she helps make it. 

First visit to a nutritionist

              I did not think it would be so hard to visit a nutritionist. I think the hardest part was simply knowing that I needed help. It's always been so hard for me to even acknowledge that I need help. I have grown up with independently reading self-help books, always wisely choosing my path based on solid, on-my-own research. But this time I had no more solutions. I had gained weight and listening to too much advice from blogs to podcasts have gotten me confused. It went well. A few times I felt myself getting emotional and I had to catch myself from crying in the presence of this perfect stranger. Back in the car after the visit I had o explore why so emotional? why was this so tough? that was it, the lack of control I felt going in was not a typical place for me to be. Being on the receiving end of HELP was not comfortable...the whole thing felt awkward. The advice I walked away with on the first visit was three easy but at the same time, monumental tasks:

1. Plan your meals and snacks and 

2. Write down everything you eat

oooooh, and see you back in 1 month....

yes, nothing new....nothing I did not already know....nothing earth-shattering. But the last part...the 'meet you back in a month' part was the big catch....

....ACCOUNTABILITY was the fire I needed under my ass to get me moving the right direction. 

Below is my week's plan.....and below that my shopping list for today....lucky for me, today is a snow day at the school distrcit I work at, so, I will be out shopping for a new crockpot, tupperware at Bed Bath and Beyond and at the local grocer some healthier food options. 

Daily juicing routine.....2 years now

               For two years now I have been juicing and I can safely say I will continue to juice until I can juice no more. It has gotten rid of my cravings for extra foods, it has provided me with boundless energy, it has made my skin radiant at almost 40, and I have not gotten sick in over two years, not even a runny nose. My hubby, who odes the shopping, usually gets me 3-4 5lbs. bags of carrots and 3-4 lbs of apples weekly. Carrots and apple are what I like to call my 'base'. Then, depending on the season, and what is on sale that week, I might supplement my juice with other goodies, they can be beets, cabbage, celery, broccoli, cantaloupe, whole lemons, peeled oranges, ginger, and the list goes on and on. With my Brevelle juicer it only takes me about 5-8 minutes to both wash and juice all I can to make 2 jars of juice. One I leave at home to drink the next morning as I am juicing, and the other I take to work with me and drink around 4pm, when I get my unhealthy treat cravings. Try it....it will literally change your life.....

Vegetable/Fruit Juicing Fast Begins Today!!!

                     I want to get faster and the extra pounds I am carrying on me are not helping me reach that goal. Vegetable/fruit fasting is the only and healthiest way I have found to lose those extra pounds that will also benefit your body and not deprive it in any way. Last time I did a fast was 2 years ago with the master cleanser and the entire experience made me feel a huge disconnect with my body, therefore the vegetables and fruits are the way to go for me. Plus, I have been juicing daily already for over 1.5 years so upping the amounts will be quite gentle on my body. 

                     I decided to do this fast after this weekend's long run where I, unknowingly, beat my pace by about 40 seconds per mile. That is HUGE!!! I am now under 11 minute a mile runner....that is quite amazing, I could not be more excited.  I now have new aspirations for my running, one I never even cared for, speed. In total honesty, speed has never been my goal in this running journey. I was perfectly happy to be an average 11 minute a mile runner, but after 8 months of running I am seeing that very slowly I am getting faster, just naturally. Yes, blasting merengue, salsa and mambo on my itunes helps with speed, but this new speed came so naturally, without effort. 

                     Another reason I am doing a vegetable/fruit fast is because I am trying to move myself (and my family eventually) towards a more plant-based diet overall. This weekend I happened across a video called, 'You Will Not Believe Your Eyes' (see below). Although it's only a trailer for a movie, it affected me deeply. I felt so helpless afterwards, I hate seeing animals suffer but do you make something like issue this better? Most of me wanted to move away from it, move on and ignore how I felt, but the affects it had on me persisted. 

                  I am aware that not eating animals may not directly help these very birds on this very island; perhaps it will never even help any animals at all, even the ones being slaughtered right now. But what I do know is that most of me wants to opt out of my dependency on animals for sustenance period. I am going to make a monumental effort to take myself out of the equation altogether, no matter how inconsequential its impact. I choose to be free of needing animals to live. Call it stupid, call it what you like, but karmically, that is what I need to work towards to better align my life to my beliefs and it feels right moving in that direction. For now, I know I need to seriously teach myself how to cook and eat more plant-based foods and try to reduce the only animal products I do eat such as cheese, eggs and chicken. I will work on me first and hope my family will follow, but I need to start with me. 




Here is another movie I watched this weekend and in the end (the last 25 minutes or so) they explain how the deep water fishing has wiped out this specific population of fish that can live to over 100 years, but also how it has destroyed thousands of years' worth of corals which fish depend on to live.