Love

No matter how much you abuse yourself, ignore yourself, hold everyone else up on sturdier pedestals than the one you're clambering to the top of... you can't leave. We focus so much energy on all the other people, the ones with free will. The ones that can leave us. Jobs we can lose. But then what if we lose everything? Our jobs, our friends, all of our relationships. You're left alone with yourself. Someone you may not even know.

Once upon a time I bragged about my love for having “me” time, alone time. The truth is that was the biggest lie I ever told myself and everyone else. I couldn't stand being alone. I would wad myself up in fetal position and cry because it's the worst feeling, being locked up alone with someone you don't know. Total stranger. And you can't throw them out.

I'm finding that my relationship with myself, as it grows, parallels the fantasies that movies give us. I surprise myself. With every challenge I take on, it's like I've found someone new. That rush that you feel, the heat in your belly when you fall in love. I get that feeling every morning when I walk into the bathroom, rubbing my eyes, pulling off my shirt and starting my shower and I catch her in the mirror. I'm in love with her. And the more I'm used to that feeling I wonder why we ever hurt ourselves in the first place.

With every new milestone I jot down in my fitness log I surprise myself. When my hands run over my skin and find all the new spaces, new firmness, new bones that I didn't know I had yesterday, I realize that I've finally shed off every protection I used to wrap myself in. 84 pounds of brick and cement, a wall to hide behind so no one could see me. I'm not afraid to fail anymore. I'm not afraid of pain or hurt. Or struggle. Or strength. This woman that sleeps with me every night and pushes me to be the best I can be, she's the love of my life. And I'm so sure now that if no one ever loves me in that low lit Hollywood type of way, timeless and all encompassing, I have the closest thing to unconditional love within myself. And I can never leave.

The best thing about this is I think the closer you come to fully accepting yourself and taking good care of yourself, it lets other people love you more. If you're putting up walls between you and the person you are, if you aren't reaching your full potential, imagine how much you're hiding from those trying to connect with you. That has to be why relationships fade. Why friends lose touch and lovers leave their keys on the kitchen table. Unless someone really knows you and accepts you, they can't be expected to hold your hands through your growth and change, inevitable steps that life takes. The difference between surrounding ourselves so we're not alone and surrounding ourselves with positive feelings and true comfort. Real people. Reality.

This week I've been a little discouraged with my workout. It's not “easy” and I do groan and sweat... but I'm not feeling the change that I felt doing Ripped in 30 and that's been a slight bummer. I tried increasing weight and found that the number of reps that 30 Day Shred has isn't conducive to heavier weights. I lowered my weight and it seemed easier and I didn't really like that feeling either. But I'm going to keep going. I know I'm getting stronger. I can do 10 push-ups in a row and could probably do more if I pushed. I can get into Wheel Pose. Maybe it's getting past moments of change that you can see, it has to be moments of change that you experience.

I had the greatest run yesterday. Building muscle really helps with performance, I'm finding, and there were times where I was keeping the 8 minute mile pace. I'm terrible at pacing and I know that's something I need to work on when Half Marathon training comes along. But for now, I just kind of enjoy seeing how far I can go on my timed workouts.

Yesterday I went super far. Week 3, Day 2 workout on Bridge to 10k, I went 6.21 miles in 1:07. That's a 10k. The first 5 minutes of that is walking, per instruction from the app, so just imagine if I got to run for those 5 minutes instead of walking, i.e. a race day scenario. That makes me happy. Of course, I couldn't find a 10k that fit into my schedule, so I've got the 12k in May. Got to get up over 7 miles. It would be fun to be able to do 6.2 miles in 1 hour. But I'm rambling now.

The weather has been crazy. Right now, it's snowing these small flecks of glittery whatever, earlier it was a heavy snow that I could slip in. Yesterday started out sunny but the cloud cover didn't yield any precipitation. This was my second run in my newest shoes and I'm really happy with how they work. I decided to try to take on the problem I had last time with my toe... and made a pretty painful mistake. I wrapped the toe in a band aid, which in the world of that one toe was perfect. It didn't blister, and I didn't feel pain from it. But I didn't consider how that band aid would affect the rest of the foot, so I'm doctoring my poor little toe. Had to change up my workout this morning a little because I couldn't do high knees without an excruciating amount of pain.

What made me happy is after that run, I woke up this morning with slightly sore, tingling legs. I'd missed being sore so much.

Workout log this week is pretty straight forward:

Monday: 30 Day Shred, Level 2, Day 1 and Bowling

Tuesday: 30 Day Shred, Level 2, Day 2

Wednesday: 30 Day Shred, Level 2, Day 3

Thursday: REST

Friday: 30 Day Shred, Level 2, Day 4

Saturday: B210K, Week 3, Day 2 – 6.21 Miles

Sunday: 30 Day Shred, Level 2, Day 5

So tomorrow will be the last workout in Level 2. Then on to Level 3 for 6 workouts and then I'm done with 30 Day Shred. That went by fast. It goes by fast now that working out is nearly a more exciting priority than the food I eat. I look forward to it and I miss it on rest days. I'm delighted and fearful and have a feeling of adventure thinking about moving on to the next challenge.

I am trying to up my ability to do push ups. Did 10 yesterday and today. Going to try to gradually add more push ups as the month of March progresses. I've got a schedule to get me to 50 by the end of the month. Let's see how that goes.

Food this week was interesting. Sunday, after I posted, I got to cooking and made two pretty tasty items. I made some Buffalo Chicken Chili and Blueberry Lemon Muffins. Of course both of these recipes came from Pinterest because I feel that if I'm going to spend so much time on Pinterest drooling over the food, I might as well enjoy some of it!

The muffins were difficult. And I think I only wanted to make them because I was bored. I only ate 2 and gave the rest of them away. They're very wet and you have to let them cook in the muffin tin. Might actually not be a bad idea to use those metal-looking muffin tin liners. I don't even have a picture! I have no idea what I was thinking. The original recipe is here... and there's plenty of pictures there. Here's what you need:

1.5 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup apple sauce (I used Mott's natural)
2, 6 oz containers fat free lemon yogurt (I used Stoneyfield Farms because they don't use artificial sweeteners in their fat free yogurt).
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
zest of 1 lemon
2 cups blueberries

Preheat oven to 375 and spray 12 muffin cups with cooking spray. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In another bowl blend apple sauce, yogurt, egg and vanilla. Stir the wet mixture into the flour mixture until just combined. My batter wasn't as “thick” as the original recipe described. Add the blueberries and zest and stir gently. Divide the batter between the 12 cups and bake for at LEAST 15 minutes, if not more. They were very, very wet. I would almost half the blueberries, mainly because as they heat up they bust open and the juice just adds to the wet.

They tasted good. Had a cake-like texture. Not bad.

My Buffalo Chicken Chili was delicious. I had it Monday for lunch with a coworker, shared it with another coworker during the week, and then my handsome gentleman and I finished it off Thursday night for dinner. I do have pictures of this... so... here we go!

1 Tbsp olive oil

2 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded

1 (15 oz) can of white beans, rinsed and drained (I used Goya's “small white beans”)

1 small onion, diced

1 large carrot, sliced thin

2 stalks celery, diced

½ green pepper, diced

3 cloves garlic, shredded on a microplane

1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes

½ Tbsp paprika

½ Tbsp cumin

¼ cup buffalo sauce (I like Frank's brand. If you like it hot, use more. This wasn't very hot at all).

In a metal pot, cook the fresh veggies and garlic in the olive oil for 5-8 minutes. Add the paprika and cumin. Add the tomatoes and hot sauce. Bring to a boil. Once boiling, turn down to simmer and let cook for 50 minutes. (Seriously, this is the longest I've cooked in a while, but so worth it!).

At the end of 50 minutes, stir in chicken and beans. Heat until everything is heated through. Very good as leftovers.  My rendition came out to 213 calories.  Feel free to add cheese and all that good, stuff.  Handsome gentleman had it over rice. 

I think today I'm going to update my running playlist... always good for giving a little more umph. I've got a 5k not this coming Saturday, but the one after, so going to be running some 5k distances during lunch hours a couple times between now and then. Need to see how fast I can get it done! I'm longing for Spring like you wouldn't believe. I don't really mind the cold, it's the slipping hazard side walks. And my new shoes aren't too good for cold days (lots of ventilation) or for accidentally stomping in melted snow puddles (lots of ventilation).

At the end of March I'm going to be flying back to Kentucky for a quick visit. I'm already worried about eating. Already making dates for running. There's a 5k going on that I'd love to sign up for, but that would cut into visiting time. So excited for people to see me so small.