This month’s podcast may be the last I do in this format. I’m hoping to shift to a "live show" in May! We’ll see I’m *this* close to figuring everything out.
That being said, this week I babble on as usual. There’s a doorbell, an echo in my empty office and a synching issue. By far not my best podcast. :(
Topics this month include…
Blogs I followFinding Your Own PlanCore Hurt FeelingsHelping a Family Member LoseMy Scale.
Links mentioned in video in order…
He took me out to dinner. The food was tasty ‘n stuff. I almost caught a food coma. And then I moaned for coffee…
.
My favorite coffees in order of stupendousness:
1) Jablum Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee
2) Green Mountain Breakfast Blend K-Cups: This is my everyday go-to coffee, but don’t buy it at the grocery store. The best K-cups deal I’ve seen is on Staples.com: Box of 24 K-cups for $12.99 and free shipping with minimum order. Say what!?
3) Cracker Barrel Coffee: Not too shabby for restaurant chain coffee; the only restaurant coffee I look forward to slurping on.
4) Gevalia Gourmet Coffee: It’s been available online for a long time, but just recently hit grocery stores. Have you seen it yet? It goes down pretty smooth. I force the husband to make it for me on occasion. He bitches about it sometimes, but I just say to him, “Dammit, husband! Serving me coffee is part of your spousal job description, so quit all that complaining and get to it!” And then he quickly brings me a hot cup of the good stuff and rubs my feet and tells me I’m beautiful.
If you own a Keurig and your favorite coffee isn’t sold in K-cup form, then get yourself the Keurig K-Cup Reusable Coffee Filter
Alright folks, please allow me to get back to my coffee moaning. It’s imperative that my annoying moans continue until the Husband gets up to serve me caffeine.
Oh, and pop on over to Like my Facebook page and see my new cover photo. That photo is a sneak peek into some new and exciting visual fanciness coming to the blog! xo
Her feet are catching up to mine!Ive always said (to Ren Man, to friends, to *anyone* who would listen) all that matters to me is the kind of person the Tornado grows up to be.
I dont care how much money she makes.
I dont care what profession she chooses.
I dont care if she gets married or has children or any of the’ traditional’ stuffs.
I care she learns and truly grasps the notion life is as simple as do unto others.
I care she learns & hones the ability to put herself in the place of the other and employ empathy.
It was only after I became a mother I learned in order to teach these concepts to her I needed to *stop* & view the world through her eyes first.
Im taking about this over at the FILA blog today.
Ive taught Sunday School.
Ive taught swimming.
Ive been a trainer.
I am a mother.
The one thing all my ‘teaching’ endeavors have in common is the fact none of them “clicked” or fell into place until I *stopped* and considered how each of my students (or the Tornado) viewed his or her world.
It’s amazing what you learn & discover when you make the effort to view your surroundings through the eyes of another.
Friend, co-worker, boss, family member, acquaintance or child.
REAL Quick tonight. I’m tired and I have an early morning scheduled. Working at home with a 1 year old is proving quite the challenge!
I don’t have a big write up for this weeks Tough Mudder training. We did a lot of kettle bell work and, umm, some unconventional moves with a heavy bag…
LOL I’m sorry but that video cracks me up. We are insane.
Anyway, I did update the training schedule. Click here to check it out.
I shifted a few things around this week. I’ll be running the Ocean City Half Marathon this weekend and yes, the GoPro will be coming with me! :)
To know me (I typically add “in real life” here, but this time Im fairly certain I held it together notsomuch online either) is to know I’ve struggled recently.
I havent been myself.
Instead of leaping out of bed excitedly to greet the day—Ive dragged my sorry ass up & to the coffee maker whining the entire way.
Lamenting how exhausted I am. Moaning about how I dont want to work. Groaning about bus stop waits & soccer practices.
This is totally not like me.
I love my workjob. I cant believe Im paid to blog and write.
I’ve never needed an alarm because Im *always* eager to meet each morning (Im a puppy that way).
Now layer on top of the aforementioned whining a complete lack of interest in anything.
A longing to loll in bed all day.
Not reading & snacking or movie watching & munching (two ways I readily acknowledge Id *always* wanna spend a day. those are my ideas of day-perfection.), but just supine and, well, sad.
And, because Im nothing if not an Emmy-worthy actress (not), The Tornado began apologizing and proffering notes like the one pictured above.
(The note reads I am sorry Mom. I cant blame being depressed for my not correcting the “sre” for sorry. I was inexplicably mamatouched by her misspelling.)
Of course I told her she didnt do anything wrong.
Yes I let her know I was just sad and tired and I didnt know why.
And I didnt.
Id never been depressed & it was only when I cried to Ren Man about how I just didnt have it in me to work or tweet or facebook or do the laundry or brush my hair—-did it occur to me precisely what I was describing to him.
I wasnt myself. I was a depressed version of me. A version Id never been.
I immediately did what all good bloggers do when it’s nighttime & they thinks they’ve solved a problem: I hit Google to be sure.
I read lots of articles about allergies & depression and those (coupled with my chronically itchy, oozy eyes & throat so sore I felt as though I had strep) provided the OOOOH moment I needed.
I took action from there and learned my malaise was, indeed, linked to Austin’s chart-bursting pollen count.
Intellectually I knew I lived in the self- proclaimed ‘Allergy Capital of the USA’ yet since I had no idea about the link between seasonal allergies & depression it took far too long (and far too many depressed texts. sorry about that.) for me to put this all together.
Hence this almost-fitness but more mental health PSA.
Whether you live in the (Live Music &) Allergy Capital of the USA or not—-consider yourself warned and alerted.
Whether your signs of sadness & lethargy are seasonal allergy related or not—consider yourself more aware than I.
(We can discuss the fact I have my masters in counseling later if you’d like. oops!).
Now you.
Have you ever experienced depression as a by product of seasonal allergies? Or does this, at first glance, all seem as off-the-wall to you as it did to me?
Have you experienced depression in general? I know before I thought I was able to understand how it felt—–and I had no idea.
Id love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
Hi MizFit readers!
My name’s Jess. I blog over at Jess Runs and I’m really excited to hang out with you today!
If you’re a long time reader of MizFit, you know this blog is all about not having to fit in to one style of working out or another.
Well after having been a dedicated runner for six years, I am taking a step off the runner path, and trying something new.
Several months ago, I signed up for my first triathlon.
Going in, I knew absolutely nothing about the sport of triathlon. Heck, prior to registration, I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was about ten years old.
Now I own this beauty:
In just a few short months, I’ve learned a ton and wanted to share it with you, because hey, if I can do this crazy triathlon thing, you can too!
Training for three sports at once is tricky, but it also lets you be super flexible with your schedule. I used to lock myself into really rigid running training plans, but tri training makes it so easy to swap workouts. If you’re legs are feeling burnt out, you can swim or the bike. If it’s raining outside, you can go to the pool and move your bike ride to a day when the weather is nicer. The flexibility is an amazing bonus I wasn’t expecting.You don’t need fancy equipment. Sure the top competitors all have bikes that cost more than my car, but if you’re trying something new to see if you like it, there’s no sense in wasting money on expensive gear you may only use once. I will recommend you invest in a pair of tri shorts though. After doing my bike ride last week with no padding to protect my butt, I realized that a pair of tri shorts might actually be a worthwhile purchase. Seriously, your butt will thank you.Don’t worry if you fall off your bike, apparently it happens to everyone. Or at least that’s that what everyone told me when I crashed mine a few weeks ago. They might have just been trying to make me feel better. On that note, invest in a good helmet!Triathlons have a lot of rules, and for a while that really turned me off. I didn’t want to have to learn a whole bunch of special rules so I wouldn’t get disqualified. I’ve since learned the rules are important, but you most likely won’t break them. Just make sure you don’t ride too closely to anyone on the bike, and you should be OK!It’s OK to be a complete newbie and ask what may seem like silly questions. I lean heavily on my friend Zach who is an experienced biker to answer all my many, many questions about safely riding a bike. I also rely on my blog readers who have done a ton of triathlons to guide me. Their advice and support has been incredible and I have learned a ton from them. So don’t be afraid to ask the questions. No one expects you to know everything if you’re new.Most importantly, have fun. I’m enjoying this whole triathlon experiment, but running will always be my first love. I’ve found that time away from running has been awesome because it’s preventing burnout and fueling my fire to get back dedicated running training when tri season is over.
If you’re curious to learn more, you can follow along on my tri-training (mis)adventures over on my blog, Jess Runs. If you’re interested in training for a tri, sign up for the FitFluential triathlon group on Facebook. There’s lot of great discussion and motivation going on there!
Clearly I need to go to the grocery store, but – along with some cupboard staples and a few things in the freezer – I have food enough for me for a day or two. Seven years ago, if I opened my fridge and saw Shiritaki noodles, spinach, mushrooms, carrots and tomatoes, I’d have said, “There’s nothing to eat in here!” and promptly picked up the phone and ordered what constituted real food at the time: pizza and cheese bread sticks.
Old Me didn’t completely avoid “nothing” foods. I’d eat fruit. I loved strawberries, blueberries, and apples, especially when they were surrounded by a pastry shell or sat atop a big bowl of Neapolitan and covered in fudge sauce. I liked veggies, too, but their little tiny portions got shoved to the side of the plate, nearly buried under a mound of cheese potatoes or some breaded chicken or pasta monstrosity. Eat a salad for dinner? Sure! As long as there were plenty of French fries, shredded cheddar, and ranch dressing on top!
Sometimes Old Me pops in for a visit, and for a moment, I see the world through her eyes. This morning, when I opened my fridge, the first thing I thought was, ‘There’s nothing in here.’ But as quickly as that thought came, that thought dissolved, and I saw the eggs and cheese and I imagined an omelet. Old Me would have been halfway to Eat ‘n Park for pancakes. I saw the spinach and tomatoes and planned lunch. Old Me would have debated whether to drive through McDonald’s or Wendy’s for lunch on her way to the grocery store. I saw veggie soup and one lone veggie burger in my freezer and that will be dinner. Old Me would have bought all the fixings for manicotti and garlic bread.
I’m not dissin’ Old Me. I give Old Me a lot of credit. Sure, she can be annoying sometimes, especially when she whispers, “What’s one more piece of chocolate? Go ahead, Lynn, you deserve it.” But even though she put away a lot of chicken nuggets back in the day, she eventually took off her blinders and saw the contents of the fridge and gave “nothing” food a chance. So later, in her honor, I’ll raise a glass of shiraz and thank her for making me who I am today.
Cheers!
