thought for the day

something i read today that caught my attention..."upheaval is a part of life, and if you're on a path of growth, you'll experience more of it than if you hide from growth. when you resist upheaval as it occurs, you suffer." for some reason this brought me such a sense of peace. i know that i always have this unrealistic expectation that i'll just do the work and then one day i'll "be there" and everything will be great from that day on. but life is more cyclical than that and right now mine just so happens to be in a state of upheaval and that's okay because it means that i am growing and good things are on the way. in the meantime, i'm feeling more and more on track every day with my fitness goals. yesterday was another solid day of eating...

meal 1: oatmeal, whole egg, bluberries, walnuts
meal 2: spinach hummus, celery, bite of banana bread, small nf latte
meal 3: brown rice, coconut milk, cabbage, onions, broccoli, carrots, shrimp, green curry paste

a quick update

today was a pretty good day. i worked my butt off in the gym. super short workout, but i'm up to 25 lbs on the one arm overhead press and we'll just have to see if i can lift my arms overhead tomorrow. went to a new yoga class this evening too. food was pretty good today. lots of good nutrition...did eat some sugar, mostly pre/post workout. finished my fast around 11:30 and i had:

meal 1: .5 chocolate muffin, macchiato
meal 2: .5 odwalla super protein shake
meal 3: fresh-cut spinach pasta, spinach, walnuts, olive oil, garlic, parmesan cheese
meal 4: .5 odwalla super protein shake
meal 5: lf yogurt, whey protein, greens powder, blackberries
meal 6: kale, apples, onions, garlic, mixed greens, spinach, sweet potatoes, turkey meatloaf...yum!

i was flipping through an old magazine today and found an article in which the author was discussing the different ways that we document our lives (photo albums, scrapbooks, videos, etc) and how we define ourselves by who we know, where we've been, what we've done. but she then went on to speculate that "the story of our lives is told as much by what we cook and eat as by anything else." she encouraged the reader to imagine making an autobiographical cookbook and then postulated that "along with the development of your eating habits, wouldn't it also track the progress of your soul?" and i think that, for me, there is a lot of truth in that statement. the times when my soul has felt a little more at peace or that i've felt more grounded in my life are generally the times when i am eating a nourishing diet easily and enjoying it. and the times when life seems to be falling apart or the going gets rough (ironically, the times when a nourishing diet is most critical) are the times when i fall into destructive eating patterns or eat things that don't support my body and its well-being. it made me sad to think that my autobiographical cookbook would seem to have multiple personalities, and would be one that i would be proud to share with others only some of the time. when i'm at my weakest i realize that i tend to always rationalize poor food choices by telling myself that i can always get on track tomorrow, or next week, or some undetermined time in the future. but the truth is is that the choices that i make today matter in the long run and it's okay to make a poor choice every once in a while (especially when made consciously), but justifying a string of poor choices because there's always time in the future to make good ones is a recipe for disaster...that's one recipe i'd like to exclude from my autobiographical cookbook.

with that said, today was another good day. my yum for eating food included:

meal 1: spinach, eggs, parmesan, roasted red pepper sauce
meal 2: nf latte, whey protein, baby carrots, string cheese, celery, peanut butter
meal 3: brown rice, coconut milk, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, onions, shrimp

today's an impromptu eat stop eat day. i have to say that i still love the flexibility that eat stop eat gives me. i haven't been planning my fasting days in anymore, but am just taking them when they seem necessary (ahem, day after thanksgiving anyone?) and it seems to be working well for me. yay :)

back again

okay, so today was a great day. first one in a while...haven't been posting and it shows in my sliding nutrition. gave in to thanksgiving and had a not so great week with my nutrition last week. but today was all clean food and reasonable portions and a really good ole turbulence training workout. i must say that i've been pushing myself quite hard in the gym lately and haven't missed a workout except one day last week when the gym was closed. been doing yoga and playing around on the rowing machines and getting my TT workouts in as planned. but i know that i'm never going to make any real, solid progress if i don't get my nutrition back in check. it's become really clear to me that my inability to control my eating comes from some very deep unresolved emotional issues from my past. i don't know if i'll ever be fully in control until i get to the root of what's eating at me emotionally, and in the meantime i'm back to square one of logging foods in fitday to create greater accountability. i'm not giving up, that's for sure. so, today looked like this...

meal 1: 2 eggs, lf cottage cheese, spinach, onions, tomato, butter, 1 slice toast, applesauce
meal 2: fresh-cut spinach pasta, garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese, broccoli
meal 3: homemade healthy pumpkin muffin
meal 4: whey powder, banana, berries, lf yogurt, lf cottage cheese, greens powder
meal 5: light coconut milk, green curry paste, cabbage, onions, carrots, broccoli, shrimp, brown rice