Tag Archives: mental health

What Makes You Happy?

It’s just another day out here in my job-searching-and-daydreaming-of-the-marathon land, so why don’t we talk about some stuff that is making me happy right now?

IMG_0081.JPG

Compression sleeves. These are Tommie Copper, and they’re calf sleeves, but the company also sent me knee sleeves. (Thanks to Christine who suggested I reach out to them when my knee pain started.) According to the company’s website, the copper in the sleeves helps repair injured tissue and promote healing. As every single fiber of muscle south of my hips seems to be tight, I figure these can’t hurt–and they do seem to be helping.

Screen shot 2011-10-19 at 3.25.45 PM.png

The Equinox blog, Q. It’s really fun and well-designed and talks about all sorts of things from nutrition to gear (which…yes, I am addicted to gear) to avoiding knee injuries. (Oops, too late.)

IMG_0076.JPG

Kale. Justin Timberlake brought sexy back, I’m bringing kale back into my life. My body’s missed it. Today’s lunch bowl was brown rice with sauteed kale, onions and chicken sausage over brown rice.

IMG_0069.JPG

Physical therapy. I feel like I’m accomplishing something there. My knee pain has already gotten a lot better!

201110191534.jpg

I know this is incredibly obvious from reading this blog, but running. Running makes me very, very happy these days. [This photo of me doesn’t, but that’s neither here or nor there.] Also cool–Sue, the girl on the left works for Women’s Health, and wrote about our run on the new WH Gotta Run! blog. That’s also kinda cool.

201110191536.jpg

I may feel lonely sometimes, but I am lucky. I do have great friends. Lots of them.

IMG_0062.JPG

And good god, do I love this furry little face to pieces.

What makes you happy??

Where Have All The Vegetables Gone?

[Imagine that title in the tune of Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?]

In June, I got laid off. Pretty soon after that, my stomach issues returned from all of the stress.

in July, I started marathon training.

Some people have a hard time eating healthily in an office, but I find that so much easier because of the regular routine: bring oatmeal or English muffin + sunflower butter + banana for breakfast, bring lunch or stop at one of the healthy lunches around my office, bring healthy afternoon snack or just don’t have afternoon snack. I was in a regular routine, and I very rarely got some sort of unhealthy lunch just because it was easier not to. I usually walked over to the vending machine, realized there was nothing healthy (or even a worthy unhealthy “splurge”) and walked back to my desk. I was generally pretty good at pretending candy bowls didn’t exist, or actually stopping at just one.

These days, I have this staring me down for most of day:

IMG_0064.JPG

IMG_0065.JPG

And to be perfectly honest, it’s not easy to stick to my healthy eating habits at a not-so-easy time of my life with constant access to food.

While training for a marathon.

When I was overweight, grazing wasn’t usually my problem–overeating of rich and/or fried food was. But these days, it’s hard not to graze. Some tortilla chips and hummus here, some nuts there.

Between the tough times, the marathon training and the stomach issues, I’m definitely eating a little differently than I used to. More carbs, less vegetables. I’ve never tried to eat “perfectly,” because there is no eating “perfectly,” I’m not perfect, and I like unhealthy food just as much as healthy food sometimes, but I’m just not eating as healthy as I used to. With my upcoming marathon and current taper, it’s important to eat healthily–especially since I’ll be running less.

So, I’m going to try to bring some more vegetables back into my life so that after the marathon, I don’t gain a ton of weight from continuing to eat like I’m running for hours a day.

IMG_0058.JPG

So you might start seeing more of my meals again. Oatmeal with almond milk, sunflower butter and a banana this morning.

IMG_0059.JPG

Brown rice with a chicken burger, bruschetta and broccoli for lunch. (Dinner was pretty much the same, except I switched out the bruschetta for some pesto. Living on the edge.)

IMG_0061.JPG

Also, I got a Brussels stalk at Trader Joe’s? Have you guys ever seen of these? It was so random, I had to buy it. Mostly so I could photograph it and blog it.

IMG_0063.JPG

HE’S BACK! He’s been in NJ since Thursday because I had a busy weekend, but my sweet little boy is back.

So–if you work from home, how do you not eat everything in sight? If you do work from an office, what’s your biggest downfall–or your biggest secret to staying healthy at work?