Pics from Savannah

So I finally uploaded my pics from my computer to Facebook so I can FINALLY show them to you. I know friday is usually football friday, but I've run out of ideas which is why I'm going to post the pics from Savannah.

p.s. these pictures are out of order because I am lazy and didn't feel like organizing them better

My grandmother and I - the riverfront is in the background and we're near antique stores on bay street

our medal - so pretty!!

I seem to be so much more excited about this pic than my mom

the line to get to the ferry

this was the route near the end of the half - it was so pretty I had to take a picture

ME!!!!

Mom & I arriving into Savannah after some confusion from my iPhone

Belford's fried green tomatoes - so so so so good

Mom & grandma posing in spite of not wanting to in front of the riverfront

representing On On Tri!!!

The crowd - all 23,000 of us getting ready to run!

my walk home from yoga sunday morning - this is why Savannah is beauitful

grandma & I

fish sandwich at Belford's - again, delish

mom pre-race

mom post race - she finished her first half marathon!!!

I will run this race again because Savannah is so awesome and while it may be a little less fun to get around logistically, not many cities can claim the beauty of the historic district in Savannah. I'm also used to disorder because that's how we do!! (in the south) 

T minus 5 days

In less than 5 days (technically), we will be moving into our new house. I'm very very excited about this, 1 - because I can't wait to move into our new house and 2 - because I despise the process. I have never had so many things to do and to schedule than I do right now. It has been a mess. Anyways - this is our new house -

I LOVE IT!! Especially the little flowers boxes in front of the windows! I can't wait to put pretty flowers and pants in there!!! But one thing that comes to mind as we get ready to move is how I want to make my house look, how to decorate it. When I moved into the house I'm in now, my husband was already living there. He had his own stuff where he wanted it and he had things put up in his way. Let me tell you, it is very hard to merge two households and really, I just didn't try that hard. Decorating is overwhelming to me anyway, but to not start with a clean slate made it worse. Now, I'm going to a place that is essentially bare. There is color on the walls but that is easy enough. I have the opportunity to move all of our boxes and bins and put everything up in an organized, thoughtful way. That is very exciting to me. But, the other part of that is that I get to decorate. I don't have a ton of experience with this so I'm sure a lot will be trial and error. I also am having a hard time narrowing down how I want it to look. There are a couple of styles that I tend to like - (p.s. all these images are from my boards on Pinterest)

Simple, neutral, clean

Bright, Eclectic, Colorful

Old Cottage Style 

I can't decide if I want to have a theme throughout my entire house, do I want to make each room unique in itself, do I want to take from each style and kind of blend? I don't know. In addition to thinking about how I want to make everything look, I also need new furniture. The first thing we're doing is buying a couch. The way one of the rooms is set up, a sectional is best. At first, because I am OBSESSED with grey, I wanted to get a light grey couch and decorate based on that, but then I remember the carpet in our house is a tan. It's too dark to blend with grey. So now I'm going beige couch and I'll figure out what colors to go with that. Here are some sectionals I've looked at -

Rooms to Go

Haverty's

And that is as far as I've gotten. It's hard to do things without being in there, so I guess I'm just going to have to wait. But in the meantime, here are some other pics that i'm using for inspiration

possibly my formal living room

obsessed with grey. it's bad

I love these chairs and want to get some like this but they're expensive!

my formal living room is already painted yellow, so i'm wondering if I could use this and then my accent colors could be navy and white

I still love the idea of bright rooms, I'm just nervous about doing it!!! 

Once we get moved in, maybe I can highlight each room and talk about the different things I do to it. I'm overwhelmed but also super excited!!!

On My Soapbox

So as many of you know, I watch the Biggest Loser a lot and in the past, I have called them out on nutrition. I like the idea of the Biggest Loser in that I love building a supportive community around each other, working through issues that have caused one to gain that much weight, and teach people how to work out. I like that it helps build confidence because a lot of times, people don't realize that they can be athletes. Anyone, and I am saying anyone, can run a marathon. It just takes a little focus and training and Biggest Loser helps people realize that and gives them hope.

But then I see little snipits like was Tara Costa (a former BL contestant/winner) tweeted last night:

@Tara_CostaTara Costa

Never ate grapes when I was losing weight- way too much sugar! #BL12

13 hours ago via UberSocial for iPhoneFavorite Retweet Reply
um.................
no. No Tara, no. 
This is where I have a strong issue with the Biggest Loser. I know that it's a game show. I know they are trying to get viewers. I realize that they are dropping large numbers and it's all for the drama of it. But there is danger here, in my opinion. 
I get little updates from Daily Om and today's post was called Redefining Health. It was a perfect compliment to what I was already thinking. You can choose the link above to read the whole thing, but I wanted to put a little excerpt below - 
"Health is not a numerical concept and cannot be defined using statistics. Human beings, however, tend to want to quantify well-being into easily understandable figures. We feel compelled to ascribe numbers to every aspect of wellness, from the qualities of our food to our fitness levels to the physical space we occupy. As a consequence of social pressures, we turn our attention away from health and focus instead on the most contentious of these figures—weight—checking our scales to see how we measure up to our peers and role models. Yet each of us is equipped to gauge our relative healthfulness without any equipment whatsoever. When we have achieved a state of wellness, we feel buoyant and energetic. Some of us are naturally slim, while others will always be curvy. No matter what our weight, we can use the cues we receive from our physical and mental selves to judge how healthy we really are."
With tweets like this and when one of the contestants was talking about not using oil to cook the fish because of extra calories, I feel there is a danger in what we are communicating to the world about health. I am not a nutritionist. I have not studied the human body and nutrition at length. But what I do know is that as human beings, our goals should be focused on how healthy we can be, not how many calories we can cut in order to look like Jillian Michaels. I cannot speak for others, but THAT IS NOT MY GOAL. 
I honestly think that this is part of America's problem with weight. It's either all or nothing. You either are a glutton or you only eat food that is bland because it has the lowest amount of calories/fat/carbs/sugar. There seems to be no grey area. It's this all or nothing mindset that I feel, sets us up for failure. 
What I have learned in my weight loss journey - nothing is black and white. One tip they gave was that when you add heavy cream and sugar into one's coffee, it adds up to 10 lbs per year. There are so many variables that go into that equation that there is no way one person can say if you do this, this is going to happen. The information is misleading. 
Obsession with body image
We are obsessed with body image. It seems like our goal is to look a certain way - 

image source

image source

image source

and worry less about health. I hear more often than not when talking to my friends concerned with weight loss, oh that has a lot of calories and then they eat a lean cuisine. I would MUCH RATHER have authentic food with no chemicals that are high in calories, i.e. fruit, healthy fats, than a friggin' chemically altered, synthetic meal kept in the freezer section. What's killing me more, the natural sugar in grapes, Tara Reid, or the aspartame found in many low sugar products? 

Long term maintenance

Being healthy does not mean that you do something for 6 months and go back to the way you were before. So while I appreciate Tara was trying to win a game, if her plan is to win the 100k and go back to the way she was, then it was all for nothing. If her plan is to never eat a grape again because it has lots of "sugar", then she's fooling herself. And if her plan is to allow herself to finally eat grapes because she reached her goal weight, but she still is associating being healthy with maintaining a goal weight and counting calories for the rest of her life, then no thanks on that. 

I want to live a life where I can be flexible and where I am not ruled by food. I am not going to limit myself to one meal a week to go out to eat because I'm trying to be skinny. I'm not going to never eat a cookie again because I want to look like a super model. That does not mean I'm going to eat a bag of cookies every day either. Not doing one does not imply that I will do the other. There is balance in life. Sometimes, my balance is going to teeter towards not eating as healthy because I've got a lot going on. Sometimes, it won't be difficult to choose the right things at all. 

So... again, to remind myself why I am here, my goal in this journey is to be healthy. While I would love to be thin, if it means that I have to avoid certain fruits because they are high in natural sugar, or eat a piece of fish soaked in water because the oil is fattening, then no thanks. 

BBQ in the South

So, since I still haven't been able to upload my pictures, I thought I'd talk about a food that is controversial here in the South and that is BBQ. Barbecue is controversial because everyone thinks their style is the best and they get HEATED if you disagree, uhum, jennifer setzler, i'm talking about you. So, for you folks that don't know what I'm talking about, I thought I'd talk about the different styles just because it's fun and I like to eat and I've had a lot of bbq lately, I don't know why.

Barbecue is pork that has been smoked in some fashion and then the meat has been pulled off of the bone, hence the other name, pulled pork. What makes each region different is usually preparation and type of sauce. The sauces can be mustard based, ketchup based, vinegar based and dry rub.

North Carolina
North Carolina is split into regions and those regions provide a variety of sauces. The pork is pulled and typically chopped while sauces vary by region Eastern NC tends to have a vinegar based sauce while Central NC is more of a ketchup and vinegar mix. Western NC is a heavier ketchup based sauce.

I got to experience this over the weekend when we stopped in Durham at the Q Shack. I had a chopped pork sandwich that already had the sauce mixed in. It was a spicy vinegar based sauce that tasted pretty good. I typically like a thicker sauce, but this was good because the meat was moist and tangy.

the hush puppies were awesome although I have never had hush puppies with BBQ. The mac n cheese was nasty

I have had ketchup based sauce but never Western NC bbq so I can't really comment on it. That may be the next thing I try. 

South Carolina

I am obviously biased being a South Carolinian, but I think ours is the best. And we actually lots of choices too. In the upstate (which is where I'm from), we offer all 4 sauces. Normally, our BBQ doesn't come with a sauce, it's pulled pork and then you put what you want on it. If it does come with a sauce, I think it's typically a vinegar base but as I said, everywhere I've been is dry and you add your own. In what we call the Low Country, they offer a mustard base sauce which is my FAVORITE!!! Any time I have an option, I'm going yellow. Carolina Yellow is what it's called and it is good. In the midlands, they also have something call Hash. I've only had it once, and it was amazing. 

They don't have a great logo, but the BBQ is the best in Greenville 

one of the older places, this used to be my fav growing up

In Columbia, this is the place with the hash. It's good. The store is not good. But the food is

Now there are 3 distinct flavors that I've never had so I had to look these up on Wiki and I have no experience with them. 

Memphis Style is a little sweet - I think they use molasses 

Texas - this is more brisket vs pulled pork. This is what my hubby likes and yes, he is from texas

Kansas City - said to be the best and is sweet and spicy

I don't understand these styles and have never had them. I really don't even consider Texas or Kansas City to be in the Southeast so how can it be southern BBQ, it is not. Memphis is the only one that I've heard about and want to try. We southerners love sugar!

I wouldn't say this good is high in nutritional value, but it's definitely a staple of the South

I'm Still Here

I had a wedding this weekend in Richmond which I will be talking about later this week. Our internet at home is acting up or I'd have pics and be talking about it today, but oh well.

It is exactly 8 days until we move. We're moving exactly 9 miles from our current home. This is what has been taking up all of my time lately. As I discussed last week, I had a training plan that I was going to follow in order to be prepared for Vegas. Based on that plan, I did 2 of the 5 workouts scheduled. Awesome, right? So, we'll try something new this week. Well, we'll try something old, but just try again.

Tuesday - 6 miles, yoga
Wednesday - cross train
Thursday - 1/4 mile repeats and 1/2 mile repeats
Friday - Cross train, yoga
Saturday - yoga all day
Sunday - yoga most of the day and then 4-6 2 minute hill repeats

I'm a bit off schedule but it's fine. I can fit in the workouts I can, and not worry too much. I don't think I'm going to PR in Vegas, but it's okay. That's part of life, sometimes, you have more time than others.

Things on my to do list -

1. switch power from one house to the other
2. switch water from one house to the other
3. finish packing - this is major
4. yoga teacher training - yes, that's this weekend. The weekend before we move. awesome right?
5. there's that little holiday called thanksgiving. that's 2 days after we move

Things I would normally do that I can't -

1. train 5-6 days per week.
2. go to the grocery store

So we're going to be eating out a lot and we're going to be not working out. The next two weeks are going to be stressful and I'm thinking I'm going to be a little crazy. I start feeling bad about myself when I don't eat well and while I appreciate the idea of eating out salads all the time, I don't do as well in that scenario. I've eaten BBQ two days in a row. So...


I just have to remember that this is life sometimes, make it through the best I can, not get too stressed about being out my routine and remember that on December 12th, I'll be able to get back on track. (I leave for Boulder, CO/Las Vegas on the 28th).