New Cuisine

I am very much looking forward to when I get off work in an hour and 20 minutes because that means I get to go home and then John and I are going to dinner that Wild Grape! I have been wanting to go here for seriously 2 years. It is a restaurant that boasts most of their food is made from local grown or organic food and I really excited to try it. I have looked at the menu 3 times already today and can't wait to go there and order something.
I would say John and I are pretty boring when it comes to going out. We don't usually go to a lot of new unique places (partly because we can't afford it, partly because John is a little bit picky) which makes today even more exciting. I will post later on how the dining experience went but for now I am counting down the minutes until I can go home.

Taking Life for Granted

I would like to think I am not an incredibly selfish person, that I realize other people out there have way more difficult things to deal with than I do but every once in a while something happens that just slaps me in the face and makes me realize how truly blessed I am. Yesterday I covered two stories that did just that. The first was a ribbon cutting for an intensive physical therapy center that treats little kids with disorders that make it difficult, if not impossible for them to walk, stand and develop normal motor functions. But despite having to use a walker or little crutches these 4-year-olds were so so happy. They got to cut the ribbon for the opening of the center and they were so excited about it. Their little faces lit up and it was so inspiring.
The second story was at a Recreation and Habilitation center where they work with older adults that have mental disabilities. These are people that have the brain function of 5 to 8 year olds. They have been learning for the past several months about food labels, portion control, nutrition and exercise and some of them have lost more than 60 pounds. I went to their little class and weigh-in and again it was so inspiring. They got so excited to have lost 2 pounds, when I lose 2 pounds I complain because I only lost 2 pounds. They all cheered each other on and celebrated each others successes and were excited for themselves. One of the girls in the class came up to me afterwards introduced herself as Angie and said "You look pretty today." I would never have dreamed of saying, "Oh I don't either," like I would say to any one of my friends. Instead I just said Thank You and knew that she meant it because of the smile on her face and light in her eyes. It makes me wonder why we can't all be like that? Just yesterday I was telling a friend of mine who recently had a baby how good she looked but she insisted that no, she didn't look good she was still fat. I said four different times how I thought she looked really good and never once did she say thank you or "You know what I am back to my pre-baby weight and that is exciting!" I am not criticizing her because I do the exact same thing every single day, and it makes me think that maybe we are taking life for granted. If we aren't celebrating our successes, no matter how small and being grateful for every single day that we wake up and get out of bed then we are being selfish. Because there are people out there who can't get out of bed on their own, who can't get dressed by themselves and like a girl I interviewed the other day said, "People who are dealing with a lot bigger things than a bad hair day." She was a volunteer at a grief support group for people who had lost members of their family. And she was right!! I complain if I have to get up early and don't have time to make coffee and about a million other things that don't matter but it could be so so much worse. I am not saying I am going to go forward from this point and be perfect and never complain about trivial things again because well that just won't happen. But I want to make it a new priority in my life to slow down, stop and realize that there are great things in my life, things that I should be celebrating every single day. I want to try harder to not take my health, my job, my family, my life for granted.

Muffin Shame

I went to breakfast this morning with my good friend Nicole before she moves away to New York. We went to Mimi's Cafe which I love for breakfast! Our breakfasts came with a muffin and last time I went there I had a Honey Bran muffin that was really good so that is what I decided to order. When I ordered this our waiter was like, "Bran really? Out of all the muffins you choose bran?" Nicole ordered a blueberry and he shamed her too, then proceeded to list in order of popularity their 8 muffins. Apparently blueberry and bran rank 7th and 8th. I am not a person that wants to eat chocolate chips or chocolate mousse or carrot muffins with my breakfasts. This is what I wanted to say to Mr. Waiter, "I don't care if most people order the banana chocolate chip muffin, I want a bran muffin so just keep your opinions to yourself and bring me my muffin!" I was a waitress once and I get it sometimes people ask for opinions on what is good or not but never once did I waiver from my bran muffin choice, so don't make me feel bad about ordering what I want! I still left him a pretty good tip because when Nicole didn't like her blueberry muffin he brought her a free banana chocolate chip one.

Crunching Numbers

Some days I think it would have been good for me to go to business school. I am obsessed with crunching numbers. How many minutes will it take me to run 5 miles if I run at a pace of 11:22 a mile? How much money do John and I need to save between now and June to pay for the wedding? How much will I weigh a year from now if I lose 1.25 lbs a week? How big of a house payment could we afford if we were going to buy a house right now? How much money would I take home each paycheck if I made $1, $5 or $10 more an hour? You name it and I have probably figured it out, more than once.
Literally once a day I add up all the known income John and I have coming in and how much we can put towards the wedding to make sure it is enough. The numbers never change much but I still do it over and over again. I also tweak the wedding budget several times a week, adding a dollar or two here and subtracting from there.
It is almost like I think if I calculate things over and over again someday something magical will happen and all of the sudden I will be making $5 more an hour or I will have lost 2 pounds a week for 12 weeks or we will have the money to buy an awesome house or my mile time will suddenly decrease. Sadly, that is not the case but still I continue to crunch the numbers!

I don't want to seem obessessed

I haven't been blogging as much lately because I have noticed that the majority of my posts lately have been about my weight, exercise and weight loss. Obviously this is an important issue in my life but I don't want it to seem like the only issue in my life! Yes I am concerned about losing weight and am trying really really hard but there are other things happening. I am getting married in 137 days, I have a really great job, a really great family and really great friends! I do have other exciting things to blog about besides my weight, so I will try from now on to blog more about other important things too!

Excuses

If you recall I wrote a post by this same title a few weeks ago. No this is not the same post but it might be similar. Today I had the chance to listen to a mother/daughter pair who have been on the Biggest Loser and lost over 100 pounds each speak about their life change. It was interesting and fascinating. Yes they have gained some weight back but in 8 months since the show it hasn't been much. The mom still works out 2 hours a day but the daughter works out 5 times a week for about an hour a day. I can do that! But anyways the daughter said something that really struck me. She said "Every excuse is a choice to fail." I had never really thought about it that way. I had never really thought that every time I make an excuse why I can't go running (and there are many) I am choosing to once again fail. I am choosing to say, "Oh well, it doesn't really matter." Most people I know, including myself don't like failure so why would anyone choose to fail?!! The daughter also addressed that. She said because failure is easy. It is easy to sit on the couch and eat ice cream. It is easy to sleep in on Saturday morning. It is easy to reach for a bigger pair of pants in the closet. But anything worth doing is hard!! Running a marathon has literally been the hardest thing I have ever done but it was so worth it! The feeling I had when I crossed that finish line was incredible but because now I have a new goal and it is easier to watch TV than to go running that is what I do. I don't want to choose to fail anymore, I don't want to take the easy way out because I have done that time and time again and it always leaves me feeling crappy. It is going to be hard? Yes. Is it going to be scary? Yes. Am I going to want to give up? Yes. Will I give up? I can't answer that question right now, but I hope the answer will be no because every excuse is just another choice to fail. And I am done failing.

My Love/Hate Relationship with Running

Running and I have a love/hate relationship. It has been this way for years. I hated running when I was in high school because it was always used as a punishment during volleyball or basketball. When I was a freshman in college I discovered I actually enjoyed running and took it a little overboard and signed up for a marathon and within 6 months did a marathon and half marathon but then I was burnt out and didn't run much for the next few years. Now I have once again started running on a regular basis but it is getting boring!! Maybe once it warms up and I can run outside in the daylight it will be better, but for now running on the treadmill is no good. I have to force myself to go running and I only do it because I am training for the Wasatch Back in June. I also run because my mom and I have challenges and well I don't like losing. So here we are 4 1/2 months from a race that I need run a minimum of 3 times a week for 4 to 7 miles and I am already struggling to find motivation. In case you were wondering the exact same thing happened when I did the marathon, training went so well for several months then not so well for the last 4. I will keep running and keep training because I do not want to be a failure and instead of just having the weight of finishing on my own conscious I have 11 other people counting on me to do it. But I am thinking maybe once this race is done I will explore new workout venues. I took a zumba class once and it was really fun so maybe I will do that more or take up swimming (triathlon anyone?) or anything other than just pounding the pavement. Because while it can be relaxing, stress relieving and awesome sometimes, other times it can be boring and tedious.