The Prodigal Daughter Returns

Is it just me or we sensing a theme here?  I write and run, I disappear, and then I come back.  I'm back, at least, for this blog entry.  Whew!  Where do I begin?

It's been almost a month since my last entry and that's mainly due to the fact that we had to move.  Long story short, banks suck, not making enough money sucks, yadda yadda yadda.  We moved to a community in Ventura County called Moorpark. For those of you who don't live in Southern California, it's about 30 miles west and a little north from where we were in Northridge.  We found a great 3-bedroom apartment that is not lacking for anything; in short, we have tons of amenities in our unit and at the complex as a whole.  The city is less expensive to live in, the schools are excellent, and people are quite nice and friendly here.  All in all, we are doing well.  The kids are adjusting beautifully and like their new schools.  There's not a whole lot I can complain about.  In fact, there's nothing that comes to mind.

Anyhow, one of the coolest things about living here is that our building has a river behind it.  Now, for those of you who think of rivers as being rough and rugged places, um, you've not experienced a Southern Californian river.  We like to contain them in concrete.  Yeah, it's classy.  I will say, however, nature is taking its course in taking back some of its territory.  Gabriel and I took a walk back there today as both sides of the river are flanked by dirt paths that stretch for miles.  We saw cranes, ducks, wooly caterpillars, crawfish shells, and lizards.  Gabriel found rocks for collecting and enjoyed throwing rocks into the water.  It was quiet and the sun was shining.

I walked with my Vibrams and I can now say I will be starting out easy running on the paths.  There are tons of little rocks and pebbles and even with the protection of the Vibrams, those rocks are sharp!  My feet are going to have to get used to them before I start running on that surface, but it's going to be so much better than concrete or asphalt.

I'll post pics of the trail and detail how my inaugural walks/runs go soon.  Until then, happy running, people!

Change... 1200 Calories at a Time

What I *should* be doing is studying for my impending German test tomorrow, but I have too much in my brain to study right now.  The one thing that I can at least get off my mind by blogging about it is the recent change to my diet that I made two days ago: eating only 1200 calories a day.  I make a solemn vow now that I will keep this up until Thanksgiving.  I'm really done with faltering on the eating front.  I really do want to lose 30 pounds, so no more excuses.  With the help and support of my "dieting expert" (ooooo, I really don't like that word "dieting" but don't know what else to call it) partner and husband, Dana, I am going to get it done.  A lot of you have seen Dana, so it's a pretty safe bet to call him an expert at this point.

What does 1200 calories look like?  It's rather shocking and kind of sad really.  Unless you are a rabbit, 1200 calories doesn't look like a lot.  For me, it's making better choices that satisfy longer.  This means lean protein.  My favorite go-to food is low-fat cottage cheese.  Damn, that stuff is tasty.  Luckily, I've always loved it plain, so I don't even need a delivery system to go with it.  With that being said, and I digress here, the best delivery system of cottage cheese in my book is potato chips.  Don't knock it until you try it!!!  It's soooooooooo good.  Needless to say, I am NOT eating potato chips right now.  I want to make my calories count!  Other than that, my diet consists of: lettuce (all types), vegetables (mostly non-starchy ones), fruit, lean meats, beans, very few grains (even whole ones are being limited for the next few weeks), a teensy-weensy bit of nuts, and the occasional whole-grain Ak-Mak cracker (blessed be the mighty Ak-Mak!).  I'm hungry a lot of the time, but I'm eating more consistently to keep my metabolism going.  Here's the breakdown:

250 calories for breakfast
300 calories for lunch
75 calories for afternoon snack
500 calories for dinner
75 calories for after-dinner snack

Sometimes I have spare calories from lunch so I add it to my snack in the evening.  I write my calories down, I weigh my food, and consult a calorie counter religiously.

So far, so good, although I have been a bit cranky about being hungry the past couple of days.  This is mainly due to the fact that (close your eyes men out there who don't want to read it) my monthly visitor is here.  Generally, I want to devour lots of things I shouldn't this time of month, and I'm not, so my mood isn't the best, but I'll live.

If anyone has some great tips of how to curb hunger and/or stay satisfied longer with fewer calories I would love to hear about them.  Leave me a comment here or on Facebook.

Until next post...

Nothin' but a Running VFF Woman

I just returned from what was supposed to be a walk, but it turned into a run.  I guess you could say that I'm really a runner now.  However, I made the error of strapping on my old Nike running shoes to walk in since while walking our heels usually make contact with the ground first - I wanted the extra padding.

Big mistake.

First off, my feet felt like they were suffocating.  My toes don't like to be crammed all together unless they're in some super hot three to four inch pointy-toed or peep-toed heels; yes, yes I'm a walking (or running?) contradiction.  Second, I couldn't feel the ground.  I walked for a while, but then I decided to run because I was sick of walking.  I got up to my regular gait and realized how different it felt.  My feet were not really feeling the ground.  Barefoot purists would say that even with VFF I'm not *really* feeling the ground, either, but I felt it a lot more than in these stupid Nikes.  I don't like the way my feet feel when I can't touch the ground and am being blocked by padded soles.  And, finally, I actually felt weighted down.  This may be completely psychological, but I felt like it took more effort to run with these shoes on.

Needless to say, I took them off as soon as I got on my porch.  I walked into my bedroom and said to my husband (who is sick with some stomach bug, poor guy), "I'm never wearing these again.  I'm a Vibram woman all the way.  I hike and run in them, so I'm going to walk in them, too."  He then made a crude comment about not taking them off for other activities and I'll let you guess what that comment was - ha!

Yep.  I'm a total minimalist footwear convert AND a real runner to boot.  Who woulda thunk it?

Unsolicited Advice from Strangers

Sigh.  The strangest thing happened to me today as I was just one block into my run this morning.  A lady in her Toyota Corolla stopped me and told me that I really should be walking rather than running because of damage to my joints.  Wha????????  I have never seen this person before, she's not a neighbor, and even so, WTF?  Who gives advice to people running down the street? And stops them in mid-run?  So bizarre.  When she stopped me, I had to take my ear bud out and keep my feet moving.  At first I thought she was lost since she had passed me earlier.  I'm friendly and my father-in-law calls me a homing pigeon since you could basically drop me anywhere and I'd find my way home.  So expecting a "hey, could you tell me where such and such place is," I stopped.  But noooooooooo.... it was "don't you think you'd get the same health benefit by walking at the same speed because, you know, the damage to your joints from running?!"  Instead of politely saying, "Thanks for your concern, but I don't see how this is any of your business," I stood there dumbfounded explaining my minimalist footwear and how I no longer have joint pain and that I'd been running this way for six months.  I'm still shaking my head at myself.  It was single-handedly the strangest exchange I've had with another human being in a long time.

What it ended up doing for most of my run was that it made me mad.  I was just getting started and usually my first 1/2 mile or so I'm getting in my groove.  It took me most of my route to get in a groove today.  Thanks, Ms. Probably-Never-Have-Run-In-My-LIfe-Driving-Around-In-My-Car-Giving-Random-Runners-Unsolicited-Advice-About-Their-Joints, for being a total groove killer.  Whatevs.

The positive things going on today, however, are 1) eating better and lighter - time to be a weight shedding machine and 2) I went a full 2.5 miles, running about 1.75 miles of it.  I'm sore as all get out because of weight training on Saturday, but at least I know I did something. And like I said before, running is good for what ails ya and today it helped make my muscles a little less sore.

And as a salute to more healthful eating, I'm posting a quick recipe for a Greek-yogurt based dressing on The Domestic Goddess.  Check it out and enjoy!

Blazing Trails

Okay, so maybe I don't really "blaze" trails, but I do enjoy a good hike.  Today the family and I went out to Solstice Canyon in Malibu to see the Tropical Terrace, where a mid-century home once stood, but is now a ruin as a result of a fire in 1982.  Besides the ruins, there is the oldest stone house in Malibu, a single room cabin constructed in 1902.  The latest fire in 2007 claimed anything that was wooden on that structure.  Besides ruined buildings, we enjoyed a trickling creek, a small waterfall and admired the rebound that nature made from that fire three short years ago.

 

It was an amazingly beautiful day for late August: 73 degrees and sunny at the coast (even inland it was only 78 degrees).  The park was moderately busy, but it wasn't overcrowded.  I decided to leave my hiking boots at home and hike in my Vibrams as I've done before.  My big toes felt some fatigue at first as they aren't as strong as they were two months ago, but it wasn't a big deal.  We had some gentle elevation ascents and descents on the way there, but really experienced some elevation gain after we left the ruins.  Unfortunately for Dana and Gabriel, they had fallen at the site of the waterfall.  Dana was carrying Gabriel and lost his footing.  As I was following them, all I could do was watch in horror as they tumbled down some pretty gnarly rocks and yell, "Oh god, oh god, oh god!"  Luckily (and thank goodness), all that was experienced by Dana was a few abrasions on his face and knees, and Gabriel only has a couple of abrasions on his back and small bump on his head.  It could have been so much worse.  Also, a park ranger named James was right there and he washed out their wounds.

We persevered and followed a different path out of the canyon, and this one was an actual trail with dirt and rocks.  And what a climb!  The views were spectacular from the summit and it was amazing to see how far we actually ascended.

That ribbon way down there is the trail we hiked in on.

At the summit - no worse for wear...

Feet!

The best part of the hike happened on our descent - Ian and I started to run. It was footloose and fancy free and we scared a guy with his dog as he had no idea what was closing in on him from up above - he thought we were mountain lions.  Ha!  The freedom to run like that is amazing - I had a huge smile on my face at the bottom.  After Ian and I got more water from the drinking fountains, we raced to the car.  Needless to say, Ian is fast and weighs much less than me, thus he won, but it was exhilarating.  I don't remember the last time I ran like that.  It reminds me of my niece's blog on the same subject, Lessons Learned from an Almost 3-Year-Old. My little great-niece is no dummy, it's all about having fun.  I think most of us adults need to remember that about life.  Yes, we must work hard and life is not always easy, but we all need to have fun as much as possible.  If we can have fun while running, then it's no chore.  Today's hike definitely reminded me of that.

Now I'm tired, but in a really good way.  It's time to wash the trail off my body, namely my feet...

Fall Seven Times. Stand Up Eight.

The title of this blog post is a Japanese proverb.  I think it works well as I have taken a long hiatus from running these past four weeks (yikes) and feel somewhat after this first run like I'm standing up for the eighth time.  I guess this means no more falling off the proverbial wagon, either.

I made the decision over the weekend that I was going to pick up where I left off before I left for my Minnesota vacation today.  As circumstance would have it, NPR posted a story on Facebook about muscle memory this morning, No More Gym? Don't Worry, Your Muscles Remember.  Perfect timing. This study concludes that when you exercise, especially strength train, it doesn't take long for your muscles to get back into shape because they remember what it's like to be in shape.  Well, hallelujah and amen to that!

It was 100 degrees today, so I opted for the after sunset run.  Mind you, it was still pretty hot outside (at 90 degrees) and radiating heat was hitting me from the asphalt, but psychologically when the sun is not beating down on me, I feel more invincible.  As soon as my minimally adorned feet hit the ground, I felt it.  Oh, the electricity!  My feet went into auto-pilot.  I shot off pretty quickly and it felt so good.  Then the burn in my lungs set in...and the side stitch.  But I powered through.  I didn't go as far as I usually do and I walked about 1/4 of the route, but, hey, I got up the eighth time.  And that's all that matters.

Please Consider Following My New Food Blog

Hey Miniskirt followers!  I wanted to let you know that I am now also blogging at The Domestic Goddess here on Blogger.  I had the blog originally on blog.com, but it was getting crazy with all the spam there, so I moved it to Blogger where you're reading this now.  Anyway, it's getting quite a list of recipes for you to try, so mosey on over there and check it out.  You won't be sorry! Thanks!

P.S. I'll be back running soon - it's been an interesting couple of weeks to say the least.