What A Difference A Year Can Make

One week ago today, I turned 26. Just a few days before that, I'd found the photo that was taken at my 25th birthday party. I hate the photo. Seeing myself when the server handed it over was truly embarrassing. It was one of those moments when you realize how much weight you've gained. I remember how I felt getting ready for that dinner, not even knowing that all of my friends were planning on surprising me. I'd practically been in tears. I felt like I had nothing nice to wear that fit my body. My confidence was close to an all time low.

Left: January 20, 2013
Right: January 20, 2014

Circle back, 365 days later and I am 100% healthier. I've been CrossFitting for almost 7 months and eat a much more clean and whole diet than any other time in my life. I've repaired friendships that I'd been damaging due to my own insecurity. I'm on the road to being financially free and my relationship with my significant other is built on love, trust, and respect. 

While I'm not looking forward to being another year closer to 30, I am excited for the progress I know I can make between now and my next birthday. 

Merry Christmas!

Due to the amount of travel both Nick and I have been doing over the holidays, I didn't decorate my apartment much for Christmas this year. I feel a little bad about it, especially considering that my Christmas spirit was not at an all time high this year. I'm telling myself that I'm going to be able to use all the energy that would've otherwise gone to taking down the holiday decorations is going to go towards making a fresh start in 2014.

There were three festive things that I didn't forego, however.

1. Christmas Music: I've been playing "Today's Christmas Radio" on Pandora around the house for days. I grew up singing all the time and the familiarity of most of these songs makes it easy to sing along too. Of course, I only do this when I'm alone. Haha.

2. Holiday Scents:

3. My Festive Mani: Another kit of lacquer strips from Sephora. These aren't lasting as well as the Essie kit, but they're still shiny and pretty resilient. They look so much like real candy canes in person!

Merry Christmas!

The Holidays: Making Spirits and Scales Soar

It starts with Thanksgiving, sometimes several rounds of eating, depending on your group of family and friends. The Christmas parties come next: work, clients, gym, book club, to name a few. Christmas itself is usually multiple occurrences of cookies and comfort food, too. New Year's Eve is next, with surefire snacking until the wee hours of the New Year. Of course, between all of these celebrations, your schedule is probably so packed that the drive-through seems like a sensible solution to the state of "hangry" you find yourself in.

Come January 2nd, you look in the mirror and hardly recognize the person staring back at you who looks at least 20lbs heavier than you know you are. You become one of the thousands of people joining a gym to fight off the bulge for another 1-11 months, until the holidays come again.

Sound familiar? This year, I'm bound and determined to NOT have that as my story. My job is in it's second year of "The Holiday Weight Maintenance Challenge", from which you win a prize if you can maintain your weight from before Thanksgiving through the New Year within a 2 lb window. I admit that last year, I barely made it into the window, for shame.

To help avoid the danger zone this year, I'm participating in the gym's "Holiday Nutrition Challenge", which has laid out five nutritional stages that CrossFit encourages (Eating Clean, Gluten Free, Zone, Paleo, Eat to Perform), and challenges you to pick one that is one step above where you currently are and stick to it for 20 days in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The idea is that you will be building good habits and encouraging good food choices at holiday events which will offset any weight gain brought on by holiday indulgences.

Nick and I picked the Eating Clean phase to try to stick to, with a smattering of the Gluten Free stage. We already ate pretty clean, but I knew that I definitely wanted to push myself to eliminate more processed foods and added sugar and salt from my diet. The Monday night after Thanksgiving, we went on a huge shopping trip and collected a serious stock of veggies, sweet potatoes, chicken and fish.

It makes sense, right? Sure, we have to get up a little earlier or take a little more time out of our evenings to prepare healthy dinners and brown bag lunches, but living a long and healthy life while getting a boost towards our fitness goals is certainly worth it. 

Philadelphia Mini Tour

Instead of braving the crowds to go shopping on Black Friday, Nick and I headed into Philadelphia to see some of the historical sites. We had thought it would be deserted, since everyone else was out shopping, but it was just as packed as any mall. While a lot of the attractions are free, you still need to sign up for a tour time slot, like at Independence Hall. It was so busy that the whole day's worth of tickets had been given out by 2pm when we got there. 

Luckily for us, the line for the Liberty Bell was moving quickly and we did get to go through that building and have our picture taken with the bell. I guess the rest of the attractions will have to wait until our next visit. 

On our wanders through the city, we stumbled into a fantastic little shop full of ugly Christmas sweaters! Anything you could imagine finding on a sweater (and some things you'd never imagine finding) was in this shop. I was so tempted to buy the one in this picture for my cousin, who jokes about becoming a crazy cat lady and was just saying at Thanksgiving dinner that she wanted a sweater with cats on it. 

Speaking of Christmas shopping, I'm almost finished! I'm doing about 95% of my shopping online, since I've been running around the country like mad lately and the last thing I want to do with a night off is head to the mall. Sometimes the shopping experience is a thrill for me, but right now the ease of making several larger purchases online is much more thrilling.

Happy Turkey Trot Day!

Happy Thanksgiving, All!  

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays to spend with my family. Rather than Christmas, its the holiday where everyone gets together in one place to hang out and eat a meal.

My dad and I have been trying to find a 5K that we could run together for a while now and a Turkey Trot seemed like the perfect opportunity. Surprisingly, one in my parents area was dfficult to find, but we happened across one at the last minute. A  lot of other people must have found it at the last minute as well, because the coordinators said they were overwhelmed by the number of people who had come out to run.

We're all pretty beat since none of us have been doing much running due to schedules and dropping temperatures. It was just reaching 36 degrees as we were leaving this morning's race. Nick and I are signed up for a "Frosty Frolic" in a few weeks and today was likely a good preview of what that will be like. Cold. So cold. I was extremely thankful that I'd remembered my fleece headband and running gloves  this time.

In a few hours, we'll be off to my aunt's to hang out an eat!