More than halfway done!!!

Posted by hellyontherun in Healthy Eating and tagged with Bad Habits, Challenges, Coca-cola, No Soda, Summer July 23, 2014

If you’ve been reading the last couple of months then you know that I’m currently on a summer challenge of 100 Days of No Soda. Well, I’m past the halfway point!!!

People have told me that once I’m done, I’ll probably not want to drink soda any more…..yeah……no.

I know it’s sad, but I still crave it. Like, a lot. I’m fairly certain that I won’t drink it as much as I used to–6 to 8 cans a day–but I think if I managed to keep it under 3 that would be enough for me to be content. A breakfast, lunch, and dinner soda. 🙂

I’m pretty proud though that I’ve gone this far without cheating. Not even once. And I’ve really wanted to.

People have asked me why or what my purpose in doing this is. What I wanted to see is how much, if anything, my body changed with marathon training and a healthier diet. And it has! Pre-challenge I had 5 pesky pounds keeping me from my pre-pregnancy weight. Well, 53 days into the challenge, they’re gone. I also feel less heavy in general, like the bad food I was eating was weighing me down.

I knew that by eliminating soda, I would be helping to improve my diet. A lot of what I ate (and okay, still sometimes eat) is fast food, meals that come with a soft drink. Since I’m not drinking soda, I feel less compelled to order a # whatever from a drive thru. Instead, I make something at home and eat it drinking water.

I haven’t replaced soda with anything either. I’m not a tea drinker nor do I like many juices. I’ll have a recovery drink after workouts–I’m currently loving Rockin’ Refuel chocolate milk (I don’t care that some people say it’s not good for you. Chocolate milk is amazing.) and I’ll put Tailwind in my water during runs, but besides that, I’m really just drinking plain ‘ol H2O. I don’t even like lemon wedges or cucumbers in my water. I like just water. I’m seriously a plain Jane when it comes to food.

The challenge will get harder once I get back to work in August. I’m not exaggerating when I say I drank a lot of soda. In my classroom, I have a mini fridge under my desk that I would stock with Coke. No joke.

I’ll tackle that battle when it comes…..

Any habits you have that are/would be tough to break?

What’s your favorite drink to quench your thirst?

Euro Trip Recap–Spain

Posted by hellyontherun in Half Marathon, Race, Running and tagged with Coca-cola, Macbeth, Madrid, Parque de Madrid, Runcation, Spain, The Hunger Games, Tourist, Travel May 8, 2014

We weren’t in Spain for too long. We got there Saturday morning and went straight to the Expo after dropping off our luggage at our hotel and left the next day a few hours after the race.

But, we did do a little sight seeing so here are a few pics 🙂

I mentioned in my race recap that there was a long line at the Expo:

It wrapped around there towards the right of this pic. It moved along pretty quickly so in about an hour we were inside. The expo was actually quite large with a lot of vendors. I made sure to stop by one of my faves 🙂

After the expo, we headed back towards the hotel to grab a bite to eat. We took the metro and while we waited, I saw this advertisement:

I teach Shakespeare’s Macbeth (it’s my second favorite Shakespeare play) and thought it was so cool to see this play being done in Spanish. I would have loved to see it!

We got off near our hotel and walked a few blocks to it. Here’s a view:

The streets were really crowded; it kinda reminded me of New York.

We ate at a nearby restaurant and was shocked that my beverage of choice, Coca-cola, was 8 Euros ~ $10+ dollars!!! For ONE CAN. It turned out to be like this at most places which really saddened my heart. Even water was expensive at around 5 Euros a bottle 😦 But even though buying a coke broke the bank a little, I had to. I thought of it as a souvenir 🙂

Once back at the hotel, my husband and I decided to check out the roof top. The view:

We decided to take the stairs back down to our room 🙂

We called it a night soon after and the next day, on our walk to the start of the race, we did a little more sight seeing. We passed a bookstore and I saw this:

You might have heard of a little series called The Hunger Games. It was so cool to see it in Spanish–and for some reason, reading the title in Spanish made me giggle.

We reached a main cross street on our walk and came across the main post office.

On our hike to gear check, we found that it was in side Parque Madrid–Madrid’s main park. It was absolutely stunning. The bushes were manicured, the trees were lush, and there were gardens and statues throughout. It was also very big!

We were at the airport a couple of hours after the race headed to Italy so there wasn’t a whole lot more we were able to do. I kinda wished I had carried my phone during the race because I was able to see a lot of the city in 13.1 miles. I’d like to return to Spain someday and spend more time there. I want to visit other cities too–Valencia, Barcelona, and maybe Seville. Regardless, the time we did get was so much fun. I loved being able to talk to the locals and really get a feel for what it was like there.

And the race. The race was awesome 🙂

–Have you seen a play or movie or read a book in another language? (one of my favoritest foreign films is Life is Beautiful in Italian)

–Would you pay $10 for a coke? What outrageous prices have you encountered in your travels?

Next stop, Italy!

12 Days of Fitmas-Day 11: Eating Healthy

Posted by hellyontherun in Fitness, Healthy Eating, Running and tagged with Bad Habits, Coca-cola, Eating, Fitness, Food, Food Struggles, Health, Nutrition, Soda December 23, 2013

On the 11^th Day of Fitmas….

::crickets::

I know I should have at least one day about how important eating healthy is to staying fit but….I can’t write about something I’m not personally doing.

I’ve written about my food struggles before; I just can’t eat healthy. This is such a weak spot for me, I mean, I can workout forever and ever and ever but when it comes to eating right, I can’t.

I’ve come a long way by curbing my fast food intake. This was a huge step for me. However, this continues to be a struggle:

I have cut it down to about 2 cans a day but as far as eliminating it completely, I don’t know if that will ever happen.

It’s hard for me to say I’m dedicated and committed to my training when I know I’m not doing EVERYTHING possible to make sure I meet my goal.

I can make excuses like everything in moderation, it’s not like I do it everyday (I do), or I balance it out by drinking tons of water. There’s nothing good about soda. I know this and still drink it.

I also just love bad food.

Most of what I eat is processed, quick and easy to make, and yummy. This part of my life is where I need help.

–What advice would you give a bad food eater?

–Do you struggle with eating healthy?

P.S. These sound amazing…