A Trip to Whole Foods

Today I did some shopping for my slow progression to Paleo. Most of the cheese is out of the house and besides a giant bag of Cheerios (from the Sam's 2 pack) and some baking supplies, most of the grains are out of the house as well.

To begin, here's what $102 at Whole Foods can buy you:

Yes, that is bacon. Organic non-nitrate/nitrite (read: cancer-free) bacon. I got it to make egg & bacon cups for breakfast so back off! I have 3 dozen brown organic, cage-free (my dad's favorite) eggs. Local honey. Organic unsalted butter. 100% dark chocolate. Enough coconut water to drown my muscles in awesomeness. You'll notice there's a bag of coconut water there, apparently it's a powder you just add to water.  I'm going to drink the Zico water and use that bottle as a refill container that I can just throw powder into in the am and just add water post workout. I'll let you know how that turns out.

I absolutely love the bulk bins at Whole Foods! I got some raw almonds for snacks and salad toppings as well as some shredded organic coconut. Hail Merry makes some of the most amazing packaged raw organic food ever. So I splurged and got 2 tarts.  If they're delish, I'll learn how to make my own! I also got freeze-dried apples.  I really enjoy those because they crunch like a chip and they're not overly sweet like dried fruits. Plus they're super low cal and there's FIVE apples in one bag!

Also got some dried cranberries for my oatmeal in the am.  I still like my oatmeal, that's going to be tough to give up. It's organic brown sugar oatmeal then I add ground flax seed and peanut butter. Once my peanut butter is finished I'll move on to almond butter, but I think I'm sticking with my oatmeal.  I'll be a forward thinking cavemanwoman.

Also while I was out and about, I took a trip to World Market.  I had a 10% off my total purchase coupon so I bought a few things.

I decided to try some of the Danielle veggie chips. So I got the coconut and the pumpkin. Also got the snapeas because I had a craving for them earlier today and I have no idea why. What isn't pictured is the 2 liters of coconut water I bought here before my trip to Whole Foods. Grand total spent: $13.90




Lastly, I'll discuss my workout. Today I just wasn't feeling it and I contemplated skipping it all together. I walked into the weight room, sat down at the ab crunch machine, cranked out some sets and just felt blah.  Went to my favorite back machine - the lat pulldown - and cranked out a few sets of those.  I felt better but I still didn't want to be in the gym. I wandered around a bit and made my way to the leg press. I'm scared of this machine now. But I know, I so know that I need to do more with my legs than just kickboxing and running. I'm so reserved when it comes to my knee, but I can't hold back anymore.  I need to strengthen it. I put the weight on 80# and did a few sets, I felt good - I felt better.  Now I'm feeling better and I head to the hyper extension bench. I grab a 25# plate and do my oblique crunches.
Once I'm finished with those, I head upstairs for my run.

I end up cranking out 3 miles in 36:40, it evens out to a 12:20 minute mile, but I did the first one in 12:40, the second in 12:30 and the 3rd in 11:30. Hurrah for negative splits! Apparently my new shoes allow me to run so well that I blew out a toe in my sock. I guess this means it's time to spend some money on new socks.  Now that I think about it, I can't remember the last time I bought socks.  Oh well, tomorrow is new day!

The Easy Way to Donate to my Cause!

Louisiana Half Marathon!

I did it. I started over fund-raising that I went ahead and signed up for the Louisiana Half Marathon in Baton Rouge on January 20, 2013. Of course, I decided to do this with Team in Training - you can view my new fund-raising page here. Please donate!! Or if you like Saints football, you can purchase a square in the football pool - all details are on the website!

Just doing a quick update as I'm pretty tired and still have a list of things to do before bed this evening.

Workout of the Day

 I signed up to get the Spartan WODs - granted I don't always do them due to a pack of equipment, but sometimes I'll do pieces/parts of them. One of them last week was "Power ½ Hour of Push-ups:
Grab a watch and pick a set number of push-ups to do each minute for 30 minutes.  After doing a set number of the push-ups at the start of a minute, you recover the remainder of the minute." Fox and I chose to do 120 push-ups for the 1/2 hour of time which equaled 4 push-ups per minute. I started off doing man push-ups and after 2 sets I wanted to die.  So, I reverted back to the girl ones but I put on my MMA gloves and did them off my knuckles instead of palms flat on the ground. I did my 120 and then on my last minute I decided to rep max out and did another 13. 


It felt great to be able to crank out 133 push-ups in 30 minutes.  It wasn't hard, it only took 30 minutes, AND it was a great workout. I'll probably do it again tomorrow after my running.

Food.

As most of you know, food & nutrition is my job.  Although I currently do it on a premie scale and mainly in liquid form...but I do still know a thing or two about adult food.

I've decided to slow transition to the Paleo diet. I think this is the best for me because it's a combo of gluten free and processed junk free.  I need to eat more real food - more clean food. I need to put the cupcake down.  I need to stop making Snappy Turtles my dinner. Just because I know the calories in something and I know it's within my limit for the day, doesn't make it good for my body.

I am past the stage of just using an app like Lose It to get where I need to be. Now, don't get me wrong that app (and similar ones) are fantastic for people looking for somewhere to start their weight loss journey.  There's been a lot of success with that app in my office and I am SO proud of those ladies for sticking with it. I am missing the candy in my office though...but I don't need it!

Back to Paleo. I'm not going straight into the 30 day Challenge, but more of a modified transition to Paleo. I just bought a case of oatmeal from Sam's and there's no way in hell I'm throwing that away.  So my plan is to finish the grain and dairy foods that I currently own without buying any more.  The tricky part will be buying all the food and prepping it for the week on Sundays. I will learn to make time. I will learn to stick with the plan.

Also, If I'm on a "I WANT PASTA!!!" tangent, I might buy some of these Miracle Noodles to satisfy those cravings. Pauline of Fighter Diet endorses them big time because she eats like a hoss, mainly because that's how she trains.  She's like 200% Beast Mode. By the way, I don't want to look like her, but I have a ton of respect for her.

Educated and Certified.

Back in May I took a computerized exam to become a Board Certified Specialist in Pediatrics. The exam is a computerized simulation.  You get nine questions. Yes, I said NINE. Each question is a case study.  You're introduced to it with a nice little diddy about the kiddo and then it says "what information would you need to gather to complete your assessment?" You look down and there's a list of no less than 15 items. Once you check something, you cannot uncheck it. You lose points for selecting answers that might cause harm to the patient OR that are deemed unnecessary and might cost your institution time and money.  You receive no points for an answer that doesn't harm the patient or cost extra time and money, but it isn't relevant to complete your assessment.  You receive awesome points if you select answers that are appropriate for you to make a complete assessment.

Each question has about 10 parts to it.  You're scored in two areas: Information Gathering (IG) and Decision Making (DM).  IG is just that - gathering information to build your assessment.  Selecting probing questions instead of just Yes/No answers.  DM is what you do with that information. For instance, if a selection revealed that kiddo goes home with grandma every night and that's where kiddo's blood sugar is getting screwed up and you choose an intervention that doesn't involve grandma in any way, you're going to lose points.

They also had selections in there that - for an untrained person - would sound correct.  For example, a teen comes to you just diagnosed with Type 1 DM, what information would you collect to perform your assessment? Glucose Tolerance Test could be a selection.  Some of you out there might be like "oh, yeah! GTT, perfect!" because you do a GTT for pregnant women to check for Gestational Diabetes. No my friends... See you already know they have a Type 1 DM diagnosis, over loading them with glucose is far from appropriate and could potentially kill them.  They had tricky stuff like that in there.

So my 9 case studies took all of an hour and a half to complete - no going back, remember? Once you're done, your computer basically says "have a nice day!" and you get to leave.  You have no idea if you passed/failed/totally sucked.  Scores are sent to you 6-8 weeks after the close of the testing window.  The exam is only offered twice a year - May and November.  I came home last night and found an envelope from CDR on the counter. I cringed because I KNEW I screwed up the cystic fibrosis kiddo big time.  Apparently I perfect scored enough of the other questions to make up for the CF kid.

My credentials are now: MS, RD, CSP, LDN

I can't say thank you enough to my friends and family who had faith in me and supported me the entire way and never let me give up. I love you all.

P.S. If you combine Louisiana and Mississippi, there are less than 20 RD's with this certification and now I'm one of them!

Back from the Dead

Well, after that dramatic post back in February with the cliffhanger of an ending - I am alive. I finished/completed a full marathon a week before my 30th birthday. I hated most of the race, but I had a fantastic partner in crime with me for the majority of the race and an amazing roommate to talk me through the final 2 miles.  My 30th birthday was amazing, I am truly loved by my awesome friends. They continue to amaze me. I have more to write, but I got sleepy all of the sudden. More tomorrow.