stress = eat.

I'm in a funk, folks. Being sick for two weeks will do that to a spirit, I suppose, but it's time for some major rebuilding because I'm headed for unhappiness if I don't snap out of it and regroup.

YES I had to take a break from my half marathon training. YES this probably means I won't be able to do the half on Oct. 7 (never say never). YES I had to take a break from yoga. YES I am still recovering. YES I will spring back. YES I will run a half marathon...even if it's not this one. YES I will be okay.

When you've been training to run a half marathon, and then have to stop all the sudden, it's hard to stop eating like you eat when you're training. I've probably gained 5-7 lbs in the past 10 days. I don't really want to know, and I'm not going to look at the scale because that's only going to trigger a lot of negative self-talk at this point. But this is definitely something I'm struggling with.

For example, I made these gluten-free vegan peanut butter cookies a couple days ago. Quartered the recipe. Thank god I did because I pulled them out of the oven and devoured them all, despite the fact they had soggy insides and could've stood for another 6-8 minutes of baking.

They were really good. So I would suggest making some. Just maybe up the baking time a bit, and uh oh yeah, don't eat them all at once. I mean you could. But I wouldn't recommend it.

Tonight when I was feeling blah, I almost made these oatmeal butterscotch cookies. (Granted, they're still on my to-do list.) But then I lit some candles, and pulled out my yoga mat instead. Did an easy flow for 25 minutes. It was the right decision.

Thus I give you:
10 things to do before making/consuming food one knows one doesn't need.

1. Drink a glass of water. Dehydration is, after all, commonly mistaken for hunger.
2. Take the pup for a spin around the block. I don't care what the temp is, just do it.
3. Paint/repaint nails. Can't nom if you're going to ruin wet nails.
4. Chew some gum.
5. Or brush those teeth. 
6. Look at some fit-spiration.
7. Do 10 pushups.
8. Do 30 crunches.
9. Do a 90-second plank.
10. Go on a cleaning rampage. There's always shit to clean.

I will def be consulting above list a lot in the next few days. I eat when I'm stressed, and I'm kind of pretty stressed at the moment.

But then I look at my sleepy puppy, and he makes things instantly better :-)

To getting back on track with running, and yoga, and coursework, and life in general.

All smiles,

b

the cutest thing you will see all weekend

Little Birdie by Danette Serr

via Camping Survival Women

goodness (gracious)

So much for speedy recovery. Apparently I have a viral infection, not a bacterial one, and I am effectively back to square one in terms of recovery. I’m behind on school work and concerned about my half-marathon training. I was pretty sure I’d be fine taking a week off – but I’m probably looking at 2, maybe more.

HOWEVER. Life is overall fabulous, and regardless of anything and everything, there will be other days that I can get a full practice session in, and there will be other half marathons (if it comes to that). Life goes on.

More than that! It thrives. What’s been good lately:

• This recipe for coconut-spinach fritters and guacamole. Honestly, I was a titch skeptical but they are FABULOUS. I left out the nutritional yeast and pink salt and subbed maple syrup for agave. Still great. Oh and I used olive oil instead of safflower, just personal preference – I love the flavor olive oil adds to dishes like this.

omnomnom. I plated with brown rice, as you can see.

• These excerpts from David Byrne‘s new book, How Music Works. He talks about how human creativity has not progressed over time; rather, it has adapted to its surroundings. My brain has been chewing on this for a few days – there are points I agree and disagree with, but I’m not going to get into my thoughts at length, at least not right now.

• Salman Rushdie‘s book Midnight’s Children. I’m about a quarter of the way through and in love with his writing style (haven’t read anything by him before). I e-booked it after hearing an interview with Rushdie and director Deepa Mehta about its movie adaptation on NPR, the transcript for which I cannot find anywhere.

• How to Die Without Regrets (blog post). I’m not in agreement with everything in this post, but I like the overarching message, and found this bit particularly interesting (my mother informed me there was also a recent NPR story on the top five regrets):

“Earlier this year, a palliative care nurse revealed the top five regrets that her patients expressed before they died:

1. I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.”

• Yogi Ginger Tea, and actually Yogi Tea in general, because of the awesome quotes with every tea bag. This one is SO applicable to my life…I feel like I need to make a giant sign with this quote on it and hang it in the room where I practice violin.

love. this.

All smiles,

b

don't fight the downhills

Yesterday, whilst running the five miles that my training called for, I got to thinking about hills. Not metaphorically, although you can definitely metaphor hills to death if you want to. And yup, this post will ultimately be a metaphor. But for now, I'm just talking about physical hills.

 

Running on hills has never bothered me all that much. Even when I didn't take running so seriously, I saw them as a challenge to defeat rather than an insurmountable obstacle to dread. That's just who I am. Every uphill has a downhill. And on that note, every downhill has an uphill. We all know this. But the thought that popped into my head yesterday surprised me: 

You're fighting the downhill. Stop fighting the downhill. 

Of all the things to fight - why on earth would you fight the downhill? But that's exactly what I was doing. I was shortening my stride, and fighting the very momentum that nature was giving me. Not just giving me, more like shoving it in my face, yelling, "TAKE IT! TAKE IT!" But there I was, pounding the earth like I was going out of style on a 40% incline and making the downhill just as difficult, and maybe more so, than an actual uphill. 

I'm good at challenges, but I'm not so good at easy. I'm not so good at letting momentum take me where it will. I will almost always find away to make everything 10,000 times more complicated than it needs to be. I'll get lost because I followed a map to somewhere I already knew how to get to, but was so afraid of getting lost that I plugged it in my GPS anyway. Only to have the GPS take me to the back alley of a department store when I'm trying to get to the doctor's office. It's really, really, really freakin' hard to let go, and just let intuition take you where you're supposed to be. 

Granted, I would end up lost if I always let intuition guide me everywhere. A little foresight and planning never hurt anybody. But it has to be a give and take...there has to be some letting go...I am working on that letting go. I'm working on the downhills. 

And I'm getting better. I let go on the downhills of my runs, now. Let gravity do its job, for goodness' sake. And I let go this afternoon, when I knew I needed to go to the doctor and I didn't fight it, I just went. And now I have antibiotics to kill off what would normally turn into an even nastier case of bacterial tonsilitis than I currently have. My normal pattern when coming down with something: repeat the mantra, "I am not sick!" 100 times, ignore all warning symptoms just to save the hassle of putting things on hold to get better. Then, get sick anyway and increase my recovery time tenfold. 

There are some things you just shouldn't try to fight without some help, and bacterial tonsillitis is one of those things. In the past I would probably be seething right now - seething at having to take some time off, seething at sitting around doing nothing but not feeling good enough to do anything else - but I'm trying hard to be mindful this time. There's nothing I can do about being sick. And it's not going to matter in six months, or even six weeks, unless I don't take the time now to take care of myself. So I'm just going to take care of myself, and not fight it. It's a new angle for me. 

Being under the weather is a different kind of downhill...but I'll be on the upswing again soon, because I didn't fight it so hard this time. 

All smiles, 
b

conquering the acorn squash

If I ever have anything remarkable happen to me medically, it will probably be due to the fact that I eat obscene amounts of salsa. No, really. It's true. Tortilla chips and salsa are my go-to snack. Sometimes I melt a little cheese on top, but more often than not I just pop the container of salsa and pig out (straight from the container, of course). I figure if I'm going to pig out on something, it might as well be relatively healthy. So if I make it to 100+, I'm totally going to have my gravestone read, "Eat your salsa, yo!" Or something like that. 

But I digress. I have nothing cool to tell you to do with salsa at the moment, so instead I'm going to tell you three awesome things you can do with an acorn squash. Omnomnom! I really like figuring out how to make totally underrated vegetables totally scrumptious. Acorn squash is a lovely fall squash that, while hard to cut open when all you have are cheap knives with three-inch blades (guess what's on my Christmas list?), is worth the effort. And once you do get it cut open, it practically makes itself. I can't take credit for the first two acorn squash options (that goes to my lovely former neighbors, with whom I spent Saturday afternoon making acorn squash and yummy banana nut bread), but I do take credit for the seeds.  

First, preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Then cut the squash in half along one of the grooves. Be super careful! It's even more difficult to cut open than a pumpkin. Scoop out the seeds (don't throw them away!!) Now you have two options:

1. Fill the fruit about halfway with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper to your taste.
2. Fill the fruit about halfway with maple syrup and add brown sugar to taste (I used a generous teaspoon).

Bam! You're done. Place the halves (rind down) on a baking sheet and pop it in the oven for about 40-45 minutes. When they're done, mash up the fruit so the olive oil or maple syrup mixture gets evenly distributed in the flesh. It should be soft, about the texture of baked sweet potato. Then eat it! Straight out of the fruit if you like - it's a nice natural bowl. 

maple syrup/brown sugar on the left; olive oil/salt/pepper on the right

Now, back to the seeds. While the fruit is in the oven, wash the seeds to get any stringy fruit off of them. Mix a teaspoon of maple syrup and a teaspoon of brown sugar in a Ziploc bag and throw the seeds in there, mixing it together until the seeds are pretty evenly coated. Spread them in a round, 8-inch cake pan and cover with aluminum foil. Why? Acorn squash seeds pop! Or at least they did when I roasted them. Those suckers hadn't been in there for ten minutes before they started popping all over my oven. So yeah. Cover them up. After the fruit is done, put them on the top rack for about 15 minutes (still at 375). Let them cool and crunch away! They're pretty similar in taste to pumpkin seeds. You could also roast them with olive oil and salt. 

pretty, no?

All smiles, 

b