Very balanced.

Somes days are all about balance...

Wake up, walk two miles.

Breakfast/snack:

Oats with banana, apple

Lunch time, walk two miles while eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich.

Dinner:  Chicken and Waffles.....

I did some pretty hardcore research yesterday on the best vegan chicken nuggets and landed on "Quorn" brand.  They were pretty good.

 
 
They are even better when they are topped with maple syrup.  And if you've never tried Van's waffles, you are missing out.

Walk two miles after dinner with this little nugget.



Lay on your couch for two hours watching the Katy Perry documentary.

Very balanced.

How to run before work and not smell and get fired from your job.

For me, working out in the morning is THE BEST.  I don't do it enough because I am at work downtown at 8am but I did this morning and I'm feeling pretty great.

What could be THE WORST?  This.

I just got nauseous.  Blech.  This unnamed gross cocktail drinker is in New York too so that garbage probably cost $30.  Remind me to tell you the story of a NYC bar tab of nearly $100 for just Matt and I.  For 4 drinks.  That is what I spend a month on gasoline.  Correction:  That is MORE than what I spend on gasoline.  Now I'm nauseous. 

Not nauseous enough to sleep through my morning work out though. I tend to bail on exercise a lot for awesome things like hanging out with friends, heading out to Sweet Tomatoes, and some not so awesome things like Law and Order: SVU marathons.  If I walk/run/spin before my day starts I have more energy and feel better about all of the choices I make throughout the day.  However, you must plan if you like crazy stuff like making it to work on time, smelling like a person that likes to keep their job, and not starving.

Go to bed early.  Rachel, put down your phone and stop reading the news.

Set your alarm clock with enough time for your work out, getting ready for work, and your commute.  For me I am going for 5:15am.




 I am a morning person that loves to run and it still is hard.  This gives me 10 minutes to act like a baby and whine to my dog about it, 30-40 minutes for my run depending on how far I want to go, an hour to shower, get ready, MAKE COFFEE, and pack my breakfast/lunch, and get to work on time.  I give myself about 20 minutes of give in my morning to not feel like I'm running a marathon on days I decided to work out before work. I also like to see as much as I can of Robin Roberts, she is awesome. 



I brewed two shots of espresso last night and kept it in the fridge until I was ready.  This will also be followed by Cuban coffee once I get to work. I'm really fun to talk to in the morning.

 Because it is still dark, and my neighborhood is a far cry from "safe" I run with my ferocious dog, reflective clothing, pepper spray, and my phone.  I don't see my phone as making me a target for getting burgled.  I use my GPS for my runs to give me my time and I have the "find my phone" app which I would hope could help the police locate me in case someone tries to snatch me.  I wanted a gun for a long time, like a small tiny one I could strap it to my thigh and pretend I was Lara Croft but 1.) I would shoot myself in the foot and 2.) I read into what it meant to get my license and it turns out you have to commit to actually using your gun to shoot someone if you become licensed.  A gun in the hands of someone who won't use it is super dangerous <--and that would be me.  So I'll stick to pepper spray and wave my dreams of combat boots and swinging through  my gigantic mansion, killing bad guys to Lara. 

Protect yo'self.

I am hardly exhausted from getting up early to work out and strangely always have more energy throughout the day.  Going to bed at a decent time is crucial though. 



How dark it is even after 4 miles.  I saw two cars total.  Luke wouldn't even come off the porch to stretch with me he was so scared.

  Unrelated and probably annoying information but shocking nonetheless.  I love this BBQ sauce.  And it was buy one get one free at Publix last week so I came home with two dreaming of life without Bob Harper and when I can brush this all over my grilled veggies. 

Yum!  Love this stuff....let's look at the ingredients.

The first ingredient is "liquid sugar".  Womp womp.  Now I know why it is so good.  Any better for you barbecue sauces out there I should know about?  I'm a mustard based fan.

Please oh please. Just one more plank. Don't make me sprint again.

Tuesdays are my yoga day where I fall into a gentle slumber after returning home relaxed and stretched out <--yeah right.  I have stuff to do and that never really happens because a day doesn't end at 6:30pm but I think it would be nice because yoga does make me sleepy. 

However I felt like sweating.  And I never feel like that so I figured it was a sign that I should sweat while the motivation was there.  Mary, a local trainer, who writes, unlike mine, an incredibly informative blog, Food and Fun on the Run, and she creates killer (like you want to scream/die/be killed) workouts.  She is a Jillian Michaels/Dexter hybrid.  I've done many of her workouts and they ground me.  When I am done I am laying on the ground for a good five minutes while Luke licks my armpits (it's so weird, please tell me someone elses dog does that too).  She created one a few months ago for her husband (so Mary, when you see the creeper that searched your blog for your husband's name and "workout", it was just me trying to find this and not a picture of your husband working out).  I only did this once because I was going to the gym later but it was great.  I was dripping sweat, which makes me extra beautiful.  Mary, you rock, I never thought I'd think of a plank as a rest period. 

At the gym I had about an hour before yoga and love circuit workouts so I gave myself 10 minutes on four different machines which I thought would give me time to cool down before my class.  I ended up doing about 12 minutes on the rower (my new favorite machine at the gym), exactly 10 and not a minute more on the stair climber (my absolute least favorite machine at the gym), 10 minutes on the spin bike, and about 5 minutes on the treadmill sprinting.  I used a lot of gym wipes but I was never bored.  I was also very sweaty going into yoga.  I found a back corner where I thought no one could see me but it was packed so everyone did.  At least my pants weren't see through like usual so I didn't blind anyone. 

On Wednesdays, I feel really productive because I run my dog at 5:30am (typing that makes me feel impressive so be impressed) shower, make breakfast (to go because there ain't no time to eat), make coffee, get some cuddling in with Luke, talk to Matt (because he's on West coast time and goes to bed when I wake up), and head off to the morning bible study at Hillsborough High School.  It is right down the street from me and I love the kids there.  Even the ones I just meet in the hallway are nice and hold doors for one another and it doesn't hurt that the campus is beautiful.  They have NRT testing which is pretty much the worst.  So extra prayers for the teachers there and students taking these really stupid tests that are supposed to gauge their intellect because legislation says that teachers aren't capable of that.  Maybe if we paid teachers more, it would be a job intelligent people would want to do, and maybe if teaching was a profession that our legislators respected then they would allow them to gauge student performance, not a week of testing with impossible questions.  It is so stupid.  No wonder we outsource.  Rant DONE. 

Tonight I have to say good bye to my in-laws as they are leaving for Africa soon.  This is the perfect fit for them.  They love people so much and to send them out into the world where people need hope, is just so perfect.  Pray that they receive the funds needed to operate on the ground there.  They are holding a training to teach pastors and really want to have the funding to provide meals while the pastors and their wives are attending.  This would be such a blessing to those couples as they make very little money and hardly enough to travel and stay for the conference. 

I'd also like to add that they are not the pastors you see on TV that say they love Jesus and ask for money to help people and then live the lives of royalty.  They sold their house last year to live in an RV so that their expenses would be smaller and they could give more.  If you ever want to hear the whole story let me know and you can meet them because they are so great. 

As a testimony to how much love these two, I'm making curry tonight (shocker) with no spice which is a struggle for me. 

So sore and so sore and teachers are amazing.

I ran four miles yesterday morning and I wish I'd just run four more because it would have been easier to run 10 more miles than these suckers. 

Ow. Ow. Ow.  1,440 steps, and 80 flights. 

The whole work out took about half an hour and I was sweaty.  No proof.  It was ugly. 

However, it still wasn't as hard as the stair climber at the gym.  That is just torture.  I have to set myself up to succeed with 5 minutes goals while on that thing. 

In 5 minutes I will walk to get some water. 

5 more minutes and I'll stretch my calves. 

5 more minutes and I will change my music. 

5 more minutes and I'll go dump out the bucket of sweat that is accumulating below me and curl up in a ball in the locker room. 

To make matters worse, the stair climber in my gym is the ONLY MACHINE facing away from the TV.  How am I supposed to take in my daily intake of talking heads (my gym is also in an office building Downtown and it seems like the only TV my co-work-out-ers watch is financial news, boooooring).  The ellipticals have their own TVs which is nice but I am not good at the elliptical if that is even possible (it is).  I'm amazed at people who love it.  They look like gazelles. 

I got to meet the track coach/ FCA sponsor at Robinson yesterday who was awesome.  Seriously, I've yet to meet one teacher that isn't severely, passionately, pumped for their students and athletes.  I love it.  Every teacher I've met has been so polar opposite of the way teachers are portrayed in the media, by way of TV and movies and even whom the news chooses to display (crazies who just want more money and less accountability <- not that they get enough money).  They have such a great rapport(Thanks for my sweet teacher super smart friend, Kara, for helping a girl out with her spelling) with their students and I have seen such an incredible amount of respect from the kids.  So refreshing.   Go love on a teacher today.