One of my absolute favorite things to do is to lounge in bed and have a nice breakfast. This morning, my best friend and I decided it would be fun to prepare a breakfast feast and to eat it in bed while watching a movie. So fun!

Christie feeling like a queen with all that food!


We had some leftover pancakes with syrup and grape and apple jelly on the side, some pears, cheerios with nuts, greek yogurt, coffee for Christie and tea for me.


Close-up of the fun oatmeal with heart shaped cookies and all kinds of mix-ins.


Leftover pineapple upside down cake my mom made and an apple! Can you tell we love sugar? :)

Ah, what a nice morning - maybe we will go for a walk here in a bit?

Warning: Dorky technology post ahead!

One of my favorite things to do while getting in a good gym workout, is to listen to some really great, motivating music.

I'm what I would call an iTunes "power user" - my library (all 6834 songs) is organized to the max. And I love smart playlists. Below is my favorite smart playlist of all time - and I use it every time I workout.

Here are my instructions to compile your own "Work It" playlist:

1. Compile a large list of songs you like to listen to when you workout out. You could combine all of your other workout mixes into one big regular playlist. Label this something like "starter." This will be one of your "utility playlists" (you won't actually listen to this). Once you have all those songs in there - select them all, and in their info, type "workout" in the comments section. You have just labeled all these songs.
2. Go through your playlist and pick all the songs you really like to listen to when you workout - you know the ones. In their comment section, put a comma behind the word "workout" and type something to the effect of "power song" (I don't have a Nano). Now make a smart playlist with the rule: Comment contains power song with the live updating box checked.
3. Make another smart playlist matching ALL rules: Comment contains workout, Last skipped is not in the last 3 days (you can change the day amount depending on how often you workout - its just so you don't have the ones you just skipped the day before annoying you again) and check the box that says limit to 25 items (you can change this based on how many power songs you have in relative - I have 20 - and I like the ratio of changing songs to be a little more than half) selected by least recently played and select live updating. You can delete the other playlist you labeled "starter." You should label your new playlist "workout songs." This is another utility playlist. So, now you should have 2 smart playlists - one with all your workout songs and one with just your power songs.
4. Make the final smart playlist titled "Work It" with some symbol (like ♫) at the front so it will be at the top of all your playlists. It should match ALL rules: Playlist is workout songs and Playlist is power songs with live updating. Some songs should change while your favorite ones will always be on there. You should randomize it so it changes around. There you go!

Sometimes I go through and take away power songs by taking the label out of the comment, but I leave the comment "workout" so I can still hear it sometimes. I add power songs too when I find something I really like. Sometimes I go through all the workout songs and I sort them by their "Skip Count" (you will have to make the "starter" playlist again because ones you have skipped - in the past 3 days - won't show up in the "workout songs" playlist) and find ones that shouldn't be on there (cause I skip them a lot) and so I remove the workout comment altogether.

I know everyone isn't as much of an iTunes dork as me - so just let me know if you are confused! :)

Happy Friday!!

Yesterday, I summarized the main principles of how to eat intuitively in the Intuitive Eating book by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. This book teaches you how to get back to your body's natural way of regulating it's own weight through making peace with food, ditching the dieting mentality, and honoring your hunger signals among other things.

I want to let you know this book is immensely helpful and I would recommend it to anyone who is struggling with the rigidity of dieting. Overall, I would give the book 2 thumbs up!! I really like the message and I wish I had stumbled onto something like this sooner in my life and maybe I would have wasted less time being unhappy with myself. But then again, maybe I wouldn't have been ready for it and I will discuss that below.

While I do love the book and I think it hits the nail on the head, I wanted to point out some of the things that bothered me about the book:

• Not For Everyone: I don't think this book, or intuitive eating itself, is right for everyone. The book is definitely geared to people who have struggled with disordered eating or chronic dieters. Someone like my dad, who doesn't diet, just eats exactly what he wants. He eats huge portions and he likes being totally and completely stuffed. He is also overweight. I think he is eating pretty intuitively as the authors encourage through the whole book (up until the nutrition chapter), and yet he is not his natural healthy weight. 

• Loves Labels: The authors want to put labels on what type of eater you are and "who" the voices in your head are and "who" they should be. I realize this is just a tactic to help readers, but I could have done without most of it. The type of eater chapter was just unnecessary - I have been every type of eater in there and some people I know simply don't fit into any of their categories (like my dad). The food police chapter could have focused more on being kind and forgiving to yourself and standing up for yourself rather than trying to get rid of old voices and cultivate new ones. It was a little hokey.

• Encourages Journaling Hunger and Fullness: The authors encourage you to track what you eat and rank your hungriness and fullness. As this book is aimed at people with disordered eating, it seems like too much to me. I think just really paying attention to it is enough. Besides, how do you know if your hunger is a 5 or a 7? 

• Sends Conflicting Message About Trusting Yourself: I don't like how the authors go through the whole book stating that your body takes care of itself and it knows what it needs in terms of nutrition and portions, and then at the end, after stating several times that they are not trying to pull the rug out from under you, they leave you with some nutritional guidelines that are a bit rigid and also obviously biased towards the dieting trends at the time the book was written (low-carb and low-fat). Throughout the book they tell you to eat what you want, and then here they tell you to eat 90% healthful foods and only 10% fun foods. It's a conflicting message. I think the whole reason they added this chapter was to try and make this book for everyone, which it isn't. Chronic dieters know what is healthy for them, even if in the past they have taken these guidelines to extremes. Perhaps they could have left this chapter out and directed those who aren't familiar with nutrition to other books - maybe Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food? ;)

• Doesn't Address Drinking: Alcohol is not addressed at all throughout the book with this exception: they tell you that your waiter will refill your wine glass if you order a bottle and it may be hard to keep track of how many glasses you've had. I realize that this is a book about eating, but I know I'm not alone in trying to factor drinking into the puzzle. When I was in college, drinking was one of the key things that I factored in. And now, I still love having a glass of wine or two with my dinner. -- My two cents: You should know how it's going to make you feel, just like with the food you eat. If you drink too much you will feel bad the next day so it's important to watch how much you drink. I personally think that eating after drinking (as long as you have been honoring your hunger throughout the day) is not needed. Skip that pizza for a time when you can remember eating all 8 slices. I will admit that sometimes the food can calm your stomach, so this is a difficult situation.

Overall: This book does a great job of tearing down dieting walls that many of us have built for ourselves and I would recommend it strongly. However, I thought this book didn't hit hard enough on the whole reason behind even attempting intuitive eating: happiness. Someone who is always dieting and being unkind to themselves is not happy, I know, I've been there. [Or maybe the book just didn't say it in the words that really hit home with me. I would have liked to see a whole chapter about it.]


My Path to Intuitive Eating:

I sat down with myself and I realized that I have to make my own happiness and this means working on areas of my life that make me unhappy. For me, weight and diet were areas I really needed to spend effort on. I realized that to be happy, I had to be nice to myself and to take care of myself. I know that when I eat good healthy foods when I am hungry and until I am full, I feel better. My body feels better when I exercise. It's as simple as that.

I would have liked Step 1 in the book to encourage finding your reason. At times when I am feeling depressed and I want to binge or starve myself, I remind myself that I will feel better, and I will probably feel better sooner if I feed myself properly. I want to be happy in my life and taking care of myself is key.

I choose the food I eat with the past, present, and future in mind. I remember how the food has made me feel in the past, I think about the current eating experience and my hunger levels, and finally, I want to eat food that is going to make me feel good later! I think if you keep that in mind, usually you will make healthier choices because they make you feel better and they keep you full longer, but sometimes you eat treats (but not too many cause then your stomach will hurt). I like this better than focusing on making your plate look like a "peace sign" or eating whatever you want until you realize you don't like it anymore as suggested in the book.


Have you read the Intuitive Eating book? 
If not, I would suggest looking it over the next time you are at a book store or purchasing it. It is definitely an interesting and very helpful read.

If you have, do you agree or disagree with the things that bothered me about the book?

Last week, at the suggestion of Christie at Honoring Health, I purchased the Intuitive Eating book by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch.

I quickly read the book and I enjoyed it a lot!

Intuitive Eating is basically using your body's natural hunger signals and cravings to reach the healthy weight that you are meant to be. There are 10 principles outlined in the book and I summarized as to what I thought were the important things about them:

1. Reject the Diet Mentality: Diets fail 98% of the time. You may initially lose weight, but only 2% of all dieters are successful in keeping the weight off. Diets force you to restrict what you eat, when you eat, how you eat, etc. All this restriction leads to deprivation, hunger, and eventually bingeing. By rejecting the diet mentality and promising yourself you will always be free to eat what you really want, you allow yourself to honor your hunger and fullness.
2. Honor Your Hunger: Learn what real hunger feels like, and then eat when you are hungry! Deprivation only leads to extreme hunger, and once this happens you will most likely overeat.
3. Make Peace with Food: Learn what foods you love. Many people who have been restricting what they eat don't even know what they really like. There is no such thing as a bad or good food - these are only terms that make you feel guilty for what you eat.
4. Challenge the Food Police: Don't let the voices in your head telling you that certain foods are bad, or that you should restrict what you eat get the best of you.
5. Feel Your Fullness: Learn what it feels like to be full, and then stop eating when you are full. If you have rejected the diet mentality, you will know you can always have more later. Plus being overly full is uncomfortable if not painful!
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor: Eat the food you truly crave. Be sure to keep lots of foods on hand that you love. Make time to really sit and enjoy the food you are eating and pay attention to taste, scent, etc.
7. Cope With Your Emotions Without Using Food: Learn what emotional eating is like for you and recognize before you eat that this is what you are doing. Address your emotions and do what you can to make them better without food.
8. Respect Your Body: Love the body you are in. We are not all naturally size zeros and we all have different body shapes and weights. The goal weight you have been lusting after all your life may be unrealistic for your body. You wouldn't try to stuff a size 8 foot into a size 6 shoe, would you? Also, be good to the body you have. Wear clothes that fit and stop the fat talk!
9. Exercise - Feel The Difference: Getting active and working up a sweat feels good. Don't have all or nothing thinking, any activity, like a 10 minute walk, is better than nothing.
10. Honor Your Health - Gentle Nutrition: Make nutritious choices because these choices will make your body feel the best. Eat carbohydrates, fruits and veggies, proteins, and a small amount of healthy fats 90% of the time and 10% of the time eat the foods your body craves.

Reading through this book, there are tons of examples, and several things that I thought: "oh my gosh, I blogged about that just the other day!" Lots of the parts were right on target and overall I felt the book was really, really helpful. However, I have come to a similar conclusion about dieting and weight loss that this book brings you to, but I have come to it without all the labels, charts, and nutrition guidelines.

Tomorrow I will be posting my critical analysis of the book and what bothered me about it, so check back tomorrow!

Up until yesterday, I had never met anyone from the internet before!

Last night I met up with Whitney and Stacey (after her first half marathon!) for an indian feast at Situl. Beforehand, I was a little nervous and feeling like I was going on a girl-date.

I wasn't feeling food bloggerish, I just wanted to eat so I don't have any food pics to share. But you can check out Whitney's and Stacey's! I had the same thing as Whitney :)

We had a vegetable appetizer to start with, that I thought was going to be a little bigger (only 2 pakoras, my fav), but that was ok, because there was a lot of food and the naan bread filled me right up, can't wait for leftovers today!


Meeting other bloggers was definitely a fun experience! It almost feels like you know them, because you kinda do! I had found Stacey's blog a few days before and read a bit about her, but I didn't feel like I knew her as well as Whit, who I have been reading since before I started blogging. They were both almost exactly who I had imagined them to be. Ok, enough being creepy.


I definitely hope there are more blogger meet-ups in my future!

I totally love running. But I hate it too.

Once you really get into running, and you get past the point when your cardiovascular system is overloaded (huffing and puffing, seeing spots, feeling sick, and so on) and you can actually enjoy the run, the runner's high is better than you can imagine. It is so cool to go running on a beautiful day and enjoy the scenery. You can also clear your head or tackle tough issues, which ever.

I miss that so much. I miss running and feeling great and loving it. It's exactly like the feeling you get after a great yoga class.

I have gotten really into running many times, only to get injured. Sprained ankles, strained hips, hurt knees, you name it. I take it super easy and no matter what I do, I get injured.

So for the past year or so, I have been really taking it easy. I use the Galloway method with 30 second intervals of running and walking. I barely increase my mileage at all - I'm still at less than 3 miles. I always run on a treadmill because there is more cushioning and I can guarantee no inclines or declines.


I've always wanted to run a half marathon, and I would still love to, and I think setting the date and everything would make it official - but I just can't do that. I have to listen to my body. I need to be able to run 3 miles consistently for at least a year prior to even trying to train for a half.

Well, all these limits have made running no fun.

In my mind, I would love to be a runner. But my body says no, for now. So I'm taking a break from running.

I plan on working on my strength and flexibility by focusing on yoga, strength training, and walking for fun with Indy!

How do you deal with injuries?