Happy Thanksgiving, Americans!
2013 has been a rough year for many, but I think we can all find at least one thing to be thankful for.
(Personally, I am thankful I decided not to do a Turkey Trot, because it is cold outside! Kidding… sorta.)
Have a wonderful holiday, doing whatever you choose to do.
(And to everyone else, happy Thursday. Canada, good luck with Black Friday sales. I am sorry our plague has spread to you.)
This week being Thanksgiving Week in the U.S., a lot of people have been writing about how to avoid gaining weight on Thanksgiving. Lots of healthy recipes out there and suggestions to skip eating certain foods. So what if it’s your favorite? Nothing tastes good as skinny feels, right?
WRONG.
Of course, I’m a firm believer that that particular quote is a gateway to an eating disorder. But that’s another story for another time.
We associate a lot of memories with food. I’m sure everyone has a favorite food that someone special made for them or took them to get. Maybe it’s your grandmother’s cookies or your mom’s homemade mac and cheese or it’s going to get ice cream with your cousins in the summer. But we associate food with fond memories. And some of that is due to holiday traditions.
Now, I’m not saying that your mom’s mac and cheese should be part of your daily diet. But if it’s a traditional side dish on Thanksgiving, who cares if it’s loaded with fat and calories? Thanksgiving comes once a year. Eat that mac and cheese.
Now, moderation is good. Perhaps don’t eat until you have to unbutton your pants. Smaller portions. I’m not going to tell you that it’s a holiday, so you should eat yourself into a food coma. Bad plan.
But food is not your enemy. Food is not evil. Sure, some foods should maybe be saved for special occasions, not for every day consumption, but the holidays are certainly a special occasion.
And sure, we’d all love to escape the holidays without any weight gain. But is it really worth it?
Eat the mac and cheese. It’s delicious and you know it.
So last night were callbacks for solos for our choir Christmas concert. I didn’t get called back. I can’t say I was surprised. I’m amateur good, but I’m not professional level good. Which makes sense – I don’t train vocally. I gave that up in favor of other hobbies.
Still, it hurt a bit to not have my name called. I was sitting with another girl who also didn’t get called.
And when the final results were announced, no one was surprised. It was probably a relief to not have to compete against those voices in the final round.
I admit, part of me is saying that I will never do it again. That it wasn’t worth it to put myself out there because I knew the results beforehand. That even though I knew, it still hurt a bit, and really wasn’t something I wanted to repeat.
But I put myself out there. And I did something different. And that’s always a good thing. Who knows, maybe it will make me less reluctant to do something scary at a later date. Either way, still worth it, even though things didn’t go my way.
I’m definitely glad I opted to do ten miles instead of sixteen this weekend. My body wouldn’t have made it through a full sixteen mile run. Ten was tough enough. I blame this on three high stress days at work where I was racing around the building wearing heels.
I know, I know, high heels are bad for me. But I really really like them. I don’t wear them often, and even when I do, I’m typically at my desk all day so it’s not that big of a deal. And they dress up an otherwise casual outfit for a big day at work.
Honestly though, even in flats, for all the running around I was doing and having to be “on” for so many hours, I probably would have been exhausted anyway. So it was good to take a step back in the training.
Of course, I now have no idea what will happen with Sunday’s race. I’m still hoping for a strong race. Maybe not a PR, but if I just finish strong and feel like I ran a good race, I will be happy. Last half of the year!
You know how usually, you look at the calendar and say “How is it only Wednesday? It feels like Friday!”
Well, for me, this week has flown by. It’s been an insane week at work and I can’t believe Friday is here. Of course, I’m in meetings all day. And thanks to the craziness at work, I’ve been grabbing meals where I can and getting no exercise. After Wednesday’s event for work, I went home and slept for nine hours and still felt like I got hit by a bus. I am so ready for the weekend.
I’ve also discovered that I need to plan even better for easy meals when my weeks get like this. I’ve been grabbing whatever works and then eating too much of the wrong things. Not what I want to do if I want to lose weight (which I do). Lessons learned, I guess.
Off to more meetings.