Emotional Eating

Today's post is a little bit more serious than usual. Recently, I lost my cat of 12 years to cancer. Since I'm away at college, I wasn't home to see him before he died but I knew that he was sick. When my dad called me to tell me the news, I cried for the longest time. For people that don't have or have never had pets, it might be kind of hard to understand just how heartbreaking it is to lose something that feels so much like a part of the family. It may seem silly to get so upset over an animal, but this cat was my friend, my cuddle buddy, my comic relief, and the one I fed fish to under the dinner table (I really hate the taste of fish). So when he died, I was torn apart emotionally. Don't worry, I'm doing much better now! I think I just needed a solid day to cry about it.

Now, there are many different things that people use as emotional outlets, some of which are healthier than others. Lots of people turn to food in times of stress, depression, anger, etc., but I have discovered that I am an emotional non-eater. When I get stressed or  sad or even super mad, I tend to lose my appetite. Nothing ever looks good enough for me to consume and I never actually feel hungry. I will eat, just not a lot. Emotional eating and non-eating, while different, are very similar and neither are healthy ways to go about handling your emotions.

Ironically enough, the day before I found out about Hunter (my cat), my friends and I had talked about emotional versus bored eating. That was when I made the realization that I'm an emotional non-eater but a bored eater. So when I got the news, I made a conscious effort to make sure I wasn't neglecting my health during my time of sadness and self-pity. It's extremely important to make sure you're at least maintaining your physical health even when you feel like you're mind could explode from emotions or stress. Trust me, I know it's not easy, but it's so worth it. When you take care of your body, even when your feelings are out of control, you can begin to feel better emotionally so much quicker.

I know that I'm not a doctor or anything, but here are some things that I found useful when trying to avoid bad habits I give in to when I'm emotional*:

1. Set a food goal: Aim to eat a certain amount of food during each meal of the day. If you tend to overeat during rough times, try aiming for a smaller, more normal portion size. If you tend to under eat, make it a goal to eat every meal. For example, even though I didn't necessarily feel hungry the morning after my cat died, I forced myself to eat my usual breakfast of fruit and cereal. My lunch and dinner portions were smaller than usual, but something is always better than nothing. 
2. Don't wallow: For an entire day, I was SUPER mopey. I don't think I smiled all day. It was awful. But even allowing yourself to think one happy thought or flash one 50 watt smile can make your day 10 times better. It's difficult to try and force a ray of sun to shine through a thick layer of clouds, but even one ray of sunshine lights up the earth a bit (yeah, yeah, I know that was cliché).
3. Naps are good: Sometimes, all you need is a little nap. As long as your emotions aren't interfering with your ability to face the day and to function, then a short little cat nap can be beneficial and who knows, maybe you'll even wake up feeling better!

Well, hopefully these suggestions can help you out the next time you're having a rough day or even a hard week. I'll be back on to peppier posts soon! 

*Note: These recommendations are just for when you have those occasional bad days that just seem impossible to conquer. Everyone gets them every once in a while, but if you experience feelings of sadness on a regular basis or if you often have difficulty facing the day, you should probably seek professional help. Depression is a serious health problem and if you think you may have it, then you should speak to your doctor.

Tips for Food/Exercise Tracking

If you read pretty much any health magazine article, they will tell you that counting your calories is one of the most important ways to lose weight and keep your health in check. This may be true, but I don't exactly like writing down each calorie that I consume; I find it too tedious. Of course, there are websites that do all the work for you, all you have to do is enter the foods you ate during the day.

For me, it can be pretty hard to be consistent with my food and exercise log, and often times I don't know how accurate the calorie count is for the foods I'm entering, especially because most of my diet comes from the school cafeteria. If you're like me and find food logging boring and/or you just forget to keep up with it, here are some tips to help you keep your calories tracking in check.

1. Find a good calorie tracking website (I like Map My Run, but you can also use My Fitness Pal or another calorie tracking site)

2. Be honest: The most important part of tracking your calories is to be 100% honest about what you eat and the exercise you do during the day. Record everything you ate and how much. The same goes for exercise.

3. Set a reminder: Put a reminder or an alarm on your phone to go off at a certain time everyday to tell you when to record your daily intake. When your reminder goes off, drop whatever you're doing and hop onto your calorie tracking site of choice.

4. Write it down: To help you remember what you ate during the day, carry around a small notebook and write down everything you eat after each meal, then at the end of the day, take everything you wrote down, and put it into a tracking site.

Hopefully you'll find these tips helpful, now I just have to take my own advice! ;) Happy food tracking!

Peanut Butter Protein Smoothie!

Do you like peanut butter? Do you like chocolate? What's better than those two things separately? Putting them together!! The smoothie I'm about to tell you about is the perfect combination of peanut butter and chocolate blended together into one glass of nutritious deliciousness (even if it is pretty calorie dense)!

Ok, so first things first, I LOVE bananas, so I will pretty much find any excuse to use a banana. That being said, this recipe does involve bananas, but if you aren't as great a banana fan as me, then you really don't need to include them in this recipe.

Ingredients:

2 ripe bananas
1/2 scoop chocolate whey protein powder
2 tbsp. all natural peanut butter
1/2 c. ice cubes
1/4 c. skim milk

Directions:

1. Put in ice cubes, milk, and bananas.
2. Add in peanut butter and protein powder.
3. Blend together until smooth.
4. Pour in cup and enjoy! :)

*Makes about two tall smoothies

Of course, if you don't like chocolate or peanut butter, or whey, etc. then this smoothie probably isn't for you, however it's one of my absolute favorites! I make it whenever I get the chance. I love to make it as either a post workout recovery drink or have one in the morning for a nice, protein packed start to my day! Try it and let me know how you like it!

I'd love to hear about your favorite smoothie!

The Benefits of a Workout Buddy

Sometimes it can get pretty difficult to motivate yourself to work out, at least for me, anyways. I always know that I need to get my exercise in, and usually I'm pretty diligent about getting it done, but then there are the days when I just want to be lazy and sit on my bum. One day leads to another, which leads to another, and so on until an entire month has passed since I ran or did any form of activity that didn't involve a remote and a large screen television. I'm proud to say that this has not happened to me since I've arrived at school (knock on wood) and that's partially due to the fact that I have access to a fully equipped gym, complete with a pool and indoor track. But mostly, it's because I have a buddy.

At home, I have several friends that I can run with and I play soccer and ultimate frisbee over the summers, but I'm never very consistent with my workout regimen. At school, however, I have a workout partner that motivates me to get up and exercise even when I don't necessarily want to. Her name is Rachael and she's pretty neat! We run together, swim together, lift weights together, we practically live together. She's in my suite ALL the time! Needless to say, we're pretty close. Exercising is how we bond and boy, have we been doing a lot of bonding this year! :)

Me and Rachael Post-run

What's great about working out with Rachael, aside from just having company and motivation, is that she holds me accountable for exercising. She'll keep my pace in check when we run (so that I don't move like a turtle) and she makes sure I put a solid effort into our circuit/strength training sessions. But most of all, she tells me to get off my butt and stop being a lazy poop on days like today, when I will pretty much try to find any excuse to not go to the gym.

This afternoon, after sitting in the stands for about three hours and playing with Titan pep band at our school's football game, I would've given anything to sit on the couch and play Dots for hours. I was in the midst of a really intense round of Dots when in walks Rachael. She asked me if I wanted to go for a run and I groaned that I didn't really feel like it, but she begged and insisted that I come with her. She told me she was going to change into her running clothes and when she came back, I'd better be in mine. I knew she'd go whether I came along or not, but I knew I'd regret it if I didn't run with her, so I reluctantly changed and went along for the jog.

It turned out to not be so bad, which always happens. We had a good life talk during the course of our run and finished up our exercise for the day with a post-run strength workout. We did box jumps and BOSU ball squats and a couple of different ab exercises. The point is, I worked out today, and all because Rachael guilted me into a run.

Having a friend to workout with is great for many reasons. For starters, they can at least get you out the door and moving. They give you a reason to workout, someone to keep up with or compete with and best of all, they give you a wider range of exercises to do. There are plenty of workouts out there that you can do with a partner, and many times, they're harder than exercises that you would do by yourself. Having a partner also gives you a spotter for things like bench presses and hand stand push-ups, which I've never personally tried before. Personally, I love having someone to workout with. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love exercising no matter what, but it's so much better when you have someone you care about to do it with.

What about you? Do you like working out with a buddy?

Quad Day Color Run!

Yesterday, my school had a campus wide "Quad Day" complete with inflatable amusements, free food (Cherry Berry FroYo and Chipotle!) and a Color Run 5k! It was so fun! I ran the 5k with one of my suite mates, Amanda. We ran an 8:17 pace. Not bad for someone who usually runs 9:30 on her own. Since it was more of a fun run than an actual we race, we kept it comfortable and ran it easily. Amanda is a varsity cross country/track athlete on campus, so she definitely had to slow it down for me, but I appreciated her company nonetheless.

The Color Run was so much fun! I'd been wanting to do one for so long and I even thought about doing one over the summer, but I never got the chance. So when I heard that my school was going to be hosting their own color run, naturally I jumped on the opportunity. I showed up about a half an hour early so that I could get a free t-shirt. I didn't even have to pay a registration fee! They didn't throw color around during the race, but we were bombarded with colored powder at the finish. After we finished everyone was given a few bags of the color powder and we just attacked each other with it. It was so much fun! I got so many pictures!

     

My shoes are currently unrecognizable because of all the powder on them. But I Clorox wiped the crap out of them so they're slowly returning to their normal appearance as they dry.

Left Shoe = Cleaned Shoe; Right Shoe = Post Color Run

Anyways, even if you don't like running, I would strongly recommend doing some sort of fun run. There are tons of different theme runs, like the Color Run, various mud and obstacle course runs, not mention costume runs. Many of these types of runs have 5 and 10k options. Participating in fun runs makes running more enjoyable, even for people that don't typically take pleasure in it. They also take away any pressure to run super fast or even to run the entire thing. If you need to walk, that's fine because tons of people are probably walking, just like you. Everyone just does these types of events for fun. It's a great and supportive environment. So if you currently hate running but think you might be interested in trying to get into it or if you just want to participate in a fun run, I'd encourage you to sign up for a Color Run! It's super fun and, of course, crazy colorful!

After all the colorful festivities

What's the most fun race/event you've ever done?

Eating Healthy in the Cafeteria

Four weeks into the semester and I'm already sick of cafeteria food. Everyday is the same old same old; there's always pizza that's WAY too greasy, pasta with fattening sauce, and, of course, the entrée made of mystery meat and pickles. On occasion, the main food bar in my school's cafeteria serves something worthwhile and delicious (well, delicious by Sodexo standards), but for the most part, the food they serve on campus isn't quite up to par, especially when it comes to eating healthy.

Being on a college meal plan doesn't exactly leave a lot of room for pickiness. I try my darnedest to eat healthfully on a regular basis, but I'll admit that I cave to cafeteria pizza and the occasional cone of Froyo. Well, I'm tired of feeling guilty every time I eat in the cafeteria, so today's post is all about to eat healthy on campus.

For starters, when eating in the cafeteria, make sure to look around at ALL the options. I usually go straight to the vegetarian section, but if the vegetarian/vegan entrée doesn't look appetizing, I'll look around at all the other food bars. If all else fails, I'll just have soup (I stay away from the thick, creamy soups) and some hummus with pita bread. That's a pretty safe way to do things. We also have a make-your-own salad and sandwich bar in my school's cafeteria. There's almost always spinach at the salad bar and an abundance of vegetables, dressings (go for a non-fat vinaigrette), and other salad/sandwich toppings, so of course making your own salad or sandwich has the potential to be the healthiest option in the cafeteria.

Most colleges and universities have plenty of dining options outside of the traditional cafeteria. For example, beneath the cafeteria at my school, there's a small restaurant area that has Subway, Starbucks and Chipotle style dining along with an international cuisine line and a separate soup and salad line. So far, I've tried everything except the soup and salad bar. When getting something from a food line that doesn't allow you to serve yourself, it's best to choose an option with a lower fat content and load it up with fruits and/or vegetables and, of course, guacamole and hummus are never bad toppings. :) Of course, you can always choose to stay in and make your own food. When I eat in my dorm, I like to make oatmeal topped with fruit and cinnamon or I'll have some hummus with carrots and wheat thins.

I'll admit that eating on campus or in the dorms, especially when everything is self-serve, makes it harder to control portion sizes. To keep myself in check, I record everything that I eat on Map My Run.  That way I'm less likely to eat to crappy foods or even overeat the healthy stuff, because I hate having to own up to three servings of chips or a large bowl of ice cream. I also track my workouts on so I can compare my calorie intake to the amount of calories I burn.

These are just a few tips to eating healthy on campus, most of which I'm sure you already knew. I'll probably have another post on more healthy campus options in the near (or not so near) future.

What healthy options do you have on campus?

Monday Hits Hard

After a long weekend of sitting around, reading and enjoying the start of the Packer football season, Monday hit me like a brick wall. I woke up this morning feeling as though I could've slept the whole day through. I made my way to my 9 am class sluggishly and felt groggy and spacey throughout the entire period. Now, I'm not really a morning person to begin with, but 9 is a pretty good time for me. I can wake up, eat, brush my teeth and head to class feeling energized and ready for the day, but today I was NOT feeling it.

As soon as I got back to my dorm I headed straight for my bed and crashed for a couple of hours. When I woke up, I felt as though I hadn't gotten any more rest. In my free time after my nap, I just couldn't bring myself to do a workout, even though I knew that I needed one. Instead, I cleaned my room and decided to catch up on some homework readings.

I could go on more about how I was tired and sulked my way through the day, but you guys really don't need to hear me complain. The point is that life happens. Some days (especially Mondays) hit you hard and make you feel like the only thing you can do is sleep and sleep and sleep. Sometimes, you just need those days. Take a nap, give yourself a rest day, eat some ice cream or a slice of pizza, and let the day pan out the way it's supposed to. And you don't have to punish yourself about eating some junk food or not working out. The next day will be better. Nobody can be perfect at all, let alone 100% of the time.

That being said, we can't let everyday get to us. We can't make excuses for our laziness everyday, but it's ok to let that happen every once in a while. So, in short, I did not have the most health happy day today, but I know that tomorrow will be better. I'm not letting my one day setback bother me. I'll just kick my butt into gear tomorrow and just keep swimming. :)