Admire Your Own

The name of this blog is something that I've mentioned briefly in the past, but I think it is worth revisiting. I often remind Michael (and myself) that comparison is the thief of joy. To that end, I often try to redirect my thoughts when I find myself feeling envious of what others have, or feeling like what we have isn't enough.
1-2 years ago it seemed like all of my very close girlfriends were announcing pregnancies, I was genuinely excited for them and not one bit jealous. Michael and I were on a different path, he was living two hours away and going back to school full time, we were living on one income in two different households. Pregnancy was not on our minds, we were focused on learning to navigate the first year of marriage without living together, learning to prioritize communication because phone calls, text messages and Facetime were they only ways we got to connect some weeks. We knew we wanted children, but we weren't there yet.
If I may toot my own horn for a second, although long distance marriage was hard, and frustrating and sometimes sad, we rocked it. I mean seriously, our marriage is so much stronger and we are so much happier as a couple than we were before Michael moved. Living apart was great perspective, we put aside a lot of small stuff in the name of enjoying the little time we had together, we learned to communicate like champs because we had to, and we made some big, tough decisions as Team Butzen-not Lauren and Michael. I hope our season of long distance marriage is over, but I sure am grateful for it.
After we hit our stride and Michael was settling into the second (and final) year of nursing school in Augusta we decided we were ready to start thinking about growing our family. I stopped taking birth control in June of last year knowing that if I got pregnant at any point after that Michael would either be about to graduate or recently graduated. We were pumped! For 11 months I tracked my cycle and ovulation and we tried our best to make things happen despite living apart. According to my calculations, we missed our prime time window to conceive during 3 months (or less) of that entire 11 month time frame. I felt like we were doing everything right, hitting the right times, keeping track of everything on my end, but after a year nothing had happened.
We attended baby showers and one year old birthday parties for our friends and while it crushed me on the inside I kept reminding myself that we were on our own path, we had to admire the things that we did have-Michael graduated, we were living together, our time was coming, we just had to keep the faith.

Whole30, Trying Again

January 5 Michael and I started our first Whole30 adventure. I made a meal plan for the month, prepped food like crazy and jumped in. I LOVED it, I felt amazing, had so much energy, slept like a rock, and lost weight. Michael also loved it! He realized he was super addicted to sugar, did a lot of emotional eating and healed his gut in amazing ways. But, my dirty little secret is that on about day 12 I cheated and had alcohol, and then I drank again on about day 18. After that, I pretty much quit Whole30. Since then I have been eating everything in sight, pizza, fast food, beer, wine, the list goes on. And to be quite honest, as I sit here writing this, I feel like complete crap.
I woke up with a huge zit on my chin this morning, I can't tell you the last time that happened. My stomach hurts, I'm bloated, my face is fat, and something has to change. My New Years resolution was to lose 30 pounds by June 1,  I need to get serious about my diet and exercise if I have a chance in hell of meeting that goal.
My birthday has come and gone, I have had more than my fair share or indulgences, and starting tomorrow I am embarking on my first, full Whole30 adventure. It is easy to focus on all the things that I am giving up, but I am going to try to focus on how horrible all of those foods make me feel, and how good Whole30 makes me feel. That should be motivation enough to stay on track, but for some insane reason it is not enough of a deterrent to keep me away from foods I know I shouldn't eat. Here's to taking it one meal at a time.

The Truth Is

The truth is I am not going to be competing in the body building competition I was training for in March. The truth is I wasn’t really training much at all. There were a LOT of missed workouts, a lot of half assed workouts, and even more cheating on my diet.

The truth is I didn’t train for or run the Athhalf.

The truth is I weigh 25 pounds more than I did this time last year. My clothes are tight and unflattering and I feel self-conscious and terrible in my own skin.

The truth is I haven’t been taking very good care of myself. Too much wine every night of the week, lots of take out food, lots of skipped workouts replaced by hours on the couch with Netflix.

The truth is I’ve had enough. It is time to get my act together. I have a 7 mile “goal race” in February that I’m eyeing, I’m running 3 miles 3 days a week, I’m trying to walk more with Stella each day.

The truth is it is not enough. I have to stop drinking 8 days a week and stop justifying all the junk food.  I just feel so defeated, like I’ll never lose the weight and making little changes won’t add up to anything. I need to remind myself that is not the case. I’m just having a hard time staying motivated and on track. But I’ve seen the light, reached the tipping point, and am trying to get back on the horse. It is time to try harder.

AthHalf Training-No More Wine-ing

Half marathon training has resulted in me scaling back my drinking in a drastic way. This time last year I was putting away a bottle of wine on a weeknight like it was nothing. It was embarrassing and over indulgent. I didn’t want to consume the calories, or have to defend my third glass of wine to my husband on a Tuesday, or wake up not feeling my best but night after night I found myself pouring more wine because “why not?” because “it will feel good” because “I will fall asleep easier.” I started to wonder if I need to reevaluate my relationship with alcohol, but avoided doing so because I didn’t want to deal with the possibility that I might need to drastically scale back or cut it out completely.

 It turns out I just needed time, and long term goals that were attainable and important to me. No one asked me to change my relationship with alcohol, I didn’t even ask myself. I also knew that if I did it for someone else (Michael) or made up some arbitrary rule I wouldn’t stick with it. The shift occurred naturally.

I am a sweater. I sweat easily and a lot. I am also a very salty sweater. If my shirt and shorts dry after a run they will be white from salty sweat. My face often has salty white marks on it after a run. That being said, I dehydrate easily. Thankfully, I love water and prioritize drinking it throughout the day. My goal each day is to drink 5 Nalgenes (about a gallon). Being naturally thirsty and adding more miles each week made staying on top of hydration something I had to learn to do. Sometimes I would get behind and end up with a dreaded headache. Adding alcohol to that mix never sounded tempting once I started upping my mileage.

 Friday night is usually a time where I would relax with a couple of drinks, but again, with a long run staring me in the face Saturday morning, drinking more than one drink or at all on Friday became less and less appealing. I still drink on occasion, but the 3 crippling hangovers I’ve had since July have been reminders enough that it is just NOT worth it. I can’t seem to have more than 2 drinks and not be hungover any more. And so I realized, I have no reason to have more than 2 drinks.

I have other bigger, better things going on than a bottle of wine and crying over Greys Anatomy. I want to conquer more miles, feel strong and confident on runs, and give myself the satisfaction that comes with completing a solo long run on a Saturday morning. I also like the way I look in the mirror more and more, and I think the 8 pounds I’ve dropped can be contributed largely to eating real, whole food and cutting out a couple of bottles of wine a week. Yikes.

Cheers!

Saturday "Long" Run

I put long in quotation marks because by most standards five miles is not a long run. I am well aware of that fact, but when it is the longest run I do all week it only feels appropriate to label it as such. I’ve been doing my long runs with the Wow! Bootcamp  AthHalf run group. I like the Wow! group run for a lot of reasons: It is motivating to run with a group, they plan out the distance and mark the route for us, parts of the half marathon are covered on the runs so I know what to expect in those areas, they have water stops for us, and it helps keep me accountable. They plan it all; I just have to show up. This week it was a 5 mile run. I knew from looking at the route that was sent out that it was going to be hilly and tough.

I woke up to tummy troubles and hoped it wasn’t a sign of what was to come that morning. The last long run I’d done (4 miles) I didn’t eat before and my stomach growled the last 2 miles. I’d picked up some new bars at the store and decided to try them as breakfast. I have no appetite in the morning; in fact eating makes me nauseas so I tried to be careful. I ate half of a coconut almond Kind bar in the car on the way to the Y. It was so delicious; it tasted like one of those off brand chewy honey oat bars my mom used to buy. It tasted good, but did not make my stomach feel good. When I got to the Y I tried to go in and use the bathroom in the lobby but the building wasn’t open yet. Fail. I was just going to have to deal.

We did some warm up drills, Zoe showed up, and we were off. At the start I told Zoe that I was tight and sore from pushing it the last half mile of my run yesterday (idiot, I knew I had to run again 12 hours later) and that my stomach was bothering me. I told myself that it would all shake out by the time the first mile marker rolled around. I usually feel better after a mile (although I used to hate people who said that) and I was right, kind of. My muscles were looser and my stomach was fine, and then we hit a hill (and another and another ad nauseam for 4 miles). I knew it was coming and thought it was going to kill me. Surprisingly, it didn’t and Zoe and I high fived at the top #nerdalert.

I would like to stop here and explain that I am a slow runner. I know that and I am okay with it. I mean, sure I would like to crank out 8 minute miles like its nothing but I can’t, at least not right now. Maybe someday….So in order to not burnout my slow, steady pace is about 11:00 minute miles (I know, you can walk that fast, blah, blah, Runner Lauren don’t care). After Zoe and I conquered the hill my running app told me that we’d just run a 9:45 mile. We were all “hooray!” and “oops, crap!” at the same time.

Let’s just say shit hit the fan. I felt like I was made of bricks, my right knee was hurting, my left IT band was screaming, I was getting blisters for no apparent reason. We got to the water stop at the 3 mile mark I commented that this was easily the worst run I’d had in 2 months, someone told us that it was 100% humidity. So, that explained some of it, but really it was the perfect storm. I wasn’t logging my weekly miles the way I needed to be to in order to do longer weekend mileage, I didn’t stretch after my run on Friday and pushed too hard, I didn’t sleep well the night before and it was insanely hot and humid for 7:30am.

I often have to remind myself when I don’t want to run on a Wednesday that I will pay for it later. Bottom line: long runs suck a lot less when you get your week day mileage in. And I also have to keep in mind that you have to have bad runs to appreciate the good ones.

When all was said and done the route ended up being 5.42 miles and it hurt and humbled me. I went home and told Michael “that run tried to kill me.” Which it did, but it also motivated me to do better this week; running is a bitch like that.

Sweet Nothing

Over the past 9 months I have been slowly nurturing a new relationship in my life. I wasn't so sure about it at first, and there were times where I thought it was too hard and wasn't sure I wanted to continue. But now, I can say with certainty that is a healthy relationship that I plan to continue for a long time. A relationship with what you ask? Spin class of course! Did I have you fooled?
I go to spin 2-4 times a week. And I've found as much as I love sweating, pushing myself on the bike, and the nice muscle tone spinning gives my legs, I love my instructor even more. Jessica is the.best. any anytime I take a class from someone else I leave majorly disappointed. In Jessica's classes the workouts are tough and the music is rockin. She lets us request songs to play during our workouts which is SO FUN. (Side note: I'm clearly showing my age here if I think requesting songs in a workout class is a blast.) Requests are awesome because people in the class have such a wide taste in music there is a lot of variety. Also, when MY song comes on I get really pumped up.
So, a couple of weeks ago I requested my new favorite song. I think it might have become one of Jessica's favorite songs too because it finds its way onto her playlists a lot. Jessica almost always ends her class in the same pattern, meaning the last three songs of the class usually go like this: a CLIMB, then a SPRINT and then finally the COOLDOWN. She likes to put my special request new favorite song (hang on, I'll tell you what it is in a minute) as the last sprint, and subsequently the last song, of the class.
Let me just say that the combination of getting to hear my song, wanting to sprint hard, and pushing myself for onemoresongohmygod kills me. It. Kills.Me.
And she did it again this morning. At 5:30am. And I almost puked. So, without further ado, I present THE song
Sweet Nothing By Calvin Harris, featuring Florence Welch from Florence and the Machine



Heaven help you if this ever comes on in your spin class. You have been warned.

You Wont Like Me When Im ITCHY

So, an update on my lady parts is in order (there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.) Here is the breakdown
Sunday Night- EXTREME ITCHING, POISON IVY (PI) EDITION
Monday- MORE ITCHING I stupidly went to my lunchtime spin class. Let’s put that on the list of stubborn and dumb things I’ve done. I was highly anticipating some relief from my 2:00pm doctor’s appointment. At the doctor’s office they gave me a steroid shot of depomedrol. I thanked the nurse and she said she’d never been thanked for a shot before. But, I was in bad shape and anticipating that the shot would bring relief.

They also wrote me a prescription for 6 days of prednisone (another steroid) on a step down program- 60mg the first day, 50mg the second day and so on. Finally, the doctor told to take a Benadryl to sleep so I wouldn't itch in the night. I went back to work after my appointment and was so itchy and miserable I went home early. That night I took the Benadryl, went to bed and woke myself up THREE TIMES itching! Thanks for nothing depomedrol.
Tuesday- I woke up and took 60 mg of prednisone and Oh. Sweet. Relief. I felt better within an hour!

Wednesday- I’m on the mend! Itching down to almost nothing and I haven’t turned into the Hulk from all of the steroids…yet.
I think the worst of it is behind us, Michael found a spot of PI on his ankle, so we are still playing it safe. So that’s that. Three cheers for Prednisone- Hip Hip Hooray!

Have you ever had a rash or injury in a delicate place? Were you too embarrassed to tell people, or did you let them in on the secret?

More than you wanted to know

We went camping and it was a wonderful weekend! I always moan and complain about going but once we get there I always love the trip. We stayed at Victoria Campground at Lake Allatoona, which is right across the street from where the Butzens store their boat. Score! Our campsite ended up being RIGHT next to a campsite with about 25 nine year old boy scouts. They were up talking about farts and Star Wars until after midnight and at it again at 6:00am Saturday morning. Way to mind your manners boy scouts- not!
Saturday we were on the boat allllll day and it was lovely, the weather was perfect. We parked at a little beach and hung out for a while and Stella loved running up and down, chomping at the waves and swimming in the lake to fetch a ball. It was a wonderful camping weekend, complete with a smore for breakfast on Sunday!
It WAS wonderful until on Sunday when I start to feel itchy… down there…. I thought maybe it was from hanging around in a wet bathing suit. Until I saw the rash on my thighs. And realized I. had. Poison. Ivy. It is on my inner thighs, on/in/around my lady parts and on/in/around my bottom. So itchy. SO uncomfortable. So awful. I went to the doctor this afternoon and got a shot of steroids and hopefully I will feel better in the morning. And next time, I will be sure to more careful, MUCH more careful.