Yoga Confessional

Today is September 7th, which means I should be a week into my 30 day yoga challenge... when in reality today is the third day consecutive day I've done yoga this week. Whoops. So, maybe my 30 day commitment started a few days later than anticipated. No harm, right? What counts is that I started, right?

Yesterday's practice was tough. I couldn't quiet my mind and holding a plank felt nearly impossible. It took every ounce of concentration I had to not fall out of a modified tree pose. The last ten minutes were fully dedicated to savasana, and man, was I grateful for that. I left practice feeling grounded and reenergized. I definitely felt better than when I was stumbling all over my mat.

My hope is that in a month, I can look back on these 30 days and see how my practice has changed (and *fingers crossed* improved). Just like I know every run is different and every mile changes you, I have to remind myself that every time I come to the mat my practice will also vary. No two times on the mat will ever be the same.

I wonder how my next week will go. Namaste.

xoxo

National Yoga Month

The first time I went to a yoga class, I hated it. I remember narrating the whole class "Oh of course, you're already moving into the next pose, I haven't even gotten into this one yet." "How the heck does her body turn like that?" "I'm supposed to do what with my arms?!" "My body does NOT bend like that!" And my favorite "Uh oh... Do I need to fart?"  It was probably a year later that I decided to try hot yoga - it was a vinyasa flow in a hot room. This was a completely different experience and I fell in love. I would go religiously, two, three, sometimes four times a week. It was invigorating and my favorite part was how I could feel my body getting stronger. I could hold poses with more ease and I didn't feel like a dangly mess with limbs going all different ways. It was part of my life. The practice would end with the instructor putting a cold damp jasmine lavender cloth over my face during savasana. I'd open my eyes feeling all sorts of refreshed afterwards.

And then I moved.

For me at least, once I fall in love with a studio it's hard to find another studio that compares. But after a bit of trial and error, I finally found another studio that I liked and would go whenever I could.

And then I moved.... again.

I'm starting to sense a pattern here. 

I've been traveling quite a bit this year, so I've been focusing on my running more than my yoga practice, but for the month of September - National Yoga Month - I've decided to commit to 30 days of yoga. I've decided as long as I get on my mat, it doesn't matter how long I do it for. It could be 15 minutes on my mat in the morning before work or it could be an hour long class in front of the ocean. Whatever my mood is that day, as long as I get on my mat.

Let's see how the next 30 days go.

Namaste.

 xoxo

Phase 1 - Mini whole30

Last time I tried to do whole30, I failed miserably. I did a solid four days and then missed milk too much. But a friend and I have decided to give it a shot together. The kicker is she doesn't think she can do it cold turkey, so for the time being we are phasing things out. 

whole30

NO dairy

NO legumes

NO grains

NO alcohol

NO added sugar

NO peanuts

NO msg, carageenan, sulfites

I think those few things should be easy enough to cut out for a week.... right? Basically all I have left is grains and alcohol. I'll probably try and do all of it from the start though. I went to the supermarket yesterday and bought almond milk for my coffee. Day #1 off to a good start. I did have a bit of bread with my eggs this morning, though. Erroneous for this week. 

Let's see how the rest of the week (read: day) goes. 

xoxo

Day 2: Clearly, I love fruit.

I started my day off with another cup of coffee, this time adding in some almond milk that I had put in my Nespresso Aeroccino (which I love by the way). I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. I'll put it down as a maybe for now. 

I ate a banana and a couple slices of jamón serrano for breakfast. For lunch, I ate the garlic chicken and burnt asparagus I made last night. Snacked on some more tomatoes. And then I ate another banana. And then another. And then an apple. I need to keep healthy and compliant snacks around. I kept getting up to open the fridge to see what I could eat. 

8:56 pm: I took a trip to Whole Foods. 

I could not have been more excited about my WF trip. I picked up a few more healthy snacks - grapes, blackberries, turkey, bananas. I also knew that when I got home I'd be too lazy to thaw chicken, so I bought a 4oz piece of skirt steak. I came home, grilled the steak, threw some asparagus into the oven, and had one of the best simple dinners ever. #littlethingsinlife

Maybe these 30 days won't be as hard as I thought.

Lesson Learned: Meal prepping is important. Keeping healthy snacks around the apartment, also important. Adding more protein to my meals will help me snack less.

xoxo

Day 1: Complete.

One of the biggest things I was dreading nervous about giving up was dairy. I love milk in my coffee in the morning. I eat cereal for breakfast (or really whenever I don't know what else to eat). I LOVE cheese. I love ice cream - thankfully right now I'm not eating dessert, so that is helpful. But nonetheless, day número uno commenced with a cup of coffee... with no milk... and it wasn't too bad. I actually enjoyed it more than I was expecting to! First battle: won!

By 11:30am, I was starving. Yes, I could eat a plate of grilled salmon and steamed broccoli. No, I wasn't bored. 

This means I need to add more to my breakfast and/or pack a snack for right before lunch. I don't really like to eat lunch earlier than 12:30 and definitely not before noon - which means I need something to hold me over. 

Now, I had this whole plan for Sunday night about how I was going to take a nap then wake up and make day one's lunch. Fail. I fell asleep, didn't set an alarm and woke up 12 hours later. So lunch yesterday was a salad from Sweet Green - spinach, chicken, sweet potatoes, cucumber, tomatoes, hard boiled egg, avocado, and asparagus topped with vinaigrette. And due to meetings, I didn't start eating it until about 3:15pm.... so much for being famished at 11:30am. 

4:23pm: my thought "And now all I want is a (box of) chocolate chip cookie(s)."

Then, all of a sudden it was 8:52pm and I had just caught the metro. This was going to be another challenging part of these 30 days. Since Sunday night, I passed out at 6:30pm I didn't make any meals ahead of time. I knew I had to mentally prepare myself on the ride home to be sure I didn't just eat the first thing I saw when I got home. 

Mental note: I'm hoping this is a lesson learned for the rest of the 30 days and I don't put of meal prepping. 

I came home and ate a giant bowl of strawberries. Not the intention of the 30 days, but not a bad life choice either. After I finished the bowl off, I made some garlic chicken, ate a few mini heirloom tomatoes, and started meal prepping for the next day. I finished off the night with a banana and off to bed! 

Let's see how day #2 goes.

xoxo

Challenge : Accepted.

I'll caveat everything I'm going to say here with : I am TERRIBLE at 30 day challenges. I think it's a mental thing - once I say I can't have something or can't do something or have to do something for a specific period of time, I cave within the first 30 minutes. I have no clue why. I'm sure there's some sort of reasoning behind it. It probably has something to do with not caring enough or not putting significance on it. Who knows! But I'm always pretty good at keeping Lenten promises. This year I gave up desserts. The first couple of weeks are always a little difficult, but once you get over the hurdle, you're golden. You start saying "no thank you, I don't want that" versus "I can't have that". 

Anyways. While I was in Spain last week, I decided that after I ran my 10-miler on Sunday, I'd begin whole30. I don't want to call it a challenge, because I don't feel like that's what it is. I see it more as like a diet reset. And weirdly enough, I'm actually really excited to begin it. 

It's 30 days of no added sugar, no dairy, no grains, no legumes, no alcohol, no processed foods, Most of that seems doable for 30 days. The dairy part though... that's going to be a toughie. I LOVE cheese. 

Aside from the cheese part though, I'm pretty excited to begin. It'll be interesting to learn different ways to fuel my body while I'm training for a half marathon because my usual go-to's are pasta and oatmeal. So, we'll see! Stay tuned to see how I'm doing! Heck, even keep me accountable. Ask me how it's going! 

xoxo

Coffee, Coffee.

Outside of the actual work, my favorite part about going to work was that - actually getting to go into the office. I liked my mid afternoon coffee breaks with friends from different teams. I liked sitting in a big room and just getting the chance to interact with people. I liked the in person meetings. With the job switch and pushing everything towards a more virtual environment I'm feel like I'm losing the people aspect of my job (which is funny considering what I do for a living).

It's so easy to get wrapped up in not having to leave my apartment during the day when I work from home, or not leaving the hotel room when I'm traveling. To counteract going stir crazy from not leaving a room all, I've decided to go in search of a few favorite places to work from.

                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Roanoke, Virginia

I was leaving Blacksburg, VA early and knew that I needed to find a place to do work from all day when I got to Roanoke, so I googled "Coffee shops in Roanoke" and found this little gem. It's reminds me an incredible amount of my favorite little coffee shop from college (actually, that's my favorite coffee shop of all time). 

It was so beautiful outside, I wouldn't have dreamt of sitting inside. It would have been such a waste of the wonderfully erratic February weather! They had a bunch of outside seating and I found a nice spot at the picnic table (quite conveniently near an outlet). I enjoyed a nice vanilla latte and a delicious piece of  lemon poppy seed coffee cake. (I really do need to find a recipe for it - time to start looking and testing out different ones.) I sat outside for a few hours and then moved inside when the sun started setting and it got a little too chilly to be sitting outside. I moved inside and ordered a hot tea and of course another piece of coffee cake, hung out until dinner and then went on my way. 

I would recommend Sweet Donkey to anyone asking for a nice coffee shop to get some work done. Coffee cake was delicious - I would definitely suggest trying a piece if you stop by. Latte was also on point.

If you have any suggestions for coffee shops or other places to get some work done during the day or just places I should try, I'd love to hear them!

xoxo