Tennis Tuesdays

Hi Guys - long time no talk!

My best friend got married over the weekend so things have been just short of crazy. I'd really, really love to say that things are finally slowing down for the summer, but I've got another friend getting married in the next 3 weeks, and somewhere in between all of those wedding events, I need to move out of my apartment and into a new one (duh)

Oh, and I left my camera cord at my parent's house in Cincinnati... so I'm mildly upset that I don't have any pictures to accompany this blog post, but the show must go on with or without pictures of my sister's picture perfect backhand...

So a few months ago my little sister graduated from college and got a big girl job here in Columbus.... she seems quite busy during the day (so she says) but it's during the evening, starting around 6:00, that I get constant text messages on how she is "sooooooo bored."

While I can't help her out on Mondays and Wednesdays, I decided to take the situation into my own hands, and establish Tuesday evenings for tennis. We both played in high school and since both of us are free on Tuesdays, AND have free courts just a short walk away from my apartment, it only made sense. Plus, after complaining to me that she was sore from dancing at the wedding reception on Saturday, I figured this girl could use some sort of regular physical activity in her life.

What I love about tennis is that basically anyone can play - I've seen 2 year old tennis prodigies playing and I've seen 85 year old tennis veterans playing. I recently read an article online that describes 5 benefits to playing tennis:

5 Health Benefits of Playing Tennis 

• Decreases Risk of Heart Disease
• Enhance Flexibility, Coordination and Balance
• Boost Brain Power
• Improve Bone Health
• Lose Weight

You can read each benefit in detail on the link above, but I'm sure if you go out and play, you can experience the benefits without having to read them. Don't worry about being good or what you look like while playing - it's usually the people who are terrible that get the best workout (running all over the court getting balls). 

I played in college for 4 years, and we weren't by any stretch of imagination .... good .....at all, however, it was a great stress reliever, I got to spend a lot of time with some great people and while I didn't necessarily lose weight, it did keep my beer gut from reaching obnoxious proportions. 

It's a great week for evening tennis... go out and hit a few balls!

Stay Healthy, 

I NEED ICE CREAM, STAT!!!

Hello! How is everyone? Good? Great? Grand?

Perfect! Let's jump right into things this beautiful Wednesday afternoon, shall we?

Emotional Eating. 

source

Blech. 

To say I've been stressed out lately might be the understatement of the year. In the past 2 weeks, I have gotten my bike stolen, lost my wallet, and destroyed my Macbook - all while trying to prepare for multiple friends' weddings, write a maid of honor speech and find an apartment to move into in less than 3 weeks. AHHH!

Before my ankle surgery, my solution to any kind of stress I've dealt with was to throw on my running shoes and hit the pavement for a good 7 or 8 mile run.... double digits once the weekend came. But since that is obviously not in the cards this summer, I found myself resorting to the next best thing - food.

source

It took about 2 weeks and a minor panic attack due to yet another pair of clothing not fitting, to realize what I had been doing.... emotional eating.

"I'm so stressed out, I need a cookie."

"Happy hour drink? Please. My week has been a nightmare."

"My water bottle leaked all over my computer, I need ice cream STAT." 

With two impending weddings and just wanting to feel better about myself, I sat down and took a couple of minutes to assess the situation and address the following questions - what can I do differently and how can I change the situation. 

The solution was simple - don't buy the junk that promotes emotional eating. That bag of dark chocolate that you think you can have one morsel and stop after dinner. That bag of sweet potato Pop Chips that let's face it, can be downed in one sitting.... don't buy them. If they're there, they will be eaten. If they're not there, you can't eat them!

Some other things that can help when you've hit your max and all you want is a gallon of ice cream:

• Call up a friend and chat. 
• Ask yourself why you're eating. Are you hungry? Are you bored? Are you going to feel any better after chugging that milkshake?
• Go for a run or a walk.
• Read a chapter in a good book. 
• Write in a journal. 
• Keep a food journal. 

I found the below picture on Pinterest. It's a pretty decent flow chart on what to do when you feel like you need something. 

Now I know all this is a lot easier said than done. But next when you feel like you just need that cookie, or you deserve that self-serve frozen yogurt, take a minute and ask yourself why you're eating it. 

Emotional eating happens to the best of us. 

Don't let it control you. 

Stay Healthy, 

I'm Lovin' It????

My friend once told me that the only bad thing I'm doing on the blog is starting blog posts with apologizing for not posting in awhile.

Well.
It's been a week with no postings.
My sincere apologies.
You can direct all hate mail to my best friend who is getting married this weekend... for some reason she thinks that her bachelorette party, shoe shopping and speech writing are more important than Everyday Eating.

Anyways, I wanted to pop in real quick, just to let ya'll know that I'm still alive and to make a quick comment on America's favorite fast food restaurant.

I spent my Sunday morning in close proximity to the beach of Alum Creek, assisting my boss with race finishers who felt they needed more torture (if you've been in to the office before... you know what I'm talking about). At any rate, while waiting for the first of the bunch to finish, we were presented with a McDonald's coupon for a free cheeseburger. Hmmmm.

A free cheeseburger.

Kind of like how McDonald's is a huge sponsor of the Olympic games...

I'm so sure these ladies attribute their gold medals to their pre-race meal of a double cheeseburger and medium fry. 

Right. 

source

What are your thoughts on McDonald's being the official restaurant of the Olympic games? Do you think sporting events should have healthy sponsors?

Stay Healthy (and away from McDonald's cheeseburgers)

230 Million? Are you Serious?

Hi Guys! How was everyone's Thursday?!

Mine, was awesome, thanks for asking.

I got to spend the majority of my day at the Standard Process "home base" in Westerville this afternoon, listening and learning about all things clinical nutrition. I always leave these type of lectures and classes re-thinking my small handful of dark chocolate I grab from my freezer after dinner. Especially when you hear things like...

Over the past 20 years the total number of people with diabetes worldwide has risen from 30 million to 230 million.

Yep. Can you believe that? Insane. 

I got home this evening and had about 46 different back and forth arguments in my mind about whether to get some exercise in or not. The above figure and my impending struggle of fitting into two different bridesmaid dresses over the next month heavily influenced my final decision. And while my healing ankle and my recent bike swipe prevented me from doing a tough workout... a good 3 mile walk/run did the trick, for now at least. 

I came home and decided to use up some locally grown summer squash and zucchini for dinner. Alls I did was cut them length ways, rubbed a bit of EVOO on them, sprinkled some pepper and plopped them on the trusty George Foreman:

 Who says grilled summer veggies can't be done without a grill!

These summer veggies are good for vitamin C, vitamin B6 and manganese. 

Additionally, they should be given silver medals for their antioxidants, anti-inflammatory benefits and coincidentally, their abilities to balance blood sugar levels. The nutrients contained in the summer squash variety shown above have been shown to keep insulin metabolism in balance and most importantly, prevent Type II Diabetes. 

So eat YO squash! 

Stay Healthy and Go USA, 

Sleep... It's a Good Thing!

Good morning!! How is everyone!?

I apologize for the overkill of exclamation points, but I guess that's what a good night's sleep will do to a blog post! I'm not sure whether it's my staying up past my bedtime watching the Olympics the past several nights, or my intense cycle class yesterday that did me in, but as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out!

So why am I gloating about how great I slept last night? Well, I want to discuss just how important sleep is in  e v e r y t h i n g  we do - work, losing weight, exercising, reading, functioning, etc.

If any of you know me on a personal level, or just by stalking me on Facebook... you might be aware that I'm a HUGE Seinfeld fan. There is an episode where Kramer tries some crazy sleep schedule so he can be awake for so many extra days in his life.....

If you took the 3 minutes out of your busy schedule to watch the above video, you can see just how lack of sleep eventually catches up to you and your daily functions slowly become harder and harder to do until eventually you aren't able to function at all. It's interesting to note (or at least I think so) that sleep deprivation is a form of torture. 

So let's get down to the good stuff, the straight facts if you will.... source

How Much Sleep Do You Need?

• A recent test revealed that 95% of the population needs between 7 and 8 hours of sleep. 
• Only 2.5% of the population needs less than 7 hours. 
• So the answer... 8 hours. 

Why Do You Need So Much Sleep?

• Lack of sleep takes a toll on our health, mood, productivity and cognitive capacity
• Memory takes the largest hit from staying up too late and not getting those 8 hours

Importance of Sleep from a Weight Loss Standpoint:

• A lot of people aren't aware of the relationship between sleep and losing weight
• Besides the fact that enough sleep allows us to make healthy food choices and enough energy to get in daily exercise, it's also allows a hormone in our body to do it's job in burning fat - the growth hormone
• Real quickly, the growth hormone is responsible for building muscle and burning fat. It regulates our body's fuel in between meals and is most active during the night
• Growth hormone increases during the first 2 hours of deep sleep - especially between midnight and 4am
• Those of us who get less than 7 hours of sleep, or inadequate sleep, will more than likely NOT receive the fat-burning effects from this hormone

Are we all on the same page now? Good! I hope so! Now go get those 8 hours in! (well, later tonight...)

Stay Healthy,

Who all gets their 8 hours of sleep on most nights?
I feel like I'm pretty good at getting in enough sleep. I will admit that the Olympics has been keeping me up well past my desired bedtime... but what can I say.... men's swimming gets me every time :)

The Not-So-Surprise-Anymore-Birthday Bread

Good Morning! I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! I spend the majority of mine watching the Olympics and experimenting with my 400m 10m individual medley strokes in my apartment pool with my roommate. It was fun not only pretending to be Olympic swimmers, but also acting like we were 5 years old - it's the little things in life, right?

RIGHT!

Anyway, I digress... time to bring the blog back to serious matters, like strawberry banana bread.

My little sister has a birthday today (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!) and as any twenty-something-post-college-grad can relate, a good portion of my monetary funds are shelled out to Sallie Mae on a seemingly weekly basis, so the hopes of my sister getting a Target gift card over $20 are pretty unlikely - well, very unlikely, actually, it's not going to happen.

So in addition to my sweetheart text message she received this morning, she also gets the privilege of enjoying a homemade loaf of strawberry banana bread! Wooo!

I had some pretty brown-looking bananas sitting on my kitchen counter, and knowing my sister's love for banana bread and her lack of motivation to bake anything not from a box, I figured it would be the perfect idea for a birthday present (let's just hope she doesn't read this before this evening)

I grabbed the recipe from one of my favorite bloggers at Daily Garnish.

Fun side note - I actually saw the blogger behind this blog in the middle of my first marathon down in Cincinnati. I didn't say hi for fear of embarassment or because of pain from my 5 inch deep blisters that surfaced around mile 4. 

The recipe is super simple. I took pictures of my computer, from which I was reading the instructions from my kitchen.. If it's too hard to see from the pictures... head on over to the specific link for the recipe:
Strawberry-Banana Bread.

There might be a missing end piece.
I would never give anyone something I baked without trying it first ;)

Stay Healthy,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELSEY!

A Morning in the Life of Erin

Hello! 

Ever since I retired from my '08 Capital University Flip Cup team and traded in nati light cans for 8 cups of water a day, I've always wanted to be a full time food blogger and get a bunch of free t-shirts and gear from companies like Larabar and Oikos. But since that desire of mine belongs in the same category as my desire to marry Ryan Lochte, I decided to play pretend and try out the whole full-time food blogger gig part time for a day. 

So here we go... my Friday morning...

After watching Ryan Seacrest takeover the Today Show, I filled up my belly with a wholesome breakfast of peanut butter banana oatmeal and a cup two cups of coffee:

Yes, that coffee mug does say Mrs. Jacob Black. 

I made my oatmeal with half a banana and topped my oatmeal with some Uncle Sam cereal for a little added bonus crunch. I've seen this cereal on blogs everywhere, but finally found it at my Kroger (and on sale!)

 I love it because it has good flavor and an easy and short ingredient list:

I followed up breakfast with some water and my current supplements of the day:

Ligaplex for the ankle and Catalyn for my multivitamin.

I later headed out for my Day 1 of the Walk to Run program. Technically, since I just started it today, I should be only be walking for 30 minutes.... but I think I'm past that, actually, I know I'm past that, so I started my Day 1 with the Day 1 of Week 2. Confused yet?!
On schedule this morning was a 5.5. minute walk followed by a 30 second run, repeated 5 times.
This turned out to be exactly 30 minutes of activity and 2 miles covered.

It was hard to stop running only after 30 seconds. Very hard.

Since my 2 mile "workout" just wasn't quite doing it for me, I decided to take the bike for a spin - if I'm going to be serious about this whole triathlon business, I better get into the habit of handling a bike NOT bolted to the ground. My mode of transportation was this bad boy:

My mom's Murray All-Terrain Street Cycle. Oh yeah. Big Leagues.  

I'm pretty confident this bike used to have a baby seat on the back....which makes it..... old.

I got home and threw together a smoothie in a bowl for lunch. (Again, topped with some crunch that I apparently need in all my meals). This smoothie had spinach, greek yogurt, SP Complete powder, blubes, other half of my banana from breakfast and a few rogue strawberries.

There were also some behind the scene carrots and hummus. Whoops. Full-time food blogger fail already.

Stay tuned for my dinner post! It should be interesting.... 

Stay Healthy,