My non-traditional Christmas

My father is from Poland, and Polish tradition dictates that the Christmas Eve feast (called "Wigelia") is a much bigger deal than Christmas itself. I remember, as a kid, going to the house of one of my Dad's Polish friends and being forced to sit through an hours-long dinner as the adults celebrated with toasts and chatter - to me, totally boring. When I still believed in Santa, I would also get upset with my parents for not making sure that I was home at midnight - because wouldn't Santa skip our house if I wasn't in bed and asleep when he came? Unlike my friends, who went to bed early so that Christmas morning would come faster, I got stuck staying up till the wee hours (or sleeping in the guest bedroom until the party ended) and then heading home exhausted. We still put the cookies and milk out on the mantel for Santa (and some carrots for the reindeer, animal-lover I was), but it just wasn't the same.

Saturday night, I had another totally non-traditional Christmas Eve... but this time, I was the grownup who stayed up all night celebrating with friends. My friend Susan is an amazing chef (she won the Cookie Takedown last week with her chocolate salted caramallard cookies), and she put forth a proposal that I just couldn't turn down: a traditional Jewish Christmas! Opening her home to her friends and their families and friends (so generous!), she cooked a Chinese feast from scratch, and we hung out and watched The Maccabeats Jewish a cappella group. As an extra bonus, Susan's husband Braden is a fellow craft beer lover, and he pulled out some really rare and incredible stuff for us to try. My friend Meg and I also brought some yummy bottles ourselves, and I ended up getting to try nine different beers - hooray for sharing with friends and therefore being able to go for small servings! One December goal I hadn't written about on the blog yet is to get to 200 unique beers tried by the end of the year (as recorded on Untappd), and thanks to Christmas Eve, I'm now only two away! Totally achievable.

Sunday morning dawned bright and early, and my Christmas festivities kicked off with something else that has become de rigeur for me, but probably isn't in most people's plans for Christmas morning: with a race! Ever since the Holiday Marathon series started with last year's Thanksgiving Marathon, my mom and I have gotten used to heading up to the Bronx whenever it's a holiday. This time, though, there had been a snafu with getting a permit for Van Cortlandt Park, so the race was being held at Tibbets Brook Park. I found the new venue to be much prettier and a lot easier than VCP (the "trail" was paved, so I didn't have to worry about tripping and falling), but I thought it was kind of crappy that a "New York" race would be held somewhere without access to public transportation, so no real New Yorkers could get to it. (That said, I bumped into the amazing Lam after the race, and he told me he had run the 15 miles to get there from his apartment! Now that's dedication). I was really grateful that my mom was willing to drive me up there and hang out while I ran - only 6.7 miles instead of the full or half marathons, and I was speedier than usual (8:15 average pace), but still! I thought of getting the opportunity to run the race as a pretty nice Christmas present all on its own :)

We spent the rest of the day back at my apartment putting the tree up (oops, better late than never), feasting on a traditional pig roast, opening presents, and then cuddling up in bed to fall asleep watching "The Help." Not terribly exciting to report back on, but I thoroughly enjoyed the day and was thrilled to spend such a peaceful Christmas getting quality time in with my mom.

Today, we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the morning, and then my mom took me to Ikea to pick out one of my Christmas presents: chairs for my (foldable New York style) dining room table and a new mirror for my bedroom! It may be only a week away from the New Year, but it is time for me to get cracking on my resolution to clean out and redecorate my apartment. Luckily I have a week of vacation in which to do it :)

Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone!

Bet you didn't know about THESE "traditional" holiday activities

"Free at last, free at last, thank the Lord I'm free at last!" Okay, so maybe work wasn't quite that bad yesterday, but I am still pretty thrilled that I'm done and don't have to work for TEN DAYS. Incredible. My plans for the period mostly involve working out and drinking, which, let's be honest, are two of the best ways to spend a vacation.

Speaking of working out and drinking, let's talk about the family gathering I attended last night. There have been so many articles with tips on how to avoid weight gain at holiday parties that it's pretty much all been said before. Eat before you go, scan the whole buffet before you eat anything, take small bites and don't go back for seconds, etc, etc. I really thought I would have nothing new to say on this matter... UNTIL! I discovered the family party trick that really will help you lose weight and stay in shape.

Turns out, my Aunt Kathy is a certified Zumba instructor. (I didn't know this before going to said family gathering, I swear). When this fact came out, we plugged in the iPod, cranked up the speakers, and soon all the women were in the kitchen shaking it to "Spice Up Your Life." (We go old-school in this family). Oh, yes, my family holiday party turned into a Zumba-thon where all the women were all stripping off our Christmas sweaters to get down to our tank tops and SWEAT. Before long, we were out of breath after following Aunt Kathy for nearly an hour doing routine after routine (and sometimes making them up as we went along). It went on for so long that my sister-in-law remarked to me that she had lost her buzz from the Christmas beers we had been drinking before the dance craze took over. ("Tragedy!", I told her - "Go hydrate with another!").

Sadly, we could not get the guys to participate, aside from taking embarrassing photos that are sure to show up on my Facebook wall in the near future. But they're the ones who really missed out, because post-Zumba, we kept things segregated and pulled out the nail polish and trying out the latest in "crackle polish". The guys spent the time watching some Chipmunks movie on TV and discussing football - I think we got the better part of that deal.

Today - I head back to NYC with my mom, and then we're going over to my friend Susan's tonight for "a Jewish Christmas." Susan is an amazing chef - she won the people's choice in the Cookie Takedown last week with her chocolate salted cara-mal-lard (duck fat caramel) cookies. And for her Jewish friends and Christmas orphans, she's offered to show us how it's done with a (homemade from scratch!) Chinese food feast and movies. I can't wait! (I've also heard rumors that my friend Meg is bringing her "Who Wants to Be a Broadway Star" board game, to which I responded by offering to bring plenty of Christmas beer so that there are no inhibitions when we're required to belt out "You Can't Stop the Beat" when challenged to name the closing song from Hairspray, or similar challenges).

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!

A different kind of holiday stress

A friend of mine asked a few weeks ago if we were feeling the holiday stress, and my response was that I rarely get stressed about the holidays. I'm not the kind of person who gets all their shopping done months ahead of time, by any means. However, I have a very small family to buy presents for, and my friends and I don't typically exchange gifts, so it's not very difficult to order a few things online here and there and then be done. Hooray for Amazon Prime and free two day shipping!

No, what stresses me out about the holidays is trying to take time off work. I'm very lucky in that my company gives us the entire week between Christmas and New Year's off (well, they ask us to take off the entire week, and in exchange, we use two of our vacation days... two days for five days is not a bad deal!). However, preparing to take an entire week off work can be very stressful. Sometimes I think it would be easier not to take any time off than to deal with all the contingency plans and trying to teach other people to do my duties while I'm out.

I faced this problem just a month ago, when I went to Peru, but at least then I was leaving Thanksgiving week, which meant it was really only two normal work days off (and the rest were all holidays for everyone else too). One thing I usually do when I'm on vacation is check my work email once a day - if I can see what's going on, I'm less worried about what I'm going to have to come back to. Plus, it's just so much easier to sort through my emails once a day rather than come home to several hundred and have to go through them all at once!

But this Christmas, I'm taking a cue from Aron, who announced a few days ago that she's taking a social media sabbatical for the holiday. Her post pointed out something that many of us take for granted: it's so easy to get caught up in the online world and forget about the real world. Think about how much time you waste checking Twitter, checking Facebook, checking Google Reader. I'd argue that it isn't quite a "waste" of time (personally, it makes me feel more connected to get to read about what other people go through in their daily lives), but at the same time, it's not going out and actually living.

But while I can talk a good game about this, let's be honest - I'm not brave enough to actually give up my social media addiction. I also don't think that's what's causes me stress - I find blogs/Twitter/etc to be a good forum for de-stressing and relaxing at the end of the night. I think Twitter has actually helped me approach the blogging world in a more relaxed manner - where I used to stress about how many unread blog posts there were in my Google Reader at the end of the day, the jump-in/jump-out nature of Twitter has helped me to see blogs as less of a to-do list and more of just something to entertain myself with when I have time to kill and have an electronic device with me. (I get tons of blog reading done while standing in line at a sandwich shop waiting for them to make my lunch, for example).

This holiday break, though, I am going to try to disconnect from work a bit more. It will be tough, especially since my client has a big product launch coming up in a couple weeks, but I think if I can take the week to completely forget about work instead of stressing about my neverending to do list, I'll come out more relaxed and stronger on the other side. work has been really getting me down lately - to the point where I've broken down in tears when on the phone with families about little things, because I had already hit the end of my rope with work happenings. Not good!

For me, fun is "getting things done". I'm Type A and I've accepted that about myself. So I'm not going to get rid of my personal to do lists (ahem, redecorate the living room and clean out my closet), or stop working out. In fact, I always use my holiday break as a chance to get in more workouts and eat better - it helps to revive me from the daily grind of restaurant meals and not enough time. But I'm going to spend this break focusing on what matters to me, rather than constantly dealing with the demands other people place on me. It's time I started doing that more in my daily life anyway, so maybe this break will get the habit started in a good way.

But before I can start doing that, I still have one more uber-stressful day of work to get through. Just have to remind myself that it's like the last mile in a marathon - not that much fun, but the finish line is straight ahead. Final mile, here I come!

Fending off the flu

Unfortunately, this morning I learned that even the holy trinity of dance-party-sweat does not heal all wounds. Specifically, it does not magically make you well when you pick up a cold from some nastiness on a plane (I'm guessing). Midday yesterday, I started feeling that tickle in the back of my throat. You know the one I mean... that not-very-painful-but-gives-you-a-huge-sense-of-dread-because-you-know-it's-the-precursor-to-a-nasty-cold-or-maybe-something-even-worse. UGH. The worst.

I dosed up on some seafood soup with a side of steamed chicken and broccoli (because when your only dinner option is Japanese takeout, that's the closest you can come to mom's chicken soup), but alas, my throat was even more inflamed this morning. Darn it! Somehow, though, I made it through the day - thanks in large part to half a bag of cherry Luden's cough drops (Soothing? Check. Sugary fake cherry flavor that means you might as well be eating Starburst? Also check). But when I got back to my hotel tonight, I realized that rather than going to bed, I wanted to work out. Now, we've all read those articles and their warnings to keep us from being psychotic exercise addicts: if your symptom are above the neck, you're fine; if they're below the neck, you're not. But what if your current symptoms are IN your neck, and nowhere else yet? What then?

(Side note: I posed this question to my friend Adam, except I started off the conversation with, "You know what I hate? That stupid above the neck/below the neck thing. How am I supposed to know which it is?" It only belatedly occurred to me that my lack of clarification might have meant he thought I was a teenager trying to figure out which base was which. Oops.)

Regardless of what the experts say you should do, my personal mantra for being sick is: if you want to work out, you should. Chances are if you're feeling up to it, it's probably not going to do you any harm - and could even help get your energy levels up and flush the toxins out of your body (maybe? I'm no doctor). Adam advised me to keep my workout short, though - so instead of the hour of cardio I had planned, I did 30 minutes. And let me tell you, it felt great! Hooray for sweat.

But when I got back up to my room, I was still curious whether I had done the right thing. If you're someone who pushes themselves in workouts, how do you even know if you "want" to work out? Let me tell you, when it comes to that painful moment when you're gasping for breath after doing sets of three burpees/one tuck jump (though I am proud to say that I can do ten sets and finish in 1:19 before collapsing - beat that!), I do NOT want to work out! If you're working out right, chances are, you're going to be pushing yourself beyond a point that's comfortable - so it can be hard to evaluate whether you're doing the right thing or if you're exacerbating any illness. Plus, I know myself, and this could lead to a slippery slope, where the slightest bit of laziness in the gym turns into me "resting" because I'm "sick."

Lucky for me, one of my favorite health and fitness websites, Greatist, recently wrote an article on this very topic. And just for those people like me who are apparently too slow to pick up on this otherwise, they clarify: above the neck symptoms include "runny nose or sore throat." Ding ding ding! Furthermore, they go through all the studies and expert opinions about whether it helps or hurts, and conclude that it's probably a good thing to help your immune system - but to err on the side of caution, and either cut your workout shorter than usual, or go at a lower intensity. Turns out that crowdsourcing my decision to Adam was just the way to go!

And with that, I can settle in to my meal of Afghani chicken kabobs, spinach, and cubed pumpkin (tons of vitamins A and C there!), read for a bit, and head to bed. Time to try sleeping it off!

Dance Party Weekend

I kicked off the weekend with my company holiday party on Friday night. It was held at the Edison Ballroom in midtown, which turned out to be a pretty swanky spot! It was decorated to the nines and full of uniformed staff handing out hors d'oeuvres and drinks from silver trees - not too shabby at all.

Not having a "real" date and yet knowing from past company parties that it's always impossible to find anyone I know (our holiday parties have more than 1,000 attendees), I decided to bring my best friend to keep me company. He works in financial services and their company isn't allowed to have holiday parties (or any parties, really), and since he just got a big promotion, I thought it would be fun for him to get to celebrate :) My instincts turned out to be right - I could barely find any of my coworker friend's, so instead, Mat and I just enjoyed some drinks and then headed out to the dance floor. Because really, what could be more appropriate behavior at a company holiday party than screaming along to "Raise Your Glass" as you fist pump and disco lights sweep the dance floor?

The next morning, though, when Mat and I reconvened for coffee... oooh boy. While I am usually pretty good at recovering from nights like that, I definitely needed my coffee + carbs (thank you, Starbucks multigrain bagel) to feel human again. However, once I had that, there was no stopping me! We headed back to Mat's apartment to finish our coffee where we wouldn't get accosted by crazed holiday shoppers on Super Saturday (or was it?), and decided to add a soundtrack to our gossipy catch up... in the form of YouTube videos. And when we threw on Jake Coco and Alex G's incredible cover of "Jet Lag", we couldn't help but belt along. And that, of course, led to... DANCE PARTY! Beyond the various covers, our taste also ran to Lady Gaga, Glee, and even some Michael Jackson, with me bouncing around the room like a banshee.

But the dance party was not over yet! I had been invited to check out the opening day of Pedal NYC, a new boutique fitness studio in my neighborhood. When I got there, I found a small lobby with a friendly clerk waiting to check me in and sign the requisite waiver, and I was then ushered into... DANCE PARTY PART TWO. Okay, so maybe not quite, but the spinning room had the shades drawn and great music pumping. While I couldn't quite dance while spinning like a maniac (seriously, you guys, the sweat was flying off me and I was getting mighty concerned about the co-owner of the studio who was taking opening day pics), I did manage to bob my head around like crazy as I gritted my teeth and powered up the "hills". Because, you know, sweaty intense Laura wasn't crazy enough without the extra dancing.

The class was incredibly awesome. I rarely do spinning (I think the last time was at Club H, when I classily tweeted about probably not being able to have sex for years), but the instructor, Ray, was very patient with helping me set up the bike (big improvement from other classes where they've just left me to struggle), and I loved the electronic monitor on the bike that told me exactly how fast I was going. To tailor the class to everyone's abilities, Ray told us what range our RPMs should be in at different points, and we just adjusted the resistance accordingly until we could hit that. I found it so much easier to understand than the "make it medium-easy now... now make it a little tougher." What does that even mean? As a numbers girl, I loved knowing exactly what I was shooting for - and then sweating my butt off to get it. Pedal, I will be back!

It was a good thing I had done all that spinning, though, because that night, I may have drank more than just a few cups of eggnog at my friend Pam's holiday party. While the theme was ugly sweaters, I didn't have one of those, so instead, took a cue from Theodora and picked up a set of antlers at Ricky's - especially ugly in the fact that they had electronic LED lights that I could light up when I was feeling particularly festive. Pam's party started at 8pm, so my original gameplan was to head home by 11pm or so to rest up for a group run in the morning. That did not so much happen.


Arriving home at 2am, I realized that if I wanted to make the 8am group run I had planned at JackRabbit, I'd only get 5 hours of sleep. Nope! I have gotten old enough smart enough to know that too little sleep doesn't work for me these days, so I canceled my 7am wakeup call and instead set my alarm for 8:30am - meaning, I would skip the run and instead just head for Zumba at Athleta at 9:30am. Still more ambitious than most 2am party people, right?

Well, apparently my subconscious is even more ambitious than the rest of me - because I woke up at 7:15am, exhausted but somehow wide awake. I considered just staying in bed, but realized that I was going to be tired and yucky-feeling for a certain period of time (read: till noon) no matter what. Might as well go feel crappy while I run!

It was only after I made this decision and had already gotten fully up (face washed, teeth brushed) that I looked at the weather report and discovered it was 19 degrees out. NINETEEN DEGREES. (Yes, Fahrenheit). It figured that winter would sneak up on me the one day I was actually getting myself to go for a run outdoors instead of hitting the gym! But there was no turning back now, so I dutifully layered on some tights, windpants (normally overkill, but we were planning to hit the windy West Side Highway/Hudson River for our route), and a few layers on top.

I made it the first mile to JackRabbit without freezing, but the temptation was great to call it quits after that! Good thing there were other people in the group to make me feel self-conscious about quitting, especially when our leader took us up to the north part of Central Park for hill repeats. I didn't look at the time on my watch as I went, but I felt awfully slow and out of shape, and certainly not up to chatting as we hit the long uphill. But later, looking at my times, I discovered I had been keeping an 8:50-9:05 pace throughout the entire 8 miles - even with the hills! Once I realized how much I had been pushing the pace, I felt a lot better about how yucky I felt doing it. Obviously there was a good reason for that, and it wasn't just that I sucked! Hooray :)

But before my exercise was done for the weekend, it was time for one last dance party: Zumba at Athleta! I was totally wiped out from my long(ish) run, and I'm sure everyone else in the class was thrilled to have such a sweaty/stinky person there, but I didn't care - Ellie is an awesome instructor, and those workouts always pump me up. Dance party, indeed!

All in all, a pretty stellar weekend, and I think I've hit on my new equation for life. Forget time-money-quality as the be-all, end-all; I've got you covered with my holiday trinity:

Bam. Perfect holiday weekend.

Planning my weekend warrior workouts

When the cabin door of the airplane shuts and the flight attendant makes the usual announcement to turn off all portable electronic devices, I have to admit, I don't always adhere right away. I know that she's going to make a few other announcements and do a few other checks before she heads down to aisle to check for seatbelts and electronic compliance. So maybe I keep catching up on email and blogs for just a few more minutes.

But then I shut down, and out comes the notepad and whatever book I'm currently reading (tonight: Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil). Usually, I make a to do list for the flight (finish X spreadsheet, finish Y spreadsheet, clean out inbox, etc) as well as a to do list for my Friday (coffee with neighborhood friend, work for 2 hours, doctor's appointment, back to work, etc). Today, however, I pretty much had all that under control before I even got on the plane. What I didn't have planned out just yet, though, was my weekend workouts.

As someone who really enjoys getting sweaty (though I don't claim to be sweatastic or sweatalicious like Emily) in my free time, a big part of my weekend planning is how I'm going to get my workouts in. While some people look at vacations and weekends as times to take a break from working out, for me, those are the times when I can really focus on workouts and know that they're not going to get interrupted by other demands. Of course, workouts don't come first on my weekends - but they definitely play a pretty big role.

This weekend also happens to be when just about every holiday event I'm attending is scheduled. Tomorrow night is my company holiday party and my friend Tom's holiday party after, Saturday is my friend Susan's birthday beer bar crawl and also my friend Pam's ugly sweater party, and Sunday I am going to support Susan (who is an awesome baker and food blogger) in a holiday cookie baking competition. (And yes, by "support" that really just means drink lots of spiked egg nog, eat all 30 creations of the competitors, and then vote for hers no matter what). Point? Tons of holiday food and beverages are going into my tummy, and if I'm going to be able to stomach all of them, I need to build up quite an appetite first. So instead of making my usual to do list, tonight's "no electronic devices" time became my exercise planning time. Gotta fit it in somehow!

I'm kicking off tomorrow with some heavy weight lifting at a friend's gym, potentially followed by some cardio if I get done early enough. Then while I'll be working from home tomorrow, I plan to wear some running tights and a hoodie - so that I can jog to my various errands, allowing me to get them done in a fraction of the time and get a little workout (in fairness, I do mean little, since they're all less than 1/2 mile apart).

On Saturday morning, there is a bootcamp class going on at a new gym that's opening right in my neighborhood! I am pretty excited about the upcoming opening of Pedal NYC, but until they officially open, they are offering free bootcamps at 11:30am on Saturday mornings! I'm a little concerned about what this bootcamp may entail, particularly since I'm probably going to be experiencing crazy DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) from my weight lifting on Friday. I've never done any kind of bootcamp before, so hopefully it's not so tough and bootcamp-like that I look like an idiot! However, 11:30am is a bit late on a Saturday for me to get going with my workout - so despite my concerns about the intensity, I'm thinking I'll kick off the day with some treadmill/elliptical time as I finally watch the Biggest Loser finale. As long as I eat a solid breakfast in between those activities, I should have enough energy for both - but I will also definitely work up a thirst for some beer in the afternoon :)

As for Sunday, I learned just before boarding the plane that JackRabbit UWS is offering a group run starting at 8am, and heading out for 8 miles along the Hudson River Greenway. I love doing that route in the morning, and it will be especially fun to do it with a group and get to meet new people. Even better, JackRabbit UWS (the ending destination) is just two blocks from Athleta UWS - which means I should make it over just in time for Sunday morning Zumba! I've been going to this free class for a few weeks now, and love how much energy the awesome instructor, Ellie, brings to the class. Plus, there is no better way to put a smile on your face than by jumping and twirling to Lady Gaga's "Born This Way!" It gets me giddy every time, and I usually jog home from the class with it replaying on my Droid - what a fun and empowering song!

I'm getting excited just thinking about all the fun and different workouts I have coming up... but also wondering if I can convince any friends to tag along. Any NYC-area readers interested in joining my Weekend Warrior extravaganza? Or just coming for the cookie eating is fine too ;)

Resetting the fuel tank

(Alternate title: "How to shrink your stomach in two weeks," except I didn't want to sound like an infomercial).

For years, I have been a "volume" eater. My favorite healthy foods are those that are super low in calories so that I can eat them in mass quantity without having to worry about overindulging. For example, one night when I was particularly ravenous, I came home and made a three quart pot of veggie soup (made by basically just chopping tons of veggies, adding water and spices, and simmering for a while). That might sound totally healthy, but not when you consider that I then proceeded to eat the entire pot of soup (directly from the pot, using a trivet to keep it from burning me, because I am classy like that). The whole thing was extremely low in calories, but I felt stuffed, so it felt like a great way to indulge without being unhealthy.

Then when I was in Peru, I didn't eat a lot. I purposely packed tons of protein bars and a few packets of homemade oatmeal in my suitcase, planning to mostly eat these for breakfast and some lunches - both to save on costs and also to eat a bit more lightly while I was on vacation. As it turned out, the resort where I spent most of my trip had incredibly expensive food, and while there was cheap food in the adjacent town, there were several evenings where I was a bit concerned about walking over there in the dark (as a solo woman and a foreigner who didn't speak the language, at that). Most days I was in Paracas, I ended up eating oatmeal for breakfast, going to the town for lunch, and then having a protein bar or two for dinner. Probably not the calories I'd need to sustain myself for regular life, but given that I was primarily lying around reading and sunning myself, it was adequate.

Coming home from Peru, I got food poisoning - and then I ate even less. For a few days, I pretty much ate nothing but crackers for every meal. When the food poisoning started to subside, I still kept my portions fairly small (compared to my usual) and relatively high in carbs (totally not my norm). My body and brain started getting used to the idea that small portions were enough, and when the food poisoning was gone, I found that I was craving much smaller portions of things than I once used to. In fact, after making a massive spaghetti squash saute that ordinarily I would have wolfed done - I got full halfway through my plate and decided to save the rest as leftovers. That never happens to me - I am a clean plate clubber for life, and if you put food in front of me, I'm going to eat it! This was so new for me, and it's been amazing.

I look back on that time when I ate an entire pot of veggie soup, and I realize that it was pretty darn silly - and maybe even bordering on eating disordered behavior. I wasn't eating a whole pot of soup because it was the most delicious soup ever; I was making it artificially low in calories by refusing to add beans/meat/etc so that I could proceed to stuff my face. What a terrible motivation to eat a meal! Since finally being able to make the transition to smaller meals, I've become a lot more careless about what I eat, in that I'm not scouring labels for nutrition facts. When you eat smaller portions, you don't have to worry as much about whether you're eating a high cal sandwich or a low cal sandwich; in a reasonable serving size, there isn't going to be much difference between the two.

Of course, I haven't completely renounced my "see food" (I see food, I eat it) diet yet. We had our client holiday party last night, and I definitely ate more than I should have (passed hors d'oeuvres always give me trouble because I can't see all the food I'm eating at once, and I don't realize how many little bites I'm eating that dd up). But today, I recognized that, let it go, and then resumed my now-normal sized portions afterward - without feeling deprived at all. When my old roommate dropped about 10 pounds by simply changing her takeout lunch to soup and a roll, I thought she was crazy - wasn't she starving all day with that little food? But now I'm on that other side, and I happily ate my Senagalese peanut chicken soup for lunch with a piece of baguette - and felt totally sated afterward. I've started recognizing more when I'm hungry and need fuel (aka, my stomach is growling), vs when I just want to munch - but the times when I just want to munch are becoming fewer and farther between, instead of the habitual noshing throughout the day. I haven't weighed myself in a bit, but I just feel so much better than before - and that's way more important to me than any number on a scale.

The interesting thing will be to see how this affects my long distance running. So far, the effect to my workouts has been negligible, but we'll see what I feel like eating before and after a marathon when it comes time for that. I'm also curious to see if this lasts, now that I'm back to the team dinner environment, and especially with lots of holiday parties coming up. Only time will tell!

Weekend warrior gets some war wounds

My Friday morning started off healthy and wonderful - with a 4.5 mile jog by the river. I felt a bit slow as I ran, but didn't worry about it, since I wasn't trying to achieve a certain pace - just trying to shake out my legs a little bit and break a sweat. However, thanks to the accountability of posting my runs to Twitter/Facebook, my buddy Adam later pointed out my pace - around an 8:45 average. I hadn't even noticed that, and was very excited that 8:45 seems to be my new "so comfy it feels slow" pace. Years ago, when I first started running, I couldn't break out of the 9:30 zone (even trying tricks like running to music with a faster beat in an attempt to help me pick it up); it was exciting to find that my norm now is so much faster.

I had a very busy day packed with appointments and meetings (including one very exciting meeting that I can say more about in a few weeks). When 7pm hit and I was done with work, I had no interest in happy hour or going out - for once. All I wanted was a quiet night, so I had made tentative plans with my best friend to hang out and catch up on episodes of The Office. However, he decided to go to bed super early, so I was flying solo. While I had already done a 4.5 mile run in the morning, I decided I was actually really in the mood to lift weights. (Boy, just a year ago, that sentence would never have come out of my mouth). So I headed over to the gym and did some hardcore weightlifting for 45 minutes, and then headed home to make a healthy spaghetti squash dinner.

While I considered having pasta to carb up a bit for all the crazy activities I was going to do the next day, the spaghetti squash in my fridge was calling to me. Seriously, how do I not make spaghetti squash for every meal? It is so delicious! This time, I made it with onions, zucchini, tomatoes, ground turkey breast, and some Italian herbs/spices: oregano, basil, black pepper, and tons of garlic. As I added all the veggies to my saute pan, I started seeing the volume getting bigger and bigger - and while I realized that it was going to be pretty darn low in calories, I also realized it was going to be huge. So I did something I usually don't do (but probably should more often): left half on my plate and ended up freezing it for later. My stint on crackers after food poisoning has gotten me used to not eating as much volume and still feeling satisfied, and I was really pleased that even when I knew I could eat a lot (low calorie meal + hard workout right beforehand), I figured out my limits. That's huge progress from me on the eating front, and I'm thrilled!

But Saturday was no day to skimp on calories - I began the day with a fabulous and energizing free Zumba class at Athleta Upper West Side, where due to the relatively early start time of 8:30am, I found myself one of only two students in the class. (That 8:30am start was no problem for me, Ms. Super Cool I-Went-To-Bed-At-9:30-PM-On-A-Friday-Night). Personal attention, woo hoo! I have to say, I am totally obsessed with the Zumba dance to Lady Gaga's "Born This Way", which mostly involves lost of jumping and spinning and other fun stuff - it puts me in a fabulous mood for the rest of the day.

The activity for the day was not nearly over yet though! At noon, I lined up with a group of runners at Madison Square Park for the third edition of "Will Run for Beer" Claire's epic beer runs.


In case you don't remember the last time I posted about this, here's how it works: start at a predefined park. Run to first bar. Drink. Run to second bar. Drink more. Etc. While the last edition featured 6 bars, this winter tour covered only 4... plus a post-run bar in case we weren't drunk enough already. Not to worry, though - what I lacked in utter drunkenness I made up for in drama and stupidity when I tripped over a pothole on the way to the last bar, fell flat on my face as a city bus approached (and briefly wondered if I was going to get run over), and skinned my hands and knees pretty badly. OUCH!

Of course, falling on the way didn't stop me from inhaling a burger and shake at Shake Shack at our last official stop. Believe it or not, I had never had Shake Shack before (a sin, I know) - but while I found the Hopskotch shake (hot caramel sauce, chocolate toffee and Valrhona chocolate chunks) superb, I found the burger just okay. Next time, shakes only! We ended the night at Rattle N Hum (my favorite beer bar in the citY), where I alternated trying not to fall asleep (beer + running = tiring!) with wearing out my phone's battery dramatically texting my friends about my war wounds.


Unfortunately, while I may have been dramatic about them on Saturday, by Sunday, it seemed fully justified. I realized that your knees are a pretty terrible place to get hurt, because they are constantly having to bend when you stand up, walk, etc - so the scabs are constantly having to stretch and whatnot. Ouch again! As such, I skipped the morning group run I had planned for the day, and then got my workout in the form of an awesome Greatist Gractivity, which I was lucky enough to get an invite to join. Too fun! (More on this tomorrow).

Overall - a pretty darn active weekend! Hopefully that momentum will stick with me as I get back to the old grind of traveling, long hours, and team dinners...

Hitting the 25 mile mark of the year

Yesterday, a friend sent me an article about New Year's resolutions that I found rather odd. I know that it's now December - though it's hard to believe that 2011 has passed so quickly! Reaching the twelfth and final month of the year always seems to trigger various retrospectives and "best of the year" lists, which I see as a good thing. After all, how can you improve if you don't periodically reflect on your progress and achievements? But this article wasn't the usual reminder to start thinking about New Year's resolutions; rather, it was the somewhat strange suggestion to "give your New Year's Resolutions a 30 day trial run in December" before committing to them as your resolutions for the coming year.

As longtime readers know, I absolutely love New Year's resolutions - and usually put together a whole list of them. (Update to come later in December for me, but I've actually done a pretty good job sticking to most of my list of nine!). However, I hate the idea that New Year's Day is the only time you can vow to improve your life. Why not today? Why not tomorrow? Why do people insist on waiting for an arbitary date before making the changes they want to see in their life? And what happens if, let's say, you get food poisoning on New Year's Day, the day your diet and exercise plan is supposed to start? Do you wait a whole year to restart your goal?

I am nothing if not anal and Type A, so I understand the appeal of waiting for the beginning of a certain period. On Mondays, we try to make this the week we stick to our diet; at the beginning of the month, we try to make this the month we hit our running distance goals every week. But these periodic "starts," to me, are reasonable - they are close enough together that you aren't procrastinating your goals away just waiting for the right day to start them.

I have been reflecting on my New Year's resolutions by keeping them in an electronic sticky note on my desktop - where they stare me in the face whenever I am on my computer. I know that I have really gone above and beyond for some of my New Year's resolutions well (instead of visiting just four new countries this year, I visited five new countries and two new continents), while others took a backseat (I think my posture has actually gotten worse this year, and I don't think I've taken a dance or yoga class every month). But just because the year is ending doesn't mean that it's time for me to let my old goals slide for a whole month until I make new ones.

Take a look back at your New Year's resolution(s) from 2011. Is there anything you didn't accomplish but still think is a good goal? Let's spend December making every effort to call 2011 a success. Think of it as mile 25 of a marathon - it would be easy to conclude that whether you run your last mile in 8 minutes or 12 minutes is inconsequential at this point, since you've already logged 25 miles behind you and that four minutes is just a tiny percentage of your overall time. But if you've ever run a marathon, you know that logic doesn't fly; when it comes to the last mile, that's when we give it everything we've got and push right up to the finish line to do the best you can. I think it's time we did the same thing with our resolutions.

While I have a few goals that I didn't quite reach this year, I'm going to pick one as my focus for December: my posture. Lately I feel like I have been slouching more than ever - probably in part due to the fact that the offices where I've been working on my laptop don't have great ergonomic setups (vs my old airline job where I had my own desk and desktop computer and could adjust the chair, keyboard, monitor height, etc). But since I can't change my environment, I need to work on changing things I can control - like thinking about my posture more during the day and correcting it when I notice it's off, taking dance/yoga classes to help me get into proper alignment, and incorporating some stretches and strength training moves that help me keep my shoulder pulled back.

To get me off to a jumpstart, one of my favorite blogs, Greatist, recently put out an ultimate guide to good posture. Since Greatist is totally awesome about creating cool infographics and encouraging you to share them on your blog, I'll post it right here for you all to see:



I've already taken the test halfway down the infographic, and found out that my posture isn't horrible... but isn't stellar either. It's time to work through the rest of the chart, as well as doing some of my own research into exercises to help get me aligned! Of course, any tips you can offer would be much appreciated as well.

So there's my December goal - what's yours? Let's work together to end the year with a strong sprint to that finish line!