The journey of a 1,000 miles begins with a single step!

Well hello faithful readers...if I didn't scare you all away last week! :) I apologize for having a bit of a breakdown- it had been a really stressful and quite frankly terrible couple of weeks and it just came out...sorry. The good news is that I am over it and feeling a lot better. Thanks to all of you who offered suggestions; I will keep them in my bag! (Callie: Nick and I did decide to make our menus on Sundays now...we would try and do that before, but we didn't have a set time we did it and so it often got overlooked. So thanks for that tip!)

So, what happens when you have a breakdown? What happens when you just get off track for one reason or another? Or when you get really busy and things fall apart...or you have a vacation...or, well you get the point. It is easy for us to control what we eat and our activity level when we are in control, but sometimes we just aren't. We could feel sorry for ourselves and get into a slump, or feel like we failed and stop trying, or we could push on. (How many of us have done the first two? I know I am guilty!)

The way I see it, it took time to get into good habits. And even though we can get out of them super quickly (which sucks), we can get back into them if we give ourselves time again. Try focusing on just one or two things to begin with- once you feel like you are mastering them, add a couple more. Continue on until you are back to where you were before (or better!)

See, I had a few terrible weeks. My workouts suffered; my meals suffered; everything suffered. And it was easy for me to say "well I just undid everything I had been working towards so I might as well not try anymore." I knew that I wasn't just going to wake up one day and all of the sudden be back to all of my wonderfully healthy habits. So I picked two to begin with- drinking water and a bedtime for the kitchen.

I know that when I drink lots of water my body can get rid of its toxins and my skin looks better. It also helps me to not be so snacky. A good rule of thumb I have heard is to drink half of your body weight in ounces each day. This is my minimum. Add some Texas heat, running, and dancing and you can often catch me drinking my entire body weight in ounces throughout the day. It just makes me feel great.

Secondly, I need a specific bedtime for the kitchen or I will snack right up until bedtime...and I know I don't have time to burn those last minute calories I jam in before laying still for hours! This one is particularly hard for me as I often get home at 10pm and haven't eaten since 4pm or so...I just can't seem to make myself go to bed hungry! However I put the kitchen to bed at 9pm now- and that is it. Sorry, but the kitchen is sleeping and there isn't anything I can do about it! Knowing that it isn't even an option helps me to resist temptation.

Those are my two things for this week- we will see how I feel next week and maybe I will add a couple more. I suggest for any of you that are this healthy thing just isn't going to work to make a list of a few things you can do to make yourself healthier- then just pick one to focus on at a time!

Triathlon update: I have been very terrible due to my "slump". However this week I did hit the gym hard already once and have added some new strength training exercises to my regulars. I haven't made myself get in the pool again (which is long overdue) but I am running regularly and have been biking both indoors and outside on a real bike. This Saturday I am running a 10K in beautiful Texas Bluebonnet country...so wish me luck! :)

Food Politics update: Who knew that the Food Guide Pyramid was so controversial? I definitely do not remember it being a big subject in the news in the 90's, but I also was a kid that probably didn't pay much attention to the news. The drama started in the mid 1970's to create a guide for the public that could inform them of nutritional information. There were debates on which department got to oversee it (why was the Dept. of Agriculture giving nutritional advice instead of the Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare/Health and Human Services?) and how to advise people to essentially eat less while not sending the message to "eat less" (corporations/committees wouldn't let anything pass that recommended eating less of its products). Eye opener for sure- don't just blindly follow the Food Guide Pyramid...it has corporate interests at heart!

P.S. The Giveaway will close at midnight on Saturday! Over $150 raised for Clean Water so far!!

Here's the the link.