I'm moving!

Hi everyone!  As part of my New Year's Resolution to expand the blog, I'm moving over to wordpress.  I'm hoping that some of the tools on wordpress will be a stepping stone for expanding my readership.  Please follow me to my new home at http://esandercock.wordpress.com/ ! 

Confession Time

I have a confession to make: I haven't run since the New Year when I made the resolution to start running on a regular basis.  I have absolutely no self-control or discipline when it comes to exercise.  I know that I should exercise, and I'm always happy once I'm done, but making myself do it is a chore.  Lately it's been really cold in New York, and I had hurt my ankle and sort of lost my resolve. 

I guess that I need to think up some ways to "excuse-proof" my workouts.  I don't think that I have time to run today (that might be an excuse too) because I have an interview in the middle of the day, but I'll see how late it is once I get home.  If I can't run today, I'm going to come up with the answers to my excuses so that when tomorrow rolls around I'll be able to deal with them. 

What are the most common excuses that you use to avoid your workouts?  
Mine are "I'm tired," "It's cold," and "It's raining."

I'm back!

Hi everybody!  I'm back from St. Lucia and I missed you guys.  I hope that everyone had a good weekend while I was gone!

St. Lucia is a beautiful island, but there really isn't much there beyond the hotels.  I don't think that I would go back, because I'm usually not the type who just likes to sit around on my vacation, but this time it was exactly what I needed.  I loved getting some sun and getting a chance to read uninterrupted.  I was almost distracted from the beautiful scenery because I was reading a really exciting novel called The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl.  If you like literature, history, or mystery/thriller novels, you will love this book!  I did not get around to reading Food Rules by Michael Pollan, but I'm hoping to finish it this week so that I can write up a review of it before I have to head back to school next week. 

So how did I manage with my no-sugar challenge while I was on vacation?  I didn't.  On the plane ride over, I was thinking about how I would handle it and I made the decision that if I wanted something that had sugar in it, I could have it, but I had to ask myself first if it was really worth it.  Fortunately, I discovered the first night there that the desserts at the hotel were awful, so that cut down some of the temptation and the rest of the days I only treated myself to a few fruity drinks.  I was on vacation after all. 

Now that I'm back, I'm actually looking forward to getting back into the groove of healthy eating and exercise.  I'm also really excited that a new semester starts in two weeks!  I'm going to be busy as always, but I love buying new books and getting excited to read them.

So now that the new year has really started and you're back into your routines, what are you most excited about starting or returning to?  
I'm so excited to start working with the honor council when I get back to school and starting my new classes, and of course, seeing my friends! 

Bon Voyage!

Yay!  My passport finally got here!  I can go on my trip! 

I'm off to Saint Lucia until the 11th so I won't have internet access.  I'm bringing my camera so hopefully I'll remember to take plenty of pictures to share with you guys.  Have a good weekend everyone, and I'll see you on Monday!

Food Rules

So I'm supposed to leave for vacation on Thursday and my passport still hasn't arrived.  I'm crossing my fingers that it gets here tomorrow, but I'm really anxious and can't really do anything about it, so I'm writing about it here.  The person who promised to send it to me has been a little less than reliable unfortunately, and there's nothing that I can really do about it. 

I'm going to try not to think about it at the moment because, as I said, there isn't really anything that I can do about it. 

Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto and The Omnivore's Dilemma, has a new book called Food Rules: An Eater's Manual.  I haven't read his new book yet, but after reading a review of the book, I started thinking about what my food rules are.  Right now one of my food rules is avoiding all foods with added sugars, but I have other food rules when I'm eating "normally."  I almost never eat anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup ( I don't have a scientifically based reason for this choice, I'm just sure that it's a good idea to avoid it.) and I eat something for breakfast everyday.  I'm going to read his new book while I'm away next week and I'm going to write a special post about it when I get back. 

In today's no-sugar adventures,  I made banana oatmeal again this morning and the bananas had ripened overnight and the result was much better.  Super creamy and just lightly sweet.  I also ate some plain Greek yogurt for a snack this afternoon.  This is when I noticed something.  Normally I need something to cut the tanginess of Greek yogurt, but today I was able to eat it completely plain.  I think my tastebuds are slowly readjusting and don't always expect food to be sweet.  

Giving up sugar has been a really interesting experiment for me.  I think the biggest impact it's had on the way I eat is that I can't snack as mindlessly as I used to.  I have to think about my snacks and pay more attention to what's in my food.  I'm definitely going to try to pay more attention to the sugar content in my food after this challenge is over.  There's so much sugar in random food items and dessert items just add even more.  I'd much rather have my sugar in the form of a cupcake than in some random breakfast cereal. 

Do you have any food rules?  What are they and how did they start?  From another angle, do you think that food rules are beneficial for a healthy lifestyle or do you think that they promote a restrictive view of eating?

I know that my food rules came from my opinions about what was best for my well-being and despite any unhealthy aspects of my relationship with food, they did not arise from that, but I can see how they might be detrimental to others.

Banana Oatmeal!!!

This week is the second week of 2010, and so far I feel pretty good about where I am with my resolutions.  I wasn't able to run for the first few days because I sprained my ankle on New Year's Eve, but I've been making smarter food choices (mostly because of my resolution to give up sugar for the month of January) and I feel like I'm starting to recuperate from the holidays.

This morning, I tried a blog-world classic: Oatmeal with bananas.  I used 1/2 cup of oats, 1/2 cup of skim milk, 1/2 cup of water, and 1/2 a banana in the oats, and then put 1/2 banana and 1 tsp of almond butter on top.  Unfortunately, I realized too late that the banana wasn't ripe, so I had to salvage the oats by adding a smidge of honey.  I swear that I put in less than a tsp but it was necessary.  Other than the unripe banana, they were delicious.  I forgot how good almond butter is! 

Oatmeal is such a good breakfast, especially in the middle of the winter.  It's warm and super-filling.  And there's just something cozy about a big bowl of oatmeal. 

I have some things to check off the to-do-list today, including my first run of the New Year (!) but it's going to be a slow day here.  I'll be back with a run recap later today. 

On the no-sugar front, I'm doing a lot better.  I added a tiny bit of honey to my oatmeal this morning, but other than that, I'm successfully avoiding it and I'm not as cranky as I was and my headaches have gone away. 

How are you guys doing on your New Year's resolutions?  Are you afraid of falling off the wagon?  (I kind of am!)

My Days Without Sugar

I've completed three days without sugar and I have some initial observations to share with you.

1) Resisting Crumbs cupcakes while my friends were chowing down was absolutely heartbreaking.
2) Why aren't there any tasty breakfast cereals without sugar?
3) Why do they need to put sugar in bagels?!  I might have accidentally had some sugar because of that.
4) I wish that I could eat some of Nigella Lawson's lemon cake.
5) I think that I have a headache from sugar withdrawal.
6) I wish that I had finished my Christmas chocolate before I started this challenge. 

I've noticed that I'm treating myself in other ways lately.  For example, eating bagels, which is apparently problematic, and devouring toast with butter at breakfast this morning.  I forgot how good warm toast and butter tastes.  It makes me miss jam.  I am eating a lot more fruit, which is a good thing, right?  I'm not sure that cutting out sugar is improving my diet overall though.  I have a feeling that I'm eating more overall in order to "treat" myself without sugar.  I'm going to have to work hard to keep this impulse in check while I get used to saying no to sugar. 

Running
My ankle feels much better today, and I'm going to return to running tomorrow.  Hopefully it will warm up a little because today was brutally cold.  I'm still not great at layering my clothing for running, so I guess that I need to keep working on this.  In Portland, I'm more worried about rain than the temperature but it was so bitter and windy here today, so I may have to add some layers to the sweatshirt, gloves, and sweatpants combo.

What's the hardest part of giving up sugar for you?  Have you found that you miss really unexpected things, like jam or some other food that you don't usually think about? 

I really miss having something sweet after a meal, and cereal and chocolate of course.