distance and diet

I've been dying to know how far I run in my 30 minutes in the mornings. In Chicago, I always meant to come home and google map it, but I never did. Last night I was out in my parents' borrowed truck, and in a flash of inspiration, I measured my run route with the odometer. I currently jog 1.8 miles in 30 minutes. Now you know why walkers passed me out on the lake front path!


Nonetheless, I continue to be pleased with being able to jog 30 minutes without stopping and without wanting to throw up or collapse at the end. I'm working up a nice sweat and definitely increasing my heart rate as I run, and that's good enough for now. Soon enough I'll start working on speed. For this week, though, and probably for next week as well, I'll call it "enough" just to do it like I'm doing it.

A friend asked how food is working for me here. That one is fun. Until I get my first paycheck and can do some grocery shopping, I am getting both lunch and supper from the Bistro that is within the senior housing facility where I work (I have a nice stash of breakfast goodies at my place and am not inclined to go "out" for breakfast when I can enjoy it in my pjs at home.) So I've had fun and healthy meals like:

small salad
grilled swordfish
brown rice with vegetables
green beans

tomato rice soup
baked cod
sweet potato
succotash (that's lima beans and corn, if, like me, you didn't know)

blackened steak salad (huge)

greek salad (huge)


southwestern wrap - chicken, black beans and veggies in a tortilla
fresh fruit - cantaloupe, honeydew, grapes, pineapple

And so on. Yesterday was my only major "oopsie"...a coworker was celebrating her 50th birthday and gave me a giant piece of very frosted birthday cake, right there at my desk. Down the hatch it went, and it didn't even cross my mind that I shouldn't have gone there, or at least shouldn't have eaten a piece big enough for 3 people, until much later. Oopsie. And there's the part where I'm glad I am not "on a diet"...I am just letting God teach me to love my body. So I don't have to suffer a wave of self-recrimination or get depressed or worry that I'll never get it right. I can just make the next right choice, and leave the oopsie behind me.

Meanwhile I am still working on the tiredness factor. I might really just be wiped out from all the change and the more challenging schedule. It might be just that simple.

The good news: the weekend is almost here, and I can do some aggressive resting to counter that.