Rise & Shine!

Dang.  Saturday morning.  It’s not even 10 am and I am writing you to say I’ve worked out, showered, and cleaned my room. WHAT?!!

I know. It’s cray.  Especially since I didn’t go to bed until almost midnight.  I have a confession, I went to see The Hunger Games last night.  Holy moly.  I love going to the movies, and this was the perfect big screen production.  I’ll admit I hadn’t read the books and I had no idea what the premise was until the trailer came out, but WOW.  It was great.  My girlfriends and I went to the show at 7 last night but were all so worked up after due to its sheer awesomeness we needed a glass of wine after to debrief.

Despite all the excitement last night I woke up at 6:15 bright-eyed and bushy tailed and ready to go.  I figured I might as well go out now while I’m motivated and I can nap all afternoon.  I had forgotten how invigorating exercising, and especially exercising in the morning can be.  I’m nearly back to my usual obnoxious morning person status.  

Though there were a couple of hiccups along the way this week, I’d file Week 1 of training in the WIN column.  I’m really proud of myself.  Today’s intervals were a minute (a wee minute can seem like an eternity sometimes) longer than the interval I had the other morning and I had to pump myself up in the last thirty seconds.  A lil’ come on AT, you can do this, that sort of thing.

In the absolute last minute of my last interval my recurring motivator came to haunt me.  This might sound weird, but, for years, whenever I am in a hard spot working out – be it on the treadmill, or a few years ago with my trainer doing burpees or some horrible form of jumping, I would imagine a huge bag of Doritos chasing me.  Yep.  All those years of bad snacking catching up with me.  For some reason though the bag of Doritos always comes to mind.  

They are kind of the epitome of junk food- completely and utterly unhealthy, processed, and bright orange.  It ain’t natural cheese, I don’t care what the package says.  And they are so gosh darn addicting.  (And we’re talking the Nacho Cheese flavor, none of this Cool Ranch nonsense.) 

So there’s a brief peek inside my inner crazy that sometimes happens.  Hey, as long as it’s motivating me I say, ok. 

Week 1 Assessment….

Meh.  Hasn’t been the best week to be honest.  I rocked it the first two days and then Spring literally sprung, actually, Summer frog-leaped right over Spring and it’s all of the sudden 70 in March.  Early warmth =early allergies.  They came on strong yesterday and by 6pm the allergies won.  I went to bed at 9:45, hoping to awake refreshed and ready to go- but it just wasn’t gonna happen this morning.  I’m going to take today off from a run and hope I’ll feel better tomorrow.  Even if I don’t I’ll go out for a long walk Saturday and Sunday to at least be active in some way.  

I also had an amazing thought the other day… a better name for this blog: Dine & Dash.  Right?? Because I like to cook, and I’m trying to run.  Oh well.  We’ll stick with Francesca for now.  

Happy Friday my friends!!!!!!! I’m super excited to get through today at the office because at 7PM I’m heading to the movies… YES. The Hunger Games.  It’s happening.  Don’t judge, I can’t wait.  

Day 1 Training Do-Over

Success!!! Yes friends, I got out of bed, put on the sneaks and did it!!!  

It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t awesome either.  I have a love/hate relationship with running.  I would love to be able to run and run well for significant distances, but most of the time I actually hate it.  Well, maybe love/hate is extreme.  But it’s similar to how I feel about the French language.  Been trying for years, but never seem to be able to reach fluency.  

Maybe this is the year I do it… run like a gazelle and speak French like… oh I dunno, Pepe Le Pew?

Happy Tuesday friends!

Week 1, Day 1 5k training.

Today was a big fat fail.  I had all the intention in the world of getting up & at ’em this morning, taking advantage of this weird warm March weather and putting on the sneaks.

That was until my weekend celebrating caught up with me around.  Ugh.

So, if you’ve read any of my food blog recently you know that I’ve been experimenting with a gluten-free diet.  I haven’t cut out gluten completely- until I have a doctor certified confirmation that I have an allergy I don’t want to  go to the extreme and end up in a situation where I can’t eat something, or if something happens to have gluten in a sneaky spot (a lot of sauces, soy sauce) I don’t want to get sick.  As long as it’s been in limited quantity lately- a piece of bread at the dinner table, the occasional but very rare breakfast muffin- I’ve been ok, and feeling actually a lot better.  Weeeeeeeellllll.

Then there was this weekend.  St. Patty’s Day.  At the very last minute I found out a dear friend from my time in D.C. was up for the weekend with a bunch of her friends for the festivities.  I spent most of Saturday out & about, celebrating and drinking green beer.  Blurg.  I didn’t want to drink beer all day- but, I kept forgetting to tell people to grab a cider for me instead of beer, and a day  of gin & tonic was going to be awfully painful on the wallet and the hangover.  All in all, it wasn’t that much, 4 beers, 5 tops.  But good lordy, the beer combined with the burger (bun and all) I had for dinner, I am a hurt bunny.  Not violently ill or anything, but just in a lot of pain. I feel like I’ve had a rock stuck in my stomach for about 24hrs.  I was hoping to awake refreshed, but not so much.

Tea, water, & ginger ale have helped to soothe the tum-tum, and tomorrow morning.  YES.  Tomorrow morning will be the day we begin.

Oy.

Oh hi.

So today we start anew.  Don’t worry friends, there will still be plenty of food- but it’s not going to the sole purpose of my blog any longer.  I figured A) I wasn’t very good at it, and B) well, I still think people can relate to me in other areas of my life as well, so why don’t I start sharing that too?

Not to start out on the wrong foot, but, I must be honest with you friends, and if you’re my friend in real life and not just the interwebs, this is not news to you, I’ve been in a rut.  Like no joke. It’s been, say, about a year, and if we dial it back a wee bit, nearly 2. I’m so eager for things to turn around, and get back on track.  There’s only so much I can do about certain things, but, it’s high time I start putting me first in the areas of my life that I do have control over.  First things first, I gotta start with number 1, me, moi, my fabulous self; which ain’t feeling so fabulous these days.  Here’s the game plan (some of which is already in motion) :

Step 1:  Break-up with my horrible boyfriend who made me feel bad most of the time.

It was for the most part mutual, but dang, still hurts to be back at square one.  Dating is exhausting.  I feel like Charlotte in an episode of SATC when she’s hungover at brunch complaining to the girls, “I’ve been dating since I was 15, where IS he?”  I feel ya girl.  But.  Let’s focus on another quote from the legendary Ms. Whitney Houston, “I’d rather be alone than unhappy.”  And I was unhappy for most it, I just didn’t want to admit it, because I really really really really didn’t want to feel like I failed yet again.  Plus, it’s hard when everyone you know is getting married and to then feel like “that girl” at the party.  It’s such a cliché, but for a good reason.  It all of the sudden happens and you’re the only one without a buddy, feeling like you missed the boat.  However, we must not dwell, we must move on- onwards and upwards, to better things.

Step 2: Get back in fighting shape.

To do that I am starting a couch to 5k plan from Fitness Magazine.  I’ve run a 5k before, in fact, I used to run quite a bit.  And workout.  Like 5 days a week.  We’re talking spin class, kettle bells, 90 minute boot camps.  Cray.   It was fun, but I guess I never appreciated fully or noticed how good of shape I was in- until I wasn’t anymore.  I think the disconnect comes because when I was at my thinnest (about this time two years ago) I was coming off a horrible break-up, and just wasn’t happy with me. I wasn’t thin for the right reason and slowly, over the past two years, I’ve gained it back.  This is by no means a vanity thing, but I just don’t feel good and I miss my clothes.  Every day I open my closet and think, “Who is this skinny bitch that bought all these size 4 clothes?  Really?”  I need a motivating plan and this seemed like a good way to start.  Especially since I can’t afford a gym membership right now I gotta do this on my own, be it running/walking, yoga/pilates at home, whatever it takes, I just want to feel good & healthy again.

The diet part I’ve got (most of the time).  For Lent this year I wanted to revisit my no-processed foods challenge, and have been doing pretty well.  My favorite lunch these days?  This.  I can’t get enough.  It’s easy, portable, and delicious.

Step 3: (and this one’s the hardest) Find what it is that makes me happy in life professionally.

This I’ve been working on for a solid year.  My job has been great- it’s secure, has great benefits, it’s pretty cushy (10-6), but it’s not fulfilling.  At all.  I’ve been looking for other opportunities and trying to figure out what the next best step is, but it is brutal out there.  To be honest, I’d take, just ok and not miserable at this point.  Slowly but surely I’ll get there, I know I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, but it is tiring to feel lost & rejected.  Hmm… sounds like dating most of the time, no?

You can maybe begin to understand the rut now, rejection personally, rejection professionally.  Ya. Cool. Thank goodness for my friends.  They have been hands down, my saving grace.

So there we have it.

I’d like to think of this space as a journal where I’ll keep y’all posted on the 5k training, the woes of dating in Boston, and anything fun & new that comes up in the career world.  I know I’m not unique, I get it, your 20s are hard, and can be confusing and awkward, but it’s sometimes nice to hear someone else putting it out there.

A lot of the blogs I read are fabulous, but the women (mostly lady blogs I read- style-food-life) are so put together, everything seems SO fabulously  perfect, that while it is something I’d like to aspire to- sometimes you want the nitty-gritty, I fell on my face today, burnt a cake, got dumped and cried at work.  (Hopefully not all in the same day, yowsers.)  I’m not trying to be negative, trust me. I know a lot of people have it much worse, and I’m not trying to complain and air my dirty laundry.  I guess what I’m trying to do is say, “hey, I get it, we aren’t all perfect, here’s how I’m handling it, and frankly, a lot it is pretty funny so let’s gossip.”

Shall we? Ok. Cool.  I can make us friendship bracelets if you want to make it official.