ELAINEVDW's SparkPeople Blog

Ironically, Nothing To Do With Valentine's Day...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:16:06 EST

Soooo this is kinda ironic because I'm posting it on February 14, but guess what? I got engaged 10 days ago!

26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26

We've been together for just shy of 10 years, but it was still a total surprise! We went to San Francisco "for his birthday," but he took me to Ocean Beach...

Feeling sexay! + Primal info.

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:58:17 EST

I was so bummed when I came down with a cold on Wednesday, because I've been making really good progress! My upper body is so frail that in two weeks, I've made noticeable gains in both strength and aesthetics. I've seriously had three people independently tell me that my arms and shoulders are looking really good. :D I can't wait to get to a full chin up. I'm so going to post a video to show me and my guns off, lo...

Oh, and PS... progress pix

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:08:23 EST

I found a cool progress pic app for my iPhone called Body Shot.

I wanted to show you the difference that Primal made for me in October 2011.

That volley ball shape to my tummy in the before picture? That's called "wheat belly." And the sad and depressed look on my face? That's my primary emotion when I eat refined sugar. The difference between those two photos is only 6lbs.

I don'...

New year, thank goodness.

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:55:20 EST

I don't care if it's the Mayan apocalypse, 2012 is going to be so much better than 2011. :)

Some updates since I last posted:

CATS

We still miss our Fafnir-cat, but our kitty Grendel and her kitten playmate Pink are doing really well. We adopted Pink a few weeks before Fafnir passed in order to integrate her into the family and help Grendel (and the rest of us) cope. We were a little worried about putting two females together, but they started napping togeth...

Best cat ever.

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 21:07:29 EST

Fafnir (the Faf, Fargh Nargh, Fartnir, Fuff)
2007-2011

"For I will consider my Cat ...
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
F...

A less emotional reaction...

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:25:33 EST

Fafnir and his shaved belly (they shaved it for the ultrasound, that's the spot he just looooves having rubbed)

So after letting it sink in for a day I'm doing a little better. Damn cats, they worm their way into your heart and dig their sharp little claws in.

My bf and I are trying to stay optimistic. We both freaked out on Tuesday partially because, when we were kids, we took generally well cats ...

Life is unfair.

Wed, 9 Nov 2011 13:23:49 EST

Fafnir got an ultrasound...

Fish and shrimp and cats...

Mon, 7 Nov 2011 14:22:19 EST

As promised, fish pix! Here is Twilight Sparkle and his bubble nest. Apparently bubble nest making means his pretty happy.

Also, pics of the two ghost shrimp we added over the weekend, Angel and Gummy.

Kind of bummed about the cats. Our on...

8-Week Fitness Challenge, GO!

Sat, 5 Nov 2011 13:51:29 EST

Today was my official fitness challenge start at my boyfriend's martial arts place! I have another week that I can be lazy, sleep in, and do the evening classes before my kung fu studio re-opens (they moved locations). After that I'll have to do the morning fitness classes is order to make my kung fu classes in the evening.

Anyway, I did a bootcamp style class and then did my fitness assessment afterwards. It's kind of cool, they take before and after photos and everything. And my...

Military-Based Fitness Goals

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:35:41 EST

I've been browsing around a couple websites (is.gd/ZC19D3 and is.gd/TBS9nV) and I think I'd like to meet the following fitness goals:

20 good-form pushups
30 full situps in 2 minutes
1.5-mile run in 15:30
3 chinups

There's a flexibility quotient too (19.25 inches sit-and-reach) and swimming (400 yards in 12 minutes) but I'd like to focus on strength and speed first and I don't have pool access (...or much of a desire to swim) for the latter.

Als...

8-week Fitness Challenge!

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:12:32 EST

Kickboxing Turkeys! Photo by flickr.com/photos/voght/

My boyfriend and I like to make big plans whenever we do a road trip. We did a mini roadtrip to Sacramento to get some bookshelves from Ikea last weekend, and got all excited on the drive over about joining this fitness challenge at my boyfriend's martial arts place.

His martial arts place is HUGE and has these massively difficult conditioning cla...

Primal Update

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:07:46 EST

So I've been eating primal for three weeks. It's worked so well for me! Even the days when I've been stressed to the max and had a billion things to worry about outside of food, it's worked for me. It just kind of fits in with my lifestyle. Some days I eat more, some days I eat less. Some days I have a big breakfast, some days I don't have breakfast at all. Sometimes dinner is big and juicy, other times it's a light broth. As the weeks go by, my "cheats" become fewer and farther between. I ca...

Gotta love fall :)

Sun, 9 Oct 2011 15:24:54 EST

What a fun weekend! Fall is my guy's favorite season, so we always do a lot of cool stuff between September and December. This weekend we tried something completely new. We drove about 1.5 hours out to Fallon, Nevada to go to the fall festival at a small farm. We did the corn maze, checked out their gigantic white turkey named Tom, watched the goats (and their creepy horizontal pupils... ALIEN EYES!) and llamas for...

Tension/TMJ Headaches relief!!!

Thu, 6 Oct 2011 17:39:35 EST

Ahhhh!!! I'm so exponentially THRILLED that I simply MUST share this news with you guys.

So I've always had mild TMJ. That's when your jaw clicks when you open your mouth really wide, or sometimes while chewing. This clicking can be painful, or you can get headaches.

I haven't had a lot of problems with my TMJ aside from my jaw getting painfully stiff after having work done on my teeth (beca...

Thunderstorm cycling and delicious food

Sat, 1 Oct 2011 14:41:48 EST

I've started riding my new cruiser bike to work on Fridays. It's the one day of the week I never go to kung fu, so I don't have to worry about carting a bunch of martial arts equipment with me. :) Yesterday we had an unexpected thunderstorm roll in midafternoon. This might be a Nevada thing, since we're usually in a drought, but as soon as there's a hint of rain people swarm outside to take walks and ride bikes! I'm no exception... I took the long way home to enjoy watching the lightning hit ...

Fall updates, and Primal/Fermented foods

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 01:22:35 EST

Hey Sparkfriends! You lucked out, my browser erased a novella-like blog entry, so now I have to start over from scratch. ;)

I've spent the last week using the Spark food tracker again, so I figured I'd check in with y'all. This "lifestyle change" thing must have stuck, because I've been a lazy bum ever since the Odyssey, but said laziness now includes martial arts most days of the week along with one or more bike rides.

After about two months of incredible ADD, I'm refoc...

Success :)

Sun, 5 Jun 2011 20:52:49 EST

Ahhh what a fun time!

Team Fight or Flight before:

And again 28 hours later:

I ran a total of 17 miles and had a BLAST!

I think my fueling was off, though. I was down 2lbs today from Friday (which is not good -- afte...

Reno-Tahoe Odyssey 2011! Woohoo!!

Fri, 3 Jun 2011 12:04:50 EST

This is me this morning... all ready to roll for this year's Reno-Tahoe Odyssey!
renotahoeodyssey.com

The Odyssey is my favorite sport event of ALL TIME. I wrote a little bit about it at my blog here:
handfulofhealth.com/268/reno-tahoe-o
dyssey-2011

Our 12-person team will be out pounding pavement from about 11am today through about 2pm tomorrow. ...

Updates! Feeling good.

Wed, 4 May 2011 16:16:12 EST

...if a little beat up from sparring last night, haha.

Anyway, I wanted to thank you guys who commented on my dilemma. What I really took out of your comments was to look at my immediate and long-term priorities and see where it fit. And someone on the martial arts Spark Team said, "Once you make the right decision you will know it as you will feel like a weight has lifted of your mind."

I thought about all my goals -- to run a marathon, to learn more programming and ge...

Taking on too much responsibility

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:38:57 EST

Hi Spark. Sorry I've been MIA. I've been really overwhelmed. You know what's funny about "healthy living"? It seems so easy, like such a no-brainer, when you're doing it well; but then a few things in your life go kitty-whack and it suddenly becomes the most daunting task ever!

But maybe I'm just easily overwhelmed, lol.

Anyway, since my last blog entry, I've had a horrible work deadline (which was successfully met and turned out great ... after all the crazy late-night ...

Spreading the spark

Thu, 7 Apr 2011 14:59:40 EST

Hello friends!

So I haven't been very active on the site, but I have been active in my life! Spring is finally doing its thing here in Reno. The street to my office is lined with blooming cherry trees. We even had enough good weather for me to bike to work for a few days before another snow storm blew in. :)

Can you believe that I managed to pack essentials, lunch, laptop, kung fu uniform, and a full set of sparring gear on my bike?!

Hey Spark. Warning for the guys: Girl topics ahead! If you're uncomfortable with this, I give you the revised food pyramid. Stop reading and make something with sriracha. (If you can't see the text because Spark downsized the pic, the top left text says "Sriracha Group: F%CK YEAH"!)

What a Friday...

Sat, 5 Feb 2011 19:04:30 EST

Howdy Spark. I'm done with Week 1 of The Spark (e.g. Fast Break!) and moving on to Week 2, which involves better eating and workout strategies.

I didn't have a great start to Week 2 for a couple reasons. One, we had to take our kitty Fafnir to the vet on Friday. Speaking of weight loss, he'd lost too much this winter. He's always been lean, but he was starting to get bony. (Turns out he lost 2lbs, about...

Babbling

Wed, 2 Feb 2011 00:16:20 EST

Hi Spark! I figured I'd blog a quick update while I'm waiting for some files to FTP.

I've missed out on excellent sleep the past two nights. I always stay up late working. My job is great because I can roll into the office whenever... but it sucks because I also have to get stuff done, and if that means I'm up until 1am, so be it. One of these days I will start rolling into the office earlier!

Today has been kind of interesting. I'm getting feedback from my body and I h...

Adventures in Meal Planning

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:58:11 EST

So I've been saying I've wanted to try meal planning for months now. But it wasn't until resetting Spark, reading "The Spark," and focusing on my Fast Break goals (track calories, 5-minute pep talk, 8 hours sleep) that I finally had the energy and motivation to follow through.

Side note: Fast Break goals really work!!! Seriously, even just the pep talk and catching up on sleep has made everything easier....

And she's back

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 15:09:50 EST

Does Spark have a Walk of Shame? I weigh more than I think I have since high school (160 according to the scale this morning). A few more pounds and my BMI will officially be "overweight."

Who was it that said the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

Anyway, I actually did have success with Spark back in the beginning. This time I want to try weekly meal planning. In the past I'd either plan out my meals the nigh...

Yoga at home with tatami mats

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 18:58:09 EST

I have a hard time practicing yoga at home, for a pretty stupid reason. I don't like doing yoga on the carpet! I like having my sticky mat on a nice, firm surface. In my house, the only non-carpeted surfaces are in the bathrooms, kitchen, and entryway.

I've been trying to think of a way to introduce a better yoga surface into my office/storage room that's less permanent (and cheaper) than installing hardwood and a little more sturdy (and less splitery) than laying down a piece of ...

iFitness follow-up, and Yay for Yoga!

Sat, 9 Oct 2010 17:33:21 EST

The iFitness was everything I wanted it to be! It's easiest to stick the phone in and then put it on. I like positioning it with the pouch on my sacrum (behind me, between my lower back and my upper bum). The belt part is soft and stretchy, so it won't hurt technical fabric, and after I put it on, I totally didn't even feel it! In fact, when I came home from running the other day, I took my phone out and started sy...

New toy! The iFitness belt

Wed, 6 Oct 2010 01:41:48 EST

Go go Gadget iFitness!

I've been hearing about these all over the place! In fact, I passed the info on to a Spark friend, and he got one before I did, and ended up using it during a race with positive results.

It's basically a belt with a soft neoprene pouch (or two pouches, as in the model shown above) meant to hold your ID, credit card, cell phone and some gu.

For some reason I ...

Intuitive Weight Loss

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 02:43:40 EST

I took this photo this morning before my run! :) Yay sunrise

Hi Spark!

So I'm in much better spirits, mostly due to getting vast hours of sleep for the past week or so (over 10 hours per day). I think I'm sick, lol. And I actually did stay home sick to sleep most of Tuesday.

Anyway, last week, my emo episode had me going over my health history, and I realized that the three times I've co...

Decided to trash my history

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 13:42:38 EST

An abbreviated graph of my whole Hacker's Diet history

I logged into Hacker's Diet today to restart the process of logging my weight trends. I have entries in there from January 2007! When I weighed 142 lbs. Within a year I hit 129... and then it was a steady climb back to the 150s in 2009.

I don't want to think about all that baggage anymore. I especially don't want those months I was in the 130s ...

The almost-emo blog attack

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 22:25:25 EST

Hey Spark! I almost posted a very emo blog earlier today. After re-reading it and realizing how neurotic it was, I pasted it into my private journal instead to save you guys the pain!

I am still pretty frustrated though. I don't know why it's kicking in now. The only thing I've done different in the past three or four days is get to bed before midnight and take a multivitamin and fish oil supplement.

I have discovered... audiobooks!

Sat, 18 Sep 2010 01:08:13 EST

I have gotten sooooo boooored with my usual running routes lately. That might be part of why I've had such a hard time getting out there. They're convenient and nice enough that I didn't want to go out of my way to drive somewhere to go running, but I had to mix it up somehow.

First, I tried listening to podcasts. There's this really cool one from Endurance Planet (you can find it on iTunes, I think) th...

What do you think about CrossFit?

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 22:24:53 EST

A cool CrossFit photo by www.flickr.com/photos/ambernussbaum

Any of you guys have experience doing CrossFit? I've been thinking about it, and I'm really tempted to give it a try. This is what I was thinking...

1) There's a CrossFit gym a mile away from my current gym, so distance isn't a problem. The monthly fees are the same as my gym membership + the bootcamp upgrade. (E.g. really...

Sitting leads to early death?!

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 01:28:32 EST

Photo by www.flickr.com/photos/bruceclay

Oh boy. I hesitate to type this, as typing this involves sitting down. But here goes!

"Researchers say time spent sitting was independently associated with total mortality, regardless of physical activity level."
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/0
7/100722102039.htm

That means that sitting in my car to d...

Goldfish Update

Mon, 6 Sep 2010 01:55:50 EST

Hi all,

My goldfish is doing GREAT! Fresh water, some peas, and a salt bath helped immensely. He's very happy and extremely affectionate now. He'll eat out of my hand and even nibbles at my fingers when I'm in there siphoning out their gravel now.

Anyway, I made my FIRST EVER YouTube video documentary about the situation here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBkJxX2BL2k

It's called "How Google Saved My Goldfish." And it's proof that you shouldn't let ...

I've got all my life to live, I've got all my love to give...

Wed, 1 Sep 2010 14:08:47 EST

I WILL SURVIVE, HEY HEEEY!

Hi Spark Friends, I'm sorry I've been AWOL for a few weeks. Sigh. Motivation has been tenuous at best. I honestly don't know what's wrong with me, lol. Maybe I need more friends who don't live 45 minutes away?

The past few weeks have looked like this:

I can run 10 freaking miles!

Mon, 9 Aug 2010 01:07:12 EST

10 miles, woohoo!

Maybe this means I will be able to do the half marathon after all. ;) I haven't even trained for about a week and a half because I spent the last 10 days absorbed in the 10 Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris (the series that HBO's True Blood is based on).

Today's conditions panned out to be perfect for running. We've had summer thunderstorms the past few days, which are ...

Sane Dieting Manifesto

Sat, 7 Aug 2010 04:46:03 EST

Ok, here's the first public draft of my Sane Dieting Manifesto. I have a feeling that some of my rules will expose the weird crazy things that I find myself doing when I diet, but oh well! I'm sure I'm not the only person who falls into that trap. I'm also expecting to have to revisit and refine this as time passes. But if I didn't write it down, I know I'd lose focus pretty much immediately!

THE BASICS <...

Ready, Set, Track Calories!

Fri, 6 Aug 2010 16:55:29 EST

I have officially decided to start actively losing weight again. I went to the Levi store the other day hoping for some cute denim bermuda shorts or something, and the biggest size they had in the store gave me a muffin top like you wouldn't believe! I am tired of being frustrated with finding cute clothes. I'm also tired of feeling like my body isn't that bad, but if I slip up, it could get there quickly. It's tim...

Anton Krupicka on Minimalist Running

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 18:40:31 EST

Photo from Krupicka's blog: antonkrupicka.blogspot.com. That's Jenn Shelton (from Born to Run) with Anton Krupicka at this year's Western State's 100, photographed by Luis Escobar (also from Born to Run).

I know I already posted one blog today, but this blew my flip-flops off. I had no idea who Anton Krupicka was before reading this article (I think he came in second at this year's Western States 100?), but no...

The Grandmothers of Endurance: Why I Run

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:02:56 EST

Check out this video:
chrismcdougall.com/blog/2010/07/the-
secret-of-eternal-youth-in-haiku-and-v
ideo/

That's why I run. Because when I'm 67 years old, or 74 years old, I want to be healthy, spunky, injury-free, have great friends and run 100 milers.