I've been crazy busy for a few days, so I'm playing catch up on my Thanksgiving Project. Here we go...
November 21st:
I'm thankful I can drive almost anywhere and not have to worry about finding parking OR having to take the Fn train during weekend construction! I have so much less stress and can accept any meetings when I'm available and even have time to get to the gym because I don't have to worry about the hours spent frustrated by the MTA! I am the boss of my travels!
November 22nd:
I'm thankful for unseasonable warm weather which will has allowed me to continue to run outside well into November!
November 23rd:
I'm thankful for the birth of my OLDER cousin John AKA Gus, who was always like the OLDER brother I never had (to my knowledge...)
Some of my fav Gus Moments:
1. Demolishing our living room and John wrote his auto-biography (I'm sure it was quite extensive at the age of 16) and stuck it in the wall. I'm still dying to know what it said because he refused to tell us.
2. Running around Nana's house like a lunatic with Mike while he calmly read the Sports section of the paper and watched Football.
3. Doing the Nestea Plunge into Nana's pool and singing "Coke is SHIT!"
4. When he stood up for me when I most needed him.
5. Watching him interact with CJ and seeing him as a full-fledged grown-up and awesome dad.
6. Laughing, laughing, laughing...even when we're disagreeing or complaining about something.
I'm so proud of John for following his passion for sports into a career where his opinions and creepy-ass OCD sports knowledge has come in handy, while at the same time actually earning a decent enough living to support his growing family!
Showing posts with label activity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label activity. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
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| 2011 Dash for Dad |
November 13th:
Today, I am thankful for the ideal conditions that made my run a possibility:
1. My health (Word.)
2. Decent weather (Did it really hit 60 today?!?)
3. Respectful drivers (Yes, there actually are a few)
4. Wegman's Mistletoe coffee (SPoT visit later)
5. Well-kept sidewalks (Thankfully, North Buffalo has decent ones)
6. Great Fn music.
Just to expand a bit on #6, I'd like to encourage drivers who may see me dancing at corners while waiting for traffic to pass to quit staring and either join me or hand over $1. Either choice will make me very happy.
Also sidenote: Does anyone around here go dancing anymore? I need to shake my booty soon.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Lucky Duckys
Thanks to my extensive attention whoring over the past year, I'm sure
you are all aware of my 100lb weight loss journey with Weight Watchers
and the role that running has played in my maintenance, both
physically and psychologically.
Last year, The Susan G Komen 5K in Buffalo was the first race I had
ever run. One year later, I have run 10 (5k to 5mile) races and 3
Half-Marathons. By the end of the year, I will be qualified to run the
2012 NYC Marathon!
On that note, I do need to get down to some business.
The WNY Susan G Komen 5k for Breast Cancer will always have a special
place close to my heart (pun intended) for many reasons, but most of
all because so many of the women in my family have been killed by this
disease and if we can just get you guys to donate $10 each, we can
exceed our goal!
Chances are, you've spent $10 on:
*A soda pop from a movie theatre and although the cup may be as big as
your torso, you will spend half the night in the bathroom line,
thereby missing the movie you paid to see and wasting the $13 you
spent on the ticket. Donating $10 will actually save you money!
*Your ever-growing fund to purchase those Broadway tickets for
Spiderman. Save your money because the next stunt man face-plant into
the audience will be free on youtube.
*A framed and autographed copy of THE Anthony "Weiner"
*A honey badger, because he don't care (SEE: http://youtu.be/4r7wHMg5Yjg).
* A year's subscription to Canadian Curling Digest.
*A hipster-approved beer, formerly considered worthless white trash
piss water, but now considered "cool" in any bar off the first 3 or 4
stops on the MTA into Brooklyn.
*An iTunes season pass for The Real Housewives of Sheboygan.
Ok. Ok. I admit that I made that last one up, but really, can I be that far off?
Seriously, we really need your help! This is a cause that is very
important to our team. My Nana passed away from breast cancer in 1996
and sadly, the chances are staggering that more women in my family
will be diagnosed with the disease including my mom, my aunts, my
cousins and even my niece and myself. We need to conquer breast cancer
before it conquers more of us!
On a sidenote, I would like to take this opportunity to give a great
big THANK YOU to all my friends and family who have supported me and
cheered me on through Facebook and Twitter and in real life! Your
presense in my life means more to me than you could know.
XoXo,
Christina aka Trixie
Donate here:
Lucky Duckys Team Page
If you cannot donate, come on out and join our team! We're looking for more members and right under our names on our team page, you can see a "join team" link. You can walk the 1 mile "Family fun walk" or join me and Mikey for the 5k and walk, run, skip to your loo...whatever you wish.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Eat to Live
Tis the season...for eating.
In previous years, I had recognized the change of seasons once I started seeing Mallomars and Jingles cookies on the shelves at Waldbaum's.
Now I'm posting on twitter to ask if I can get pumpkin and spaghetti squash year round. What a difference a year makes!
That's not to say that I won't be budgeting points to squeeze in a couple jingles with my sugar cookie sleigh ride tea (now with real sugar cookie flavor) before bed, but I have recognized my issues and adjusted my intake accordingly.
I have also accepted that I need to keep moving my body during the holiday season. As I posted before, this is one of the many benefits to training and running the Disney half-marathon right after the holidays.
My long runs last a couple hours and I usually earn between 10 and 15 AP's. That's about 3 or 4 Mallomars, NOT A BOX. Running not only keeps me burning off all the marshmallowy goodness, but calculating the APs forces me to recognize how much work is takes to negate my cookie intake. My sore muscles serve as a reminder to keep me in check.
Now, most of us are even busier during the holidays, so fitting in the extra time to get some activity in can be tricky as hell.
Although I am at goal and am currently the healthiest I have ever been as an adult, both physically and emotionally, many things are still a struggle and contrary to popular belief, activity is my main one. I would rather spend all day cuddling with Ruby and Mikey and watching bad sitcoms, than almost anything else.
A couple things I keep in mind about food and activity, particularly over the holidays:
1. Food does not have to be the main event to family gatherings. I am lucky enough to have a bunch of hysterical people in my family and I have a blast whenever we're together. Conversation is far better when I can actually concentrate on it and am not stuffing various junk into my yapper to the point where I'm almost choking, have to unbutton my pants and then obsess over my guilty feelings. Who knew?
2 This is all a choice. MY choice to eat more foods with nutritional value and less crap. I want to feel better. I want to look better and I want to serve as a good healthy example for others, so I can help them to improve the quality of their life.
3. Running into someone I haven't seen since I gained 40 lbs (or more) is far more difficult, exhausting, stressful and time consuming than budgeting a couple hours a week to work out. I do not want to experience those feelings ever again.
This year, Mikey and I decided to sign up for the 8K Turkey Trot in Buffalo, to start the day off right! I'm so excited, even though I will have to dvr the Macy's thanksgiving day parade to watch after a nice hot shower.
So this year, I'm extra pumped for the holidays. I'm not scared of any uncontrolled food intake or seeing someone and being self-conscious about my size.
I'm prepared because I know what to expect, have done some Weight Watchers inspired mental rehearsing and re-framing and I am ready! Bring it on!
Dash for Dad
In june of 2004, my Unca Dave passed away from prostate cancer.
A month earlier, my dad had been officially diagnosed with the same disease, but had chosen a very aggressive treatment, based on his younger brother’s current state. Since then, my dad’s other 2 brothers have been diagnosed, had surgery and are now cancer free. This disease is seriously out to get the men in my family.
Unfortunately, there are many underserved areas, where men are not even able to be tested for this disease. Zero Cancer provides grants, free testing and education, so hopefully, we can stop this disease before it hits my cousin or my brother!
This year, on the 6th anniversary of losing my Unca Dave (we called him that because he had some video of my brother at 3yrs old calling him that and it stuck), I was thinking about how much I missed him and the impact he had on the dynamic of our family. He was the crazy one and in my family, that means something. We always had a blast when he came to town! He had long hair, played the drums, loved building models and riding bicycles. Every year, he would lead my whole family for an entire day and ride from North Buffalo to Niagara Falls.
Recently, I was thinking about how much I regret missing out on those bike rides. I did that by choice because I was lazy. Pure and simple. They would ride together, had fun and I’m sure they did a lot of laughing and I was too busy...watching tv, I guess? Ugh.
On a more serious note, my Unca Dave also took me in for a week, after 9/11 when I lost access to my apartment because I lived just 4 blocks away. This was when we really clicked. He took me shopping for clothes because I only had what I was wearing that day when I left for class at NYU and he made me feel safe in his family’s home.
Anyway, this year, I decided to organize a family team for The Dash for Dad 5k to benefit prostate cancer research and I’m so proud of myself for not being that same lazy broad, but I’m particularly proud of my amazing family for participating!
My mom’s family even joined in and I was able to cross the finish line with my Aunt Toni’s husband Ed, who is also a survivor!
This didn’t make me miss my Unca Dave any less, but it made me thankful that our contributions can help others, so they don’t have to lose their Unca Daves.
@--}-- (he used to sign his emails with this rose)
"I'd Rather Be Fit in Public"
having struggled with my weight since i hit puberty, i clearly missed out on many usual milestones through my teenage years. i’m not saying that overweight people don’t have proper social skills or they are not allowed to play sports. what i’m saying is that i allowed my weight to dictate what i did and even more disappointing, what i didn’t do.
through high school, i wore huge clothes to hide my body and avoided gym class whenever possible because the anxiety of undressing in front of my classmates was paralyzing.
my junior year, i was hit by a car (that is a huge story that i will save for it’s own post) and i was actually relieved that i didn’t have to take gym. seriously. i was hit by a friggin car and i was happy because i didn’t have to undress in front of other people. that was my primary concern. not that i had to have 2 surgeries and wear a cast for almost 4 months and then relearn how to walk. i didn’t want my classmates to see my bare thighs.
when i think about the person i was back then, it makes me very sad. i wish i realized how ridiculous that was, but i guess those issues make me appreciate how far i’ve come...blah blah blah. it still annoys me.
before puberty, i was a very active child. my mom was constantly yapping at me to sit back in my chair and relax while i eat dinner because i would literally run in, sit at the edge of my kitchen chair, woof some food down and run back out to play. by run, i mean literally run. i ran everywhere. they always joked that i was running before i was walking. my family managed a bowling alley in buffalo and my dad always talks about how i would come to visit and he would try to introduce me to people while i zoomed by, just running back and forth around the main lobby area. i’m sure it was fueled by full free access to the pepsi machine in the restaurant and candy room, but regardless, i was a big ball of energy.
as my goal weight grew nearer this past spring, i started to think about what activities made me happy as a child, in an attempt to tap back into that 4 year-old wild woman. now, if you read my success story, you know a main reason why i chose running, but this is the reasoning why i thought it would click for me.
i started out running at the gym, but i only chose treadmills that faced the window. the added benefit, was the ability to flip off tourists in those double decker buses to relieve any aggression i had that day, but it was essentially, so i didn’t have to see who was around and making me feel self-conscious. after my run, i would wash my face after and take the hour long train home, as a big sweaty mess. i’m sure my fellow d train riders were less than pleaseD with my general funk.
finally, one day, i decided to force myself to shower at the gym. it was a rough couple weeks while i tried to learn to balance towel placement with exposed skin areas, but i did it.
i then realized that i had to start to be comfortable with running outdoors. now, as i have mentioned previously, i am a sloooooow runner. people walk faster than i run and i’m not even kidding. i am often lapped by women old enough to be my grandmother. the number i was given in the central park conservancy race was off by about 2,000 runners because they had me down as a 9min/mile, which i do not expect i will ever be able to achieve. i like to think of myself as the 80‘s movie-style serial killer of running. i may be moving very slow, but i’m gonna get ya!
that said, about a month ago, i decided to try to run around central park and while looping past the great meadow, i saw an exercise class and the group of people were kicking and punching while the coach was cheering them on. i immediately thought, “oh god. i could never do that” and then it hit me. those people are kicking ass! why wouldn’t i want to look like that? that thought triggered another, which was, “i’d rather be fit in public, than fat and naked in front of my doctor.”
so now i run in public with a big smile on my face and i shower at the gym without fail. my shame and embarrassment was replaced with pride and self-confidence. is there anything better?