#elf4health: Week 1 Recap

This week was the first week of the Elf 4 Health Holiday Challenge. On Sunday I received my email pairing me with Lindsay for the first week. Lindsay blogs at Live.Love.Nutrition. Check out her blog- it is awesome! Lindsay is also a runner and is studying to become a registered dietitian. She recently ran her first marathon in October in Atlantic City. 

The weekly challenges were a lot of fun and were designed to get us out of our comfort zones. Not everything was related to healthy eating & exercise, but were created to

Here is a quick rundown on how my first week went:

Monday: Meat free! At first I thought that this would be challenging and then I thought it would be easy. I thought it was easy until I realized that I needed to “beef” up my menu with some protein. I made some minor adjustments and I think that I turned out with a pretty successful day of being meat free.

Breakfast

Coffee w/unsweetened vanilla almond milk

1 ½ servings of oatmeal with vanilla protein powder and unsweetened vanilla almond milk

AM snack

Black cherry Chobani Greek yogurt

Lunch

Organic roasted red pepper soup

Mixed greens w/balsamic vinaigrette, walnuts, dried cranberries & Gorgonzola cheese

String cheese

PM snack

Garlic hummus w/carrots and gluten free rice cakes

Pre workout snack

½ a pumpkin bagel

Dinner

Gluten free pasta w/alfredo sauce, red pepper flakes, black pepper, garlic, onions, spinach & sun dried tomatoes

Dessert

Skinny cow ice cream

Tuesday: Send a card or handwritten note to a friend. I choose to send a card to someone I miss working with and seeing every day. This person brightened my day and made work fun. I just wanted to thank her for being so wonderful.

Wednesday: Try a new workout! I went to my usual Farmgirlfit 6:30 class and had a new daily grind that I had never completed before. That counts right? I also may have signed up for my first crossfit competition that will take place in January (more on that later)

6 OH Squats (I am awful at these & only used the PVC pipe- don't judge)

30 second plank

Mountain Climbers 6 each side

3 second reverse plank

6 rounds

Thursday: Get up 15 minutes early to mediate & reflect. I was super tired on Thursday. I have been fighting off a cold all week. I was barely able to peel myself out of bed, but I managed. Mostly just because my coffee pot was calling me name and I had blogs to read!

I thought about a lot of things, mostly trying to figure out how come I have been so unhappy the last couple of months. I think a lot of it stems from me not wanting to be in Spokane anymore. I really don’t like Spokane at all. If you asked me what I like about Spokane I would have a hard time finding something positive to say. I miss Oregon. I have also found myself drifting away from people I used to be friends with. I think that as we grow older this is pretty common.  Our lives change as we grow older. We aren’t the same people that we were several years ago. Doesn't mean I dislike the people, we just don’t have common ground anymore. Friendships shouldn't be hard work- marriage is tough enough. :/

I do have a lot to be thankful for though and I also reflected on that. I love Farmgirlfit and I am getting back into the groove of something that makes me smile everyday- Running. I am healthy, I have a home, I have job (even though I don’t like it!), I am intelligent, I am motivated, I have $ to buy what I need, I have a car that gets me from point A to B, I have an awesome family, and I have the best two little girls in the world. The one thing that really makes me happy is that I was able to go home for Thanksgiving this year. It was worth the drive to get to spend the weekend with my family.

I thought about what I would like to do in the far and near future. I want to travel more and even plan a trip to Europe. I am so jealous, but happy for my friend Adrienne who has been a globe trotter this year. I want to be able to travel like she does. I want to commit to my spring marathon and train my tail feathers off for what I hope is a good race day. I am lucky to have a coach to work with that believes in me. I want to continue to get strong and make some friendships at Farmgirlfit. There are some amazing women in that group! I want to be able to relax more and not be so stressed out and more importantly I want to pursue something professionally that I love. Ideally I would love to work in health & fitness- I just haven’t found a way to make that happen. Yet.

Friday: How many colors can you eat today? I didn't really count how many colors I ate. I had a rough day, ended up missing lunch because I was so busy. I think I got the most colors out of my dinner at Qdoba where I had a pulled pork salad and tortilla soup. Lindsay even shared with me an awesome recipe (Orzo Pasta), but I never got the time to make it. I will be making it soon because it looks tasty!

Weekend: Clean out your closets & donate items to Goodwill. This was long overdue and is a project I have been putting off for months. I actually started the process a couple of weeks ago and never finished. This weekend it was officially “operation finish closet clean out”. I think I did a pretty good job. I am awful at getting rid of old clothes- even when I haven’t worn them in months or even years. Yep, I am clothes hoarder! I was proud of myself for donating not 1, but 3 bags of things to Goodwill. It was a great feeling to donate some items and clear out some clutter!

I need to thank Lindsay for being such a great elf this week! She was encouraging and had some good ideas on the food portions of the challenge. It is always nice to be paired with someone who you have stuff in common with. Thanks Lindsay!!!! :-)

Questions for you:
Are you participating in #elf4health? How did your first week go?

--Tasha