Rest Week = the Best Week

From now on, I have decided to implement scheduled rest weeks in to my workout plan. After taking all of last week off to rest and recharge, I'm wondering why I didn't do it sooner! I got the original idea from what I usually do with running. After every six weeks, it's recommended that the 7th week you take your usual weekly mileage and cut it in half. It's meant to be for recovery and to prevent injuries. 

Well then I got the idea to do that for my workouts in general. The combination of running and lifting 6 days a week can take a toll on my body. I always take Sundays off for full rest days and while that definitely helps, it can still all catch up to me. 

I started to notice a pattern where there would be a week where I would just be exhausted. I had little motivation to workout and when I pushed myself, it wasn't worth it. I was way too tired and my workouts suffered from it. I realized the trend which eventually lead me to the idea of a rest week. 

Just taking it easy, focus on stretching, and maybe a couple of light workouts. 

It made all the difference for me!  

I'm the type of person who doesn't have to think twice about working out. I have my workout planned, I wake up in the morning, and I'm excited to get moving! I truly love it, and wouldn't do it otherwise. Well, I noticed that when it was all getting to me I would have second thoughts about working out when I woke up. I was too tempted to push back my alarm and sleep in more. My body wasn't feeling it at all, and it was a struggle to get my butt out of bed. When I'm questioning if I want to workout, losing motivation, or any second thoughts then I know something is up.

Getting up at 5am during the week and since I've lost all ability to sleep in, I don't really get to catch up on sleep during the weekends. I know women who get up at 3:30-4am to workout and honestly my jaw drops at those times! So all you lovely people out there kicking butt before 5am, you're the real MVPs :)

I used to hate/be scared of rest days, and the thought of taking a whole week of them would have given me an anxiety attack, but now I love them. Once I switched my perspective to look at them for benefiting my health, preventing injury, and as an investment in my future health then that made all the difference.

I took all of last week off to sleep in, stretch, do some yoga, recharge, and I feel 100 times better this week! My workouts are back to kicking butt, I feel refreshed, and I'm so glad I took the time to focus on resting up. Towards the end of the week, I did start to miss my lifts and runs so this week I'm even extra excited to be back to the usual grind.

I already have the next week scheduled on my calendar haha!

Hope you're all having a wonderful Wednesday!

Weekend Catch-up: Kayaking & a Family Picnic

On Saturday, my whole family met up to go kayaking. We went to a park about 45 minutes from my house, and I had never been there. Well let me tell you, I'll definitely be going back! It's also very dog friendly so that earns it about a million bonus points in my book which means Layla will joining me on my next trip.

Our reservations were at 10am then after kayaking my grandma and grandpa had rented a little pavilion for a picnic! I thought it was just going to be all who went kayaking but tons of people ended up meeting us there, and it all turned in to basically a mini family reunion. That's the way things work in my family- we never know who is going to show up, what's going on, half the time we forget we're supposed to be somewhere, we're terrible at keeping one another in the loop, but if there's food people will come. The only way to describe our family dynamic is organized chaos. So it's always like a fun surprise when people just start showing up!

I didn't take my phone out on the lake for obvious reasons so I don't have any pictures from the kayaking part but I was surprised at the number of people who had their phones out there and taking tons of pictures. They're a lot braver than me because my luck I would've capsized the boat and then it'd be bye-bye new iPhone 6.

So I took all these pictures as we drove over to meet everyone for lunch! It was honestly the perfect day. The weekend overall was amazing because we finally got a break from the scorching hot temperatures. It was probably upper 70s to low 80s but with plenty of clouds for shade and a breeze. 

Kayaking was a lot of fun! We rented 6 tandem ones for the 12 of us. Amanda was my kayak buddy and I made her sit in the back. The guy who was helping everyone get in the kayaks said the strong person goes in the back and the pretty one goes up front haha! I told Amanda if this had required leg strength then we would have switched roles. One of these days I'm hoping my upper body strength will catch up! 

We had the kayaks for an hour so we went all over the lake. The lake itself was an L shape with a little island at one end and a bridge at the other so we went all the way down then did a loop around the island before heading back. Amanda and I would paddle for a bit then drift as we tried to get our tan on. I was the best navigator ever lololol not really Amanda kept yelling at me. Every time she would tell me to be in sync with her paddling, I would start belting 'N Sync at the top of my voice because why not? I also sang Rolling Down the River and Just Around the Riverbend from Pocahontas. 

Yes there were about 20 other kayaks out on the lake. No, I did not know them, and no, I did not care that they heard me haha! Kayaking calls for kayaking themed music! 

My cousins Ben and Jake were teasing me for taking all the pictures since it was so pretty. Then I started taking pictures of them at random, and they didn't think it was as funny anymore ;) 

Just to annoy Jake hehe, I took this picture before he was ready since he had been shoving his face with food. His face says it all haha! He can never stay mad at me though. 

We ended up staying most of the afternoon just catching up and eating plenty of food! My grandma was such a nervous wreck worrying if there would be enough food, and we kept teasing her telling her that the six bins and coolers clearly wouldn't feed us all! Side note: that is complete sarcasm. She seriously brought enough food for about a week. There was probably a total of about 30 of us at one point because like I said, my grandma and grandpa pretty much told everyone they knew about it! It was a blast and such a joy to see how happy it made my grandma. I know I've talked about it before but she was diagnosed with leukemia earlier this year so it's always a blessing when the family can get together like this and spend time with one another!

Why I Don't Use the Word Cheats/Treats/Splurge/Junk

This is something I've been hesitant to post for awhile because let's be honest we all have different opinions and often times someone will let you know it. Maybe I just have really nice people who read my blog but I don't get a lot of negativity. With that being said, I always try to be sensitive to the fact that we all have different opinions but this topic is something that I think is very important and I want to talk about it. 

I have slowly stopped labeling all foods and it is for a very good reason. I also have stopped calling certain foods and meals "cheats", "splurges", "treats" etc. 

My friend and I were talking the other day about how we just want to think of food as food. There are no good foods, no bad foods, no clean foods, no unclean foods, no superfoods, no lamefoods. It's all just food. 

Why do I think this is important? Because I think it can make a world of difference in having a healthy relationship with food. 

When I think back to the blissful pre-restricting days where I would literally eat whatever I wanted. I don't know how I did it, but if I wanted something I ate it. Just like that. No second thoughts, no guessing myself, no guilt. Period. I just ate. My meals were balanced, I worked out, and my body was happy. It was all so simple, but for the past three and a half years I have not been able to do that. 

Now, I literally cannot fathom doing that. I hate that it's the truth but I know, I know I will get it back. I already have a much healthier relationship with food and my body, but this is my ultimate goal. More than feeling comfortable in my body, more than intuitive eating. 

I simply want to just eat. 

With this reverse, I made a promise to myself that I would not do "cheat meals". Rather I just consider it to be a break from tracking or an untracked meal. That is different to me than a cheat because first things first, it doesn't automatically imply something bad. The word "cheat" itself has such a negative connotation to me, like you're doing something you're not supposed to be doing.

I also don't like the connotations that splurge and treat have with regarding food. As if you have to earn your food so you get a treat or the way people use it to justify something. I think that is a mentality that needs to be stopped entirely. You don't have to earn any food. Your body needs food to survive. For me, I now think of as food to fuel my workouts not the other way around. I used to think that since I worked out, I got to eat. That turned out to be such an unhealthy way of thinking for me. 

Why can't it just be a scenario like this: 

"I think I want a scoop of ice cream.

Yeah, Imma eat that ice cream.

Good decision, that hit the spot."

End of story. 

That's honestly how I used to do it. I ate foods in moderation. I didn't have ice cream every day but even if I did it wouldn't have been the end of the world. You know why? Because I had a perfectly healthy relationship with food, and could stop at a small scoop. I wasn't pressured to fit in more or eat all of it that I could because come tomorrow, I'd have to be 'back on track'. 

No, I knew I could have ice cream whenever I wanted so I would enjoy small amounts of it rather frequently. Same thing with any other food. 

During this reverse, I challenge myself. If I want something, I make it fit. I don't tell myself "wait til Friday and then you can have it". If it's not the weekend and I want something then I will arrange my macros to fit it in. I have stopped doing planned untracked meals because I don't think it's healthy (for me) to deny myself something in the hopes of getting it in a much larger quantity in a few days where I can have the excuse "but it's my cheat..."

I think to get back that ability to eat whatever, whenever then I need to stop planning out cheats and calling them that. If something goes untracked, well then it's just not tracked. No panicked feelings, no stressing over it. And sometimes there are days where I feel like loosely tracking and that's okay. It's not going to hurt my progress and in all honesty it helps my mentality. Eventually that is what I want to do, have days where I eat intuitively and without thought.

I want that freedom back, and it is definitely going to be a mental challenge. It's all about baby steps, though, so stopping with the labels entirely was the first step for me. I already have a much healthier relationship with food compared to three years ago, but as always it's a process. I'm not saying everyone else needs to do what I'm doing, but I'm just being open with my experience and what works for me.

I'm not trying to argue that there aren't differences between foods. Obviously I realize that an apple and ice cream sandwich contain different nutrients and vitamins, but if you're looking at just carbs they're pretty similar. So if there's a day where I know I need to incorporate more micros, I will pick the apple. But, I'm not trying to say that the ice cream sandwich is a bad choice. All it simply is is picking what my body needs that day. If I've already hit my fiber and got plenty of micros in, I will enjoy an ice cream sandwich because to me it isn't "bad". It's just a carb source, and my body happens to be in love with carbs. A love story to probably rival Romeo & Juliet (except with a much happier ending and more food).

My point is overall I think it's better to move away from labels, and just looking at food as fuels. Depending on what works for your body and what you need that will all look different for us all. It can also be a personal choice where someone might not want to pick the ice cream sandwich over an apple, and that is 100% fine with me. If someone wants to eat only organic, I have no issues with that or judgment and I certainly won't laugh in their face as I'm eating an Oreo. I just don't want to consider that Oreo as a "treat", "splurge", "reward", or any of those words that hold a negative connotation to me. I also don't want to be told my someone that I'm killing my insides either.

To me, food is food. Whoever disagrees with me just has to realize that is a personal preference. It is a way to ensure that I keep myself as mentally healthy as possible. I only ask for mutual respect that my lifestyle might look different than someone else's. In the end, we are all just trying to do what is best for ourselves, and that is the thought we have to keep in mind.