Day 21.2: Self revelation #1

This may sound silly to some of you, but ever since I started eating a vegan diet, I feel like I have been more in tune with myself and it has helped me really dig in deep and find out what makes me tick and what drives me mad. I’ve had a lot of self revelations lately, so hope you don’t mind if I start sharing them with you! But this is still a food blog too, so let’s do it.

Lunch yesterday was leftover vegan meatloaf and some broccoli.

Then for a mid-afternoon snack eaten in two parts, I had a PB cookie Larabar. I think I want to try the PB&J again because I might actually like it better. I apologize for the really old, recycled picture since I didn’t have my camera during the day yesterday 😦

This snack must’ve had an extra boost of motivation, because after work yesterday, I met up with Farrah and ran 4.15 miles!

I don’t know our exact time, but I think we were around 40 minutes. The neat thing is, I ran all of it, no walking breaks, and it was the longest distance I have ran in…a while. I honestly couldn’t tell you the last time. And the neat thing is, I wasn’t tired at all. And I felt GREAT.

Self Revelation #1 – I AM A RUNNER!

I go back and forth with this a lot because there are days and weeks where I don’t run at all and I think it’s just not for me anymore. Then I have runs like the one yesterday that make me wink at myself in the mirror and say “Yeah kid, you still got it.” I sometimes forget that I trained my butt off from September 2007-April 2008 to run a half-marathon and in the mean time have completed a number of 5ks, 10ks, 10-milers, etc. Check out my running page if you are interested in seeing more.

After all that training and trying to keep up with running, I hit a few roadblocks. Sometimes I just couldn’t physically run, sometimes I had mental blocks that told me any more than 3 miles would kill me. I was addicted to sugar from thinking I had to get all the “energy” possible to finish a race. I had gained weight. You name it. So I had resigned myself to the fact that I liked to run every once in a while, but it wasn’t a big part of my life (or workout routine) anymore.

But I think the difference is, I just did it for fun yesterday. Farrah is always a little bit ahead of me and I just follow her. Sometimes I yell ahead that I need to take a break but yesterday I just kept on going. I didn’t have a watch on, the weather was 110% perfect, and I just looked around me and took it in. Why not do that more often? I’m not trying to win any races, I just want to have fun. I want to hold onto that feeling I had after that run yesterday.

So we’ll see what happens 😉

Girl’s Night Potluck was another huge success in my book. I am a big fan of tortilla chips, so that’s how we got the night started (with some medium salsa that was SPICY)!

These were the Kroger brand white corn tortilla chips with sea salt. They were amazing! Not quite as salty as some other tortilla chips. I loved them (a little too much, ha ha)!

For our main course, Courtney made her famous taco soup with lots o’ beans and veggies (for which I am grateful).

With more chips & salsa and some steamed green beans on the side. I went back for a little more soup and chips later on.

For dessert, Beth so graciously found these little So Delicious mini ice cream sandwiches.

They were pretty good and one was definitely enough to satisfy me (plus I was full of chips).

Beth said she had a hard time finding a dessert that I could eat and that she couldn’t make a planned recipe because she couldn’t find any decent soy yogurt at her store. I felt bad because the last thing I want is for anyone to be inconvenienced…this way of eating is my choice and I can choose whether or not to eat something and no one should have to worry about excluding me from anything.

I have dessert next week though so I hope to share a great dessert recipe with my friends that isn’t soy ice cream, ha ha. I think they are helping keep the So Delicious people in business 😉

Yesterday was a great day and I don’t know how I could possibly make today any better, but I’m going to try!