Recap of the rest of San Diego!

Hey guys, sorry I never checked in again from San Diego but I was busy working hard and having a little fun too! I won't recap a play-by-play of the rest of the week but here are a few of the highlights and I guess lowlights too.

On Wednesday when I left you and went to dinner, things turned to disaster and health went out the window. I also probably should have been more diligent this night about being gluten free, but a couple things led to disaster.

One of which was having a glass of wine (okay, it was two...) before dinner at the cocktail hour and allowing myself to get really hungry before dinner. By the time that my coworkers and I sat down at a fun Mexican restaurant, I was hungry and feeling good so I dove head first into the chips, corn tortillas, salsa, guacamole, and cheese sauce that arrived at our table. I had Googled that corn tortillas were gluten free and I assumed that margaritas were too but I didn't check on anything with the waiter and I should have asked about it all. I just assumed that the item I ordered, with corn tortillas, was GF as well.  But to be totally honest, I didn't ask BECAUSE I didn't want to be told I shouldn't eat it.

Thursday morning I didn't work out and started my day with a bath. I originally thought I'd get to the gym in the morning but chose relaxation instead. The margaritas night have helped influence that decision, but also, I wanted the opportunity to try out this oatmeal bath I had bought. I don't have a bathtub at home so is packed it for California hoping I'd have the opportunity.

I did better with my food decisions on Thursday, which doesn't mean I didn't get ice cream in the afternoon or eat this caramels, because I did (and I checked if they were GF too.)

However, when it came to happy hour time I choose to skip it and instead go for a ~2 mile walk along the water instead of have drinks. I had learned from my mistake yesterday and didn't want to have a cocktail before dinner because I knew it would make it easier to make poor decisions. Plus, if been inside and not moving the whole day and wanted to enjoy a little bit more of this view!

Also, I did a little exercising on the beach, doing my daily planks in the sand.  My friends and I committed to doing this 30 day plank challenge.  I don't think we really thought this through before doing the challenge, but the amount of time you are supposed to plank really adds up!!  On Thursday I had to plank for 2 full minutes, which is something I never thought I could do.  I felt really proud of myself for accomplishing that and also snapped a couple of pictures in the act, which I thought came out kind of fun.  And I like how I look in them, so I am sharing (realness.) It took a couple attempts though.  Plank photos are not easy haha.

Oh, and one other thing?  There was an entire group of people taking a ton of photos of a couple birds.  I thought it was hysterical.  There were crazy papparazzi style people taking pictures of birds and it cracked me up.  Thought I'd share.

Anyways, back to dinner, which was really good.  I spoke with my waiter about being GF and he was extremely helpful. We ate at a restaurant in Coronado called Peohe's and it had an AMAZING view of San Diego.

It was a pretty exciting meal for me because for the first time in my life I ordered fish off a menu! I have never been a fish person but have been wanting for a long time to retry it. I like scallops and shrimp (warm, I'm not a fan of shrimp cocktail) but haven't explored much beyond that, except for knowing that I am not a fan of the fishy and flakiness of salmon. At the suggestion of my coworkers for a non fishy fish, I ordered the Mahi Mahi. The restaurant we were at was really nice so I had a hard time imagining anything on the menu would be bad, and I figured why the heck not? Plus, I'd had an appetizer of beefsteak tomatoes and mozzarella so even if I didn't like the fish, I knew I wouldn't starve. I actually enjoyed it and I am definitely going to be trying out fish more in restaurants in the future! I have extreme food envy & a hard time making decisions about ordering food so I'm not sure it will be an every day thing, but I'm open to exploring!

Friday I did a 3-mile run in the AM and is think the fish experience had me feeling brave because I was inspired to run ~1 of those miles along the actual coast, in the sand, as opposed to the boardwalk where I'd been running all week. I kept seeing people running along the water and wanted to try it but was scared. My pace was terrible but I'm glad I tried it! The past 2 days had me feeling like I was writing for my old blog circa 2008 where I chronicled trying something new every day.

I had fun trying these two itty bitty things and realized I want to try to incorporate new experiences into my day to day life. It's easy to think that trying new things need to be big experiences but it's really not the case, i love the thrill of pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Which if you count also the Nia class I did last Monday, I actually did a good amount of this week!

The whole week to this point I'd actually been on Coronado Island staying at the incredible Hotel Del Coronado, which was really breathtaking.

I worked for the day on Friday, getting a gluten free flatbread pizza for lunch that a coworker of mine had raved about.  He said it was better than regular flatbread so I really wanted to try it.  I ate 1/2 the pizza disgustingly fast, pretty much shoving it into my face as fast as I could, and it indeed was really good.  I took the other half as leftovers with me.

In the afternoon I met up with a friend who recently moved to San Diego for some beach time! It was great to catch up and see a different part of San Diego. I'd been in Coronado for the whole week, at the  but moved over to the Pacific Beach area and a little shotty hotel I'd gotten for myself.  The hotel was kind of gross and freaked me out, but I spent as little time as possible there.

Ice cream may or may not have been involved in the afternoon, along with an amazing burger and fries sans any gluten, and possibly crashing a bachelor party and other shenanigans as the night continued (including eating that leftover pizza...)!

I also met up with the younger brother of one of my best friends Teenie, whom you all know. He is in the Navy based in SD and it was great to see him as a "grown up" and he makes his family, and even me, so proud with his accomplishments so far in the US Navy! It was such a great way to wrap up the week in San Diego and luckily there were no travel delays in getting back to Albany. In fact, I had to hustle to my connection in the Atlanta airport so my dinner ended up being a package of Reese's Pieces and 2 string cheeses to hold me over until I had dinner when I got home at 10:00 p.m. How's that for being real??

Also, why are there no appealing gluten free options for when you have a hangover?? This chorizo and egg scramble (which I had to order minus the flour tortilla) was good but I could have really gone for a bagel, or even the dish as it should have been served burrito style!

I'm back in Albany now and there is a couple inches of snow on the ground and I have a 12 mile run to do tomorrow. Back to reality, people!!

Being real in San Diego!

Hello everyone from sunny San Diego, California!  If you follow me on Instagram (@HungryTwenties) you've seen that I'm here already, and you've seen that yesterday was a pretty frustrating day of travel for me.  I'm going to try and keep with the #RSgetreal theme and "be real in this entry." In reality, my flight delays only had me arriving here 5 hours after when I was scheduled to arrive but I feel like the day went on forever and that I traveled for AGES. My alarm went off yesterday morning at 4:20 a.m., which, if you saw the time stamp on the blog I posted Monday night... Well it doesn't take a math whiz to recognize I didn't get a heck of a lot of sleep.

Luckily I live close to the airport and didn't have to get up even earlier to make my 6:00 am flight.  I always set multiple alarms when I have early early flights or wake up calls Since I am a terrible light sleeper, I never usually have a problem sleeping through alarms.  However, I still always set extra alarms for days when I have to be up really early and CANNOT miss it.  I had about 4 backup alarms set, but I didn't need them at all.  I got to the airport and got through security fine and things were going great until they announced delays on my flight.  Apparently there was low oxygen in the cockpit of the plane and we had to wait a bunch until the mechanic got there to fix it.

I know that delays in travel happen and usually I am very good about just going with the flow.  However, I felt really frustrated because it was a 6:00 a.m. flight!  Things shouldn't be backed up or messed up then, right?  Imagine if you scheduled the first appointment of the day with the doctor to avoid having to wait but then still had to sit around forever!  We didn't leave Albany until around 7:00 a.m. and I knew I would miss my connection in Detroit.  I was feeling really frustrated and upset while we were in Albany.  I knew it was because I was overtired, but I gave myself a really good pep talk on the plane and decided to just accept that it was going to take me longer to arrive.  I was feeling positive when I landed in Detroit and then I went to put my glasses on and when I opened my case, I found this.

How does that happen in a solid glasses case??  Looks like it is contacts only for me on this trip and I'll be needing some new glasses.

And then when I got off the plane I found out that since I missed my connection, instead of flying right from Detroit to San Diego, I needed to fly from Detroit to Salt Lake City to then San Diego.  Ugh!!  I then went to walk to my gate and I laughed to myself thinking about how, it's just one of those days.  The Detroit airport is huge and obviously, I was gate A78.

I again, just decided to recalibrate my mindset and accept the delays, which was hard to do but I forced myself to.  I don't know what was wrong with me yesterday though -- I assume it was just because I was massively overtired, but I kept crying!  I cried about the delays, I cried about the new stop on my trip, and I cried about 100 times reading random articles in Runner's World magazine.  I have no idea why, everything was just making me cry!

The flight delays meant that I had to get lunch at the Detroit airport and I ended up grabbing a salad To Go from one of the restaurants.  It had lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, cheese, hard boiled eggs, and grilled chicken on it and I got some fat free italian.  I ate the salad when I was on the plane to SLC.  Although it sounds somewhat healthy I used the ENTIRE packet of dressing and for whatever reason, shortly after I ate it, I started to feel really sick.  I felt sick for the majority of the flight and when I got off in SLC, I was tired, had a headache, and felt sick to my stomach.  I am thinking maybe it was just the up and downs of the flights that maybe was making me feel that way but I really wanted something to settle my stomach.

Yes, the day before I had a breakdown about gaining weight, but I settled on froyo.  As soon as I saw it, the cold creaminess sounded really good for my stomach and I got a small from Pinkberry half vanilla half tangerine with no toppings.  I don't think I've ever ordered no toppings in my life, but this was actually really good and felt good on my stomach.

I was in NO WAY feeling positive yesterday about the delay to Salt Lake, but I will say that I did get to see a pretty view from the airplane.

Anyways, after my little side stop to Salt Lake, I got BACK on the plane to finally head to San Diego.  And once I arrived, oh man, I was so happy to be here!!  It was beautiful out and the hotel I am staying in for work, is gorgeous and right on the water.  I literally checked into my room and immediately changed into my running clothes.  Also, there is no complaints about the view from the little balcony off my room.

One of the reasons I was getting really paranoid about getting in late to San Diego was that I still needed to run 3 miles since I had ditched it the day before.  With the time difference, it was really about 8:00 p.m. when I finally went out to run, which is way later than I usually run.  I was sort of nervous that I wouldn't be able to get a run in, which made me feel panicky because I didn't want to miss a run on my training plan.  I think this is also why I was sobbing reading some articles in Runner's World!

The run I had yesterday felt great and totally put me in a way better mood than I had been in.  There is a little path right outside my hotel along the water and I did my 3 miles in about 29 minutes, which is a much faster pace than I've been running the tundra of Albany.  During the run I thought a lot about the last time I was in San Diego.  All the things I was feeling, going through, and the heartbreak that I felt during that time in my life.  I thought a lot about how much has happened in the past 2 years.  How far I have come, how much I have accomplished, and how much further I still have to go.  That run really wiped away a lot of the stress I was feeling from the day.

I quickly showered and changed and met my coworkers for dinner, which was really fun and I was able to be *relatively* healthy.  I mean, I am sure that everything you eat in a restaurant is filled with butter and oil.  However, since it was late I opted to get a starter and a side dish as my dinner, which led all of the guys I was with to laugh and make fun of me, but whatever.  I got the butternut squash soup and a side of brussels sprouts.  They were both delicious!  The plate of brussel sprouts was huge and had bacon and whatnot-- the waiter said it was a side meant to be family style and serve at least two.  And actually, when I told everyone what I was going to order, one of the guys I worked with was like, "Oooh, I want to try some of those brussel sprouts you are getting, they sound good." and I responded with, "Umm, well you can't have any of mine, because this is going to be my meal."   Perhaps it was that defensiveness that caused them to laugh at me, and I don't think I will ever live that comment down.  Everyone else ended up ordering a few side orders of the brussel sprouts to split as a group and I proceeded to polish off my own plate by myself :)

I was so tired by the time I went to bed and I was not looking forward to getting up in the morning.  I had to do 6 miles before my day officially started, and somehow, one of the guys I work with said he'd like to come with me.  We met at 5:45 a.m. and I did 6 miles along the ocean, whereas my colleague dropped off at 5.  Sunrise runs along the water is something I could get really, really used to!  My pace, again showed it, and I I kept going past 6 miles to complete a 10K in 1:01:16

The rest of the day has been busy with work, and I have done pretty good with managing to eat healthy.  This business trip is one time where being gluten free is preventing me from overeating a bit.  I would have totally dove right into the delicious looking rolls that were served before dinner last night.  This morning's conference breakfast was really yummy looking danish, bagels, muffins and pastry that I had to skip completely and rely on a Kind bar I had brought with me and some watermelon I found.  At lunch I couldn't have the pasta or rolls or cookies that were out and settled on some caprese salad, a piece of chicken, and Cesar salad with no croutons or dressing (sooo... romaine lettuce and parmesan cheese.)

I'm not sure what is in store for dinner, but I am heading there now.  Happy Hump Day everyone!!

Making new memories and being real.

In just a few short hours I'll be heading out of town for work to San Diego.  I don't know if you guys do what I do, but I think it is pretty normal to think of the memories you have in certain locations and in certain cities.  The only other time I have been to San Diego, although it is a beautiful city, I have some pretty terrible memories associated with it.  The last time I was in San Diego I spent a full night sobbing on the floor of the bathroom where I was saying.  I had my heart broken when I was in vacation there and that's what I associate the city with.  That trip and the heartache that came with it.  I'm really looking forward to making some new memories in San Diego.

This past weekend when I was in Syracuse I was excited to make new memories as well.  Although I've got ENDLESS memories from my 4 years at school at Cuse, the last time I was there was when I went to a game with an ex, so I am glad to have made a newer basketball game memory.

I had such a fun weekend with one of my old roommates and close friends, Kimmy, cheering on Syracuse basketball against UNC, hanging in our old stomping grounds, and as I presumed, making some bad decisions.  No, not crazy, in danger, bad decisions, just having a drink or two too many and indulging in some poor eating.

There are so many delicious, yet bad for you, places to eat in Syracuse, maybe most infamously Dinosaur BBQ -- which is exactly where we ate on Sunday for lunch. 

But let me step back a minute.  I was supposed to do my run on Saturday morning, but I slept a little later than I wanted.  So I needed to run on Sunday.  I originally said I was going to run around campus, like "old times sake" on Sunday morning.  But then I drank a little more than I wanted on Saturday.  So on Sunday, for lunch, still needing to run 7 miles later in the day, I went to Dinosaur BBQ.  Smart move, Katelyn, smart move. 

Man, it was delicious though.

And I still did get my 7 mile run in later in the day Sunday!  So you're probably assuming that I had a nice healthy meal after that to make up for the pulled pork and wings and 1/4 of a chicken I ate for lunch?  Well, no, not really.  This happened.

Happy dinner to me.

And today, I didn't run in the morning because my legs were feeling really tired and my regular group wasn't able to meet so I took a running rest day (the plan is to run tomorrow when I am in San Diego... which... sounds a heck of a lot better, I must say.)  My shins were actually really bothering me for the past 24 hours so I went to the gym during lunch but just stretched out my legs, which actually helped a ton and left me feeling a lot better.  

Following the stretching session, I had Dinosaur BBQ leftovers for lunch and some rice cakes.  And later in the afternoon I had a snack of some Hershey's kisses and a bag of Cape Cod potato chips from the vending machine.  I can't even tell you the last time that I bought food out of the vending machine, but I somehow thought it was a good choice today.

Oh and those Hershey's kisses?  That is not my candy bowl.  That is not my desk.  Yet, I am there at least once a day grabbing some.

In the evening, I did actually get a fitness session in.  I went to a Nia class for the first time and I'll have to write about it more in the future because I absolutely loved it.  Anyways though, my evening food choices weren't too much better as I shoveled popcorn into my face, ate a bar, and a Trader Joe's salad.  And this is after, I will admit, I felt pretty self conscious about myself and my weight throughout the Nia class because some of the other people in the class were so incredibly fit and thin and I was jealous and wished I could look like them.  Then I went and binge ate.  I will however say that one positive choice I made was not to buy the chocolate covered almonds I wanted to at TJ's. So there's that.

Post Nia and eating, I had to pack for the flight that I have that is about 6 hours from now.  I had a slight panic attack when I was doing that because I had one, "Oh crap I have gained weight into the danger zone" moments as I was trying on clothes and nothing fit like it should have.  I literally had to RIP a skirt of mine to get it off of me when the zipper stuck after I'd squeezed it up.

Now, normally when I have days like this, I don't always write on the blog.  Because it's supposed to be about healthy living and yada yada yada.  However, I did get some positive response from my post last week on "Being Real" and almost ironically, Real Simple magazine, put out a social media challenge this week to "be real" and use the hashtag #RSgetreal.

So I decided that this week I will write about my choices -- good or bad -- and keep it real.  Whether or not that is healthy... who knows... I am traveling and that can cause anxiety for me and when I am anxious I eat.  Although, to be fair, just the plane part makes me anxious.  Then, I eat when I travel because there is lots of delicious food in restaurants and I don't get to eat at San Diego restaurants all that often, so I want to indulge.

Anyways, I have a flight in 6 hours so I should probably get some sleep.  Happy realness to you, my friends.  Don't abandon me now that you learn about my unhealthy choices.

Oh, and in the sake of the #RSgetreal promotion, so many of these stories and pictures would have NEVER made it to the blog in a regular post.  I would never have told you about how the last time I went to San Diego, I cried on the bathroom floor.  I never would have told you that I ditched my run on Saturday morning and this morning (to be made up at a later time... I probably would have pretended that was always the schedule...) The solo picture of me wouldn't have gone up because I feel like I look fat.  The first picture of Kim and I only did get posted to Instagram because I purposely cropped 1/2 my arm out (looked fat...) and the 2nd picture of Kim and I would have never gone up because you can clearly see the big zit on my forehead.  The picture of the wings wouldn't have gone up because I wouldn't have wanted you to know that I not only ordered a big unhealthy meal, but I also ordered wings and ate them all.  The picture of my leftovers wouldn't have gone up because that's just gross.  And the ice cream wouldn't have gone up because it is so embarrassingly large.  I'll finish off with another picture I wouldn't have posted because I think I look fat.  Time to get over this fear!!  AND, maybe stop eating so much?

Feeling badass.

Hey everyone, happy Saturday morning!  Despite the fact that you haven't heard from me since Monday, things are going better than they were at the beginning of the week.  I had a fun, interesting week and have super exciting weekend plans as well!  Before I head off on my weekend adventure, I really wanted to take the time to write down some of the different thoughts and happenings of the week, and the dynamics that have been at play.  So I'll just data dump here...

- I've been working out 5x a week lately, this week for sure.  I like the feeling of being at the gym and exercising every day, but it makes me really tired.  On Tuesday after work I was at the gym for about 2 hours.  I did my regular Tough Mudder boot camp with my friends and also started a weight training program.  I'm looking forward to seeing myself improve there!  Wednesday and Thursday I had post-work plans both nights and on Friday I was just exhausted.  Hence me not writing until now, FYI.

- I had two really good runs this week on Wednesday and Thursday.  I found myself really anxious to get back outside running.  Jess and I did our marathon training runs on the treadmill last Friday, Saturday, and Monday and it was starting to get to my head.  Despite the Polar Vortex, we braved the cold on Wednesday morning and ran ~6 miles outside -- which is a whole mile further than we even had on the training plan, woops!

And then 3 miles on Friday morning, which had warmed up a bit, but we ran through snow and with a fresh blanket of snow on the roads.

What made the runs great wasn't the pace by any means -- although Jess did really help to keep me moving on Wednesday -- but just it felt great to challenge the weather and do something that others thought was "insane" and feel good about it.  This week I reread the blog a couple of my friends wrote when they were marathon training and I was excited reading their posts about the euphoric, insanely blissful happy feelings that come with pushing yourself to new distances, challenges, and going somewhere you hadn't been before.  So far, my run distances have all been something I've tackled before.  And I haven't been able to really challenge my pace because of the icy, snowy, cold weather.  I've missed that "badass" feeling that I get when I prove to myself I can do something.  The runs this week helped to bring that feeling back.

(But hey, helping to maintain weight loss doesn't hurt, right??)

- That brings me right into my next point... I've been battling a little bit with my desire to step on the scale.  I know that my weight isn't where I want it to be right now based on how my clothes are fitting.  Monday wasn't the only day of the week that my outfits were a bit uncomfortably snug.  However, I am feeling positive with where I am running and eating wise, so I am scared of how stepping on the scale will affect that.  Usually it puts me into a scary spiral of being upset with myself -- but it also jump starts me to be a bit healthier.  However, I have some travel that makes it really hard to stay on track and I am scared to have that self-hate going on at the same time that I am facing events (travel) that I know will be challenging.  Plus, the changes in my diet lately have been challenging enough, so trying to maintain that is something I really want to focus on and then try to figure out how to make it a bit healthier.  I'm not sure what to do and am just scared to let the weight gain get out of control.  I legit noticed dust bunnies on my scale this morning!

- Finally, for a blog that originally started about cooking and eating and food -- I have written very, very little about the major change in my diet that I made starting January 1, 2014.  That is partly because I am a bit embarrassed by it.  Starting on the first of the year, I started eating a gluten free diet.  This embarrasses me a little bit because I don't want to be seen as someone jumping on the "gluten free saves all" bandwagon that has happened a bit over the past couple of years.  I decided to try this as an experiment to see how it affects my body's ability to fight a medical condition.  I have done a lot of reading that says people have results with a gluten free diet, and a gluten intolerance runs in my family (my sister has celiac disease.)  Although I test negative for celiac, I decided to try the gluten free diet myself.  I have committed to one month of gluten free and I will see what results I am having and make a decision moving forward from there.

I am not doing this for weight loss.  In fact, I think I might be gaining a pound or two from this diet -- which is probably due to my own mental stupid decision making.  Because I mentally tell myself I am not eating as much carbohydrates as I usually do, I think it's okay to do dumb stuff like eat an entire box of cookies.  And why did I even buy those stupid cookies in the first place?  I don't buy Oreos normally. Yet, I felt that because they are gluten free Oreos I should?  Stupid.  I know that gluten free foods often have more fat and calories than their non-gluten versions because they've got to compensate!  So, yeah, I am really working to get that under control.

This week I had a number of outings and work meals that challenged the gluten free diet.  Luckily, many restaurants have options and I ate gluten free pasta, pizza, wine, and cider all the live long day.  Again, I need to work to get that under control.  Would I normally eat pizza two days in a row?  No way in the world!  But I felt because it was a "gluten free" version I was entitled to it.  I need to figure out how to manage this, but right now, I am still adjusting to the gluten free lifestyle so I am giving myself a slight pass.

Wednesday night's dinner: gluten free pasta.

The next 24 hours will be a challenge as I am headed to one of my favorite places in the world, that also happens to be the home to terrible decision making when it comes to food.  My alma mater, Syracuse!!!  Some day, I will tell you the story about one of the nights that goes down in bad eating hall of fame.  However, right now, I have to go finish getting dressed and jump in the car for the 2 hour drive to go meet up with one of the loves of my life to cheer on Cuse as they play UNC.  It will be interesting to be in the Carrier Dome without a beer and nachos in hand.  But we'll figure it out, right?

Happy weekend everyone, enjoy what's left of the polar vortex and let's go Orange!!!!!!!!!