Day 4 on South Beach, and What's Next?

This thought has been running (hah) through my mind lately: What's next?

I couldn't have hoped for a better running season. I hit all of my PR goals: my fastest marathon (my first, but still), my fastest 5K, and my fastest half marathon all happened within 6 weeks of each other. After the first two PR's, I was convinced I couldn't hit the third. Surely I couldn't be that "lucky". But sure enough, I did it.

I realized it doesn't have anything to do with luck. Looking back at my calendar, I put in the time and work. I woke up at 5am to get my training run in before a 10 hour rehearsal. I ran 20 miles the morning of a show. I went outside and ran when I didn't want to. I pushed my speed when I wanted to slow down. I fought my way to get those PRs, and I'm so grateful that I did.

On the surface, we've got The Holidays: Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and New Year's. We have The Date: May 3rd. And after that, I won't really be back in town until June. So that means no races, no musicals, and no real attainable goals to fulfill until the 6th month of next year, at the earliest. What do I do until then?

For The Date, I want to lose weight. Any bride does. My dress is a fit-and-flare, emphasis on the FIT. I guess that's why we decided to try South Beach - to try and cut down on the amount of weight we'd gain during the holiday season.

Today was a little less snack-y- maybe that's good? But I also just need to eat more vegetables. Today was a lot of fat and cheese.

A slightly different picture of the eggs I ate this morning (3 again)

I decided to try a recipe I found on the South Beach website - Beef and Bean Chili. Now, apparently you aren't supposed to eat any more than 1/3 to 1/2 a cup of beans on any given day in Phase 1, but I clearly failed at that yesterday, and I kind of clearly failed it today as well.

Chili in the slow cooker

YUM

Sooo good

But I must say, the chili was damn worth it! It said the recipe gave 4 1.5 cup servings, but it looks like I only really have two servings left. I didn't have enough beef (it was left over from the tacos we made on Monday), but it still wasn't soup-y, thanks to the tomatoes. Also I'm not supposed to have a lot of tomatoes... oh well.

 Since my carrots were taken away.. I ate celery with my hummus, and it wasn't bad.

Hummus and 2 celery sticks - they were the longest stalks I've ever seen, had to crop more than half of them out of the picture!

Below you'll find a picture of the cauliflower crust pizza we made - it was okay. Not as crispy as either of us would have liked, but granted we only cooked the cauliflower at 400 rather than the recommended 450. We topped it with mozzarella cheese, the last of the pizza sauce we had, and sausage! We split the pizza, and each half was 350 calories (some single slices of pizza are that caloric!!).

Pizza before

Pizza after!

Then I had a fudgsicle. (I had to check three times if I spelled that right.) I didn't have one last night, but I've had one to cap off each of the previous nights. Sooo fudgy and yummy! No picture, because they disappear too fast.

Today I feel much better, about the same as yesterday. I kind of feel full, even! A little energized but not so much that I wanted to join JW at the gym tonight. I did go to yoga this afternoon, though, so at least I exercised some.

Anyways, after South Beach it'll be to Dallas for Christmas and New Year's, and then it's back to Bellevue on January 7th. I guess I could run just to maintain my fitness, but running is unfortunately starting to feel like a burden. Maybe I won't run after this 5K this Saturday - maybe that'll be my break, and in its place I'll do yoga. I'll figure something out, but I don't quite know just yet.

I'm feeling a little uneasy about not having a set goal in mind, but I'm trying not to stress out about it too much - I've got enough stressful things to worry about :)

Anything stressing you out at the moment?