Yikes, my last blog written was on my birthday!

Its been so long since Ive blogged. 2 months and 2 weeks! Since I last blogged, I didnt run for weeks on end, and my family became vegan.

Right around Christmas, my treadmill broke. I CHOSE not to run outside thru the winter weather, (I.E excuses), but kept up with strength training with an array of Jillian Micheals DVD. Dont hate. She offers an INTENSE variety of workouts :-)

Around the same time of starting to run over the past summer, I also began an interest in cooking. I absolutely love food, and cooking. To be perfectly clear, I think the notion of "Eat to live" is ridiculous. I am totally on Team "Live to Eat". And not in the junk food way. Food is essential to life. It should be enjoyed. To make people, cooking and food is their form of art. Expression. I have recently dipped my toe in this pool. I love to make yummy, delicious food.
Of course, this love has always had consequences. Calories. Weight. Will power to resist often. Thus, its been a love/hate battle between weight and food.
Which eventually brings me to an episode of Oprah I saw with Michael Pollen and Kathy Freston. To sum it up: KNOW where you food comes from; be aware of how meat and dairy get to your local grocery store; there are numerous advantages to become vegan (not eating meat or dairy). I am intrigued. I use my swagbucks to order Kathy Freston's book, Veganist from Amazon. In the mean time, I research "veganism" obnoxiously on line. You mean, people dont NEED to eat meat?? I cook chicken and beef all week, because I think I HAVE to for nutrtion! And dairy?? Dairy nearly poisons our bodies?? 75% of people are lactose intolerant because we shouldnt be drinking another species milk?!
Then Veganist arrived. And my whole outlook on food and nutrition changed. I turned around and ordered Thrive (a vegan Ironman's journey), The Kind Diet, Vegan On the Cheap (a cook book), and An Idiot's Guide to Raising Vegan Children. I read a lot. And many myth's and personal beliefs were debunked. So we have been vegan for several weeks now, and its gone amazingly well. No complaints from the kids or Chris!
But, there will be many tangent blogs re: veganism to come, Im sure.

In more exciting news! My parents were AWESOME, and passed on their treadmill to me! So I started Couch 2 5k for the second time last week! This is very exciting to me :-) My plan is to do the local Haunted Halloween Half Marathon.
Life is good :-)