Happy Monday! Thanks to Katie for hosting this MARVELOUS link up every week!

 

I have a lot to tell you guys about! But first-who’s enjoying the holidays?? I know I am! 

Saturday morning began with a nice long run. I did 10 miles- I can’t remember the last time I did a long run! It was nice to run back by the bay.

It was surprising to see the hill I run by that was brown all summer be green!

The first half of the run was much faster than the second-at the halfway point, my achilles tendon starting hurting quite a bit. Plus, it’s been a while since I’ve done any long distance running! I also tried salted caramel gu for the first time! It was so good! I would definitely recommend it-but it was not great for me personally-I’m not sure if it’s because my allergies have been bad lately, but I absolutely could not eat it without a coughing fit. I think I have issues with thinner goos-my normal chocolate is pretty thick and maybe not so sugary? 

Another issue I had with my run was getting too hungry. I had a slightly smaller than usual pre-run breakfast, plus I didn’t get out of the house as quickly as I had hoped, so I totally ran out of gas by the end of the run.

My post run meal was a beautiful salad with avocado and whole wheat macaroni and cheese.

Later that evening, my best friends from high school came over for our annual cookie decorating tradition.

I made a basic sugar cookie recipe, but this time I substituted whole wheat pastry flour for while flour. The flavor was a tiny bit different but I didn’t mind, and I definitely felt less gross after eating them.

I think we did an especially nice job decorating this year-maybe because I spent so long on my annual #1 turkey, and my friends are much more artistic than me.

 

One thing I want to touch on is balance. I know I’ve talked about it so much already, but I want to go a little more in depth. First of all, despite posting pictures of tons of delicious desserts, I promise I’m still eating my veggies! They just never seem to make it to the blog this time of year! Second-if you want to eat mass quantities of cookies and still feel great, long runs are awesome-my body just burned through those cookies and I woke up feeling great the next morning!

There are so many articles constantly in your face about “avoiding the holiday weight gain” and “stay healthy over the holidays.” As someone who normally gains a ton of weight between Christmas and New Year’s, I have my own set of tips for you, because for me, this year has been different. Want to avoid the holiday fluff? The best way is to just not worry about it! Don’t deprive yourself, and eat what you want to. That’s what I’m doing this year, and I haven’t gained an ounce. Why? Because if you constantly are worried about gaining weight, food will carry so much stress. I will freely admit I had a couple of sugar induced meltdowns last year-and I could barely enjoy the season! But now that I’m not trying to restrain myself from sweets? I’m finding myself eating fewer, getting more enjoyment out of them, and feeling awesome.

And you know what? When you stop trying so hard-you put less weight on your food choices. At least for me-I’ve been able to enjoy the holidays much more. I ate a ton of cookies with my friends. But I didn’t feel bad. I enjoyed the cookies and had a great times with amazing people-I wasn’t blindly eating them out of some built up craving. I enjoyed every single bite. 

And while you’re at it, try to focus on the most important things-family, cats, friends, traditions. I think many people would be surprised to find that food gets a lot less significant.

But let’s get back to friends. Check out what one of my friends gave me!

Twins!

For breakfast in the morning, my mom made blueberry scones, which I paired with scrambled eggs and tea. 

We took the train up to the city, and must have all been a little tired because we missed our stop by two stops-luckily it was easy to get back on!

Either way, we all were ready for some caffeine upon arriving in San Francisco.

Visiting the shelter cats at Macy’s was a must. There were 3 that looked like Charlie!

And of course we needed a picture by the tree.

The only bad thing about running 10 miles before spending a day walking around the city and a mall? My feet hated me, and were hurting SO much. It was not good.

Lunch was a giant salad with chicken, avocado, and bleu cheese.

 

And a late afternoon pick me up, split between the three of us.

Since the sundae was more or less at dinner time, I only had a small serving of chili when I returned home. My mom even threw some kale in the chili-so proud of her!

In other news, the Crossfit WOD this morning was 12 days of Christmas-a different exercise for each day, and then the workout goes through as the song goes. It was brutal and much harder than I was expecting-a lot more cardio too! I didn’t end up finishing under the time cap of 32 minutes!

Then, I went straight down to my school gym to torture take my sister and her boyfriend through a weights workout. I may have mentioned this before, but my sister wants me to teach weight training to the school quidditch team in exchange for fresh green juice, so today I tested out the workout. I’m glad I tested it out because we had to make some modifications, but it was so much fun! It made me realize how knowledgable I’ve become about weight lifting. They are going to be sore tomorrow! And her boyfriend is crazy athletic-when they ran a marathon together, he wasn’t even sore the next day! So if 26.1 miles won’t do it but I can, that’s an accomplishment!

And they did deliver on their promise:

Have a great holiday everyone!

What is most important to you this time of year?