Virginia Is For Health Nuts

Ski Season Begins!!

2010-11-03T19:56:00.000-07:00

Hey All!!

Sorry for the long hiatus, midterm season has gotten the best of me but Alexis and I have made a renewed committment so get ready for a lot of new posts coming at you soon!

Skiiiii Season has officially begun and I am pretty damn excited! As many of you know, I am a raised Colorado girl and as the stereotype goes, I am enamored with the sport of skiing. I began to ski at the age of three although I was riding on my dad's back while he carved up the mountain since I could stand. Growing up skiing every winter and living in Colorado, the mountains became central to my consciousness and a symbol of everything good, happy, and free.

I have been blessed to be able to ski at some of the best resorts in North America including Snowbird, The Canyons, Whistler, Sqaw, Northstar, and Deer Valley, among many others. However my ski heart will always rest in the Vail resorts of Vail, Beaver, Breckinridge, Keystone, and Arapahoe Basin.

Arapahoe Basin opened up last weekend and Keystone will be opening up this weekend so all you Colorado readers, who I am always so incredibly jealous of this time of year, get your bums to the slopes!!

I will post more on my love obsession with skiing later but I wanted to leave you with a list of ten things I love about skiing to either get you excited for this year's ski season or convince you that if you have never skied before that you are missing out on an indescribaly remarkable experience!

10 Things I Love About Skiing

1. Conquering a new run that made your heart race when you first looked upon it
2. Finding the perfect line down a mogul run
3. Being the first one to ski the cordoroy behind an army of cats
4. Powder day
5. New ski gear
6. Knowing that you are so much cooler than all the snowboarders
7. Being the first/last one on the mountain so you can make big turns all the way down
8. Bowls and chutes... oh ya
9. Hot chocolate and chili in the lodge with family and people you love
10. Feeling like nothing else in the world matters besides bringing your skis around

Sincerely yours,

Shelby

My Obsession with Electrolytes

2010-10-28T16:19:00.000-07:00

If you know me you may know I've got quite a complex about hydration. If I haven't had a full eight glasses of water in a day, along with some form of electrolytes I do not go to bed feeling healthy. While I've always been told by fellow runners and other athletes that it is very important to consume electrolytes, especially when exercising for long periods of time. I decided it was about time I figure out why the heck electrolytes are so important in prevent dehydration. So here it goes...

What are Electrolytes?

In chemistry terms, an electrolyte is a substance that contains free ions which makes the substance itself electrically combustible. Muscle tissue and neurons are electric tissues in the body that require electrolytes. Muscle contraction requires various electrolytes, and without a sufficient amount will lead to muscle weakness or even severe muscle contractions. In non-science genius terms, electrolytes are essential to maintaining hydration to all parts of the body.

Sodium and potassium salts are important for replenishing levels of water and electrolytes after dehydration cause by exercise, a night of too much drinking, diarrhea, vomiting, etc.

You don't need to down pricey sports drinks all of the time to maintain proper levels of electrolytes. You can make your own sports drink at home! The following recipe has a 6.2% within 2 liters of water.

10 tbs. sugar (5/8 cups or 120 grams)
.75 tsp Sea salt (4.2 grams) or Morton’s lite
1 package of unsweetened Koolade mix for flavor
Water to make 2 liters

It's really important when consuming electrolyte replacements though to include all the electrolytes your body requires: sodium chloride, potassium, magenisum, and calcium. All of these are available in sports drinks like Gatorade and Powerade.

Electrolytes are also found in some foods many of us eat all the time:

Exhaustion is related to dehydration, so it makes sense that when we are tired we crave water and foods and drinks rich in electrolytes.

That's all I've got for now. Happy Halloween everyone!

-Alexis

Alexis' Camping Adventure Part II

2010-10-20T12:54:00.000-07:00

My second camping trip of Fall Break was definitely more of a roughin' it experience than our trip to Lake Sherando. Bryant and I headed off to Paul's Creek to explore some natural water slides. We hiked about half a mile in to the creek where there were about 5 sets of slides created by the running water of the creek.

I somehow managed to get down 2 of them, despite it being freezing and really slippery. Good thing I had my handy water shoes to make it down.

"Yeahhh water slides yeahh."

Our sliding adventure was halted as we began to notice that due was soon becoming night and it was time to find a place to make camp. The trees made the evening much darker than expected so we had to find our way in the dark with one flashlight. There is never a better lesson to be prepared than actually not being prepared.

Not to worry we eventually found some ground to call home for the night. Bryant got cracking on making a fire and despite our efforts and my addition of various leaves, the fire was not maintained but our one flashlight and little propane tank provided enough light for the night.

Wolfgang Puck goes into the wild:

Pretty changing leaves we woke up to.

All in all a successful camping trip round 2. Can't wait to see what other adventures lie ahead.

We're Alive/CAMPING

2010-10-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

We're alive we promise. School has taken over and our free time is spent trying to fit runs in and making time for friends, etc. Enough for excuses, blogging will be coming back full force. The past month that I have not been blogging, I have already noticed a depletion in health. My addiction to mini Reeses has returned and it's killing me.

Anywho, Shelby and I were able to have spend some serious outdoor time with our good friends last weekend during Fall Break.

We left the planning to our good friend and Charlottesville native, Skylar:

In retrospect, that may not have been the best option considering his choice of eye wear. JUST KIDDING. Thank goodness for Skylar things went much smoother than would have happened if we had gone solo.

We trekked west to the Shenandoah Valley to Lake Sherando.

Shelby was pumped.

After setting up camp, we headed out on a 4 hour hike to Three Ridges. Eager to get to the finish, I found myself practically sprinting to the top. I managed to find some downtime with my girls on this here rock:

The hike was totally worth it. Can you believe these views? I napped mountain top until everyone dragged me back down the mountain.

And then the camera died...

Oh well. We went for a very quick swim in the Lake after the hike. We're talking REAL quick as the water was about 40 degrees. The rest of the night was spent huddled around the campfire. Skylar made me a gluten-free friendly camping meal of a burger topped on hashbrowns. Delicious.

Our attempts to make breakfast were short run, so we headed out to a Charlottesville staple the Tavern on the way back to UVa.

The camping trip was definitely a success. I loved it so much I went back out the next day to some natural water slides right outside Charlottesville. Look for a post about that to come. Miss you all and be sure to stay tuned to more posts in the future!

My First Half Marathon!

2010-09-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

Hey all!

Its Shelby. I am so sorry it has taken me so long to post about my first 1/2 marathon but here it is!

Alexis already described our many ups and downs trying to get to the race. but the morning of I was starting to get pretty nervous. I had not gotten as much sleep as I probably should of the Thursday and Friday before and then Saturday night I was so nervous about not being able to sleep that I ended up not really being able to sleep. Regardless, I knew this was the day and I just had to make the most of my energy. We woke up around 5 and I wanted to make sure that I stopped eating and drinking an hour before the race so I munched on a peanut butter and jelly Larabar and a banana while I was getting ready. By 5:30 we were out the door and driving to the race!

Despite our many parking mishaps we made it to the start of the race about ten minutes before it started. Seeing all the people there was both exhilarating and extremely intimidating. Having Mary there by my side (it was her third!) was definitely a huge relief. As the carrels moved up, my heart started to race faster and faster. Finally we were up and after a 1,2,3 countdown we were off.

The first two miles I was just adjusting to all the things to see around me. Between the bands they had set up on almost every corner to the cheerleading squads, to thousands of volunteers and runners around me, it was a lot to take it. However for me, it is the beginning of the race which I dislike the most. I would much rather be in the 10th mile going through the pain then in the 3rd mile, awaiting the inevitable pain. I told myself that if I could just make it to mile 5, without any cramps or pains, then I could find my groove to finish the race. Soon enough Mary and I made it to the mile 5 marker and we were both feeling pretty good. It was in about the 7th or 8th mile however that I finally started to gain my confidence and strength. I was surprised by this because everyone was telling me that this was usually the hardest part of the race for them but between mile 7 and 11 was when I was enjoying myself the most.

By this time the people were more spread out and instead of everyone trying to pass and work around each other, it turned into more of this collective energy where all the runners were on the same team- I can't even count the number of encouraging and inspiring remarks I got. Let's just say I fell in love with running races in that time.

Mile 12 and 13 were long and I was definitely starting to feel the pain, but knowing you only had such a short distance to go and all the people around you cheering, stopping is not one of things you are thinking about it. Plus the last mile was on the beach! It was absolutely beautiful. When I saw the finish line, I sprinted as fast as I could for the last 200 hundred feet and looked around and couldn't believe that I had just finished my first half marathon!

My goal was to finish before 2 hours and 10 minutes and I ended up with a time of 2 hours and 5 minutes so I was pretty psyched! After training all summer, I had finally done what I had been working so hard for and it felt great!

I realized though that it is important to focus on your own accomplishments when it comes to running. With thousands of people there running a half marathon, many of them a lot faster and stronger than you, sometimes you can downplay your accomplishment. But running, at least for me, has never been about beating out other people or trying to prove myself to anyone else- it is about facing myself and trying to push myself farther and faster than I did before. You have to celebrate your accomplishments, especially when you worked hard to achieve them.

On that note, my eyes are now on the Richmond Half! As promised, I will be posting my training schedule for that soon! I think the VA Beach Half Marathon has crafted a race running addict ;)

Happy almost weekend!

-Shelby

Sunday Recharge

2010-09-13T22:30:00.000-07:00

Hello all!

After a crazy weekend of foam parties, philanthropies, and birthdays, Mary, Ana, and I decided that a relaxed night of cooking for ourselves was just what we needed!

I headed over to Mary and Ana's sorority house and since they had a ton of veggie burgers in their fridge, we decided to build our dinner around that. We took to the local Harris Teeter to pick up some spinach, sprouts, and beautiful red and yellow tomatoes. Once we got back, all it took was a little grilling of the veggie burgers, cutting up the tomatoes and finally, putting it all over the spinach. To add some more flavor we seasoned it with salt and pepper and added some olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

Needless to say, we finished every bite...

This delicious meal plus a Sex and the City episode was all I needed to re-focus for the week! I took it pretty easy on the running last week but this week I plan to start training again, this time for the Richmond Half Marathon!! I am going to try to set out my training schedule tomorrow so stayed tuned for that! Also Mary and I are going to be making one of our favorite blogger's famous Green Monster smoothie this week and of course I will be posting all about my first half marathon!

Here's to Monday being over!

-Shelby

A Lovely Saturday in Charlottesville

2010-09-11T14:25:00.000-07:00

Hey all! Alexis here! Today Mary, Ana and I had a hankering for some frozen yogurt. So after a trip to the gym we headed downtown for some Sweet Frog. We spent the next couple of hours meandering down the mall and hitting up a nearby street fair. A trip to Cinema Taco may have occurred as well...

In classic Health Nut fashion, another photo montage:

Happy Saturday!

-Alexis

GF Dinner Party!

2010-09-11T06:47:00.000-07:00

Hellooo!!

Last night we all headed over to our friend JC's apartment for a lil' dinner party! I was very excited about this dinner, because JC has recently began a gluten-free diet as well. She has been able to cook a lot in her apartment this year, and has made some pretty delicious gluten-free meals. Last night was chicken and shrimp stir fry with GF teriyaki sauce and soy sauce (called Tamarin).

I helped with the shrimp...

Hello gluten-free stir fry heaven!

JC decided to appeal to the masses and make what looked to be a delicious dessert for everyone. Mint brownies! Ana helped with the frosting:

JC and I munched on some GF cookies I made.. but forgot to snap a pic! I will definitely be making this mix again... once the cookies cooled down they tasted better than a lot of cookies I used to devour pre-GF living.

Earlier this week I went to a screening of the documentary "Fresh." Keep a look out for a post all about the film!

Until then,

Alexis

Meet Mary!

2010-09-09T09:56:00.000-07:00

Get ready for another GUEST POST! Have a great weekend everyone!

-Alexis and Shelby

Hello Health Nuts! I’m so excited to be a guest blogger and share with you all about my experience so far as a vegetarian. I'm an avid runner, much like Alexis and Shelby. As you can see being active is definitely a huge part of our friendship!

Although I’d like to say my choice to eat Vegetarian was something that I had given plenty of thought and pondered for weeks on end, the truth is that after watching just one video narrated by Paul McCartney about the horrors of animal slaughterhouses (meat.org) and doing a little of bit of online researching of the lifelong health benefits, I decided I wanted to simply give vegetarianism a “test run”. As days of this “test run” turned into weeks and weeks into month, I can now proudly say that I have been a faithful Vegetarian for six months and am still going strong! (If you had told me this a year ago I would not have believed you).

I currently live with Alexis in our sorority house—a very vegetarian-friendly place. Our sorority’s new chef, Brian, provides a vegetarian option for every brunch, lunch, and dinner he prepares making it easier than ever for me! In addition, our kitchen is stocked with veggie burgers and other high protein, meatless foods like oatmeal, soymilk, and peanut butter.

Of the past six months, I have found these first few weeks of the fall semester to be the easiest for me due to the large number of healthy vegetarian options at my fingertips. In comparison with this past summer, when I worked as a camp counselor in New Hampshire, it is quite a relief to now be living in a place with so many great alternatives to meat. At camp I would find myself having a soy peanut butter sandwich for lunch multiple days in a row, not fun!

However, Brian is not around all the time and our sorority house is obviously not the only vegetarian-friendly place in Charlottesville. My new favorite veggie option when dining out is Rise Pizza. This quick-serve, locally owned restaurant in the Barracks Road Shopping Center of Charlottesville has everything from gluten-free pizza crust to the most well priced gourmet veggie pizzas and spinach salads that I have found at UVA! I have been to Rise four times already this semester, including one trip for dinner after the Virginia Beach Half-Marathon. The simple thought of Rise Pizza waiting for us made the traffic-filled trip go much faster! Not only is the food fantastic but Rise employees are super nice as well: When we thought Alexis had lost her ring in the Rise trash, the manager delved his bare hands into the bag where she had thrown her food away on a determined search to find it. A very accommodating bunch I’d say! Check out the menu for yourself: http://www.risepizzaworks.com/index.html

That's all for now. I hope to be doing lots more posts in the future here as I learn more about how my newfound vegetarianism has affected my health! Have a great weekend!

-Mary

Sixth Half-Marathon, Check!

2010-09-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody! I know I may have freaked some of my friends out with my Facebook status after the race, but I really felt it was a notch in my belt to finally run myself to the point where the medical tent was necessary!

My experience in my sixth half-marathon, and the second time doing the Virginia Beach Half-Marathon was far from ordinary. Upon waking up early last Saturday for our drive to Virginia Beach, I noticed the extreme cold that had come upon me. Despite a good 11 hours of sleep the night before I was feeling pretty awful. I did everything to shake it - cold medicine, Wellness Pills, Zicam, EmergenC, and at least 200 ounces of fluids throughout the day. I drank so much in an attempt to drink away the cold and hydrate for the next day. I had a steady mix of vitamin C drinks, different forms of electrolytes and lots of water. I try not to drink too much water the day before a race, as well as the morning of. After hydrating with so many electrolytes for race prep, you don't want to wash the electrolytes out of your system.

Shelby, Mary and I had an awesome drive out to Virginia Beach despite my sickness. We were on a mission to find a Qdoba for a pre-race lunch and eventually ended up at a real mall with an H+M, Forever 21 and California Pizza Kitchen. It was heavennn and much better than shopping in Charlottesville!

Upon arriving we headed to the convention center for the Health and Fitness Expo. This was Mary's first race outside of the Charlottesville Half Marathon and it was Shelby's first half-marathon, so it was pretty cool for them to see so many vendors and sponsors out there.

After picking up our packets we headed straight to the Larabar booth for free samples galore!

Then we went searching for running accessories!

Later on that night we checked into our hotel room in hopes of getting to sleep by about 8:30. It was only a dream though, as I somehow managed to lock the keys in the car. The AAA man came eventually but my stretching routine and pre-race shower were postponed until he arrived. I didn't get a very good night of sleep, mainly due to all the sniffling and coughing. This was probably the first sign that I should not have done the race the next day, but I was not going to let a stupid cold get in a way of the race.

The next morning we made our way from Norfolk to Virginia Beach, getting pumped as ever for 13.1.

When we got near the start, we encountered some more car drama - in the form of parking this time. Long story short, I founded myself sprinting about 8 blocks to a 7-11 for some cash and on the way back I started to feel very feverish and tired. This was sign number 2 that I should not have done the race.

Yes, I know I'm stubborn.

The race started off well. I started off in Coral 7 with an anticipated finish time of 1:55. My PR (personal record) is 1:57 at the Charlottesville Half. That race is incredibly hilly, so compared to the flatness of Virginia Beach I figured such a PR would be pretty easy to accomplish.

I was well on my way in the first couple of miles, hitting 9 minute splits with very little effort. And then once the first incline came about my cold really started to hit me. My sinuses were hating me, and it became a lot harder to breathe. Every time I tried to speed up, I began to feel very nauseated. The first 6 miles went pretty well, and if I could have kept up that pace I would have a good chance of finishing sub-2 hours. But my body was not ready for that, as I eventually need to take a couple of breaks. I'm estimating I stopped for at least 10 minutes. Mile 8 and 9 were by far the worst, and it was around then that I noticed a pain in my left ankle. This has happened a lot to me in the past with long distances so I didn't worry too much about it. The last three miles are usually the easiest for me - when my adrenaline kicks in and all I care about is crossing that finish line. Not this race. My body was completely exhausted and it really started to affect me. I remember feeling pretty delirious. At this point, adrenaline was not enough to get me sprinting across the finish. I kept at about a 10 minute mile pace for the last 2 miles.

I reached the finish at 2:19, a time I am not proud of. Accounting for the 10 minutes of rest, I was able to run the 13.1 in 2:09 technically. Even so, I'm proud of myself for finishing. It feels like a very different type of accomplishment, and made me feel really confident about my fitness being able to go to that distance while feeling that sick.

After the race, I meandered around for about 20 minutes looking for Mary and Shelby. I eventually decided to sit down for a second and give my legs a rest, hoping they would find me. And then I collapsed. About 25 minutes later I woke up, with a person sitting next to me telling me I should head over to the medical tent. I disagreed and found myself myself attempting to walk over to look for Mary and Shelby at the car. 30 seconds I was back down on the ground. I got the strength to get back and went over to the medical tent.

I recall slurring my words and not making much sense of the situation, so excuse me if this sounds a bit hazy. I told a volunteer there that I was not feeling well and felt very faint.

His response: "We can't help you."

"Are you serious? I don't know what to do."

"There is no doctor here that can help you."

"Is this not the freaking medical tent? Isn't this your job?"

Eventually a woman came to "help" me. Without really listening to my symptoms or even asking about a medical history, she just gave me a salt packet and told me to leave.

I'm extremely disappointed and this experience really makes me question whether or not I should continue doing races on a bigger scale with soooo many participants. Running such long distances puts a lot of stress on your body that can cause just about anything to happen. The volunteers at the medical tent at this Rock n' Roll race were so unhelpful, and quite rude. I totally understand how stressful caring for tons of runners with various injuries and ice requests. But this was different. I'm quite apprehensive about running in Rock n' Roll races in the future because of this, so hopefully I'll eventually be convinced otherwise!

Soon after, Mary and Shelby found me crying to my momma by the car... and were quick to cheer me up. We headed back to the hotel for showers and made our way back to Charlottesville in time to get some time in at the library. Post race meals were Mo's and Rise Pizza (gluten-free for me!).

I've been still fighting this cold the past few days.. my body was totally out of whack on Monday. Luckily I haven't been too sore since the race, so I think that shows that my body is in good fitness and ready for that distance. I did a nice long strength workout tonight, and was able to increase my weight on the squats- good sign my legs are recovering well!

I'm going to be taking a vitamin C drink supplement several times a day in order to ramp up my immune system so I'll be able to tackle school and upcoming races with ease. We're two weeks away from the Pepsi 10K here in Charlottesville and then it's time to PR at RICHMOND!!!

Sorry for the long time in between posts everyone. I'm really trying to make blogging a part of my routine so please keep following and giving us feedback. We love it!

And one last thing: CONGRATULATIONS SHELBY! One half-marathon down, lots more to go!

-Alexis

Study Break!

2010-08-31T16:15:00.000-07:00

So after our big weekend for Kelly's Birthday, it was ready to hit the books and the library!

Last night, a big group of us meet at the library, and I tried to conquer some of the pages and pages of reading I had been assigned for the week. As I was studying, I started to notice how hungry I was and it was becoming extremely distracting to my focus. I then began to think how hard it often is for college students to stay on a normal eating schedule of just breakfast, lunch, and dinner when we are on crazy hours with classes, studying, and going out. I usually like to study later at night, especially when I have late classes the next day but eating dinner at 5:30 or 6:00 just isn't going to give me the energy to keep studying until 12:00 or 1:00, or even 2:00 in the morning. So today I resolved to find some snacks that are both healthy and easy for studying late or whenever you need a little pick me up.

1. Hummus and pita chips

This one is one of my favorite, mostly because I would eat hummus everyday if I could. It is also super easy if you just buy your favorite brand of hummus and pita chips at the grocery store. My favorite is Sabre, which also comes in mini hummus packets, perfect for packing!

Also if you have the time and are feeling chefy- then you can make your own hummus. Here is a DIY hummus recipe that I found:

1 15 oz can of chickpeas, well rinsed

1/2 teaspoon salt
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1/4 cup tahini
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice, fresh-squeezed

Drain and rinse the chickpeas thoroughly. Blend all of the above ingredients in a food processor or blender until very smooth.

Happy hummusing!

2. Almond butter and anything!

Almond butter is basically a health nut staple and you can combine it with so many things. Some of the things I am thinking would be celery, bananas, and apples but feel free to be creative! Almond butter I am into is 365 almond butter.

3. Chips, yes chips

Now I am surely not advocating Dorritos or Cheese Puffs but there is nothing wrong with some more healthy chips as a snack. Try to choose more veggie based chips. Although just because they say veggie on them doesn't mean that they are necessarily healthy- some veggie chips are made with mostly potatoes and just sprinkled with other veggie flavoring. Instead make sure that you are buying veggie chips that have real veggies (other than potatoes inside them). Ones you should definitely try are Terra Chips and Jensen's Orchard Veggie Chips.

4. Bars!

If you are super lazy and just want something quick, compact, and easy- there is always the miracle of the bar. Beware also of bars. I think it is important to have both a combination of fruit and nut. Make sure they are all natural. Bars to definitely check out are KIND Fruit plus Nut Bar and my all-time favorite, (I have met the owner of the company!) Larabars.

Well that is all the snack recipes I can think for you right now but for as an extra bonus here is a picture I grabbed of Alexis munching down on some natural, organic peanut butter and a banana at the library last night!

Yay Lex!

On a side note- in addition to studying and trying to figure out ways to snack healthily, I am preparing for my first half marathon this Sunday! I am going to go get some Gu from the local running shop tomorrow so I can see how my body reacts running on it before I use on race day. Also just trying to hydrate myself and stay super healthy this week!

Happy snacking!

-Shelby

Eating Healthy, Srat Style

2010-08-30T12:57:00.000-07:00

Hey all! The past week and weekend have been crazy but everything is finally starting to settle down.

One of our best friends Kelly turned 21 this past weekend and it was filled with non-stop celebrating! We started the weekend off with dinner at a nearby Mexican restaurant where I legitimately stuffed my face with guacamole and chips to the point that there was no room in my stomach for anything else. Definitely not my healthiest moment, but delicious nonetheless.

Then Friday we headed out to Kluge Vineyards in Charlottesville for a little wine tasting! It was quite the experience as we became friends with a frenchman named Gregory who knew almost an unhealthy amount about wine.

We tried a range of wines from their staple Viogner to their "Simply Red." They also had an awesome Rosé that we enjoyed for the rest of the afternoon.

It was such a beautiful area and a nice getaway from the hectic week at UVa. We'll definitely be heading back there.

Heck even if we're not wine tasting I'll be happy dancing around in the fields!

I wanted to write about what it's been like to keep up a healthy lifestyle while living in a sorority house with a kitchen full of snacks. We have a new chef at our house this year who has been very accommodating to a gluten-free diet, but the snacks in the kitchen are not. This is probably a good thing, because I would eating a diet consisting of animal crackers and grilled cheeses if I did not have this limitation. Instead I've been all about the apples or bananas with peanut butter, peaches, yogurt, and Cinnamon Life cereal (which is daaa best!).

The toughest thing though are breakfasts. I have early morning classes four days a week that last for almost three hours. So there is a definite need to get to class full, yogurt and granola doesn't seem to do the trick anymore. My meetings with Rob, the nutritionist from San Diego, taught me a lot about fueling for the day. Animal protein is the best way to do so and to stay full. So I've been scrambling some eggs or just heating up some pre-cooked sausage links. I had some more time this morning to make a bigger meal, so I decided on a scramble with tomatoes and avocado and sausage. I was full until lunch!

Also, the other struggle is eating out while at school. Like I've talked about before, avoiding gluten allows me to do choose healthier options. That is until I discovered Rise Pizza which makes a gluten-free crust. After two nights of staying out WAY past my bedtime, this pizza has been the cure at the time but is definitely not the healthiest option. For the most part I've been able to choose healthier options like salads and turkey burgers while out for dinner.

That's all for now! This is our last week before the Virginia Beach Half-Marathon next weekend! Hopefully it will be much cooler there because it has been hot hot hot in Charlottesville (at a current 98 degrees Fahrenheit).

-Alexis

Back in Action

2010-08-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

Wowwwwww I didn't even realize how long it had been since my last post! YIKES.

I'm alive and well, I promise. It's been a very very hectic week. From work training, to moving in, to sorority stuff, to school stuff; it's all makin' my head explode! But not to worry, now that I'm getting my routine down everything is going fine and dandy.

The flight back to Charlottesville went well. Instead of reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy like I had promised myself I would do, I watched about 4 episodes of the West Wing. Yes, I am addicted. I had a layover in Atlanta on the way to Cville, where I was determined to find the Qdoba in one of the terminals. Qdoba had been my last meal in this very airport before departing for Lima for six weeks earlier this summer, so it seemed appropriate to finish the circle.

The meal was pretty pleasant. I was in the international terminal, feeling jealous of all the adventures my co-food court attendees were headed on. My coolness decreased tremendously when I dropped the rest of my naked burrito on my lap, but a friendly pilot helped me clean.

The next day I headed off to Poplar Ridge, a high ropes area at UVa. I went with the other Facility Supervisors from the AFC for some good old team bonding. I got to face my fear of heights on the big swing. The iPhone pictures aren't too amazing but still cool nonetheless!

Those first two days in Charlottesville were all about work and seeing friends! Then it was time to start moving into my sorority house. It's been crazyyyyyy so far and I will be sure to post pictures of me and Mary's cute new room when it's all finished up.

So far I have had two days in the Comm School, and let me tell you those people know how to intimidate poor impressionable 3rd year students. But I've loved everything we have learned so far and am really excited about the upcoming two years.

Last night, Shelby and Kelly ventured to one of my favorite restaurants in Charlottesville. Sticks specializes in kabobs that you can get as a platter, in a sandwich, or on a salad.

I went for the shrimp kabobs and sesame beans. And mango lemonade. AMAZING.

Kell went for gazpacho and sesame beans (we love these beans).

And Shelb went crazy for her falafel sandwich.

It's been a lot harder here at school to stay gluten-free, but luckily the new chef at our sorority has been really helpful catering to this request. All the free lunches I have been getting at orientations have been great, but I find myself constantly plucking out the insides and just munching on meat and cheese. It will get better over time when I have all the restaurants in Charlottesville mapped out. We did discover a gluten-free pizza crust at a new restaurant called Rise Pizza that tastes amazingggg and will become a regular occurrence for me.

It's time for me to do a lotta reading! Sorry for being such a bad blogger. Look out for a post soon about the best music to exercise to!

-Alexis

Just What Momma Said: All Things in Moderation

2010-08-23T14:30:00.001-07:00

As I have spent the summer discovering what it means to eat healthy, I have been searching for my diet niche. What is the word to describe how I eat, what I avoid, or why I eat the way I do? Am I vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, no-dairy, or only organic? The more I searched and the more I experimented in my diet, the more I seemed to find that I could not adhere to any named restrictions and obligations, although I do believe in many of their fundamentals. It is funny that after an entire summer of searching for my diet niche, I ended up right back to what my mother has been trying to teach me since I was three years old: moderation.

Vegetarian. My interest with a vegetarian diet came about when one of my best friend’s Mary decided that she wanted to try out eating vegetarian. She had seen a disturbing video on the production of meat and the treatment of the animals. Much to my hesitation, she showed me the video and that night we both decided we would spend the week refraining from meat. We both lasted the week, but after that I found it too hard to deny myself meat altogether and pretty much went back to my pre-video meat consumption except I still always thought twice before consuming it. Mary discovered that this was something that she both felt passionately about and something that she enjoyed (she will be posting about her reasons to go vegetarian later!). As the summer went on, I kept running into books, essays, and articles about the benefits of a vegetarian diet. I have finally come to believe that we has humans don’t need to eat the amount of meat that we on average do, that the majority of the meat industry has turned into an assembly line factory-like system with little regard to the quality of the meat, and that the treatment of the animals is both detestable and abhorrent. I do not however want to cut meat out of my life completely and I have therefore resolved to stick to eating around one vegetarian dish a day.

Gluten-free. I came across the idea of eating gluten-free when one of my good friends from home, Ashley, discovered that she was in fact gluten intolerant. Eating gluten wasn’t causing her body huge health problems but she constantly felt tired, groggy, and overall down. It was actually her acupuncturist who first told her that she had gluten intolerant. Once she took it out of her diet, she could not believe the difference it made in the way she felt. At the time I was convinced that if I wasn’t gluten intolerant, then it wasn’t something I needed to concern myself with. Then this past year I learned that Alexis too was gluten intolerant. The more I talked to her and Ashley about it, I began to realize that maybe there was something to be said for everyone cutting some gluten out of their diet. I haven’t fully come to figure out how this will play out in my daily diet but I am planning on doing a week without eating gluten and see if my body feels any differently.

No- dairy. The idea of refraining from dairy in one’s diet is still very new to me and I was really on introduced to the idea this summer after reading some different vegan blogs and bits from my good friend Ana (hopefully she will be posting soon!). The arguments I am attracted to for not consuming dairy would be the high caloric intake that often comes with dairy and coming from similar inhumane factories (or farms) that produce meat. I highly doubt that I will ever cut dairy out of my diet completely but I do try and watch how much dairy that I do it. It is very important to consume enough calcium in my diet, so I am very consciousness that if I am refraining from some dairy that I am replacing it with some other calcium source. One of my favorite and easiest ways to replace dairy while still keeping the calcium is to simply replace regular milk with soy milk.

Organic. As every health-conscious person, I am naturally drawn to the word organic on any food label or menu description. As a college student I am also naturally wary about the usual inflated price and critical of how organic something really is. Despite this, I do try to eat organic whenever possible because I believe in its importance to my health. Besides organic though, I also pay attention to food that has the word local attached to it. Often I would rather by food that is produced locally but not 100% organically than to buy food that is produced organically but has to be flown half way across the world. Also it is important to be critical of what a food company is claiming as organic. The word organic is often exploited and it is important to do a little investigating into the true nature of the production of some of your staple food items such as chicken, fruits, and vegetables. Overall I believe the simpler and more natural the production of my food is, the better it is for me.

It has taken twenty years and hundreds of thousands of meals to come back to what my mom has been trying to teach me all along: moderation. I will not completely deny my self much that I generally crave but I do have food and diet principles that I won’t compromise on account of gluttony. Food should never be something you see as evil or a burden (the day you do, a huge source of happiness has left your life) but rather it is something to love and enjoy. When you eat good and wholesome food, it becomes less about how many calories or carbs or fats there are and more about how many nutrients and vitamins and goodness is inside your delicious meal. I will leave this with a quote from one of the most famous and beloved chefs, Julia Child.

“Moderation. Small helpings. Sample a little bit of everything. These are the secrets of happiness and good health.”

Sweet Home Colorado

2010-08-18T23:25:00.000-07:00

I absolutely can not believe how fast my time at home as gone by. I will be leaving early Friday morning to fly back to Charlottesville but before I do, like Alexis, I wanted to give a run down of some of the many, many things I will miss about home:

Home- cooked meals like the one we had tonight- pork and peaches over arugula and balsamic vinegar... yummm!!

The beautiful Colorado Rockies. Enough said.

My favorite local restaurants like Wild Ginger!

Sitting on my back porch- I could never get enough of this view. It is my peaceful mind defined.

Red Rocks Amphitheater. The best concert venue, no competition.

My neighborhood lake, so many memories...

And a place would be nothing without people you care about. Most importantly are my family and friends of family that are pretty much family.

Sweet home Colorado, I will miss you dearly.

But I am so excited for all the adventures that lie ahead in Charlottesville! See you so soon Alexis!

-Shelby

Swim the Lake

2010-08-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

Hey all!

My days here in Colorado are winding down as well and I just couldn't leave without completing a neighborhood tradition- swimming around the lake!

I am lucky enough to have a lake in the middle of my neighborhood and it is the center of life for the people of the neighborhood, particularly during the summer. Although there is only a certain designated swimming area that the life-guards watch, if you are up for the adventure you can swim the buoys that lie around the lake for the sailboat races. And today my sister and I were up for the adventure!

I grew up swimming on my country club's swim team but I would never call myself a swimmer, so I was actually pretty nervous about swimming all the way around the lake (over a mile!). And indeed the swim around the first buoy was pretty rough- combination of some awful goggles, me still trying to crack jokes to my sister, and my complete inability to swim in a straight line lead to me looking, well, pretty pathetic. However after a goggle change out and a renewed focus, I settled into a rhythm. By the time we were closing in on the shore, I found myself wishing that I could go farther.

One of my biggest health weaknesses is that I have terrible upper body strength and I felt that swimming was a great way to work out my whole upper body. Swimming was also a nice alternative to running because it takes the pressure off your knees while still getting a good aerobic work-out. I don't know how much I will start incorporating swimming into my work-out regimen but I had so much fun with it today!

Much thanks to Peter, the life-guard that so kindly followed my sister and I in the life-guard boat making sure we didn't drown!

After the swim my dad and I went for a short run around the lake (so much for the no pressure on my knees) before we headed down to the beach for a family and friends picnic dinner. All the families brought a dish and it all looked so yummy!!

Between orzo salad, pasta salad, oriental salad, and kabobs, I couldn't decide what to get so naturally I just filled my plate up with everything!

Perfect way to spend one of my last days at home. Boy will I miss this place!

-Shelby

Things I Am Going to Miss...

2010-08-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

Heading back to school is always such a bittersweet ordeal for me, especially because I go to school so far away and don't get much of a chance to be home.

So here's a photo montage of all of the things I will be missing while back at UVa this semester.

Some of the best friends in the whole wide world. "Friends are like stars. You may not always see them but they are always there." Such a corny quote but so so true pertaining to these lovely ladies:

The pups:

My amazing and crazy parents who know how to dress their best for costume parties.

Copius amounts of heirloom tomatoes in all shapes and sizes:

Amazing conversations with my family at dinner:

I almost overdosed on scallops this past month.

FROZEN YOGURT is going to be missed the MOSTEST:

Wonderful concoctions my dad comes up with out of nowhere, making any good day even better. Ahi tuna tower aka YUM:

And of course, San Diego sunsets. It doesn't get much better than this.

There are billion things I am anxious for back in Charlottesville including seeing my bestest friends in the whole wide world, starting at the Commerce School, running some gorgeous trails, and getting back into the swing of things.

So long San Diego, it's now the homestretch back to good ole' UVa!

-Alexis

Portion Control? What's That?

2010-08-15T22:16:00.000-07:00

Don't freak out everyone, I'm not here to do a sermon about running. This time is a much simpler post in which all I will do is brag about the amazing food I've been devouring while home in San Diego.

First up, average bag lunch I take to work each day:

Now the salad marathon.

Tendergreens: Roasted chicken with avocado and tomatoes. Simple yet amazing.

Claire's on Cedros: Heirloom tomato salad with ricotta cheese and a homemade pesto along with a side of grilled chicken for some extra protein.

Neiman's Zodiac Restaurant: This dish called "Heart Couture" on the menu. It was a delish salad of lemon shrimp, roasted almonds, feta, quinoa, asparagus and tomatoes on a bed of romaine lettuce.

All of the salads are counteracted with meals like this, a feast my momma made for Amanda and I this morning. GLUTEN FREE PANCAKES DO EXIST! And taste even better when covered in bananas and filled with chocolate chips:

Butter art?

Tonight the fam headed to Market to celebrate my grandmother's birthday!

An amuse bouche of lemongrass/raspberry sorbet with mint and champagne grapes:

Grapefruit/Avocado/Goat Cheese salad (probably one of my favorite salads of all time):

Cabernet Short Ribs with Potato-Onion Puree, Corn Saute, and Chino Farms Tomatoes:

Happy Birthday Oma!!

All of these dishes are healthy, but BIG. When I get back to school I'm going to have to stop eating with my eyes, which happen to be a lot bigger than my stomach.

Only two-ish more days until I'm back in Charlottesville! Can't wait to write to you about living healthy college lifestyles when we're actually back at college.

-Alexis

Getting so high... 14,000 ft high that is

2010-08-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

Hey all!

So the big adventure began with a simultaneous wake-up call from both my dad and my cell phone at 4:45 am. It was almost too early to be tired so I pretty much hopped out of bed, threw on my clothes and my dad, my sister Jenna, my brother Gaines, and I were all in the car just a couple minutes after 5.

It took a little less than two hours to the base of the Kite Lake Trailhead, right outside of Alba, Colorado (the highest town in North America!). The mounts Democrat, Cameron (the official unofficial 14er), Lincoln, and Bross are located all right next to each other so the plan was to climb all four starting with Democrat.

Although pretty chilly and a little windy, the beginning of the hike started off well. The first challenge is making it up to the saddle between Democrat and Cameron. We made it up to the saddle without much difficulty but by the time we reached the saddle, the winds had really picked up and we even had to sit down and curl up a couple times. We however were determined to make it up the mountains so we trekked on up Democrat. We were encouraged by others coming down that it was less windy as you went up and got off the ridge. They were right and the hike up to Democrat was challenging of course, but overall pretty smooth. Step by step along the rocky trail, we eventually made it to the top of Democrat, standing at a mere 14,148 feet.

Then it was down Democrat, which proved to be almost as challenging as the way up. For those of you who know me, you probably know that I can be a little clumsy at times which definitely isn't a good characteristic when climbing down a steep, rocky trail. I ended up tripping once on the way down Democrat and scratched up my knee a little but since that was my only major fall, I considered myself lucky.

By the time we got back down to the saddle the wind had picked up even more. It didn't seem as though many people were attempting to climb towards Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross but following my super-hiker father, we carried on up the mountain. As we went up the wind just kept growing and my siblings and I were stopping every couple of feet to avoid being pushed over by the wind. We kept seeing people coming down, telling us that they had turned around because the wind had gotten too intense, but for some reason that still didn't stop us. We reached the top of Cameron to discover the winds blowing at 70 mph!! My whole body was leaning into the wind and I was convinced I was just going to fly away right there. We knew we had to get off the top really fast so we hiked/ran as fast as we could to a little bunker and cave we saw just over the top. My sister and dad chilling in the bunker:

We thought if we could hurry across the ridge between Cameron and Bross, maybe Bross would be better so we decided to make a dash for it. Well we literally could not hold our ground and we were being whipped around by the wind so before we made it even a quarter of the way across we found another rock bunker to stop in. Where all these bunkers cam from, I have no idea but I am so grateful they were there! This time we were not going back out till we knew the wind had calmed down. We decided to get comfortable, get something to eat, and Jenna and Gaines even closed their eyes for a bit.

After 45 minutes, the wind maybe died only a little but we knew we couldn't sit in the bunker all day so we resolved to just go for it. We stumbled across the ridge, and the trail took us just a spitting distance from the top of Bross which stands 14,172 ft. in the air. As we scurried our way down the mountain, the wind diminished and eventually we made it down to the parking lot. I decided a victory pose was in order.

That was my third 14er experience but was by far the biggest adventure. I am glad that we all made it back safely!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! It is another long-run day for me tomorrow and at the suggestion of Skylar, I will be eating a banana an hour before I run to try to fight my cramps- hope it works!!

- Shelby

Running. It's Cheaper Than Therapy.

2010-08-14T21:56:00.000-07:00

Today I've decided to go a bit off the beaten path of our usual posts and write to you all about my love affair with running, and how it came to be. Maybe it's the cram reading sessions of Eat, Pray, Love that I have been doing (in prep for a movie night with my momma) that are causing this emotional purge. Bear with me today, because I've got a lot to say!

So often people tell me I'm crazy for running so much, and wonder how I could seriously love it. But let me tell you, I'd be a lot crazier if I didn't run. The best bumper sticker I ever did see simply said: "Running. It's cheaper than therapy."

And it's true! I feel I am at my truest self when I've been consistently running 25-30 mile weeks. For me, running and yoga are my time. They are opportunities to be relieved of stress. But they do so in very different ways.

Yoga allows me to put all my thoughts and worries into a little pocket within my brain, and focus solely on the poses. These poses require me to connect the mind and body, forming a meditative state that allows me to just be. I can't wait for the day that I'll be able to practice regularly again.

Running is different. Running is a chance to face head on whatever may be bothering me on any given day. I'm only responsible for putting one foot in front of the other, leaving my mind free to think. This is why I say I am most in tune to myself when I have been running regularly. It is my time to form opinions, to reason and to (however corny it may sound), figure myself out.

During my travels to South Africa and Peru particularly, my runs were my time to analyze the many things I had seen and learned. I would compare and contrast the many intricacies of a new people and new cultures and I always seemed to come to the conclusion that however different we may seem we really aren't that different at all.

My first six mile run occurred during the month of April during my senior of high school. I'd been accepted to my two top choices for college and no amount of debate with my family and friends would spark a decision as to which track to take. I was doing my usual three mile loop after a long discussion about majors, programs, dorms, food, etc. A ways into the run I realized that I was on to something. My body and my mind weren't ready to stop running until I had fully reasoned this decision. Running that extra three miles at the time was a risk for me, but I knew I was strong enough mentally to counteract the physical lacking. If I could take this risk, then I could take the risk of moving 3,000 miles away. The University of Virginia was the perfect place for me. The principal slogan of any economics class, the greater the risk the greater the reward, held true in this case. And it holds true in running as well. The bigger my goals, the happier I am after accomplishing them.

Running is a means to deal with heartbreak and sorrow. After Yeardley Love died last year, I found myself running an hour or so a day. I ran immediately after vigil, putting my sadness into an energy that allowed me to cope with that tragedy.

It has been during runs that I have decided to pursue a boy, start a relationship, and eventually end that same relationship. And it was running that helped me to get over him. It has been while running that I made the decision to travel to South America. I know what I want and I go for it, and I know this aspect of my personality has become stronger because I am a runner. I have made specific life goals for myself during runs. I have challenged myself to go further not just in terms of mileage, but in terms of my own life. I have been able recently to overcome what seemed to be an insurmountable amount of emotional stress during my many runs, in turn making me realize my true priorities.

I must honestly tell you though that sometimes I'm not ready to face my own self. It's these times you'll find me in the gym or at yoga. This is when I crave the endorphins but am not prepared to face the root of the problem. I think that's why I create so many goals in regards to running, and register for so many races. I know this year is going to be stressful, so by making time to run with the pressure of at least four major races in the next three months, I'll be able run through the stress.

The word hobby doesn't do this favorite activity of mine justice, but in any case I'll use it. It is this hobby that has created some awesome friendships (ahemmm Mary and Dettke). It's taken me to some awesome places and allowed me to push myself beyond my mental limits. The marathon was quite a fete for me, but I am not proud for my physical self because that alone did not take me to the finish line. It was my mind that pushed me to a new limit and in a sense carried me to the end.

Now I don't mean to preach to you all that running will change your life. Only you can do that. But it doesn't have to be through running. It can be through hiking, or knitting or photography or anything! Just something that allows you to really think.

Well clearly I belong in some temple, praying to the gods of running. So I'm gonna go eat a gluten-free cookie. I hope yall were able to bear all this mooshy running talk, but when you're in love you just gotta shout it from the rooftops!

I LOVE RUNNING!!

-Alexis

Relaxing a mile high

2010-08-12T21:10:00.000-07:00

Hey all!

It has been so nice being back home this week! Eating good food, running, organizing and hanging out with my family is just the break I need before all the craziness of school begins.

But first things first- the food! It was my mother's birthday on Tuesday and so my whole family went out to a local Italian restaurant that my parents had been to before and really like called Venice Restaurant. It was really nice and all the waiters had Italian accents so it made the whole experience kind of authentic. We got a delicious appetizer sampler platter but my family and I devoured it too fast for me to take a picture of it. For the main course, I ordered the salmon served over veggies at the suggestion of the waiter and it was so tasty!!

Then last night, one of my good friends and I went to go see Across the Universe at Red Rocks Amphitheater (if you don't know about Red Rocks, I will be posting about it later but you should check it out before that because it is absolutely one of the coolest places) for Film on the Rocks. Before the show though, we went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant near Red Rocks called the Morrison Inn. Ashley and I are both huge fans of guacamole so we couldn't resist ordering some with our chips and salsa.

Yummm. Then because I am trying to eat at least one vegetarian meal a day (more on that in a later post), I decided to order the spinach enchilada. It was also a favorite of the chefs.

After our big Mexican meal we were glad to hike the uphill trek to the amphitheater.

Then tonight my brother and I joined my sister and one of her close friends for their annual summer tradition of eating at the country club together before the school year begins. This year is extra special because they will both leaving college this fall! Marco (my sister's friend) and I both decided to order the salmon sandwich (apparently I'm loving salmon this week) with beautiful asparagus on the side.

One of my biggest downfalls during the school year is that I almost always choose a little more sleep over eating breakfast. But with no classes and no work at home, I have gotten really into my breakfasts and it is making all the difference in my energy levels throughout the day. My favorite breakfast recently is to put some Vive cereal with fresh bananas and strawberries, along with a cup of soy milk.

Perfect way to start my mornings!

Now it is on to the running. At the beginning of the week, I was running shorter distances of about 4-5 miles but trying to run at a faster speed. Speed is definitely my downfall and my dad and I have talked a lot since I have been home about interval training and the importance of varying your speed in your work-outs. I really struggled with trying to push myself to run faster but I also think that proves that it is definitely something I need to continue working on.

Today was my distance run and I ran a little shy of 9 miles along one of my favorite trails that follows the South Platt River.

It was absolutely beautiful but I have been getting really bad side pains and cramps when I have been running since I have been home and this was exacerbated during my longer run today. My guess and hope is that this is just due to my body not being use to running at altitude but it is still extremely annoying to run with. The last two miles of my run were really painful and slow but I knew that I just needed to work through it and teach my body to overcome it, especially if it were to happen during race.

Tomorrow I am off to climb three fourteeners! Stay tuned for many pictures and tales of my ascents!! Happy almost Friday!

Gluten? Like One of the Seven Deadly Sins?

2010-08-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

I hope yall are enjoying your August so far. Here in San Diego summer weather has finally arrived, just in time for me to head back east to humidity bleh. I'll be doing some longer runs before I head back where the humidity and heat make it a lot tougher to get through those 10 milers, especially considering how hilly Charlottesville is.

I realized that I have gone on and on about my gluten-free diet, but haven't explain what it is exactly and why it affects the digestive systems of so many people.

First off, gluten is not the same as gluttony!! Believe me I am still indulging with this new diet. An iced jasmine green tea and a seriously delicious gluten-free chocolate chip cookie from Claire's on Cedros:

When I think of gluten, I immediately think of "glue." And that is basically what gluten is. It is a composite of two proteins that can be found in wheat, barley, rye, etc. Actually 80% of wheat is composed of the proteins that make up gluten. When mixed with yeast, gluten allows for bread to "rise." In bread products that are made of wheat, the gluten is what allows for the elasticity and texture.

Here is what uncooked gluten looks like:

Gluten has also become a very common additive. Because it is protein, it can be added to low-protein foods for nutritional purposes. It is also added to foods (like ketchup and ice-cream) as a stabilizing agent. So for people that are intolerant of gluten or have Celiac disease it can be very hard to detect what products may or may not contain the gluten additive.

For people with Celiac disease, gluten causes harm to the small intestine. For those with gluten intolerance, it is hard to determine how much damage is done to the small intestine but it definitely affects everyones digestive system. I personally believe that everyone is gluten intolerant, but there is a sliding scale of intolerance. If anyone eats a ton of bread at one time, it's pretty likely you will leave the dinner table feeling bloated. If I ate bread, I would have an adverse reaction that would cause even worse symptoms. And for someone with Celiac disease, the amount of damage to the small inestine from that much gluten could be fatal.

Also, intolerances show up at every age. Celiac disease isn't necessarily determined at a young age. Many people discover they are Celiac positive later in life. This is also true for gluten intolerance.

I have also learned that there are many false negatives with Celiac disease. I was tested a few years ago when I was positive for H. Pilori, and it came out to be negative. This test is a biopsy of a tiny little piece of the small intestine. This organ, if laid out flat, would be about 6 meters long. So it is possible that another part of the intestine has been affected to prove positive for Celiac disease.

Personally, I'd rather be safe than sorry. I have noticed improvements with my digestive system already by taking gluten out of my diet, and I am considering taking out dairy as well to help with digestion (as well as other things, look out for a post about this!). A healthier digestive system leads to a stronger immune system. I'm hoping if I keep all of this up I won't get sick this upcoming school year!

That's all for now! Please comment or e-mail me at virginiaisforhealthnuts@gmail.com if you have any more questions about this. Have an awesome day!

-Alexis

Go West, Young Girl... Roadtrip!

2010-08-09T11:16:00.001-07:00

Hey all!

Sorry for taking a hiatus- I have been roadtrippin' across the country for the past few days! And although I was not able to blog on the trip, I made sure to take lots of pictures of all the meals I ate along the way!

My mother flew in on Thursday afternoon and we started off on Friday morning from Ellicot City, Maryland. Friday we drove through Maryland, West Virginia, and landed in Lexington, Kentucky. I had never been to Lexington, KY but I was very impressed. There are horse farms and bourbon distilleries that surround the city and the University of Kentucky and Transylvania University reside inside. We stayed at a very charming Bed and Breakfast called the Lyndon House near the downtown of Lexington.

After settling in, my mom and I checked out the owner's guide to the restaurants of Lexington and decided that we would try Jonathan's at Gratz Park. It was only about a fifteen minute walk away. The inside was filled but for some reason the patio was completely empty and since it was a beautiful evening, we decided the patio is right where we wanted to be anyway. We had eaten a late lunch so instead of each getting a large entree, we opted for a couple different appetizers, salads, and a dessert instead.

Our first appetizer was a peanut derived hummus with warm pita bread and pickled cucumbers. I am not normally a big fan of cucumbers but the pickled cucumbers were delicious!

Next up was scallops which had a corn and mango salsa dressing on it. I am a huge fan of scallops and these were particularly delectable!

My favorite appetizer though was the pears wrapped in prosciutto over arugula, topped with feta cheese and served with a sweet dressing...yummmm!!

We split a Capriole Goat Cheese Salad which consisted of bitter greens, dried peaches, cayenne-pecan brittle & peach preserves vinaigrette. It was a perfect sweet summer salad!

Since we didn't get a main entree we agreed dessert was needed to complete our meal. I am not much of a sweet person but I do have a weakness for ice cream. There were too many good flavors to choose from so we decided to get the ice cream sampler which included tangerine, chocolate, and my favorite bourbon flavor!

Overall the meal was delicious, Kentucky food gets two thumbs up from me!

As part of the Bed and Breakfast tradition, we went downtown stairs to find a home made breakfast awaiting us in the dining room. We even got to chat with another family staying there that was in town from Connecticut checking out a horse show. The breakfast started with a beautiful fruit bowl and some hot coffee and then our lovely Inn Keeper brought out eggs cooked with sherry, bacon, and a decorative orange slice.

I had never stayed at a bed and breakfast before but the warmness and hospitality of this place is going to definitely make me look for more bed and breakfast places when I travel!

Although we got a little bit of a late start to the morning because of our delicious breakfast and driving around the University of Kentucky, we made it through the rest the of Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and into the very eastern part of Kansas on Saturday.

We made a stop for lunch in St. Louis and since we had no clue where to begin looking for a place to eat, we typed in Washington University in St. Louis into our Garmin, figuring there would have to be some cool restaurants around there. It turns out the school is a little outside the down town of the city but we found "The Loop" where all the students hang and some cool restaurant called Blueberry Hill. They had all these collections of Barbie, super heros, disney characters, and any of other crazy nick nacks you could think of! I decided to go with veggie burger with swiss cheese, lettuce, and tomato. It wasn't as good as the veggie burgers at Boylan in Charlottesville but it was still pretty good.

We spent the night in Lawrence, KS which isn't quite as charming as Lexington but is home to the University of Kansas where a couple of my friends from high school go so I was curious to see it! We strolled around on Massachusetts Ave. which was filled with all kinds of fun bars, restaurants, and shops. We stopped in a restaurant called 719 and I ordered a salad with olives and home-made croutons.

It was just the thing I needed with the hot and sticky weather outside, who knew Kansas was humid??

In the morning we drove around KU but since we had a long drive ahead of us across the vast state of Kansas we had to get going pretty early. Sunday seemed to go by the slowest. To say there is a not a lot in Kansas would be an understatement. This picture pretty much shows what I saw out of my window for eight hours straight.

Even though it seemed like forever, those four hundred miles through Kansas eventually went by and I made it back to my home by the lake and the mountains just in time for sunset!!

Stay tuned for pictures and stories from all my adventures at home!!

- Shelby

Disneyland Made Healthy!

2010-08-08T21:44:00.000-07:00

Hey all! Sorry Shelb and I have been such bad bloggers lately... she's been roadtrippin' back to Colorado and I've been busy with all the great visitors to San Diego!

There wasn't much time on Friday to squeeze in a run, but that was probably for the best. Standing in various lines for about 12 hours was rough on my legs, especially after our fast paced run the day before. I was pretty happy with how healthy Ryan and I were able to eat at Disneyland.

We started the day with an awesome breakfast with my grandpa on Balboa Island. I went for the Park Avenue omelette without cheese or onion:

Then for lunch we went to a Mexican restaurant in Downtown Disney where I had the greenest meal ever, Garden Enchiladas:

Not sure how great of an idea it was to go straight to a roller coaster after all that Mexican food, as seen here:

My snacks during the day included mangoes, watermelon, a fruit-only smoothie from Jamba, and a much needed mocha later in the night. Dinner was jambalaya in the New Orleans district at Disneyland, but I must have been too hungry to remember to snap a pic!

The next day I got to hang with Jenny and Katya, starting off with a grandma-made breakfast and ended up at Newport Beach for the rest of the day. Afterwards we went to my fav place in the whole world SPRINKLES! I was seriously concerned I wouldn't get to enjoy one of these babies upon starting my new gluten-free diet, but luckily they have gluten-free red velvet cupcakes:

It definitely wasn't as good as the regular red velvet but it was nice to partake in the experience with everyone else!

We made the trek from Newport to San Diego, which took much longer than expected given the mass amounts of traffic. We made do though, with Ryan as D.J.

I have gone cobbler crazy and made another one for my lovely guests, this time with peach! I added a personal touch:

Today we went to Tendergreens for some delish salads before dropping Jenny off at the airport. Then we headed to Knott's Soak City for a change of pace. It was definitely not as wonderful as I remembered, but the hours spent on the lazy river were definitely necessary. Afterwards Ryan and I met my parents for some sushi. This is the first time I have had sushi since I have stopped eating gluten. I brought Tamarin with me, a gluten-free soy sauce that is not processed with wheat. I also avoided my usual favorites, sushi rolls with tempura.

John also made me his special sauce for gluten-free customers that was made up of lemon juice, onion, and sea salt. It had a similar taste to soy sauce.

Here's crazayyy John, "No Money No Honey!!"

He also helped me out with one of my favorites the Albacore Special Roll (as seen above). He replaced the tempura fried shrimp with boiled shrimp and asparagus for crunch. It was almost as good as the original!!

Ryan leaves tomorrow sadly, but only 10 more days until CHARLOTTESVILLE! Can't wait! I'm going to be doing lots and lots of running this week to enjoy my favorite trails before heading back to Charlottesville!

-Alexis

And So the Visit Begins!

2010-08-05T23:57:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

Sorry I have taken a mini hiatus from posting. I've been so busy you know eating, concert-going, running, and straight up lounging...it's a rough life I know. It's been so great getting to take some time off while Ryan has been visiting.

My family welcomed him to SD with this lovely breakfast at Hash House A Go Go. The portions were just right don't ya think?

My mom and I split a scramble that I in a way custom designed: bacon, tomatoes, and avocado. SO GOOD.

Ry went for the french toast:

And my dad took on the challenge of devouring the Bacon Waffle.

Afterwards a run was necessary! I showed Ryan my little route from the house to the golf course and he kicked my butt! I forgot how fast of a runner he is naturally, but it was great for me to have someone to run with and up my motivation!

Then we napped by the pool before heading downtown to the House of Blues for the Temper Trap concert! It was a great show and you all should check em out! Their most popular song is Sweet Disposition but I really really like Fader and Love Lost as well. I LOVE music and am thinking about doing some more music related posts in the future so look out for that.

Today I showed Ryan my favorite trail in San Diego, around the San Elijo Lagoon. My butt was once again kicked, but it felt great to push it. From there we headed to my fav restaurant, Naked Cafe, where I proceeded to devour some Sesame Ginger Tacos sans flour tortillas and with extra veggies!

Then it was off to the beach for the rest of the day. Finally the sun has come out in San Diego!! We also tried Whisknladle tonight for dinner in La Jolla but I forgot to snap some photos of my delish grapefruit/corn/avocado summer salad and seared scallops! So sorry but let me tell you it was yummmyy.

Tomorrow we're going to Disneyland and then to Newport Beach to do some more beach chillin' up north. This time we will be joined by Jenny and Danny whom I cannot wait to seeeee!! I've done some research on the food situation at Disneyland, and found some awesome gluten-free options that include pizza! I'll have to let you all know how that goes.

-Alexis

Adopted Family Dinner

2010-08-04T07:34:00.001-07:00

As some of you know, I have been living in Maryland this summer with my dad’s friend from college’s family (sorry if that is confusing). As this is my last week staying with them, I decided to cook them a big thank-you dinner last night. I was a little nervous, seeing as I haven’t cooked for a large group of people in a pretty long time and I really wanted to make sure that they enjoyed it! So I took my whole lunch break yesterday to scour the internet looking for some good summer recipes. I soon found out that searching for "summer dinner recipes" is a pretty general term. At first I thought salad, and then I thought tuna, but when I saw a recipe for Chicken and Cashews in Lettuce wraps at http://www.blogger.com/www.realsimple.com, I knew I had found my main course. They turned out to be delicious and super easy!

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce

3 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into ¾-inch pieces

Pepper

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tablespoon grated giner

1 bunch scallions, trimmed and sliced

1 8-ounce can sliced water chestnuts, drained

¼ cup roasted unsalted cashews

1 small head Boston or Bibb lettuce, leaves separated

Directions:

Combine the soy sauce and honey in a small bowl; set aside.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season the chicken with ½ teaspoon pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until it begins to brown, about 3 minutes.

Lower heat to medium and stir in the garlic and ginger. Add the scallions and cook for 1 minute. Stir in the water chestnuts and half the soy sauce mixture and continue to cook until the chicken is cooked through, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat and sprinkle with the cashews.

Divide the lettuce leaves among individual plates and spoon the chicken over the top. Serve with the remaining soy sauce mixture for drizzling.

My side note: For vegetarians, I think it would be super easy to re-create this with tofu and it wouldn’t even take you as long to cook!

For a side dish I wanted to make veggies! And I knew just the place to turn, my favorite health blogger (a vegan Canadian) Oh She Glows. She had just the perfect veggie recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cooked potatoes

2 bell peppers

1 zucchini

3 carrots

½ broccoli

3 tablespoon sunflower seeds

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Salt & pepper

Dried parsley

Italian seasoning

Directions: Chop all veggies. Place into a large bowl and toss with seasonings and EVOO. Pour onto baking sheet and roast in the over for about 35-40 minutes at 425F. Serve and enjoy!

My side note: You can add and subtract depending on your favorite veggies! I also added some additional spices that I found in their cabinet, the more color I say the better!

And I couldn’t forget dessert! I know the family (and me!) love fruit in dessert so I decided to make some strawberries dipped in melted chocolate and cooled in the fridge. Turns out this is one of their favorites so I definitely got some bonus points here!

Overall I think we had a great meal! I want to say another thank-you to the Perini’s for hosting me all summer long!

It is my distance day for the week and I am trying to go eight miles! I’ll let you know how it goes- happy Wednesday!

-Shelby

Food iPhotography

2010-08-02T19:59:00.001-07:00

So remember that 9 miler I was supposed to do yesterday. Didn't happen.

Man I was soooo bummed.

The second my right foot hit pavement my calf was throbbing. I told myself to just try and run it off, maybe I was just stiff from my longer run the day before. But no, the pain only got worse. I made it about a mile and finally made myself turn around and drag my discouraged butt home. I knew that I would be able to do the run but it may leave me injured. I have a month of training left and enough time to fit in about three more long runs, so missing out on this one was not a huge deal.

My mom sensed my disappointment and she knew just the cure. So we ventured out for a Target/Jimbo's run that got me in a great mood. I decided to try out some delish lookin' recipes from Eat Live Run. My momma and I threw together some fish tacos with guacamole and homemade mango salsa:

and I made a gluten-free blueberry crisp with gluten-free flour and oats! So so goood!!

I met with Rob again today to do some measurements so he could determine what exercises would be best for me. He also filmed me running in all of my different running shoes (yes I own more than one pair) and with or without my custom orthotics I'll be seeing him again tomorrow to learn the exercises and also to go over my running footage! I'm really excited for this because he'll be filming me do the exercises so I will now exactly what the proper form I need to be in, and it will be pretty impossible for me to forgot how to do the exercises!

I found out from him today that my hips are wayyyy out of line. I'm thinking it has something to do with sitting at a desk 8 hours a day working on a computer that's on the right of the desk, which is the way my hips are aligned to. So I'm going to try and remedy that situation tomorrow and move some things around in my workspace. But because of this I'll be taking a break from yoga for a little while. It's worse for my body to be doing certain poses when I'm not in proper alignment, so I'm going to work on that and focus on running for a while and go back to yoga when the time is right. I'm bummed, especially because I'm pretty much in love with my yoga studio here in San Diego but it's more important for me right now to become a stronger runner.

For now, I'm seriously looking forward to Ryan coming in on Wednesday, seeing Jenny and Danny on Friday, venturing to Disneyland, and havin' one of my fav running buddies in town especially since I will be making up that 9 miler this week.

My favorite members of the Virginia Swim team (Danny and Jenny!):

That's all for today! I also wanted to apologize for the crappy iPhone photos I've been trying to pass off as legitimate food photography. My baby, aka my Canon Digital Rebel, is off for repairs after some major Peruvian over usage. Not to worry only a couple more weeks of dealing with my Food iPhotography and then we'll be good to go!

-Alexis

Meet Skylar!

2010-08-01T07:06:00.001-07:00

Yo yo! Today we've got a pretty great surprise for you all: it's guest post time. You'll be hearing from one of our BFF4Ls Skylar! He's your typical endurance athlete, a pretty freaking talented one at that. Below is a photo of all of us from the Charlottesville Half Marathon during our first year at UVa. Sky decided to just do the race for fun and told Mary and I (I being Alexis) that he would run with us and enjoy the experience. That lasted for about 25 seconds.. thanks Sky! We quickly forgave him for running on ahead when he finished SECOND in his age group at a distance he had never before endured. Skylarr you did ittttt yeahhhh!!

The crew:

Enjoy the read, along with your Sundays!

Greetings, Virginia! My name is Skylar and I’m the one that’s not like the others. Cross-bred with an adrenaline nut that spent his early days mountaineering and jumping out of airplanes with a once-neurotic fitness addict, it’s no surprise as to what popped out…

Me sliding down the continental divide in the Wind River Range of Wyoming on my NOLS backpacking course last summer. I spent 28 days in the woods, basically. It reinforced my psyche for nature. Like Shelby, I am also climbing a Colorado Fourteener soon: Holy Cross. Pictures later if I take them…

I am now planning to go mountaineering next summer in Bolivia, climbing the mountains Pequeno Alpamayo, Huayna Potosi & Illimani! Yes, I just copied and pasted that.

Here is my dad. If you asked me what I would be like when I’m 58, this could be it…

This picture was taken during my first time tandem skydiving by the photo dude. Props to him for capturing some sick shots. This is just one of the many photos he took. I’m the guy in purple pants. Obviously, I like purple.

The photo guy also made a sweet video of my jump, but I don’t have it with me right now. Maybe another post…

I’ve always had a good idea of what makes me a happy person, but every now and then I can get a bit sidetracked. I can’t say for sure that I have found it, but I’m pretty damn close. In fact, I can sum it up in 2 words: endorphins and adrenaline.

I’m an endurance athlete, always have been and always will. I played soccer all through childhood until the 10th grade. While I was a decent player, I was able to stay competitive because of my speed and inability to tire out. Often times the coach would just put me at sweeper and let me run the entire game.

It wasn’t until the junior year that I thought, “Hey Skylar, I think you could put your talents to something else. You don’t even like soccer that much.” So I joined the cross-country team and fell in love, almost.

I couldn’t get enough of running. Like many would say of the activity, it turned into a drug. What happens when you stop using a drug that you’re addicted to? Withdrawal. And by withdrawal, I mean college.

During my first year or so at UVA, running didn’t seem to be a priority for me. I began to lift instead. While it did add muscle mass, I wasn’t happy with myself, I knew something was missing.

Luckily, I found mountain biking, which has become my favorite spring-summer-fall activity to date. I like it almost as much as I do snowboarding, which is the single-most enjoyable activity I do. I re-found my passion for cardio and endurance, along with some adrenaline, in mountain biking, which also has reacquainted me with my other love, running. I guess I’m a polygamist. (I should probably stop saying, “love” or I’m going to kill it’s meaning) In fact, I just signed up for the XTERRA Triathlon at Walnut Creek Park on August 22, which involves an 11.6 mile trail ride and 4 mile trail run. Super! More on how that turns out later…

All this cardio, along with a friend of mine, sparked life into my lifting routine. As a college student, there simply isn’t much time to lift, run, party, etc. So I have started incorporating both cardio and weight training into one: circuit training. I usually start out by running 3 miles or so, to get the blood flowing. Stretch after. Then I pick 6 exercises that encompass a majority of the muscles, and do them consecutively in a row, without resting. Then rest for a minute, and repeat. Do this 3 times initially, and see how you feel. I like to focus on lifting my body weight in different ways. For example, I will pick push-ups (try varying this with small weights), pull-ups (vary the styles: bicep or lat specific), dips, abs, and alternate some other dumbbell exercises. I sweat bullets doing this. I think circuit training will really help me in preparation for my triathlon. Oh yeah, and make sure you eat afterwards. Protein is key. Try mixing peanut butter, milk, a banana, and berries in a blender.
That was a brief bio, and I hope to write more in depth articles later!

Always wear sunscreen, get adequate sleep and take your multi-vitamins
-Skylar

Larabar Treasure Hunt

2010-07-31T20:53:00.000-07:00

Heyy yall! It's Alexis this time around.

The time has finally come for me tell you all about my first meeting with Rob Yang.

Rob has some pretty intense credentials to his name, so no phony stuff here! Check out his e-mail signature:

Robert Yang

Certified Nutritionist (CN)

C.H.E.K Institute Faculty Member

Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) - Nutrition Advisory Board Member

National Pitching Association (NPA)- Advisory Board Member

He's legit! Check out what he's up to and some pretty intense pictures of him at www.RobertYang.net!

Like I said before my reasons for meeting with Rob were to talk to him about my gluten-free diet. Rob asked me a long series of questions that related to just about everything from energy level to hunger level to in depth questions about bowel movements (too much information yet?).

From all of this he agreed with my decision to avoid gluten in order to improve digestive functions, especially considering my past stomach problems. Taking gluten out of my diet leads me to a lot of healthier alternatives. So instead of a sandwich, I turn to a salad. Instead of a burger with a bun, I turn to a burger in a bowl aka protein style with a lot more veggies to make up for the bread. So not only am I avoiding something very bad for me, I am upping my intake of other nutritious goodies.

Rob is helping me to create a good program of vitamins and supplements to take to help my immune system and also help my digestive system to repair itself. While in Peru, I got pretty sick after eating some cuy aka guinea pig (among lots of other interesting meats of which I still don't know their names). At least I got to enhance my experience while abroad and visited a Peruvian emergency room where I received some antibiotics. Ever since I came home I've been taking probiotics to help restore the healthy bacteria killed off by all of the antibiotics. Rob and I are meeting TWICE next week (woo) and will go over a finalized plan for supplements to take when I'm back at school.

I also picked Rob's brain a lot about the best exercise schedule to allow me to improve my running and hopefully put down a few PRs in this upcoming racing season! On Monday, we'll be doing a full exercise consultation but Rob did notice something interesting about my joints. The best way to improve in a sport is to ensure the safety of your joints in order to prevent injury.

Here's a direct quote from Rob about what makes me unique and requires me to take a different approach to my running:

"Your body is too flexible meaning your joints are hyper mobile. You can hyperextend your elbows and knees. Since you have too much mobility in your joints as you run, the body is using energy from the nervous system and muscular system to stabilize the joints versus using the energy to allow you to run faster. "

My crazy knee joints seen here:

This is pretty much my normal stance, something that needs to change! So we'll be working on creating a strength-training program for me to do in order to help me get stronger to help both my posture and to become a better runner! I'm so excited and can't wait to share pictures with you all from our upcoming meetings.

Well that's a somewhat intense summary of what he and I went over. I'm just so excited about becoming even healthier and with his help I'm going to get there!

Today was a pretty wonderful day, even though I'm jealous of Shelby's day of fun in Charlottesville! I was a little worried how this long day would turn out after staying out late last night and waking up early for CPR Recertification. A tall chai latte did the trick and the day ended up turning out great! CPR class was an awesome refresher, so I'll be prepared for any crazy situation that may arise while at work at the Aquatic and Fitness Center at school! Then it was time for errands and I made it my mission to find some unique Larabars. These lovely little treats were the product of searching at THREE different stores!

SUCCESS!! So excited about these babies. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough will be accompanying me tomorrow on my 9 miler!

I also found some other yummy gluten-free treats that I can’t wait to try:

These were sooo good and an awesome reward after my trail run today!

I also had a change of heart in regards to my reading for the upcoming week. I finally finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz and decided I would start Eat, Pray, Love in hopes of someday finishing The New Book Classics.

And then I found this baby while searching for a new running water bottle at REI (left the Fuel Belt in Charlottesville dang itttt!). I'm pretty excited about this read and will be sure to write up some sort of review when I'm finished.

In close, I thought I'd leave with one of my favorite parts about being home. It's pomegranate/mango/strawberry/chocolate bliss in the form of frozen yogurt. If you ever need a reason to come visit me in San Diego, this would be a good one.

I hope you all are enjoying your weekends! Think of me when I'm stuck at work tomorrow (booo!).

-Alexis

Perfect Charlottesville Morning

2010-07-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

Hey all!!

It is hard for me to sit still on the weekends this summer (probably a consequence of sitting in an office for nine hours a day during the week) so yesterday, I packed up and drove down to Charlottesville!

Karen woke me up at 7:45 this morning to go on the run we had planned to do. Despite my attraction to the bed and more sleep, I got up and threw on my sneakers, shorts, and a t-shirt. It has been so hot and humid this past week so when we walked outside to a perfect temperature of seventy-five and little humidity, I knew this was going to be a great run. We ran on one of my favorite paths that Mary had shown me this past year. It goes through a beautiful neighborhood with a little lake and eventually you wind up a hill with pastures and can look out over the mountains that surround Charlottesville. It definitely made me appreciate where I go to school. Although this was surely not one of Karen or I's faster runs, it felt great to wake up and be active!

After a quick shower and a change of clothes we headed to the downtown Charlottesville Farmer's Market! They have it every Saturday until about October and I have decided to make it a regular in my weekend routine- it is so fun!!

Karen and Liz wanted to get some curry so we headed straight to the Disha's Kitchen stand and sampled some of her delicious sauces!

These were my favorites...

Then I headed over to get some cold green tea and it was just the refreshment that I needed!

I couldn't resist snapping some photos of the veggies! One of my favorite health blogs, Oh She Glows, proves that veggies make beautiful models!

Damn veggies you look good!

Well that's all I for now. We are going to go try out the Afghan restaurant in town tonight- can't wait! Hope everyone is having a good weekend!!

-Shelby

Improvisational Crackers

2010-07-29T21:53:00.000-07:00

Hey Errrybodyy! Alexis here!

Today started off great. I got to sleep in...until 7:30 yikes. I'm really getting a little taste of the real world this summer yeah? Cathy, my boss, surprised us with tons of new cheeses to try from Whole Foods. You know you've got a good setup when your boss allows for food tastings at work! I improvised and turned my apple into "gluten-free crackers" and chowed down on some almond butter. I'm pretty sure almond butter is a requirement for all health bloggers to eat on a regular basis.
After work I headed straight to Solana Beach for a quick run by the ocean before an INTENSE yoga practice this evening. I think I may space out my runs and yoga sessions more between each other in order to properly hydrate for each work out. If you all are ever in the San Diego area you really need to check out Haute Yoga in Solana Beach. Everyone there is so welcoming and helpful and it's a really calming space to allow for the best yoga practices.

I thought I would give you all a little run down about what's going on with my diet before I dive into all the great stuff I learned from Rob Yang on Tuesday!

In high school I began to develop some serious stomach issues. I would flip flop between feeling super bloated to having major cramps. After months of pain and discomfort, I finally saw a gastroenterologist. After several different diagnoses and an endoscopy I found that I had developed small stomach ulcers and had Helicobactor pilori.

H. Pilori in a nutshell: This bacteria causes a chronic low-level inflammation of the stomach lining and is closely linked to duodenal and gastric ulcers and even stomach cancer.

A lovely close-up:

So definitely not a great thing to have in your system, let alone at the age of 15. It's very rare to develop H. Pilori at such a young age.

My stomach is very sensitive and there are certain things that definitely trigger the same kinds of problems like caffeine, too much dairy, and gluten of course.

In high school I was able to avoid these things, but when college started it became pretty difficult. Take It Away sandwiches, Bodo's bagels, and beer pong called to me, to the point where I began to ignore any stomach issues. But as the end of second year came upon us and stress increased, it made the problems even worse. By the time I was getting ready to leave for Peru I realized that a lot of the symptoms I had previously experienced were back.

I'm an adventurous person though, and couldn't deny all of the wonderful foods I'd been offered while in Peru. It was also pretty tough to communicate in a foreign language, let alone talk about an intolerance that's not even well known in the States. So from the start I made the decision to lay off the gluten as much as possible and when I got back to the States I'd cut it out of my diet completely.

It's hard to make this type of major change so I wanted to meet with someone to help me shape my diet better for my college lifestyle and in order to obtain proper nutrition for running, etc!

Look out for a post about the meeting very soon!

As of now I'm majorly looking forward to one of my best friends RYAN coming to visit in less than a week! It's going to be a lot of running, good eating, and beach chillin'.

That's all for now! Enjoy your Friday!

-Alexis

Going the Distance

2010-07-28T18:08:00.000-07:00

Hey all!

So since this is only my first half marathon and I have never actually run 13.1 miles before, my training is all about building up my distance. I have looked at a couple half-marathon training work-outs but since my life will be pretty scattered for the next six weeks (being in Maryland working nine hours a day, then road-tripping to Colorado, and then flying back to Charlottesville and classes starting) I decided that I needed to make up my own training schedule that would fit around my life. Here is the schedule that I came up with (I am now on week 2):

The maximum distance I decided that I wanted to run before the race is 12 miles because that will prove to my psyche that I will be able to complete the half-marathon but I want the day of the race to be the longest distance that I have ever gone. Although there is no obvious pattern to when I run my longer distances and when I take rests or do yoga/pilates, I tried to base it on the vastly different schedules I will be on in each of the three places. Based on my research for training for half-marathons, if you are going to be in one place and on a fairly regular schedule for the two months leading up to the race, I would try to stay on a far more consistent basis than me. Some of the schedules I liked were Half Marathon Training by Hal Higdon and the 8 Week Half Marathon Plan by FitnessMagazine.com. I think some of the most important aspects to training for half marathons for newbies like me is to of course build up your mileage, alternate with days of cross-training for strength and flexibility (I chose yoga and pilates but you can do whatever works best for you!), and don’t forget to take some days to rest!

As you can see on my schedule, today was my day to run seven miles and I am very happy to say that I completed it! The family that I am staying with suggested this wonderful running path in the area and it was the perfect place for my long distance run. I got to run by a creek for the majority of the time plus most of the trail was shaded which is definitely a bonus in this 90 degree plus humidity weather! I started feeling a little tired in the last mile but overall the run felt great!!

After my run today, I decided to reward myself with a Sweetgreen salad (a local favorite- must check out if you are around DC!). I ordered the chic p.

Yummm!!

I know that I will probably not be able to stick to my schedule 100% but I believe it is important to make one in order to keep myself motivated and on a general schedule. Another trick to keep yourself motivated for doing a long distance race you have never done before is to sign up and pay and that way you will feel a lot less inclined to back out.

Well hope everyone has had a great Wednesday, I think I am definitely going to sleep well tonight!!

-Shelby

No! Not Speedwork!

2010-07-28T11:34:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

I'm squeezing in a quick post today and will inform you all about my meeting with San Diego nutritionist Rob Yang by the end of the week!

My life at home has been so busy. I'm working 40 hours a week as an office clerk to make some extra money to pay my parents back for all of the wonderful traveling I was able to do this summer. So working 8 hours a day and fitting in workouts has been rough but definitely worth it.

Now that I've been running for a while, it's time for me to start improving my race times. To do this it's going to take a lot of speed work. And if you know me, you know I pretty much despise speedwork. I'm sure I will fall in love with it eventually someday though. For this upcoming race I'm going to throw in more tempo runs and longer distances at race pace to get me ready for a half in September (which is going to be Shelby's first!).

This morning I did a 40 minute tempo run, my first tempo run in a WHILE.

What is a tempo run you ask? I found a pretty great definition for it at news.runintown.com:
"Tempo runs are workouts where you run at a steady pace that is around 70% to 80% of your max aerobic capacity. Tempo runs are just past the point where you begin to build up waste product in your legs at a rapid rate during a run, which is called the lactate-threshold velocity."

According to the running phenom Hal Higdon when training for a half-marathon a tempo run should be "a continuous run with a buildup in the middle to near 10-K race pace."

The run went well. I was pretty sore from my trail run yesterday, which was a pretty amazing 5.5 mile run with views like this.

Since my quads were feelin a bit rough I took a longer warm up and then sped up significantly for about 15 minutes. It was hard because the trails around my house in San Diego are pretty hilly but I enjoyed the challenge. Then it was a nice cool down to the Kings of Leon Pandora station on my iPhone. It was an awesome way to start the day.

-Alexis

Welcome Part II

2010-07-27T06:48:00.001-07:00

Welcome again to Virginia is for Health Nuts!!! I know Alexis already did a little intro on us and why we decided to write this blog but I wanted to write a little more about my experience with health, diet, and all things healthy thus far!

I grew up in Denver, which is also an incredible place to live a healthy lifestyle and I filled my childhood with tons of sports and activities. At one point or another I have played tennis, golf, swimming, lacrosse, basketball, and soccer. While each of these sports carried its own allure and their own successes and failures, the form of activity I was always drawn to was running.

I have had an on and off again relationship with running since I was about ten years old. My dad was always really into running, in fact he believes running will cure just about anything, and so he got me into it at a really young age. I started running a bunch of 5K races when I was 11, and I even got some awards for my age group (although I can’t imagine there were that many people competing). I continued running with my dad sporadically up until high school. Then my freshman year of high school, I ran cross-country for my school but for some reason running no longer carried the same allure as it use to. I was turned off by the competition of it all and only running to beat out someone else. I spent the rest of high school focused on playing tennis and only running every now and then when I would go to the gym.

I had always had a fascination with the east coast and when it came time to apply to college, I took the plunge and decided the University of Virginia was the place I wanted to go. I absolutely love it and the active culture of Charlottesville inspired me to start running again. I re-found my passion for running. It is now something that I do for me- it keeps me sane, grounded, strong, and healthy. I plan on running my first half marathon this September, which I am incredibly excited about (and a little nervous for!).

Growing up in Colorado, I have also always loved hiking. It is a big thing in Colorado to climb some of the 54 14,000 ft. mountains that we have. My dad and I have completed two so far! I will be writing about my experience climbing the third in a couple weeks!

I hope to write about all my ups and downs with running, healthy eating (trying to figure out what that means to me), and all the other random, trying to be creative ways I can think of to get exercise! Get ready for lots more things from Alexis and I!!

-Shelby

You're Really Going to Peru?

2010-07-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

I pondered for a long time about how I would spend my summer. While I would have loved to live at the beach at home for three months, I wanted something more this year. After researching about several programs I decided to go to South America, an area of the world I had yet to explore.

This program through UVa allowed me the opportunity to see a new part of the world, improve my Spanish, and take some classes that I had never really had the chance to take before considering all of my classes have some sort of business focus!

The trip was a blast. I lived with a wonderful host family for the majority of the time in Lima and attended classes at la Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya. My time in Peru included LOTs of traveling throughout the country.

We visited the oldest city in the Americas and the second oldest city in the world, called Caral:

And then we went to a small seaside town called Barranca. Here we devoured some Tacu Tacu, a traditional dish made of rice, beans, and seafood and cooked like a pancake (soooo yummmy)!

And munched on ceviche!

And then chilled on the beach for a while. It had been about 5 months since I had last seen the Pacific!

We ventured to an oasis called Huacachina:

Where we partook in some sand boarding! While one of the craziest and most amazing experiences of my life, the dune buggy caused the death of my favorite Lululemon “I Love Running” water bottle. Aside from that it was incredible.

UVa!!

Later on during our time in Peru we travelled to Tarma, a small town in the Andes. During three days of our visit we trekked about 80km throughout the Andes mountains. It was definitely one of the coolest things I have ever done.

We made it to “La Cima del Cielo” (in English known as the “the top of heaven”)

Where my friend Charley and I may or may not have decided to take a nap:

One of the nights we really roughed it and slept on the floor of a shephard’s home. Keep in mind this was a town of SEVEN people so this particular experience was pretty remarkable.

I was particularly intrigued by all of the Incan and pre-Incan ruins we came across during our journey:

After three days of some pretty INTENSE trekkin' we made it back to Tarma in need of showers but felt pretty darn accomplished at the same time. Good thing I got to play with some puppies to elevate my mood even more!

The next day we made it to Pichanaki, a town in the jungle of Peru. Here we endured some intense humidity and saw lots of lovely green foliage.

And were also treated like celebrities at a local school. Many of the students had never met Americans before. It was really great to share each others perspectives on just about everything. The students asked questions about things that ranged from the economy in the United States to when we first fell in love..crazy kids!

We also of course visited Cusco, the town closest to Macchu Picchu. This was one of my favorite places we stayed in all of Peru, and I can’t wait to return.

Here I did some MAJOR shopping in the artisan markets and got my hair wrapped! This baby isn’t coming out of my hair, despite the dread that is surely forming at the top.

And of course we saw Macchu Picchu. All I can say is wow.

My experience was amazing and a single post is not going to do it justice. I really wanted to share with you all some of my favorite pictures of the trip. If any of you plan on making it down south please let me know and I will tell you all of the reasons it is so important to visit Peru!!!

You'll be hearing from Shelby next! Tomorrow I will be meeting with a nutritionist here in San Diego to talk about my gluten-free diet, among other things. I'll be asking him lots of questions and can't wait to tell you all what he has to say!

-Alexis

Welcome!

2010-07-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Virginia is for Health Nuts!! Shelb and I are so excited to start up this blog in hopes of keeping ourselves on track and inspire other college students to maintain healthy lifestyles.

Our decision to blog about staying fit all started out when Shelby met me in D.C. after returning back to the States from a month and a half of studying abroad in Peru. While my experience was AMAZING (a post about my trip is coming soon!),

I came back feeling awful. Not only did I come back with some extra baggage (ten pounds to be exact) I also came back with a significant amount of symptoms that result from gluten intolerance. The second I landed in the States I immediately stopped eating anything with gluten in it. It's been about 3 weeks of living gluten-free and I have seriously never felt better!

So besides catching up after not seeing each for so long, we spent a majority of our day searching for a good salad and also talked about our goals to stay healthy during the school year. Shelby has been interning this summer in D.C. at a marketing firm and has learned a ton about social media. She came up with the fantastic idea of creating a blog to get us going, allowing us to learn more about the blogging world and to keep up our healthy lifestyles.

A little bit about me:

I grew up in San Diego, an amazing place to live if you want to lead an active life! While California is definitely a great place to grow up, I wanted a change of pace and decided to go to school on the east coast: the University of Virginia.

Charlottesville, being one of the fittest cities in the country, has been an awesome place to attend school. I am constantly motivated when I see all of the runners around Grounds (what we called "campus," don't blame us blame Thomas Jefferson!). I also started working at the Aquatic and Fitness Center at UVa which has caused even more inspiration to exercise regularly.

I played tennis all of my life until a serious ankle injury kept me off the court my senior of high school. Tennis was the only way I knew how to stay fit, so I soon realized I would have to figure something else out. So I started running and have been addicted ever since! At first I could barely run a mile at a time but I soon improved. Within 6 months of my first "real" run I had finished my first half marathon.

From then on I had set a new goal of running a marathon the next year. It was the hardest thing I have ever done! While it took me longer than I had hoped, this just caused me to make a new goal. I hope to run a full marathon in under 4 hours and 30 minutes by the end of next year!

After the marathon my knees were hurtin' so I decided to start yoga classes at Haute Yoga in Solana Beach and quickly found a new passion. I've brought this new hobby with me back to school and now practice at Bikram Charlottesville. I now balance yoga and running as a part of my exercise regimine.

Not only do I hope to write about my "obsession" with exercise, I also hope to log my entrance into the world of being gluten-free. I know it's going to be a tough journey, but I am so excited to finally feel better! It's important to note that I do not have Celiac disease so I'm not an expert on that, but for anyone else out there that has a severe intolerance to gluten I'm here for ya!

Happy Monday everyone! Keep lookin' for a post about my travels to South America!

-Alexis