The first step is admittance. I do not eat breakfast. In fact I would like to say that I am one of the worst breakfast eaters east of the Tom's Creek basin. While drinking tea has successfully gotten me to the kitchen every morning, I still continuously fail to eat any food until one or two in the afternoon. It baffles me why I choose to miss the most important meal of the day and ramble on until my stomach brings me a type of hunger that resembles that of an ice age neanderthal. It also baffles me why I will spend 4 hours cooking a home made dinner with my roommates on Sunday but can't spend 3 minutes to cook an egg every morning; however, that is most definitely due to the lack of good company in the mornings. As part of my advertising campaign to acquire breakfast buddies I guess I'll have to print my roommates t-shirts and post fliers on their doors of the image to the right.
So WHY? I'm not going to ramble on long about this because it is something we have all heard a million times. To summarize with a quick list, the benefits include higher energy levels (to avoid caveman status), better cholesterol levels, less risk of obesity, higher nutrient consumption, healthier skin and an increase in short term memory. Blah, blah, blah. Each of those is a different article on why to eat breakfast. Just studying how your body reacts can usually tell you whether
something you are doing is a healthy idea. I had some yogurt mixed with Swamp Mix granola from Sweetwater Baking Co., avocado slices and bread for breakfast this morning and ten minutes later was already feeling more alert than I normally would. I have a feeling it was the swamp stuff.
Week 8 concludes the first phase of changing my food consumption rituals. The remaining diet changes will come sporadically later in the year and will include efforts to cut out a few big monsters of the food industry. To wrap this up, something special came in the mail this week. The picture to the left is just a preview of a really fun goal that is coming soon. Any guesses as to the contents?
End of Week 8 Update
I panicked when I read the title of an email from my sister this past Thursday. It read, "Do you Know What's Really In Your Tea?" I didn't know and I almost did not want to find out. Wasn't it enough that I was challenging myself with a new goal every week? Did I really need to make my goals subject to being reformed and refined even further? The whole point of this experiment was to embrace change and what better way to do this than take bits and pieces of advice from as many places and people as possible. So I read it. It changed my thoughts, and now I will only buy tea from Numi, Traditional Medicinals and Rishi. That being said I would like to encourage anyone reading to share any knowledge or thoughts they have on any of my current or future goals. After all this is an experiment, and experiments are subject to change.
Week 8 concludes the first phase of changing my food consumption rituals. The remaining diet changes will come sporadically later in the year and will include efforts to cut out a few big monsters of the food industry. To wrap this up, something special came in the mail this week. The picture to the left is just a preview of a really fun goal that is coming soon. Any guesses as to the contents?
End of Week 8 Update
I panicked when I read the title of an email from my sister this past Thursday. It read, "Do you Know What's Really In Your Tea?" I didn't know and I almost did not want to find out. Wasn't it enough that I was challenging myself with a new goal every week? Did I really need to make my goals subject to being reformed and refined even further? The whole point of this experiment was to embrace change and what better way to do this than take bits and pieces of advice from as many places and people as possible. So I read it. It changed my thoughts, and now I will only buy tea from Numi, Traditional Medicinals and Rishi. That being said I would like to encourage anyone reading to share any knowledge or thoughts they have on any of my current or future goals. After all this is an experiment, and experiments are subject to change.
Friday brought on the first challenge of traveling. I went on a road trip to Alabama to run the Cheaha 50k with Rudy Rutemiller, Darren Thomas, Kelly Summers and Victoria Nguyen. Running all day Saturday would make it pretty hard to get to any farmers market but fortunately I had found the little farmers market store in Blacksburg that I could go to later on in the week. So the first task at hand was eating. This included activities such as heating up pitas with tin foil on the car hood, cooking dinner on a camp stove for two nights, and lots of peanut butter and granola bars. Also at the aid stations I would no longer have chips and soda as options for energy and salt during the run. From Rudy's breakfast burritos, to big bags of carrots and probably what some would consider an overdose on Gu gels we made it through the whole trip only stopping once at a grocery store for some breakfast food.
This trip through the Talladega National Forest has always been and once again was an important part of my year. We had originally planned to stay in a nice cabin on top of the highest point in the state of Alabama. Three days before the trip we discovered that the cabins were no longer available due to a violent ice storm that had left the area a tangled mess of snapped trees. So my friends proposed the idea to camp on the trail. After camping at the start of the race (photo above), we got up the next morning, ran 31.1 miles, and all five of us finished. Rudy finished first, Darren 2nd, Kelly finished her 2nd 50k in 1 week and Holly finished her first 50k ever. Simple as that. No heated rooms, no comfy beds, no electricity. The most defining moment of my trip came after the race. My parents were heading back to Blacksburg early and offered us there hotel room which at this point could not be cancelled. I presented the idea of the hotel to Rudy and he merely replied, "I think everyone would probably just rather camp again." I needed someone to say that to me. Here were some people that valued nature and the REAL experience. The day would have been another insignificant night in a hotel had we stayed at the top of the mountain but now I have a memory from this year that I wont forget. I won't forget going to bed under the star freckled canopy of swaying pine. I won't forget the sound of the throw and catch of the frisbee as I was dosing off, or the tree frogs that were cheering them on. I won't forget the silence of the forest or the eruption of laughter that night as five endorphin high runners tried to go to bed at 7pm. Thank you for that experience.
This trip through the Talladega National Forest has always been and once again was an important part of my year. We had originally planned to stay in a nice cabin on top of the highest point in the state of Alabama. Three days before the trip we discovered that the cabins were no longer available due to a violent ice storm that had left the area a tangled mess of snapped trees. So my friends proposed the idea to camp on the trail. After camping at the start of the race (photo above), we got up the next morning, ran 31.1 miles, and all five of us finished. Rudy finished first, Darren 2nd, Kelly finished her 2nd 50k in 1 week and Holly finished her first 50k ever. Simple as that. No heated rooms, no comfy beds, no electricity. The most defining moment of my trip came after the race. My parents were heading back to Blacksburg early and offered us there hotel room which at this point could not be cancelled. I presented the idea of the hotel to Rudy and he merely replied, "I think everyone would probably just rather camp again." I needed someone to say that to me. Here were some people that valued nature and the REAL experience. The day would have been another insignificant night in a hotel had we stayed at the top of the mountain but now I have a memory from this year that I wont forget. I won't forget going to bed under the star freckled canopy of swaying pine. I won't forget the sound of the throw and catch of the frisbee as I was dosing off, or the tree frogs that were cheering them on. I won't forget the silence of the forest or the eruption of laughter that night as five endorphin high runners tried to go to bed at 7pm. Thank you for that experience.
This was by far one of the most challenging weeks so far yet the challenge of being out of my element made it my favorite. I ate breakfast everyday, whether it be something nice at home like the one pictured here or eating granola bars and bananas in 40 degree weather. I managed to drink 2 liters of water and 2 cups of tea everyday, even if it meant getting out of my sleeping bag in the cold to pee four times in the middle of the night. As much as I would have loved to have a handful of potato chips and cup of soda at mile 15 of the race, I turned away with oranges and peanut butter sandwiches, and out of the 7,248 fast food restaurants we drove by on the way to Alabama we didn't stop once.
Week 8 Totals
Soda - 0 ounces
Water - 26.92 Gallons
Liquor - 0 shots
Tea - 70 cups
Trips to unhappy places - 0
$ to support neighbors = 50.19
Fried food consumption - 2 dorito chips
Breakfasts eaten - 7
Week 8 Totals
Soda - 0 ounces
Water - 26.92 Gallons
Liquor - 0 shots
Tea - 70 cups
Trips to unhappy places - 0
$ to support neighbors = 50.19
Fried food consumption - 2 dorito chips
Breakfasts eaten - 7