Fortunate Friday {Broadway Edition}

Good day sunshine!

Is Friday! Had to wake up at the crack of dawn this morning joined by a lingering cold and allergies; definitely not a great way to start my day but thankfully I am starting to feel A LOT better.

I've been drinking a whole lot of this:

Green tea simmered with a cinnamon stick, lemon, & spices: my god sent salvation!

This week was busy and productive and everything in between. Although I do work a bit on weekends I am just happy Friday is finally here. And without further ado' here is my list of fortunate happenings this week:

1. My friend is healthy again: One of my best friends sent me a random text on Monday night letting me know she was in the hospital due to some kidney issues. The message freaked me out as I have never see this girl hospitalized in the twenty years that I have known her. Thankfully she is finally out of the hospital. I plan to go see her today after work. Health is our most precious gift.

2. My Computer: So, this week I almost had a heart attack because my beloved laptop was having some issues. The screen went crazy and I seriously didn't know what to do. I booked an appointment at 'geek squad' almost immediately and then, like a miracle, it fixed itself!!! Praise the lord. The brief minutes of panic reminded me how much I rely on this tool for work and everything else. Something apparently I didn't realize until this week. Taking better care of it. Grateful for it.

3. The ability to sign up for upcoming races: Its been a while since I've ran my 5Ks or 10Ks consistently. There was a time in my life not too long ago when I used to participate in fun races all the time. Well, my efforts to bring that back are in full swing and just this week I signed up for my 3rd race of the year-- first one is next week! (stay tuned for fun race review posts).

4. My dad's new found enthusiasm for health and fitness: After a health scare at the beginning of the year my dad finally got his 'act together' and started working out consistently and eating healthy. He's actually taking it a bit overboard as apparently he's cut out a lot of stuff from his diet (insights from my mom) so I am excited to help him in this area and am actually working on a list of foods that he can feel good about eating (he avoided Gluten like the plague for a couple of months, it was pretty funny). Love my dad. So proud of him.

5. Work that keeps me busy, focused, and helps me provide for myself: Receiving tons of positive signs from the universe, Thank you Jesus. I keep telling myself to just keep on swimming.

BONUS: My first Broadway show date with my mom: This was so incredibly awesome! So, a few weeks ago I won tickets to go watch GiGi on Broadway, starring Vanessa Hudgens. It turned out to be so perfect because I was able to take my mom on a pre-mother's day date. Plus, it was the first Broadway show we ever saw together (and the very first one for her, not counting The Rockettes which we saw about 6 years ago). Can you believe we have been living in NYC for over 21 years and it took us that long to go see a show together? next goal is to get the entire family to a show. Will share a full review regarding my GiGi experience on tomorrow's post.

Other fun things that happened this week:

Finally got a manicure and two rings I found on sale at Old Navy's accessory section:

Wanted that 'white-ish' color that's trending now. I am not sure if it was the manicurist or the nail polish (Essie's baby breath) but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. But it'll do.

My friend mailed every person that attended the wedding a thank you card. I loved this so much I am framing it:

*This week I also took some steps towards something it was time for me to tackle-- Having the strength to detach myself from something that was not bringing my life much joy (more on this to come).  Still not completely on the other side of things but well on my way. Work in progress.

And that is all my friends. How was your week? any exciting plans for this weekend?

Happy early mother's day to all my readers that are mothers. Looking forward to 'joining the club' in the near future :-)

Love,
Mabelle

Mid-Week Motivation 5 (fitness series): Food Diaries

Hello ladies and gents,

Another day of waking up at the top of the morning. Here is a bit of my morning routine:

Had my 'power tea' while listening to Oprah and Chopra meditation series (we are on day 3!). 

Tea recipe: Boiled water with 1 cinnamon stick, star anise (or nutmeg), lemon juice. Let simmer for about 10 mins, removed from heat, add a bag of green tea to hot water. let it infuse for ~5 minutes. 

Made myself a quick breakfast and ate it while reading the paper, getting ready for my work day.

Yummy oatmeal w/ raisins, walnuts, almond butter toppings + cinnamon & coffee w/ soy.

Got to work.

Hope you're all having a phenomenal week so far! We are smack in the middle of it and here I am again with yet another Mid-Week motivation post to inspire and motivate you (and myself, while I'm at it).

Today I want to talk about a super powerful tool which has aided me tremendously pretty much my entire life when it comes to weight loss and fitness efforts. This post is in fact a way overdue considering I've been using a food diary since I was a teenager. You may notice a trend when it comes to me and using writing in pretty much every facet of my life. I don't know if there is a "type" of people that is inclined to writing everything down but if there is, I am definitely one of those people and using writing in my fitness journey is no exception.

I know there can be a lot of debate surrounding a food diary including-  "is too restrictive", "who has time to write things down?!", "we should just be eating intuitively without the need of tools", and the list probably goes on and on. However, I have to say that I am on the other side of the debate and feel strongly about the value of food diaries not only to keep ourselves accountable in terms of what we eat and how we exercise, but it can also also serve many numerous purposes including but not limited to:

• A 'therapy' tool where we can elaborate a bit on how we felt on a particular day, which can help us find a link between the foods we consume and our emotional and/or mental state on a particular day. 

• A food diary can also assist tremendously in identifying how certain foods affect our bodies. Maybe we feel bloated, tired, lethargic or maybe we  feel amazing, energized, strong on a particular day. We can always look back to what we did/ate and see if we can identify some type of connection. 

• A tool which can keep us accountable and focused on our ultimate fitness & well-being objectives while we take it a day at the time and have an actual tangible visual of how we do each day. Something we can look back to and analyze.

Just to show you, I was able to find a bag in my apartment that contains most of the journals I've used over the years. Out of all the journals inside this bag I'd say about 80% of them are former food diaries:

The type of data we can gather from simply keeping a food diary can help us tremendously as we go forward in improving ourselves in a comprehensive level-- including our bodies, minds, and spirits.

I am aware it is 2015 and there are a gazillion smart phone apps out there where we can track our foods and fitness activities on a daily basis. However, to be completely and utterly honest with you (and speaking from personal experience, as I have tried these tools temporarily) I feel that nothing compares to using pen and paper. Taking the time to search for a particular food/portion size/etc. on an app and making sure it all syncs correctly is far more time consuming than simply designating a journal as your food diary and make sure you have a pen with you. That's pretty much all you need.

I would recommend the size of the journal/notebook is compact enough that you can pretty much take it anywhere if you wanted to. I like to update my food journal at the end of the day or some time in the middle of the day. However, some people like to write down what they ate immediately. Do whatever works for you.

Just to give you an idea on how I personally organize my food journal entries, here is a sample of the journal I am currently using:

• Very top contains the number of days I have been using the journal 
• Right hand corner contains the date/day of week
• Left hand corner indicates (W, F, V) which stands for 'water', 'fitness', 'vitamins', and is where I write down my water intake for that day, what I did for fitness, and whether or not I took my multi-vitamin. 
• Moving on to the body of the entry: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Snacks (self explanatory; I list what I ate under each section).
• 'Reflections': End of entry. This is the part where I elaborate a bit on how I was feeling that day overall. I also find a connection on days when I am feeling down I consume more snacks or 'sugary' foods. I also find a link between not drinking enough water and my sugar intake/level of cravings.

I have a post coming soon about all the intriguing and helpful things I have learned about myself and my habits which I have learned from simply keeping a food diaries (on and off) for several years. Is very interesting stuff so jamming it in to this post wouldn't do it justice.

And that's all my friends. Hope you found this post useful and hope that I've encourage you to incorporate some reflective writing in your your fitness and/or health and fitness journey. It has worked for me so incredibly well and I have no doubt it can work for you as well.

How do I know it works? I've tried starting and maintaining a healthy lifestyle without keeping food diaries in the past and I've found that I wouldn't be able to keep up my "good habits". This may sound weird but, without the need to write things down, I felt like nothing was really keeping me accountable and there was no real way for me to look back at my progress whenever I felt like it. The minute I introduced a journal to my journey it officially feels like "its on now! its game time!".

Tell me, do you or have you used food diaries before? What are your personal thoughts on it?

Love,

Mabelle