trying out raw foods + Galloway method?

Thanks for the comments/suggestions on my recent post about soy. I do agree that everything in moderation is key, and also that there are tons of conflicting information about nutrition out there. It seems like every day a new study comes out saying that something we thought was good for us actually isn't. It's getting pretty hard to discern what is and what isn't good for our bodies.

For me, I try to eat as many unprocessed foods as possible, and since I don't love tofu anyways, I'm just gonna avoid it. There's no doubt that a big block of tofu is almost as processed as they come.

Also, it's just as easy for me to pick up Almond or Hemp milk than it is Soy, so that question is answered...now I just have to do something about those dark chocolate covered edamame that I have sitting on my counter from Trader Joe's....maybe I can just eat those up really quickly before they start to worry me :)

Had a lot of fun with food this weekend, going to post later on about my first (semi) raw food endeavor...Zucchini "Pasta" with Fresh Basil Pesto...so simple + YUM-O.

I also am now the proud new owner of...

An Oster Classic Beehive Blender! I needed a new one badly, as my addiction to Green Monsters has gone out of control. I tried it out this morning and it worked great! Way better than my food processor smoothies that I had to almost chew! I cannot stress enough how great these things make me feel. I have been energized and feeling great all morning.

My pal Alesha and I have gotten intrigued with raw food and we chatted constantly this weekend about the topic. She went out yesterday and got a ton of raw food supplies! I must admit, I was so impressed with my first "raw" food meal I plan on adding a few more of these to my daily routine. Thanks Gena and Abbie for the inspiration!

{More on this later, I'm also seriously considering purchasing a juicer...}

***
Had my first official run with my TNT group Sunday morning. We meet every Sunday at 7 AM at Colonial Lake downtown, which is perfect for me because it is about a .4 mile run there from my apartment. So I set out around 6:45 AM and boy was it muggy. I was already sweating when I reached the group!

There was about 15 of us or so there, and we were running varying distances from 5-8 miles. Apparently they train on the Galloway Method, which is basically running for short intervals and then walking in between. I was on the fence about this, but decided to see how it worked for me this week.

So I headed off with the 8 mile group and discovered we would be running for 5 minutes, and walking 1 minute. I have to say, this was not a very challenging run for me. I was definitely a bit sore afterwards, but with all the walk breaks and the two bathroom + water stops we had, I didn't really feel (mentally probably more than anything) like I had put in a good run. I just have it in my head that for a run to be really a run, I have to do it straight through with no walk breaks!

But nevertheless, it was good for me to get out there and try it, and it was in total the longest run I've had since the marathon, at about 8.8 miles round trip.

Bad news was, my almost-brand-new 6-month old Garmin 405 was acting the same way it was last week when I ran the bridge with Shannon. It was chirping nonstop and kept switching back and forth from various screens without me touching it. It wouldn't let me start or stop it and eventually when I got back to the apartment it got stuck on the 'lost satelite reception' screen. I plugged it in to charge to see if that would reset it. I haven't checked on it yet but I'm not holding my breath for it to be fixed. I guess I'm going to have to see how I can send it back in....

Tonight is an off day for running, I am going to be out of commission for the next few days cramming for my big test on Thursday.

But I might be going to look at a used juicer tonight... :)