My Month of No Running… A Year Later

April 20, 2015 / ktbuchs87

This past Thursday, I came back home after housesitting in Sycamore for two and a half weeks. Other than seeing my husband and my cats, I was most excited to run along the lake again. It’s an awesome experience. To one side you have the lake and the beaches, and (if you run as early as I do) the beautiful sunset. On the other side you have lake shore drive and all the early morning commuters zooming by.

It’s the perfect balance of zen and chaos. I love it.

Friday morning rolled around and I popped right out of bed when my alarm went off at 5:30 am. Yes folks, I wake up that early on weekdays. It was the perfect day for a run. Not too hot but not too cold. There was a slight breeze, not the winter gale force wind I had been experiencing for months and there was a gorgeous sunrise. It was one of those runs where you don’t even realize you’re running because everything is just perfect.

As I was blissing out over this run, I started to think back to last year. About this time last year as I was on one of my runs my left knee started to hurt. Then it started to really hurt. Then I had to stop running and walk and then sit down in the middle of a country road and wonder how I was going to get back home. It was the first time that I had a real running injury. I had gotten my share of blisters and chafing and other running maladies but I had never had a full-blown, can’t run it hurts so bad injury.

I was devastated.

Not because I was hurt or because it was really painful but because I could NOT run. I tried to trick myself and took a few days off thinking I would be fine after the weekend. Yeah, no dice. There was no way I was going to be able to keep my regular running schedule with that knee.

It was a really hard month. I was mopey and crabby and pouty. Adam should get a medal for being around me because I was not a pleasant person to be around. Running felt like the only thing that defined me as far as physical activity. I had fallen in love with running and it had helped changed me inside and out and to suddenly have it ripped away really took it’s toll on me.

It sounds dramatic, but I know other runners will feel me on this one.

But here I am a year later, running along Lake Shore Trail despite my dark moments of despair when I would cry and ask Adam if I would ever run again. That month of no running taught me a lot of things and they have stuck.

1. I am not just a runner. I have so many other things going for me

2. I don’t have to run every single day to be physically fit, in fact I shouldn’t run every single day

3. Running isn’t the only form of exercise that I enjoy. I actually like lifting heavy weights and want to lift even heavier

4. I can handle adversity, but I need to learn how to do it with a little more grace.

5. I need to be thankful every run that I can do because sometimes I can’t

Sometimes things happen in life that knock you down so that you can pick yourself up and be stronger.

I think experiencing a month of no running helped me to get to where I am right now. And where I am right now is pretty awesome. I am truly blessed to be living the life I am and I love being able to do things that I believe in and help others. I have an amazing support system and I learn new things each day. I have pushed my limits more than I thought I could and I am ready to go even further past my comfort zone. Running has given me so much but not running gave me more than I thought possible.

I can’t wait to see what happens next.

The Food I Eat

April 15, 2015April 15, 2015 / ktbuchs87

I’m not a vegan, I eat eggs and honey.

I’m not paleo, I eat grains and legumes.

I’m not a raw foodist, I cook a lot of my food.

I’m Katie and I am so much more than the way I eat.

Delicious omelet at our favorite breakfast place

I think that the health world can get too caught up in labels. We all want to know what diet you’re following or what workout craze is holding your attention. We want to tout the benefits of a certain lifestyle over another. Sometimes we want to spend all our energy bashing other lifestyles that don’t fit our mold. Either way it can seem that instead of a person all we see is a label.

An entire meal of yummy vegetables

I understand the necessity of labels. I use them myself, on my blog, on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. It is helpful when sharing recipes to let people know what is or isn’t in the ingredients. But I don’t want to feel tied to a name that only describes one thing about me.

Creamy dairy free and gluten free spring pasta

Yes, I eat mostly plant-based. Yes, I don’t eat dairy. Yes, I limit the amount of gluten I eat. I do all these things because that way of eating is what works best for me. The foods I eat are what fuel me in the best way, satisfies my hunger in the best way, and tastes good to me. It’s ok to not have a specific name for the way you eat.

All the good fats in pistachios

Eat real food, as close to their natural state as possible.

Try to avoid processed or man made food products.

Don’t worry about what is on your neighbors plate.

Let them eat for them and you eat for you.

We’ll all be a lot happier and healthier if we keep those things in mind.

I’m not just the food I eat. I’m wonderfully weird, witty, and wacky too!

Big Batch Cooking

April 8, 2015April 8, 2015 / ktbuchs87

While I’m working on coming up with a new video series for the blog (totally open to suggestions of what YOU want to see) I thought I would use the Wednesday post to share a few of the things that I do during the week to help make eating and being healthy easier.

Big batch cooking is one of the best ways that I save time and brain power when it comes to making healthy meals. It’s exactly what it sounds like; I cook a lot of food all at once. That simple. I do this with vegetables and grains/legumes. Sunday and Monday I will spend time washing, cutting, and prepping all the vegetables that I bought on Friday.

Parsnips cut and ready to be roasted

Then it’s time to cook it all.

My favorite way to cook my vegetables is to roast them. It tastes great and it’s an easy way to cook a lot of vegetables at one time. I roast sweet potatoes, parsnips, beets, cabbage, and green beans. I also saute a big batch of broccoli and sometimes throw a few carrots into the mix.

Broccoli cooked and ready to be added to meals!

While my vegetables are roasting I cook up quinoa, brown rice, and whatever beans I have on hand like black beans or garbanzo beans. I cook these on the stovetop. I know a lot of people like to use canned beans for the convenience, but I like to use dried beans because it’s cheaper than buying the cans. It takes a little bit of planning since you have to soak the beans before you cook them but other than that you just boil and simmer them on the stove for 20-40 minutes.

Once everything is done cooking, I put them into large glass containers, let them cool, and stick them in the fridge. Now I don’t have to worry about cooking them on a busy weeknight. I can just pull out the container warm them up, throw them into whatever dish I have planned for that night and get dinner on the table in a timely manner.

You can do this with other things as well. You can cook up big batches of chicken or pork, you can hard boil a bunch of eggs, or you can wash, dry and cut up leafy greens to be used for salads throughout the week.

Batch of my chickpea tofu ready to be added to stir fry

Cooking a whole lot of things all at once and having them ready when you want to eat takes the work out of planning a healthy meal. How many times have you come home from a long day at work and realized if you want to eat a healthy dinner you’re going to have to spend at least 40 minutes in the kitchen getting it ready? At that points it becomes much more tempting to just grab something at a drive through or get a frozen dinner from the grocery store, neither of which are that healthy of an option.

Do yourself a favor and give big batch cooking a try. I bet you’ll find that it saves you a bunch of time and helps you stick to your healthy lifestyle!

Transforming The Creature Of Habit

April 6, 2015 / ktbuchs87 / 1 Comment

The idea of routines has been on my mind this week. You know from previous posts that I am a creature of habit. I like having a routine and doing certain things at certain times. I feel more in control of my day when I have a set out plan for what is going to happen. It also keeps me organized and on track to have a schedule to adhere to.

This past week I have been nowhere near my normal routine and you know what? I haven’t fallen apart. The days have moved on as they always do and time has gone by just like normal and I am still here and haven’t gone to pieces. In fact I have doing some great and inspired work. It might not seem like a huge thing to you, but to a control freak like me this is nothing short of a miracle.

There have been times where things have not gone according to my “plan” and I have completely lost it. Adam can attest to my horrible attitude when something out of the blue comes my way. I almost turn into a small child having a temper tantrum. I would always marvel at my husband’s ability to take everything that comes at him in stride. He knows that there are certain things that he can’t change and rather than let it ruin his whole day and turn him into a moody teenager, he works around it and figures out a new plan.

And I think that attitude is starting to rub off on me.

As time goes on I am learning that I am in no way in control of the things around me. Sure, I can have a routine and some semblance of order, but there will always be curve balls. Life in general is one big curveball. Letting my life come to a screeching halt whenever something goes awry is no way to live. In fact it isn’t living at all. I want to be able to say that I enjoyed life, that I was able to adapt and deal with any hardships that came my way. I don’t want to look back and see that I pouted my life away or flew to pieces because something happened that I had no control over in the first place.

In light of this revelation (that only took 27 years for me to even begin to figure out) I want to try and step out of my comfort zone a little more. I want to try things that aren’t in my routine. Let my schedule be more of a loose guideline than a strict plan I have to follow or lose all hope. I’m betting that amazing things will come my way and I will be able to seize them much better than if I had stuck to my rigid plan.

What about you? Are there things in your life that you can let go of? Are there changes you can make to your routine that might allow you to experience something new and amazing? If something has been holding you back or you have been waiting for a nudge, consider this it. Try something new, step out of your comfort zone, forget the plan for a little while.

I promise you that you won’t fall apart and you might even grow just a little bit.

Not Moving and Spring Cleaning

March 23, 2015March 23, 2015 / ktbuchs87

While it might officially be spring, I am currently watching the snow fall out my window as I write this. Ah spring in Chicago: Where you’re more likely to have a white Easter than a white Christmas. Oh well, I will just pretend that it is warm and sunny out there and soon I will be sweltering in the Midwest summer.

I had the realization the other day that for the first time in about five years Adam and I are NOT looking for a new apartment and NOT moving. This might not seem that significant, but to me it’s huge. Every single year since I graduated from college I have moved to a new apartment. I have written quite a few times about our moving endeavors so if you have been with me for awhile you know how much I hate moving. It’s just the worst to sit there and pack up all your stuff, schlepp it all to a new place, and then unpack all your stuff. I am really enjoying this time that I am not searching for a new place, then visiting those new places, and then moving to a new place. It’s just the best.

I will move physically but I ain’t moving apartments

There is one good thing that came from us moving so frequently. Because I didn’t want to pack and move junk that I wasn’t using we always went through all our stuff and got rid of anything that we didn’t need or use. We would fill big black bags full of clothes to donate and load up are car with stuff that we hadn’t used in years and drive off to Goodwill to give it all away. It always made me feel lighter and happier to unburden our house with unnecessary things.

Even though we aren’t moving, this weekend I decided to go through all of our things and do some spring cleaning. It’s amazing how many things you accrue over a year and stash into closets and cabinets and then promptly forget. Even though we haven’t been in our place for a full year yet, there was still a pile of clothes and things that we no longer needed. Again it felt great to get rid of the weight of that clutter.

Get it? Clean up your food, but not with actual cleaners. Cheesy, I know

Spring is a great time to not only clear out the clutter of your life but clean up your health as well. It’s time to get tough and look critically at the food you eat. Are you eating more sugar than normal? Are you snacking on junk food rather than fresh food? Are your portions way too big? Are you eating mindlessly instead of really enjoying your food? Take a look at what you do for exercise. Are you really pushing yourself to the best of your ability? Has your routine become boring so you’re just phoning it in? Are moving in some way each day? Do you enjoy the exercise you’re doing?

Ask yourself these questions and make sure the choices you’re making are serving your goal and helping you lead a healthier life. It’s a good idea to spring clean your life every once in awhile to increase your happiness and success.

Get to cleaning out that closet as well as that fridge today! Have a great Monday!