Last week I announced to the world (okay, just you and you, but still, you are my world, baby) that I would be running a relay marathon May 11th.

Hey! That’s Mother’s Day! Forget lying in bed and expecting bacon and eggs from your spawn ~ get up and run a marathon!

Why yes, I’ll take that with a side of what was I thinking? (Seriously, doing fine - I’m up to 5K (3.1 miles). What’s 3 more measly kilometres? I LAUGH IN THE FACE OF SHIN SPLINTS!)

An aside: I keep accidentally typing marathong. Perhaps a Freudian slip in anticipation of my new buns of steel?

Ahem. Anyway.

Part of training for a marathon besides running your fool legs off and getting enough sleep, is feeding your body foods that it can process, use and fuel on. I figured this was advice everyone could use and contribute to.

Enter: SNACKING!

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I don’t know about you, but after reading Karen R.’s awesome post Monday about her plans to participate in a marathon relay, I am feeling like I totally need to get off my own butt and do something. But I am motivated by other people that way. Their success inspires me.

I am also motivated, some days, by chocolate. Also sleep. (Yes, I am a slug. With chocolate-breath.)

So I was thinking this morning about motivation. It comes in different packages for different people. Some of us are totally competitive, some are into Inner Growth and Finding One’s Peace and all. And some of us (okay, me) find ourselves bouncing around, trying out different ways of finding motivation, a drive to Do Something.

Sometimes there’s a carrot there up ahead (a chocolate carrot), and sometimes there’s a damned stick behind me.

Both seem to work. But is one better than another? Read the rest of this entry »

Other people may not have high expectations of me, but I have high expectations for myself. ~ Shannon Miller

Well hello everyone! I’m Karen Rani of Karen Sugarpants and Swank Web Style, and I’m here as part of the new Catch Your Breath Team! I’m here to talk to you about nutrition and exercise.

If you’d asked me 6 months ago to write about this topic, I would have laughed in your face and called you crazy.

It is the sort of topic that a) I knew nothing about 6 months ago; and b) sounds completely boring. It doesn’t have to be, I promise.

I’ve never been an athlete and I certainly have had my fair share of time where I felt being a pregnant woman/nursing mother was a license to eat. I’ve tried every diet under the sun, including Atkins, Weight Watchers, South Beach, and have even gone so far as to starve myself for several months, stifling hunger pangs with high amounts of coffee. p.s. None of those things work.

I’ve been 120 pounds, 220 pounds and everything in between.

Like a lot of moms, my weight has been up and down for years. It’s exhausting. It’s stupid. It’s frustrating. There simply is no other way to get healthy than to eat sensibly and be active.

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Why, hello! I feel like I’ve been away for months. Light-years. Have I? Well, no. In actuality I spent a work-related long weekend in another city, one that required plane travel to get there. Lots of us travel for work regularly, and we really should swap stories about maintaining sanity while traveling by air. Ready? I’ll go first: Read the rest of this entry »

Why hello, it’s Monday! Like many of you I work from home, and in many ways one day is much like another for me as a result, but I still get that feeling of…oh. Monday. So that’s why I feel that way.

If you are excited that it’s Monday, hey! That’s wonderful! (And also I want your secret about not being so meh about it.) But for the rest of us, there are ways to get revved up and feeling good, even on a Monday. Or any day. And they only take 20 minutes or less! Read the rest of this entry »

All right, let’s face it: we can do all the inner work, soul-searching, deep breathing we want but if our kids are running around screaming like banshees or are stressed themselves, we’re going to feel it. It’s next to impossible to maintain an inner calm when you’re at the epicenter of chaos.

Short of duct tape and tranquilizer darts, what to do? Read the rest of this entry »

Where I live in eastern Pennsylvania, last week’s icy snow has magically turned into mud. Gloppy, sticky mud. But instead of looking at what I’m stepping in, I’m looking up into the sunshine. At last! Spring! And I am so very ready now to start looking for the signs of growth that will be arising everywhere soon: buds that will one day be leaves on the trees, spring flowers poking their heads up, an increase in birds looking for food and nesting material, animals coming out of their winter’s sleep. And just as the earth (at least, in the northern hemisphere; you southies just ignore this and go on inward for now) is waking up into a new growth season, so are we. Read the rest of this entry »