30 Days of Food: A Photo Diary

Recent inquiries about my blog's status have led me to start it up again (thank Amanda!). It's a good time to start writing again. I just finished two races - the Corporate Cup 5k in Montpelier and running a leg in the Key Bank Vermont City Marathon (5.5 miles). These were both huge races, with the VCM being both the longest distance and largest race I've ever run. I had to train. 5K has been my running distance for the last year. Almost doubling this distance took some practice; about two months of runs working to increase my running distance and stamina. But I did it. I ran it with almost no walking (10 seconds on mile 4). I wouldn't have ever thought two years ago I could have run in the VCM. But I did. And that's a big accomplishment for me. Here's me coming up on the finish line, and one of the Corporate Cup:

So where am I, exactly? Well, It's been more than two years since the start of my health journey. Still down over 100 pounds, and my hair has fully grown out to it's natural color. I still make my own cleaning products, and try to eat very clean and organic. It's never over though. Honestly, the last year has been a fight to maintain my three-digit weight loss - and I have, because I am a fighter. It has been an exercise in patience over the last year to try and get those last 30 pounds off. Seeing the marathon photos reminded me that I'm not quite there yet. I've come so far - and now I'm in the last mile - and I'm not going to give up no matter how slow I have to go. The last year it's been damn near a turtle's pace.

I've been asking myself, what can I do to get to that next level? What can I do to start losing again? I should do a challenge. It should be tied to my 30th birthday (in July). I would love to be 15lbs lighter within the next two months, feeling great as I roll in to my thirties. So what can I do differently? I've been pretty committed with workouts. CrossFit three days a week. One run a week. One nice long bike ride a week (~14 miles). What can I get better at? Food. Yes food. That's always it for me. Small adjustments. But how to tie this to a goal? Then the answer came to me one day...err...appeared in my Instagram feed (thanks Palesa!). My aunt posted a photo of what she ate that day, in photo grid format. She's been through a health journey of her own, and now looks like (or is?) a fitness model. I'm inspired. This photo had me thinking - if I took a picture of what I ate every day, would I be proud of it? What would I do differently or adjust? And then the idea came - a photo food diary. Something new to me. I've been logging calories since the beginning of time (not really, but since there was an app for that), but never really looked at what I was eating everyday, all at once. Challenge, accepted!

Here are the rules for my 30 Days of food photo challenge:

• I will post a photo grid on my blog for the next 30 days (the whole month of June)
• I will be focused on eating clean, and eating a more plant-based diet (cutting down the meat)
• I will properly fuel myself up before a workout 
• I will post everything I eat - even if I'm not proud of it
• I will strive to eat as many different colors of foods as I can. My grid should look like a darn rainbow!
• I will not log calories or grams of this and that. Just strive to be proud of what my daily food intake looks like

I this will make me more accountable, because maybe I haven't been as good as I should be. I've been wanting to shift to a more plant-based diet for awhile, it's time to try and see if it moves the needle.

30 pounds to go, let's do this!