Eating "Clean" and Running

This summer has flown by! We are now on week 10 of half marathon training, and it is going super well! Our longest run has been 8 miles, so far, and we do 10 miles, three Sundays from now! How exciting! I pray we stay fit and healthy. I'm very thankful for my body and what I can do with it. I feel strong, even if I don't look like it. Having a C-Section, let alone 2 babies in 22 months changes your body permanently. Especially when baby #2 stretched out your belly like you had twins--my abs are still split down the middle :-( I don't think they'll ever get back together. Gross. This brings me to our attempts to eat clean. I think that eating 'healthy' as our current culture defines it is not good enough. How is drinking a shake made from a manufactured powder good for you? How is eating a "bar" made with "grains and fruit" good for you if it also has a lot of other processed stuff? It's not. I know that eating clean is kind of a fad right now, but let us be honest....it's a good one. There can't be anything wrong with eating whole fruits and vegetables and non-processed foods. The thing is, I have to be realistic. We don't live on a farm. We don't have a full-fledged garden, and we are millionaires to afford to buy everything at Whole Foods or Farmers Markets. So, we are doing what works for us. And feeling great about it. I have the Fooducate app--and that's been pretty helpful. I'm trying to lose weight--not for vanity's sake or to achieve some number--but because I want to feel better. My mid section and flabby arms are ridiculous...hopefully eating cleaner will help us. We donated a few packaged food items and are slowly eating our way through the already opened ones--because there are starving people across the country and world, so it's a huge disservice to the environment to just throw food out. Here on out though.... no more boxed Velveeta Shells and Cheese (so bad but so good!), no more packaged granola bars, no more processed ice cream (cookie dough, anyone?), and no more buying bottled salad dressings. I've found recipes to replace common snacks, and will be getting familiar with non-bread-machine-yeast. I would say I hope this works out, but I know it will... It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle, and one that humans were born to thrive on. Poor G...she was just getting used to those awesome kid food like the blue box and hot dogs. I think there will be a learning curve here, though, so I'll keep you posted on how it goes. So far I've made some pretty delicious meals and our breakfasts have been full of veggies and fruit thanks to things like zucchini-carrot-banana muffins and carrot-blueberry-greek yogurt muffins (I threw in a banana too). I've been trying to get all the food groups into our meals, especially breakfast, the most important one of the day.

--and now for what you really care about, the kids. J is seven months old and killin' it at milestones. He's currently sick, though, and teething, soooo yah, real fun. G is almost 2.5 and rockin' the potty, coloring like a champ, and impressing us all with her vocabulary and comedic timing. They are super sweet together and life is good.