Happy Turkey Eve!

Last Year's Thanksgiving Goodies ...

I hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving Day tomorrow. I am looking so forward to eating lots and lots of good food. Mmmmm….

Enjoy!!

Eat Your Heart Out and Stay Healthy, Too!

So, I don’t know about all of you, but I have this problem with food — I love it.♥

And when I am surrounded by it 24/7 like I was this weekend, I have a tough time staying away from the fabulousness of it all. I ate so much dang food during the festivities come and gone that I swear I gained like five pounds … all in my ass.

But I don’t feel that sorry about it. It would be one story if I always ate like that, but I don’t. I am not perfect by any means, but I am usually pretty good at regulating my splurges.

I do think, however, that it is nice to know how to make some healthy decisions in those situations. I, for one, always try to just taste little bits of things — a little bit of cheese here, cake there, miraculous Cuban food (my future mother-in-law’s specialty!) over there … you get it.

But I thought it may be a good idea to consult my trusty Eat This, Not That book to help ya’ all out with making healthy decisions the next time you decide to party it up.

At the Ballpark: Choose a box of Cracker Jacks and a 12 oz. beer (Total: 559 calories, 7 grams of fat), instead of nachos and a 16 oz. cola (Total: 847 calories, 38 grams of fat — all from the nachos!).

At a Fourth of July Bash: Choose baked beans (3/4 cup without bacon), watermelon (1 medium slice) and 4 oz. of coleslaw (Total: 346 calories, 9.5 grams of fat) as your sides, instead of vegetables with ranch dip, potato salad and corn on the cob with 1/2 tablespoon butter (Total: 520 calories, 32 grams of fat).

At a Swanky Part-tay: Choose 12 large shrimp with 2 tablespoons of cocktail sauce and a 6 oz. glass of champagne (Total: 295 calories, less than one gram of fat), instead of a crab cake and 8 oz. gin & tonic (Total: 530 calories, 19 grams of fat).

Now, eat it up!

Health Check!

DID YOU KNOW?

You should eat immediately after exercise — ideally within 30 minutes of working out — so your body doesn’t begin breaking down muscle tissue to repair itself.  — Eat This, Not That

How to Counteract a Face Collision with Oreos

For the most part, many of our efforts are concentrated on being healthy and working toward living the best life we possibly can.

There are times however, where the new Spring Oreo Cookies get in the way of those efforts, and we eat a few too many (completely hypothetical situation).

According to SELF.com, the best way to counteract a binge is as follows. Something to keep in mind I guess, for all of you who cannot control your impulse to eat an insane amount of daffodil-colored icing sandwiched between two chocolate wafers. I, for one, am not one of those people. —

“You overdid it on sugary carbs like cake and cookies, and now you’ve got the shakes. To feel better fast, nibble on foods high in protein and complex carbs such as yogurt and berries; these take longer to digest and are released slowly into the bloodstream, which helps your blood sugar even out.”

Looks like I may be eating a lot of chicken today …

Health Check!

A Purdue University study found that those who munched on nuts high in monounsaturated fat felt full 90 minutes longer than those who snacked on low-fat foods like rice cakes (or 100 calorie packs). Try pistachios, macadamia nuts or almonds.

Midnight Noshing

I don’t know about you guys, but I am a big-time evening snacker. Well, I shouldn’t say “snacker” — my problem is more that I eat late at night. I get caught up in my day, and I work and I work, and then all of a sudden I realize it is 8 p.m. — and way past normal people dinner time.

Now, the problem with all of that is that I have read so much information about a “cutoff point” for eating. Much of the research that is featured in health magazines and books — even Oprah stops eating at 7 p.m.! — says that eating late at night may cause weight gain.

So, as a project for Her Active Life, the online health publication for which I write, I set out to find the truth. I must say I was pleasantly surprised! While it does seem the rumors do hold some validity, the truth really points at one basic fact: You must burn more calories than you eat in order to lose weight. Therefore, if you are eating your daily recommended allowance of calories, it really won’t contribute to weight gain — no matter what time it is!

Get more facts by checking out the article, Do Evening Snacks Make You Fat?

Eat, Sleep, Eat … or something.

Hello! My name is Caroline Shannon.

Once upon a time in a land far far away, I was a runner. I was a health enthusiast and a positive thinker. I was a writer, a vegetable eater, a confident woman . . .

I was pretty dang cool.

I am not sure where my will to roll out of bed when it was still dark or my need to feel my hands on a keyboard were lost, but I think I have a few ideas. Thus, here follows the chain of events that lead to me eating cheese in excess and only using my yoga mat as padding under a sleeping bag when my younger brothers sleep over:

1.) I stopped pursuing my passion, writing. I left my position as a news reporter and took a desk job that I thought would help me make a bit more money. I thought the extra cash would then make me feel more secure when pursuing a full time freelance writing position. It sounded practical, but it turned out awfully. Turns out my desk job is extremely boring — for me — and unmotivating.

Who woulda thunk it.

2.) My counting down the minutes (milliseconds, nanoseconds!) until I have squeezed in enough hours to make a buck has caused me to go home and . . . uh . . . sit on my ass. My excuse is that I need to do mindless things, like watch The Hills, to take away the edge left over from the work day. The real reason that I needed to engage in such “activities” is because doing something like exercising or writing would cause me to think too much. And that would be painful.

3.) Sitting apparently requires eating, and I am not talking tofu and brown rice here, people.

My favorite strawberry print pj’s + a few episodes of good ol’ MTV =french vanilla ice cream with a dash of chocolate gelato, raviolis with meat sauce and an entire bag of holiday (Any holiday! Christopher Columbus Day!) candy.

4.) I have stopped running which, next to writing, is a huge part of my life. This could be due to my drugging myself with sugar before I go to bed, ergo diminishing my want to get up in the morning and exercise; or it could be a result of the fact that I am saving whatever scraps of motivation I have left in my soul to use during the work day.

One may never know.

What I have figured out, however, is that my lifestyle has become unacceptable. My life is begging me to engage in a complete overhaul.

And I am gonna listen this time.

This is not some wacky New Year’s resolution that I am going to forget about the next time I am head-to-head with a pint of chocolate swirl ice cream and a package of Nutter Butter cookies.

I am committing myself to getting back to the Old Caroline and it starts right now. No more “I’ll start tomorrow” talk. I am so sick of me that I am ready to kick the crap out of myself. It’s that bad.

I know I sound all preachy and you are probably rolling your eyes a bit right now. I know this because I am rolling my eyes at myself right now.

But I mean, who can’t use a little overhaul (If you can’t, I don’t like you…kidding, kidding…)? I am hoping that you, too, will learn from my experiences. I plan on sharing it all right here.

My writing, exercise tips, healthy recipes, inspiration, running, black toenails from running…

…you get it.

This is not a blog about how to lose weight or how to get a job or how to find God. This is about total life renewal — to be specific, MY total life renewal. So, live vicariously, and lean on me, and learn from me, and love me, and tell me to get my ass off of the couch!

I am excited to have each one of you on my side as I move forward. And, hopefully, each one of you who are in my shoes – -like, you can smell the stench of my kicks, that’s how much you understand what I am saying — will be challenging yourself to get your act together as well. Or even if you are the slightest, littlest, tiniest bit in need of a change, I hope you, too, will learn from my journey.

I am ready to rock. Are you?