Oh, friends. I had such a nice week with my buddies Becki and Lauren.  Their trips only overlapped for a night, but it was so awesome to spend time together. It was super great to visit with Lauren; since she lives in Asia, our visits are few and far between.  Catching up was priceless, and I loved seeing her with Henry again!

She met him when he was about 9 weeks old:

And now, he’s nearly 16 months!  Such a big change, right?

We’ve decided we’re going to take a photo like that every time we’re all together.  I bet one day, she’ll be jokingly holding up 16 year old Henry!

Speaking of all these dates…

I’ve been thinking a lot about counting.  One thing that I’ve been counting? Days until the Half Ironman!

Oh, God… Seriously, where does the time go?!  I wake up every morning and think, “23 days to go! Oh wait…22! AHHHHH!”

The other thing that I’m counting lately is veggies & fruits.  I think I wrote about this a few weeks ago, but basically, I’m aiming to eat 7 to 9 servings a day.  I started counting servings because I realized that, when I wasn’t paying attention, my total was much… much… MUCH lower.  I’ve been paying more attention to Henry’s diet than my own.

Some tricks I’ve been using to squeeze more in:

Breakfast:  I have a serving of veggies with breakfast (usually steamed kale with my eggs).

Smoothie: I have a smoothie every day and pack it with banana, berries, and spinach. Three or four servings for the price of one snack!

Stir-fries:  At night, when I’m too tired (or busy playing catch-up with work and training), I’ve been eating a lot of rice + beans or lentils.  But it’s not so hard to add in some shredded carrots, chopped tomatoes, or handfuls of greens.

Are you a counter, too?

I love to count.

Everything relates back to Sesame Street when you have a toddler…

Counting when it comes to healthy living is a funny thing, isn’t it? It can be incredibly motivating and positive… or it can create a negative vacuum.  Counting veggies is great for me; but at this point in my life, I hate using a GPS watch to time my workouts because getting too wrapped up in my pace and splits does my head in!  Same thing with counting calories.  When I first made a lifestyle change and was trying to get the basics of healthy eating down, counting calories and learning about protein counts was really good for me.  But it also hindered my ability to eat intuitively.  And now, it would just irritate me!  So I only count calories on long workouts, when I need to be really careful about getting enough fuel.

Are you a counter?  What do you count?  Miles, veggies, points, protein?  How do you keep counting a positive thing, not an emotional energy suck?  I’m convinced that the love (or hate) of counting is a personality thing.  I bet a lot of counters are slightly more Type A on the spectrum!

PS – The winner of the No Meat Athlete book giveaway is Katie, who is more of a early evening workout woman but squeezes in her sweat time whenever possible.