Carrots vs. Cupcakes: Finding the Balance

I received an e-mail from a reader who pointed out to me that I often talk about living a healthy lifestyle myself as well as for the furballs. But recently my posts have included ice cream for the dogs and beer and donuts for me. Oy. This person, who chooses to remain anonymous, isn’t calling me out as a hypocrite but instead just asking me to explain how I find the balance. So today’s post will be just that.

I’ve enjoyed eating healthy foods since I was a kid. Thankfully I truly like fruits, veggies and whole grains so making these choices on a daily basis isn’t usually difficult for me. I was an athlete when I was younger so my exercise was built into those activities. In high school I ate my fair share of junk on the weekends with friends but at home my mom kept lots of healthy foods around so I was still mostly eating nutritious meals. I didn’t work out but thanks to a fast metabolism and good genes I stayed slim. And then there was college. My metabolism slowed and I was constantly stuffing my face with late night pizza, calorie laden cocktails and hangover breakfasts. I noticed I had to buy my jeans up a couple sizes and I was basically a fluffed up version of my former self. Enough was enough. I joined the gym, read up on nutrition and changed my thought process when making food choices.

Now, at 28, I am fairly strict with myself during the week. I keep all my meals healthy, pack lunch for work every day, count cardio as walking the dogs and add in about 20-30 sessions of strength training 3-4 times a week. My rule is, if I want something bad for me during the week I won’t eat it but if I still want it on the weekend, bring it on. Special occasions like birthdays and holidays are a free for all. When Friday night comes if I want a beer I have a beer, or 3. Saturday I will generally eat healthy, at least for breakfast and lunch. But from Saturday night on I eat and drink what I want. Sometimes I still choose healthy foods and sometimes I don’t. Same goes for the dogs. They get their portioned breakfast and dinner of Blue Buffalo dog food and only small treats for training during the week. We walk every day that we can, including Saturday morning, but take Sundays off. During the weekend regular meals are still on the menu but more exciting treats make their way in as well just for fun.

What about Chris, you ask? Well, he really loves his junk food. And when he was still single, he ate it all day every day. He has the metabolism of a 2 year old. My husband is not fond of fruits and veggies but I have found easy ways to get them into his diet. Toss veggies in with eggs, chicken tacos or whole wheat mac n’ cheese and he’ll eat them right up. Put berries in whole wheat pancakes or muffins and they will be gobbled. When he travels he eats whatever is available but at home, he will eat healthier meals.

I firmly believe in living a healthy lifestyle, for both people and dogs. But I also believe in cheese fries, donuts, cocktails & ice cream in moderation. It keeps me sane. We don’t ever feed our dogs off our plates but we do let them indulge in made for doggie treats now and then and the very occasional human food treat, like ice cream. If you don’t ever give into a craving or reward yourself for something good, I think that’s when you feel like you’re on a diet. This is a way of life so it can’t feel too restrictive. Every month at work we celebrate all the birthdays of employees for that month with free cupcakes. I’m talking about the bakery cupcakes with the giant piles of icing on top. Normally I can pass because I know I can have a cupcake on Saturday if I really want to. But there has been a time or two that I just really wanted a damn cupcake. So I ate one. And then I went home and worked out and ate a healthy dinner.

So, finding the balance isn’t always easy, and it won’t be the same for everyone. This is just the way we live and what works for us. I don’t have any training on nutrition or fitness for people or dogs, just knowledge acquired over years of my own research. The goal is to keep myself and my family healthy from the inside out so we can have long, happy lives. If anyone would like to see future posts on this topic, please let me know.

Now put down that cupcake and go eat some carrots! Just kidding, eat the cupcake and then eat the carrots later J.

Give Me A Break

Around here we have been having some patches of pretty intense heat and humidity. It’s feel like you get smacked in the face by it as soon as you walk outside kind of hot and humid. Not my favorite. As many of you know, we live in a 2 bedroom condo. While the open floor plan does provide some space for the dogs to play, it doesn’t cut it in terms of them (especially Ares) getting enough exercise. So we take daily 3.5 mile walks. But that becomes a bit of a problem when it literally feels like you’re walking through hell. Or at least how I imagine hell would feel.  

Typically Ares and Chaos are walked 6 days a week Monday through Saturday in the warmer months. Even if it rains there tends to be at least 45 minutes when it stops and we can get our walk in. During the week we wait until later in the evening to go and head out early Saturday morning to beat the heat. Our dogs have short fur with no undercoat and do just fine in the heat as long as it’s not for too long without a break. We take Sundays off to sleep in. Okay, yea right. We take Sundays off to lay around before we start the day. Sundays should be for coffee, donuts and snuggles.

 

But when it gets to the point that it feels like 100 degrees, we know a long walk it out of the question. Exercise is important for dogs just as it is for people. Low impact walking keeps their hearts healthy and muscles and joints strong. Plus, it drains physical and mental energy. They say a tired dog is a happy dog and I whole heartedly agree. Different dogs need different levels of exercise but we know ours need the daily long walk. So when we have to skip, I get to feeling guilty. We play inside but I can tell they aren’t tired at bedtime. And then I feel bad. Obviously I can’t change the weather and it would be irresponsible to subject them to conditions that weren’t safe for a long walk. But I still feel bad.

Recently I’ve felt like I’m riding the bad luck train. A string of unwanted events have occurred but all of them have been beyond my control. So I’m trying to focus on working on the things that I can control. Like giving myself a break. I really do my very best to give the furbabies the most amazing life possible, keep our home clean and take care of myself. But every once in a while I need to stop worrying about skipping a walk, put off doing a load of laundry or cleaning the bathroom, or ditching my own work out. Sometimes I need to just hang with the furballs while sitting on my ass and watching TV for 3 hours, La Croix in hand of course (flavor of the week is Peach Pear, yum!) and not feel guilty about it. And that, my friends, is exactly how I spent my Tuesday night this week.

Do you give yourself a break?

Furry Pick Me Ups

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been through a period of time where you seriously keep wondering if Ashton Kutcher is going to jump out and yell “YOU JUST GOT PUNKED!” because the things that keep happening are just downright ridiculous? I’m guessing all of your hands are raised so you know exactly where I’m coming from. It’s almost like the universe is secretly taping me for a reality show where annoying things keep happening and it just keeps going until I completely lose it and have a mental breakdown. Well universe, you can suck it. Yea, I said it. Nothing life altering or terribly awful has happened to me, just a series of bad things that keep piling up. But I will choose to deal with it like I usually do in a very mature manner: Throw a mini fit, pout for a minute, drink some wine with something so bad for me but so delicious and convince myself tomorrow will definitely be better with a smile on my face.

You see, the thing about animals is that they are innately intuitive and pick up on the energy of their people. Basically the furballs mirror my emotions in their own way. And that in and of itself is both comforting and hilarious. Piper didn’t hesitate to help herself to the remnants of my homemade calzone.

And monitored my wine drinking.

 Ares and Chaos pouted with me.

And smiled with me. 

And Little O was on point with the fit throwing.

It also cannot be denied that snuggling your furball is a sure fire way to instantly lift your mood. Add in some sunshine and iced coffee and why did I have the blues again? It’s like they know just how to make everything better. It’s Friday people and it’s been a hell of a week so bring on the weekending. Oh and it’s 5 o’clock so beer me!

Cheers y’all

Ares Turns 3

3 years ago I had just moved into my condo and it was me and Piper all by ourselves. Little did I know that about 120 miles away, my very first puppy was being born. Today I look at Ares and wonder how I ever entertained myself before he came into my life. He is so goofy, playful and fearless and loves to make friends everywhere he goes.

Ares actually turned 3 on Monday 7/20/15 but we started the celebration over the weekend. We never feed the dogs from the table and rarely give them human food that isn’t good for dogs, but birthdays are for splurging. It was over 90 degrees and humid as hell Saturday afternoon but we loaded up the boys and drove down to our local DQ. The back patio was shaded so we sat out there and made messes with our ice cream. It just didn’t feel fair not to include Chaos, and he was clearly feeling a little upset that it wasn’t his birthday. We ordered cups of vanilla ice cream for both boys, a mini PB cookie dough blizzard for me and a PB shake for Chris. Clearly we love PB. The boys do too but we thought anything more than plain soft serve would’ve been too much. Chaos wolfed his down like he was never eating again and then I just said what the hell and let him finish mine. Ares is always a slow eater and even though his ice cream was melting all over the patio he still took his time finishing every last drop. Luckily nobody puked on the short drive home and then relaxing in the A/C was the name of the game for the rest of their evening.  

The boys were pooped from an early morning walk and to beat the heat and our afternoon adventure so Chris and I took the opportunity for a rare night out. It was beyond sticky, icky, icky (please tell you just sang “ooh ooh, Saturday!”) but I actually didn’t mind the summer heat later. Wearing a super comfy and light weight tunic as a dress helped too. It was a tad short I guess but hey, I got a lot of compliments so it must have still been cute. It ended up being really nice to get out for the night and I really love this picture, even though the lighting is not the best. 

Sunday was grocery shopping day so we picked up some delicious chicken flavored bones for the birthday boy. Chaos surprisingly just went off to snooze while Ares enjoyed his special treat. Typically Ares isn’t much of a chewer but little man sure does love a good bone, especially when it’s rare that he gets one all for himself.

Monday night’s dessert was a little unconventional but ended up a smash hit. I had some JIF PB cereal in the cabinet (remember how I mentioned we love PB?) so I decided to fill the boys’ bowls with that and add plain non-fat yogurt on top. Ares can be a bit on the picky side when it comes to food but I know he loves PB and yogurt probably equally as much, so why not mix them together? Typically Ares gets half the amount of food Chaos does but I went all out for the big 3 so the birthday boy got probably more than he’s ever had in his life. And he ate all of it. Every last bit. And then spent time lounging in his new favorite spot, our bed, and snort/purring away.

 

Ares you make us laugh, drive us nuts and melts our hearts all at the same time. Life without you just wouldn’t be as fun. We love all the memories we’ve made in your first 3 years and can’t wait for so many more. Happy birthday baby boy!