Happy Thanksgiving!

I’ll be back after the holiday with full updates of our travels, including Thanksgiving and the glorious beach wedding. For now, I’m going head out for a quick one woman turkey trot to shake off the stiffness of a 7 hour car drive and a night on an air mattress with a wiggly 6 year old (ouch!). I hope you have a wonderful day, full of things to be grateful for and the time and space to pause to appreciate them!

It’s the most wonderful (Chaotic!) time of the year!

I LOVE the holidays but wow does time fly during that time frame between Halloween and New Years. I can’t believe Halloween was two weeks ago and I’m already making a list of supplies for Thanksgiving. Whew. Good things that have happened since I last checked in with you guys:

• Running is going well, with no recurrence of my arm pain and lots of happy, running endorphins, even with short runs. If this is the only level of running I get back to, I’m still happy and grateful to be here!
• I’ve lots of big dinners related to work lately, complete with indulgent foods and lots of alcohol and yet my weight is not climbing through the roof. I’m still at a lower weight than I was two months despite these indulgences, thanks to the fact that I’m not snacking as much and not eating everything on my plate every time I’m out. I haven’t lost in the last week thanks to all of these indulgences, but I’m not gaining either and that’s a win.
• I met my goal of getting an order in place to recheck my kidney labs. I’ll be doing it this afternoon! Health self-care for the win!
• I made progress in one of my #40for40 goals and styled my hair reasonably nicely for the Children’s Hospital Gala this week:

I know it isn’t fancy, but it is a big stretch upwards in my hair skills!

Thanks to the gala, I’ve also set a post-Thanksgiving goal: to try out Orange Theory Fitness. In the silent auction, I won a one month membership and have been curious about Orange Theory for a while. I’ll be sure to give you guys a full update after I try it out.
I also won this awesome cookie-making basket that will make holiday baking easier!

Over the next two weeks, I have two massive healthy-lifestyle challenges coming. 1) I am going to the beach wedding of a dear friend (and am SO EXCITED for her and that I can join her!). 2) Thanksgiving (obviously). These are both events where I’m looking forward to the people I’ll be with, so I’ll be focusing on the people first and foremost, with some selected treats along the way. My success in not snacking and not binging despite some significant stresses lately makes me think that I’ll get through the next two weeks relatively unscathed, but I don’t want to take that for granted and lose track. I’ll bring my workout gear with me for both trips – and am planning lots of dancing at the wedding!

What’s your plan for Thanksgiving? How many days do you allow yourself for Thanksgiving indulgences? For me at least, it’s those non-Thanksgiving days around the holiday that actually get me in the most trouble. If I keep my treats limited to the actual holiday, things will go much better!