I made that shirt for the races I’m going to be running until the end of the year. Originally I had a 5k, 2 halves and a marathon scheduled to complete my 2010 running goals but that was before I found out about little bean. For the first 2 months I didn’t [...]]]>

I made that shirt for the races I’m going to be running until the end of the year. Originally I had a 5k, 2 halves and a marathon scheduled to complete my 2010 running goals but that was before I found out about little bean. For the first 2 months I didn’t really change my plans because I’m a big believer in "You never know what’s going to happen." So I decided to keep running at the same level and take it day by day. Well at 2 and half months I’m getting more confident and MORE pregnant. :)

In lieu of my new situation I will be withdrawing from the halves and the full. I have continued to run these last two months but I have no desire to run any distance over 5 miles. Actually that was the level I was at when got pregnant so it kind of makes sense.

Instead of the longer distance races I’ll be running local 5k’s that I can find to complete my goal of running one event a month this year, which I still think is very doable and I’m very excited about it!

So for this weeks Thursday Thoughts I’m all about pregnant running…

• First, everyones been telling me that I have to get this months edition of Running World because of two famous marathoners (Runners Paula Radcliffe and Kara Goucher) who are both pregnant at the same time! I also believe there’s a third, Deena Kastor. Maybe there’s something in the Gatorade. ;)
• Babycenter has a great article on Running During Pregnancy with all the basics.
• WebMD Dispels some myths about exercise and pregnancy. My favorite…
  

  As long as you and your pregnancy are healthy, and you feel OK, experts say it’s safe to run right up until you go into labor. "Both ACOG and the National Academy of Sports Medicine have said that if you were running prior to pregnancy, you can continue during pregnancy, as long as you feel OK," says Hruska. 

  I’m not sure I’ll be running that long but it’ll be fun to see how long it feels right for me.

• And of course there’s more then running to help me stay fit during pregnancy. :)

Other news in my world…

• Lots of cooking this week on GreenLiteBites. I made some awesome soup with some fresh vegetables from the farm, an amazing almost Homemade chocolate banana bundt complete with glaze, a creative smoothie using green tea and tropical fruit, and today a spicy tuna salad. MAN! I’m loving having more time in my kitchen!
• On my personal blog I posted Who IS Your Audience? And More Importantly, Do You Even Care?
• And I’ve been working on FitBloggin’ updating speaker bios and working a new "Chatter" page.

Other than that I’m been helping a kindergardener with is homework and hanging out with the hubz. It’s been nice. :)

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This weeks Thursday Thoughts posts is devoted to my dirty kitchen. The other day I tweeted…

"I would rather have a dirty kitchen and a heathy diet the a crappy diet and a clean kitchen."

It was trying to make myself feel better becuase I didn’t feel like cleaning up before [...]]]>

This weeks Thursday Thoughts posts is devoted to my dirty kitchen. The other day I tweeted…

"I would rather have a dirty kitchen and a heathy diet the a crappy diet and a clean kitchen."

It was trying to make myself feel better becuase I didn’t feel like cleaning up before bed or should i say before I fell asleep on the couch. ;) I’m sure you know cooking your own meals, mostly from scratch does cause quite a mess. Especially if you are a sloppy cook like me. I swear I can’t stir a pot of sauce with having drippings all over my stove top.

Would it be easier to buy dinner in a box and pop it in the microwave or pick up the phone and get a pizza delivered? Sure. And I do that now and then but overall, day in and day out, I make an effort to cook for my family. That’s why I’m devoting this weeks Thursday Thoughts to eating at home.

• Let’s start with a blog post outlining 8 benefits of Eating at Home. The articles highlights saving money as the top reason which I totally agree with. It’s amazing how expensive eating out can be especially when you already bought groceries for the week and are simply too lazy to cook. Which is what usually what happens to me.
• In case money savings isn’t motivation enough just think.. do you REALLY know what your eating when someone else is cooking? ewe.
• If you take the leap to brave your own kitchen you may want to make sure it’s helping and not hurting your efforts.
• And I thought these tips to help stock a kitchen with healthy food while on a budget were wonderful.
• Ok, so you decided to eat at home, you’ve set and stocked your kitchen now you what do you cook? How about some help from a magazine I recently found and fell in LOVE with. Have you seen Clean Eating? So awesome! I want to work for these people! Such simple recipes using basic whole foods. Exactly my goal on GreenLiteBites.
• Since I’m on the food topic, as always, I’ll share my GreenLiteBites posts this week. First I made a new couscous salad on a whim and totally fell in love. Then I stuffed and baked some peaches, DIVINE! and tonight I ate a leftover Apple Chutney Turkey Burger for dinner. I guess you can say I’ve been having fruit cravings recently. ;)
• I’ve also been making progress on the FitBloggin’ planning. Reaching out to speakers, working on the schedule, and making buttons. I’m also happy to announce Jen and Mandy’s feature, Fit4FitBloggin’ which is going to be a ton of fun!
• Let’s see… other news…. Hmmmm… Oh! I recorded an "I Breastfeed because video" for the Ameda campaign. Click here to check it out but give it a second, for some reason it takes a bit for my video to load. I breast fed little guy for almost 8 months and I’m planning on doing it again with number 2. :) Maybe I’ll even re-record my long winded breast milk storage video. ;)

ok, I think that’s all I got in my tonight. I’m going to try to record a podcast tomorrow. I would have today BUT little was home from school so I took him to the Visionary Arts Museum instead. SO fun. :)

He had a blast!

We even shared the most AMAZING chocolate cake for a treat. :)

It was a great day.

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Ok.. so it’s REALLY starting to occur to me that I’m pregnant. I think I’ve been distracting myself in case something happens but it hit me yesterday that I’m over two months! I’m not completely out of the worry zone but every day that goes by I get more confident. Once I hit [...]]]>

Ok.. so it’s REALLY starting to occur to me that I’m pregnant. I think I’ve been distracting myself in case something happens but it hit me yesterday that I’m over two months! I’m not completely out of the worry zone but every day that goes by I get more confident. Once I hit the 3 month mark I may celebrate with a video and do video updates once a week or so. That would be more fun then photos I think. We’ll see.

Time really has been flying. I’ve had some of these links in my inbox since early August. Did you know it was September? I just realized this morning. That’s just pure craziness!

Anyway, let’s get to these links and then I’ll update a few things. You remember the old Thursday Thoughts drill, right? :)

• First of all did you see this article about Brian’s twitter diet? I’ll be screaming the power of blogs and social media when it comes to weight loss or simply living healthier until the day I die. This blog was started over 5 years ago for the same purpose and here I still am. Maintaining the loss, living consciously, reaching goals and hopefully inspiring others. It’s why I started BlogToLose. It’s why I’m planning another conference. It’s why I still keep my food journal on twitter. It’s why I will write this blog for as long as humanly possible. Can you tell I’m passionate about this? Really. I am. :)
• Since I’m on the healthy blog bandwagon I’ll use this time to mention Healthy Living Blogs. A fabulous directory of… well… healthy living blogs. What can I say? They have the perfect name. ;) Healthy Living Blogs is a growing, enormous bunch! I’m proud to be apart of it.
• Let’s move to my favorite subject besides blogging, FOOD! I have two great links saved. One is about portion distortion. It’s really getting out of hand, isn’t it? I swear, we ordered dessert the other day to split among the 3 of us and it was STILL too big. I get the whole value thing and that we love getting more for our money but there’s a point where it’s just ridiculous. It’s like we are addicted to the ‘more is better’ mentality.
• Speaking of addiction, according to this article, "studies show that some foods actually have a narcotic-like effect on our brains" They put chocolate, sugar, cheese, and fast food in their top 5. All of which I can honestly say are problem foods for me.
• Finally, I’m going to end with this post on thought provoking questions. You guys know how much I love to ask the Question of the Week. I’ve been doing it for 2 and half years now and still get a good conversation going now and then, like last weeks, Do You Count Calories, Fat or Weigh Your Food?. I plan on using some of the questions listed in that post as inspiration for future weeks.

My Updates this week…

• I’m cooking more and more now that I’m home and it’s been wonderful! This week on GreenLiteBites I made us two new dinners, Parmesan Dusted Chicken Fingers with Whole Wheat Pasta and Sun-Dried Tomato Sauce and Sweet Sausage and Vegetables over Bulgur. I also whipped up a healthy snack yesturday using salmon and little guy and I recorded ourselves making our favorite smoothie. Oh! and I’m also working on getting all my recipes categorized by points. It will probably take me a few weeks but I’ll do a few every night before bed and let you know when it’s done.
• The FitBloggin’ site hasn’t seen many updates BUT I’ve been working by butt off on the conference. I finally posted a tentative schedule and I’m reaching out to speakers via email. I hope to have many more updates next week.
• Last week on RoniNoone.com I griped about the iPad and this week I answered a question about giving credit to recipe sites.
• Finally, on BlogToLose I’m kicking off this holiday weekend with a challenge.
• Oh! Wait.. one more! I’ve updated my Training Schedule. I’m still back and forth on the marathon this december. Have to talk to my doc (getting a new one in 2 weeks) to see what she thinks. I may drop down to the half. Either way, I’m still running! I’ve slowed down considerably but I’m listening to my body and I feel fabulous afterwards!
• Update: I totally forgot!! Don’t forget I am co-presenting a teleclass on Tuesday!! Click here for more info!

I think that’s all I got me in tonight. I’m slowly finding my self-emplyment groove. I can see it only getting better from here on out. :)

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I can not believe how many weight loss bloggers there are anymore! I feel like an old lady trying to keep up but I am making an effort. I refuse to turn into a blog hermit! I decided to start blog hopping like I used to do when I didn’t have 5 sites, [...]]]>

I can not believe how many weight loss bloggers there are anymore! I feel like an old lady trying to keep up but I am making an effort. I refuse to turn into a blog hermit! I decided to start blog hopping like I used to do when I didn’t have 5 sites, a full time job and a family. ;)

I embarked and went blog to blog learning about amazing wonderful people who are not only changing their lives but motivating and inspiring others by sharing their experiences.

Along my blog exploration journey I noticed more and more male weight loss bloggers. I never really gave it much thought before FitBloggin’ but Dude.. the weight loss/fitness blogging world has been dominated by women for quite some time. Maybe it was just my small circle but I can only remember but 1 or 2 guy weight loss bloggers when I first started in ’05 and now there are so many I can’t keep up!

So in an effort to spread the blog love may I present a few of my favorite male weight loss bloggers. If you did not make the list please leave your link in the comments. I’d love to check out more hot er, I mean motivational dudes. ;) Plus I know I left a few out simply because this post was getting WAY to long.

• I gotta start with Jack. Not because his last name is Sh*t (no really, it is) but because he took one of my favorite books of all times (remember this, when I read it Little Guy?) and turned it into an inspirational story about weight loss. Click here to read Oh, The Weight You Will Lose. Genius!
• I went straight from laughing to crying after stopping by NoMoreBacon and reading The Luckiest Man In The World post. Although I disagree, without a doubt Chappelle is funny but Louis C.K. is by far the funnier man. ;)
• Once I dried my tears, Your Inner Skinny inspired me by embarking on a quest to be a personal trainer.
• Then The Fat Geek schooled me about strokes. Did you know 80% of strokes could be prevented by simple lifestyle changes? Specifically exercise? Fascinating!
• I Quit… Again reminded me of the No "S" diet. And no it’s not what you think. Nope, not that either. ;)
• And finally I link to my long lost brother, and overall too-hard-on-himself guy, Back To The Fridge. Who has FINALLY admitted I am right, Blogs DO inspire people. No matter your "success" on this crazy thing we call a weight loss journey life.
• Think about it. Blogging not only helps the blogger (if you happen to be that personality type) but it helps the readers too. People NEED to know they aren’t alone on this journey and the more we connect and relate to others the bigger the support system. You may have to do it alone, as theAntiJared recently pointed out, BUT we can all be here to celebrate and encourage you along the way.

I LOVE it! THAT is why I continue to do what I do. So without further ado I give you all my crazy updates this week…

• On GreenLiteBites I had more fun with my farm produce! I can’t remember if I linked this last thursday and I’m too lazy to check, either way, Little Guy and I shared our Kohlrabi experience in a video. We also made a dish with Rainbow Char and he liked it! That’s right.. the 5 year old liked chard! Heck! I was shocked I liked it. However, he wasn’t too impressed by my parsley, chicken turnip, radish idea. Oh, well, you can’t win them all. :)
• On SkinnyMinnMedia I announced that I will be Speaking at BlogHer ‘10 – Fitness Blogging: Motivate Yourself and Your Readers. I’m SO excited!
• On FitBloggin’ I posted another video from the presentations, How to Pitch to Traditional Media.
• On BlogToLose I issued another challenge and it’s helping my immensely. I’ve been in a nighttime munching mood and the extra accountability is keeping me conscious of my decisions.

OK, I’m signing of with my food journal. Happy Thursday!

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Not that I’m not normally scatterbrained but today, or rather more recently, I’m just simply out of it. My house is in a state of disarray. I lost my glasses. I’m missing appointments. I can’t seem to get out of bed in the morning and I haven’t been to the gym since before [...]]]>

Not that I’m not normally scatterbrained but today, or rather more recently, I’m just simply out of it. My house is in a state of disarray. I lost my glasses. I’m missing appointments. I can’t seem to get out of bed in the morning and I haven’t been to the gym since before vacation. Any NORMAL person would take the weekend to get themselves together but I have Little Guy’s fifth birthday party and a running event this weekend.

What was I thinking?

Oh heck.. it will be fun and life is better when you are actually living it, no? Let’s get on with these links before I forget what I wanted to say!

• Let’s start with a laugh. Normally, Crabby makes me smile but her recent post about getting older totally cracks me up! And really, you have to laugh about it, especially when your child says things like this to you at the breakfast table.
• You’ll never get old if you keep dancing! Well…may be you’ll look old. I have no shame anymore. I don’t care how ridiculous I’m being (and believe me, I look ridiculous) I’ll get my groove on anywhere. Although it’s much easier to do in my living room. Especially with Just Dance for the Wii. Oh my WORD is this fun! 30 great songs, cheesy moves, and a little meter to tell you how much you suck. It has it all! I even got the husband to do it and as you can (kind of) see, little guy was running circles around him. (For those that think the Wii doesn’t cut it in the workout department, after three songs I was one sweaty out of breath momma!)

• Speaking of “mommas” Maureen wrote a poignant post about being a Mom and Doing what needs to be done. She captured a huge part of what keeps me motivated not only to lose weight but to live life.
• In the lose weight department I am issuing a new challenge on BlogToLose, a Try Something NEW challenge. MyDietShopz has captured perfectly why I think such a challenge is important. We focus WAY too much what we can’t have instead of what we can.
• One thing I’ve been eating more of recenly is VitaTops. They have this awesome Chocolate Mint flavor that just goes amazingly with a glass of chocolate milk. If you are a VitaTop fan they are having a buy 24 get 12 free promotion with a new Apple Berry flavor. I haven’t tried it yet, anyone else? I’d love to know how they are. I need to get Vitalicious to ship me some samples! Update: AACK! I forgot! Uuse the code RonisWeigh for 10% off any order! Vitalicious and I are in bed together, don’t you know. ;)

My Updates….

I came home from vacation thirsty for some time in my kitchen! So GreenLiteBites saw some actions this week. Little Guy and I had fun shopping and picking out produce for the week. We recorded a produce pick video where he tries fennel, says he doesn’t like and yet continues to eat it. It cracks me up! I ended up turning the fennel into an amazingly green soup with some spinch and on tuesday I experimented a bit with chocolates and cherries, a favorite combo of mine. Who am I kidding chocolate with anything works for me. ;)

SkinnyMinnyMedia saw only one post this week and it’s about the theme I’m using to develop my new RoniNoone.com site. Long story short, since I will soon be a self employed blogger I thought the smart thing to do is blog under my name. My company is and will still be called SkinnyMinnyMedia (click here to see why) but I’m going to do all my blogging about blogging and other miscellaneous stuff under RoniNoone.com which, at the moment, is just a solo page with all my feeds on it.

Over on FitBloggin I posted Making Money From Your Blog. Wonderful advice for the blogger who wants to start monetizing their blogs from the FitBloggin’10 conference.

Other then that I haven’t done anything. No work on the cookbook or book proposal. I think I’m gonna have to put most things on hold until I wrap up my full time position on August 13. I have a feeling this scatterbrained feeling’s not going until then anyway.

Ok, I’ll end with my food journal. I just finished day 6! So glad I decided to do this. I feel wonderful!

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Tomorrow is packing day and then Saturday we are going all Griswold and hitting the road to Disney! I’m super duper psyched! But I couldn’t leave without emptying my head of these thoughts! Please excuse my shortness… I’m falling asleep at the wheel tonight.

I’m super duper link-tastic this Thursday night. Consider it my apologies for skipping last week’s Thursday Thoughts post. :)

This weeks Thursday Thoughts is all devoted to CHANGE! I have quite a few things happening and I need to fill you in but first let me share these thoughts. . .

Anyways… I do have some thoughts today. Actually A LOT of thoughts so bear with [...]]]>

Ok, I couldn’t help myself. When I thought about posting all the links I gathered for this weeks Thursday’s Thoughts post on Friday (I totally ran out of time on Thursday) that scene and song popped into my head.

Anyways… I do have some thoughts today. Actually A LOT of thoughts so bear with me. If I lose you before the end I’ll totally understand. Here goes. . .

• I stumbled across, Curious: How Healthy Are Frozen Diet Meals? and I had to share. If you looked back at my old food journals (the ones on paper) you’d see quite a few entries of pre-packaged frozen foods scattered through out. When I started on this lifestyle change they were a baby step for me. An easy way to eat a meal where the points and nutritional information where all ready nice and calculated out for me. I’ve moved on and I’m glad to rid myself of all that extra salt but MAN I miss those little french bread pizzas. ;)
• If frozen meals aren’t your thing may I interested you in some Chili Peppers. Apparently they help us lose weight (paired with a low calorie diet of course.)
• Moving into the blog world Deanna, The Unnatural Mothers hears the same voices I think many of us do.
• Tina from Carrots ‘N Cake did a "I Bet You Didn’t Know" post that I thought was simply genius. You can bet I’ll be doing one and I think it would be so fun to start a meme. I’ll work on a small graphic and if you have a blog I hope you’ll play a long. Look for that next week.
• One blog I’m honored to get a mention on is DietBlog. They recently linked me up in the post Link Time! Natural Foods, Lane Bryant Banned, and More
• There SO much good stuff going on over at BlogToLose I can’t even begin to link to everyone but I do love when people pat themselves on the back AND come to realizations, especially running realizations. (boy how I can relate) :)
• Speaking of Running.. This weekend I’ll be in Pittsburgh struggling through my second half marathon. I’m not ready but I’m also not freaking out. I’m running with an old friend and we are just going to have fun with it. I may tweet now and then but I’m making no promises. If you happen to be in “The Burgh” keep an eye out for me. I’ll be wearing the same shirt I wore in the marathon. I’m gonna need all the cheering I can get! oh and I heard it may rain. :(
• More on running… I’m doing well on my 2010 running goals so far and I think I found my June race, The Survivor Harbor 7. I haven’t registered yet but I’m planning to once I verify the weekend works for me. I’m also hunting for events for the rest of the year. I’m open to suggestions as long as they are in Maryland or close by. :)
• Just 2 posts on GreenLiteBites this week, Oat Crusted bay Scallops with Peas and Brown Rice and a Vitalicious Chocolate-Banana Marbled Brownie Cake Video Post.
• As for FitBloggin’ I’m still working on getting the details down for the next conference. In the meantime I hope to be posting weekly guest posts from my fellow bloggers. First up, Pastaqueen with a great post about How to start a healthy living blog.
• I did post on SkinnyMinnyMedia this week about what it means to be a blogger. I really do have a lot of thoughts on that subject and my job at UMBC might be helping me explore them a bit more.
• Work… hmm there’s a thing I’ve been pondering for some time (which is probably a cause for my recent funk) and I should probably write a whole post on. Long story short I’m into a lot of things right now and every time I try to lighten my workload I somehow get another idea I want to explore. It’s like a disease.
• That said.. I am writing sample chapters for a book proposal and I hope to get the self-published cookbook out by the end of the year. Yes… I am crazy. But I’m having fun! :)

Ok, was the enough thoughts for ya? I’m off. I have to pack for my trip to Pittsburgh. I’ll be back Sunday with a full details. :)

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