“I am proud of you.” I said this to myself last night after I made my very first apple pie without my mother’s help. Come to think of it we only made one apple pie together and she did most of the work so that one doesn’t really count. Due to this first apple pie creation, I had a massive sugar headache and wanted to pop. That is kind of how I will feel after the Thanksgiving feast with my family next week so in my mind I am just simply training for Thanksgiving, right? This apple pie was a test run for Thanksgiving anyways.

I must say that I am more excited than ever this year because we have a new addition to the family. My brother and his wife had the cutest little baby in the whole wide world. And I am not just saying that. Really, she is. I would post a pic of the little nugget but she is way to cool for the internet. Hopefully she will approve of this creation (I followed a Pinterest recipe, again. Obsessed) I am seriously so giddy and excited about this pie.

Cinnamon bun base. I am an idiot and did not put the dough all the way up the side, but it still came out fine.

I had extras (because I forgot to put them on the sides of the pie pan) so I baked them at 425 for an amount of time I cannot remember. All I payed attention to was how crispy they were. Hello amazing-ness. My mother always made these out of extra pie crust although she was smart enough to cover the walls of the pie pan. Live and learn.

Baked that bad boy at 425 for 15 ish minutes then reduced heat to 375 for however long it took to look like that, and be all crispy and stuff.

Had some extra juices from the apples, brown sugar, white sugar and lemon juice so I poured it into a separate bowl and tossed in some pinches of flour to thicken it up so that I could pour it alllllll over my pie and ice cream to make it extra delicious. Which I must say it was a grand idea. Go me!

I will admit I woke up in the middle of the night and had more of the little pinwheels and then had more pie for breakfast. I felt like I was on crack at work. Needless to say I will not be having pie until Thursday.

You seriously need to make this pie. It’s all of heaven in a pan, floating on a cloud as I ate it. Enough said.

Adapted from these two sites:

For the base:

http://www.recipebyphoto.com/cinnamon-bun-pecan-pie/

For the pie: I used golden delicious, macintosh and a third one that I cannot for the life of me remember…but it was yummy! I’ll pay attention next time. And I used a lot more sugar than the recipe calls for. So really this was just a guideline. 🙂

http://thepaperheartstudio.blogspot.com/2013/10/apple-pie-foodie-friday.html

Disclaimer: This is kind of personal but I am sure people can relate, and I felt a desire to share because it was shared with me and made a pretty deep impact.

I was having a conversation with a client today about love, dating, marriage, divorce, etc. He was telling me that on the third date with his now ex wife, he knew they weren’t meant to be together. This, of course, made my brain light up as I have been going through a break up with a similar feeling right from the get go. So I inquired as to why he stayed with her for so many years. His response: “I loved her.” Simple. We think love is the most important thing; that intense, deep, burning love you (hopefully) feel for the person you share your life with. That deep love is the love of the unconscious. But what do we do when our conscious self knows that the person we are with is not right for us, just like my client knew at the third date, yet love takes over and blinds you? Love is blind after all, right?

For the last 9 months I have loved someone with my whole heart and I don’t fall in love. I have been in love twice in my entire life and I am 27 years old. For me to fall in love takes a person out of this world. I honestly don’t have words to describe it and I don’t feel like trying. I think it just comes down to a feeling…that intense, deep, burning passion…that person you don’t want to live without. 

From Meet Joe Black:

William Parrish: I know it’s a cornball thing, but love is passion. Obsession. Someone you can’t live without. I say fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy, and who’ll love you the same way back. How do you you find ’em? Well, you forget your head and you listen to your heart. I’m not hearing any heart. Because the truth is, honey, there’s no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love, well, you haven’t lived a life at all. But you have to try, because if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived.

A girlfriend sent me that when my boyfriend and I broke up recently. I cried when I read that because I realized that although I loved him like that, I did not get the same love in return and it killed me. To love someone like that and not get it back is the biggest let down and leaves the biggest hole in the heart…at least for me. 

I have known for a long time that he and I are not right for each other. My gut kept screaming at me to run as fast as I could, but my heart kept me holding on, and I did a lot longer than I should have. My gut is my conscious and my heart is my unconscious. My client explained that your conscious mind is your reasoning and your unconscious is your feeling. He said you may not always feel that intense passion towards someone like William Parrish told his daughter, but if that person is kind to you, treats you right and is a great companion that sometimes you may not need that deep passion, that unconscious, for it is that deep passion that can mask many things that your conscious is screaming at you. Two examples being you have that deep, crazy, burning passion for another but you are miserable because you are just not on the same path, you don’t get treated the way you feel you need to even though you’ve expressed what you need. Or you don’t have that deep passion (at least not right away) but the other person cares for you, tends to your needs, treats you the way you ask to be treated, understands and accepts things even when they don’t necessarily want to, simply because they love you. And you do the same. It may not be that burning love that pains the heart, but it is a sustainable love. The love that lasts forever because you are best friends. Love doesn’t fade when you find the right one. 

Although my gut was right all along, I am in a way very happy that I followed my heart. This person allowed me to love again. I felt love for another person for the first time in 4 years. I became unselfish, I learned how to cook because of him (honestly that was the real reason), I learned how to care about someone so intensely that I would do anything for that person. But in the end, it was my gut, my conscious mind that was right all along. But then I think, what if? What if I stick it out a little bit longer and my heart was right? What if it just took a little longer for him to come around, to understand me better, to love me like I love him? 

So I ask myself and you, do we love with our conscious or our unconscious?

One thing my client did add because it is possible…some people do get lucky enough to have both. I told him that I hope to someday be lucky enough.

A goat.

We have all heard of goat cheese and I am pretty sure many of us love it…if you don’t, I’m not sure we can be friends. But goat products (soaps and lotions) and goat meat??? I’m not so sure about that….

So a few weeks ago my mother was talking about goats milk soaps and lotions. She mentioned that she had heard of people using it a couple years ago but really wasn’t a fan of the way it smelled. It was sold sparingly and wasn’t too popular. Fast forward to now and you will see goats milk products at every farmers market and many local stores in Vermont (probably other states too but I haven’t paid much attention-I bet you can get the product at any natural foods market to be honest).

Now I haven’t paid much attention to the goat milk craze until I was reading Psychology Today this past Sunday and there was an article about goat MEAT. I instantly thought of my mother and what she was saying about the products created from goat MILK. Now I cannot imagine eating a goat but I guess they are extremely popular in Greece, the Caribbean and South Asia or as Psychology Today said, “consumed regularly by 70% of the world’s population.” I guess it is one of the leanest meats available, is low in cholesterol, calories, unsaturated fat and sodium while having a high amount of potassium and iron.

Apparently there is a difference in the breed of goat for milk versus meat…one is bread for milk production and the other for meat. Those goats bred for milk production are very gamey. I personally have never had anything gamey so I wouldn’t be able to judge the flavor.

So as I am reading this article it switches from goat meat and how it is becoming ever more popular, to goat milk, yogurt and ice cream. All of which are perfect for those who are allergic to cows milk. I guess it has a creamy richness that is out of this world. Now I am not a huge milk drinker (of any animal) and eat yogurt so sparingly that I sometimes forget it exists, but after reading this article, my taste buds got a little curious.

Knowing that I would be heading to Whole Paycheck (I mean Whole Foods), I decided I would take a look at the yogurt section for this goat milk yogurt. I had to search pretty aggressively to find it as the number of yogurt products out there is just so overwhelming that its no wonder I just stopped eating it all together. After looking for about 2 minutes (it seemed impossible to find among the what seems like thousands of brands, flavors, fat content, milk source…ugh), I finally found the TWO companies that makes yogurt from goat milk. There were flavors just like any other yogurt company: vanilla, blueberry, raspberry, strawberry and plain. I don’t like added sugar to my yogurt so I grabbed the plain. And I figured that I would be able to get the full flavor profile if I chose plain. So I grabbed this one…

As I said before it was one of two brands of goat milk yogurt and it’s impossible to tell that it is in fact made of goat milk as the writing is so small that even a teenager would need spectacles to see it. My eyes then wander to the left and I see sheep milk yogurt….hmmmm. Next thing I know I have goat milk yogurt (bottom), sheep milk yogurt (middle) and grass fed cow yogurt (top).

So I decide to conduct a little taste test after dinner, which was PHENOMENAL by the way. I postponed veal burger night to last night because I had so much salmon left over from Sunday and it was sooooo worth the wait!

Veal burger stuffed with peppers, panko, onion and parsley and sandwiched with mozzarella in a lovely whole wheat pita bread. Those chunky looking things on the bottom left are white, or rather pale yellow sweet potato parmesean rosemary french fries. Honestly, the pale yellow sweet potatoes are undeniably better than the orange sweet potatoes – at least on this little girl’s taste buds. I have never seen them before but found them at Whole Paycheck and decided to give them a shot…I WILL be going back for more! Also, had a nice little spinach salad with asparagus – hello stinky pee 🙂 (I’m sorry, I make myself laugh every time I think about that. Laughing is healthy just like asparagus!), red and yellow peppers and grape tomatoes.

Anyways, back to my goat milk chat with myself last night…so I decided to conduct a taste test comparison. I mean come on, what else am I going to do on a Tuesday night as a single gal? I lined up my yogurts with a separate spoon for each one and water to clean my palate between yogurt tastings. Here are my findings:

(I added the pictures again just so you wouldn’t get confused and so that you would know what to look for if you are so inclined to do a taste test yourself)

Grass fed cow yogurt- Watery and bitter, just as I had expected. I could eat it but it is not my favorite.

Sheep yogurt – Rotten and sour, cottage cheese consistency (which I love) but less chunky which was just weird. Absolutely disgusting that I almost spit it out and it smelled bad. All I could think about was a sheep (don’t seem to have as much of a problem with goat yogurt as you will see) and for some reason that turned me off. Or maybe it was the fact that it was just gross to begin with…it quickly went in my trash.

Goat milk – Thick, flavorful, smooth finish. Very similar to greek yogurt which I LOVE. That thick, creamy consistency that has just enough flavor to make it so that I am not tempted to add anything. I am officially in LOVE with goat milk yogurt. In the same serving size it has less calories and less fat but the same amount of protein as cow and sheep yogurt. It tickled my taste buds juuuuuust right. I was already extremely stuffed even before my taste test so I decided to eat just a little and put the rest back into my fridge for my midnight snack habit that I cannot seem to break.

All in all, give goat milk yogurt a shot. YOLO, right?!?!

This afternoon I was a cooking MACHINE! A monster to be exact. I looked at my training schedule this week and realized I am going to have little time to cook each night and as sad as that makes me, I am happy I am finally busy again. So I dedicated a few extra hours of my Sunday afternoon prepping and cooking.

I baked my asparagus just like I always do; olive oil, salt and pepper at 425 until they get nice and crispy! To say I love asparagus is an understatement. There is just something so delicious about that little spear that just gets me going. Maybe it’s all the health benefits or the fact that it makes my pee smell funny, but either way it’s my favorite vegetable.

While my asparagus were sunbathing in my oven I decided to make my chicken a little more interesting than I used to…which is usually just salt and pepper or some simple marinade that just tastes bland the next day. I dieted for so long that I do not make anything bland anymore. It’s my rule and my promise to myself. I will enjoy everything I eat. 

I decided to make today a teriyaki theme with my two main dishes…chicken and salmon – salmon is now on Sunday night by the way. More on that in a minute. So for my chicken I whisked together some teriyaki sauce, olive oil, honey, brown sugar, chopped garlic and salt. I plopped the chicken in a Ziploc bag (I refuse to use the generic brands), poured in my mixture and popped it in the fridge for a few hours. In the process of plopping my chicken in the fridge, I noticed I only had two pieces of my egg white crust-less quiche left! Uh oh – so I decided to be a little avant-garde (for myself of course) and instead of making my quiche in a pie dish, I made little baby quiches in muffin tins!!! I’m very proud of myself for thinking of this…or for seeing it on Pinterest.

Ingredients: 6 eggs, a solid pour of egg whites, red peppers, tomatoes, spinach, parsley, shallots and Cabot mozzarella cheese (Cabot is the only way to go for this Vermont girl), salt, pepper and black sesame seeds. Put the egg and egg white mixture in the base of the tin…oh spray that tin with some non stick spray first. Then place the rest of the ingredients on top. I used the cheese last so it would slightly burn on top, creating a slight brown tinge of melted cheese (see image below) which would be the first thing I would see when I opened my fridge in the morning; I LOVE cheese.  

Next up: Veal burgers. Now I have not had veal in America, only in Europe on ski trips and from what I can remember it was delicious which was probably because it was veal schnitzel – breaded and fried. Oh, SO GOOD. Shit…it’s been 8 years since I have been there. Life is going by too fast. Maybe that’s why I’ve decided to try new things and live life a little more fully…side tracked there in my little brain. I’m back now.

So today I decided to try veal again when I saw it at Whole Foods even though I almost threw up at first glimpse. Probably because I know what veal REALLY is and I am not a huge proponent of it, but I decided to live on the edge a little. Since I knew that tomorrow night I wouldn’t have a ton of time to prep and cook, I decided to prep today…I chopped up some red peppers, onions and garlic and threw them in a bowl with some olive oil, salt, pepper and Panko. I packed those babies into little burgers and popped them in the fridge so they are ready to pan sear tomorrow night…gosh I wish I had a grill. Christmas present? 

Last but not least…salmon. I cannot describe how excited I get about salmon. Maybe someday I will try but for now I just want to share how I made it and what I put on the plate before I topped it with my perfectly prepared 4 oz. salmon filet. The marinade I used for the chicken is the same marinade I used for the salmon, so just scroll up. 😉 Marinated it for an hour, baked it for 15 minutes on 400. Meanwhile I sautéed quinoa, red peppers, yellow peppers, snow peas, onions and garlic with olive oil. Oh boy did my kitchen start to smell yummmmmy! I of course had to have spinach with my meal so I plopped it on my plate, topped it with my sautee mix and once that luscious piece of heaven was done, I carefully placed it on top of everything. I topped the whole dish with sesame seeds and a touch more teriyaki sauce. I grabbed my Malbec and spent the next 10 minutes thoroughly enjoying a meal I had spent time preparing.

The best part about actually taking time to make a meal is the anticipation. I wiggle and jump around my kitchen waiting for that timer to ding and when it does, it’s like the world comes to a stand still. The only thing that matters is taking that sensationally delicious dish out of the oven and arranging it on the plate so that it looks as delicious as it is going to taste. I can feel the endorphins running through my brain as I write. I didn’t even have to think about the words I just wrote, they simply fell onto the page. It’s the feeling you get when you listen to a song that speaks to your soul. The kind of song that makes you sway your head side to side, curl a little smile and realize that life is just so good, so perfect, so amazing in that one moment; a moment you don’t want end but know it will. Maybe that’s why I like cooking so much, I can recreate that moment whenever I want.

That perfect moment when everything just seems right; just as you hoped it would. 

PS. All my dishes were from these blogs via Pinterest:

Egg quiche: http://lilieslattesandlace.com/2012/01/25/egg-muffins/

Salmon: http://jujugoodnews.com/sesame-ginger-sweet-teriyaki-salmon-with-garlic-quinoa-stir-fry/

I made the veal one up…not that creative. Yet.

No. I don’t. Not anymore. To motivate myself to workout right now is hard but today I did and I am damn proud of myself for doing it and enjoying it, even though I cannot consider it lifting especially as a trainer would describe it. It is rather boring to say the least but I am just prepping myself for the boringness of rehab in January when all I am going to want to do is play in the snow like my 5-12 year old self. Gosh, I remember when my mother had to force me to come inside after a big snow storm. The igloos my two big brothers and I built were phenomenal. We had a very long driveway and thanks to my father and his plow, all that snow ended up in massive piles in front of our house. I’d come into the house chattering from the cold to a nice warm fire and a cup of hot cocoa that only my mother could make taste so good. Ah memories. Too bad they sold that house. Silly parents.

Anyways back to the point…So my workout consists of a warm up for about 45 minutes and by warm up I mean: I foam roll every part of my lower body focusing on my gluteus maximus, minimus and medius or simply my ass, a quad stretch, hip flexor stretch and adductor stretch also known as frog in yoga…basically straddling the floor, something I REALLY won’t be able to do post surgery. I then move on to my hip mobility exercises. This is where I just get so ******* bored that most of the time I just give up, so I won’t bore you with the details.

Now from here I am used to my inner meat head rearing it’s head. My nickname actually used to be meat. Really, it did. My workouts consisted of heavy squats and dead lifts, heavy lunges, heavy kettle bell swings, chest press, rows, etc; basically heavy everything and I LOVED it. Most of us go to the gym to get our frustrations and anger out, our pent up energy, to think or stop thinking as it may be, or to simply get an endorphin high either from your workout or from flirting with the hot guy or girl strutting their stuff around the gym. My guess is it’s more the hotties than the actual workout based on what I’ve seen over the last 3 years.

My workouts now consist of all body weight and minimal cardio. Simply minimal everything that makes the hip joint rotate about it’s little axis. Basically I never get my frustrations, anger or energy out and there have been a lot of frustrations lately. However, it is nice to people watch and see who hits on who and what people choose to do for a workout. Oh the things I see that keep me entertained.

Today was different though, partially because there was no one to really stare at and partially because I decided to work through the pain and irritation in my hip and do a full workout. I REALLY pushed myself today…or at least pushed myself as much as the hip could stand. Either way I did exercises I have been afraid of for fear of what my hip might say to me the 2 days following. I leg pressed very light (that was a blow to the ego), did hip lifts, RDLs, single leg hip lifts, lateral band walks, and clams…lots of clams. I even had the pleasure of actually sweating, but just a little. I did a brief upper body workout faster than a serious Crossfitter doing an AMRAP and it felt gooooood. Boy do I miss Crossfit. Ugh. How many more months until I can go back?

Seriously not my typical workout but it got me going. Two hours later after my client M-dog….

…I decided to hit up the stair stepper for a 30 minute climb. Now the stair stepper is REALLY where I got my sweat on and it felt better than a hot shower and a nice glass of red wine after a particularly obnoxious day. Yes, I am drinking wine as I write this although my day was much less than obnoxious. Have I mentioned that I love not dieting??? Today was steak fajita day by the way. Mmmmmm.

Needless to say I left the gym feeling accomplished. 4 thumbs up. THAT is rare.

It is the first time in a long time I actually felt like my workout was worth it. I got out some frustrations and did some thinking, something I clearly never do…yeah right. Just ask my dad when I call him to analyze every little thing about the meaning of the current happenings of my life. Poor guy.

So I know that my hip will be screaming at me tomorrow; it’s actually already starting to have a bit of a tantrum which is making it hard to get off the couch without feeling like I tore the labrum more. Good thing I can’t make it any worse. It’s simply now about maintaining as much strength as possible while minimizing pain but I figure I am on anti-inflammatories for a week because of my chest inflammation so I may as well take advantage and just rotate the heck out of that ball and socket joint.

All in all, today was a great day. I stayed more positive in my workout than normal and I quite enjoyed it, knowing that it will make post op that much easier as I know that’s where the real struggle will be. Oh by the way, anyone want to be my little helper from January 13-28th? I’ll be on crutches, taking a cab to work everyday, training clients and struggling to go grocery shopping, do my laundry, play in the snow and get up and down 4 flights of tiny stairs in the North End of Boston. I will pay in home cooked food!

Shoot me a message on Facebook if you’re interested.

PS. Moral of the accomplishment of my day…change your attitude, change your focus, change your mind and drink red wine. After all, it IS good for your heart.

Yes, a sinus infection. I have been light headed and dizzy for 6 weeks now. I have been to my primary care doctor, to my neurologist and to the ER and much to my dismay, no one could give me a reason for it other than what my neurologist called “situational anxiety.” Right. So every moment of my life is causing me anxiety? Wrong. 

Today was no different with the exception that I had chest pain and tightness. Almost like that feeling you get after a long hard run in the freezing cold where you were huffing and puffing so badly that you ran your lungs dry and raw, except as we know, I can’t run. And I sure as hell wouldn’t do it outside right now even if I could. As if being lightheaded all the time wasn’t enough, I now wanted to rip my lungs out of my chest, which clearly wouldn’t be the best choice if I do ever decide I want to run again, or breathe…just saying. 

So after a few clients and a few hours of feeling like crap, I reluctantly go to the Urgent Care at Mass General. They ask me if I am registered in the system and I say, “Honey, I’m thinking of moving in. ” I guess my own sarcasm wasn’t appreciated as she didn’t really respond and just handed me a letter and told me to sit down and wait for the nurse to call me. About an hour later the nurse calls me in and I’m thinking, “Awesome, that wasn’t too bad of a wait. It’s 1:30 so I’ll probably make my 3 pm client.” Now, there is a system to this whole Urgent Care walk in clinic that I was completely blind to. You get a letter, you get called in with the nurse to chat about your symptoms, she takes your blood pressure, temperature and oxygen saturation levels. That information then goes to the doctors in the clinic while you sit in the waiting room and do just that. Wait…and wait…and wait…and fall asleep…and wait…until 2:45 pm rolls around and you get called in to see the doctor. 

Poor kid. He didn’t know what he was in for. I could tell he was definitely either new or was just so by the book for bedside manner that maybe he should have written it. Turns out this is a teaching clinic…so he does the usual, asking me what brings me in today, how long its been going on, how bad is the pain, etc. I pause at how long it has been going on…my chest pain is about a day, my lightheadedness about 6 weeks. Then I almost start crying, of course. I don’t know what it is about me lately, I just can’t stop crying (I immediately start singing Miley Cyrus’s We Can’t Stop in my head as I am writing this), which might be why my lungs hurt as this is no meager crying. Looks kind of like this..

Anyways…

They take chest pain very seriously – as they should – so they order an EKG which of course shows me that I have an amazing heart 🙂 that beats like the wings of a butterfly. And so now I’m waiting for them to draw yet again more blood. It’s just like the “Sting like a bee” comment except it’s “How are you with needles?” What kind of a question is that anyways?!? Actually, I am great with needles. I love needles, which is why I keep coming back. Geesh. 

Anyways, I realize this kid is not a full blown doctor yet because he brings in the head honcho of the clinic. Yikes. They don’t end up drawing blood thank the heavens, I need all of it that I can get. Instead he presses on my chest – no pain doc – it’s internal. Then squeezes my rib cage together from the sides – please don’t do that again. Tells me I have inflammation in my rib cage most likely caused my an allergen, mold maybe. I live in the North End of Boston. Mold is like a pet here. I would have taken a picture of the black mold in my shower an hour ago before I poured straight bleach on it but then my mother would have had a panic attack. (love you mom). Now I’m high on bleach…

Doc tells me, “Take anti-inflammatories 3x a day for a week and it should go away.” Sometimes I think being a doctor is too easy. One time I had a very prestigious doctor look up a symptom I was having on WIKIPEDIA. I won’t even go in to the embarrassment that should bring to all doctors. So then I get the, “Anymore questions for me today?” Actually, yes. Why am I lightheaded and dizzy all the time? He leans back against the desk and asks me to tell him about it. Well, I don’t really know what you want me to tell you other than it is all day, every day. Simple. The only time I am not is when I am sitting down and not moving my head quickly. “What makes it worse?” Dude, I just told you, it’s all the time. When I am walking, standing, getting up, sitting down, trying to work out. I really don’t know what else to tell you. Oh, I did almost pass out on the street the other day so I’d like to find a way to prevent that from happening. “What does the room do when you feel lightheaded?” Well, it pulsates and then I feel like I am flying which is followed by that feeling you get when you almost or actually do run into someone you didn’t see. If you don’t know what I am talking about, pay attention next time you almost smash head first into someone and tell me what you feel. Maybe something like this, except you have the pleasure of still standing. 

He grabs the telescope light thingy to look in my ears which were normal, then my nostrils, which he tells me are inflamed. He then takes hold of my head and slowly turns it to my left and before he can even ask if that causes the symptoms, I tell him to never do that again. He turns my head to the right with no issues. Then he has me follow the light with my eyes to the right and then to the left…THAT did not make me happy and was not easy for my eyes. It’s like they pulsated when I went to the left. He starts to explain equilibrium units within our body…yeah yeah I know from high school Bio. I have some swelling and fluid in my sinuses and in my inner ear. He prescribes me an antibiotic, some Flonase and some other drug I can’t remember.

PROBLEM SOLVED, or at least we hope. But it was only after I pressed him about my lightheadedness that we found a probable cause. Mind you I had told the kid and told the doctor earlier in our conversation that I had been lightheaded for a very long time. If you work with me, you are probably just as happy about this diagnosis as I am because it’s like a broken record. But what amazes me is what doctors choose to hear. I have been harping on all my doctors about this issue. I understand that they see way too many patients in a day, especially at those walk in clinics…but when I am in front of you, listen to my symptoms. This doctor was slightly intimidating and if I was my younger self and not as fed up with the system as I am now, I would have taken that diagnoses of mold allergen and left, not addressing my head and then continued to be in distress.

BUT after many years of my mother in my ear about being forward with doctors and not letting them scare me into not asking questions, I finally took the bull by the horn and asked the question that gave me the answer I have been searching for, for weeks. I was not leaving the hospital until I got an answer or a direction as what to do next. I hope you’re proud of me for that one mom. All it took was a booger check and a head twist. No boogers here. 

Moral of the story, keep asking questions, be forward and aggressive but maintain your cool and be polite…smiling helps too. So with a sinus infection and an allergy to mold (maybe?), I rest my little head…

Oh, and at least I got to have my double tall skinny peppermint mocha this morning (mulled over that one for the 10 minutes it took me to walk to the BUX on my way to work this morning). Started my day with heaven, ended it with a solid medical diagnosis. My kind of day. Bring it on Friday.

In Early August I had the opportunity to film and infomercial in Sacramento for a product that two entrepreneurs from Boston had designed called the Gorilla Gym. The Gym is best described as a TRX on crack. It is a pull up bar that attaches to your door not only on top but at the sides with industrial sized clamps, allowing you to swing in the air. had the pleasure to work with some absolutely amazing and inspiring people and to swing around like a little gorilla.

Yes that is me.

Yes that it TJ Hoban. He was the host of the infomercial. If you haven’t heard of him, google him. Total babe and awesome guy!

We filmed for two days for about 6-7 hours each day. As I have stated in previous posts, I used to workout a lot and I used to workout hard. Filming for the Gorilla Gym was probably one of the more grueling things I have done. We filmed 9 workouts. 11 exercises. 1 minute for each exercise. Some of the exercises were a breeze, especially the ones in the earlier workouts in the series, but most of them were (insert a bad word here that I can’t write) HARD and I remember thinking, “You expect me to do that for 1 minute and then go right into the next exercise with no rest WHILE filming??? Right.”

But I did it. And I did it along side my partners in crime, Jason and Joel. Joel was the trainer in the series. He did an amazing job keeping the dialogue going and keeping us motivated. Although I must say there were moments when I was doing pushups that he would say something like, “Are we having fun?!” and I mumbled some mean words to myself and seriously considered slapping him in the face.

Good thing I was looking down because I was not a happy camper here. Push ups for 1 minute with feet suspended. To say it was hard is an understatement not only because push ups for a minute are just simply hard but because all the blood was rushing to my face, which meant I got a little loopy.

Now we were supposed to smile…the.whole.time. After I would mumble these words I cannot repeat, I would hop up with a disgustingly huge smile on my face because it was what was stressed for the entire weekend. We had to look like we were having a lot of fun, which ironically enough, I was! With all that smiling, I am not sure what got worked more, my body or my cheeks…the ones on my face of course. But that smile wasn’t entirely fake. It was the best weekend I had experienced in longer than I could remember. There was something about that weekend that changed my thinking. Maybe it was the fact that I was having a personal issue that I was able to put aside and focus on the task at hand or maybe it was the amazing crew I got to work with…or both. Either way, I was on a high. Most likely the most incredible endorphin high I will ever experience.

I have never been so inspired by people I had merely just met. They inspired me and I inspired them even though I couldn’t figure out why. Maybe it was because I worked my little tush off and did it with that cheeky smile, who knows. Regardless, I became a new person. A person who suddenly knew what she wanted to do. Inspire and motivate. I wanted and still want people, especially women, to be proud of who they are and all that they can accomplish. To work towards their goals even if they may seem lofty to someone else. To be independent and to proud.

“We are made to persist. That’s how we find out who we are.” Tobias Wolf

This picture was taken when I was thinking to myself how happy I was and it was at this moment that I made a conscious decision to turn my life around. It was in this moment that I started to realize who I was and what I stood for.

Leading up to this moment, I never realized how negative I was until a kind friend pointed it out to me right before I left for Sacramento. I thank that person for inspiring me to think and speak positively. Since then I have been the happiest I’ve ever been. Yes there are sad moments in life, bumps in the road – I am experiencing some right now – and lapses in positive thought but as long as we hold something true to our heart that no one can take away, we will always be okay. Which is why I created 11 promises to myself that have been my saving grace through a lot of difficult moments since I wrote them in August.

I was sad to leave Sacramento but was excited to re-start my more positive and hopeful attitude towards life. Sacramento was like a breath of fresh air. It was just the push I needed. I smile every time I think about it…and it’s a disgustingly huge REAL smile.

Thank you to the inventors of Gorilla Gym and to the entire crew for choosing me to represent this little contraption that allows you to swing around and have fun like you did as a young child…or gorilla. Your choice.

The inventors Kiril and Peter, the host TJ, the male model Jason and I above….and then the entire crew below. You were all amazing.

Until next time!

Ps. The infomercial will be airing in Boston at 6 am this Saturday 11/16 on WLVI!

Schedule in other cities…if you’ve been out drinking late or get up early on the weekend like me because you hate to waste any day, check it out! It’s probably going to be funnier if you’ve had a few cocktails. 

What exactly does this even mean?! Every bee sting I have ever had was a quick prick that really didn’t have much of an effect on my comfort level. Except that one time I got stung twice by a cute, yet evil devil of a bee that should have been bothering a bee hive, not me. Yes, twice. I guess a bee can’t sting you twice so maybe at 10 years old I just made up the extra “prick”. Damn devil bee died real quick after that thanks to my dad and to the fact that I guess they die after they sting you, which is why people tell me there is no way I got stung twice. Tell that to the two welts on my 10 year old body.

Fast forward to my late 20s…

I was blessed with a spine that did not hold up to the rigors of my athletic life. Degenerative disc disease, arthritis, herniation, bulge and finally tear – all words I have continued to hear over the last 4 weeks in regards to the cause of the pain in my low back that has, like my hips, been keeping me from exercising and doing fun things like jumping around during a photo shoot.

©Jesus Chapa-Malacara

The three times I have now had a big needle injected into my body – 2 hip arthrograms and now 1 cortisone injection into my low back – the doctor’s have said, “Alright, it is going to sting like a bee.” My first thought brought me back to my childhood. My second thought, “What is this crap?!?!” So I am going to assume that there MUST be some sort of universal jargon to prepare the patient for the pain of gracing a needle deep within the confines of my already inflamed and therefore sore joint…and then shove it in further to be sure it’s where it is needed! Thank god this experience only took 5 minutes, unlike the arthrograms. I now have a steroid in my body to reduce inflammation and allow the tear to heal. And BONUS was that I got a pink bandaid on my back! They must have known pink is my favorite color!

So I leave in a little bit of pain, thinking that it will wear off shortly and I will be pain free. Wrong. At least for the last 5 hours. I can’t even bend over without shooting pain in my low back. I tried to show a client a lunge and my left hip cramped up causing me to almost eat the floor – trust me, you don’t want to eat the floor at a gym. Then I tried to grab the cable machine to adjust the level for my client and I got an electric shock in both of my shoulders. And no, there was no electrical current in that cable machine although sometimes I wish there were. Then maybe the people who hog the cables during prime time would be deterred from doing so which would ultimately mean a much happier Kara. Happy trainer, happy life…right? Just ask my clients. 🙂

At this point I almost start crying mid session because I couldn’t bend over to pick things up and I couldn’t use my arms. I felt totally useless! Tears welling up, I realize where I am and that there is NO WAY I am allowed to cry on the floor of Equinox, not to mention I had another client in 5 minutes. So I took a few deep breaths and laughed it off. I can do nothing but laugh at my body and accept what is going on. I get a little smile thinking about it all and I just go with it. I was told the steroid could take a few days to a week to really “settle in.” I suppose I should trust my spine physiatrist that treats me like a number and not a patient but all I care is that it works so that I can stand without pain.

A few of my friends made a very valid point that helps bring me to accept my current situation. Since I finished ski racing almost 4 years ago, I have never really given my body a break. I went immediately into personal training which requires you to be able to stand for hours on end, count and talk at the same time (which trust me, is very challenging for the brain, unless you use your fingers to keep track), pick up heavy weights for your clients and have the ability to be nauseatingly happy the whole time. Then I decided to train for a body building show that I never competed in (another story all together), trained for a marathon and got hurt, trained for 2 half marathons which I completed in my goal time, started to model, dieted non stop, joined Crossfit and completely over exercised.

For the first time, I am forced to take a break and there is nothing wrong with that…or at least this is what I keep telling myself and what others reinforce with their amazingly supportive words and actions.

To be honest, I am in a way quite thankful for this forced break because it gave me the time and energy to learn how to cook, to start journaling on a daily basis again, to read and to start this blog. Losing something else important to me, or rather I will say someone important to me, which saddens me deeply, has allowed me to dedicate more of myself to my family, to my friends and to myself which was something I was neglecting. I wanted to spend all my time with this person I lost and I am trying to find the positive so that I can be okay with it. The last couple of months has forced me to take a step back and evaluate what and who is important in my life, what needed to change and what needed to stay the same.

It comes down to the realization that I am fortunate in ways I didn’t even realize and am blessed and excited for my future. I am 27 years old living in an amazing city full of opportunity. I am confident and independent. I am sassy and brutally honest, sometimes to a fault. I am difficult to deal with at times but let’s be honest, who isn’t? That would just be boring and lame and no one wants that. But ultimately I know I have a good heart and a lot to offer. I know I have some of the best days ahead of me. I have an amazing present and future. I am and will be happy in ways I have yet to experience.

So into the 10th hour of enjoying Equinox today, I go into my last two sessions of the day with a smile on my face and a thumbs up! I love my job and I love my life. 🙂

I’ve been an athlete my whole life. I have not stopped moving since I was born. I was a swimmer, a soccer player, lacrosse player, tennis player, a horse back rider but ultimately ended up as a ski racer. I’ve never been side lined with an injury other than multiple concussions but it was temporary.

Athletics and working out has been my release for as long as I can remember so when I realized I could no longer do the workouts I was in love with (heavy lifting, Crossfit, olympic lifting, plyometrics) I knew it was going to be rough. Sure I can do light weight lower body exercises – body weight squats, lunges, clam shells, leg raises, band walks, step ups on a small step, RDL’s – and upper body workouts but I cannot workout at the intensity I am used to and it’s having a serious impact on my happiness. My hip joint is always swollen and my ankles and knees are beginning to hurt because of compensations to protect my hip. A few weeks of anger and negativity at the realization that I have to wait 2 months for my hip surgery and another 4-6 months for full recovery and I became aware that I needed something else. I needed something that brought me peace, something that brought joy to my life, something I was in control of doing, something for me. 

I thought to myself, “What am I not great at but have always wanted to do?” Learn to COOK and BAKE! I used to have a very bad relationship with food and because I was modeling for a while, I ate only chicken, veggies, quinoa, sweet potato, oatmeal, egg whites and almonds, LITERALLY all I ate for months on end. When I found out about my surgery, I put modeling and dieting on the back burner and decided to re-evaluate my relationship with food and with myself. 

Welcome to Pinterest, Kara. I am constantly scouring Pinterest for new recipes. I am slow with how I cook but I am learning that I don’t need to measure everything out exactly as it says. Half the fun is coming up with new combinations! So I started with cookies, muffins, breads, brownies, ice cream cookie sandwiches and then once I got some courage and set aside time to cook, I dedicated myself to cooking fun and tasty dinners. I don’t care how much work I have or how little time, I cook a healthy meal every night and as it happens, I have TONS of leftovers for lunches all week! I cook things I normally wouldn’t even eat, from pizza, to homemade pasta (I live in the North End of Boston so it’s so fresh that I cannot resist!), salmon, steak, sweet potato fries, cauliflower mashed potatoes, bruschetta…you get the point. 

Monday nights are salmon night. Given that it is Tuesday, I will recap what I made last night…Panko pesto salmon with roasted grape tomatoes over a toasted quinoa salad w/eggplant, caramelized onions, summer squash and zucchini with a side of spinach of course. Oh and my Malbec, which I learned to love while dining next to my…well I am not sure what he is to me anymore. Regardless I can’t have salmon for 1 without my wine.

It was AMAZING. Not only had I never cooked salmon in my life until a few Monday’s ago, but I never drink red wine, especially not on a nightly basis. I am learning to have a healthy relationship with food, to enjoy preparing and sitting down to a tasty meal, even if that means alone…which I am still getting used to. 

Tonight was turkey cutlet night…marinated in olive oil, chopped garlic, rosemary, dijon mustard, salt and pepper then pan seared. Side dishes are roasted crimini mushrooms marinated in olive oil, rosemary, garlic powder, salt and pepper and topped with balsamic vinegar post roast. Next up is mashed cauliflower over spinach. I boiled the cauliflower with water, milk and chopped garlic. I added garlic powder, scallions, salt and pepper after boiling. Theme of the evening – rosemary and garlic. My kitchen smells AMAZING!

Oh and then there is the crustless quiche that I made so that I don’t have to spend much effort making breakfast at 4 am anymore. I made it with 2 eggs, a lot of egg whites, sauteed summer squash, zucchini and eggplant (from Monday night!) topped with spinach and cheddar cheese. 

The change of direction my life has taken was hard to swallow. I know that once I get the surgery and after I recover that I can go back to my pursuit of modeling and my normal workouts and I will get my body back…not that I have really “lost” it but it definitely is not what it was and that was very hard at first but I am learning to accept the changes and ultimately love them.

So needless to say I am loving the new direction in my life. I felt as though everything was uprooted all at once but I have redirected my thoughts, feelings, emotions and actions so that these days are becoming some of the happiest days of my life. Starting to feel at peace with myself, my body and where I am headed.  

Life is good. 🙂

So my PT was right when he told me he thought I had a labral tear in my right hip but it took me over a year to actually see a doctor for it, which I regret. It was only after I joined CrossFit that I decided to get it looked at. Within the first week of my CrossFit adventure, my hips started to deteriorate faster than they ever had. I wasn’t able to squat without pain in my right hip flexor and it was starting to feel like someone was taking a baseball bat to my shin and smashing it to bits, so I decided to visit my doctor. He did the classic hip impingement test which I had already tested positive for, and ordered X-rays which showed that I had Femoroacetabular Impingement (FAI) and disc degeneration between L5-S1. FAI is a long way of saying I had a bony deformity on my acetabulum that was “banging” into my hip bone and scraping at the labrum, which is fibrous cartilage that is supposed to protect the hip joint.

He tells me to take anti-inflammatories and lay off the exercise for a month and come back to see him if it didn’t get better. Yeah, right. I took 3 days off and was antsy to get back to CrossFit, especially as I was realizing there was NO WAY I was taking a month off. So I worked within my pain level which meant no squatting and only dead lifting and power snatching…

This worked for a little while until one fateful day I deadlifted quite heavy and was out of commission for 5 days. I finally made an appointment with sports medicine at MGH.

“I’m sorry but there is nothing I can do for you as this is purely an orthopedic issue. Here are the names of a hip specialist and a spine physiatrist that you need to see. Chances are you have a labral tear and the degeneration in your back is pretty extreme so it’s no wonder you are in pain.” This was not exactly what I wanted to hear.

Two weeks later I finally see the hip specialist at Children’s Hospital who orders an arthrogram MRI. An arthrogram is a procedure in which you lie under an x-ray machine, get stuck with a needle that goes into your hip joint to inject anesthesia to supposedly numb you up (not so much in my right hip) followed by dye that will illuminate the hip joint to allow a more accurate MRI. I read horror stories about how painful it is so I went in to the procedure sort of freaking out. It was a Tuesday that I had the procedure on my left hip. I changed into these hideously large hospital linens and laid down under the X-ray machine.

The doctor then lubed up my hip with betadine (looks like blood. Ugh) and stuck a needle in the front to inject the anesthesia. He proceeded to inject 4 more vials of anesthesia (I started to feel a little naseous at this point) then move it around to find the perfect location to inject the dye. THAT was when it got real bad. I couldn’t feel it but the thought of a needle taking a stroll in my hip joint almost caused me to up chuck my chicken and kale (a staple in my diet).

Then he injected the dye. To say my hip joint felt like it was going to explode is an understatement. The cool part was that I got to see a live X-ray of my hip as he rotated it. I saw the bone deformity and I wanted to jump through that screen to rip it off. That little extra piece of bone is what was causing all this pain! WTF? It’s so small!

Next I get wheeled to the MRI machine so the dye stays in the joint, the nurse tapes my toes together and puts headphones over my ears. Normally I have to listen to the annoying clicking that an MRI machine makes but this place gave me music to jam out to. I fell asleep of course. 30 minutes later and I’m good to go!

Pre and post MRI

Next step was my right hip which was done 2 days later. The right hip is the more painful hip so I was expecting it to be a little more painful than the right…oh boy was I wrong…

It was TERRIBLE. Not only did the right hip injection that was supposed to be a “prick that will just sting like a bee”, NOT sting like a bee, it felt like someone was stabbing me with a knife!! The left hip injection was nothing compared to that! It’s like the anesthesia did nothing! Not only did it look like a war zone on the X-ray after he injected the dye, it also stimulated the same intense pain down my leg!! Not to mention the blood that spurted out of my hip on two separate occasions!!! I was half traumatized once the procedure was over. He did tell me that I most likely had a labral tear due to how the dye spread through my joint…enough of this probably or most likely crap. Let’s get some answers!!!

Those answers were given this past Tuesday. I have a labral tear in my right hip and need to have surgery but unfortunately have to wait until January 7th. As I sat in his office listening to him tell me about post-op – crutches for 3 weeks and 4-6 months to full recovery – my main concern was how I was going to not only get to work but simply work. I am a personal trainer, I pick things up and put them down with two hands standing on two feet for at least 6 hours every day. I live on the fourth floor of my apartment building with no elevator. I live 1 mile from work and usually walk to work. As these questions flooded my mind, I began to tear up. I almost let myself go enough to fully cry. I got so teary eyed and emotional to the point where when he asked me if I had any questions, I was only able to get a meager peep out of my mouth of “No” as I held back my emotional distress.

I left the hospital feeling defeated. But then the “F THAT” attitude came back. I called in the reinforcements – my parents of course – and worked out a plan. Recovery week will either be in Vermont or at my boyfriend’s house (poor him) and I will take a cab to work while I am on crutches. Expensive, yes. But thankfully I have very supportive parents. 🙂

Hip surgery, HERE I COME!