I am the perfect example of the old adage, you are what you eat. Have you read the O’Keefe’s blog this week? Unfortunately, I can attest to every word.

I’ve been on Accutane twice in my life and wish so much I’d have known then what I know now. Unfortuantely, that was back in the day of fat-free diets being the rage and me not knowing any better. I used to live on fat-free sugar laden cereals and other junk – and I loved soda pop. And I paid the price. My skin looked awful! As a last resort, I took Accutane at 16 and again at 22. Accutane is a miserable experience. The side effects are awful and now they’re saying it could cause all sorts of intestinal issues later in life. Not good!

I have been trying to follos the Forever Young Diet and Lifestyle for several years now and have never looked or felt better. But, for the last two weeks, my skin has looked awful! I am broken out so badly. It should have been obvious from the first zit – my birthday was two weeks ago and I really overindulged. Birthday cake and pie and sweets galore for the whole week. And it’s still visible in my face. I’m well into my thirties now and bad skin just doesn’t look professional.

All those sweets didn’t taste anywhere near good enough to be worth this nasty skin. I’m embarrassed and I am hiding my face and trying as hard as I can to cover it up with makeup, etc. It’s just not worth going through this for the minute or two of pleasure that birthday cake gave me.

For the next month I’m going to try to completely eliminate easily digested carbohydrate from my diet. I’ll let you know how my skin looks next month.

I know, I know. I’ve neglected the advice I’ve received by so many people and now I’m paying the price.

I’ve been using the “too busy” excuse for not fitting in as much core and weight training as I should. I have tried to do my running, biking and swimming workouts, but that leaves very little time for weights and core exercises. Lately, I’ve neglected them all together.

My favorite triathlon of the season, The Win For KC Women’s Triathlon, was this Saturday. I did the Cameron, MO mini-triathlon as a warm-up the weekend before and that’s where I first felt the awful pain and burning in my left hip. It was almost unbearable and my run really suffered in that race. I took last week off of running completely thinking it would improve in time for Saturday’s race. Not so.

I probably shouldn’t have even done the race, but about 1/10th of a mile into Saturday’s run the burning was back… with a vengeance. I ended up walking part of the 5K and jogging a little. My time in the 5K was 20 seconds per mile MORE than my marathon pace. Ridiculous. Hopefully by not pushing through the pain I may have salvaged myself for a fall race. I think it’s time to see the doctor. I’m also going to check with some functional training friends to see what they recommend to avoid this injury coming back.