fitness & fro-yo: Anna's Survey

Happy Sunday! It's a rainy morning here in Houston, which I felt was perfect for curling up in bed and getting today's blog post checked off my list. Start each day with a task completed, right? Anyway, this is a survey that I saw over on Carrots ‘n’ Cake’s blog, which she read in the April issue of Health, which featured an interview with Anna Farris. She liked the questions, so she turned it into a blog survey. And I’m doing the same. Because who doesn’t love a blog survey? This one’s short, but sweet for certain.

Can you eat what you want or do you have to watch it?

I definitely consider myself a healthy eater, but I also have a runner’s appetite. I am hungry a lot of the time, and I consume what most people would consider to be a lot of food. But because I’d rather eat a lot than I little, I do watch what I eat. I make sure that most of what I put in my body is going to fuel it. That being said, I know all too well what body image struggle looks like, and I also know that it can absolutely consume one’s mind. And while I won’t go crazy and eat an entire chocolate cake in one sitting, I also won’t ever deprive myself of a little treat when I want one. It’s everything in moderation.

What are your favorite ways to pamper yourself?

I’m going to have to go with the answer before mine. Massages are probably my favorite indulgence, though I don’t get them often, but pedicures are my must-have guilty pleasure. I rarely let my toes be seen unpainted, but my nails will rarely be seen with paint on them.

I’ll go more in depth about this in another post, but on Friday I enjoyed a sports massage at Zalla Massage, and I don’t have enough good things to say about it. It had been a while since I had a massage, and between work and working out, I knew I had put my body through the ringer. Zack has golden hands, and I felt like a million bucks walking out of their cute little hobbit house. If you ever find yourself in the Montrose area with some time to kill, you know what to do. A little relaxation can do wonders for a person.

Besides wine, do you have a go-to drink?

Honestly, it’s probably just wine. I’m not a huge drinker, and if I am going to drink, it will probably be wine. That, or a mimosa. A Hugo’s blackberry mimosa is hard to beat. And champagne was my first love.

Do you have any health regrets?

Hmm. There was a period of time when I really, really restricted what I ate. I was so concerned about gaining the freshman 15 that I went in the opposite direction and didn’t let myself enjoy much of anything. It took me a while, but I soon realized that’s no way to live, and while it’s not really a regret so much as it was a learning experience, it’s still sad that I made myself feel so guilty over one little slip-up. I would spend hours agonizing over one unhealthy choice, fearful that it would suddenly make me gain ten pounds. Extreme, I know. But when someone tells you, “You can’t gain the freshman 15 because you don’t have anywhere to put it,” just before you get ready to make the big college move, it sticks with you.

Are you a yoga person?

I’m not even going to pretend here. I am not a yoga person in the slightest. But on a whim I purchased a Groupon for Aerial YogaHouston, got outside my comfort zone, and took what I consider to be a FUN yoga class early yesterday morning. I wish I liked yoga, but I am just not a relax-and-stretch kind of person. There is absolutely a time and a place for both of those things, and I should certainly make more time for them, but that’s just not my exercise style. I’ll spend more time talking about it in another post, but the bottom line is, that’s my kind of yoga!

What workout move do you loathe?

I hate a love/hate relationship with jumping lunges. But what I truly loathe are leg lifts. They really irritate my back, which is probably telling me something, right? They’re the one exercise I just won’t do when prompted in some sort of group exercise class. And I certainly never choose to do them on my own.

When do you feel your best?

I feel my best after a good, long run. And though I typically prefer the hot over the cold, I really love the feeling I get after completing a run on a bitter cold and wet day. Triumphant is the best word to describe that feeling.

When do you feel your absolute happiest?

Lately I’ve noticed that I feel my absolute happiest when I’m with a group of friends, we’re all just hanging out and talking, our phones are nowhere to be seen, and we’re all just laughing and having a good time. Those are the moments that are hard to beat. I feel it when I’m hanging out with JAKL, I felt it when I was eating dinner on the beach in San Francisco, and I felt it at the Astros game the other night – just four girls talking and laughing over America’s pastime.