So I started thinking. What kind of health and fitness plan could I adopt for the next 60 days in order to look and feel like a million bucks—without depriving myself?

The Paleo Diet? Nah, that's for starving cavemen. I could go vegan... nutrition for hippies! No, thanks. Gluten-free is all the rage these days, because apparently bread is making us fat. Um, negative. My guess is it's just another basic white-girl fad. Intermittent fasting might be a good one to consider, albeit a little out of the box. But honestly, a day without breakfast is a sad one in my book.

Then it hit me. What if I tried intermittent snacking instead? That's something even I could get behind! On a painstakingly slow day at the office, when my eyes can barely stay open (much less focused on a computer screen), the easiest way to survive nine hours at a desk is to munch. It really does make the day go by a lot faster. Plus, snacking's been proven to rev up the metabolism, right? It's a win-win!

The Diet: Basically, I eat and drink a variety of foods and beverages (whatever I'm craving, really) throughout the day, usually in one-hour increments. This way, I rarely get hungry (read: hangry) or lack energy, and my body's constantly burning calories!

The first week, I decide to keep a food journal for informational purposes. Last Tuesday is a great example of my new eating habits, and also the only day I bothered to collect photographic evidence. This is what dedication to health looks like, my friends.

Food Journal for July 14th (with Photos)

6:30am | I start off the morning with a small handful of berries before leaving my apartment. Berries are good for you...full of antioxidants! But not much else. On the way to work, my stomach is growling like an angry gremlin, so I recklessly gobble down the last RX bar I can find in my gargantuan tote bag. A Coffee Cacao flavored one, you should know. (The best.) Twelve grams of protein will hold me over until lunch, I think. Totes.
7:00am | Once in the office, however, as I'm powering up my computer, it dawns on me that Amille's Café owes me a free drink via my completed punch card. From the way I'm smiling like a fool, you would think I won the lottery. Not ten minutes after arriving, there I go, practically skipping down to the tunnel to claim my free iced coffee (with a splash of whole milk, please). Coffee = energy. Energy = happiness. And happy people just don't shoot their husbands. Or fiancés.
10:00am | In the middle of a phone call about shut-in tubing pressures, I smell the salty deliciousness of crispy bacon wafting through the halls. That can only mean one thing: a bag of breakfast tacos are in the break room, and it has my name written all over it. How did I not remember it was Taco Tuesday? Damn RX bar. Okay, breathe. I can resist the temptation of a delicious taco if I try really hard. Maybe they will be all gone, I tell myself. I'll grab a bottle of water from the fridge instead. Gotta hydrate!

But no, there it is sitting on the counter next to the microwave, that beautiful white paper sack full of bacony goodne-- huh? SAUSAGE? What monstrosity is this? I KNOW I smelled bacon. Hmm... Oh, wait, I think I see it! Hidden at the bottom in between little cups of spicy salsa: one bacon, egg, and cheese taco. One left! This is providence. I can't just waste this lonely bacon-filled breakfast of champions, can I? Anyway, I'm working out today.
1:00pm | The caffeine from my morning coffee begins to wear off. I have just returned from the gym, where I spent thirty minutes on one of those stationary bikes. Jogging is my preferred method of cardio, but I'm currently nose-deep in the first book of the Divergent trilogy, and I CAN'T. PUT. IT. DOWN. I'll admit, my workout was kind of a joke. But in the chapter I just finished, Tobias kisses Tris for the first time, sooo I can't really say I care. (Oh, whoops, SPOILER ALERT.)

Even though I'm not terribly hungry, I go ahead and heat up my lunch anyway. (They say the best time to eat is 30 minutes to an hour after exercising. Although, I'm not exactly sure who they are.) Today, I have leftovers from the previous night's Thai takeout: vegetable red curry over black rice, my new favorite meal of all time. I've never eaten anything as soothing as curry. Give me some Asian comfort food any day.
Mmm, just look at those veggies!

2:00pm | Fast forward an hour, and I'm craving something sweet. Good thing I keep a bar of 88% dark chocolate in my desk. Endangered Species is my favorite brand, because it helps save the animals. (And I'm all about saving animals.) I nibble on a couple of squares. Thank God for chocolate, amIright? The darker, the better! I convince myself mid-swallow that there's no way I could ever live without it, in fact. As I check my work email for the hundredth time (nothing new), I begin to wonder what other material things I couldn't live without. The internet (sigh), Q-tips, books, coffee...
Which reminds me, I NEED COFFEE.

2:30pm | Rather than making my way down to Amille's for the second time today (don't want the baristas thinking I have a problem...), I decide to take a walk to the nearby convenience store to pick up a few needed items while I'm at it. Inside the shiny glass doors of the refrigerated section, I spot this gem of a beverage sitting on the bottom right between a Russian Java Monster and a sugar-free Red Bull: Starbucks Lightly Sweetened Iced Coffee.

It's only been a few days, but so far, I've found that it works wonders! On my mood, at least. (Verdict's still out on my waistline.)

Dinner photo by Joe S. found here.

You're like a great book I only get to read one page at a time.

Around two years ago, I was living in Austin with one last semester of school ahead of me. I had two part-time marketing jobs, both of which allowed me to work from home and to focus on the things I really enjoy: taking and editing photos, managing social media accounts, blogging about real weddings and local hot spots and other things of that nature.

The summer of '13 was a quiet one. I lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment off of Guadalupe, only five minutes from downtown. Almost all of my friends were either away on holiday or completing their own internships elsewhere before the start of our highly anticipated senior year. And for the first time since I'd moved to the city in 2010, Austin seemed deserted. Campus, a ghost town.

My days felt long and empty compared to the strictly scheduled madness of the previous semester, and I was thankful for the break. From mid-morning to late afternoon, I'd hop from one small café to another in search of the most comfortable creative space, delighted by each change of scenery. My evenings were reserved specifically for Felicity marathons, with the occasional tête-à-tête at Trudy's (when their famous Mexican Martinis beckoned) or a night out on Rainey Street sometimes thrown in the mix. Thinking back, I remember finding the utter seclusion surprisingly blissful. It was all I needed, the refreshing loneliness of an agenda-less summer.


I walked to Kerbey Lane at 9:00 in the morning, asked for a booth by the window, and ordered a chocolate coffee (heavy on the coffee) to get my creative juices flowing. Pandora and the Beats headphones I got for Christmas helped drown out the little bit of noise one could expect on campus in mid-July. Summer Ames started to sing a new favorite, and the unbeatable combination of caffeine and musical inspiration flowed through my veins. Taking my Macbook from my bag, I set it gently on the table and powered it up, eager to check my to-do list for the day.

But not before first scanning my Inbox for something worth reading. Heart beating a little too fast, my eyes fell on a familiar subject line, and then his name in bold. Another lengthy letter, awaiting my response.

Two years can seem like an eternity. But it's merely a minute in which everything can change.


We nostalgics have an encumbering tendency to idealize past phases of our lives, to look back on "the good ol' days" longingly and wish we could somehow experience them again. Almost always, positive memories replace any negative feelings that might have existed—even if that particular point in time was just as hard, just as mundane, or just as bittersweet as the stage we're currently in. Our brain's way of protecting us, I suppose. Good or bad, we mourn what's no longer ours. And then wonder how many of our precious moments have been taken for granted in the process.

This happens to me a lot, I'll admit, but that July was different. I wasn't looking back. I knew what I had was good, special. Rare. More than happiness, I felt a sense of wholeness. I was content, fully reveling in the simplicity of my daily routine. Eat, create, play, sleep. Rinse, repeat. I was exactly where I wanted to be, and although my life might have appeared boring from the outside, restlessness never once grabbed hold of me.

And so, when the messages started coming, I savored each sentence with cautious abandon.  I let myself get lost in the thrill of an unread reply and the subtle mystery of his kind words. It was a slow and steady build. The hints were there, and I hinted back ever so obviously, overjoyed by the notion of seeing him again. Invigorated by the possibility of face-to-face conversations, or any semblance of a future as... friends? Something else? I couldn't be sure. But even greater than my desire to define what we had, I wanted my world to go unchanged for just a few moments more. To linger on that delicate threshold between curiosity and commitment, a lovely little balancing act for two.

The summer before graduation was like a great book I could only read one page at a time. And it pulled me in unexpectedly. Gradually at first, and then all at once.

I didn't know then that my life was about to change for good. That the sense of peace I felt in the days leading up to an inevitable August were preparing me for a kind of chaos that I'd not yet experienced in my twenty-one years. The kind of chaos that turns your life upside down and makes you come undone, piece by piece. That keeps you up at night thinking, I will miss this. Someday, I'll miss this beyond words.

Photo by Caio Resende.