Decisions, Decisions: HLS Day 3

It’s time for the final recap of The Healthy Living Summit. Presenting you with day 3 (Sunday)…More photos, less talky.

HLS 5k

(photo courtesy of Courtney)

Healthy Breakfast and Good-Bye’s

(photo courtesy of Jamie)

Harvard Square

Both Shannon and I had later flights on Sunday, so we took advantage of our extra time by walking to Harvard and admiring their beautiful campus and the surrounding area.

      

It looks a little different from good old Minnesota State University, Mankato! It is a breathtaking campus.

We oogled the fresh goods at a local farmer’s market and bought flavored nuts from Q’s Nuts, a local company, and I bought a sweet apple for the airport.

A cupcake truck to tempt us on our walk home…we denied it after much contemplation.

Back at the hotel, we had 45 minutes to shower, pack, and be down in the lobby to catch a cab back to the airport. In case you’re wondering, yes I did have to sit on my suitcase in order to close it, thanks to all of the great swag! My bag weighed in at 48.5 lbs on the way home.

At the airport I polished off a small sample of Q’s nuts, my large farmer’s market apple, and then decided I needed some greenery, so wandered around until I found myself a nice little side salad. My first flight was from Boston to Chicago.

A layover in Chicago (for 3.5 hours) led me to buy more food. Another salad…

Hmm….what else do I want? So many temptations surrounding me.

After about 45 minutes I decided that a bowl of vanilla Fro Yo was just what I wanted.  Those apples look pretty tasty though don’t they? I walk by them every time I am at the Chicago airport and drool by the window.

Fro Yo two days in a row. That needs to stop now. Have you noticed I am quite the indecisive person? It’s not something I’m proud of.

Next flight, Chicago to Minneapolis. I munched on a box of Wild Harvest Organic Raisins from the conference and then tried to sleep (with no such luck). I arrived in Minneapolis around 12:30, and crawled into bed around 1 am. It was a LOOONNGG day of traveling and I was so happy to be home.

The main message I took from the conference is, be true to you and remember why you started your blog. I started B.N. to share my love for food and fitness in hope to inspire others (and motivate myself) to live a healthy lifestyle. What you read on my blog is all me. I write how I talk, and am real with you every day. Not every day is a great day, but I do try and find the positives in every situation and keep my blog uplifting and light. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

To the great friends I met over the weekend: you are all such incredible, inspirational people. I learned something from each and every one of you. I look forward to staying in touch over the years and hopefully meeting up with you all again!

I am so glad I made the decision to attend HLS12. I attained so much valuable information and am now finally starting to digest and process it all. I am in the process of putting some of what I learned to work! Expect great changes to Beautifully Nutty in the future.

I will be back to normal posts again. The recipes are piling up and I have some major catching up to do. I hope you’re excited!

Happy  Hump Day!

Shake Out the Nerves: HLS Day 1

Hi friends! I am home sweet home from my trip out to Cambridge, MA for the Healthy Living Summit 2012. I have A LOT to tell you. I was going to try to do a recap of this weekend in one post, but there is absolutely no way I would be able to do that without writing you a novel. So, I’m going to break it down day by day. Bear with me.

Last time I left you I had recapped my day with Dana in Boston. Moving on to Friday….

Friday morning, I was one lazy lady. I slept in, eventually rolled out of bed (I do literally roll out of bed), made myself a cup of joe, and plopped myself in front of the computer for a couple of hours. It felt phenomenal to just sit and relax.

I even ate breakfast in my room. I picked up a vanilla bean non-fat Greek yogurt from Trader Joe’s the night before and enjoyed (a few too many) cinnamon almonds from TJ’s as well.

Then came the activity

I decided to make something of myself around 11:00, so I jumped into my workout clothes, laced up the ol’ Asics, and made my way to the river. I used MapMyRun to track me through 4 miles. I jogged and walked while enjoying the beautiful views of Cambridge.

Back at the hotel, I had my first mini mingle with some of the HLS ladies. A fellow blogger Aundra, led a group of us in an outdoor Zumba class. She scoped out a nice shady spot for us just outside of our hotel, and there was a nice breeze to keep us cool as we broke it down.

Image courtesy of Aundra

She got me sweatin’ and was the cutest, happiest, Zumba instructor I’ve had yet. Such a fun time!

After Zumba, I showered up and headed to the HLS registration tables to pick up my bag-o-swag, and then sat in on a presentation and discussion led by Derek of the blog Greatist.

Derek emphasized the importance of being your best self, and staying true to who you are in life, and in your blog. His presentation was a great way to kick off the conference, and was a great opportunity to mingle with other bloggers, and discuss ideas with one another.

Let’s talk about this swag bag.

Holy cow I was a little girl on Christmas when I got this bag. Thanks to wonderful sponsors and donations, the gift bag that each attendee received was overflowing with great products from workout headbands and a t-shirt from Five Bamboo, to Organic Granola from Cascadian Farms, Odwalla bars, SoyJoy, and many other great products.

We were also loaded up with coupons for products from Almond Breeze, Wild Harvest ( a HUGE sponsor for this event), Laughing Cow, Stonyfield, and more. Such generous donations and swag bags!

Oh, and did I mention Reebok? Um, hello! They gave us all a pair of absolutely adorable RealFlex shoes. Are you kidding me? That is amazing! They are so much fun, come in lots of different colors and are very comfortable.

Thank you for all of the generous gifts!

After scrounging through the goodies, it was time to meet up for another “mini mingle” which was a photo walk around Cambridge. We walked our way to the very famous Fenway Park. Unfortunately we couldn’t look inside, but it was still neat to see the outside of it, and more importantly I had a chance to chat with so many sweet ladies.

That marked my third sweat session of the day.

Once we got back I was drained, but knew I needed to gather up some last bits of energy because I had a cocktail partAY to attend to.

I neglected to really take any photos of the cocktail party, except for this awkward one which was taken in my room beforehand…

I was all nerves walking into the cocktail party as I did not know a soul except for a few people I had spoken with throughout the day. When I am placed in situations where I don’t know anyone, I tend to get shy. It forces me out of my comfort zone and I realize that sometimes this is the only way a person can grow and get over the uncomfortable feeling. It’s good for me.

I approached the first friendly welcoming person I could find, and within minutes I was engaging in conversations left and right with fellow healthy living enthusiasts. Being that we all have so much in common, it was very easy to keep conversation flowing. I was meeting so many great people with interesting things to say!

The only thing weighing me down was that my energy level was at a 3 out of 10. My body was working over time to keep me going. I wanted to enjoy the moment though so I kept pulling through. 

At around 9:00, I managed to spill my glass of red wine all down the front of my tan skirt. I was that girl. Womp wooooommmmp. I used my clutch to cover it up as I quickly made my way up to my room. Embarrassing.

A little cold water and white bar soap, and I worked that stain right out.

So here I am in my hotel room at 9:00 pm, the party is still going on downstairs, I’m debating what to wear if I go back down to the party, I’m feeling very cozy in my gorgeous Hyatt room, and little Ms. Melanie is completely spent.

I made an executive decision right then and there that I was going to stay in the rest of the night. I took the wine on my skirt as a sign that my body was ready to call it a night. After all, I had a very busy day ahead of me, and wanted to be in good shape for it.

I snuggled into bed, and slept sound. I had survived day one, which is the most nerve-racking of them all. SO much more to come. Please stay tuned!

Destination Boston HLS12

I made it to Boston, but I was one tired girl when I arrived.

(Back track to Thursday)

I rolled out of bed at 4:00 am to get to the airport by 5:40 or so. My flight wasn’t until 7:35 but I need to be extra early to keep my anxiety level at ease.

As I’m waiting to board my 7:35 flight, they make an announcement that due to weather in Chicago (which is where I had a layover), that there would be a half hour delay. Okay, no big deal. I go make an extra lap around the airport and come back. Another announcement…Captain wants to wait for the storm to pass. Take-off has been delayed until 9:35. Now I’m ticked.

I understand this happens and it’s for the safety of everyone involved, but I was just disappointed because Dana was waiting for me out in Boston, so that we could spend part of the day together. He was out there for business this week so the plan was when I got in at 1:30, we would go hit up the town and explore Boston together, and then he would be taking off Friday morning.

This is getting long, so long story short, I switched flights and airlines and flew standby on a direct flight from Minneapolis to Boston that took off at 10:30. I arrived in Boston around 2:30 (??) and Dana picked me up at the airport. I ran into a friend from college at the airport btw! Such a small world!

By the time we checked into our hotel, got situated, changed, and went outside to wait for the free hotel shuttle, it was 4:00 already.

(Check out the view from my room. Wowzas I love it! I love this hotel…more to come on that!)

Even with limited time, we still made a pretty good dent in the city. We took the hotel shuttle to the T, and took the T to The Freedom Trail which is a 2.5 mile walk around part of the city, and it passes many historical landmarks. Dana and I followed along with an app on his phone and were able to catch up on some of our history that way.

Did I mention I hadn’t eaten lunch yet? Okay, I don’t function very well when I’m hungry. So, as we made our way through the walk, we were also scoping out places to eat. I had a hankering for seafood especially after Dana texted me a photo of his lobster roll from the day before.

After walking past handfuls of gelato stands, I was tempted to eat gelato for dinner, but decided something more substantial was probably a better idea. We decided on Salty Dog which is located in the Faneuil Marketplace.

This photo below if the only proof I have that Dana was with me yesterday. I didn’t get one photo of the two of us! Bummer. We have the memories though.   

We started with a shrimp cocktail appetizer that we split between the two of us. Such fresh perfect shrimp. I could get used to this.

For dinner, we split the lobster sandwich that came with a side of coleslaw and fries, but we swapped the fries for a side of sautéed veggies. After seeing Dana’s lobster roll photo from the day before, I was expecting a lot more food than this. I guess that’s the difference between a lobster roll and a lobster sandwich? Oh well. The food was delicious, with a ginormous chunk of fresh lobster in the sandwich, a light spread of mayo, lettuce, and a buttery bun. I just left feeling kind of  hungry still.

After dinner we continued our Freedom Trail journey and did our tourist thing. I am embarrassed to post this photo as I am sweaty/tired/dirty/hungry, but I do it for you.

Paul Revere’s house:

The USS Constitution:

I have to admit, I am a little ashamed at my lack of historical knowledge. History was my least favorite subject in school so I didn’t really pay very good attention. It isn’t too late to start learning now though! I enjoyed learning about some of the history of Boston. What a beautiful area.

We got back to the hotel around 8:00 pm and we were both famished again. We hopped in the rental car (way too exhausted to walk any more) and made our way to Trader Jo’s and to Whole Foods. We made ourselves a Mediterranean inspired bowl of goodness at Whole Foods and ate that as our second dinner. I also bought a bag of Cinnamon Almonds from Trader Jo’s which are HIGHLY addicting.

Friday

Now it’s Friday morning and I am being a lazy bum in my room until some of the festivities of the Healthy Living Summit begin! I was in dire need of sleep yesterday and slept for 10 hours last night. The hubby is back home now. I loved every second of having him here.

Now that HLS12 is finally here, I feel like it’s the first day of school. I am full of anticipation, anxiousness, nervousness, and excitement! Now that I am fully rested, I am pumped to get this party started! Cannot wait to meet all of the other attendees, and can’t wait to fill all of you in on the events of the weekend.

I hope you are all having a great Friday. Catch up with you soon!