battling the binge

Today was just one of those days. It wasn't particularly bad, just... off. Yes, "off" is a good way to describe it. I've been housesitting for a friend and had grand plans of laying by their huge pool all day but the wind definitely ruined that. I forced myself went to the gym this morning for one of my beloved Saturday workouts... and it sucked. I just didn't want to be there, I had to force myself to complete every rep, and even though I got a good sweat on I didn't feel much better at the end of it.

But the worst part of the day is that I completely binge ate. It's been so long since I've self sabotaged myself, and it hit today. I wasn't in a terrible mood, I wasn't emotionally eating, I was just eating crap. And lots of it. I was at my friend's house which is filled with (gluten free) junk food... (Side note: who knew so much junk food could be gluten free??? I thought that was code word for healthy but never would have put Cheetos, potato chips, chocolate covered peanuts, and m&ms in that list). Out of curiosity, I tried a couple bites of a lot of things (foods I don't have at my house) and then proceeded to keep nibbling on the good stuff all day long.

The old Christina would be sitting here right now, stuffed to the brim, and beating myself up one side and down the other. I would be calling myself ten kinds of horrible names, obsessively weighing myself, and planning a ridiculously low calorie meal plan and an intense sweat sesh for first thing in the morning.

But (yes there is a but!) I'm not stuffed, I had lots of little bites, licks, and nibbles, and a few too many handfuls of Cheetos, but I'm not stuffed to the brim. And tomorrow is my rest day from the gym, and I'd rather sunbathe and hang out with my family than get up for a 6 a.m. pre-church run. So for the first time ever, I'm going to let this one slide. I'm going to try to learn from it and then move on.

What I've learned:
* I need a game plan for unfamiliar settings. It's different at my house, where we have very little junk food and I have a set routine, this wasn't the case in this situation.
*I need to learn its okay to relax the rules (a lot) once in a while. I've been trying to "eat intuitively" and have been relaxing my strict eating rules a little bit, but I'm trying to learn that one day of crazy eating isn't going to undo all of my progress.
*Don't keep Cheetos in the house. I will eat the whole bag, yes even the family sized one. Nuff said.
*Have a portion, not a bunch of small bites. If I want a treat, I am the type of person that needs to measure out a portion of 1 or 2 treats and have that be it. All of my small bites add up to a whole lotta food throughout the day.
*I feel better when I eat healthy. No longer is it a chore to pre plan meals and eat veggies when my friends are eating chips. My body craves these things, and right now it is not happy with me for ignoring what it wants.
*Even after a binge, I will be okay. This one is MAJOR! Right now, I'm blogging instead of beating myself up. I'm relaxed. I still put on my bikini this afternoon, even after eating all that junk (I never used to do that). When I'm done blogging, I'm going to go sit by the fire with my family and roast marshmallows. And yes, I'm even going to eat a couple.

It's okay to let yourself off the hook once in awhile, so long as it doesn't become a habit. Tomorrow, I'll be right back on track, and in a few days this binge will be nothing more than a blip on the radar. This is being healthy to me and one binge isn't going to ruin all of that.

life is worth living

Confession... I haven't thought about A Beautiful Mess at all in the last week. Not beyond the passing thought of "I should probably sit down for an update." It's not  for a lack of post ideas- I've got those coming out my ears. These past couple weeks, instead of being glued to my computer screen for hours a day, I've been out living life. And it's been wonderful. In fact, I wouldn't change it for the world.

So instead of blogging I've been spending lots of time out here:

Doing lots of this:

Gettin my tan on (with suncscreen!)

Playing with this adorable duo

Eating lots and lots (and lots!) of these:

Those are fresh from our garden I might add :O) The mass amounts of strawberries, pineapple, apples, watermelon and veggies I've been consuming are not, however, they are deeelicious :O)

I've been helping out my momma with her garden and flowers

Spending lots of time with the momma

Isn't she perrrty? Plus she's my official gym buddy now :O) Workouts are so much more fun with someone else there, even if we don't usually do our workouts side by side.

I've spent lots of time sweatin it out on this:

  Source

And lifting lots of these:

Source

And spending incredibly large amounts of time goofing off with this little monkey (aka my sister)

There have also been copious amounts of hiking, running, sweatin it out with the trainer, eating, guzzling water & ice tea like there's no tomorrow, laughing, and drinking vino. To me, this is what summer is supposed to be like: living, laughing, and having fun. So while this means irregular blog posts, it's all worth it. The blog will still be here when I have time to update. My Google Reader will still be full when I get around to it. I'm finally in a place where I am happy and confident enough to enjoy my life, and I'm not going to take this time for granted. Right now, I'm off to hang out with my siblings and spend some time out in the garden before likely ending up doing the same thing in the last picture :O) I hope that you are off enjoying your summer as well! Happy Friday :O)

i've been googled

Well Google Reader'ed that is. I've been a little low on energy the last few days, so I've been majorly slacking in the blog reading department. It probably doesn't help that I have over 40 subscriptions, most of which update regularly. I've basically left it alone for the past 2 days (except for my daily dose of crack info from my faves) and now i have 102 new posts! That's gonna take a while to get through :O) I think an afternoon of laying bed with Gilmore Girls (best show evaaaa!) and Google Reader might be in order!

Yesterday was a blasty! I went into the gym and did 30 minutes of HIIT (high intensity interval training) on the treadmill. I walked at 4.0 mph  for 1 minute and then sprinted at either 7.0, 7.5, or 8.0 mph. All at 2% incline. Plus 5 minutes on either side for warm up and cool down. In all honesty, I only ran at 8.0 mph 2 or 3 times because 1 minute is a long time to sprint that fast! By the time I was done I was a sweaty mess but I'd burned about 700 calories! Not bad at all for 40 minutes total. I'm usually the one that's in the gym for 1 1/2 hours, sometimes longer by the time I stretch and foam roll so it was nice to get in a quick but super sweaty workout.

Yesterday afternoon, I went hiking with one of my badass bootcamp chicas. It was a super steep climb, completely covered in loose slippery rock. My core must have gotten a bangin workout from trying to keep my balance! And of course my legs were practically jello by the time we got to the top.

I have to say that I adore hiking. I think it's a great workout and a lot of fun to get outside. I am blessed to live in an area that has tons of trails within a short distance. However, I am used to trail hiking. This "hike" was more like scaling the side of a rocky mountain- no trail whatsoever. For trail hiking, I just wear a pair of good tennis shoes. I've had hiking boots, but they were too ugly and uncomfortable to go anywhere near my feet. Which brings me to the interesting part of my saga. The hike was fine on the way up, if a little treacherous at points. However, on the way down, we slid almost halfway down the hill on the loose rock. It was actually a lot of fun until we hit really hard ground barely covered in loose gravel. My feet hit a slippery spot and whooshed out from under me, planting me straight on my heinie. It hurt (badly) but I kept on going thinking I was fine. When I got home and was getting ready to jump in the shower, I noticed a little bruise forming and it hurt a little. By the time I went to bed last night I had a giant black and blue bruise covering about 1/2 of my left butt cheek. TMI? probably, but it's so painful I had to share my misery with someone! I wanted to post pics but there is no way to do so without major exposure, so I won't! Not quite ready to get that personal with the bloggy :O)

Needless to say, I went out and bought hiking boots today :O)

trusting myself

All I can say is HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!!! Seriously I love Friday's (especially now that I'm done teaching for the year, ha!), not as much as I love Saturday's, but that's okay. A couple glasses of Polka Dot Riesling (Side note: I only bought it because I collect cute/unique wine bottles but this stuff was actually good! Two large glasses worth :O)) I'll just use that as my excuse if anything in this post doesn't make sense!

I've been putting this post together in my head all week now and it just hasn't been coming out right but it's something I need to have down so that I can read it over and over again in the future. I've been talking a lot about listening to my body lately and trying to figure out what that means exactly. I'm pretty sure if I let it, my body would "require" lots of Reeces peanut butter cups and lengthy midday naps in the sun.

However, this past weekend I was proven wrong. I was out of town for a girlfriend's birthday fiesta and ended up staying with her for a few days. It was a blast! Buuuuut, she doesn't eat the same way I do. She's perfectly fine having a bowl of fresh fruit fuel her workout and skipping meals. Her body just works with it. Mine doesn't. Last weekend I fueled my body with a lot of processed crap. No I'm not proud of it, it's just how they eat and I didn't want to be rude and say "ewww, no" plus I was in splurge mode and ready to loosen up my eating habits.

Something funny happened over the weekend though. My body revolted. I was rarely hungry, even though I was eating only 3 times a day (and not large meals) and occasionally munching on a few things here and there. When I did eat, it was usually processed foods or foods that I don't normally eat (cookies, desserts, etc.). By the time I left Monday morning, my tummy was very angry with me. I was craving veggies and grilled chicken breast. Tuesday, I ate normally and was surprised at how hungry I was all day. It was literally like I couldn't fill my body up with enough good food to satisfy it.

My epiphany came that afternoon. My body knows what it wants and what it needs to be healthy. Think about that statement, such a small sentence but for me it was earth shattering. My body craves fresh, organic, unprocessed foods. It craves fruits, veggies, nuts, and lean protein sources. It does NOT crave junk food and processed crap.

I need to trust my body more. For years I've been telling it to eat this, don't eat that, starve, run faster, eat this many calories, ban this food, blah, blah, blah... only to find out that it actually knows what it wants. I am giving calorie counting a break. I have been to obsessed with hitting my macronutrient ratios and only eating certain foods. I am truly committing to listening to my body, letting it tell me when its hungry, when its full, when I need to ease back on the workouts a little.

I've done this all week. My SparkPeople account has been very lonely this week. And in doing that, I dropped the 2 lbs. that all the crap food put on my body. I feel more relaxed about food and about my body. I feel mentally and physically healthier because I am letting my body dictate what it needs and not my mind dictating what it thinks I *should* need.

Truth? I'm a little scared. This is the most I've ever *let go* of control with food. Ever. I'm afraid I'll gain weight. I'm afraid my body fat will go up. I'm afraid my body wont know what it wants. In spite of all that, I'm committing to finding out. Because for the first time, I feel like that controlling OCD eating disordered girl is just a little bit further away from me. And that feels good.

Recuperating

Hello bloggy! I've missed you so :O) I took a few days longer than planned off to visit the bestie for her birthday. I had a blast staying up way too late, running, playing, pedicuring (is that even a word? Don't know but my toes look perrrty!), eating way too much junk food, and just generally having a good time.

This trip took me through not 1 but 2 birthday parties which means double the party food. Plus being at her house I didn't want to be my usually picky self. To me nothing says rude like "nope I won't eat that because it's not organic/vegetarian/flour free, etc. I gave myself leeway to relax the eating rules and be okay with it. It was easier to say at first because I was only planning on staying 1 night but that quickly turned into 2 plus a whole day :O) What can I say, I love me some Lizzy time!

Even though I was out of town, I managed to get some good workouts in! We went and played beach volleyball for a couple hours Saturday afternoon which was actually a lot of fun! I made the best of my new running shoes and her cute neighborhood to get in a good run Sunday morning. I ran the better part of 3 miles and then walked 2 just because it was too nice to be inside. And then Monday we hit the gym for a nice sweaty treadmill sesh and some brutal ab moves that left me hurtin. It helped me feel a lot better about what I had ate :O)

We did a bit of shopping, got our toes done (pics to follow!), and spent hours on end talking about anything and everything. Somehow by the end of it she had me almost convinced to move down there! I left laaaaate Monday afternoon and it felt so good to sleep in my own bed last night!

Today started off with a sweaty bootcamp sesh with the super trainer, it was tough after the weekend but so worth it at the end. After he finished us off and left us in a pile of sweat and ab pain on the floor, he told us to go do a 20 minute stair challenge to see how many floors we could do in that time. Man it was brutal! But I hit 124 floors which is 4 more than last time woohoo! It was so tough mentally, but helped me switch over from splurge mentality to normal mode. I already feel better and more energized after the weekend.

I could definitely tell my eating had been off this weekend because once I started putting good food in it, I was starving all day long. I literally felt like I couldn't eat enough, it was crazy. And all I was craving was veggies, fruits, nut butters, and protein. I filled my belly with lots of whole, raw foods and maybe a chocolate chip cookie :O) It's like my belly was saying "Hey, remember when you used to feed me good food last week??? Yeah lets go back to that and never stop okay? Thanks, your tummy" Yup, my tummy sends me messages... especially when I don't fuel it properly.

I had a lengthy post all planned up in my noggin but even after a day of recuperation (including a nap!) I am still exhausted so it will have to wait until tomorrow. Coming up this week (hopefully):

• My epiphany from this weekend
• Foods I can't live without
• Giving my body a break/ My life as a cardio addict

Sometimes...

Sometimes things just hit a little to close to home for my comfort... I had a great post started about my first ever outdoor trail run today but truthfully, as I was finishing it up I just wasn't feeling it. Today was a day that I broke through some mental barriers. It felt great at the time but it left me feeling a little raw and unsettled, like I don't quite know where to go next.

"What if I told you that I was going to not let you judge yourself on

the scale number
what food you ate
how much you exercises
what your inches are
what clothes you fit in

Then….what would be your focus? Where would you find validation? Where would your happiness come from?" 
 Mish @ Eating Journey

As I was reading this post (quoted above) @ Eating Journey, things just kind of hit me. I've had such a complex (about a lot of things) but especially about running. See even though I'm physically strong now, I'm still mentally weak. I'm still often crippled by self doubt and negative self-talk. I'm working on it, but it's a tough battle. Today I broke through one of those barriers in running 5 miles straight. And I loved it, it felt good to feel so strong. But pushing through that block, left me feeling a little unsettled. I kept thinking "what now? I've been so wrapped up in "I love to workout but I'm not a runner" and various other "I can't" statements that now that I can't say that, what am I? In the past I've spent so much of my life wrapped up in disordered eating habits, compulsive exercise, binge eating, dieting, failing, getting healthy, and exercising that my mind instantly started searching for something else to identify with. Not just anything, but something negative; something else that I couldn't do.

After seeing that post, I do wonder who I would be if I wasn't ruled by the scale. If I could live by how my jeans fit instead of that number. What could I do if I wasn't ruled by the desperate need to only consume healthy, whole foods? How much more relaxed would I be if I wasn't consumed by trying to lower my body fat percentage or by dropping inches each month? How much more enjoyable would shopping be if I didn't have to judge my happiness by the pants size? Where would my anchor point be?

There's a fine line between control and obsession and I've been dancing on that line for awhile now. Friends and family say my 6 day a week gym habit is dedication but they don't see that it's the fear of being overweight again that drives me there every day. I'm applauded for my meticulous healthy eating habits, but nobody knows that it's driven by an irrational need to distance myself from the girl who binged herself to 30 pounds overweight in 6 months. I have friends who gape over my salad love at restaurants but they don't know that it's only because I'm terrified of what's really in whatever they're eating. I am struggling to find a balance between becoming healthy and becoming obsessed with becoming healthy. And yes, it is a struggle.

Who would I be if my life wasn't ruled by irrational fears and an insane need for control? I really don't know... yet. But I am going to find out. Because I am tired of letting these fears eat away at my happiness. Because life is more than food and exercise and being healthy. Because none of this means anything if I can't enjoy it. Because I deserve more. Even if I don't believe that right now, I know it's true. I'm on a journey to find freedom in a healthy lifestyle and I'm strong enough now to know that I can't let these demons beat me. This time, I'm fighting back.

bring out the violins

because I'm ready for a pity party.... I'm sick. With another rotten cold. You heard me right another cold. I'm not one to get sick very often but this is the second time in 2 weeks that I've been down for the count with a cold. Last time it was a stuffy nose and sore throat turned laryngitis while substitute teaching in a busy classroom of 54 kindergarteners (not all at once thank God!). I mean you try teaching a bunch of active, busy, talkative 5 year olds when all you can do is whisper... not fun.

Now, I'm down with the stuffy nose, watery eyes, sneezing, cough from hell. It is no fun, no fun at all. And ironically, I'm still substitute teaching, but in PE (hello, whistle!). I don't tend to get sick very often but when I do, I'm usually down for awhile. Last time, I pushed through and managed to sweat it out with multiple torturous sessions on the death machine stair climber. This time no such luck, I even had to miss bootcamp for the second time ever :O( (First time was because of vacation, since I know you're wondering :O)) All that means, that I haven't been in the gym since Saturday's killer strength training workout ala The Fitnessista and I'm a little cranky about that. I'm trying to "listen to my body" because it is screaming at me that it's not ready to go back yet. Mentally, I need a good workout. Physically, I still need daily naps to make it through the day. I try to keep telling myself, "you've only missed two workouts, you'll be fine" but there's a not so tiny part of me that is dying to get back in there and make up for lost time.

So I don't know about you, but when I'm sick, my appetite goes to zero. I am rarely hungry and when I am, all I want is carbs. So I've been fueling my sick body with Ezekiel toast, whole wheat wheat thins, pancakes, graham crackers, and ice cream; with some peanut or almond butter thrown in for some fats and proteins. Oh yeah, and I had some overnight oats this morning. That's it. That's been 90% of my diet for the past 2 1/2 days. Gee, I'm sure the trainer would looooove to hear that. Funny thing was, I stepped on the scale today (fully clothed) and am down 2 lbs. from my lowest (non-clothed) weight. I can't quite decide if that's because I'm not eating as many calories as I usually do, or if my body is trying to tell me that I need to be incorporating more carbs from grains than I am now, (usually most of my carbs are from fruits and vegetables with about 1 to 2 servings of grains a day). I'm chalking most of it up to being sick. I definitely don't think I'm one of the lucky ones who needs to eat ice cream and crackers all day to lose weight. I wish!

Which brings me to today... I got off work (half day woohoo!!) and wasn't completely exhausted (like yesterday) so I stopped by Fred Meyer to pick up a prescription. I was told that it would be ready in 20 minutes. Now I didn't really need anything (especially after my natural foods splurge last week) but I swear the pharmacists know that if they leave you hanging for 20 minutes, you will buy something. Plus I can't be left alone in a store when I'm all sick and pathetic, bad things happen... And of course it did.

First thing that caught my eye (and the attention of my very sore throat) was the ice cream

I've heard ammmmmazing things about this ice cream so I decided to give it a shot. And it was so worth it! I don't really like the milk-y taste of dairy ice creams and this was perfectly sweet with tons of cookie chunks, without that milk-y taste. Perfection! Plus they donate to help save sea turtles... yummy, organic, and eco friendly!

mmmmmmm!!!!

Doesn't it look delicious? And no, I didn't eat half the

container by myself... My momma helped me too!

But ice cream alone wasn't enough... plus I found that in the first 5 minutes... So I kept looking, and found this...

All natural mango sorbet... the first ingredient is 

mango puree :O) And all the ingredients were

pronounceable and recognizeable... oh and did

I mention it tastes like heaven????

 Look at that yumminess :O) Yes I had help here too,

from several people (since I know how worried about my

waistline you are :O)) I don't count sick calories anyways :O)

Mmmm.... I took 2 test shots of me eating the sorbet

just to make sure I had it perfect :O)

But that's not all... I mean Fred Meyer has everything... so while I was wasting away the last 10 ish minutes, I headed over to the beauty department in search of some adorable pink/coral nailpolish (couldn't find anything I couldn't live without) and then peeked into the workout clothing area to see if they were sporting any good sales, and oh boy were they ever!

I found my all time favorite Nike workout capris, in my size, on sale  for 40% off!!!

Source

They look pretty much like this. Fairly generic looking,

but they fit so amazing! It's like giving my lower half a hug,

in breathable fabric of course!

I also found these adorable shorts, also from Nike

I've never been one to workout in shorts, but these

were so comfy and fit so well that they were worth it,

even if the were only 20% off :O)

And also these super cute shorts from New Balance. 

They were on a super sale for about $15 which totally

made up for the fact that the Nike ones.... weren't :O)

And after doing some damage to my bank account and sufficiently doing my part to support the local economy, I picked up my prescription and headed home to indulge in enough ice cream to ensure that those shorts won't fit tomorrow :O) All in all, not a bad "sick" day at all.

Lazy Sundays

Today was one of those unplanned lazy Sundays that I didn't realize how badly I needed it until it happened. Yup, try saying that sentence three times fast :O) I woke up around 7:30 (woohoo for sleeping in!) and laid in bed until about 8:30 before dragging my heiny outta bed to get ready for church, only to discover that it was pouring down rain here... So much for the sunny, warm weather we were having!

I haven't been feeling good (again). I just had a cold/laryngitis 2 weeks ago and never 100% healed from it, and now it's back as a head cold, so I decided to stay home from church and rest up. I crawled back in bed, popped in some Gilmore Girls (Best show ever!), and proceeded to spend the next 3 hours Facebooking, catching up on Google Reader, and enjoying some mindless TV entertainment... all while in bed. It was a pretty great morning, and desperately needed as I am exhausted from teaching all week. Only 1 more to go until summer break!

I am a bit curious if part of this was attributed to my monster workout yesterday. I was feeling really brave so I walked to the gym with my daddy and then did both of The Fitnessista's week 2 SSU strength workouts (Days3 & 6). In my defense, I only did two sets of each exercise but it still took over an hour. When all was said and done, with the walk there and back I had burned a whopping 1,584 calories!!! In 1 hour and 53 minutes.... CRAAAAAZY!! That is most definitely a record, and the highest number since I got the Polar HRM. It was amazing, and I felt so good; exhausted but good.

This morning, I was SUPER sore. My inner thighs are dying thanks to the sumo deadlifts, my chest/arms are completely sore from chest fly's on the exercise ball and pushups. Side note: Post workout, they were still shaking 2 hours later, so badly that I couldn't blow dry my hair because I couldn't lift them up! Now that's what I call a good workout. I am totally in love with the renegade rows... I feel like a badass doing them! Overall, the workout was amazing (obviously) but I definitely won't attempt to do both strength days at once again. That was pure insanity!

I'm off to bake butterscotch cookies with the sister and play with the puppers. Toodles!

Celebrations

Today was one of those days where ideal met reality. It wasn't a pleasant meeting for either party. It was one of those long, stress-filled, never ending, just kinda cruddy days. Nothing really bad or major happened but I was just stressed, tired, and off all day; the kind of day that affects my eating. I'm coming off of a really good streak of healthy, organic eating so I should have been on the look out for this. It happens all the time, I eat perfect for a few days and then I self-sabotage with a day of junk. It drives me crazy because I feel like I can't stop the cycle even though I know I'm doing it, even while I'm eating what I shouldn't be. I've made major progress in that area, I hardly ever self- sabotage anymore or I do it in really tiny ways which is nice to see, but it still severely irritates me when I screw up my diet. Today it was red licorice and tootsie rolls. It wasn't a huge "binge" but it was enough to stress me out even more and make me feel like I failed my eating for the day, ugh.

In the midst of it though, there is a small victory... I didn't let that bad event earlier in the day derail my eating for the remainder of the day. Usually, once I've had one bad thing, I throw in the towel and eat crap for the rest of the day because I feel like my diet is already ruined. Not today! I had eaten perfectly healthy until mid-afternoon and once I got off work, I went right back to it. Part of getting healthy and fit for me is getting mentally and psychologically healthy and fit. For me that means not being so negative and hard on myself and this was a great learning experience in that area. All afternoon , I beat myself up over those 280 calories and how I would be over my daily limit but as soon as I stopped and really thought about it, 280 calories really isn't that much and so I'm trying to let it go and not stress about it. Now at the end of the day, it doesn't seem like a huge deal whereas usually I would be beating myself up for it clear until tomorrow.

Today was also my baby brother's 16th birthday :O) It was just the fam which was nice. The brother requested breakfast for dinner: biscuits, corned beef hash, bacon, fried eggs, & juice (he can eat all of this because he's 16 with the metabolism of a freight train, lucky kid!). Since none of that is within any sort of reachable range of my healthy eating goals, I used the time instead to make up a big double batch of protein loaded cottage cheese oatmeal pancakes (sounds gross but they are amazing!). I'll have to post the recipe sometime soon. I made up one large one for me and just had the one (usually its two) with almond butter and sugar free syrup plus some of the fruit salad my mom made to go with the fam's dinner. Afterwards they had angel food cake, strawberries (fresh but soaked in sugar) and spray whip cream. I am proud to say that I had just a bite of angel food cake and a spoon fool of strawberries and whip cream and I was fine. Beyond that, it didn't really taste that good and I realized I wasn't missing anything by eating it. I was really proud of myself for making positive choices throughout the remainder of the day and not feeling deprived by it.

But my question is, what should I do at family celebration events? Is it easier to just skip desert altogether, try (and usually fail) to have just one bite, or deem it a special event and go all out? I'm really not sure. Right now for me, it's better to just skip it, because there's no having just one bite no matter what  I tell myself. What are some alternate ways to celebrate or partake in the activities? My hardest time is at large extended family gatherings (which we have frequently) where nobody brings anything healthy. It's another struggle in the battle to find the middle, somewhere between going all out and refusing it all. I'm still feeling out what that looks like but please let me know if you've got it figured out :O)