Okay, change of plans

So, I've been reading over at The Great Fitness Experiment.  I love how Charlotte takes a different fitness concept and tests it with her buddies.  I saw the post about about Rachel Cosgrove's new book at the beginning of November and thought it looked interesting.  Well after Charlotte's postive post on the results, I went to Books a Jillion and picked up a copy.  (I couldn't wait for Amazon even thought it was $10 cheaper.  Must learn patience.)

The beginning is a little too "girl power"-ry for me, so I skimmed the rules and the inspiration sections.  I've just gotten  into the meat of it, and I have to say, a lot of it makes sense to me on the anti-cardio stance.   Everyone's felt like the hamster on the wheel before.  Which made me think that maybe running (my "running" is a jog - 10 minute miles) is not effective.  You know our ancient ancestors didn't get this kind of exercise.  They carried, held, lifted, wrestled and sprinted.  Probably as much as they could but only as long as absolutely necessary.  So I think I'm going to give Cosgrove's program a try (hereinafter referred to as FBB). 

So no more running for now.  I will pick it back up because I do enjoy it, but I think I'd enjoy it a lot more come spring/outside only and didn't get shin splints.  I've always enjoyed lifting and had already decided pink girly weights were not doing me any good.  I want to feel the burn.  I love being sore the next day.  I'm fairly familiar with a lot of the excercises, but this is going to take a little research and studying on my end.  I need to be able to remember how to do all the exercises when I go into the gym (I know it's silly, but I cannot bring the book in with me.  An insecurity for another time.)  So that's this weekend.

The second half is nutrition.  I have cleaned up my diet a good bit over the last few months.  It's been slipping a little lately, but still way ahead of where I was.  I'd like to tighten that back up, so this is a ggod vehicle.  But there are a few things that are going to be major challenges for me. 

First, eating within 15 minutes of getting up.  Ugh.  I'm not usually hungry right away, but I guess I can give it a try.  I've noticed that the breakfast meals she suggests are pretty large, so I'm going to need to do some prep for that.  Second, the post-work out shake.  I'm a little hesitant on protein powder and how on earth would I make one?  I'll train at the office after work, so can I make it ahead of time?  Or use a pre-packaged shake?  Or just use chocolate milk?  Lastly, according to the plan, you should have six meals a day every three or four hours.  That's going to be hard to do, especially trying to have dinner with the family at six.  Need to do a little planning and thinking there too. 

The second time (of three - does that make me a yo-yoer?) that I lost a good bit of weight, I was running and doing a little weight training, but my eating was really strict about 90% of the time.  I was doing Sugarbusters, which focused almost entirely on removing white processed foods from your diet.  White table sugar and its evil twins, white flour and white rice.  It also focused on the "unseen sugars" - fructose, surcrose, corn syrup added unnecessarily to things; I think they were anti-HFCS 10 years ago. Looking back, I still think it had valuable lessons and was almost the pre-cursor to clean eating. 

Anyway, on that I avoided all white stuff (sugar, white bread, rice, potatoes) and products with added sugar in them.  I dropped probably 20 pounds without realizing it.  (Seriously, one day I put my bra on and couldn't figure out why it was so roomy.  For someone who is pretty book smart, I can be really dumb sometimes.)  So, while I think that RC recommends that you avoid all pasta and breads, I'm going to eat them in minimal amounts, but only if they are whole grain (whole wheat pasta, 100% whole wheat/grain bread w/o sugars).  But really, I think that's the only nutrition "cheat" that I'm planning on making. 

So, Monday I will be kicking of my own FBB experiement.  I'm planning on using the blog to track exactly what I'm doing.  So I'll report back on Monday.

My Geekiness Knows No Boundaries

week	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	total
10/4/2010	walk 2	strength	run 1 walk 1	strength	off	run 1/walk1	cross	2
10/11/2010	walk 2		run 1 walk 1			run 1.2/walk 1		2.2
10/18/2010	walk 2		run 1 walk 1			run 1.4/walk 1.25		2.4
10/25/2010	walk 2		run 1 walk 1			run 1.5/walk 1.25		2.5
11/1/2010	walk 2		run 1 walk 1			run 1.75/walk 1		2.75
11/8/2010	walk 2		run 1 walk 1			run 2/walk 1		3
11/15/2010	run.3 walk 1.5		run 1 walk 1			run 2/walk 1		3.3
11/22/2010	run .6 walk 1.5		run 1 walk 1			run 2/walk 1		3.6
11/29/2010	run 1 walk 1		run 1 walk 1			run 2/walk 1		4
12/6/2010	run 1 walk 1		run 1 walk 1			run 2.4/walk 1		4.4
12/13/2010	run 1 walk 1		run 1.25 walk 1			run 2.5 walk 1		4.75
12/20/2010	run 1 walk 1		run 1.7 walk 1			run 2.5 walk 1		5.2
12/27/2010	run 1 walk 1		run 2 walk 1			run 2.7 walk 1		5.7
1/3/2011	run 1 walk 1		run 2 walk 1			run 3.3 walk 1		6.3
1/10/2011	run 1.6		run 2 walk 1			run 3.3 walk 1		6.9
1/17/2011	run 2		run 2 walk 1			run 3.6		7.6
1/24/2011	run 2.5		run 2 walk 1			run 3.9		8.4
1/31/2011	run 3		run 2 walk 1			run 4.2		9.2
2/7/2011	run 3 walk 1		run 2 walk 1			run 5.1		10.1
2/14/2011	run 3 walk 1		run 2.5			run 5.5		11.1
2/21/2011	run 3.5		run 2.5			run 6		12.3

That up there?  That's my training schedule.  I made a schedule based on starting at 2 miles per week and increasing by only 10% a week.  Which is going to be the hardest for me.  If I feel good, I want to keep going.  And besides, the first mile is always the worst, so it isn't fun to stop there.  But I have to be disciplined about doing it and not over-doing it.  Who knew Excel could get me so excited?

This puts me in a perfect position to start training for the half at the beginning of March.  So it looks like we will need to go to Mad-town for Memorial Day.

My True (Food) Love and A Goal

I think that salmon is probably my most favorite food.  I like it served every way - raw, grilled, baked, smoked, or fried.  I like it fresh, frozen, or from a can.  Hubby can almost always "guess" what I'll be ordering when we go out to eat. 

Tonight, it was simply baked with nothing on it but a little sea salt.  Quinoa on the side and some steamed broccoli.  Yum.  And super clean.

When I decided to clean up my diet, I knew that I could do it because I like healthy foods.  Tonight's dinner is really very tasty to me.  But I think some people have really narrow palates and only like the pre-packaged or fast foods they grew up eating.*

We grew up eating a fair amount of processed food, but a lot of whole foods too.  My mom did cook dinner just about every night (or we had leftovers), but we rarely ate pre-packaged (think Stou!ffer's Lasagna).  We did eat out a fair bit, but the fast food was pretty limited.

So I realize that changing your taste buds can be really hard for some people.  But my challenge is in the preparation/planning/TIME issue.  I'm trying to cook meals to bring to work or cook something healthy when I get home, which is so hard.  Hubby almost always cooks since he gets home earlier and he doesn't cook how I'd like him to.  I don't feel like I can dictate what he makes if he's the one doing the actual work.  So I've been making myself separate meals which is really annoying. I gotta find a solution to that. 
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No workout today since I forgot my bag, but my goal is to walk in the morning and do weight training in the afternoon at the office.  Healthy Ashley had a great bunch of posts about dealing with shin splints, so that's been really encouraging because...

I'm going to run a half-marathon.

Which may sound kind of odd considering that I'm not running at all right now.  But actually, I think this is a great plan.  I don't plan on running it until March or May, so I've got forever to train.  Knowing that, I can make a very long term plan, building my runs by only 10%.  That will work, right?
*Hubby is like this.  He would probably choose to have potatoes au gratin from the box rather than the real thing.  You can imagine how frustrating that is for me.  Oh, and he HATES salmon.  Urgh.

Weekend Recap & Week Ahead

Friday night I spent doing laundry for camping and soccer.  I realized I will probably be doing soccer laundry on Friday nights for years to come.  Right now it's just Hubby and Isabel who play, but next spring Colin will be joining them. 

After soccer Saturday morning, we loaded up the kids and went to Raccoon Mountain Caverns.  The cavern was interesting but the kids were not on their best behaviour.  I thought they'd be interested enough to make it through the 45 minute tour, but not so much.  I was hoping to do an easy hike/walk with the kids too, but we just didn't have any time.  Of course it took some time to get the site set up, but we really miscalculated with dinner.  We were having deconstructed shish kabobs (cooked in one of those grill bowls).  Well, we prepared way too much, so it took forever to cook.  We ended up taking about half out and it finally cooked.  But by that time the kids were exhaused and we still needed to do smores.  We did manage, but it was hard.

But hey, I did look good, right?

Hubby is a big camper and really wants to make this a regular family event.  I'm on board so long as I've got my air mattress.  But from now on, we're going to camp for at least two nights.  All we did was unload and reload and it was exhausting.  I feel like I yelled at the kids way to much this weekend and broke down by yesterday afternoon.  I need to recognize that I'm not a good parent when I'm tired and hungry. 

____

Since I'm on a running hiatus, I've decided that I'm going to take the next two weeks to walk and do lots of stretching and strengthening of my lower legs.  And then start it back up with maybe 1-1.5 miles 2/week and build slowly from there.  Part of me hates to spend this much time in recovery, but I have to do it if I really want to start running seriously again. 

So, MWF I will be walking with weight training on T&H.  I'm going to try biking on Saturdays during the kid's naps.

I had jambayla for lunch today from my frozen leftover stockpile.  Breakfast was yogurt, banana, and my very favorite granola:

I cannot tell you how much I love this granola, but the nutritional information kinda scares me:

I understand that they're quality calories, but it seems to be on the high side for fat.  Also, I think the portion size is off.  The package states that it contains six 2 oz. servings, but I can make it stretch to at least 10 servings.  So it's probably not that bad, but I'm still not going to buy it every week.  Maybe I just need to do a little comparison shopping with granola.

Also, down 3.6 pounds since I started tracking three weeks ago.  I bought a scale - I've never owned one.  I know most people throw out their scale if they are truly trying to commit to being healthier, but I need the reality check.  Naturally, I wish the "lost" number was higher, but it's a good start.  But most importantly, I've done it in a way that I can continue indefinitely.

I'm a quitter

I think I'm going to have to quit running.  The shin splints are getting worse, and everything I've read has said that you have to stop and let them heal.  And then come back at 75% of what you were doing.  Which mean I can start back at 1.5 miles twice a week?  Ugh.  That doesn't even sound like a work out. 

But I really do want to be able to run and I need to keep in mind the long term goal.  Just kinda sucks when I'm full of motivation RIGHT NOW. 

So, I think maybe I should suck it up and buy a bike helmet.  I have a bike sitting in our garage (thanks ex-fiance!) so why not?  The main reason is that sitting on that seat hurts my rear, but I hear your butt toughens up.

Labor Day Weekend

Shockingly, I managed to lose 3.2 pounds this week.  I had been eating really well last week, so I was terrified that I'd lose ground this weekend.  I had planned on making my own healthy food, but that plan flew out the window in the face of barbeque, pimento cheese, and pie. 

I did run Saturday and Monday and they were really enjoyable runs.  The road up to the lakehouse is very hilly, which has put me off until now.  But the hills are actually great!  I started with a nice 8 minute walk, most of which was uphill.  But hey, if I'm walking, that's totally fine.  After that, the incline doesn't change all that much and even then, those segments are pretty short. 

I can feel the shin splints coming back though.  I've been struggling with shin splints for about a year now.  I know that I push myself to quickly, but it's so hard not to when I'm only running two miles at a time.  And those two miles aren't even difficult.  After Saturday's run, I did come in and immediately ice my shins and took some ibuprofen.  I hope that helps.  I think I'm going to try run again on Thursday.  I hope two days is enough recovery.