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My healthy-living blog |
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My "health kick," as I affectionately refer to it, started on the first day of spring in March 2009. I'm not sure where the motivation came from, but something in my life needed to change. I had modest goals. I wanted to control my stress and stay healthy during a very busy period at work. I decided that I needed to offset the stressors by eating better, reforming my sleep patterns, and making more time for outdoor activity. I had small successes and those motivated me to make further changes. By the first day of fall, I was at a healthy weight, I was exercising about 5 days each week, and I felt great. Over the holidays, I neglected the exercise, and my sleep habits got out of whack, but I kept up the healthy eating (mostly). It made me realize that my old habits are much more strongly engrained than the new habits. So, this is the place where I'll keep myself honest and accountable and participate in spidey  's "Healthy Living Blogring"  |
| Yesterday morning I went hiking, and today I'm feeling it. I haven't been getting out to hike often enough. I walked to work again this morning. The make three times that I've done that since the kids started back to school last Monday. I've never been a morning person, and I didn't think I'd ever take to anything that required me to be up and ready for work any earlier than absolutely required. So imagine my surprise that I actually enjoy the two mile walk to work. I'm going to try to stick with it for as long as the weather and daylight allow. Tony brings me my car a little later in the morning, drops it off and runs home. It works out for both of us. I've been doing pretty well with the fish and seafood goal too. Sometimes, like tonight, my seafood meals aren't especially nutritious. Yeah, it was shrimp, but I sauteed it in butter. It was delicious though, and I have left overs.  Oh, I've also been running, but I've noticed a disturbing pattern. The first time I run, I feel great and when I'm done, I think "I can't wait to do that again." The second time I run, I think "hmmm . . . I probably should have given myself another day off to recover because that really took it out of me." By the third run, I'm thinking, "Damn. This just sucks." I don't understand why I start off strong and it gets progressively harder. Shouldn't it work the other way around. I have friends at work who are runners and they claim the problem is related to glycogen stores. According to them, I burn off all the stored energy during that first run, and I don't eat enough carbs to replenish and so I don't have sufficient stores for the next run. Now, I try to keep carbs to about 40% of my total calories which really seems to keep my energy levels steady without the highs or the lows that trigger the munchies. So, I'm not convinced this is the problem. I just don't have another explanation yet. I intend to try to push through it though. Eventually it should get easier, right? |
| I have a "new to me" treadmill, and now that it is all set up, I've started using it. I figured I would just walk on it since I'd pretty much given up on running. Five minutes into the inaugural walk, I decided I was bored so I kicked up the speed to a jog. Go figure. So now I'm going back to the old plan of building up my endurance by doing alternating intervals of walking and running until I'm running more than I'm walking. I've done this twice now, and tomorrow will try to get in a walk/run again tomorrow. I'm also doing quite well with eating fish or seafood twice per week. Last week it was tilapia italiano one night and pan-seared scallops with spinach and bacon on a second night. I had shrimp on Sunday, so I'm already on track for this week. I have flounder and mahi mahi in the freezer. I think I'll make the ginger glazed mahi mahi again and save the flounder for next week. |
| Well, I've pretty much sucked at keeping up here, but I thought I'd take a few minutes to do a quick update since I've set a new goal for myself. First, I can say that I've been successful in maintaining my weight. I have been learning to prepare new and different foods and I am starting to enjoy cooking and experimenting in the kitchen. I never thought I'd say such a thing, but there it is. I haven't been nearly as successful about regular exercise. I need to work on changing that very soon. The new goal I've set for myself is to eat fish/seafood at least twice per week. That was no problem this week. I made a delicious ginger glazed mahi mahi on Monday, and then tonight Tony grilled salmon on a cedar plank. I know that Salmon is very good for me, but I still prefer the delicate flavor of the mahi mahi. I can see where I might have difficulty sustaining this goal because my food preferences are likely to shift once the weather starts turning colder. Also, fish and seafood can get quite pricey. I'm trying to convince myself this is okay and is more than balanced out by the fact that I rarely eat out anymore. It is an investment in my health. |
| I missed a few days, huh? Lets see. Sometime after Tuesday, I went for a run. I believe that was Thursday. It was a pretty good run, but I think that I'm going to deviate from the running plan soon. I'm tired of watching the time and letting that signal the intervals between walking and running, and to some extent, I think I'm conditioning my body to need breaks from the running. You see, I have a very poor sense of the passage of time, but after doing four runs of carefully timed out intervals of three minutes running, followed by 3 minutes of walking, I found that each time I tried to run for 5 minutes, my body felt the need to stop at the three minute mark. I tried to avoid focusing on the time, but I would suddenly feel fatigued and my brain would fire "Stop! That's enough! You can't keep going!" When I glanced at the time I was right at the 3 minute mark. I kept running. It got easier to ignore the cease and desist order my brain sent every 3 minutes, but I was still aware of it. Anyway, I'm going to run this evening, but I'm going to try a more organic, free form approach. I'll run at a comfortable pace for as long as I can. When I need to walk, I'll give myself 2 minutes of recovery time, and then I'll resume my running pace. I'll keep that up for 30 minutes. Simple as that.  Yesterday, Tony and I went for our first hike of the season. We hiked up Mt. Tammany in the Delaware Water Gap. It was a gorgeous day and we had fun. It was a challenge hiking up with frozen snow pack on the rocks, but I think the snow made the trek downhill easier for me. The trail is very rocky and I typically stumble along with rocks coming loose and rolling underfoot. That didn't happen yesterday because the rocks were below the snow pack. The challenge was just to keep from sliding down the mountain on my ass - although that would have been fun too. |
| Yesterday I went to Tony's kettlebell class along with my friend Bonnie. It was a tough damn workout, and I'm not even fully feeling it yet. Tonight I went for a run. Tonight was the first night in my run 5 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes cycle. I figured out a couple things. First, I can't do basic math. I had a hell of a time figuring out when to switch from walking to running and vice versa. How sad is that? Next time I'm going to have to work it out ahead of time so I don't screw it up again. I was dreading this run because I wasn't sure how I'd do with the increase to 5 minutes running. Truth is, I didn't do all that great through the first couple intervals. By the time I finished though, I found myself looking forward to the next run . . . the one where I'll have the intervals all figured out in advance! |
| Last night I did another 30 minutes of the run 3/walk 3. That brought me to the end of level 2. For my next run I move up to level 3, and I'm not feeling entirely confident about that. Running 3 minutes hasn't become easy enough for me to visualize myself myself running for 5 minutes. I've been having issues with asthma lately and my airways have been feeling tight and constricted, so I think that might be making things more difficult. The good news is that I'm not feeling nearly as much strain or soreness in my legs at this point, and it is getting easier to maintain my form and my stride. I know that when I increase the intervals that will probably fall apart, but I can always drop the pace a bit. I know I should probably do that anyway because I'm well outside the range where I could carry on a conversation, but I don't want to have to slow down because I'm already going much slower than I'd like. Slowing down would be consistent with my exercise goals of burning fat while improving my stamina and endurance, and avoiding injury. Bottom line is that I could achieve those goals as well if not better without running. I keep going back to running because it's hard, and I want that challenge. So slowing down doesn't sit well.  I have an iTunes gift card from Christmas time, and I think I need to redeem it for some new running music. I've tried running while watching TV and I find it very irritating. I love running with my little iPod shuffle. It is the perfect companion, but I need to freshen up the mix. It is amazing how much energy I can draw from the right song coming on at the right time. One of my current favorites for running is Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself" I am a child of the 80's.  |
| Yesterday was a rest day for me. I was supposed to go to kettlebell class, but the weather was turning iffy and I decided that I bag it. I ended up eating dinner a bit later than usual, and since dinner was a huge salad with chipolte grilled chicken and a corn and black bean southwestern relish. It was amazingly good, but by it left me feeling a bit too full and by the time I felt like I could work out, it was really too late. I've been having some trouble sleeping, and working out too late in the evening is not conducive to better sleeping. Tonight, I decided I would run first thing when I got home from work. I even laid out the clothes, shoes, and ipod shuffle so everything would be ready to go. So I got home and hit the treadmill. I did the 3 min walk, 3 minute run routine again for 30 minutes, but for whatever reason it seemed harder tonight. Maybe it was the time of day. Maybe it was too long after lunch. I don't know, but I kind of struggled through it. I was looking forward to the run too. I figured that with yesterday's break, I would be running stronger, but I figured wrong. Not that it was terrible, and I did up the speed just a bit so that might have been part of why it seemed to take so much more effort, but I only have one more workout at the 3 and 3 level and then I'm supposed to move up to run 5 min., walk 2.5 min. for a total of 30 minutes. I'm wondering how that is going to go. I enjoy the challenge though. I think that is what keeps bringing me back to the running. |
| Last night I did a kettlebell workout. I did swings, overhead crunches, clean and presses, and russian twists. Tony was in the room and commented that my form has really improved. Woohoo! That's progress. Today I decided that I needed to do something different, so I hoped on the elliptical. The difference between today, and the last time I used it was extraordinary. All the work I've put into improving my foot turnover were very evident, and my pace was much quicker than I've ever managed for longer than I've ever sustained. It felt good. I felt strong. And then my quads started screaming at me. LOL! It was a good workout, and I'm happy to be noticing significant performance gains. |
| I did the walk-three-minutes, run-three-minutes routine again tonight for 30 minutes total on the treadmill. It was easier tonight than last time, so I guess that's progress. I'll tell you though, my right leg is big-time sore! I'm not sure if it was the plie squats, the yoga, or the running that aggravated it, but I think I'm going to need to treat it gently for a few days. I try to avoid medication, but some Aleve might be in order tonight. |
| Tonight I did kettlebells as I promised myself I would. I did swings, one armed rows, plie squats and Turkish set-ups. I also did some Yoga, but not a lot. Sun salutations, and a handful of other poses. I was going to do one-legged dead lifts, but my calves are feeling too abused from running to maintain my balance. So the tree poses weren't gonna happen either. It was a bit of a slacker workout tonight, but I suppose it's still better than nothing. Tomorrow I'm going to try for an AM run. We'll see how that goes. |
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