I was able to squeeze a run in after Valerie's volleyball game and before it was completely dark. I ran/walked 3.34 miles in under 40 minutes. Runkeeper clocked my miles at 12:22, 10:22, 11:52. I felt like I was moving quite a bit faster in the first mile and I'm certain the mile 1 alert was at least .1 if not .2 miles off the actual distance, so that may account for some of the time discrepancy.
Val and I attended our first Bat Mitzvah this weekend. Val's friend, Samantha, did an incredible job. I can't imagine how much study and practice was required for preparation, quite a lot! Congratulations, Sam! I thought the service was fascinating and very well done. And I was teaing up through much of it. I was so proud of her.
I had a little trouble with the eating plan on Saturday because we had lunch served after the Mat Mitzvah service and it was certainly not low-carb based. I would have LOVED the spred if I could have had all those carbs, though. Darn! I somehow got out of there with 5 carbs left for the rest of the day, so it was a tough afternoon and evening. I ended up just 3 carbs over budget by the end of the night, which is pretty good considering where I was at 1pm.
I'm on day 8 of the low carb diet and doing fine. I'm down 4 pounds. It's funny how I don't crave bread at all, but I really want to be able to eat more nuts and have wine with cheese and crackers. Not yet. I'll get through induction and then get those back into the diet in a few weeks. I don't want to blow the diet head-start process I'm going through now. This is not the type of diet that can be cheated. It's all in or don't do it at all. Just watching carbs doesn't have the impact I'm looking for right now. I'll get to the "just watching carbs" stage later, though.
And then we'll have a wine and cheese and cracker party!
Monday, September 12, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Feeling good about progress
Day 5 on the low carb diet. I forgot to weigh in this morning, but I'm guessing I'm down a total of 3 pounds from Monday. Yes, I know most of it is water. But it's long-term water loss, it doesn't come back the next day. And I feel like I'm making progress.
I love my carb manager iPhone app! It has given me the information I needed to alter my previous low carb plan into something more healthy - and it should be more effective, too. With less fat and more fiber, I should find it easier to drop these extra pounds. This week, I've eaten limited quantities of raspberries, blackberries, cucumbers, V8, and tomatoes and quite a bit of lean meat, romaine and spinach salad. I've also had less healthy things like cheese, nuts, steak, protein drinks, eggs and cottage cheese. The balance in the food choices is a major improvement from my meat, cheese, and eggs focus during my 2004 low carb diet. I had no idea how many calories I was getting from fat! That couldn't have been good. I hope the new plan is at least effective as before.
I did get that run in yesterday. Runkeeper tracked me at 3.11 miles in 38:23. That's sad if you know I ran that distance in under 30 minutes in May this year. Ouch. Oh well. I haven't run much since May, probably just once a week or so. These are the consequences.
Although I didn't plan to run today, the weather was just too perfect and I found myself at home alone for much of the evening. So I laced up my shoes and headed out. It felt pretty good to put in 5 miles in 60 minutes. I walked most of the first mile to loosen up. My mile splits were negative, so I must have gotten the hang of it out there. Miles 2-5 were executed with a 2 minute run to 1 minute walk ratio. Runkeeper clocked my splits at 16:14, 12:05, 11:45, 10:42, and 9:48.
I love my carb manager iPhone app! It has given me the information I needed to alter my previous low carb plan into something more healthy - and it should be more effective, too. With less fat and more fiber, I should find it easier to drop these extra pounds. This week, I've eaten limited quantities of raspberries, blackberries, cucumbers, V8, and tomatoes and quite a bit of lean meat, romaine and spinach salad. I've also had less healthy things like cheese, nuts, steak, protein drinks, eggs and cottage cheese. The balance in the food choices is a major improvement from my meat, cheese, and eggs focus during my 2004 low carb diet. I had no idea how many calories I was getting from fat! That couldn't have been good. I hope the new plan is at least effective as before.
I did get that run in yesterday. Runkeeper tracked me at 3.11 miles in 38:23. That's sad if you know I ran that distance in under 30 minutes in May this year. Ouch. Oh well. I haven't run much since May, probably just once a week or so. These are the consequences.
Although I didn't plan to run today, the weather was just too perfect and I found myself at home alone for much of the evening. So I laced up my shoes and headed out. It felt pretty good to put in 5 miles in 60 minutes. I walked most of the first mile to loosen up. My mile splits were negative, so I must have gotten the hang of it out there. Miles 2-5 were executed with a 2 minute run to 1 minute walk ratio. Runkeeper clocked my splits at 16:14, 12:05, 11:45, 10:42, and 9:48.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Let's try this again
Wow, it's been such a long time since I updated this blog! I had to really think to remember my password.
I have no excuses, really. Just the usual busy summer things as well as too much going on at work. To be honest, I've also been having serious motivation issues with running. My fitness plan in early July lasted a little over a week and then crashed and burned. It must have been more of an idea than a plan since it didn't stick.
I'm slowly getting back into it now. It's amazing what a few months of running just once a week can do to my endurance! Bye, bye half marathon distance! Hello run/walk 3-5 miles at a time.
A lot has happened over the summer, so I won't even try to catch you up on all the happenings. I will share that I replaced my Blackberry with an iPhone 4, though. I don't know how I lived without the great apps, web browsing, and video support. I'm using a Runkeeper application to track and post my infrequent runs. Although I highly recommend the application, it has not always been accurate. If you want accuracy virtually all the time, stick with the Garmin watch.
My last few runs were 3.19 miles on 8/17, 3.39 on 8/26, 5.04 on 8/31, 3.5 on 9/4, and 3.02 on 9/5. I hope to add a run this afternoon/evening and I'll probably get soggy in the process since rain is expected all day. I'm also doing yoga once or twice a week.
In addition to trying to exercise more often, I've started a low carb diet again. The low carb approach has worked wonders for me in the past, but that was pre-cancer. Since my breast cancer surgery, I've been reluctant to use the low carb diet again because I didn't implement it in a very healthy way. However, I recently did some research and learned how to use the low carb approach while being more nutritionally sound. I also got an iPhone app (Carb Manager for 2.99) that helps me track my progress. The Carb Manager app focuses on tracking carbs, protein, and fat, however, it also tracks and graphs more comprehensive nutrition details compared to USDA daily recommended intake (vitamins, minerals, calories, sugar, etc.). Now that I know my daily fat/protein ratio, I have drastically changed my eating habits. I had no idea eggs were so fatty! Anyway, I'm down 2 pounds in just a few days and plan to keep it up for at least 2 weeks. At that point, I'll decide whether to extend the accelerated weight loss or slow it down by slowly adding the good carbs back into my diet.
Since I haven't been running as often, I'm behind on all my running and HR technology podcasts. The bright spot in this is that I'll have new-to-me episodes to listen to on all my runs for quite a while.
I have no excuses, really. Just the usual busy summer things as well as too much going on at work. To be honest, I've also been having serious motivation issues with running. My fitness plan in early July lasted a little over a week and then crashed and burned. It must have been more of an idea than a plan since it didn't stick.
I'm slowly getting back into it now. It's amazing what a few months of running just once a week can do to my endurance! Bye, bye half marathon distance! Hello run/walk 3-5 miles at a time.
A lot has happened over the summer, so I won't even try to catch you up on all the happenings. I will share that I replaced my Blackberry with an iPhone 4, though. I don't know how I lived without the great apps, web browsing, and video support. I'm using a Runkeeper application to track and post my infrequent runs. Although I highly recommend the application, it has not always been accurate. If you want accuracy virtually all the time, stick with the Garmin watch.
My last few runs were 3.19 miles on 8/17, 3.39 on 8/26, 5.04 on 8/31, 3.5 on 9/4, and 3.02 on 9/5. I hope to add a run this afternoon/evening and I'll probably get soggy in the process since rain is expected all day. I'm also doing yoga once or twice a week.
In addition to trying to exercise more often, I've started a low carb diet again. The low carb approach has worked wonders for me in the past, but that was pre-cancer. Since my breast cancer surgery, I've been reluctant to use the low carb diet again because I didn't implement it in a very healthy way. However, I recently did some research and learned how to use the low carb approach while being more nutritionally sound. I also got an iPhone app (Carb Manager for 2.99) that helps me track my progress. The Carb Manager app focuses on tracking carbs, protein, and fat, however, it also tracks and graphs more comprehensive nutrition details compared to USDA daily recommended intake (vitamins, minerals, calories, sugar, etc.). Now that I know my daily fat/protein ratio, I have drastically changed my eating habits. I had no idea eggs were so fatty! Anyway, I'm down 2 pounds in just a few days and plan to keep it up for at least 2 weeks. At that point, I'll decide whether to extend the accelerated weight loss or slow it down by slowly adding the good carbs back into my diet.
Since I haven't been running as often, I'm behind on all my running and HR technology podcasts. The bright spot in this is that I'll have new-to-me episodes to listen to on all my runs for quite a while.
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