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.