True Confessions Time

I ate at Jack In the Box last night after drinking two light beers. (But I ordered chicken tenders and that's it.) Then tonight, I had half a Trader Joe's pizza with Tom. My stomach INSTANTLY bloated up from the pizza tonight. I was trying on all my outfits for Chicago tomorrow (haha I am such a packing geek) and my belly had swollen to muffin-top status (extra LARGE muffin) within half an hour of eating the pizza. This isn't my stomach really, its below - where the carb bloat happens. Blech. Dejected. But I worked out this morning and gave two 1.5 hour massages today, so that's some calories. Mainly I'm disappointed in myself and also reminded of how much I dislike being overweight. It really sucks when all my clothes are binding and chafing and fit weird and hurt. I'm sad. And that sadness kinda makes me want to reach for some ice cream or chocolate or a drink. Which is really one of the core issues for me - emotional eating. So I'm gonna drink some water and finish packing and go to bed. Moving forward now.

Tom's 3 rules for getting in shape

Change isn't always pleasant. Working out hurts. Running long distance hurts. But at the end of a work out, the results will stay with you all day long and pay back tenfold.
I want to lose weight, build muscle, and be able to run a half marathon in Dec while feeling great! Whenever another 'goal' different from these pops into my head like, "I want to eat a pizza and drink a keg", or the ever popular, (said with the utmost of whiney tones) "I don't want to go to the gym", I gently but firmly remind myself of these 3 simple yet effective rules.

Rule #1: Suck it up
Rule #2: Quit being such a fat ass
Rule #3: See rules # 1 and 2

In the essence of Eric Cartman: "If you don't quit being so ______, I'm gonna haf to start huckin rocks atchya."
:-)
with love -tom

Back On Track and Focusing on Diet and Supplements

It turns out, that taking yesterday off was a great idea - I had a really good lower body workout today and I'm stoked. Tired, but stoked.

I talked to Shelly (y'all know she's a personal trainer/nutrition counselor, right?) and we chatted about supplements, and working out, and losing weight etc. I have decided to actually apply all the vast fitness and diet knowledge I have accumulated over the years and really hit this with all I've got. While maintaining the rest of my life and leaving room to enjoy myself and support my inner little one who hates being denied anything....

The main things Shelly swears by supplement-wise are glutamine, essential fatty acids and protein. The glutamine especially is both important for muscle recovery, and it somewhat suppresses appetite, and its available anywhere. I am going to check Trader Joe's to see if they have some. She recommends taking it about a half hour before meals. EFA's (Essential Fatty Acids) are important, especially Omega 3's. She recommends switching it up now and then - Wild Salmon Oil, Flax Oil, whatever you like best. And Protein is way important for building and recovery and overall health! Plus it increases satiety without adding sugar or lots of calories. I've been using Brown Rice Protein powder which you can buy wholesale from All Health Trends online. We've been buying from them for a while and we like them. But some people like Whey Protein too (I think Teresa's been trying that again). I'm totally averse to Soy Protein cause of its hormonal effect on me.

So I'm gonna focus on regularly getting my nutrition right. I even made salmon the other night and y'all know how little I like fish. But it was alright - I thawed frozen Wild Salmon from Trader Joe's, poured on their lemon dill marinade on the fillets and cooked them on our barbecue. It was good actually. My main focus for nutrition is cooking at home as much as possible, cramming vegetables into EVERYTHING, and not eating starches at night.

What are your "tricks"?

Nothing's better...

Nothing’s better than the wind to your back, the sun in front of you, and your friends beside you.

-Aaron Douglas Trimble
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I happened upon that quote yesterday. It made me smile. Wasn't feeling too stoked about my training. Well, I feel great physically, weights and stairclimber are working. And dare I say, I no longer hate the stairclimber. I might even kind of like it...sick, I know. I can already feel a difference in my legs & butt. Yay. I plan to get some new shoes this week so I can hit the road and get my lungs into shape :).

(Oh yeah, I almost forgot my progress on the stairclimber. 30 minutes yesterday, 1.85 miles, level 4 difficulty, speed training interval program. Not bad for stairs, and my last session was only just over a mile in 20 minutes, level 3 difficulty, fat burning interval program.)

Day Off/Just Hit My Wall

The last two days I've been feeling really tired and achy and yesterday I pushed through and ran, which was good, but today both Tom and I woke up feeling exhausted. I realized we hadn't taken a day off of working out for over a week - classic overtraining symptoms!

Overtraining is tricky for me - I don't want to lose momentum, or use it as an excuse to not to work out, but at the same time, I really want to shift my long term exercise habits. One of those old habits is to go crazy on working out, get completely worn out or hurt myself and then quit working out. Sooooooooooooooooooo.... today I am not going to the gym, but I am going to focus on eating lots of good protein and vegetables, starting a daily regimen of a multivitamin, emergen-c, and omega 3 Wild Salmon Oil, drinking lots of water and getting some extra sleep tonight. I am also going to do some stretching too.

And tomorrow I'm gonna get up bright and early and head to the gym for a really good workout!

So Why Are You Doing This?

I'm doing it cause I'm ready to be regularly physically active again, cause I want to lose 30 lbs and cause I really love hanging out with you all and having a goal. Make that, I NEED a goal or else I tend to do nothing. Oh, and I've got a bikini-in-January goal trip in mind with Tom.

So I Just Added a New Feature

I added Labels - when you make a new post you can add a general category called a label that will show up on the side so we can track back through posts to find stuff. I started one called Gear, does anyone have ideas for other labels? Technical, Training Tips, Diet, Other Exercise, Inspiration, Frustration - these all sound pretty good to me. I thought of another one - Questions! That way questions won't get lost in the ether. Oh, how about Non-Running? For shit that just comes up.

Sunday Workout

I had a great Sunday - Tom and I went over to Santa Cruz to walk with Rita and it was one of those rare, incredibly clear and warm summer days on the water. Not a cloud in the sky and beautiful beautiful beautiful. We walked from Capitola Village to New Brighton beach and back along the beach - the tide was out and we got some good tidal pool walking in too. About 4 miles round trip. We felt so good, that when we got back to San Jose, we decided to go to the gym and do another workout. So I walked for .3 miles, ran 1 mile, walked .1 mile and drank some water, then ran another mile at 6mph and then walked for another .2 miles. That was the first time since I started on this training that I was able to run at my old pace. It was pretty tough and I only did it for half of the time, but it felt good to push myself. My whole session including walking lasted 32 minutes - I'm not up to Teresa's heroic 51 minutes of running! But I definitely am noticing improvements. One thing I want to do more of, is starting to get a very easy night workout in - not to push myself, but because I feel like I need a way to check in to my body again. Otherwise I'm prone to drinking too much liquor and eating too much crap. No more late night Jack In the Box trips (um, there were TWO last week - wtf?!?) Plus, since I'm trying to slowly build my mileage up, two 20-30 minute sessions seem more feasible than 1 40-60 minute session. Tomorrow is a weight workout - I think Michelle and I are on a similar BFL-inspired training plan. Mon., Wed., and Fri. are weight workouts, and Tues. Thurs and Sundays are cardio/running days. Sundays are going to be my long run days. I'm figuring once I get really consistent about my 3 days of running, I'll add in another day.

I've added a links list to the right to help us find some resources, please feel free to add to it. If you have problems adding to it, let me know what you would like to add and I can do it.

New Shoes! - plus i kicked ass today

i got a new pair - mizunis - they're nice - from the runner's high in menlo.
i did 3 miles today - in 51 min!!
my fav thing to do after my run is to use the ruler on google earth and figure out how far i went!
i was feeling kinda crappy after tho - that'll teach me for going out at noon in the sun.
the first .5 was a total bitch, but then i got in a groove which lasted until i was almost back...
going to chicago tomorrow, bringing shoes with.

Michelle's Improvising

Hi everyone. So, my first week was great on the treadmill. It's currently out of order, though, and last week I used that as an excuse not to train. This week, I decided not to let that stop me. I had to make friends with the stairclimber. And I had to get back onto a weight training program too. So that was my focus this week. I need to get a good pair of running shoes and log a little more gym time before I hit the road. So this week I focused on weight training. Had a power-walk cardio session on Tues, and yesterday 20 min on the stairclimber. That doesn't sound like much, but that was over a mile of stairs. I've done 20 min of stairclimber in a workout before, but not all at once...usually as intervals with weights or other cardio. So I was happy about that. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. And it can't hurt in getting the legs/butt in shape either :).

Teresa's progress

Hard to believe, but i'm consistently doing 2 miles. i just got back to it after a brief bout of the cold. sorry amy if i gave it to you! My pace is about 17 min - so my current 35 min of running (probably more appropriately called "jogging") needs to crank up to 3.683333333333 hrs!!! whew...
btw - my shoes suck- they make me supinate - I want to go shoe shopping!

Al's Training Tips

Training Tip 101

picture a piece of chocolate cake floating at mouth level 10 yards ahead of you for the entire 2 miles.

Training Tip 201 for those who've graduated and find tip 101 ineffectual. Picture the cake balancing on a great big 24 oz margarita glass.

Welcome To Training!

Hello All, Amy here,
I think this is a good place to begin work on our training talk. I'm looking forward to all of you making posts to this blog - about your training, stuff you've learned, where you're at - all of it. Even if you're having problems, lets talk about it!

I'll start - My nose hurts - I've been sneezing all day and draining like a firehose. But I did make it to the gym today after a 2 day hiatus. I didn't run, but I did do the stairclimber and walked on the treadmill. Stairclimbers are hard. I told myself it was a hill workout and I really do think its awesome that I got up. And went.

I've been starting back on a modified Body For Life (BFL) plan with exercise and food. Its always a great plan to return to for me cause I know how to do it. So I'm doing weight workouts and cardio for now. What are you all doing?