Week 1!

 This week was a little screwed up because of the holiday weekend, but it'll settle down in to a more regular pattern soon (I hope).

Monday: Rest Day

Tuesday: 6 hours of sleep

-  Pre workout snack: Banana and 3 Clif ShotBloks

-   5:30 – 60 min swim (300 yd warm up, 8 x 50 drills, 12 x 100 w/ 20 s rest in between, 200 cool down – 2100 yards total).  First half of workout felt good, it was nice having a set workout rather than trying to come up with my own plan.  About half-way through I started feeling really dizzy, nauseous and disoriented, which has never happened before.  I managed to finish without panicking in the middle of the pool though.

-  Breakfast: Loaded oatmeal and tea. 

-  Class (hopefully didn’t fail a test…)

-  10:00 – 30 min run on track at Field House, HR Z2 (146-165), circuit weights (2 x 12 reps).  The hardest part of running on the track was getting lapped and not being able to run faster because it would’ve made my heart rate too high.  It’s going to be hard to keep my ego in check, although I just figured out that I was calculating my Z2 incorrectly, so I actually could’ve ran a little faster.

-  The rest of the day: Didn’t want to kill anyone after Biophysical Chemistry, which is rare, and only had one cookie out of an entire box someone left in the lab kitchen, which is even more rare. 

Wednesday: 7 hours of sleep

-  6:00 – 30 min ride on trainer, HR Z2 (139- 157), quick transition to 15 min run at Z2.  I forgot to turn down my thermostat before starting, so I got really hot, which at least made running outside in the cold more appealing.

-  Breakfast: Loaded oatmeal

-  Class, homework, class

-  Headed to the airport to fly to Spokane for Thanksgiving!

Thursday: 8 hours sleep

-  Pre run snack: Small bowl of Trader Joe’s Golden Flax Flakes (I love TJ’s, wish there were one in SLC)

-  Turkey Trot at Manito Park with 500+ other Flying Irish members.  It was a 5k, but ran a little extra to get 30 minutes in.  It was nice running at 2000 feet again 

·                   -    Breakfast: Oatmeal and coffee

·                   -      Headed out to my dad and step-mom’s for Thanksgiving dinner with Nate.  Enjoyed my          favorite beer (Bitterroot Brewery’s Nut Brown Ale) and some board games with my step-siblings (and biological sister, I guess she’s important too).

·                          Dinner! Everything Thanksgivingish, included three kinds of pie, all of which I sampled.  There were also two cheesecakes, but since they were store-bought and I was full, I didn’t bother.  Somehow I managed to enjoy everything without feeling like I overate.

Friday: 8 hours of sleep

·         Pre run snack: One of Marcie’s (my stepmom’s) delicious leftover rolls

·         45 min run Z1-Z2 (126-165).  Nice run through the forest on a logging road and down the driveway to the main road.  Didn’t get attacked by any dogs or cougars, or shot by someone hunting.  None of which were likely, but all running through my head as I went.

·         Breakfast: My dad’s pancakes, which I hated when I was a kid, but love now.  I actually ate more of them than he did, and without any maple syrup (this is unheard of, the only way I could be convinced to eat pancakes when I was little was if they were drenched in maple syrup). Oh, and cherry pie for dessert.  Yes, breakfast gets dessert when I’m at home.

Saturday:  8 hours sleep

·                   -   Pre workout snack: 2 more leftover rolls

·                   -      9 AM: 60 min swim (300 wu, 4 x 125 m, 4 x 175 m, 4 x 125 m, 300 cd: 2300 total).  Swam at   fitness center in Plummer.  The workout felt great, my strokes felt strong and automatic.  No disorientation or nausea this time, which was good because the pregnant lifeguard was too busy fighting with her boyfriend to take much notice of me.  Also rode a stationary bike for 30 minutes and did some strength training (2 x 12 reps).

·                 -   Breakfast: More pancakes! 

Sunday:

·                       Was supposed to ride my bike for 1 hour, but between being out late the night before with friends (and drinking not 4% Utah beer) and catching an early flight, it didn’t happen.  This was unfortunate because it was a beautiful day and I could have ridden outside.  I’m trying not to dwell on this, even though I’m a little upset with myself.  As long as it doesn’t happen again...   

            

Motivation:

                I don’t have a picture or video this week, just something I noticed and appreciated for the first time over the week.  There were lots of elderly people at the Wellness Center in Plummer doing aerobic or strength training work.  I feel like I have something to look forward to even when I can’t run marathons or train for Ironmen anymore.

Two week update and start of official training!

So its been a busy couple of weeks... I started feeling better within two days of eating oatmeal and quinoa again.  It was mentally difficult to reduce my animal protein intake, and I started craving sugar again.  After 4 weeks without any wheat or dairy I added some back in in the form of cookies.  I was extremely emotional the day after eating them (probably due to the sugar) and more constipated than I had been since ending my paleo diet.  This also reconfirmed that I have zero self-control with desserts.  I had at least half a dozen cookies two nights in a row.  Granted, they were delicious, but not really necessary.  In the coming weeks, especially with the holidays coming, my goal will be to avoid wheat and dairy as much as possible, and enjoy it in moderation when its worth it (for example, my step-mom's pie over Thanksgiving).  I'll experiment with gluten-free flour and fruit-juice sweetened desserts for my own enjoyment, or to take to potlucks (we've been having a lot of first-year grad student pot lucks).

Workout-wise, I got back in the pool for the first time, it felt great!  I was a lot more tired in the afternoons/evenings though, which made studying difficult.  I did a total of 6 hours of aerobic work and two strength sessions that week, which was manageable time/energy-wise.  The plan was to repeat the same workouts last week, but school was so stressful that I took the week off and studied instead.  I also moved last weekend, rather unexpectedly.  It was becoming more and more apparent that I needed to live on my own.  The stress of school and training was wearing on me, and coming home hungry to a full or dirty kitchen did not help.  An apartment opened up in the same building as one of my good friends here, its close to campus and heat in included in the rent, so I won't freeze this winter.  Aside from spending all last weekend moving (which put me behind homework-wise), its been great being in my own place.  I have an entire fridge and freezer to fill up, I was able to have friends over for brunch on Saturday and I can come home grumpy as a bear and not have to be nice to anyone. 

So here I am, 31 weeks away from Ironman CdA.  Today is a rest day (although I am fully rested I figure its a good way to start the week).  I have 6 hours of aerobic work scheduled this week.  I'm heading up to Spokane on Wednesday for Thanksgiving, but there's a fitness center with a pool and stationary bikes I can use.  I'm excited to get started!

No more Paleo...

I was going to email this to a friend to get their opinion on whether or not to stop my Paleo trial early, but by the end of writing it I’d pretty much made up my mind.  So here follows an open discussion of how the trial has gone, my reasons for stopping, and my plan for the next two weeks.

 Reasons for switching:

• I feel like crap, I feel bloated, huge and frankly, quite constipated.  This makes me not want to work out.
• Its getting really expensive.
• Cooking is taking more time, which is taking away from studying, which is stressing me out more.
• Planning how to pack my lunches is difficult, because I never know if I'm going to be doing cardio or not before-hand. Sometimes I'll talk myself out of a run because I don't have starches to eat afterward.
• I’m having trouble sleeping.

Reasons against switching:

• Most of the things I've read say you feel pretty bad the first 3 weeks, and then you start to feel really good.
• I tend to give up on things half way, and I’m worried I’m doing that here.
• It has been easier to avoid sugars/desserts

Things that will change:

·         I’ll start eating oatmeal, quinoa and brown rice again (probably one serving with each meal, not huge quantities or anything),

·         I’ll start eating legumes again.  I’ll probably alternate cartons of soymilk with almond or coconut milk, but start eating lentils, black beans and garbanzo beans again.

·         I’ll reduce my meat/egg consumption to ~1 meal/day

·         I won’t worry about timing my carb intake with my aerobic workouts.

Things that won’t change (for another 2 weeks):

·         Still no wheat, dairy, processed foods or refined sugar.

Week 2 of Paleo Trial diet

Workouts:

Monday: 1 mile warm up on treadmill, circuit room weights (3 x20 of light weights on each machine)

-          Breakfast: Oatmeal with apple and pumpkin and chia seeds.  Egg and tomato.

-          Lunch: Spinach salad with tomato, ¼ avocado, ½ can tuna in water, baked butternut squash, olive oil and lemon juice dressing.

-          Snacks: ½ apple, banana with almond butter, almonds

-          Dinner: Lamb braised in chicken stock, white wine and tomato puree, kale salad with avocado dressing, sliced beets and chopped walnuts. 

-          Dessert: Nut-butter brownie with frozen strawberries.

Tuesday: 32 min AM run (upper body felt sore from weights yesterday, had a hard time running with good posture, shoulders kept wanting to come forward), bike to class and lab.

-          Breakfast: Oatmeal with apple, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, and pecans.

-          Lunch: Repeat of Monday’s lunch, with steamed beets instead of tomatoes.

-          Snacks: Banana and almond butter, almonds and raisins.

-          Dinner: Steamed salmon with leftover veggies and eggplant braised in tomato sauce (same kind as on lamb on Monday).

Wednesday: Quick trip to gym for abs, with 10 min warm up of the elliptical. 45 min trail run/hike (ended up trying to get as far up the hill behind lab as I could, the trip down wasn’t much fun, think I was following a rain run-off “trail” rather than a human-made trail.)  Was in a great mood all day!

-          Breakfast: 2 eggs (omelet style but not folded) with most of sautéed zucchini, ¼ tomato, 1.4 avocado, spinach and an orange.

-          Lunch: Butternut squash, beets, zucchini, chicken sausage and spinach

-          Snacks: Carrot sticks and Trader Joe’s trail mix pack

-          Dinner: Leftover eggplant in tomato sauce on top of microwaved red potatoes.  Attempted to make a smoothie with kale, beets, a pear and cranberry juice.  The flavor was good but the pieces of kale were too big/there was too much of it.  Very filling though; didn’t have room for the delicious-looking pork chops I broiled…

Thursday: Set up my bike trainer! (It’s weird how I have no problem getting up around 5:30 when I’m in bed by 10…)Spun for 30 minutes, got very bored staring at the garage wall, looking forward to watching lots of Netflix documentaries.  Biked to lab with bike shoes on for the first time since the crayfish incident.  Success! 

-          Breakfast: Oatmeal with whole peach, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds and walnuts. Fried egg with spinach.

-          Lunch: Salad with green apples, toasted almonds, dried cranberries and vinaigrette dressing.

-          Snacks: Carrot sticks, pears, almonds, roasted pumpkin seeds.

-          Dinner: Broiled pork chop with apple sauce, leftover eggplant with tomato sauce on top of spinach.

Friday: 45 minutes of bike trainer (watched episode of NCIS online, sat up and drank during 30 s limited commercial breaks, worked well).

-          Breakfast: Sirloin steak, sautéed zucchini, peach.

-          Lunch: Spinach salad with steak, raw zucchini, tomato, ¼ avocado, balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing.

-          Snacks: Almond –milk yogurt, apple, banana, orange juice.

-          Dinner: Pork chop with applesauce, steamed broccoli and carrots, quinoa.

Saturday: 1:45 run (was supposed to be 1:30, but was exploring and ended going farther before I could re-cross I-80 and head home).

-          Pre-run: Banana and teaspoonful of almond butter, 3 Clif ShotBloks

-          During run: 16 oz water with Nuun tablet, Hammer Nutrition Gel (no caffeine)

-          Breakfast (Post-run): Oatmeal with pumpkin and chia seeds and raisins, 2 fried eggs with tomato and avocado, bowl of fruit salad, earl grey tea.

-          Lunch: Yam and sautéed zucchini and tomatoes

-          Snacks: Carrots, roasted pumpkin seeds

-          Dinner: Quinoa, steamed broccoli and carrots, steak

Sunday:

-          Breakfast: Omelet with spinach, avocado, mushrooms and ham. Fresh fruit

-          Lunch: Banana

-          Dinner: Fruit salad, steak, squash

Thoughts:

                So I’m one and a half weeks into my trial Paleo diet, and getting farther into reading The China Study by T. Colin Campbell – which outlines the multitude of connections between cancer and consuming animal protein.  I’ve been feeling pretty good so far, but I ended up with a pretty bad headache after my run on Saturday, which has never happened before.  This might’ve been due to the colder weather or the change in my diet; those are the only things that have changed since my last long run.  I’ll see how I feel after next week’s run, but at the moment I’m leaning towards switching back to something resembling my old diet after my 30-day trial.  I’d still cut out wheat, dairy and processed sugar (they go pretty much hand in hand anyway) and reduce my meat consumption to one or two times per week, as it was before.  My plan is to add legumes back in first to see how they make me feel, because if I’m going to reduce my meat consumption, I’ll need to be able to digest beans well.  I won’t go overboard on consuming grains in the name of carbo-loading, but I also won’t restrict my quinoa and brown rice intake to after workouts.  There’s simply no way I could cut out meat and limit grains and still get enough to eat.  But we’ll see, there’s a couple weeks left for me to change my mind several times.

                In other news, my knees were a little more sore than usual during my run on Saturday, I think this is from the new strain biking is putting on them; I definitely need to get back into yoga soon since this usually helps my knees too.  I still haven’t swam…  Biking on a trainer is definitely boring and holding an aero position for very long is definitely challenging.  School is simultaneously boring and challenging.  Actually part of the challenge is that my classes are so boring I have trouble paying attention, and subsequently don’t absorb much of the material.  Otherwise life is good.     

                 

Motivation:

http://www.waronals.com/about_jon.php