Friday

As I sit in the beautiful sunlight, next to my vegetable plants, watching Parking Wars on my laptop, drinking delicious instant iced coffee on my paid vacation that not everyone has the luxury of having, I know that no matter how many days I feel like this, I am still luckier than many.

Things I Love

Phenylephrine.

Contingency Plan

It has occurred to me recently that people are afraid of randomness. Scared that things happen randomly, with no purpose. So we assign guilt and justice to those events that can't possibly be random. That someone has unfortunate circumstances because they deserved it or didn't pray hard enough or gave up, and the other guy must have just been higher up on life's scale of "trying really hard".  We sit around and tell ourselves that someone else failing has caused their circumstances. They just didn't fight hard enough.  Humans seem incapable of believing that rewards and punishments show up randomly and without just cause.

Ghost Rider

Eeeeee! So, I'm in week 3 of the Couch to 5k plan! Super exciting that I've kept my attention on something for almost a month! Sometime last week, I bent to pick something up and felt a *pop* in my right achilles tendon. It didn't hurt so much as feel incredible unnatural and scary!

The One With the Planning and the Willpower

In the interest of being productive(!), I chose a pretty common running program called Couch to 5k to get back on track in regard to exercise.

The One Where Amanda Plays With Numbers

Last night I had the opportunity to chat with a coworker quite a bit about diet and exercise. I knew he was pretty hardcore about both of these topics, and I had previously planned to start a running program on monday. I decided to ask him if he ran, and if so, where. I get so bored running around the circular street division where I live. His response? "Of course I run! I'm a personal trainer!"

A Letter to a Friend

Vitamin Schmitamin

Two days ago, while cleaning out my car, I rediscovered my copy of Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever, authored by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman. I mentioned this book in a previous post. As I sat in the backseat of my car, predictably distracted from cleaning, and flipped through the book, some of the themes sort of struck me yet again. This book, as well as every other book by Kurzweil, has been widely critiqued by doctors and scientists. There are a couple of notable controversies; for instance, Kurzweil states repeatedly that by drinking large amounts of alkaline water, one can flush toxins out of the body, yet keep sufficient reserves of specific alkaline based enzymes to counteract harmful acidic buildup. With a basic knowledge of chemistry and/or some simple research, it is easy to see that the alkaline water theory is perhaps not the strongest theory out there in the land of nutrition. In any case, I think this particular book does lend itself well to my living well journey...it may not be for everyone, but for me, read with a clear, thoughtful position, it appears to fit in well.

The line between self and state

A couple of weeks ago I came across a brief article announcing that the The Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District's Board of Directors had green lit an environmental study concerning a proposed "suicide net" addition onto the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. My interest was immediately piqued, and as I don't even live in California, and have never visited the state, I had never heard of this proposal.  Wikipedia to the rescue!

Dear World...

Originally Posted September 14, 2009

This is my public announcement that I, at a family picnic this past weekend, failed miserably. First, I put sugar in my coffee absentmindedly right in front of the chairperson! Then! I had potato salad! Yikes! Then! I ate a piece of cake!...sugar fail...

Lo zucchero

Originally Posted September 4, 2009

A slight addition to the previous post...I thought it was interesting (and incredibly aggravating at the same time) that Ray Kurzweil advocates an low gyclemic load diet as an anti-aging strategy. As anyone who doesn't live under a rock knows, coming across nutrition theories is about as hard as...well, nothing. They're everywhere!

Flimflam Dillydally- New Life Regimen Parte Seconda

Originally Posted September 1, 2009

I recently picked up a book called Transcend: Nine Steps To Living Well Forever, by Ray Kurzweil, on a whim. I'd heard of Kurzweil a few months ago while I was reading up on a 10-day detox I participated in, and decided the book looked interesting. I was totally right!

Attack of the Circus Peanuts

Originally Posted August 6,2009

Ok, ok, I think we all knew I wasn't going to be able to keep up the steam of writing every day...shut up.
However, I do think about writing every day, and that has to count for something...right?!
In any case...my abbreviated update is as follows:
Exercising every day = hard.
Eating right every day = hard.
Writing in my food journal every day = hard.

Courir sous la pluie! Maybe...

Originally Posted July 29, 2009

Alright, slacking already, I know. Rough weekend.

Nothing short of an exercising kerfuffle

Originally Posted July 25, 2009

Saturday- Today is truly testing my resolve for this program. Work makes me want to eat cookies and drink Mountain Dew like nothing else. HOWEVER I'm holding off on that and I've tried to be decent with some trail mix, and a Strawberry Vivanno Smoothie. Last night during a superfuncool trip to Wegman's, Quaker Oats Weight Control Oatmeal was discovered (practically no sugar!). I'm planning on trying that later...hopefully I'll like this oatmeal a little better. Haven't done the stretches yet (days like today it'll be hard to convince myself to do them, I think) but I did go on a long walk in the sunshine.

Tomorrow is a "rest" day on the plan, so I probably won't post.

("Sunday- Dear World, I did nothing aerobic today whatsoever. Thanks for tuning in!")

:)

To do list for today: Breathe in, breathe out, blink twice

Originally Posted July 24, 2009

Friday- Really early start today. I drove down to my parents' (about an hour away, got here around 6:30 a.m.) and decided on the fly to do today's run around a small neighborhood track I'd be passing. It's only 0.6 miles, so talk about boring! I tried to focus on breathing correctly today...usually my lungs die way before my body feels the exhaustion. There's a lot of crazy breathing instructions out there! Most people seem to agree that you should breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth. Exhaling deeply insures you're expelling the most CO2, which means it's not going to build up and cause aches quickly. One thing I discredited right away was the prospect of linking your breathing with music, like an IPOD, while running. I had always heard that was a terrible thing to do, because as the music is changing from Brad Paisley to Nine Inch Nails to Amy Winehouse to Mozart, your breathing will also change rapidly, most likely without you realizing. Doesn't exactly sound like fun to end up hyperventilating!

One thing I saw a lot was to breathe in a cadence by counting the steps you take while inhaling and exhaling, most frequently something like 2 steps for each. I paid close attention today, and I couldn't do anything besides 4 steps for an exhale and 3 steps for inhaling. Breathing any faster and I started taking really short, uncontrolled horrible gasps of pain! I know I'm not running slowly, because I kept track of how many miles I ran...I'm just taking super deep breaths. Oh well! I'll keep working on it, but once I started paying attention, the rest of the time flew by and it seemed much easier. Yay, easier!

Looking forward to sunday's day of rest though :)

Update for Friday afternoon: blueberry picking has been officially designated by the committee as "low impact cardio"...who knew!

Velveeta-Make My Day!

Originally Posted July 23, 2009

Thursday- So my peaceful day of low impact cardio and toning moves abrubtly got off to an earlier start than I wished due to work being done on the roof of my apartment; work I sadly did not know about. Enter anger and frustration.

It's ok, though, and I'm moving on.

I went for a long walk this morning, and did all required stretches, which are rapidly becoming the most boring part of this endeavor. It reminds me too much of high school, I think, where we'd have to sit on the floor in two parallel lines for attendance, while the gym teacher paced back and forth down the middle calling out names while we all went through a series of monotonous stretches. Even then we only pretended to be stretching while the teacher was actually coming in our direction. I want to fake my way through these, too, but it's not so much fun without the possibility of getting caught. So I'll suffer on.

I've turned my attention since yesterday on finding new and exciting routes to go on. Living where I do, it's fairly impossible to avoid hills, but I figure if there are other runners out there that have found out the hard way where the toughest areas of town are, the least I can do it learn from their pain! I discovered several websites online where you can not only search for routes, but even map your own route! By searching you can often even narrow down by distance, start points, rating, terrain, route type (if it'd be better for walking, or biking), and even surface type. I have noticed that there are limitations, and sometimes you just think "WTF" that someone has thought so highly of their idiotic route that they've actually subjected Internet users to the possibilty of it coming up in a search. I suppose that's a general limitation of user generated information, though: the unfortunate inclusion of morons.

In any case, these are some of the ones that seemed to work the best for me, if you'd like to check them out.

USA Track and Field

Run.com

Mapmyrun.com

Finger Lakes Runners Club

Mcmillan Running- kind of fun to browse around

Triple Cities Runners

As far as food, yesterday was pretty much a huge fail. I just wasn't hungry for most of the day, and as a result only consumed about 700 calories and fell behind on fiber and carbs. I have trouble eating if I'm not hungry, that's not new, and eating every four hours is tough. Sometimes I can't even remember the last time I ate, because despite my love of sugary everything, my world certainly doesn't revolve around food. I'm trying though, I promise! I do need to clear out my kitchen, so things like frozen pizza and 14 kinds of pasta aren't tempting me. I have a backstock of Velveeta Macaroni and Cheese to rival any supermarket, and it's calling my name.

Which is creepy, actually. Deliciously creepy.

I do have some new ideas for filling food, thanks to friends, so hopefully after some donations to CHOW and a trip to Wegmans, my kitchen and I will be happier. :)

Sweet and Low Totally Wins Over Splenda In My Iced Coffee

Originally Posted July 22, 2009

Wednesday- so today is supposed to be a repeat of monday's routine (run 1 minute, walk 3 minutes, lather, rinse, repeat). I decided to drive up into the Cornell Plantations for a change of pace. My plan would have worked superbly, since it's astoundingly beautiful, if only I had not gone at 11am. Enter heatstroke and need for a pacemaker. And most likely, sunburn. I made a loop around the Water Lily Ponds, and with the shady sections of the trail, I survived! (I'm ok!) I'll totally go back there for future runs.

Cornell Arboretum

About halfway through, I decided to pick up one of the handy maps, to see if there might be a super fun cool new path to go on...lo and behold, welcome to my "Exploration of the Morgan-Smith Trail"! I found the trail marker easily, and proceeded to run down an amazingly long set of steps, all while thinking "hey! steps! that sounds hard and wonderful and good for exercising!" And then, I proceeded to find myself on a tiny, overgrown, footpath and immediately thinking of nothing but Lyme Disease. Needless to say, I went back to my nice Water Lily Path :) I am pretty excited about some other trails on the map...I'll update if I find anything actually worth checking out.

I'm having trouble with the food still...I don't really like things like oatmeal, or legumes, I'm rapidly becoming not so fond of peanut butter, and I feel that upwards of 1200 calories a day in vegetables probably is useless. Hmmm...I do feel like I need to adventure into the world of sashimi soon, since I should stay away from the white rice in my favorite volcano roll!

Sidenote (that will interest few people)- I started a new knitting project last week, a felted purse. Now, I've never felted before, and I haven't done a project in a while, so I feel it's only natural to link all these "new" goals together. Hopefully, it won't take me 8 weeks to finish this purse, but I'm going to try to work on it steadily! I'll post picture updates as I go along.

The Beginning of My 8 Week Plan To Grow Up

Originally Posted July 21, 2009

DISCLAIMER-- I've never blogged before. And I fully recognize that I'm probably not that interesting. I also recognize that I need to do this to keep up speed so that I don't get distracted and "fall off the wagon". That being said...
Monday, July 20 marked an important day. On that day, two good friends of mine and I started an 8 week fitness plan. We also started a nutrition plan, which is mostly likely more important for me than the exercise. I think if I throw myself into tracking and writing about all of this, I'll be much more likely to stay interested (and not so much 'oohhh shiny'). Maybe it'll even inspire someone else. We've already gotten two of my co workers motivated to try out parts with us, so yay!
As far as nutrition goes, I pretty much live off Mountain Dew, Hot Pockets, and Chips Ahoy. And it's been wonderful, don't get me wrong. I generally feel like crap though, and need to cut out major amounts of sugar (read: I don't want to be on an insulin sensitizer-again).

After an intense standoff in a bookstore, I was given official rules for the plan:

"1. No sugar
2. No alcohol
3. No white carbs
4. Anytime fruit, milk or sweet veg (corn and peas) are consumed, protein must
also be consumed.
5. An effort will be made to eat something at least once every four hours.
6. Diligence regarding vitamins / supplements.
7. Stay hydrated.
8. Keep a food journal

Caloric Needs per Day
Calories: 1300 - 1900 depending on level of activity.
Fiber: 21 - 25g - I don't know a lot about the soluble / insoluble values...
Protein: 0.4 per kg of body weight is the US recommended min. 0.8 per kg is the
max. This works out to 25 - 45g per day.
Carbs: (good carbs) 134 - 225 g per day. Ideal is around 150 - 190.
Fat: USDA recommends 30% of calories. So around 38 - 60."

Courtsey of K&M W. :)

As for the mentally much easier exercising portion, we are using an 8 week plan I found in the July issue of Prevention Magazine. You can find the article here- Turn your Walk into a Run!

Monday should have been a nice, easy start...run 1 minute, walk 3 minutes, repeat 13 times. Except I didn't double check and instead reversed the time intervals in my head! After 30 minutes of weaving in and out of neighborhoods and thinking "why the f*** have I gone so far?!?", I realized I most likely was making the first day much more difficult than it needed to be! Why wouldn't I start out in typically "Amanda"-fashion, though!?

As far as nutirtion, holy moly! I didn't miss the sugar so much, but I had a lot of trouble consuming enough calories and staying within all the other guidelines. I seemed to be at more than twice the needed amount for protein! Thankfully, after a long and painful (for her, I think) phone call with my best friend and the author of "The Rules", I came home from Wegmans with some better food choices. And sugar free peanut butter cups! Woohoo!

Tuesday- exercise for today included 30 minutes of "low impact cardio" and a series of toning moves and stretches. That worked out well because I needed to do laundry too, why not walk while the machine is going (since watching a washer is sort of like paint drying). My plan worked out great except that once again, I walked past the horse stables and got scared by a horse whinnying. Sigh...OH OH and I remembered that I really like Coke Zero, and I remembered that I have Jell-O Single Serve Instant Pudding packets...I recommend both to anyone attempting low sugar endeavors. Tuesday = happier than Monday! Since part of "The Rules" include keeping a food journal, I might enventually post part of that as my daily update...to prove it's not all that hard/actually harder than you might think. Complicated enough that the last statement is true. All in all strong start, I think!