The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Where have I been?

Where to start. Well, I guess I'll start with the good. 1:23:48. My first 10k, Thanksgiving Day. I felt great, until about 5 minutes after I stopped running, when I got terrible shin splints. I didn't know until I asked my trainer about them that they even were shin splints, it was a terrible pain on the back of my leg under my calves and down to my Achilles. Still, I was run the entire thing without stopping - check! As it got closer, I was hoping that I'd finish in under 90 minutes - check! Most of all, I didn't want to be last and embarrass myself - check!

Since then, however, I've done very little training. In fact, come to think of it... almost none. Thanksgiving was the 27th - twelve days ago. Sure there were a few days in there where I was recovering, but I've gone to the gym exactly one time to work out since then. So I guess that is the Bad.

The Ugly, as always, is my diet. I've been awful. That day I used the race and the holiday to just stuff my face without guilt. That in-of-itself would be fine, but the days after I've completely fallen off the wagon. I guess the whole month of November was rough, and I thought (as I think most 'dieters' often feel) that December 1st I'd recommit and get right back into the rhythm. Nope. Fast food, alcohol, late night binges... My head is spinning with how quickly I can go from one extreme to the other.

It's obvious, too. I don't even want to weigh myself right now. I skipped a Dietbet weigh in because I knew I would be over. I've had a day or two in the past two weeks where I've tried to get back into my routine and it has helped triage the bleeding, but if I don't get back on track soon I'm gonna watch all of my progress disappear and I don't know if I can handle that mentally. I made my chili but it is going bad in the fridge since I haven't eaten it in days. I was using Claire's fitbit, but I lost that too and then I decided I couldn't justify going to get another one.

Today, however, I decided that was a mistake. I went and ponied up the 100 bucks, because I am not going to let this bad streak ruin me. I have an appointment with Janelle today, which is going to be like going to confession, and I'm hoping to put together a strategy. I am going to go to my Team Fit class tomorrow. I AM GOING TO GO TO MY TEAM FIT CLASS TOMORROW. I AM GOING TO GO TO MY TEAM FIT CLASS TOMORROW. As emphatic as I write that, I'm still terrified that I am not going to go to my team fit class tomorrow. I went last Wednesday and I was sore for a week.

Mostly, I need to start running again. I have goals. I want to improve on that time on my next 10k on January 18th. I want to run that entire Half Marathon on February 28th. I want to win my diet bet, which ends January 28th. I still need to lose a lot of weight to get into that 100+ club.

Resilience is something I struggle with. These things generally force me to fall into a depression that will more than undo all of my progress. These next few months are critical, and I need to keep fighting.

Struggling

I have definitely de-railed.

Stress eating, stress itself... Maybe despite my long-term proof time and again that I can only sustain this sort of life changing behavior for so long I've let myself take it for granted. I don't know. What I do know is that I haven't been to the gym in a week, I'm eating all kinds of unhealthy food, not tracking any of it, and as of today I'm up to 246.6.

I know I'm falling into the trap that I've often fallen into in the past. It's like double-dutch. Once you trip up, you need to choose the right time to jump back in. I'm going to the gym today with the kids since they love it and I haven't been since last time I took them last Tuesday. I'll run but not much since I'm doing the Turkey Trot on Thursday. I'm not sure whether I should go to my team fit class tomorrow. It might not be smart the day before the race, but I've missed the last four (four!?!) and I'm not even sure if there is one on Friday. Ugh.

I am still taking my multi-vitamins. I weighed myself this morning. I gotta jump back in.

Stress - The Immeasurable Factor

You can count calories, you can (sort of) measure your calories burned. You can track your number of push ups, miles, heart rate, sleep. So much information that contributes to your overall health. Personal monitors that give you all of this are available everywhere, and using them correctly can lead to all sorts of health benefits.

There is no wearable monitor for stress. This is a shame, because even if someone does everything right - gets enough sleep, burns more calories than they consume, takes all of the necessary nutrients and supplements - stress can still prevent weight loss. Which leads to more stress, and a feeling of failure that just might lead you to bash your wearable monitor with a hammer. Hm, would that provide any stress relief?

Life is heaping extra servings of stress onto my plate these days. It really doesn't matter where the stress is coming from, what matters is that it affects everything I am trying to accomplish. Granted, the gym is a great way to work off some of that extra stress. All things being equal I notice I handle stress far better now that I am living healthy than I did when I used to solve the problem with copious amounts of alcohol and late night carb binges. But for me a health plan is like a house of cards that I am trying to keep standing at all costs, and stress is a strong breeze.

I'm doing fine, though. It is funny how, once a habit is reinforced with repetition for long enough, it can keep rolling despite adversity. It's your 'lizard brain'. You can carve habits (good or bad) deep into your brain that take over to improve the ease of tasks. A good example is when you drive the same way to work every day you can eventually do it on 'auto pilot'. I read about this over a year ago, and I've been trying to use it to my advantage, and I have to say it's working pretty well. There are however some unintended consequences.

The more you rely on habit the less mentally present you really need to be. You wake up, your habits kick in that get you ready for work and out the door, to work, through work, home from work, and back into bed again. It's safe, and easy, and robotic and boring. Just like anything else, moderation is key. But moderation isn't exactly my strong suit, as demonstrated by my body fat percentage.

Like most people my age and younger, I am hyper-focused. I can lock in and rock a specific project with more zeal and success than generations before me, probably because of video games!!! But, contrary to proud multi-taskers everywhere, you really can't focus on more than one thing at a time. You can shift back and forth quickly, but when you are never really texting and driving, you are either driving, or you are texting and no one is driving. So many things in my life are priorities now. My routine, the gym, the groceries, the laundry, the kids, my wife, my job, my side job of dueling, the bills, school... This should not be the order, but that is the problem. There really can't be an order, they are all very important right now.

So, that is where I am at right now. Stressed, and fearing that so much focus on me and my health is causing me to lose focus in other very important areas of my life. It may be time to try to add a habit to the list that can help with all of this - meditation. But who has the time?

6.2

For years I've wanted to run Turkey Trot 5k. Last year, after another Thanksgiving had passed without me following through with it, my co-workers at my new job began to talk about running this year's 10k in Mesa. 

10k. 6.2 Miles. 

I had never even run a 5k, but I thought that if I committed to running it I would be motivated enough to follow through. Then the year went by, and after a brief stint of about 6 weeks in February and March where I tried to live healthy, I let that motivation go. I had ballooned to the highest I had weighed in my life by July 1, 286.5 pounds. On July 1, I decided that if I was going to have any chance of running a 10k in November, I needed to start making changes.

Yesterday, I ran 6.2 miles. It was on a treadmill with 0% incline and it took me 87 minutes, but I RAN 6.2 MILES. Without stopping.

Best of all, I don't feel like I overdid it today. I did not go to my team training class again, in part because I thought it would be a little too much cardio in a short period and in part for personal relationship reasons I hope I never have to blog about. I hate cryptic personal stuff on social media, but I'm gonna need some boundaries with what I write about here - not that anyone is reading!!! It's tough though, because it's all connected. Stress and sleep are a factor in weight loss and health, and when I get very little sleep and my stress shoots through the roof I need to acknowledge it and talk about it in this context, but sorry, I'm not going into detail. It would probably just add to the stress anyway.

So I did a very fun very chill '5k' which was really more of an obstacle course on Sunday, and now I've done a 10k on Tuesday. I'm feeling good about my cardio. I'm down to 239.5 so I have officially lost the NC weight. Operation Healthy Holidays looks seems good, one way or another.

Rest day today, and hopefully sleep tonight. I'll try to go to the gym tomorrow morning and do a very chill run, and then hit my Team Fit class on Friday. Woosah.

Ridiculous Obstacle Course Race Phoenix 2014

Well, I've done my first race. My friends were running this ROC 5k this weekend, and I was able to register that day. It was so much fun! The race is an untimed 5k with a series of fun obstacles that are inspired by the TV show Wipe Out! There were a few obstacles that were difficult, some I completed and impressed myself, others I couldn't (I haven't been able to swing on Monkey Bars since I was a kid) and some of the obstacles were just water slides with inner tubes, or bubbles, or "the world's tallest inflatable" varieties. People dress up and 'compete' in teams, but really it's just about doing all of these crazy obstacles.

Part of the reason I registered late is that I couldn't decide whether to do the race or go to the Lions v. Cardinals game. Ultimately I chose the race because I thought it would be a healthier choice than tailgating, and I think it was probably more of a wash. I don't know how many calories I burned during the race because I LOST MY FITBIT :( but I am sure that the beer, Jack Daniel's Jack and Ginger drinks (are these coolers? I had never seen them before), the big burger and sweet potato fries and two and a half pieces of pizza I ate afterward were more calories in than I burned racing. So dumb. Somehow during the day's festivities I decided that on a day I run a race I won't worry about calories or logging food, as a sort of celebration, which might be a good idea in moderation, but I went overboard.

I was in bed by 7pm, and I was tossing and turning through the night with an upset stomach. Today I woke up at about 7am with a cough and maybe a fever; just feeling like yuck. I didn't go to my team fit class, and I even thought about calling off work. Some of that had to be dehydration, and I suspect some of it was from the gross water obstacles in the race. In any case, I hope I can bounce back quickly.

Yesterday I weighed 242.2, today I weigh 243.3. Still coming down, though I suspect I haven't really paid for the post race binge. If I am sick, that number is going to go up before it comes down, and I am absolutely spinning my wheels since this blog started. It's all just sticking with it, though.

What I need to take away from this weekend is that I had an absolute blast, completed my first 5k, and that I need to do a better job of pre and post race prep. Next week is the 10k, which should be harder, and my friends are coming so I will have the same temptation to combine fitness with debauchery. I think if I don't drink I can hold everything else in check, and I might need to plan on sleeping extra the night after a race.

I made my healthy chunky chili this morning before work, and I'm ready for a healthy restful week of normal routine. As long as I'm not really sick I should shed some lbs this week. Here's hoping!

When will I BE a Runner?

It is one thing to do something. I run. I play piano. I cook. It is another thing altogether to BE something. I AM a runner. I AM a musician. I AM a cook. I didn't start playing piano until I was 25, so it took me a long time to consider myself a musician, rather than simply an entertainer who plays piano. I couldn't wrap my brain around owning what it means to be a musician. I didn't want to diminish what it meant to be able to say that until I felt I had earned it.

So, I run, but I am no where near being a runner, nor do I know when I might be able to own it. Perhaps it will be after my first race, which is a terrifying 13 days away. Maybe it'll be after my half marathon in February. I think it is going to have more to do how well I am able to run long distances; when my times are more respectable. 

I'm not feeling great today. I wanted to get up early to do the 5am class, so I set two alarms on my Fitbit; 4:26 and 4:35. I 'woke up' but I was in such deep sleep that I just laid there, ultimately deciding to do the 6am class. But I didn't go back to sleep, and now I'm paying for it. I did well in the 6am class, though. Laly told me that I was fired up today, and I definitely felt strong. My stupid heart rate monitor kept shutting off again, so I didn't good info for Janelle, but I figure if I am going to be doing these low heart rate runs on the off days, I really need to get a lot out of my strength and interval training that I get through these classes. 

245.1 today. Nutrition is flawless, though I haven't even gotten to Whole Foods to prepare meals. Yesterday I bought a prepared meal and a cobb salad from Lifetime, and I went and got a cobb salad today from Sprouts and I bought some edamame with wasabi to put on it to spice it up. The kids want to go to the gym tonight, so I will probably eat at Lifetime again and hot tub it up. 

I AM a student, and I'm right in the middle of my online classes. I am either the most productive I have ever been in my life or I am piling goal on top of goal until I am not able to achieve any of them. Definitely one of those.

Training in Zones, Pros and Cons

I ran 1.75 miles in 27 minutes today. Not exactly blazing speed, as my Runkeeper App pointed out (5 minutes slower than my best 1-3 mile pace). Why? Because I kept my heart rate under 141.

I am just trying to have faith in Janelle (my dietitian) that this is the right way to go about it. The Turkey Trot is in two weeks, and I feel less prepared than I was a month ago. Granted, my NC trip is probably a big part of that, but still, this Zone training makes me feel like I'm not making the best use of the little time I have to train. This is made worse by Nick, an attorney whom I have a great deal of respect for and consider to be pretty intelligent, telling me that Zone training is a myth. He even sent me an article about it: http://www.builtlean.com/2013/04/01/fat-burning-zone-myth/#fn-15366-3.

I go back and forth. My run today was easy and slow, which is fine for days in between my Team Training. I was noticeably tired; even for a slow run this was bad. I should (according to my metabolic testing) be able to run the majority of this between 4.7 and 5.1 mph, and I was around 3.7 for the majority of it. So, the more I do this the faster I should be able to run with my heart rate staying under 141. This will be good for me in the long run.

However, I may be drawing out this process longer than it needs to take. I get that running and training causes stress on the body and that stress increases my already elevated cortisol which is preventing my body from losing this spare tire I am trying so desperately to shed. But I can do more than this, right? I feel like I am going to embarrass myself at this Turkey Trot because I haven't pushed myself hard enough leading up to it.

Ultimately, we'll see. I am going to go through this metabolic training program that Janelle has set up for me, even if it limits my potential for a faster finish for these runs. If a month or two from now I see increased fat loss, I'll owe her an apology for doubting her. If not, (and it isn't from my own sabotage) then I'll strike out on my own more aggressive run schedule. Overall, I'll take being a slow runner in exchange for the ultimate goal of dropping this frustrating body fat!

245.3 today. I figured some of that 247 was inflated, and I expect that I'll get back down in the 242 range pretty quick. That trip is gonna put off me getting into the 230's for a while, but hopefully this metabolic training will work it's magic and the pounds will keep falling off. Stay tuned.