Ok, so a weekly blog with weekly goals/lifestyle changes was just a tad bit ambitious for a chick with a baby and an FH that travels every week. So I've scaled it back to monthly (I only had twelve things on my list anyway) and I'm hoping not to fall off the wagon so quickly this time. Er, well...at all. Right?
Picking up where I left off, I've been logging my nutritional information and calories burned for each meal on My Fitness Pal every day. Well...98% of the days. It works. I've lost 4 pounds. Here's my problem with it...I think it's healthy to pay attention to what you are consuming and to make good decisions in regards to what you put into your body and how much you exercise. What I do not think it healthy is to make every meal and every day a continuous math problem, and to worry about how many calories you "have left" and how many you need to earn back to eat this or that. I think it's a good thing to do for a while, but I do not want it to become a crutch. It is no way to live, to be a prisoner to a calorie count. That being said, I agree 100% with Bethenny Frankel's view on how to eat. (Her book Naturally Thin, is amazing, by the way.) She says that you should think of your food choices the same way you think of your spending choices. If you have a certain amount of money in the bank and you make a big purchase one day, you may need to cut back on your spending for a few days afterwards in order to balance it out. The same with food. If you're out to eat with friends and you really want to order something that may not be so good for you, do it. But remember that you spent a lot from your "food account" and try to make good choices for a few days to balance out that not-so-healthy meal. It's basically a similar system without being a slave to the record-keeping.
That being said, I plan to stick with the food diary a little longer to make sure I'm aware of the choices I'm making, and to get in the habit of making good ones. Eventually, I'd like to ween myself off of it, and just eat freely. I'll probably keep logging in to keep track of my exercise though. That's something I love to keep track of.
The next thing I want to accomplish is running a 5k. I used to run them pretty frequently before I got pregnant, and while I did maintain a gym routine through most of my pregnancy, I switched from running to walking almost as soon as I started to show, because I had this weird fear of brain-damaging the baby with all the bouncing up and down. It was irrational, I know, but I felt better just walking, and my baby is smart and undamaged, so it is what it is.
I picked a 5k on October 23rd. That's roughly a month away. Right now, I can run for approximately 20 minutes without stopping to walk, so I think that should be plenty of time to be ready to run for a little over 30 minutes. We'll see, though. It's amazing how difficult it is these days to carve out a half hour for myself on a regular basis. Or even just once a week. But I'm pretty determined.
To try to make progress, I've been doing a sort of lazy, unregimented version of HIIT/Tabata, so that when I reach my limit running/jogging and need to walk, I instead walk for one minute and run at full speed for one minute, or stop for one minute and run full speed for one minute. Full speed for me right now is about 8 mph (I'm short) but in the past few days, it has become a lot easier and I might be able to increase it soon. I have noticed after doing this for a couple of weeks that the regular part of my run is becoming much easier. So basically, I think I'm going to kick the 5k's ass.
Motivating factor #2 - my running playlist. I can run to an audiobook, I can run to the sounds on the trail, but there is NOTHING like running to the right music. But my running playlist is terribly outdated and I haven't updated so much as a song for over a year. So I asked a handful of active people I know what they love to work out to, went through the newer music in my iTunes, and came up with fourteen songs (to be added to as time goes on, because that's not nearly enough) that I had a BLAST running to today, and am already looking forward to them tomorrow. There are a few qualities I look for in a song when I'm choosing what to run to. I want to have at least one of the following: #1) Great build-up. A song can start out any way it wants to, but if it soars into some sort of energetic climax after a bit - that's perfect. It makes me pick up the pace a little bit and renews my energy. #2) Emotion. I love running to angry songs, feel-good songs, sad songs...something that makes me feel and isn't just background noise. If it makes me think of some ex-loser I dated and how I am bashing his face in with every step I take, or makes me feel like I have a crowd around me cheering me on, or makes me want to keep running so I can wallow in some sad, wistful feeling for just a little longer...those feelings are all motivating in their own way. #3) A running beat. It doesn't matter if the song is slow or fast paced, there are just some songs that work for running and some that don't. If I'm landing a step at every beat, or landing my second step at every beat...it makes no difference, as long as the song feels like it's running right along with me. Here is what made the list so far (most of these are my picks, I only got a couple of suggestions that made the cut):
One Republic - Marchin On. Oh my gosh. Holy perfect. This one has it all. Build up, emotion, a running beat. Running to this makes me feel like I'm saving the freaking world somehow. I vaguely remember it being played on The Biggest Loser as it showed one of the final three contestants training for the marathon. They got it so right. I can't play this loud enough! Where has this song been all my life?!
Scouting For Girls - New Day. This one barely made the list, but I put it on there because it's something new. It could use a bit bigger sound, but has a pretty good, happy beat.
The Black Keys - 10 a.m. Automatic. Ok, this song has always been on my playlist, but I can't imagine not running to it, so it made it to the new playlist as well. It's the song that introduced me to the Black Keys and has a special place in my heart. Not to mention great energy.
Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More, Little Lion Man and Roll Away Your Stone. Yep. THREE songs. These songs all have an amazing build-up, huge energy, and I never get tired of them. Probably because they don't sound like any other band.
Eminem - Not Afraid and Love the Way You Lie. Another artist that made the list more than once. Oh, I love the angry factor! Running to these two on a bad day is going feel like taking it all out on a punching bag. Can't wait!
P!nk - Raise Your Glass, Who Knew and Sober. P!nk is my BITCH! I love this girl so much and can't wait for the day that Harrison marries Willow and we get to be MIL's together! She puts every ounce of herself into every song she sings, and it makes me want to put every ounce of myself into singing right along with her. But since no one wants to hear that, I can just run a little faster to these three kickASS songs. You're my girl, P!nk!! You look....glorious!
Jay-Z - Empire State of Mind. Not exactly my usual kind of music, but this song does it for me. You can picture yourself running past all the people on the busy streets. I hate to support that household, but I bought the song and love it.
Kasabian - Club Foot. Old song, but still great. Tons of energy in this one, and you can totally see yourself outrunning some government suits with things exploding behind you. THAT would be cool.
Ingrid Michaelson - Turn to Stone. I've had this one in my iTunes forever but never thought of it as a running song. I was wrong. Sort of heavy and uplifting at the same time. Lots of emotion - just because it's Ingrid.
Another huge help has been stretching. I've been stretching regularly before my workouts for over a year, and after a few personal training sessions last summer, stretching really well and doing the right ones for my workouts. It makes all the difference in the world - I haven't had even a hint of pain or injury since then. All in all, I'm feeling pretty good about the 5k goal, and maybe even am starting off too light, but the idea is to be able to carve out time for myself to begin with, so this works.
In my last blog entry, I had also decided to quit drinking sodas. That one is not going so well. What's funny is, I didn't drink them much to begin with. But once I told myself they were off limits, it's like they became 83 times more appealing. But I'm working on it. I'm going to have to allow them once or twice a week right now. I'm trying to go step-by-step and replace them with Spark if I need an energy boost, so that I'm at least loading up on vitamins along with my caffeine, and coffee on the days I can't stand Spark. Jillian Michaels said I could sooo.....
I seem to be getting a lot of extra exercise lately too, which is probably helping. If the baby is awake, I'm carring around an 18 pound weight and working out my arms. Or I'm following him around and keeping him out of trouble as he scoots himself over to all the electronics and outlets. When he's asleep, my mega-never-ending to-do list has me painting walls, working my butt off in the yard and unpacking boxes, cleaning, dishes...you name it. Well, as long as you don't name laundry, I pretty much don't do laundry. When I log these things on My Fitness Pal, it's amazing how many calories I'm burning. 200+ working in the yard for an hour, 100+ painting, and so on. It's earning me that well-deserved beer I get to drink with my healthy dinner every night. I'll work on that one later.
