The morning after

In the last 8 weeks, despite success in my new, healthy lifestyle, I've become all too familiar with the MORNING AFTER feeling. It's the feeling I have the morning after the evening a fast food binge on the way home from work. Every time this happens, when I wake up, I feel like crap. I've usually gained at least 2 or 3 pounds overnight from all the sodium and the CRAP sitting in my gut. I get off the scale wondering how long it's going to take me to get back just to where I was and continue on with my weight loss and I spend the rest of the week wondering "what would have been?".

Well, those feelings weren't there this morning as I made it through the storm yesterday afternoon. It was really the perfect storm. I had a stressful day. I forgot to eat an afternoon snack. I really didn't realize until I got in my car and turned on the ignition that I WAS STARVING. All the familiar patterns were there and I should have stopped at any one or two of several fast food places on the way home. But I didn't do it. I just sucked it up and got home without doing the thing I hate to do but love to do.

And this morning, I was soooooo happy I made that decision. Now I know the OTHER morning after feeling. The one where you step on the scale and instead of being 2 or 3 pounds OVER the day before, I'm DOWN a half a pound from yesterday. Instead of waking up and feeling bogged down and bloated with a bunch of CRAP in my stomach, I felt normal, even a little smaller. Now I have this reminder to replay in my mind whenever temptation strikes.

One of the ways I got through it was firing off an e-mail to Catherine from the car, while I was driving down the Beltway. It was something like, "Driving home. Skipped snack. STARVING!!! Must make it home." I didn't really expect a reply but just knowing the reply could come and knowing that Cat is behind me helped me make it through the trip home. When I finally did get home and got something good to eat, I received Cat's reply. She said some things and then she wrote, "This is your marathon!" Wow, that's profound and sooooo true. Even though my marathon isn't for another 14 months (WOW!!! over a year away), the decisions I make now and the work I'm doing now...well, let's face it. My marathon training and preparation has started. Yes, I want to be healthy. Yes, I want to feel good and there is a big picture to what I'm trying to do here. But the marathon, my comeback, this thing I'm working for is a huge motivator for me. So, thanks for the reminder, Cat.

Yo, peeps!!!

Where was everybody last night? The park was EMPTY!!! And it was a beautiful evening to run. The sprinkle was so refreshing. I got 2 awesome miles in with a mile walking tacked on. I snuck down in the 15's for mile 2 and really felt good. Flashback to October 2006, running the Space City 10-miler in the rain and how good that felt. Of course, the rain last night didn't compare to the deluge of 2006 but still, it brought back some memories that kept my mind occupied during the hump.

I've had good, consistent eating this week. Catherine said one of our goals is to make the junk food binges less and less frequent. I've gone to just about every day to about one per week. I'd consider it a huge success to get through this whole week without one slip up. This is "heavy" on my mind this week. I CAN DO!!!

Let's get this party (week) started!!!

Yes, today is Monday! For me, every Monday brings sort of a new start. This morning in my session with Catherine the Great, we did a good evaluation of the last week. We talked about successes and failures. There were a lot of successes. :)

Success #1 - After falling off the wagon for one meal on Friday, I got right back on the next day. My pattern in the past has been that when I mess up, I mess up BIG. One bad meal will usually send me into a tailspin where it's a few days before I get back on track. Not this past week. In fact I did the bad meal Friday night and still got right up Saturday morning for my "long run". So, that was a SUPER success (even though the mess up on Friday was a failure).

Success #2 - Sunday was a birthday lunch at my house for my Mom. I grilled yummy cheeseburgers. There were also all the usual villans: potato salad, macaroni and cheese, tons and tons of cheese and chips, and of course, MAYONNAISE. So, as long as I was grilling, I did some chicken for myself. And then, for a real treat, I grilled some yummy veggies on the bar-b. Red, green, yellow, and orange peppers, zucchini squash. So, my plate was chicken breast, just a spoon of potato salad, homemade pico de gallo, tomato slices, grilled veggies, and for the piece de resistance, a 100 cal pack of Wholly Guacamole. I was so stuffed, I didn't even have cake. The whole meal was just 685 calories.

Success #3 - I ran 4 miles Saturday.

Success #5 - I ran 4 times for 11.5 miles last week.

Failures - like a good boy who puts all the bad behind him, I don't remember any of my failures last week. :)

Things to work on this week - Overall, Catherine wants to work on keeping my FULL this week. What a great dietitian, right? To lose more weight, she wants me to EAT MORE? Wahoo!!! So, I need to add some fruit to my diet. I'll probably do that in the form of a mid-morning snack and/or for dessert at dinner time. Fortunately, honeycrisp apples are in season so this ain't gonna be hard. Also, I stuffed my desk at work with Smart Pop popcorn bags. Catherine said she'd of course rather me eat a big bag of hot popcorn on the way home than stop at James' Coney Island for a 6 pack. :)

By the way, congrats Catherine on finishing 2nd overall female in Saturday's Rocky Raccoon 25K. AWESOME!!!

What a wonderful morning

What a beautiful morning. Belated good luck to everyone running Rocky Racoon this morning. It's an awesome day for racing.

I'm eight weeks back on the horse and I guess it's time for some evaluation.

Weight Loss:

I've lost 21 pounds since starting. That's about 2.6 pounds per week and although I never realistically expect to lose more than 2 pounds per week, I think I could have done a bit better. I'll give myself a solid B on weight loss.

Running:

When I started, I was running just a quarter mile during the week at a comfortable ~18 minute pace with a long run on the weekend of a half a mile. Today, I ran 4 miles at a VERY comfortable 17:25 pace. I've progressed from 4 miles per week to ~11. Since my goal right now is 100% building base and endurance and not to get faster, I'll give myself an A on the build up to 4 miles.

Now, I've just got to stay positive.

Soduim Update

Ok, as predicted, the 7 pound weight gain from last week has all disappeared plus and extra 2 pounds. Total weight lost since Monday...9 freakin' pounds.

I've had a couple of good runs this week. I'm at a point where I can do the whole Memorial Park loop, no problem. So, that makes it nice to get away from the out and backs.

Not so good weekend

I have to admit, not all is rosy. I had a bad couple of days over the weekend. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday included trips to McDonald's, grilled cheese sandwiches, Halloween candy, chips and cheese...that's about it. Oh, and I totally skipped my workout Saturday. Oh, the shame!!! And something VERY WIERD happened with my weight. My weight went up over 7 pounds in just a couple days. That's crazy!!! If that were 7 pounds of fat, that means I would have taken in 25,000 calories more than I burned over two days. I may have binged a bit but there's no way I steered that far off course. So, what's the deal?

I'm just about 100% sure that the deal is the high, high sodium content in fast food. I just bloated me up like a balloon. I think most of the gain can be attributed to the water retention and just all that food sitting in my stomach trying to digest. I got right back on track Monday morning and in just a 24 hour period, I've lost 4 of the 7 pounds I had gained. I drank a lot of water yesterday and did some exercise. I ate a normal, good diet the whole day and hope to have that other 3 off soon so I can get back to business.

The important thing is to stay positive. It's been the pattern for me to look at a small failure and just say, "Screw it!" and go off on a major prolonged binge. I'm breaking that pattern and getting right back up on that horse. Besides, this is going to be a fun week. I may be posting BIG numbers, like Biggest Loser numbers, with 4 pounds lost already.

This morning

Alarm rings at 4 am. Snooze x 1. Coffee was on the timer and ready when I got up. I actually planned ahead and ironed my clothes and packed my bag the night before. All I had to do was get some Body Glide onto a couple of hot spots, get dressed and I was ready. After a yummy bowl of GoLean, I was off.

I arrived at Memorial Park to an absolutely B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L fall morning. After some moseying around and some stretching, I took off for my 2 mile trot. "What's this? No aches? No soreness/stiffness? No twinges or tweaks that I just have to work out over the first half mile until they go away?" I felt great right from the start. I kept my effort very easy early on as I didn't want to fall into the "horse out of the barn" trap. Anyway, the run was great!!! I felt strong. I felt like my feet were under my legs and my legs were under ME and everything was just clicking instead of just leaning forward and letting inertia pull the rest of me along.

I finished the last mile a good 30 seconds faster than the first. When I was done I just laid down on the bench and relaxed. It was one of those mornings where the steam just sort of rises off your body into the fog. It was nice. This morning, I didn't run because it was a chore or because it was something I've been working on. I just enjoyed it and had a blast!!!

My pace

I've seen pace recorded, of course, as minutes/mile. Then there's the popular miles/hour. Some have even gone so far as to "describe" their pace instead of actual time and distance. For example, "an easy pace" or "5K pace". While running last night, I was trying to think of the best way to describe my pace. I came up with "just fast enough where I don't crush every bone/joint in my body". I know with my weight that I am putting an extraordinary amount of pressure on my knees, ankles, and hips and the faster I run, the more time I spend "off the ground" between strides, the harder I land, and the more pressure I put on my bones and joints. This REQUIRES a new, heavy runner like myself to be patient, not think about my pace in the past or what pace others are running, but to run within and for myself. My main goal now is losing the weight, not PR'ing for 5K or 10K or whatever. Staying healthy and getting smaller!!!

I had my visit with Catherine the Great this morning. Upon reviewing my logs, I got away from the basics a little this past week. I skipped breakfast several times and skipped a few afternoon snacks. Big NO NO's!!! I also had two so-so bad meals this past week. Nothing horrible but definite deviations from the norm. Anyway, a big part of all this for me is to maintain consistent, good habits not just some of the time but all of the time and that means eating breakfast and eating snacks between meals. I still managed to drop a pound this week which puts me down 20.5 pounds in about 6 weeks.

Oh, and Tiggs, I'll definitely be seeing you at all the warmup races next fall. And guaranteed, you'll be seeing a lot less of me. :)

Wish I was there!

Good luck to all of you running the Houston Half and congratulations ahead of time to the Houston Striders. I know it's going to be a FABULOUS event!!! I've got prior commitments this weekend so no volunteering this year. This is the first year after 3 in a row that I was not able to volunteer for the race. Bummer!!!

I did 3.5 this morning at Memorial Park. It felt good and I ran easy and strong. I probably could/should have done 4 but I opted for 3.5 with the last .5 about 1 minute faster than my average pace. It feels good to finish strong. I ran over an hour. It was an absolutely beautiful morning and I know it's going to be beautiful for the race tomorrow. That's makes me happy.

This weekend with the Houston Half going on, I've been reflecting a lot about this past year. Tomorrow's race marks my exit from runnning and the start of a downward spiral and return to obesity and unhealthy living. It's crazy that that came after the greatest race of my life. I remember Steeeve commenting how that race should really motivate me to an awesome marathon in January. Man, I'd like to have that moment back. I'd like to redeem that time, buy it back somehow. But that's obviously not possible. All I can do is remember all that I gave up and let it motivate me to never ever let that happen again. Nothing is worth your health and happiness. No job, no amount of money, no project.

Day off

I took the day off today get a little break and to get ready for DS's big homecoming game tonight. It cracks me up. He's going to a new school that has only 9th and 10th grade. Who's coming home!?!? I don't understand how they are having a homecoming but nevertheless, they are doing the whole thing. All the hoopla. Mums, bands, homecoming dance, the whole 9 yards. And DS was even nominated for homecoming king or prince or something. Anyway, I have to parade out there with him and DW at halftime. Should be interesting.

The day off afforded me little excuse to get out for an early morning run so that's what I did. Memorial Park was beautiful this morning. Kind of quiet by the time I got there. I did my 2 miles, tried some core exercises, realized I have no core, and left. It was a nice leisurely morning and I enjoyed every minute.

Now, let's hope it doesn't rain while I'm parading around with the next homecoming king and his mom.

Ramping up and thinning down

I made it over to Memorial Park yesterday after work for a 2 mile run and it was just a beautiful night. I slogged through the first mile and a half at just about slower than a snail's pace. By 1.5, I started to feel it in my knees and ankles. Not a bad feeling. I just felt stiff and achy. I relaxed a little and picked up the pace to just a little faster than a snail's pace and it felt great. I got the heart rate up into the red zone for the last .25 and really tried to relax and feel what it used to be like to RUN. It felt great. All that achyness went away and I remembered for a few minutes what it was like to MOVE and exercise. It was nice.

I am constantly evaluating how I feel after these runs. I made a pretty decent leap from runs of ~.5 to 1.5 miles up to a long run this last Saturday of 3 miles and runs during the week of 2. I'm doing fine with the added miles but I think I'm going to have to make the days in between (my easy days) VERY easy. I may cut back to just a walk on those days. But we'll see. Stay flexible and listen to your body. That's the ticket.

I'm glad I decided to extend these workouts. I need to be doing something longer than 5 or 10 minutes a day. Being on my feet doing exercise for 30+ minutes at a time is going to help me reach my weight loss goals quicker. Speaking of which, the pounds continue to melt away. I weighed in at 331.2 this morning. That's right at 20 pounds lost in about 5 and a half weeks. I know the plateau is coming soon but I'm enjoying this while I can. And I know when the plateau comes, Catherine the Great is going to have a plan.

Hey, thanks Steve for the fresh supplies last night. And no, we're not dealing drugs at Memorial park. Steve had some freebie med supplies for me. Good to see you Steve. It's been too long. I need every kick in the arse I can get so bring it on.

He-Could-Go-All-The-Way

3 MILES!!!

Whew!!!

I just got back from the park where I ran 2 miles tonight. Don't worry about the pace. Just 3 words. THAT FELT GREAT!!!

End of post.

15 in a month

I've had some significant success since Repentance Day and have lost 15 pounds in about a month. I couldn't be happier with the progress so far.

I had my visit with Catherine the Great this morning and it's confirmed. I'm on a roll. The weight is melting away despite a short "lapse" the first week of October. This lapse included a trip to KFC on October 1 and then my trip to Kansas City for a conference 5-8 October. Cat is so positive, she said, "Well at least when you had the fried chicken, you didn't get home and eat supper...AGAIN!!!" I cracked up when she said that 'cause she knows the old me all too well. As far as the trip to Kansas City, I did fail to log my intake and I did eat whatever I wanted to in the evening but for the most part I was good. I did all my workouts through the week and ate what was provided for lunch. Breakfast could have been much worse. They had an awesome buffet in the hotel. Lucky it was $20 bucks or I would have done it every morning. I just did the breakfast buffet 1 morning and I had them make me an egg white omelette. Anyway, I ate a moderate lunch served at the conference and then ate out in the evening. I did eat what I wanted for dinner and enjoyed dining out. When I got back, though, the damage was minimal with no weight gain. I got right back on and have been good since then.

I am going to make one change this week. I'm "jumping ahead" with my running program. It's one thing to run excruciatingly slow but to also run excruciatingly SHORT is wearing on my patience. I'm going to stay slow and keep the very easy pace but I'm going to be upping my mileage a bit. I'm feeling good and I've done this before. I know how to avoid injury and I know when to back off and how to train heavy. I just want to start going to the park again and driving in for .5 mile runs or getting up early and driving in to do a 1 mile walk...It's just not worth it. So, I'm going to up the ante a little and get back into a more aggressive running routine. The nice thing is that I've gotten used to doing something 6 days a week and I'm going to keep that going. Even if my easy days are VERY easy, I'm sticking to the 6 days. The basic plan is to be up to 17-19 mpw by early January. I'll be very happy starting off the year there.

Lesson learned

I ran 1.5 miles continuous yesterday and am feeling good. It's been a while since I blogged but not to worry. I'm still on the wagon. I'm down 14 lbs in 4 weeks and have stayed on my running program religiously.

I had some good news this week. I got a promotion and a BIG raise. I'm talking 10K/year. WOW!!! In this economy, that's good news. I've very happy that all the hard work and sacrifice this past year has paid off.

Still, I've been thinking. If on October 29th of last year, the day after my 13 minute half marathon PR, someone would have come up to me and said, "Vic, I'll give you a choice. Either you can continue your healthy lifestyle, take an hour or more off of your marathon PR, continue to lose weight, run and race through the spring and summer, and get within reach of your ultimate weight loss goals, have time to train, and all the time you want to spend with your family. Or, you can have $10,000." I can tell you right now what I'd choose. I can't recall anything in my life that I regret until now but given the choice again, I'd choose the healthy lifestyle over the money, hands down. And I'll have to live with this regret for a long time. All I can do now is draw on that experience and never, ever let ambition or work take precedence over my family and my health. Lesson learned, the hard way!!!

Traffic problem

Each week, I'm faced with a traffic problem and the solution has me sitting her in the parking lot of a convenience store at Memorial and Post Oak. Here's the dilemma. My appointment with Cathereine each week is at 7 am. Now, with no traffic it's about a 25 minute drive from my house. But with traffic, it can take over an hour, even up to an hour and a half. Traffic on 290 starts to build up around 5:50-6 so if I wait until 6 to leave, I won't make it by 7. So, I left before traffic started building up, around 5:20 and sure enough, it only took me 30 minutes to get into town.

So, now I have an hour to burn. Maybe I should go to McDonalds. LOL!!! Just kidding. I took a drive around Memorial Park. I haven't been there in the morning before dark since the storm. Man, the Southwest corner of the park is DARK. Kind of scary. But the lights are on around the rest of the park and the runners were out. After that, I'm like...What now? So, I'm sitting here in the parking lot of the convenience store blogging. Luckily, I'm on call so I have the Sprint card. Here's my view:

Well, now my battery is running down so I guess I'll just listen to some talk.

Edited: I just got done with weigh-in and have lost another 4 pounds. Down to 341. I commented that my daily calories were LOOOOOOW!!! but I feel fine. Just great. Catherine said it's probably because I'm eating GOOD food that I feel satiated. For now, she wants me, of course, to just keep doing what I'm doing.

No need to fret!!!

Not to worry, Tiggs, I may not have blogged in a few days but I haven't reverted in the least bit back to the unhealthy lifestyle. If fact, I've been doing GREAT!!! Sticking to it. Staying motivated. Eating right. Logging my food. Sticking with my running program. Being patient.

Speaking of patience, I think I'm losing it. I know this is normal and is something everyone trying to turn themselves around deals with. I'm ok with the gradual weight loss. That's not a problem and in fact, I'm a little ahead of where I expected to be. My big thing right now is the weather is so beautiful and I've been feeling really frisky. I'd love, TODAY, to just go to Terry Hershey Park and run 10 miles. Or just to run for a good hour. Or just run one loop around Memorial Park. I really, really miss being able to do that and I'm tempted to go to my running program and start deleting (rows) weeks to accelerate this thing. But I know patience will pay off in the long run. No pun intended!!! So, yesterday, I did my 0.75 mile long run. Yes, you read it right. 0.75 miles.

I finished the week with 4.5 total miles, up a half mile from last week. I see <Catherine on Tuesday which is weigh-in day. I haven't a clue where I stand. I took that sorry scale back to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I'm going to get a real scale. Maybe on the internet or some medical supply store. Needless to say, the suspense is killing me not having a scale to weight on every morning. I have to trust that I'm going to post some good numbers, hopefully 1-3 pounds. If I don't, there's seriously something wrong. I've averaged ~1550 calories per day this week. Carb/protein/fat percentage was 48/30/22, just perfectly on target. :) So, I'm expecting good results Tuesday.

Weigh-in

Today was my weigh-in day. I've switched it up from weighing in on Saturday morning to weighing in when with Catherine either on Tuesday or Wednesday when I have my appointment. All my appointments are early in the morning, before work so it's just perfect. Plus, she has an awesome scale. My freakin' scale at home is so incosistent. I just bought it, too. Every time I get on it, it's something different. Like this morning, I stepped on it and it said 348. I got off, let it reset itself, got back on and it said 343. I got off again and back on and it said 347. Then 346, then 346, then 346. I figured I was honed in on 346 so I got in the shower. I got out and it said 347. Well, which is it? It's very frustrating. I really need to get a real scale. A balance if you will. Maybe something like this.

They're dang expensive, though. But I guess it could be the last scale I ever buy, right. Wish I knew where to get a good deal on one. Maybe online or something.

Anyway, back to the weigh-in. I'm down to 345.0 lbs. That's about 6 lbs lost in a week and a half. That's a good start.

I'll tell you what, the last week was a complete success. And Catherine was able to look on CalorieKing.com and see the whole picture. It is really and AWESOME website. And there are a bunch of great charts and reports you can run to get any number of stats on just about anything. Carbs/fat/protein, sodium, fiber, sodium, everything. And she sees everything I eat each day. We get to talk about the good days and the bad (there weren't any bad this last week). Anyway, the 30 minutes I get with Catherine is jam-packed with information and counsel on just about everything nutrition.

One of the questions Catherine asked me was "What do you think made the difference this week since you had such a good week?" I said, "YOU!!! I mean knowing you're there and seeing what I eat, knowing I have an advocate and a plan." Plus, just the fact that I'm dropping a couple hundred dollars a month for a dietitian is motivation to stay on the plan.

Another thing I've done is I've let just about everyone know that I'm on a diet. That I'm seeing a dietitian and I'm turning over a new leaf. Everyone at work knows. I've even got a partner now at work who was very happy that I decided to do Subway everyday for lunch and he's joining me, no matter what everyone else is doing. Plus, I've gotten some great encouragement from friends through the blog and that's been fun. So, blogging again has been fun and has helped.

I just need to continue to put the pieces back together.

Run for your life!!!

I've gotta post my Sunday afternoon lunch experience yesterday.

The whole fam was over after church for homemade everything. Mac and cheese (mmmmm!), pork chops (not trimmed), green bean casserole (fat, fat, fat), ceasar salad (from a bag, like 20 g fat/ serving), and peach cobbler with ice cream. Did I mention the rolls with REAL butter?

Anyway, I was so uptight and in such a strange mood. Part of me was mad at the fam putting me in a situation like that. Part of me felt bad because that's the way my family eats. And part of me was just SCARED because I know I can't resist. Plus, to make matters worst, I made the mistake of skipping breakfast so I was real hungry.

Well, when I got home, I just went to the fridge, go out some grilled salmon and a sweet potato, made me a spiniach salad and just ate...like in front of everybody...while everyone else was waiting for lunch to be ready, I just sat down and ate. It was rude but ya know...

Then, when I was done, I was seriously craving MORE. And not more of my stuff, more of THEIR stuff. So, even though we had company and even though it was family, I just go my keys, told everyone it was good to see them, and I left. I went and got a coffee at starbucks (black) and just drove around. I visited an exercise equipment store I've been wanting to check out on 290 and 1960. I've got my eye on a beautiful treadmill there. Then I just drove around Cypress. By the time I got back, not only was lunch done but everyone was gone. I felt bad about that but good about not CRASHING. DW was good. When I came in, she DUMPED the peach cobbler down the drain. A waste? Yes. But it was a good thing.

Long run and 1.4 lbs lost

What a beautiful morning for some exercise and HOLY COW, there were a ton of people at Memorial Park, as many as I've EVER seen there. I debated whether or not to drive into town for such a short run but hey, I've got nothing better to do. And adding on a trip to Whole Foods made it worthwhile.

Today is my long run day. Week 1 of my schedule has me doing 0.5 miles for my long run. Man, I'm anything but proud for admitting that. But I AM CONVINCED by coach Bill that this gradual base building period is what someone in my situation needs. Here are the first 13 weeks of the program.

So, if you look at the big picture (which I'm not supposed to do), I'm up to 13 mpw in just 13 short weeks. The program's heavy on avoiding injury, strictly base building, and getting my bones, tendons, cartilage used to taking a pounding again. After this 13 weeks, I'll still have 4 weeks left to do a little sharpening and possibly do the EP 5K on January 18. That's my plan to get back into this running thing. My 5K should suck enough on the 18th to motivate me into the spring to keep kicking a** and taking names on the weight loss.