Weekend #3 Reflections

It was pretty insanely busy the last few days - but this blog serves as a journal for us, and some accountability for our health goals, so here we go!

Thursday and Friday of last week we followed our diets to a T - lots of "powerfoods", protein, and variety. Good food! Friday nights' dinner is our cheat meal of the week, and then I realized that I had grabbed a healthy pizza, so we were really not cheating much at all aside from the 12 oz real sugar colas we downed...

However, there was some cheating on the weekend.

I purposely packed food for a weekend away so that as we were driving we would not be tempted to eat fast food. It worked! John and I had sandwiches on our road trip and did not much while at a family members house later in the day on Saturday. We even found a decent dinner while out in the big city before a concert: philly cheese steak sandwiches. Aside from the white bread, it had provolone and fresh beef!

However, we caved a couple hours later at the show were at thanks to the smells wafting all around us: pizza, nachos, popcorn, sodas, beer - it is amazing the way that brain is cued in to smells. So, we enjoyed a slice of pizza and some nachos - we did not finish 'em! And we got a soda after we had two waters. It was hot out...

The hotel we stayed at provided us with a free fruit and nut basket so that, in addition to a little leftover bubbly, would be our breakfast on Sunday. Healthy but not filling - thank goodness I keep a stash of Odwalla bars in our trunk! We met up with a friend on Sunday that introduced us to a little cafe that served amazingly rich breakfasts. This meal would turn out to be so filling that we did not eat again until about five hours later. We had six inch Subway sandwiches for dinner and saved the other halves for our lunches today - a good plan! Eating just half the sandwich is hard when you are used to eating a footlong, as in John's case - so I was proud of his decision.

All in all, I think that the only thing we should have done differently was not had nachos - there is no nutritional value. There IS in pizza, tho ;)

We have a new challenge starting this week, food wise: we have long term houseguests. How will we do meals together? What if we don't like their food or they don't like ours? I know that tonight there will be a pie in my kitchen. How do I say, "I'm sorry...I am trying to lose weight" when it was homemade with love? Ohhh goodness...need to be strong! This is for our health!

So today: we have the normal round of Greek yogurt & fruit, boiled egg, apple slices, almonds, a pudding cup and our sandwiches for lunch.

Taking it one day at a time....

Day 20: Rest Day and the experts at Harvard Medical School

Once again, I defer to the experts on the benefits of rest.

Benefits of Sleep
A resource from the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School

"It may seem obvious that sleep is beneficial. Even without fully grasping what sleep does for us, we know that going without sleep for too long makes us feel terrible, and that getting a good night's sleep can make us feel ready to take on the world.

Scientists have gone to great lengths to fully understand sleep's benefits. In studies of humans and other animals, they have discovered that sleep plays a critical role in immune function, metabolism, memory, learning, and other vital functions. The features in this section explore these discoveries and describe specific ways in which we all benefit from sleep.

Why Do We Sleep, Anyway?

Although scientists aren't entirely sure why we sleep, they have many ideas about the functions of this mysterious part of our lives. While some of these functions may have deep evolutionary roots, others, such as sleep's potential role in memory and health, seem particularly relevant to life in the 21st century. more

Sleep, Learning, and Memory

It may not be surprising that it is more difficult to take in new information following a night of inadequate or disturbed sleep. What’s more surprising is that it is just as important to get a good night’s sleep after learning something new in order to process and retain the information that has been learned. more

Why Sleep Matters [6:13]

Sleep is vital for learning and memory, and lack of sleep impacts our health, safety, and longevity."

watch video

Thanks for reading and take care of yourself!

Day 19: Long Run... and a Cloud of Fail

Yep, confession again.  You know the point is, we keep getting back up when we blow it.

To understand the running fail, you would need to understand that the night before we got really crummy sleep.  It's bee a struggle for Addie for a while, which is actually part of why she started running before we were a "we".

We just don't function at our best without good sleep.  Emotions tend to be a little raw.  We might do a proper article on the science of sleeping at some point here.  Some people seem to do fine with little sleep.  I am not one of them.  Addie is a little better, but she tends to have a tougher time winding down at the end of the day.

The net of it is we did start out on an hour run that turned into about a 20 minute or so run, walk, and talk.

All is not lost.  You don't lose unless you quit.  We also had a bit of a long drive to see U2 play in Seattle on the 360 Tour!  Freakin' awesome!

We did a bit of moving around during the show.  I ran around up several levels and back down flights of stairs looking for a booth to get goods that didn't have a ton o' people.  We saw it with bathroom lines, and then further down the stadium a bathroom with no line.  I figured there could be the same for merch.  We also jumped around a lot during the show (which opened with Lenny Kravitz).  Sweet!

So the end result is we didn't exactly follow our plan, but we didn't totally blow it either.  And we got to see U2 live on maybe the biggest rock show production in history.

Tune in for week 4!!

Thanks for reading and take care of yourself!

Day 18: Stretching & advice from Mayo Clinic

Today is a stretching day.

Since I've already covered that I feel stretching is beneficial - and since I've freely admitted I am not a doctor or health expert, I thought I would have the experts at Mayo Clinic make my case for me:

Stretching: Focus on flexibility

You can stretch anytime, anywhere. Just follow these tips to do it safely and effectively.

By Mayo Clinic staff

"Stretching may take a back seat to your exercise routine. You may think that stretching your hamstrings and calves is just something to be done if you have a few extra minutes before or after pounding out some miles on the treadmill. The main concern is exercising, not stretching, right?

Not so fast. Although studies about the benefits of stretching are mixed, stretching may help you improve your flexibility, which in turn may improve your athletic performance and decrease your risk of injury. Understand why stretching can help — and how to stretch correctly.

Benefits of stretching

Studies about the benefits of stretching have had mixed results. Some show that stretching helps, while others show that stretching has little if any benefit. The main benefits of stretching are thought to be:

    * Improving athletic performance

    * Decreasing the risk of activity-based injuries

Stretching can help improve flexibility. And better flexibility may improve your performance in physical activities or decrease your risk of injuries by helping your joints move through their full range of motion. For instance, say your Achilles tendon is tight and lacks flexibility. If you do a lot of hill walking, your foot may not move through its full range of motion. Over time, this can increase your risk of tendinitis or tendinopathy in your Achilles tendon. Stretching your Achilles tendon, though, may improve the range of motion in your ankle. This, in turn, can decrease the risk of microtrauma to your tendon that can lead to overload and injury.

Stretching also increases blood flow to the muscle. And you may come to enjoy the ritual of stretching before — or better yet, after — hitting the trail, ballet floor or soccer field."

Day 17: Back to Running!

Yay!  It turns out that giving your shins a break and then putting on a movie (Pearl Harbor) while you're running on a treadmill works wonders.

We did the video first, another round of Jillian Michaels "30 Day Shred".  Addie did a push up!  She's very excited.  I think she will do a post about it!

On the treadmill, I was running a pretty good pace.  All in all, I feel pretty good about the week.

I don't feel like I am going hungry at all.  I'm eating every couple of  hours, and it's high protein and nutrient dense food.

"I feel really good about the progress"

I do have some injuries to overcome. But I feel really good about the progress so far.  Addie tells me she can tell I am getting thinner.

Tomorrow is a stretch day.

Thanks for reading and take care of yourself!

Days 16: Video and Treadmill on a huge incline

Wednesdays and Thursdays we do our work outs in the morning before Addie has to leave for work.  We do the video together and then I run on the treadmill (she runs after work).

Day 16, back to "30 Day Shred" with Jillian Michaels.  No, I still don't like her because it's a tough workout.  Oh, but wait -  yes, I do like her because we're seeing results.  I guess I can't have it both ways.  So, it's a good "Oh Lordy, is this over?" 

"So it's a good thing"

Because my shins were feeling beat up from Day 15, I put the incline on 4.0 on the treadmill.  It starts at 0, and goes up by 0.5 increments.  I also walked either at a 3 or 4 mile per hour pace for a full half hour.   I still burned a good level of calories and worked up a good sweat.  4 miles per hour is just at the breaking point where you can barely keep up a very brisk walk and almost need to jog.

Thanks for reading and take care of  yourself!

Day 16 - Meals from Tuesday, May 31

I decided to start posting about our meals the day after we have them - we are still sticking to plan, but that helps us keep track of substitutions when we need to have them.

These were our meals for Tuesday, May 31 - Day 16 of our "Shrinking Belly":

Breakfast: 1 Lean Pocket "breakfasts" - egg, bacon, low fat cheese one

Mid morning snack: Greek yogurt with sliced peaches & boiled egg

Lunch: Layered salad with romaine, spinach, roasted turkey slices, olives, chick peas, tomato, avocado, feta cheese, and low fat dressing. 8 oz of watered down 100% juice. Pineapple tidbits.

Afternoon snacks: almonds, apple slices, chocolate pudding.

Smoothie before and after hour long workout - berry blast.

Dinner: Slow cooked chicken and tri-color peppers with jerk seasonings. Small bowl of multi grain cereal for dessert (and to help our burning palates!)

What is your favorite post-workout protein treat? Smoothies work for us, but I also like string cheese and mixed nuts....