Double Whammy Morning Workout

Triathletes are no strangers to double workout days. I regularly have two double workout days scheduled per day and have been doing that for years.

Good morning, Sunshine!

Last Tuesday though, I did the double workout before going in for work and that was definitely a first.

Terry was already in the indoor pool.

Why would I do such a thing? Well, I had a fairly short run workout on tap with 5.5 minutes and a shorter than usual swim with 2,800 yards.... This should have been less than two hours worth of workouts and if I get up just 30 minutes earlier (4am), I am getting everything out of the way in the morning and can relax in the evening.



I picked the outdoor pool.


Both workouts ran a little over and I cut it very close with getting to work on time.

Nevertheless, it was worth getting it all out of the way in the morning, but dang it certainly caught up with me, when the alarm went off the next morning for a 6.5 mile run... Actually during Wednesday's run, I felt so miserable and tired that I was already plotting the plan of skipping my morning swim on Thursday, but an early night on Wednesday took care of that.

Bottom line, double whammy morning workouts are probably not going to become a stable in my workout schedule... I need my sleep!

Joy Ride with a Twist

Every now and then, I have a cycling workout in my schedule titled "Joy Ride" with the instructions to grab a friend and go on a ride and enjoy.


Old Spartanburg Hwy



Normally, I would join local group ride, but sometimes, I enjoy just being out there by myself alone with my thoughts. Besides, my usual Monday night group ride was doing over 40 miles and that wouldn't get me back home until 9.30pm and I didn't feel that!



First half under clouds, but then I headed towards the blue skies.

In order to make my solo outing a little more exciting, I mapped out a joy ride with a twist.



Here comes the sun!



Over the weekend, I discovered STRAVA.



Where are the cows today??


Strava is basically a training log (currently for running and cycling) with a little bit of a social network component (you can follow people, people can follow you). The huge difference to any other training log is: it takes your gps data from your Garmin or the Strava app and compares your times in predefined segments. For example a sprint zone from a local ride or a famous climb in your area. The segments are defined by Strava users and you can add segments from your own rides. You are then being ranked against anybody on Strava that uploaded a route that included that segment.


Down that road is another segment that I plan on tackling soon to improve my posted time!



While I rode in an area that I ride after work all the time, I spiced things up a little bit, by picking five segments and combine them in a 30 mile ride.  Not only did I discover a new road, but it also made me combine the roads that I know in a way that I haven't done before...

Bye bye cloudy skies!

 So the twist of my joy ride was to really push in on the segments and otherwise take it fairly easy.



Waddel Rd

I am happy to report, that I made QOM (Queen of the Mountain) on Chicken Foot Creek Road... by default, because no other woman has posted a time there yet.... this is just calling for trouble now... I am sure there will be a time posted soon!

Also, I improved my standings in all of the segments. Given that I only had two weeks worth of rides on my Garmin that I could upload, the basic data has been pretty slim.

Love this stretch of road, especially in the sunshine!

Can't wait to get back out there and ride some new segments or improve my times!!

Sometimes I wonder, if I am more competitive than I care to admitt! ;-)

Paris Mtn Sprinternational Bike Course Preview

Sometimes, the best laid plans fail. Good thing, that there is always option B... and option C is maybe a good idea as well.

So the original plan was to hit the Paris Mountain trails for a little off road action. After my complaints from last week, that I don't have a trail running buddy, Lindsay offered to join me. Unfortunately, we were not aware that the state park would not open until 8am and we stood in front of the locked gate at 6.30am. Option B was to head over to the Swampy and knock 4 miles out there... Run and done. Can't even remember the last time I ran with somebody, so that was definitely fun!

The original plan also consisted of the idea, to head out and do the Paris Mtn Sprinternal bike course, right after completing the run. But since the trail run didn't happen, I headed back home and got changed there and rode to the course from the house.

I intended to ride the course twice, but Coach Katie mentioned that the route can get pretty busy, so I wanted to keep the option of doing a complete second loop open.

As I mentioned above, I rode from the house and it's about two miles to the bottom of Altamont on the Furman side, where I would pick up the course. In the race, you don't hit this climb until mile 11, about half way through. Since I just started riding and was planning on doing the climb twice anyways, I took the first ascent fairly easy... If you can ever call a climb up Paris easy.


Paris Mtn Sprinternational Bike Course

 Within the first mile of the climb, I could see three riders a little up the road and while I wanted to take it "easy", if you see a rabbit, you might as well chase it. It took me a while to finally catch up with them and pass, only to drop my water bottle one minute later, having to stop and being passed by them and then the chase started all over. I caught two of them, but the third guy made it up Paris before me...Dang! First ascent in the books with 19m 44s.... I am happy with anything under 20 minutes on this climb.

I didn't take a break at the top, just kept on rolling... Boy, do I suck at descending. I think for me it's probably going to be more important to practice that descend, because you can lose a ton of time and it's basically for free, especially when you about killed yourself getting up the mountain. During this first descent, I also decided that I am going to use the road bike for that race. The roadie (I used the road bike on Saturday's ride) just corners better and the whole course is either up or down, so really not a lot of opportunities to utilize the aero bars.

So the next section I rode today would actually be the first 11 miles of the bike leg and it's no fun... And yes, the traffic was rough and made me rethink my decision to ride this thing twice. On top of an already difficult course, I made my life even harder by turning on "Little Texas" early and catch the climbs on that road as well. Good job, Kat. Quite honestly, I was pretty over the ride, by the time, I approached the Paris climb for the second time.

I was already tired and it had gotten really hot in the meantime... There were no rabbits anywhere, but funny enough, the climb didn't feel harder to me than the first time around. I hit the lap button at 19m 24s on the second ascent... goody goody.... Unfortunately, I descended even slower the second time around... Practice, practice and more practice.

Instead of completing the whole loop a second time, I opted to find an alternative route back to the house, to avoid some of the traffice and quite honestly, more of those hills. But I still wanted to hit my total of 40 miles for the day, so I hit up the Swampy for the second time, but this time on the bike. At this point, it must have been close to 11am and the trail was packed!!! No way to go fast with so many people around, but I was toast anyways, so I pedaled up to Travelers Rest on the trail and the looped back home on the road.

Bottom line: I am glad that I took the time to ride the course in advance, but it's not going to become a regular thing. Traffic on Mtn Creek Rd and State Park Rd is just way too heavy. I am certainly planning on putting Paris on the calendar more often and not only work on the climb, but really try to improve my descending skills as well.

Heavy Stuff

Today is Friday! YAY! And I will be leaving work early to watch quarterfinal match Germany vs Greece in the Euro Cup. I normally skip the group games, but am all in starting with the quarter finals usually… Good thing that I have a bunch of German co-workers that understand and I actually invited myself to a co-workers house to cheer our team on.

It's a cycling jersey, not a soccer jersey... works either way!

International soccer tournaments have always been such a nation uniting event ("The Miracle of Bern" anybody?) for Germany and it's weird for me when these events are coming up and I am sort of participating in the ritual still, even though I haven't lived in Germany for the last 7 years.

It's crazy, how much our nationalitiy is ingrained in our brains and habits. On the other side, a lot of my German friends would probably state, that I am completely Americanized at this point. Once you have been living in another country for this long, I think there will always be something missing, no matter where you go. I totally catch myself sometimes wondering, what I am still doing here? Don't get me wrong, I am happy and live a very blessed life, but if it wasn't for Terry, I would have left the US years ago…. I miss my family a lot.

Oh, this is really some heavy stuff for a Friday and the post started off on such a fun topic and then it went downhill from there! ;-)

On a training note for this week: Things have been going pretty decent. Other than a slightly shorter than planned bike ride (due to working late) last night everything went just according the training schedule. Is it just me or are there other people out there being OCD about their training plans? I definitely fail at being flexible and seeing the big picture at times and just put myself under a bunch of pressure. On the other hand, I never stood at a start line not feeling 100% prepared for the task… Granted, I have been pretty lucky so far with injuries etc.

There are a couple of fun workouts on tap for this weekend… I'll report back on Monday.

A Breather

Things are little funny around these parts right now... I am struggling with motivation. That is basically unheard of and makes me wonder, if I am flirting with burn out and/or overtraining.

It started innocently enough with thunder and lighting on Thursday morning, when the alarm went off at 4.30am for my morning swim. Lighting means the pool would be closed and I welcomed the 1.5 more hours of sleep this skipped swim would give me. For the afternoon, I had a bike ride on tap, but was seriously spending all day dreading it. So sometime in the late afternoon, I decided to make Thursday a rest day.

Friday morning, I actually got myself out of bed and was able to put in a decent six miler with a couple of tempo intervals on the road. So basically, I started out the day on a good note, but it sure went downhill from there. At work, we had a fundraiser bake sale and I went bananas... I had as much sugar that day, that I am honestly surprised, that I didn't bounce of the walls by 9am. Since I already barrelled down the sugar highway, I topped off a day with poor descision making by having a milk shake for dinner.

For Saturday, I "only" had a 35 mile bike ride on the schedule, but Coach Katie offered a little training camp consisting of a lake swim and a 100 mile bike ride. Even though I didn't have anything big on the tap, this idea sounded really appealing earlier in the week and Terry and I decided to do it, but with a shorter bike ride (around 60 miles) since we both haven't been logging any mileage even close to 100 since before Charleston Half. The swim started out well enough, but I wasn't feeling it. We did a draft practice that had me chase feet that were going in the wrong direction, the sea grass and random leaves in the water freaked me out... I felt pretty stressed and it has been a long time since I was feeling stressed in open water. Next up was the bike ride. The group started out together, but Terry and I were dropped pretty quickly. No hard feelings, those guys had a 100 miles to do and bigger fish to fry and I just didn't want to try to push a pace that I wasn't comfortable even if I was doing less mileage. About 10 miles in, Terry pulled up next to me saying that he wasn't feeling it.... What a relieve, because I wasn't feeling it either. I spent the time on the bike fretting about how much stuff needs to get done at home and how much longer we'll be out on the road and how late it's going to be before we get back to the house. We decided to cut the ride short and ended up with a little over 30 miles, had lunch on our way back home, sat on the patio and talked. The rest of the afternoon was spend with some house duties, a doggy walk and a lot of couch time.

Sunday marked the return of my run buddy. I haven't mentioned it here, but Karma was out of commission for running for the last six months due to heartworms and just got cleared for exercise last week. In order to celebrate this, I originally planned to take her out to the trails, but then decided against it, because this puppy needs to build up some endurance first, before we start hitting the trails for longer runs. I had 9 miles on a hilly route on tap and hilly we have available from the house. So I did a five mile loop first, then picked up Karma for four more miles. She was dragging her paws by the end of the run, but otherwise held up great! Can't wait for her to be comfortable running 6+ miles again, so I have a trail buddy! Since Terry doesn't like to run trails and I don't like to run trails by myself, she is my ticket to trail running and I sure need a change of scenary. Overall it was a pretty decent run.

Now that you have seen my training schedule from Friday to Sunday, you might wonder, how I could possibly say that I am struggling with motivation... I think the most noticeable part for me were my eating habits over the weekend. I basically ate like crap and didn't care.... I knew that I will regret is sooner or later, but was quite bratty about it: I don't want to eat healthy, I need a break, I have been doing to good, but nobody can keep this up forever, yada yada yada.

Today is Monday. A new week, a new beginning and a new chance. Here is the game plan:

1. Stick to the plan, don't do more than the plan. I tend to train more, just because I like to train, but the bottom line is, I don't have another race until early August and it's a shorter distance (Sprinternational), so there is really no need for me to log huge mileage. The big mileage is going to return soon enough, once B2B Half training is ramping back up... Don't burn yourself out!
2. If you don't feel it, then you don't feel it... Don't beat yourself up for skipping a session here and there.
3. Remember that you like to eat healthy! Treat yourself, but work on moderation. It can't be, that you eat either no treats at all or have a milkshake for dinner. There has to be a middle ground.
4. If you don't feel blogging, then don't blog. Sometimes, trying to put content on this blog is a stressor for me and it's completely made up in my head, because I know that there is nobody out there refreshing their browser every five minutes checking for an update.
5. Breath and enjoy the summer!!

Race Report: Festival of Flowers International



Portion of Team Malone Coaching racing at FoF.



1,500 meter lake swim - 24 mile bike - 6.2 mile run

Results (based on chip time):

Swim 31m 23s (1:55 min/ 100 yards) GR 16/62 AG 4/9

T1 1m 02s

Bike 1h 12m 53s (speed  19.76 mph) GR 29/62 AG 4/9

T2 1m 16s

Run 56m 58s (pace 9:11 min/mile) GR 35/62 AG 4/9

TOTAL 2h 43m 30s GR 25/62 AG 4/9

GR= gender rank AG= age group



Pre-Race:

We left Greenville around 1pm on Saturday to make the trip down to Greenwood. We picked up our package first at the Lake Greenwood State Park (also the event site) and then got the 3 mile 2.6 mile traper run out of the way. I heard a lot about how miserably hot the run course can get at this race and running our taper miles on some of the run course already gave me the idea. It was quite miserable.

After we completed our run, we headed to our hotel, checked in, grabbed showers, almost got sucked into watching Lord of the Rings, but eventually were able to switch off the TV to find some pre race pizza. Thanks to urbanspoon and yelp, we ended up at The Mill House and had some really yummie food.

The rest of the night was very very lazy and relaxed, lights out by 9.30pm.

Wake-up call at 5am. Had breakfast (3 slices of toast, almond butter and a banana), got dressed, packed up the car and on the road again back to the state park.

Arrived with plenty of time to get transition ready and chit chat with our team mates. Heading over to the swim start for the pre race instructions. They played the national anthem and a minute later the open division was off.

The purple capes (all women age groupers, athenas and relay) were sent off 8 minutes later... Did I mentioned that it drizzled??

Swim:

I position myself in the second row to the right of the field, especially because we were supposed to have the buoys always on our left side. I had plenty of space until 10 seconds before the start when it felt like a bunch of people rushed into this area. Needless to say, the first 500 meters were quite the washing machine, but at least I didn't get kicked and the pack that I was in, seemed to know what the were doing and where we have to go.

Other than a big gulp of lake water right at the beginning, this was a decent swim. I felt like I had a good rhythm. After the first turn bouy at 500 meters, I pretty much was on my own, not a lot of drafting going on. Half way through the swim I noticed that it was pouring down... Looked like hot temps on the run wouldn't be an issue this year.

While there was not a lot of chop on the lake, there were some really strong currents going on and it sometimes felt like you were lifted off and then dropped a couple of yards away. Especially after the second turn buoy at 1,000 meters I was constantly correcting course.

For the last couple of hundred meters, I was neck to neck with another purple cap. When we got out of water, I saw it was another girl from the G'ville/ Spartanburg area that I see training every now and then and thought I was in good company getting out of the water with her. Some of the spectators commented that we had a fast swim. When I looked down on my watch I saw 31 minutes something. While that's not bad, I was hoping for under 30 minutes.

T1:

I have seen better and I have seen worse, so I am not complaining about the transition time. It was alright.

Bike:

The bike mount line is on a little hill and the way out of the state park is a little rolling. As soon as I was on the flatter section, I popped a gel and then started hydrating.

This race has really nice bike course with a bunch of rolling hills, but nothing too steep. I only had to switch to the small chain ring a couple of times and was able to stay areo for most of the bike. The rain went from a drizzle to a downpour and back at least 10 times. In all the races I have been doing over the last four years, this was my very first race in rain from the start to the finish... But at least it wasn't hot. And since the bike course doesn't have major hills, I never felt uncomfortable or unsafe.

I had (as usual) set my Garmin up to lap every five miles and was happy with the splits that I saw. The beginning of the bike course felt a little lonely until the slower male swimmers or older guys (started after us) started catching up with me. The bike course never felt crowded and I was pleased to see referees on the course to crack down on drafting.

Once I was at 30 minutes in the bike, I popped my second and last gel of the race. I felt good, no major pains and aches. Around mile 13, I got passed by a girl in my age group, but that was the only time I got passed by somebody my age on the bike or the run.

Overall, I am very happy with my bike split. At this point, I am so close to finally crack the 20 mph average during a triathlon.... It's so close I can taste it!!!

T2:

Unfortunately, I didn't listen to my roomie and didn't put my run shoes into a plastic bag. So when I got into transition, I had the pleasure to put on socks and shoes that were soaked... Completely soak... YUCK. Other than that, nothing major happened in transition.

Run:

I had high hopes for this run... I wanted to break 55 minutes for a 10K and based on what I have been doing on the track lately, I thought this should have been obtainable. So seeing a run split of over 56 minutes was dissapointing.

Nevertheless, I felt like I worked hard the whole time. Once again, I ran by feel and didn't have my Garmin with me and based on feel, I certainly thought I was going faster.

The run is an out and back from transition, out to the highway, then you turn off into the State Park at another entrance before turning around. Overall the course has a couple of good rollers and for at least half of it no shade whatsoever (which wasn't a problem on Sunday). The finish is on top of a very steep very short hill and sucks.

During the run, I took water at each aid station (they had 3, one at the turnaround and two that you passed each on the way out and back, they also handed out gels at the first/last one) and walked for a couple of steps when drinking the water before taking off again.

I started feeling tired around mile five, but then I got passed by a guy in Vibrams and he said something about going with him, so I just tried to stay with him. On one of the last turns, most of my team members that were already done cheered in the runners. I was very happy about the encouragement and it helped me to suck it up on the last couple of hundred yards. I ended up sprinting the hill to the finish, because I thought that somebody in AG was right behind me, which there was nobody and that little sprint just resulted in me almost tossing my cookies.

Post Race:

Once my stomach settled down, I joined the team at their cheering position and we checked in on each other's races. Everyone seemed to have had a great day and while racing in the rain is not really ideal, the cooler temps resulted in a ton of people PR'ing on the course.

After grabbing some cokes and chips and the rain stopping (go figure), we headed over to transition to get our stuff and back to the finish just in time for the awards.

While I hoped that I placed in my age group, after a quick glance at the overall results it looked like I came in 4th (again). Because of that, I was extra surprised, when I got called up as 3rd.

Turns out, that one of the girls ahead wasn't racing age group which took her out of the age group ranking and I moved up a spot. Nevertheless, the official results on the event website show me in 4th. Either way, I think I had a good race!

After shooting a quick team picture, we then headed back to Greenville... Not without stopping at a Mexican place to stuff our face. The rest of the Sunday was spent relaxing with the hubs, washing clothes and drying shoes and bags etc.

Labels

Recently, I have been on a complete nutrition & health podcast binge. I just can't get enough and  download anything I can get my fingers on.

But things can get confusing pretty fast with all of this information and unfortunately, sometimes these experts are contradicting themselves. In the light of that, I am trying to find the golden nuggets, that I can extract for my personal eating choices. Changes, that I want to apply to improve my health and performance. A concept, that has resonated with me a lot is JERF. JERF stands for "Just Eat Real Food" and the expression has been coined by Sean Croxton from undergroundwellness.com.

I like JERF because it's simple and free... You just try to eat foods that have been minimally processed by yourself in the act of taking them out of the fridge or pantry and cook them. It's fruits and veggies, meats and dairy and grains. In my opinion there is no need for anybody to cut out a food group like meat and dairy or grains, if you don't show any sensitivity towards them.

On top of that, I also don't like to put a label on me saying that I am e.g. vegetarian, paleo, zone, gaps etc. I don't like the limitations of these diets and the expectation* that seems to come with them.  Don't get me wrong, all of those things have their place! A lot of people with e.g. arthirits have great results with a paleo diet in managing their symptoms. If you are dairy or gluten intolerant, you can improve your health drastically, by "just" cutting out those food groups. But for somebody that doesn't show any signs of food sensititvity or inflammatory issues, I just don't see the need for it. Of course things can always change. What worked for you two years ago, might not work for you today. What you don't realize today, you might connect the dots tomorrow about a health issue you have and the foods you are eating.

* Just one example from a couple of weeks ago was a food blogger that posted a "vegan" recipe only to be told by her audience, that honey is not vegan and how dare she can calls this a vegan recipe. Everyone needs to relax a little... If your opinion is that honey is not vegan, then don't eat it. Your choice!

What I start believing more and more is the fact, that instead of popping this or that pill for an ailment*, we need to clean up our diet. It's real foods, that put real nutritients in our bodies. Stuff that doesn't make us addicted to it (Hello sugar!) and/or change our brain chemistry and/or hormone balances.

* Actually, there are resources out there, that give you the info on which foods you should consume for whatever your ailments is.

"There is no treatment or drug which can overcome or negate the effects of a poor diet, inadequate nutrition, lack of exercise, and an unhealthy lifestyle."  David Getoff

 But I also believe in the 80/20 rule. Try to make the best possible choices at least 80% of the time and give myself a pass for the remaining time. There are fast food burgers and ice creme on my "plan". I don't want to completely stress out over a menu when I am out with friends, because I don't know what's in the food. I want life to be fun and don't want food be a stressor to me.

This is not about weight loss or weight maintenance, this is about continuously learning and about applying the things to your life that you think are right for you. There is no one size fits all. All I can recommend is that you educate yourself and find the size that fits you.

And I am stepping down from my soap box now.

Spectathlon

Another weekend bites the dust. So sad.

But there is many a thing to report from the weekend. Unfortunately, I ruined all the pictures that I took Saturday, so all I have here are the pictures from Sunday's long run.

Despite, the picture disaster, let's start with Saturday. 

Steaming Furman Lake

We had a super early wake-up call Saturday morning, because it was RACE DAY! Not for me though... It was race day for Terry and I was signed up to volunteer. This race was actually my very first triathlon (and his') and I have done it every year since then. Since I am already signed up for so many other races, I decided to skip this one. 

Bell Tower on Furman Lake

 It was actually nice to be at a race and not race. A whole bunch of the Malone Coaching Team was there to volunteer and we were in charge of the transition area. Pre race, that consisted mostly of trying to find spots for people on bike racks. Then we made sure that people don't mount their bikes in transition and that helmets were buckled before they headed out. I then changed position to the bike in and run out spot. After close to three hours of standing around and cheering, I felt wiped.

2.5 miles into a 9 mile run

 But we were not done yet. As soon as we were able to leave, we headed out for 57 miles on the bike. We did a modified version of the Tour de Paws metric century. Originally, it was supposed to be a girl's ride, just Audrey and I, but Terry doesn't like to ride by himself, so he ended up joining us, despite the fact that he just raced! We ended up having a great ride with awesome conditions (blue skies, but not hot hot!). The only gripe was 20 miles of headwind on the way back in.

View of Paris Mountain from the Bunny Trail

 The rest of the Saturday was spent eating junk food and relaxation... Of course there was also a doggy walk!

Empty Bunny Trail

 The next morning, the wake-up call was a little later, but still pretty early. It's nice, how empty the bunny trail is, if you get out there around 7am.

Ghost Bike on Bunny Trail

On tap was a nine miler with six miles with specific pace goals. The run went well and it was still fairly cool when I started out. I did a simple out and back on the Swampy while listening to podcasts.

Blooming Trees

This week is race week once again... Olympic distance triathlon on Sunday. would be nice, if we'd get lucky with the cooler temps as well. We'll see.

Month in Review: May

We made it through May and despite what the calendar says, summer has most definitely arrived in the Carolinas.

Let's get to meat of the review... Numbers, numbers, numbers...

May was a great bike months for me with a couple of good rides like when we rode to Campobello and back or when we climbed Caesars Head or when we joined a new (to us) shop ride and when we climbed some more doing the Double Bakery ride. All in all, I put roundabout 100 more miles in on the bike compared to what I rode in April. This makes me super happy, because biking just makes me very happy.

The run mileage was around 12 miles less that what I have been doing in April, but I can honestly say, that there is no junk mile in these 78 miles in May. Every run had a purpose and paces or hr zones to hit. It wasn't always pretty, but I am mostly seeing progress right now. Actually, I got an e-mail response from Coach Katie to a logged track workout saying: "the speed that you ordered has arrived!" BOOYAH!

Swimming is my comfort zone, but to be honest, while I like the ring of over 30K yards for the month, pool swims are a little taxing for me right now mentally. I totally see the purpose for them, but I would rather just open water swim every day... A girl can dream!

After an hiatus from strength training in the month of April, I put in a whopping 1.5 hours doing weights. Each session was around 30 minutes long and left me sore for several days. I am a strength whimp right now and it doesn't make me happy. It's the same old story, that once the swimbikerun gets more, the first things that I drop is strength and yoga. Maybe I'll do a little better in June, but I wouldn't bet money on it to be honest.

We are still walking the dog almost every night and really use that time to catch up on each other's day without the distraction of technology and Karma is a much happier (read: quieter) dog. We always get a kick out of people that take their dog for a drive in the golf cart instead of walking their dogs. A lot of these dog owners and their dogs look like they would need to walk... And then people wonder about the obesity crisis... Just saying.

On the nutrition front, things are going extremely well right now. After my "Too much Protein" post, I (once again) tweaked my diet and feel much better with it and currently don't have any problems maintaining my happy weight, despite the occasional pigout weekend. I am basically down to eating meat once a week at this point and have no problem hitting my protein target with protein sources other than meat. I do still eat dairy products and eggs, but also use grains and nuts as protein sources.