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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.

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.

Too Much Protein!

I am still obsessed with health and exercise podcasts and lately added the Ben Greenfield Podcast to my rotation. I have read a couple of blogs and articles by him over the last couple of years and just thought I'll give it a shot. At the beginning, the podcast felt very long winded, but it has grown on me every since and I enjoy learning about all kinds of aspects about nutrition, training and a more holistic approach to nutrition and training. I am resistant to jump on each and every bandwagon mentioned in the podcast, but so far, there was always a nugget in there for me personally, that I could take away for my nutrition, training and general life.

The other day, I listened to episode #192: What happens when you exercise too much and an interview with Dr. Ted Morter titled How to get rid of migraine headaches forever.

Both podcasts contained some information about how much protein intake is recommended for an individual per day. The episode #193 (by the way: the title is a little misleading, because that was just one question from their Q&A segment) highlighted the protein intake from a macro nutritional standpoint and what happens in your body, if you are taking in more than your recommended amount of protein (here is Ben's response!). The interview dug more into the aspect of how excessive protein consumption is throwing off your body's PH level and causes all kinds of trouble e.g. migraine headaches. Not that I have a problem with that, but this was just the angle of the interview.

In the episode #192, he mentioned the recommended daily protein consumption for athletes as 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (or 0.55gr/ lbs) if you are trying to maintain (not increase) your muscle mass and reach nitrogen balance (amount of protein you eat matches the amount of you use). This amount covers what your body needs for body recovery and muscle repair.

At that point, I pulled out a calculator and typed in my stats to find out the amount of protein that I need and ended up with around 70 grams (rounded up) per day. Then I opened my food log on my iPhone and saw this for last Friday:

I almost fell off my chair. Especially since they also talked about the problems that excessive protein intake can cause.

The funny part of this is, that I have been consciously trying to increase my protein intake since the beginning of the year when I refocused on my nutrition. I have been chugging the protein shakes, eating meat almost every day and even started "spiking" my Greek yoghurt (already high protein) with chocolate protein powder. And now that.

My train of thought took a wrong turn, when I started to focus too much on the macro nutrient pie chart in my food log and completely ignored my total protein intake.

After I recovered from my initial shock, I googled the recommended amount of carbs for endurance athletes and found that anything between 7 and 10 grams per kilogram of body weight (3.2-4.5gr/ lbs) goes. That would mean for me that I should eat between 400 to 570 grams per day.

Quite honestly, I am almost relieved about this. I naturally tend more to carbs and trying to up my protein intake was almost a source of stress at times... I am not even kidding about this!

I was also buying into the whole idea of "eating protein helps keeping you full longer" and often felt like eating carbs just makes your want to eat more carbs. But when thinking about it a little more, I think that mostly applied to sugary carbs. But even if I eat straight veggies, they just don't seem to hold me over that long. (If you have it in you to read more on the topic of sugar, I found this 60 minute report pretty intimidating.) So what do you do, if you want to limit your protein intake, but don't want to be hungry all the time? Add fat to your diet! GASP! I know, I know... That statement goes against every fiber of our media and food marketing conditioned body, but believe it or not: Fat doesn't make you fat!

My goal from here on out is to stay at around 70 grams of protein per day. Increase my carb intake to hit around 500 grams per day and up my fat intake.

With all this being said, I am still a firm believer in calorie consumption vs calorie burn as key for weight management, so all of the above is limited by my daily calorie allowance that is determined by my training volume and intensity. But after listening to the podcast and reading up on the topic, I think that changing my macro nutrient ratio is going to help my body to perform better and decrease the chance of creating health issues.

If you made it all the way to here... Congratulations. Looks like you are ready to join the health geek club! ;-)

Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist, I am just sharing personal experiences and opinions here.

Post Race Food Coma

I finished! I had a great race. There will be a race report, once I wake up out of my post race food coma.

Moose Tracks Sundae

Hefeweizen

Moose Burger and Duck Fat Fries at the Tattooed Moose

Healthy eating will be back... tomorrow!

Follow-Up on "The Bet"

Remember the bet?

In short: Terry is going to go vegan for a week and if he makes it, he'll get a hedge trimmer.

The week was up on Sunday and on Tuesday, my husband bought himself his new hedge trimmer... despite some "accidential" consumption of animal products (no meat, but cheese, milk & butter that was in some of the things he had) during the "vegan" week.

What I have learned out of this: Don't just make a silly little bet while walking the dog... No... sit down and write down all rules & regulations for the bet, otherwise there will be new hedge trimmers in your garage.

Funny, how that happened.

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On a more serious note: Going vegan shouldn't be taken lightly and also brings the need to educate yourself. Sure, there are 5,000 definitions out there and every person in the end has to decide on what is their definition of the vegan lifestyle is in questions such as:

• Is honey vegan?
• Is sugar vegan? I would have never questioned this one, if Wendi hadn't commented on the original post, that bone char is being used in the sugar production. I had no clue!!

Quite honestly, because I never considered a vegan diet for myself, I never even thought a whole lot about these things... And Terry didn't either... I don't think he had a clue what he was getting himself into.

So while he stayed fairly vegan (I bet every vegan reading this, is cringing by the thought of something being "fairly vegan!), I don't think, he fed himself properly with enough calories and enough protein during that week. It all culuminated at our Sunday afternoon swim, when he finished the swim utterly exhausted. Sure, we did have a big weekend in the books and we were both tired, but I do believe that this state of utter exhaustion wouldn't have been reached if he had fueled himself properly. After the swim I was at the point of saying, screw this stupid bet, get your hedge trimmer, I don't care anymore... Just eat properly!

Have you every tried to go "vegan"??
How do you make sure to get enough protein on a vegan diet??

Clicking

Last week, was a big training week. When you are four weeks out from your A race of the season, that's kind to be expected. I haven't trained for a half ironman distance yet and there are different approaches to the whole thing, but coach prescripted big mileage on all three fronts from the past week. But the biggest bulk of it all would be on the weekend.

Between Saturday and Sunday I swimbikerun'ed around 8 hours! EIGHT HOURS! In I loved (almost) every second of this! I think what I love most about training for this race is, that Terry is training for the same race and that we do our workouts on the weekends together.

For Saturday, we had 70 miles on the bike and a 4 mile brick run on tap. Actually, the brick portion of the workout was optional, but I decided to do it anyways, because 1) I wanted to redeem myself for last week's sluggish brick, 2) try out a different fuel option and 3) didn't want to sit in the truck waiting for Terry to get done with his brick.

In order to work on points 1) and 2), I actually carb loaded Friday night. Last week, I had a longer talk with a co-worker that also runs and bikes about my experience from last week and how crappy I felt and she urged me to carb load. When I got home from work Friday night (super late), I had two muffins and called it a night... Probably not the best choice of carbs, but it worked. For breakfast Saturday morning, I had wheat blueberry pancakes (Thanks, Terry!) and almond butter. For the ride, I took eight pieces of Fig Newtons, four Sunrise bars and four Honey Stinger Gels. I demolished the Fig Newtons and the Sunrise bars, but didn't need the Honey Stingers. I felt great during the whole ride and I felt great during the run.... No tummy troubles whatsoever and my energy levels were good the whole time! I was one happy camper! Even though, we rode 10 more miles on the bike than we did the week before, I was still feeling good after we were done.... AND I ran my 4 miles brick in a (barely) sub 9 minute/ mile pace... SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!!! I guess, I am one of those people who need a long warm up (Thanks Melinda for that one! ;-).

For the ride itself, we tried out a new route that went out and back from SCTAC to Hwy 88 and back. We found a modified version of this online and really didn't know what to expect from it, but we both agreed, that it was quite possibly one of our best routes yet. Very pretty roads, not a ton of traffic, very scenic in parts... And when we had to get on busy roads, than it was only for very short stretches. If you are in the area and interested in this ride, here is the link to our version of the route. I even recognized some of the roads we were on from the Greyhound Rescue Ride, that I did in 2009 (no blog back then) and 2010. This route sort of connected the Happy Cow loop that we did a couple of weeks ago with the GRR loop.

The only mishap on the ride... I was wearing a white jersey and white armers after it had rained all night. You probably can't see on the picture, but I assure you that I looked like a hot mess once we were done. Terry was pulling on the ride for the most part (coaches orders since he wasn't able to run as much lately) and his bike tire threw all kinds of crap in my fact and on my jersey! But since that is my only complaint for Saturday's workouts, I obviously don't have much to complain about!

Sunday, we were up and running before 8am again. 14 miles were on tap that day and I would have 4x 1 mile harder pace thrown into the middle. We picked an out and back route on the bunny trail and not even half a mile into my run, I saw this:

Looks like we are getting a CrossFit box on our side of town! Wahooooo!

The run was going really well. I could feel, that my legs are a tad tired, but I really do think that wearing my recovery socks religously really helps in my recovery.

Overall, I ended those 14 miles with a (barely) sub 10 minute/ mile pace and while this is nothing great for a lot of runners, for me, this is EXCELLENT and I couldn't be happier.

In general, I have to say that things are just clicking right now. I have been seeing consistantly better speeds on the bike and better paces on the run... So whatever Katie is putting in my training plan, seems to work! Another mantra of mine: Trust the plan! Trust the plan! ;-)

Now that all the "real" workouts were out of the way, I could look forward to out first open water swim of the season:

Yes, there were a couple of brave souls present, that did the swim without a wetsuit. Seriously, you couldn't have paid me enought to swim in that lake without one, but I am really bad with cold in general...

I did around 1.5 in the lake (which is one big lollipop shaped loop) at a comfortable pace... really just swimming along and enjoying the possibility to do all this. We had amazing people paddling for us to keep us safe on a lake that had a good amount of boating traffic going on that day. A special shout out goes to Cynthia for defending "our" territory in her jon boat.

Even after all of this, I feel great. There was a little bit of soreness going on Monday, but nothing a quick 25 miles with good friends and a hail storm couldn't fix! I also did a track workout this morning and felt great. We are getting now so close to the race, that I can start tasting it and I was expecting to be kind of over training at this point, but quite honestly, I still enjoy myself... Enjoy that I get to share this with my husband and that I spend a whole lot of time with a bunch of great people.

Maintenance Mode

When I lost 60 plus lbs in 2008, I defined my "happy weight" (= an arbitrary number that I will not put on the blog). I don't know what is was about that number, but it just seemed right. I felt good at that weight and I seemed to be easily able to maintain it... And anything less than that, made me look like a wet rat... Trust me, I know... There was the week with the stomach bug.
I was fluctuating around that "happy" weight for around two years and then (very) slowly but surely, the scale creeped back up again. Too slowly for anybody around me to notice much. Of course I did notice it.... I didn't weigh myself on a daily basis, but often enough to see the trend. I just didn't do anything about it.

In the bulk of training for AOMM early last year, I was about 5lbs up from my "happy" weight, but with all of the training going on, who can really think about cutting back calories... right? The thought process was, to take care of it when Mitchell was over. I did an effort for about a week and I expected weight loss out of the week of clean eating, which never came and in no time, I was back eating out every lunch... (A cheeseburger and fries? Of course! I go biking after work, I burn that off in no time.) Once tri season was over, holiday season started and between Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and a couple of birthday parties, I was up around 14lbs from my "happy" weight. I was not overweight based on BMI calculations (how accurate are things things anyways for athletes?), but I was at a point, that I tried on pants before throwing them into my gym bag to make sure they still fit me. I am not joking!

In the middle of January, I decided to finally put a stop to this upward trend and take my nutrition seriously again... for longer than a week. I did this weight loss thing before, there is no reason, I can't do this again. And now I am happy to report, that I hit my goal weight (=happy weight) this week and find myself in mainentance mode once again.

The biggest changes that I did:

• daily calorie burn vs calorie consumption evaluation (shooting for at least a 500 calorie deficit per day = a 1 lbs loss per week)
• take lunch to work
• drink more water
• reduce eating out in general
• treat myself every now and then vs every day
• don't beat myself up, if some days I didn't hit my goals

I want to make this weight (or around this weight) stick this time. I am planning on keeping up these changes (or new habits), because eating better makes me feel better. Also, eating at home is cheaper and not having to buy new clothes is cheaper too!

It's funny, how big of a topic weight is for us endurance athletes. When I talk to my athlete friends and read other athlete's blogs, weight always is a topic. Most of these people are not overweight, but yet we still somewhat obsess about it. It almost sounds like we have it all backwards, because we workout so much, we should be able to eat whatever. But I said it here before and I will say it again: You can't outtrain your diet! (I didn't come up with this, but it's my new mantra.) But a healthy diet will support your athletic goals, not only when it comes to weight, but also in the way you feel. Case in point was the double cheeseburger and fries from a fast food place, that I had after our epic brick on Saturday. It made me sick. Lesson learned (again).

My goal for mainentance mode is to establish eating habits that match my activity level to ensure that I fuel my workouts properly without packing on the pounds again.


Disclaimer: I am obviously not a health professional and just sharing my experiences here.

The Bet

The other night on one of our doggy walks, Terry said out of the blue: "I think, I am going vegan!"

Me: Um... okay.
T: Yes, I don't need meat.
Me: Um... okay.
T: I can do that for at least a couple of days, maybe a week.
Me: Do you want to bet on it?
T: You are going to lose, I can easily live off omletts and stuff for a week.
Me: That would be going vegetarian. You said you want to go vegan. That means no animal products whatsoever.

Silence.

T: What is the wager?
Me: The hedge trimmer, that you have been talking about the last couple of days!

Silence... for the next 5 minutes.

T: Okay, I am going to do it.

Today is Terry's first day of a one week vegan diet. Yesterday, we made a huge grocery haul at Costco stocking up on fruits, veggies, oatmeal, bocca burgers and madras lentils.

Good luck, babe!! ;-)

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We are now at T -4 weeks for the Charleston Half and I hit some major volume in the last two days and this week is going to be even bigger in overall volume.

But before I get into this week's madness, let's have a look at the past weekend:


On Saturday, we met up with our friend Stacy (my partner in crime for AOMM) for 60 miles on the bike. She is currently training for Ironman Texas and had a cutback week... I see the irony in that! ;-) After the bike, Terry and I had a 4 mile brick on tap while she would have to do 8 miles.

The ride started out quite pleasant, the temperature was just right, the rain clouds moved out of the way and the wind hadn't moved in yet. Our first 10 plus miles were warm-up and then we had a 20 mile hard effort on tap. Later, I read in Training Peaks, that I was supposed to draft off Terry for those 20 hard miles, but I failed to read the instructions completely and ended up doing it without the benefit of the draft. By that time, the wind had kicked in and I was working my tail off. After those 20 miles (mile 31 of the ride) my legs just felt cooked. The next 10 miles, I just went through the motions, but eventually had to tell my training partners, that I felt less than stellar. We then stopped at a gas station and I had a huge Snickers bar, thinking that I might be fighting off a bonk, but even the Snickers didn't make much of a difference. I was one happy camper, when we finally got back to her house after 60 miles, but dang, there was still this 4 mile brick.

Since both Stacy and Terry are so much faster runners than I am, we split up for this brick after quick instructions from Stacy on how to get to a river path in her subdivision. The first mile through the subdivision was very hilly, but once I was on the river path, it was fairly flat. Instead of doing two loops around, I did one loop and then went straight down to the river again, to cut out one mile of hills, because my quads were screaming bloody murder at this point.

The drive home was quite painful. I just felt the lactid acid accumulating in my legs and didn't know how to sit anymore. We stopped to pick up some really unhealthy food on our way home and it took them forever to get our order done and I was just wiggling around whenever I wasn't completely zonked out. After our late lunch and squeezing myself into my recovery socks, we took the dog out for a 3 mile walk... That finally made me feel somewhat normal again. Still, I was dreading the 12 miles run planned for Sunday.

I wore my knee high recovery socks (sexy right?) to bed that night and felt cautiously optimistic, since I was sleeping like a rock for around 9 hours. After a light breakfast and skyping with my mom, I hit the bunny trail and wouldn't you know... I felt pretty good. Actually, I felt so good, that I decided to make a half marathon out of the 12 miles on the plan. Kaboom!

This weekend has me feeling pretty good about the half ironman training at this point. Even though Saturday was a rough day for me (better in training than on race day), I am very happy about how my legs bounced back. This week will have some serious volume and a couple of two a days, but it's now or never to get the high volume in. Before we know it, it will be time to taper.

Barley, Beets and Banana Peppers

Remember the whole "clean eating" resolution? Well, not really resolution, but either way... I have been sticking with it for the last two months. I feel great, I dropped some serious weight, my pants fit better again and my training is going well.

I implemented several changes in the last couple of months and will eventually write a whole big post about it to explain the how's and the why's. But today, I just wanna talk about the change, that I believe made the biggest impact:

Take my lunch to work.

Yesterday's creation:
Chicken, beets, artichokes, barley and
2 table spoons of Italian dressing

I know this is not great news. Every weightloss blog and podcast talks about it, every nutritionist recommends it, but I just didn't do it. I was too lazy. Heck, I lost 60lbs a couple of years ago and still when out for lunch every day during the week.

But for whatever reason, this time around, I wanted to have more control of what I am putting into my body... While calories in vs out is the determining factor if you are losing, gaining or maintaining weight, I wanted to start improving the quality of the calories that I am taking in.

Since I am not a great cook and mostly prepare my meals for the next day between getting home, walking the dog, unpacking my bags from that day's workout and repacking my bags for the next day of workouts, I developed "go-to" meals pretty fast. My two standards are some sort of salad creation (see above) and some sort of wrap creation.

In order to no get too bored about this, I switch the ingredients around every day. And when just switching stuff around wasn't quite enough, I added new (to me) foods that I have not used in the past, like barley, beets, banana peppers and artichokes... It would sound better, if they were called "bartichokes"... I know, not funny!

Actually, I started to cook a whole box of quinoa one night and just keep it in the fridge and then we just throw it into anything we can think of e.g. salads, scrambled eggs, cottage cheese. A couple of months ago I bought a box of barley, but haven't cooked it until earlier this week and I see barley being utilized by us the same way we use quinoa.

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In other news:

Since daylight savings started, Terry and I are taking the dog for a walk for at least 2 miles every night. So far, we got lucky with the weather and haven't gotten rained out yet. We only don't walk her, if I have an evening workout and it's already dark by the time I get home. Then Terry usually takes her for a shorter walk by himself.

It keeps the dog's energy level in check and she's not bouncing around the house like crazy.

Here are some pictures from a recent walk... Spring is here indeed:

Free

 Lately, I have been finding some pretty good resources online... for training and nutrition.

And they are free. Here we go:


BodyRock.TV

Once you get over the skimpy outfit of the host, you see a great resource for workout ideas to spice up your own workouts or you can might as well just follow along their programming. Most of the workouts can be done with little or no equipment. They incorporate high intensity intervals in their routines which make the workouts short, but super tough.

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Late last year, when I had all that back trouble, I did the "Foundation Training" to conquer the beast and had pretty good result. If you don't want to by the book you are in luck, because they have posted several of their exercises as video on the website.

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The Jillian Michaels Show

Podcast Description

Jillian Michaels, America's Health and Wellness guru, brings you the Jillian Michaels Show. An entertaining, inspirational, informative show that gives you tools to find health and happiness in all areas of your life.

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Fat 2 Fit Radio

Podcast Description

Fat 2 Fit Radio is an Internet radio show, or podcast, featuring Russ Turley and Jeff Ainslie. Join us each episode as we share web sites, insights, information, recipes, weekly weigh-ins and more to help you go from fat to fit.

The show is not about fad diets, or get skinny quick schemes. We’re advocating weight loss through lifestyle change, not quick fixes – they simply don’t exist. Stop eating and acting like a fat person and start emulating the diet and habits of a fit person. During each episode we’ll tackle one or more exercise, fitness or diet topics. Week after week if you incorporate the ideas and tips we’re sharing, you will lose weight and start looking and feeling better.

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CrossFit Radio

 Podcast Description

CrossFit Radio is a free service of the CrossFit Journal. The shows are live interviews and discussions about all things CrossFit. The show's hosts interview a wide variety of guests, including community members, trainers, HQ staff and even opponents of CrossFit. The topics cover the full spectrum of the CrossFit world. Interviewees speak of their experiences, insights, strategies, approaches around all aspects of functional movement and elite fitness. The shows vary in length and scope, but tend to be focused around a single interview and run about an hour.

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You Tube Channels:

Zuzka Light
- The Official YouTube Channel for Zuzana Light, co-founder of BodyRock.Tv and fitness personality.

Lionsgate BeFit
- Get high-quality, free workouts on Lionsgate BeFit! Transform your body and workout with top fitness trainers Jillian Michaels, Denise Austin, Jane Fonda and more. Slim your waistline, tighten and tone your arms and get a great butt for free. Are you ready to be fit?

 

More Progress?

Tried to come up with a leap year reference title, but no dice... My brain can't produce such a thing today. Leap or no leap!

So, do you remember the progress post from a couple of weeks ago? Today was hill repeat day again.

As a reminder: this was a little over five weeks ago:

My next time doing this workout 2.5 weeks ago:

And this was today:

I am not quite sure, if this can be called a complete success and another leap (HA!) forward in my running, because while the repeats are mostly faster than my last attempt, the heart rate has gone up some too... Either way, it's nice to see a couple of repeats with a 7 something pace! ;-) And obviously, I was running out of steam on the last one... Oh well.

In all three cases, I did the exact same warm up loop, before hitting my designated "hill repeat" hill in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, today once again fell short of the six miles I was planning on, because of tummy troubles. I don't know what it is with hill repeats and tummy troubles. It's also a little frustrating, since I eat super clean these days. The only thing that comes to mind, that today was an unusual time for me to run and that maybe had something to do with it. There is a reason, that I always do the repeats on the same hill, that is just a quarter of a mile away from the house. :-)

Catching Up

Well, let's just start a list and see what we are going to end up with:

1. We are not on our way to Myrtle Beach. To explain this a little: Terry was signed up for the Myrtle Beach Marathon tomorrow. Tomorrow will also be four weeks, since Terry was on a run. The doc thinks it's tendonitis, but he wouldn't rule out a stress fracture either. Stress fractures can be sneaking, because a lot of the time they are not visible on x-rays. Now we just wait and see... At least he's still able to bike and swim.
2. First there was talk about going down anyways for the weekend, but then we decided is wasn't worth the money and the time... Now we have some nice alternative plans lined up for the weekend, that I am looking forward to. Quite honestly, I don't care for Myrtle Beach all that much.
3. This weekend is carneval in Germany. Really carneval crazy areas started with the celebrations yesterday and it normally culuminates in a big parade on Monday, before things settle down again. Having been a part of a carneval club for several years as a teenager and enjoyed the partying, I really miss Germany a little more than usual these days.
4. Yesterday at the pool, coach and I were talking about why a lot of dudes drag their feet in the water, while girls tend to stay afloat a little better. My reasoning and speaking for me personally: It's the blubber that I have in my butt. It's a floatation device.... That's my story and I am sticking to it.
5. I am slowly going back to eat normal after the surgery and being on a soft diet for several weeks. Today was the first day back with salad for lunch... While I was able to bite properly before, the chewing still aggravated the area. First salad back tasted yummy and I am just happy that the soft diet days seemed to be over. But I am still chewing mostly on the other side of my mouth.
6. Follow-up on the surgery in general: I had a check up after two weeks and everyone that looked in my mouth said: "It looks awesome!" It's still tender and will take some extra care for the next several weeks, but things seemed to be doing great. I still can not use my electric tooth brush and still rinsing with a presciption strength mouth wash, but those are obviously only minor complaints. I don't feel it during my workouts except for the swimming. I don't know if it's the head position or what, but it still bothers me quite some in the pool.
7. Another follow-up: This time on my attempt to once again get a grip on my nutrition. Things are going really well this time around and I have seen consistant results in the last four weeks on the scale, in my clothes, in my workouts and in my general "wellness". One of these days I will share what I did different this time and some new things I learned and some things that I relearned. But it's important for me to stress, that I am not dieting... I am just feeding myself properly again, after months of eating just whatever I felt like.... and that's mostly junk!
8. I miss CrossFit. It was actually quite funny: Terry and I were sprawled out on the couch last Sunday and I looked something up on YouTube and he said: "Let's watch some CF videos." And then we basically said at the same time: "I miss CrossFit."
9. With that being said, I did my strength work in the gym (vs only bodyweight exercises at home) this week and loaded up the barbell and jumped on boxes and did pull ups... A regular gym really doesn't facilitate a CF workout, but it was better than nothing.... Being sore all week from it, just felt like an extra bonus.
10. Yes, I am nuts... No need to comment on that last sentence.
11. Come Monday, we have one of those wellness challenges at work again. You organize yourself in groups of four and have around 45 days to each log 150 miles (600 miles total for the team) of walking to qualify for the drawing for the main prizes (cash prizes by the way!). There will be milestone prizes too... The smack talking has already started!!!! The boys on my team can be lucky that you just have to complete the mileage within the time frame and it's not about who is first... Otherwise I would be cracking the whip for the next six weeks... Just kidding... No, not really.
12. DONE! Happy weekend!

History in the Making

Knowing that I must start sounding like a broken record, I will still share, that (once again) I am refocusing on my nutrition. It sure is an uphill battle for me and might be for the rest of my life given my history.

But for the first time, since I moved to this country and discovered the deliciousness of Girl Scout Cookies, I declined an order form... Actually, I turned down two order forms in last couple of weeks. People, there is history in the making!

I don't think you should cut out every treat, but with the cookie delivery from my mom and leftover treats all around the house, I really want to avoid to put yet another temptation in the pantry.

Where is all this coming from?

No, it's not a New Year's Resolution!

I sometimes like to listen to pod casts at work and recently discovered CrossFit Radio and Jillian Michaels and Fat2Fit. That was really food for thought an several levels and gave me a little motivational boost to put better things in my body and also start to eat more thoughtfully again.

Also, a blog post from HIT CrossFit a while back ago, really strung a cord with me. The bottom line is:

"YOU CANNOT OUT TRAIN A BAD DIET."

I think, I really needed to hear that.

It sometimes is very tempting to just think: Oh, I can eat XYZ, I'm running/ cycling/ swimming this off in no time. But in reality:

“80% of your body composition will be determined by your diet."

 
And with that in mind, I once again try to make better choices and keep on fighting the uphill battle.

Boo yah! I am ready!

Badonk-a-BONK

I just googled badonkadonk to check spelling and found the urban dictionary entry.... seriously not safe for work! ;-)

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Source

Today was a perfect example that it's necessary to fuel your workouts... depending on what your workout it's going to be. Today was also a perfect example of what not to do.

It all started out with a nice breakfast before heading out to CrossFit. There I got my butt handed to me during the metcon that mostly consisted of bench presses. After CF, I headed right over to my friends house for a bike ride. I had one gel (Honey Stinger - my new favorite) before we headed out and than two more at mile 15 and mile 25. The total ride was close to 36 miles... A little longer than planned, but I don't think that made a difference, because I basically was out of steam at mile 25 already and that third gel didn't really make much of a difference.

Later I talked to Terry about it and he asked me, why in the world I wouldn't eat something solid before heading out. Touche!


On another note: This extra day off today was awesome... Unfortunately, there won't be another long weekend until April.

Cookies and Salad

Yesterday, I finally received the care package my mom put in the mail 2.5 weeks ago. I say "finally" because I started to get worried, if it's ever going to get here. It mostly consisted of homemade Christmas cookies. A little late, but still very tasty and destructive to any "eating better" vows one might have made... I am speaking just in general here, since I avoided resolutions like the plague 2012! ;-)

Since my cold takes it's dear time to clear up, decided against a cookie lunch and opted for salad instead... And then maybe just have a cookie or three as dessert!

So happy, that it's already Thursday!

More Bang for the Calorie

My favorite food in the moment is cottage cheese... I gobble it up by the container... No, I am not kidding.

This morning I had a container of cottage cheese and a cantaloupe for breakfast:

And the best part of it: All of this for 470 calories! That is awesome.

While the cantaloupe combination is pretty good, but my absolute favorite is with pineapple.... Okay... Did I bore you enough now?

Good Food Challenge: Day 4-7

Confession time... Here are the eats Thursday through Sunday of last week.

Tons of Salad.

THURSDAY (1,930c)

breakfast: Scrambled Egg Whites with Spinach, Cheese and Black Olives (460c)

morning snacking: Non-Fat Greek Yogurt (120c), Banana (100c)

lunch at my desk: Mixed Salad with Chicken Sausage (720c)

afternoon snacking: String Cheese (100c), Banana (100c)

dinner: Baked Sweet Potato with Cottage Cheese (280c), Pear (50c)

FRIDAY (2,270c)

pre run:  Larabar Cashew Cookie (210c)

post run: Lowfat Cottage Cheese with one scoop recovery power and a pear (400c)

lunch: Mixed Salad with Chicken Sausage (920c)

afternoon snacking: Starbucks Skinny Caramel Machiatto (170c)

dinner: Scrambled Egg Whites with a Baked Sweet Potato (570c)

SATURDAY (2,140c)

breakfast:  Greek Yogurt with Fruit (220c)

ride fuel: 2 Bananas, 2 Larabars Chocolate Brownie Dough, 1 Pear, 1.5 packs of Gel Blasts (880c)

lunch: Grilled Chicken Salad (560c)

dinner: Grilled Catfish on Kale (480c)

SUNDAY (1,880c)

pre run:  Larabar Cashew Cookie (210c)

post run: Smoothie with Chocolate Milk, Frozen Mixed Fruit and one scoop recovery powder (330c)

lunch: Grilled Catfish on Kale (570c)

afternoon snacking: Watermelon and String Cheese (140c)

dinner: Grilled Salmon and Sauteed Veggies (630c)

Nutritional split for the total week:

This was a great week for me and I was able to stick to my goals in general.

The only thing I really completely failed was the 40-30-30 ration (protein-carbs-fat) and I am not surprised, but I am just a little stumped on how I am supposed to reach this. Especially, because I don't eat a ton of meat and my tummy doesn't do well with processed soy products (tofu and the like).

Aside the ratio thing, I am very happy with how I stuck to it. And really still sticking with it as of today.... Okay, okay... Happy Cow is maybe not completely on the clean eating plan, but chocolate milk used as part of a recovery smoothie, I think it still kinda fits in! ;-)

While it was fairly easy for me to do this for one week, it certainly is nothing I would want to sustain for longer... BUUUUT: I feel it helped me to refocus on making better choices.

And more salad.

Good Food Challenge: Day 1-3

Well, I guess it's pretty easy, to post yourself a challenge already two days into the project. Takes the pressure a little off hmmm? Anyways, this is the reason, why it's already time for mid-week update on my "Good Food Challenge".

Here are the eats:

Kidding... This was a cupcake from the beach party themed BBQ on Saturday and yes, it tasted as good as it looked!

But now for real... Here are the eats so far.

MONDAY (2,050c)

pre swim: Bolthouse Protein Plus Shake (380c)

morning snacking: Watermelon (180c), Larabar Cashew Cookie (210c), Banana (100c)

lunch at my desk: homemade Quinoa Salad (540c)

afternoon snacking: Larabar Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (220c), Banana (100c)

dinner: Mixed Salad with Tuna (320c)

TUESDAY (2,020c)

breakfast: Scrambles Egg Whites with Veggies (380c)

morning snacking: Grapes (120c), Larabar Cashew Cookie (210c)

lunch at my desk: Mixed Salad with Garbanzo Beans (610c)

afternoon snacking: Grapes (120c), Larabar Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (220c)

dinner/ post ride recovery: Bolthouse Protein Plus Parfeit Smoothie (360c)

WEDNESDAY (1,900c)

pre run: Larabar Cashew Cookie (210c)

post run recovery: Bolthouse Protein Plus Shake (380c)

morning snack: pineapple (170c)

lunch at my desk: Mixed Salad with Tuna and Kidney Beans (790c)

dinner: Scrambled Egg Whites with Beans and Spinach (350c)

So far so good when it comes to calorie intake and the quality of food.

I am still way too carb heavy and have to find ways to fix that! This morning, I had a chat with Coach Katie on the way back from the track and we talked about some options to incorporate more protein into my diet and I will keep working on this. That chat also resulted in a grocery store stop after work and switching up my snacks starting tomorrow.

Also, I am sometimes avoiding raw veggies because I am worried it's going to lead to GI problems on my runs, but this morning's track workout went off without any tummy issues which makes me a little more confident in what my stomach is able to do... Knock on wood.

The Good Food Challenge

Note: The pictures in this post are from today's ride and have nothing to do with the post itself. ;-)

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Showing of my turtle jersey.

If you are an athlete, I am sure, people say that to you in the office:

"Take another donut, you'll run that off in no time!"

If you are an athlete, I am sure that at one point you thought to yourself:

"I am training for 10 hours a week, heck, I am going to have an extra piece of that birthday cake and maybe some ice cream on my way home!"

Last weekend, I was at a party and there was a huge spread of food and I went bananas on the buffet. At one point I got stopped by one of the hosts saying: "Chips AND a beer! What is going on?" and then the other host chimed in: "She'll run 30 miles tomorrow, don't worry!"

Truth is, I eat a lot. Truth is also, I eat fairly decent when it comes to the quality of my food. And also, when I was in the middle of Mitchell training, I could get away with a lot, only because I was working out so much. Well, I am not in Mitchell training anymore and over the last couple of weeks, this mindset of "I restricted myself so much (which I really didn't) while I was in full blown training, I deserve XYZ now!" settled in and my waistline... Oh well.

Maybe two weeks ago, I started logging my food again. This time, I do it in Training Peaks, the software that my coach uses to schedule my training and where I log my actual training. She gave me the first round of feedback the other day and basically suggested more protein and more raw fruits and veggies on top of what I was already doing.

An old barn.

With this in the back of my head, I am giving myself a "Good Food Challenge" this week. I am not trying to do this for a whole month, but just for this one week. I don't believe in restriction, but moderation mostly. Still, I want to do a whole week of clean eating, to reboot my eating habits and also because this week is just so perfect and doable. The conditions (my lunch buddy is on vacation, our weekend trip fell through, I am not racing) just seemed to line up perfectly.

It looked like rain the whole time.

This is what I will be shooting for:

• plenty of raw fruits and vegetables
• try to keep a 40-30-30 nutrition ratio (40% proteins, 30% healthy fats and 30% carbs)
• no chocolate (other than what's in the larabars), beer, popcorn, ice cream etc

I am not going to publish my before and after weight, because the weight on a scale is a crapshoot to start with. Also, it's more about better habits and I expect the weightloss to eventually follow. But I will give an account of my eats for this weeks... All of it... Yikes! ;-)

My start and end point.