Another chapter

So the start of this blog was the start of a journey to complete a half marathon and get healthy in the process. As is too often my downfall, I have let this blog slip by the wayside and have failed to update my journey in relation to that goal.

As a quick overview of the goal tracking:

   - January 16, 2011 I completed my first half marathon.

   - March 27, 2011 I completed my second half marathon.

   - June 25, 2011 I completed my first full marathon.

   - October 22, 2011 I completed my first Olympic distance triathlon.

It has been a wonderful journey in meeting these goals, and I so want to share with others who may be thinking of setting similar ones. I hope that through this blog I can share some of my key learnings to assist those same people.  As I touch on some of the learnings from these previous events, I now realize that I will also be passing on information relating to my new goals.  Yes I said "new goals"!!!! I have found a most wonderful side-effect in my fitness journey, a desire to keep pushing the barriers and find out all that I am capable of physically.

I hope that you will look forward to reading my entries just as much as I look forward to sharing them.
   

Fueling Your Weight Goals, Part 3

Ok, here is the last installment of my series on fueling your body to meet the goals you have set down.  Because it is last does not mean it is any less important.  The final step for which I am about to talk about is supplementation.

Supplementation simply means that you are providing your body key biological components that it can not sufficiently receive through the foods you eat and the beverages you drink.

With the current state of affairs in food production in the world, it is impossible to get all the nutrients you are going need to properly fuel your body while you start down your weight loss path.  The only way to provide these key components to your body without eating thousands of different foods every minute of the day is to properly supplement.

As has been the underlying theme of this series, what you supplement and to what degree will depend greatly on what phase of your weight loss you are currently participating in.

Supplementing can actually be a very tricky business.  As with anything else in this world, there are thousands of opinions as to what needs to be supplemented and to what degree.  In a perfect world where time and money is not an issue I would recommend talking to a nutritionist about specific supplementing needs.

I would also recommend talking with a nutritionist that is on board with monitoring your needs and be willing to change your supplementation recommendations as your needs change.  Remember, change is good, and if you are not talking with someone who is willing to change their recommendations along your journey, it may be time to change the nutritionist! 

In phase one of my weight loss (312lbs - 217lbs), my main supplement intake above mere food was Daily Vitamins, Potassium, Magnesium, Adrenal Support, B12, and Fiber.  These were my main focuses because I was starting to put my body through an enormous change and I needed to make sure that I gave it all the help I could to make it through without going into shock.  Each of these supplements helped prevent such a shock on specific parts of my body such as potassium for muscles, Magnesium for my heart, Adrenal Support for adapting to the stress and its effect on the immune and nervous systems, and B12 for maintain healthy blood cells.  All of these supplements were in ADDITION to my daily vitamin.

Phase two (217lbs - 180lbs) for me meant removing some of the supplements that I introduced to reduce the shock to my system and added ones that help promote the maintaining of my new lifestyle.  The daily multivitamin is still in strong use (as it always should be).  The other supplements I take are based strictly on the specific activities that I have chosen to do now with my new body.  Because I have chosen to do individual endurance sports and fit my training around those activities, my supplement selection is base on that.  Supplements to increase the rate of muscle repair, to increase lubrication of my joints, and to help me burn energy more effectively during workouts.

This is the change I have been discussing in full work.  As the needs of my body changed, the supplements I needed and need to provide it change.  Also, since there are so many opinions on what supplements a person needs, there are many times I have tried certain supplementation and found that it had no effect, so I removed it from my routine or tried another supplemental avenue.  Change, change, change!

One last piece on supplementation before I officially end this series.  Whatever supplementation you choose to follow, I HIGHLY recommend that the supplements you use are as natural as they can be and not synthesized.  A perfect example is the multivitamin.  The multivitamin you choose should be one that is derived from whole foods.  The reason for this is not because I am on a "tree-hugging" soap box, but because if your supplements are made naturally the percentage of the supplement that your body actually absorbs will be substantially greater than the percent absorption found in synthesized supplements.  It comes down to you want to make sure your body is actually getting what you are paying for it to get.

Fueling Your Weight Goals, Part 2

Holy Cliff-Hanger's Batman!!!!

Okay, I know it has been a month since part one of my installment, but business travel and the holiday's really took a lot more of my time than expected.  Now that my justification moment is officially over.....on to part two.

The next segment in fueling my weight loss really has to be geared toward beverage consumption.  I struggle with this portion of the fueling process mightily and it is horrible that I do because in my opinion it is one of the most important building blocks to healthy weight loss.

Continuing on with the two stage theory introduced from the first installment, this is how my routine went.

• Phase one (312lbs to 217lbs)

• Water

• Herbal Tea (numerous types with a wide variety of benefits)

• Stevia sweetener products ONLY! 

• The reason for the water and tea strictly being used for beverage consumption during this phase is that it is during this time of the weight loss that the body needs a jump start to begin the calorie burning process.  Nothing, and I mean nothing, starts this process better than high water consumption (2qts up to a gallon a day).  With that said, for me, it was really a concerted effort to stick to that because I am not the biggest fan of just drinking water out there.  This for me was one of those sacrifices I had to stick to make it a habit though, and eventually it did.  So if you are thinking right now, no way do I just want to drink water, be diligent and don't cheat yourself during this phase, because it truly works and will rev up that metabolism.
• NOTE:  Water intake right before you plan to eat can really make the difference in being successful or not.  Try to drink 2 cups of water before you even take the first bite of your prepared meal and I guarantee that you will eat less that you would have otherwise.
  

• As for the herbal tea, it really served two purposes for me during phase one.  The first being that it gave me a break from plain water.  The second is that there are numerous herbal tea's out there that are blended for specific purposes.  An example of such a purpose is cleansing your digestive track with a tea such as Smooth Move or detoxing major organs such as the liver and kidney's.  I also really enjoyed white tea in the morning's before work which is not geared toward a specific benefit, but just tasted good and gave me some caffeine to start my day.

• Stevia was the ONLY sweetener I used in my tea.  I beg of you not to use any other artificial sweetener during this phase of your weight loss plan.  I will talk a little more about sweeteners later.

• Phase 2 (217lbs to 185lbs)

• Once you are in this stage, you certainly gain the right to more freedom in the variety of beverages you partake of, but I offer some tips and advice.

• Stick to a portion of water intake that is more than any other beverage you consume.  I still consume 2qts of water per day minimum.
• NOTE:  I still highly recommend drinking two cups of water right before you begin to partake of a meal to reduce the amount of food that you will eat.  Remember, we still want less calories in than the amount we burn.

• I still drink tea or even have coffee during this phase, but I do not drink the specialized herbal tea's as often.  Maybe once a month for cleansing tea's due to a personal belief that my body will become immune to their effects if I was to continue them daily.  That is just a personal belief, it will be up to you and the new relationship you have established with your body to determine the frequency you wish to continue the specialized tea's.

• Here is the bad one for me.  Diet soda.  I love it.  But, as I stated earlier, I really want to stay away from as much artificial sweeteners as I can, only using Stevia products when I do choose to sweeten.  Alas, some days are better than others in this quest because of my love for the diet soda.  It will always be a continuing battle for me, but as for now, I am winning more battles than I am losing.

• Absolutely no sugary drinks!!!!  Evil, Evil, Evil!!!  Such beverage consumption is absolute empty calories that threaten to derail any and all progress you have made to get to your phase 2.

So now for my comments on artificial sweeteners.  There are lots of theories and studies out there that sometimes contradict each other and make decisions very difficult for the average consumer. I will in no way try to make any profound point one way or the other regarding what the use of these sweeteners will do to ones body, I will only go off my thinking for my weight loss.  I believe that artificial sweeteners actually make me retain weight with overuse.  I believe this because when you take in something that is sweet, your brain is given signals that you are receiving calories that your body will have available for burning up.  Once your body begins to go after these available calories and discovers that they are not actually there, it will very quickly flop over to protection mode and think it is starving and attempt to store calories.  I also believe that too much of anything artificial in my body is counter productive in my quest for healthy living.  So, the question may be why Stevia then.  Simple (in my mind at least), it comes naturally from the stevia plant, and it is 300 times more sweet than sugar so I automatically use a lot less of it than I would an artificial sweetener.  Some day, as Stevia is used more, studies may reveal it causes something terrible but for now it is the option I use.

Fueling Your Weight Goals, Part 1

Okay, so the biggest struggle I had in my many years of weight loss attempts was my food consumption.  I have a feeling that this is also a problem for a lot of people trying to control their weight.  With that in mind, I am going to go through what things and, more importantly, thoughts that helped me.  I don't really think that I can relay everything in one single post, so I shall attempt it in a series.

The number one thing to keep in mind is, no matter what plan you choose in terms of eating...calories in MUST be less than calories out if you are trying to lose weight.  There is no way around this, no way to cheat it, and no miracle that can make it not so.  For me, keeping that in the back of mind throughout the day helped me greatly in getting my thinking about food right.

So with a base thought process of calories in less than calories out, I could start to think about which of the thousands of eating plans was the best.  The answer to that question was that there was not a best one, and there never will be a best one.  The truth of the matter is, that there are a lot of good ones that will work for people for a certain period of time.  The human body has learned one skill over thousands of years of being on this earth, and that is to survive.  With that in mind, if a person sticks to one eating plan for a long period of time, it will start to adapt and store calories in a way that is not swim suit friendly.  It will always do this to make sure that it survives.  Given that, the greatest eating plan is one that includes interval change.  Confusing your body and not letting it get set in a certain pattern is the key (you will find that this confusion theory is true for exercise as well, but alas that is another series).

Two working theories down, and still no food plan!  What is going on here?! Its because for me, there was no specific food plan.  I had two different processes that I used, but neither held to any specifics on the exact foods I ate, only the types of food I ate and how often.  The processes in my plan were very dependent on the stage of my weight loss.

• Stage 1 - From 312lbs to 217lbs

• During this stage I did not have a lot of physical activity going on because my weight did not afford me a lot of stamina to carry on a great deal of activity.  And I was okay with this fact because my goal was to make it better, not make it happen instantaneously.
• This stage meant that I needed to incorporate a process where I actually counted my calories throughout the day.  I used a calorie counting app on my phone that had a database of a lot of foods (the app is available for most phones at www.fatsecret.com).  There are a lot of calorie counting phone and web apps out there and I would highly recommend using one that suits you best.
• I stepped up my calorie intake throughout this stage from 500 up to a max of 1500 a day.

• Stage 2 - From 217lbs to 193lbs

• This stage is where I was more physically active each day and actually had the stamina to maintain defined workouts 4 to 5 days a week.
• I do not worry about counting calories during this stage, but instead I worry about food type portion sizes
• I still maintain eating 3 meals and 2 to 3 protein rich snacks a day in this stage so that I never go long spans of time without food.

During any of the two stages I was in, the types of food I ate and continue to eat have never changed, so it has made it very easy to follow and change up every 6-8 weeks (don't forget its still about confusion).

• Meals
• Lean Protein - Includes Chicken, Beef, Fish, Seafood, White Meat Pork, and Low Fat Cottage Cheese
• Carbohydrate - Includes Legumes, Brown Rice, Quinoa, Wheat Pasta, Wheat Bread, Wheat Tortillas.
• Note - During stage 1 I stayed away from a majority of carbohydrates because it is very easy to over-portion these. Dark Rye bread once a day during the lower calorie parts of the stage and Brown Rice and Quinoa during the higher calorie parts.
• Vegetables -  Everything but Corn
• Snacks
• Protein Shakes and Protein Bars
• NOTE - DO NOT CONSUME BARS AND SHAKES THAT HAVE OVER 4grams OF SUGAR PER SERVING

These are the foods I worked with, easy huh?  During stage 1, I just counted the calories of what I decided to prepare and had very little portions of the carbohydrate while adding more vegetables.  During stage 2 I just make sure my portion size is about the size of my fist for each meal group.  That's it!

Holiday Hooplah

Happy Holiday Season Everyone!

Well the time is upon us where good cheer abounds, and unfortunately high calorie food as well.  We completed our first day of thanksgiving leftovers and I feel bloated enough for a week.  This is going to be a tough challenge for me to attempt to keep some resemblance of a healthy eating style, but I have confidence that I can meet the challenge.

It's funny, I had no problem passing on the pies this year, but the snacks consisting of crackers and the cheese totally broke me down.  I see a lot of my old eating habits creeping up in this area.  I was never a big sweets guy, but the breads, chips, and crackers killed me.  I think that is a huge part of trying to maintain a healthy eating style.....understand the patterns of the habits you had before the change and recognize the subtle tendencies of heading back in that direction. Two days of heading down that path of eating is plenty for me.  Now that I recognize it, its time to make a U-turn.

It also helps to find a healthy event to participate in during the holidays.  This year we ran a 10k race on thanksgiving morning.  There were 4000 people there and it was an absolute blast.  I ended up finishing in 54 minutes and I felt a lot better about eating that stuffing with my turkey afterward.  Lots of alternatives out there besides sitting on the sidelines if we can simply take the time to find them.

Work can make it tough

So against all intentions I have already let too much time lapse between posts!


I have been some great strides lately with my half marathon training.  I recently did 9.88 miles under a 9 minute pace time.  I really have to attribute this to some things I have been doing different on my treadmill run days.  Recently I have been manually adjusting incline and speed instead of just doing random built-in profile.  After every 5 minutes of zero incline I will up the incline for 3 minutes and then go back to zero for another 5 minutes.  After each incline interval I will increase the speed.  This has really shown an improvement in my long runs on Sunday mornings.

This last week however, I have been in a training class for my job that provides free meals 3 times a day and it has been tough to stay on track in terms of my diet.  I have not been eating bad foods, but my quantity has been way more than usual.  I hate these training trips and even though I have been using my treadmill training plan while here, I hope that when I get back home I haven't gained a large amount of weight.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Well today was a not so fantastic day on the healthy front.  It started off just fine, ate decent for breakfast and lunch with a protein bar and a healthy choice lunch.  Went to the gym and did core exercises and ran for 3 miles.  You would think this was the start to a grand fitness day.........

BUT.....it didn't finish that way.  Went to Applebee's for dinner, then pigged out on snacks while we were playing cards later in the night.

I find that I have these struggling days at least once a week.  Good starts and good intentions followed by not so decent nutritional finishes.  The key for me so far has been not to give up no matter if my finish to the day is bad or good.  It use to be that I would feel so guilty about not sticking to my nutritional goal for that day that I would just assume that the entire war was lost.  Now, I just stop and take a second to realize that tomorrow is another day for me to accomplish another goal.

Ups and downs in trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle WILL happen.  Don't give up and just pick up where you left off.  The information you need to achieve the goals is still valid, just keep doing your best to follow it.

The Start of a Journey

So this will be home base for my thoughts and progress with my fitness and training for my first half marathon.

To give a little background: On February 8th of 2010 I decided that I needed to make a lifestyle change for my health and to make sure I had a future where I was alive long enough to watch my family grow and I could play an active part. As of September 24th of 2010, I have lost 110 pounds and feel the best I have since graduating high school. During my transformation I had a conversation with a co-worker and we talked about how cool it would be to run a half marathon. I decided that completing a half marathon was a perfect goal that aligned rather well with my health and lifestyle goals. So on June 14th of 2010 I started to work toward that goal.

I wanted to establish this blog to go through some of the things I have done in terms of diet and exercise and the struggles and victories I have gone through. My hope is to motivate not only myself to stay on track (or get back on track depending on the day) but to possibly motivate others who read this to follow their own health and fitness goals.

Feel free to let me know what you think, let me know what is working for you, or just how you are doing.

Enjoy.