So, yesterday, Ashley talked about our mutual challenge — the weekly SwEATS (Sweats + Eats.)
We were gchatting last week, and she said she was concerned about sticking to healthy habits during her last month in Geneva. I empathized — my last month in DC, I spent eating and drinking like I’d never be back. (Spoiler alert: I have been back several times in the past few years. Even if I weren’t going to be going back semi-regularly, I didn’t need to eat/drink like it was the Last Supper, though.)
As for me, I have about 10 pounds on my frame right now that I don’t like that I’ve been struggling with the past year or so. It’s summer, and I have a marathon or two this fall. I don’t want to worry about that weight and feel self-conscious any more. I don’t want to PR a race and wonder what I could have done with several less pounds on me.
So Ashley and I decided to team up. We weren’t really sure what that meant, but at this time, neither of us has the capacity to do some big blown out challenge. All we can do is be accountable — to ourselves, to each other, to you.
Because it all counts.
I like Ashley’s perspective on this — we are doing what we can, when we can. For us, as 30-something urban professionals, we can control during the day. Nights can be the wild card with professional and social obligations.
Also, I like wine. I have not ever mentioned that, right? It’s a nice way to unwind with a friend.
So, Ashley set out that we’d do our best to move daily — walking or doing yoga when we can’t manage a longer, more intense workout.
From a diet perspective, I’m going to use this time to experiment with tracking my macros.
We had trainer Mike Vacanti come in to speak to us at work last week. Look at his website — HE LIKES ICE CREAM AND PUPPIES. His approach is very macro-focused. (That is, focusing on the major macronutrients: fat, protein, carbs.)
Some of the other ladies at work and I are talking about tracking our macros. I have never been successful with tracking down to the calorie/macro that I’m eating. When I used to blog everything I ate, it was generally for quality of food. One of our coworkers suggested Fitocracy’s method of finding target macros.
Since my June fitness goal is to get stronger, I’m interested to experiment with this for a few weeks. I don’t think it will be right when I begin marathon training soon, since running is not considered a “training day.” (Those are days you are building muscle and working towards muscle gains.) But for now, it’s just an experiment to see just what I’m eating. And, really, to cut back on the carbs. Though IIFYM (which this is a lite version of) doesn’t care the source of the carbs (/protein), obviously you get better results the high-quality stuff you eat. I’m going to do my best to follow this as closely as possible to be more cognizant of what I’m putting in my body, and document *some* of that here.
I need to go back and log today, but I overslept and knew I had post-work plans so wouldn’t be able to work out tonight, so it was a total rest day other than some walking to and from places in the city/subway. You have different macro goals for rest days and training days, so I was going for rest day macros, which includes 50g of carbs.
50G OF CARBS. DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? I was going back to work this am and contemplated stopping for a tall iced soy latte. I’ve always tricked myself into think it’s not that bad for me — it has soy, right? Protein? At best estimate I can find online, it has 13g of carbs. No bueno. That was enough to make me stop at Dunkin’ instead for a plain coffee.
And that’s really my goal. Dunkin, not Starbucks.
JK, it’s making healthier decisions, that add up.
So there you have it. Here’s what I’m trying for June, and I’ll share here along the way.
What are your June goals? How will you hold yourself accountable?
