Tag Archives: fitness

What I’m Focusing on for Race Week

While I have three half-marathons coming up, I consider this Sunday’s the most important. It’s the one I’m hoping for the best time in, because it’s the only one I’ve done before, and so I have a measure of what I can do on that course. Last year, I ran it in 2:13. Since then, I have run a 2:09 half.

My training for this half has been inconsistent at best. I’m thinking of refocusing my goal on just PR-ing, to be a little more realistic, rather than aiming at breaking 2:00. Either way, I plan on taking this race the most seriously.

So this week, I will be:

  • trying to eat cleaner (more real/whole foods, less processed stuff and dairy)
  • drinking lots of water
  • limiting red meat and dairy
  • limiting the booze (usually I would say eliminating the week before a race, but let’s get real: St. Patrick’s Day is Thursday. CARB-LOADING, my friends.)
  • doing yoga at least twice
  • strength training tonight
  • doing 1-2 easy runs
  • lots of stretching
  • focusing on getting good sleep
  • limiting the sugar

[You know, stuff I should be doing anyway.]

For breakfast, I had oats + sunflower butter + a banana. If you read other health blogs, you’ve probably already seen a picture of oatmeal today, and my oatmeal at work is not pretty, so I will spare you.

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For lunch, I had a turkey burger, brown rice and broccoli from City Chow, the cafe in Equinox. Grocery shopping tonight!

Milking It

I haven’t talked much on here about the nutrition classes that I’m taking, because, frankly, I’m behind…but one of the things I’ve heard a lot about so far is lactose intolerance. More than half of the world’s population don’t have the ability to digest lactose(the sugar found in milk) after childhood, yet American culture is dairy-heavy.

When I first started trying to lose weight, Joel suggested I give up dairy because it caused inflammation (basically, your body holding onto harmful stuff, which inhibits its ability to fight disease and take care of itself.) I loved yogurt and cheese, so it was difficult for me at first, but I found that my stomach calmed down quite a bit.

I know it’s for the better, but I LOVE CHEESE. I don’t have much of it any more, though, because I like not having stomachaches better. This week, I’ve been giving into a lot of my cheesy cravings, and…let’s just say my stomach hasn’t been happy with me.

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Like these tacos I had last night. I’d gone to happy hour after work (AND managed to work out at lunchtime so I could do so–WOOT!), and I was starving by the time I got home after 9. I almost went to pull out my computer and go for some SeamlessWeb, out of habit. but I realized I had a pretty full fridge, and I threw these tacos together for a fabulous after-happy hour dinner.

Sure enough, they bothered my stomach, and I decided to go for some stabilizing oatmeal in a a jar (aka OIAJ) this morning. I used a mostly-empty jar of sunflower butter and added some almond milk, raspberries, blueberries, water, and, of course, oats and microwaved it for 90 seconds when I got to work. Meghan and I talked last night at happy hour (Theodora + wine = serious conversation. Always.) about how there are so many emotions and feelings tied up in food. It’s really easy sometimes to eat something cheesy or otherwise bad for me just because everyone else is. I need to remember that I need to do what’s best for me.

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Which usually involves snuggling with this little man. I dare you to tell me you’ve seen something cuter today.

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Oh, and my first takeout meal in a few days yesterday, turkey meatballs with Brussels sprouts and brown rice, was amazing and worth it.

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What about you? Can you handle milk/dairy? If not…do you still eat it sometimes, too, because it tastes so damn good?