I’m back to counting calories for a little while. I think I’m in a much better place in terms of my relationship to food, so I’m not so worried about feeling deprived. I just need to recalibrate my appetite and remind myself what “hungry” feels like, because I’ve been snacking constantly AND eating pretty big meals. We’ll see how this goes.
From yesterday: exercised 36min total, 16min running, 5min max run.
The minimalist shoes are still holding up great, my calves we’re actually a little sore today!
The dog is having more and more trouble keeping up. He’s so lazy. :)
“exercised 31min total, 9min running, 1.5min max run.”
Slow but steady progress. My next run will include a couple of 2.5 minute intervals. Eek!
After my whiny excuse post on Monday I actually managed to kick myself into a yoga class! It felt pretty good, and now my shoulders are sore. I managed to get all the way down into front splits on both sides, so I guess I’ve hung on to my flexibility at least…
“exercised 28min total, 8min running, 1.5min max run.”
Well it certainly doesn’t look very impressive when you put it like that, running app. Maybe I should add some exclamation marks? Anyway, I’m still only on week 2 of the 8 week running program, I’m still running in my Merrell “barefoot” shoes, and I’m still pain-free, so that’s pretty amazing progress for me.
I think I need to suck it up and get back to yoga though. My excuse (I’ve gained a little weight and all of my yoga clothing has become really tight and uncomfortable) sounds pretty lame even to my ears. I either need to grab some bigger clothing from target (or wherever) or just deal with my tight clothing. Or I could just do yoga in a t-shirt and basketball shorts. I mean, honestly! Sheesh.
On the functional medicine side of things, I’ve finished up my 2-month supplementation of serine (which I was deficient in) and I’m on my second bottle of vitex. I’m still chugging away on my zinc supplementation, and I’ll get my levels checked again probably in mid-summer. I don’t really like taking lots of supplements, but I’m happy to be targeting specific deficiencies instead of just guessing…
(Source: tumblrgymyoga)
I’ve always thought runners were crazy, and the few times I’ve attempted to adopt a regular running program, (with the goal of increasing my endurance for ultimate frisbee) I’ve ended a few weeks later with knee pain and pretty much no improvement.
But for the past year I’ve been taking time out of my day to go walking pretty regularly (one of the benefits of owning a dog…) and have been wearing minimalist shoes. More recently I’ve occasionally been breaking into a jog, mostly to get said dog to stop sniffing Every. Single. Plant. And since my knees still feel pretty darn good I figure I’ll give running another shot.
I really have no interest in running for its own sake, and since I’m not really planning on playing any more serious ultimate frisbee, I no longer have that external motivation. But this year so far has been entirely focused just on overall health and well being, and I do think that being able to run well is just one of those important life skills. (Zombieland rule #1: Cardio.)
So I downloaded a “couch to 5k” style app and finally shelled out for some nice, minimalist Merrell “barefoot” running shoes. The first day of running was just alternating 1 minute of jogging with 1.5 minutes of walking, for a total of 6 rounds. I focused on keeping my feet landing flat and evenly and staying “springy”, (this has been my best defense against irritating my knees) and it felt quite good.
My dog was a bit confused though.
Well, we’ll see how this progresses!
The good: I did some lifting (deadlifts and shoulder press) on Saturday, and on Sunday we went for a short but steep hike and got some good sunlight. I made a recent effort to try and eat dinner before 7pm each night and not eat again after that. It seems to have stuck more or less, and I’m finding it easier to go to sleep earlier.
The bad: I feel like my food issues are all “one step forward, two steps back”. I made a pretty good effort towards having a decent-sized, hearty breakfast in the morning for the past month, but I don’t feel like it helped curb my appetite during the day at all. my Starbucks habit is creeping back towards green tea lattes instead of americanos. I’m at pretty much my heaviest weight of my life, but when I try to limit my food I immediately start feeling deprived and frustrated.
The hmm: I’ve been busily getting the rest of my hormones and other biomarkers checked. My estrogen levels are on the high side of normal and progesterone is on the low side, so my doc has put me on chaste berry supplements. She warned that I may see more skin breakouts for a while, which does look to be the case. I’m very curious to see how it affects my PMS. I need to give it a few months and be patient, but hopefully overall my hormones will end up in a better place than they started.
Here’s to perseverance!
“As long as there is breath in the body, there is life. When breath departs, so too does life. Therefore, regulate the breath.” -Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Ch.2:S.3
Got in a nice long walk with the dog today. He likes to occasionally break out into a run, and I’ve been trying to oblige and use it as an opportunity to vary my pace a bit randomly. I did make him stop and wait while I took this picture though. :)
I got (most of my) blood work back! The good news is that I’m pretty darn healthy… Thyroid is great, I’m not at all anemic, metabolism seems good and apparently my antioxidant levels are awesome! I blame the red wine. ;) The only things I was actually deficient in by this lab’s standards were serine (an amino acid) and zinc. I was suspicious of the zinc already, since I had read recently that apparently copper and zinc compete for uptake in the body, and we know that our house has incorrectly installed copper pipes paired with steel pipes, which can cause a bit of leeching or some such. My copper levels were pretty much optimal, so I’m going to take zinc supplements for a while and try to figure out which (if any) water filters will filter out copper. And we’ll probably raise the priority on updating our plumbing on our long, long home improvement list. :P
I had never heard of serine before, probably because it doesn’t have any specific deficiency symptoms like rickets or anemia. My doc says she’ll sometimes prescribe serine supplements to people with insomnia or stress issues. My sleep isn’t fabulous, but it’s not as good lately as it sometime is, so I guess we’ll see if these supplements make a difference there or not. I haven’t gotten the results back on my stress/cortisol/sex hormone test yet, so hopefully that will help to paint a more complete picture…
Oh, and my vitamin D3 levels were pretty boringly normal. I was wondering because that’s the one nutrient that I supplement regularly with a pretty high dose. So I’m glad that it looks like I’m not overdoing it. I’d still rather just get more sunlight every day though. :)