Monday I'm gonna be pure!

You have 17 weeks and 6 days before your Half Ironman triathlon on 7/24/2011.

I want to get to racing weight before I get to the starting line.  My goal is to get below 150 lbs. and 25 % body fat. Currently, I weigh 162 lbs and the TANITA at the gym says 31 %.

Since January I had  been steadily dropping about 1 lb a week. It's leveled out recently. So I want to up my game.  I'm enjoying Robb Wolf's new book The Paleo Diet Solution.  Monday, pure paleo.  Photos, stats, accountability.  What's in it for you?  Subscribe to this blog, leave me supportive comments, and you will have extraordinarily good luck for the rest of the day.



Why not today?  Well, I started the morning chained to my espresso pot. Someone put milk in my latte. It wasn't me, I swear.  Tomorrow, I'll be pure.

If you're interested in my 30 days of Pure Paleo, come visit me at my food blog, Pure Paleo 30.  I'm going to post every day for a month what I'm eating so I can get to the starting line at my racing weight.  A little positive public pressure. 

15 Jan Dog Balls

I want to get to racing season about 15 lbs lighter. I am trying to drop some weight but I like to eat and I am pretty active. I read an article that suggested you can't increase your fitness level and lose weight at the same time. I'm sceptical of that. I'm working with my trainer at the gym to help me set some caloric intake targets and macro nutrient ratios. We met before Christmas. Based on my age, desk job and physical activity level (training about 10-12 hours a week), he suggested I eat 1600-1700 calories a day. I was off work the first two weeks, and despite the holidays I hit my numbers or close to them with some success. Returning to the office and caring for sick family has side-tracked me. I averaged the raw numbers for the last 9 days:

1985 eat
720 burn through exercise

ratios: 40 percent F, 40 percent C, 20 percent P.  I averaged 110 grams of protein daily, which met my goal. A little too high on calories and too many carbs. (though my trainer & I disagree on ratios).

The weighted average shows that I'm down half a pound this week, which is good.  Before I realised this, I woke up in a bit of a mood with myself. I got into the cookies and snacks at my son's violin recital last night. Not a lot of them, but I feel tired of logging my food, counting calories and so on. I'm annoyed with myself that I'm going to bring my reports to my next appointment without having met my ## and the scale will be the same and we'll look at each other and I'll shrug. 

I am finding logging my food as I go along too time-consuming. I am finding my failure to plan ahead to be an old tune. I want to be freakin done by now.    I  looked at what has worked in the past for me: 

1. eat from a list or a plan (this is what is for today) (easy, choice made).

2. when you're done with what's on the list, you're done & you're at your #. (easy, already planned)

I have a great exchange plan from Core Performance, but it includes dairy and grains, which I don't want to eat. It's simple to follow, however I didn't want to sit down and revise that plan or the endurance paleo plan I was using over last the summer (too many calories).

One solution to not wanting to put the time into creating my own meal plan is to have someone else do it. So, i got a six-week 1600 calorie paleo meal plan from Nell Stephenson. She wrote the Paleo Diet cookbook that is going to be published this year, and has a food blog I like. And she's a very lean, strong ironman triathlete. And really a friendly person too.

And then I made a shopping list and went food shopping. action. I'm fully stocked & can eat well.
I also got a little digital kitchen scale to increase my accuracy.

The meal plan is "delivered" through my training journal at Training Peaks. All I have to do is click and I will have an easy time of giving my trainer  a report. Training Peaks didn't do the greatest job entering the ingredients. When you produce a shopping list, it doesn't give you totals for the same items. It lists them all individually. It's a pain, and it's based on North American ingredients. So I have to modify it a bit. I preferred to deal with these limitations than build a meal plan myself from scratch.

I feel better now. 

Now, about dog balls. Fellow janathoners have been tracking chocolates (eaten or burned - sometimes hard to tell), pressies (push-ups? gifts?). I decided I would keep track of the number of tennis balls Odie finds or loses when we run in the dunes. Tonight we're up one.  Plus one fox chased and one pond swum. 

Tonight, easy 5.4 km.  I find a heart rate/timed run so much easier than a distance/pace run. no pressure - predictable return time!

Today's photo has nothing to do with what I just wrote. It's the current state of my living room.  Sailor getting ready for the morrow.

race day nutrition

I wrote up some thoughts for my friend Emily that might be useful to post here.

I promised some pre-race & race day fueling ideas. These are from Joel Friel's Paleo Diet for Athletes, and what I learned from Jeff Galloway. Also Dean Karnases' 50 Marathons in 50 Days (insane, but he did them). He has a free download from his audio book.

The key is to practice & experiment during training and then to do nothing new on race day. No sampling of free yogurt drinks at the start..... :)

Take a look at Dean's three-day countdown. I would emphasize drinking a lot of water during the days leading up to the race. It will help your body store more glycogen and your muscles will work better. There's only so much you can absorb the morning of the race without ending up with a full bladder and no pot.

When you wake up on race morning: right away, drink 700 ml water and eat 150 calories of carbs (pre-race fueling); then eat 200-300 calories per hour up until an hour before the race: mostly carbs (no dairy) (the longer before the race, the lower glycemic load - in other words, don't crash!).  Examples of what to eat: low fiber; high Branch-Chain Amino Acids (egg whites; protein powder with applesauce) - (jarred baby food) Bananas. Not berries (too much fiber). Drink water. Some people like to eat meal replacements like Ensure. (groan).

In the last hour: drink only water. No more food.

10 minutes before the start: high glycemic fluid - 100-200 calories of sports drink/juice/honey water or water + go-gel.

During the race: It depends on the duration of the race: under 90 minutes: goal is to prevent dehydration: 4 oz water per 10 minutes. Avoid solids & gels. @ 1 hour: maybe a carb drink. Research is contradictory.
**edited to add: this number seems too high. I'll have to go back and check.  I've read often that the point is to drink enough to replenish water lost through sweat, but to not gain weight during the event. So, weigh yourself before & after training runs under race-like conditions to see how much you sweat. I never tried this, but it seems like a good idea.

90 min - 4 hours: 800 ml fluid per hour. If maximum intensity: 200-300 cal/hour, divided into equal doses every 10-20 minutes. At least 1 calorie per pound of body weight per hour. This means 50-75 calories every 15 minutes. If Gel = 100 cal + 8 oz water. Some say that products like accelerade, which mixes protein into the carbs, work better. I've found similar kinds of mixes here. So for me: 1100 calories to eat during a 5.5 hour race.

After the race - recharge within 30 minutes - makes recovery easier. I usually eat a smoothie (carb & protein mix). I have a recipe for this, but I can't find it in my training journal. Holler if you want this too.

I have to admit, after 4 -5 gel packs, I want to puke. And during the marathon I felt slightly sick to my stomach from trying to consume enough to fuel my effort. During my training runs, I was happy to eat bananas, dates, and stuff like that. I did not want anything in my stomach during races, though. I switched to apple juice and sweetened black tea.

Always - this advice depends on your body, not mine. You might process fuel faster, sweat more, sweat less, whatever. See how it goes.

And be sure  look at the recommendations of how much fluid to drink during a long race. Not too much and not too little.

Wishing you success!

12 steps for getting started with Paleo Nutrition

I like Dr Kurt Harris' no-nonsense approach to nutrition. He suggests to avoid justifying our choices based on pseuodo-science assumptions as to what early humans must have eaten, since it's so clear what they Didn't Eat.  When I compare these ideas to typical instructions on how to lose weight, I have to admit I am totally confused.  I look at one book that says low-fat milk over a small serving of Special K is a perfect breakfast. Other folks say bacon and eggs is the way to go.  

Because of my own blood chemistry and my own reactions to pancakes, maple syrup, orange juice, etc., I want to give this plan a serious try.  The science behind avoiding diabetes seems to be to be quite sound.  Most diet books lack any scientific reasoning.  

My own experience matters a lot.  When I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, the hospital nutritionist recommended bagels for breakfast since I was having trouble keeping food down. I stayed off insulin by eating ham and grapefruit, and no grains (pasta, rice, etc.). I was lucky to have an OBGYN who had recommended The Zone diet to me. When I started following the diet, I saw my face change. I lost that puffy look - I looked healthier and the hollows of my cheeks reappeared.  Dr Harris posted an anecdote about recovery from diabetes.  Here are his suggestions for getting started.

1 Eliminate sugar (including fruit juices and sports drinks) and all flour 

2 Start eating proper fats - Use healthy animal fats to substitute fat calories for carb calories. Drink whole cream or half and half instead of milk.

3 Eliminate grains

4 Eliminate grain and seed derived oils (cooking oils) Cook with butter, animal fats, or coconut oil.

5 Get daily midday sun or take 4-8000 iu vit D daily

6 Intermittent fasting and infrequent meals (2 meals a day is best)

7 Fruit is just a candy bar from a tree. Stick with berries and avoid watermelon which is pure fructose. Eat in moderation.

8 Eliminate legumes

9 Adjust your 6s and 3s. Pastured (grass fed) dairy and grass fed beef or bison avoids excess O-6 fatty acids and are better than supplementing with 0-3 supplements.

10 Proper exercise - emphasizing resistance and interval training over long aerobic sessions

11 Eliminate milk (if you are sensitive to it, move this up the list)

12 Eliminate other dairy including cheese- (now you are "orthodox paleolithic")

More on Paleo Nutrition & grouse

I have been feeling very blue lately and figured that maybe VLC was to blame for low serotonin. Maybe it is slacking on my exercise in the winter darkness.  Or working some very long hours in January and February.  Regardless, I have been eating more carbs this week, and I feel a little better, particularly with some major deadlines behind me. But still worried that it's not the right direction. Grabbing m&m's by the handful just isn't a long-term solution.  Nor is snacking on the pastries at work, which call to me when I'm in the right mood.

But I am still (1) wanting to lighten up (mood & body fat); (2) maintain good health and avoid the  shark swimming in my gene pool, Type II diabetes.

The PaNu blog I like included a link to this new forum, PaleoHacks. I thought I'd share (and mostly keep track of it for myself by putting it into a post).  I will start writing down my food again and keeping good records.

My legs are wanting to go for a run. My knee is crunchy & coach says walk. I stretched today and did some bending exercises to lubricate the joint. Standing in the kitchen made me "aware" of my knee. It didn't hurt. But it felt a little swollen or puffy or something. So I am taking the nastiest supplement of collagen derivative, gelatin and glucosamine, plus highly refined fish oil.    And trying to figure out how many slacking bad habits I can repent.

The slack started when at the beginning of this year, I felt like I had reached my #1 and ONLY goal for 2009 (regain my fitness and lose weight) and I should now deal with finances and other aspects of my life.  My brain took that as "Instead" of health, not In Addition to health.  When the weather turned icy, I stopped riding my bike to work and started skipping mid-week runs.  And after Odie bit me I started asking my son to walk him in the evenings.  Now I have a crunchy knee.

I have bigger plans in my life than being sidelined due to a crunchy knee.  I found a goofy body weight training program that is so silly I won't name it. But it looks like a good program, even though I am a sucker for the Point-N-Click Download it now.  Looking at the materials, I keep thinking, I could do this.  So I will be sure to take before-n-after photos so I can create a cash-cow someday a la 4HWW.   Or maybe this guy has a better idea about work.

Even better, what to do with your unique talents and why I like what I do for a living. It's not work, it's a calling. So here's the plan. Do the PaNu 12 steps. Take Notes. Post here.  Live big. Start my new body weight exercise mission.  And take the dog for a long therapeutic walk tomorrow. And maybe run a tiny bit?  I'll check with the knee first.