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.