It’s about that time of year when everyone is setting goals for the New Year. Most people set fitness goals, so if you are someone who is just getting into fitness, I’m going to share a bit of advice that I wish someone gave me 8 years.

1. Take a Before Photo

Not only will it serve as motivation to stick with it, but also once you reach your goals, you will want to compare it to an After Photo to see how far you’ve come. This is something that I wish I did.

2. Take Your Measurements

When I first started training with Dave in January 2004, he took my measurements at the gym. I hated it, but he insisted on it, and once I started seeing progress, I would always ask him to send me a copy so I could visually see my progress. The things that we measured were: weight, % of body fat, fat mass, lean mass, neck, chest, biceps, waist, hips, upper thighs, and calves.

In the beginning we revisited these measurements every 3 months or so, then eventually every 6 months. We don’t take these measurements anymore, being that my fitness goals have changed, but I do like to do this at the start of every year.

3. Keep a Training Journal

I have periodically kept journals over the years, using different notebooks, spreadsheets, online tools, etc. As I just mentioned, when my goals started to change, so did the tools I used. The most recent ones that I’ve used are:

Daily Mile

This is an online social community primarily for those who run, bike and swim. It has a very strong community feel with people offering support, encouragement and motivation. I like to use it to read about the workouts that others, especially real-life-friends are doing.

I also use it to track the mileage on my running shoes, as well as to see charts like this:

Running Log

I started using this with a group of colleagues because we had a contest to see who could run 500 miles in a year. Since it started, almost everyone in the group has either quit the company or stopped running. There are only 2 of us left to use it and all we do is post mileage. There are no details about the run, no social aspect — it’s about seeing how many miles we are logging.

Daily Mile rounds off numbers, so if you are looking for exact mileage, this is a good one to use. I also like how it projects what your totals will be.

Buckeye Outdoors

My running coach uses this platform to post our training plans, so I upload my Garmin and other workout data for him to see.

To be honest, I haven’t used nor explored any of the reporting features here.

As for calorie tracking, I’ve used Calorie King, Daily Burn, and My Fitness Pal and now I just use the FitBit.

Calorie King and Daily Burn offers free vs. paid services. As you would expect, all the useful stuff is in the pay option. I found Calorie King to have a very, very good food database. At the time that I used Daily Burn, it was still relatively new and it’s food database wasn’t as complete. I had to keep entering the nutritional values of the foods I ate, which was too much work for me.

My Fitness Pal is free, offering the same functionality as the other two’s paid options. The interface was the user-friendliest of all 3 and the food database was more than sufficient. It also offers a free mobile app. And now, as of this week, I started using the FitBit, which interestingly enough, is about to introduce a partnership with My Fitness Pal. I’m intrigued to see how that is going to work.

All of the above tools are useful, but none covered everything that I want to track in the manner that I want to track it. So taking elements from each platform, as well as from the book, “The Competitive Edge” and the Believe I Am journal (a holiday gift), I created my own spreadsheet:

It has a row for each day of the month, as well as one last column on the end for “Comments” where I write anything else I want to notate about that day.

I like using Excel because I can sort and filter the data to see correlations, which is the whole point of why you should keep a Training Journal to begin with. And tonight, I experienced exactly why this is important.

As I’ve mentioned, over the past week my R foot has started hurting again. I say again because it is the same foot that I injured back in June that sidelined me for a month. Though it doesn’t hurt as bad now as it did then, the type of pain is the same.

As I’ve also mentioned, I’ve been doing lots of strength training that includes running lots of stairs and doing hill repeats. I’ve noticed that my calves, especially the R one has gotten REALLY tight. I have tried to roll it out and use the stick, but I can barely make a dent in it and it’s almost sore to the touch.

{there is a point to this story, I promise…}

During this evening’s massage appointment, my therapist told me that my R calf had 2 knots the size of golf balls (one on each side). As he worked through the knots; i.e. tortured me, he asked if I was having any foot issues. I said, “YES” and asked him if the foot issue and tight calf could be related. He said they absolutely were and then pointed out where different tendons and muscles (stuff way more scientific than I know about) would affect each other.

As he went on about this, I had a flashback to this past May. I had gotten a post-marathon massage where the therapist told me I had “something going on” in my R calf that needed to pay attention to it. Well I didn’t and shortly thereafter I sustained the aforementioned foot injury.

Although I faithfully logged all my workouts, admittedly they were mostly for selfish reasons so that I could see numbers on pretty charts. I haphazardly notated the details that Garmin doesn’t track. Had I done so, I might have made the calf/foot correlation on my own.

This is one of my goals for the New Year, to be thorough with recording the details of my workouts. Not only is it useful to go back and review your progress, but it also becomes reference material on yourself.

A FitBit is a tiny, wearable device, sort of like a pedometer that tracks your everyday steps, activities, calories burned, sleep, etc to help you stay fit. You can log your food, workouts, track your weight, blood pressure, and heart rate, keep a health journal – it does almost everything.

A friend first introduced the FitBit over a year ago. It looked pretty cool so I ended up getting one, but my Mom wanted it so I ended up giving it to her. This holiday season I decided to gift one to myself, which turned out to be no easy task. FitBit’s are so popular, that they are hard to find! I finally got my hands on one earlier this week and have been wearing it for the past couple of days. I must say, for a Type A person who tracks *everything*, it’s love at first sight.

During the day, I clip the FitBit to my waist and it sync’s with my computer when I’m within 15 feet of it. There is also a base that you can hook it up to for faster syncing/charging. It gives you a dashboard view of:

Food Log

After using several different online food journaling programs over the past several years, I’ve found that the key for me to be consistent about doing this is if the program has a good food database. If it doesn’t, and I have to enter in all the foods that I eat, I’m unlikely to keep it up.

Thus far, I haven’t had any problems with entering what I ate into the FitBit food database. It’s pretty extensive and conveniently populates the fields with whatever it is I’m trying to enter.

During set-up, I entered in what my dietary goals are and it tracks my log against those goals.

Personally, I find the breakdown of nutrient percentages the most useful to helping me maintain a balanced diet. However, as you can see, I had a carb-heavy day; what can I say, I’ve been obsessed with orzo lately. The point is, it helps me put it into context.

Activities

Like the food log, you can also enter in your workouts. I’ve used the FitBit during my workouts over the past 2 days so I didn’t enter it since it already tracked my calories and steps while I was working out.

To give you some context, my activities today consisted of a 4-mile run, an easy 30-min workout on the bike trainer, and then carrying four 20-gallon containers between my house and my storage unit located across the street. I don’t know how accurately it tracked the bike trainer distance (I’m not tracking this mileage so it isn’t a concern to me), but it did pick up the calories burned.

Sleep

As I have mentioned in many previous posts, I am not a good sleeper, so the Sleep Tracking feature is easily the most intriguing to me.

At night, I wear the FitBit in a wristband that came with the product. I press a button on it right when I’m going to sleep and it starts it’s tracking.

So while I got a lot of hours of sleep, less than half of it was “quality sleep”. I “woke up” 17 times during the night! Fascinating!

Overall I’m finding that the device and web site is very easy to use, has resourceful online community, and also offers mobile apps! I think the FitBit is really going to help me stay on track with some of the things I want to accomplish next year. I like what I see so far!

While I was marathon training I pretty much let myself eat whatever I wanted – within reason of course. But I didn’t count calories. I was burning so many calories that I really didn’t see the need to.

For a week and half after the race, I allowed myself to over-indulge with all kinds of good stuff, which I absolutely don’t regret at all.

But now that the training is over (well, sort of), I need to reign in my appetite, which is not an easy thing to do! To get back on track, I started counting calories again using MyFitnessPal.

It’s been 2 weeks and I’m not going to lie, it’s tough and I’ve had mixed feelings about it.

Pros:

1. The simple practice of recording what I ate made me aware of just how much I was eating. I was shocked to see that I was consuming close to 3000 calories/day. By journaling my diet, I was easily able to see where I was wasting calories and eliminate those unnecessary snacks.

2. Seeing the breakdown of nutrients made me realize that I was eating large amounts of sugar. I’ve had to cut back on processed sugar; i.e. dark chocolate covered almonds. While I still get a decent amount of sugar, now it’s mainly from fruits, which I don’t feel the need to cut back on.

3. I identified how much mindless snacking I do, especially when I’m bored. This usually happens between 10 am – Noon. So during this time I try to drink as much water as possible, and walk around the office to distract myself from reaching for a snack when I’m not even hungry.

Cons:

1. If I “ran out” of calories too early in the day, it made me want to do extra workouts to bring myself back within my caloric target range.

2. I found myself adopting the mentality of “saving calories”, particularly if I knew I was going to have a big meal later in the day or week. Not a balanced approach at all.

3. It made me hate rest days because I hated seeing “zero” in the Calories Burned column.

This made me wonder, is counting calories counter productive?

In general, no, I don’t think counting calories is a bad thing IF you have the right approach to it. It’s good to have periodic check-ins and audit your diet to make sure you are on the right track for your personal goals (and everyone has their own individual goals).

I’m still tracking my calories daily because:

- I’m still trying to trim the number of daily calories I’m consuming.
- I tend to get out of hand with portion control.
- I let myself go over board on weekends.

I also think it’s critical to do some research and know what the acceptable parameters are for your own body.

I usually get an RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) Test done every 6 months. The first one I had done was last February, and the last one I had done was in early November, so I went in yesterday to have it measured again. I’m fortunate that I can get this test at the health center at work for a fairly inexpensive price (it was only $30).

The test itself is simple – you use a clip to pinch your nose and breathe into a tube that is hooked up to a machine that calculates your metabolism. I’ve been told that it’s the most accurate way get this measurement.

I charted my results over the past 3 tests:

Exercise: # of calories burned by 30 minutes of moderate exercise
LIfestyle: # of calories burned performing daily activites like work, play, eating, etc.
Resting Metabolic Rate: # of calories burned every day at rest

I was happy to see that my metabolism continues to improve but more importantly, I have a healthy calorie range to work that is specific to my own DNA.

I guess the bottom line is, “what gets measures gets managed.” I think it’s impossible to have “a perfect diet” 100% of the time, but doing this helps me build consistency, heightens my awareness and develop healthier eating habits.

It’s a continual work in progress, but one that I am (hopefully) getting better at!

My favorite time to blog is at the end of the day, after I’ve cleaned up, brushed my teeth and washed my face. I like to climb into my bed and write a post to end my day. But good lord, I was exhausted last night. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. So, since today is a rest day, I’m lounging around this morning and making up for lost blogging time!

Today marks one week since I’ve started using My Fitness Pal. It’s a calorie counting web site that I use to track my diet. I know a lot of people hate calorie counting because it takes so much work, but for me, it’s worth it. It helps me:

- Stay aware of what I’m eating
- Track how balanced my diet is
- Make wise choices (most of the time)

My diet tends to shift; depending on what fitness cycle I’m on. For example, if I’m training for a marathon, I’ll switch to a more carb-loaded diet during the last 2/3rds of the training cycle. But during the first 1/3rd of the cycle, and during non-training times, I’ll switch my diet to be more protein-based.

Prior to discovering My Fitness Pal, I’ve used CalorieKing and Daily Burn to track what I ate. While I loved both, I found CalorieKing too expensive (last time I checked it was $70 USD per year) and Daily Burn too complicated and unstable.

After a week of use, this is my assessment of My Fitness Pal:

- It’s free
- Clean looking web site
- Easy to use
- Good food database. But if you’re food is not listed, you can easily add it.
- If you’re like me and eat a lot of the same things every day, it’s easy to record previously eaten food.
- Adequate exercise database. Lacks some basic strength/weight training exercises, but like food, they can easily be added. However, there’s no option to add in calorie burn.
- There’s a feature to “close out the day” where it calculates what your weight will be in “x” number of weeks if you keep up that day’s diet.
- They have reporting features, but after just a week, I haven’t explored it much. Yet.
- While I don’t use them, they have social media features, as well as a discussion board.
- KEY Feature: They have an iPhone app, so you can make entries into your journal at any time. No excuses!

If I could make one feature request it would be to have a graphical breakdown of what percentage of my diet was protein, carbs and fat. This is one thing that CalorieKing and Daily Burn both had that I found very helpful. However, it does break down nutrients by numbers, so with a little math, I could figure out the percentages on my own.

Here’s some screenshots:

New Recipe:

I’m back to trying new recipes. This week I made enchiladas from this recipe. I’ll also type it here, because one of my pet peeves is having to click to another site to read a recipe.

Fastest Ever Enchiladas
From: Ingrid Hoffman via Food Network

Ingredients

Salsa:
• 1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes with chiles, drained
• 2 scallions, light green and white parts only, finely chopped
• 1 jalapeno, seeded, deveined, and finely chopped
• 1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro leaves
• 1 lime, juiced
• Pinch salt

Enchiladas:
• 1 rotisserie chicken, meat removed and shredded (skin and bones discarded)
• 2 cups grated Cheddar
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 6 (8-inch) flour tortillas

Directions
1. To prepare the salsa: Combine the tomatoes, scallions, jalapeno, cilantro, and lime juice in a mixing bowl.

2. Add a healthy pinch of salt and set aside at room temperature until ready to cook the enchiladas.

3. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9 by 13-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.

4. To prepare the enchiladas: Place the shredded chicken in a large bowl. Add half of the grated cheese, sour cream, and onion; season with salt and pepper. Mix well to combine.

5. Place the tortillas on your work surface. Spoon about 1 cup of the chicken mixture across the center of each tortilla.

6. Roll them up to close and place, seam side down, in the prepared baking dish.

7. Pour the salsa over the tortillas. Cover with aluminum foil and bake until heated through, about 40 minutes.

8. Remove the foil and sprinkle the enchiladas with the remaining 1-cup of grated cheese.

9. Return the baking dish to the oven until the cheese is melted and edges of the tortillas are just beginning to get crisp, 5 to 8 minutes. Serve hot.

So, in true “Naomi cooking” fashion, I forgot to get sour cream and cilantro so I went without it. When finished, the dish didn’t look very “pretty”, so I didn’t take any photos of it, however, it turned out to be very tasty. Well, maybe just to me…I’m usually the only one who can eat my cooking…

But give it a try; it really is a fast recipe!

Happy Friday!

Today is my 2-year runniversary! Meaning, 2 years ago today, I ran my first race – the Big Sur Half-Marathon!

Today also makes one month since the Portland Marathon. A month that was full of post-season baseball. Check that — World Series baseball (I will never get tired of saying that.) And a month full of crappy eating. Yes, three straight weeks of grabbing the nearest, quickest takeout so we wouldn’t miss a single pitch. Oh, and let’s not forget the snacks. I probably hold the world record of downing the most Spinach Dip in a 30-minute period. All this unhealthy eating has taken its toll, so at my latest session with my nutritionist; we came up with a plan to help me get back on track.

The Plan

1. Get a Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) Test
The last time I had an RMR test was 8 months ago, so Danielle (my nutritionist) suggested I get it done again. I was intrigued to see what changes, if any, there would be.

Results:

It’s a little hard to read, so this is what it says:

• Resting Metabolic Rate (the number of calories my body burns every day at rest): 1829. This is an increase of 475 calories.
• Lifestyle & Activity (the number of calories burned while performing daily activities; i.e., working, playing, eating, etc): 546. This is an increase of 141 calories.
• Exercise (calories burned based on 30 min of moderate exercise): 190. This is an increase of 49 calories.

So what does this all mean?

To maintain my current weight, I should eat between 1829-2375 calories. To lose weight, I should eat between 1465-1829 calories. And I’ve increased my metabolism by 34%! That’s good right? Dave, my trainer, says it also means I’ve gained some muscle mass! Yay! So these extra lbs are not entirely all fat. LOL.

I do admit to somewhat questioning these results, but all the “professionals” I’ve spoken to swear that it’s a pretty accurate test. (By the way – the test itself is simply breathing into a machine for 10 minutes. You’re not allowed to eat or exercise beforehand, so I had it done at 8 am.)

The Rest of the Plan

2. Eat small, frequent meals every 3 hours, evenly distributing calories over each meal.

3. Plan, plan, plan each meal

4. And plan a calorie breakdown of 40% carbs, 30 % protein and 30% fat

The Support

Knowing that it would be tough for me to get back into gear, I enlisted the help of my good friend Megan.

We worked together years ago and used to have our own mini-Biggest Loser challenges. So although she now lives in San Diego, I texted her to see if she wanted to start another challenge, and thankfully, she said yes! We’ve set-up a Google Docs spreadsheet to track our diet and exercise and be accountable to each other.

A lot of people are opposed to doing the calorie-counting thing, but it works for me. So I’ll be using Daily Burn again, to track my diet. I mostly like to see this graph:

No, I’m not exact, but if I can actually see the number of calories that I’m eating, it helps me to make smarter choices, like saying no to the bag of chips, and yes to a bowl of blueberries instead. Its like banking – I’ll save now so I can spend (eat) later.

Because I’m always thinking of my next meal…

(As I mentioned in my last post, this week I’ll be recapping some events that happened in the past couple of weeks that I wasn’t able to write about immediately. This is one of them.)

A little while ago, I had my monthly appointment with my nutritionist.

March had been a challenging month for me – travel and illness distracted me from recording my diet regularly (and eating healthy as well). Irregardless, I emailed her my reports from Daily Burn to review before our appointment.

During the first appointment I ever had with her, I told her that I was training for a marathon and trying to lose 10 lbs. She immediately told me to throw that idea out the window. You can’t lose weight AND train for a marathon. It just doesn’t happen that way. At the time, I was a little put off by that idea. I didn’t understand how I could be doing all this running and not lose weight. I mean, we’re talking major calorie burn!

But that was before I got into the long distance training. Now that I’ve done the 13, 15, 17+ milers, everything that she said just “clicked.” I get it now. Its really is all about fueling your body. I now understand how badly I was restricting my body from the calories that it needed. In order to sustain my strength and endurance for these 4+ hour runs, I need all the energy I can get.

With the race now 11 days away, I’m in taper mode, but during those long-run weeks, I found myself eating everything in sight. I even ate bagels, something I never, ever eat. I didn’t care, I was just so hungry! It was like being dehydrated – when you’re thirsty, you know you already are. Same thing with eating – when I’m hungry (which seemed to be all the time), its time to refuel.

I’ve accepted the fact that my marathon training weight is 5 lbs more than my normal weight. That’s a lot for me. But the nice thing is that my weight has consistently stayed at 5 lbs. It may fluctuate about a pound and a half lighter, but it hasn’t gone above the 5 lb pound mark.

After we discussed this, we reviewed my Daily Burn reports. Although they weren’t as complete as the previous months, the feedback was essentially the same – I need more potassium. I told her that I crave oranges, even though they upset my stomach. That was the indication to her that I am still potassium deficient. A banana a day in my smoothie just isn’t enough.

So I’ve added another orange and banana to my afternoon snack and have made more of an effort to eat beans, a great source of potassium. In fact, earlier this week I made a huge pot of Taco Soup and threw in some black beans into the recipe too! Unlike most Paula Deen recipes, this one is decently healthy. I cooked it with the leanest ground beef and also left out the sour cream.

To be honest, I’ve been eating it for lunch and dinner all week. Some people would get sick of doing this, but its so delish, I don’t mind. I eat it with some blue corn tortilla chips (I count out one serving exactly).

Having meals prepared in advanced has also been a huge time and money saver as well.

We wrapped up our session with a few additional questions that I had:

* At the time of the visit, I had just injured my foot so I asked, “Are there any ‘healing’ foods that will help my foot heal faster?
- Put plainly, she said, “No.” Okay, moving on….

* I get really hungry during long runs. What can I do to help fix this?
- She suggested eating a slightly larger breakfast or adding a piece of fruit before I run. Also, during the run, try to hold off eating the first GU until 60 minutes out. I normally have the first one at 4 1/2 miles, or 45 minutes. I actually tried both suggestions on my last long run and it did make a difference. But the bottom line was, I needed more carbs.

* I want to set Advanced Diet Goals/Targets on my Daily Burn account. What should those targets be?
She sent me a very thorough presentation called, “What Makes Up the Food We Eat.” It breaks down how much macro nutrients (carbs, protein, fat), micro nutrients (vitamins and minerals), and water our bodies need. I had to do some math conversions (thank goodness for Google conversions) to set-up my Advanced Diet Targets in Daily Burn, but now that they’re set, its been a tremendously useful tool in helping me track and balance out my diet. If this is something you’re interested in hearing more about, let me know and I’d be happy to share more information about it.

My next appointment with her is the week after the marathon. Although I’ll still be active, my marathon training will be over, and I’ll have to adjust my habits and targets once again – that’s the goal for my next visit – stay tuned!

Last week I had my second visit with Danielle, my nutritionist. In our first visit, she recommended I get my Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR tested) which I did. So this visit was to review the results and talk about the proper methods of nutrition I should follow, specifically for my immediate goals of training for a marathon and getting back to my happy weight.

The night before my appointment, I emailed Danielle my RMR results, as well as a month’s worth of Daily Burn reports. Daily Burn is an online tool that allows you to:

* monitor your diet
* track your workouts
* find motivation from others
* join challenges and set goals
* track your progress and achieve your goals

I like it because there’s a free option that works very well, and there’s also a PRO option, where for a nominal monthly fee, you can have additional services, like reporting. The reports were very useful to Danielle. She was able to study my diet over a 4-week period and get an idea of what foods I normally eat and what eating patterns are. Using this data, along with my RMR report, she was able to make solid recommendations with regard to my nutrition.

RMR

The first thing she did was clarify that my actual RMR is 1759 calories. This is a combination of the calories I burn doing nothing (1354) + the calories I burn just doing “lifestyle activities” (405). What this means is that without any exercise, I burn 1759 calories per day.

But since I’m in the middle of marathon training, and doing a lot of cross-training as well, I burn a lot more calories – anywhere from 300-500+ a day.

Based upon this, she made the following caloric recommendations:

* To maintain my current weight, my caloric intake should be 2274

* For weight loss, my calorie intake should be 2024

I’m so happy to finally have these guidelines to work with. Previous to this I was working on a guessing game and would limit myself to about 1800 calories gross, then workout on top of that. Danielle was right, I wasn’t eating enough food and my body was struggling to keep up with the burn.

Next, she analyzed the nutrient breakdown of my diet. She said that my fiber, sugar, sodium, etc., was all very good. I was doing a good job with keeping my diet at 50% carbs, 20% protein, but the fat was a little high. She noted that I eat a lot of nuts, avocado and peanut butter; and while they are good fats, they are still fat. So I need to cut back on this and keep my fat intake at 30% or less of my total daily calories.

One glaring nutrient she said I absolutely need more of is potassium. I always have 1 banana a day in my smoothie, and one after I finish a run, but I guess its not enough. She sent me this article on potassium which I found very interesting.

Potassium is a mineral that helps regulate fluid and mineral balance and is needed for muscle contractions and transmission of nerve impulses. It also helps regulate blood pressure; an important role considering one in three American adults is living with hypertension2.

Potassium plays such an important role in blood pressure regulation and stroke prevention that the Food and Drug Administration has authorized the use of the health claim “diets containing foods that are good sources of potassium and low in sodium may reduce the risk of high blood pressure and stroke,” for foods that are naturally low in sodium, fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol, and provide at least 350 mg of potassium per serving, such as fat-free milk and some yogurts.

So how do I get more potassium and how much more of it do I need:

In the past week I’ve been making a conscious effort to eat the foods on this list. Its hard, but something that I need to work into my daily routine.

Here’s some of the additional questions I asked her:

Q. I try to stay away from processed foods, but sometimes a nutrition bar is the most convenient snack available to me. Which ones are the better ones to eat?
A. The ones she recommended are: Luna, Cliff and Kashi bars. I was happy to hear this because those are the ones I already like.

Q. Normal practice is to carb-load before a race, but I don’t normally eat that much carbs, especially in one meal, and it sometimes make me sick.
A. She said not to carb-load before a race for that exact reason; it will throw off your system which is the last thing you need before a long race. Instead, she says to make sure my carb intake is about 60% of my diet for about a week leading up to the race.

Q. I have some family and friends who don’t eat red meat. I’m not a huge red meat eater, but I appreciate a good burger. How bad is it for you?
A. Red meat is okay when eaten in moderation. Try not to eat it more than 3x’s / week.

Q. I eat oatmeal for breakfast, but have to sweeten it up a little. I add a tablespoon of agave syrup or honey, which I know has a lot of sugar. Is this good or bad?
A. If I’m going to add sugar, those are the best kinds to add. Just one tablespoon is fine, just don’t overdo it. She also recommended a product called Sun Crystals which is made up of raw sugar and stevia. She’d recently started using it and seemed to like it. I’m not sure if I’ll give it a try because I also add the agave or honey to change up the texture of the oatmeal. Not sure the powdery Sun Crystals would do that for me.

Q. Is cheese ok to eat? If so, what kinds?
A. As with everything else, cheese in moderation is fine. The softer the cheese, the better it is for you. She recommended I stick with cottage cheese (which I’ve never had before) and low-fat mozzarella.

I love having Danielle as a resource that I can go to, to ask these kinds of questions and know that the answers are coming from a licensed, certified professional! I go back in 4 weeks for my next check-in to see how I’m doing. This is definitely motivation for me to keep recording my diet and exercise in the Daily Burn. She liked the my reports so much that she’s added the Daily Burn to her list of recommended programs for her clients!

Are there any other questions you would like me to ask her in my next visit?

In my next post, I’ll be sharing about the Fitness Assessment I recently went through. It was an eye-opening experience! Stay tuned!

I’m currently using Active Trainer’s Beginner’s Marathon Training Plan. Every morning I get an email telling me what the workout for the day is supposed to be. Today’s workout was supposed to be an easy run for 45 minutes and this “Coaches Notes” was listed:

Tempo runs are to be done at a pace where you could carry on a conversation but you would prefer not to. However, you are not to reach an anaerobic pace. On all tempo runs: warm up for at least 10 minutes, sustain your pace for the designated time and cool down for at least 10 minutes (i.e. 45 min. (T) = 10 minutes of warm up, 25 minutes of sustained effort, and 10 minutes of cool down). Recommended heart rate is 85% of your maximum.

I’ve always shrugged my shoulders at instructions like this because while I know in theory what a Tempo Run is, I just had no idea of what my pace was supposed to be. Until now.

A few days ago Runners Rambles wrote a fantastic blog post and referenced McMillan’s Running Calculator. I hadn’t heard of it before and was intrigued, so I clicked on the link.

Whoa! I was blown away by what I found! All I had to do was enter my PR for a specific distance and it told me every pace I should be running for every distance and training run!

How did I ever train for a race without this! Which brings me to today’s run.

After yesterday’s disappointing attempt at run, I crossed my fingers, hoping today would be better. Now that I had some guidelines for what my pace for Tempo Runs should be, I hopped on the treadmill in the mini-gym at work, to give it a try.

I warmed up for 5 min, walking at 3.5, then ran for 10 minutes at 5.0, then hit my tempo pace for 25 minutes. Since this was the first time I was trying this, I stuck to the slower range of a 10:14 min/mile. Well, the treadmill only has a 10:20 min/mile (5.8) and a 10:09 min/mile (5.9). I decided to split the time doing 12.5 min at 5.8, then 12.5 min at 5.9. Hopefully that averages out to 10:14 min/mile.

During the run I took advantage of being alone in the mini-gym and started to belt out Britney Spear’s “Circus.” Until, at the corner of my eye, I saw another person in the room lifting weights. Horrified, I shut-up immediately. But I think he was embarrassed for me and left shortly thereafter.

Being alone again, I started singing Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling”, with a lot of feeling. Half-way through the song I realized that another guy had walked-in and was lifting weights. I couldn’t believe it happened twice! How embarrassing. After that I learned my lesson and just stopped.

Soon, I got into “my zone” and was completely focused. Even when my legs started to tire, I blocked it out and kept going until time ran out.

I used to regularly attend Body Combat, a mixed martial arts class. It remains one of my most favorite workouts ever. It made me feel, strong, powerful, invincible – like I could take on anything and anyone. Then I got injured. I haven’t been back to the class since and haven’t felt that mental toughness either. Its been in 10 months. With this run, I feel like I got a little bit of it back, and it feels so good!

I’m so happy that me and the Treadmill made up today…but I can’t wait for my outdoor 8-miler on Saturday.

During my first visit with my nutritionist, she recommended that I get my Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) tested. I wasn’t sure what an RMR test was, but if was going to help me with my nutrition, I was all for it!

Before my appointment, I did a little research and learned that this test essentially measures how many calories your body burns by doing nothing.

During the morning of my appointment, I was instructed not to exercise or eat anything. Since I usually eat breakfast as soon as I wake-up, I was lucky that my appointment was at 8 am so I didn’t have to starve for very long.

I arrived at the Fitness Center and met with the Fitness Manager who was going to administer the test to me. I wasn’t sure what to expect of the testing process, all I was told was that it wouldn’t hurt.

I sat down in a comfortable chair and was given a nose clip to ensure that I only breathed through my mouth. Next, a plastic tube was attached to a machine and a mouth piece was attached to the other end. All I had to do was breath evenly into the mouth piece while the machine worked its magic. It took a few seconds to get used to breathing with the nose clip on and get into a breathing rhythm. After about 15 minutes the machine buzzed indicating that my results had been captured.

The Fitness Manager printed out my results and then we reviewed them together.

Terminologies
RMR: The number of calories a body burns by doing nothing. This number is related to your lean body mass; i.e., your muscles and organs. The findings of the test is supposed to tell my nutritionist exactly how many calories my body needs to function efficiently.

Lifestyle Activities: The number of calories burned by doing daily activities like walking, eating, driving, etc.

Exercise: This number is based upon a 30 minute workout at moderate level.

Results:

I was quite surprised at these results. Who knew that by doing absolutely nothing I would burn 1354 calories a day! And another 405 just by doing my daily activities.

The results indicate that to maintain my weight I should net 1354-1759 calories/day and to lose weight I should net 1084-1354 calories/day. If I stick to these numbers, it would take me 6 weeks to reach my goal weight, 5 if I burned more than 141 calories/day.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see that my metabolism is slightly higher than normal.

But…

Since I’m training for a marathon, and burning way more than 141 calories/day, the Fitness Manager advised me that I need to be eating more than the 1900 calories to make sure I’m properly fueled for all of the running and cross-training that I’m doing.

I’ve always struggled with the guessing game of how many calories should I be eating and burning. While there are a lot of tools and calculators out there to help give us an idea of what our target numbers should be, those formulas are based upon a general population. I think its really helpful to know what my energy balance should be, specifically for me.

When I was went through my 40 lb weight loss, it seemed so easy (once I was able to change my lifestyle) to drop the pounds. There was a time where I didn’t even realize how many lbs I was losing. A colleague had to pull me into a conference room to tell me that it was time for me to get a new wardrobe because my clothes were too big. But then I hit a plateau and have been stuck here for the past 3 years; and I have actually gained some weight in the last couple of months. With all the training I have been doing, I just couldn’t understand why this was happening. But thanks for my nutritionist, and tests like this, I now understand that its likely that I was depriving myself of the extra nutrients a body requires when training for something as intense as a marathon.

All of this being said, I realize that there are people out there who think that its too much work to count calories. Yes, its a little extra work, but for me, this is what helps me to stay in check and be honest with myself about what I’m putting in my body. It also helps me to see what the breakdown of my diet is; i.e., what percentage of it is carbs, proteins and fat. When I see an imbalance, I review what I’ve been eating and make modifications to even things out.

I’m now eating a little more, and next week I go back to my nutritionist with my RMR results so we can put together a customized nutrition plan for me.

I’m so grateful for these benefits that are available to me. I lnow that not everyone has these opportunities afforded to them – but if you do, I highly encourage to take advantage of them!

About a month ago, I wrote a post on the Health Coach that I have through work that’s part of my insurance benefits. Well yesterday was my monthly check-in session that I had forgotten all about! It was such a nice surprise to get a phone call from my Coach!

We reviewed my fitness goals which are:

* to run my first marathon at the end of April
* to complete my first baby triathlon at the end of September (I refuse to use the term “sprint” because there will be no sprinting on my part).

Being relatively new to swimming and cycling, my plan all along has been to build a base through the cross-training that I’m doing while training for the marathon. This way, I can learn the fundamentals of each sport, then start to seriously training for them after the marathon. That would give me 5 months to be able to swim 400 meters in open water and ride 11 miles.

During my previous sessions, we’ve had in-depth discussions on training plans and my diet. My coach provided me with these valuable training and nutritional resources:

Training:
* The ABC’s of Fitness
* Workouts
* Marathon Training Plans
* Swim Workouts

Nutrition
* The Food Pyramid
* Live Strong
* Healthy Eating Tips

Today, he also recommended that I visit Crossfit.com to find more information on training.

Then I unleashed a bunch of questions on him:

Q: Now that I’m taking a Strength & Conditioning class twice a week, I’ve dropped my weight-lifting workouts from twice a week to just once a week. Is this a good or bad thing?
A: Adding more muscle could throw my body out of whack. Its probably better to stick with the no-weights Strength & Conditioning workouts because it builds overall fitness which he believes will help me better prepare for my goals. You can’t go wrong when you vary your workouts; it keeps your body on its toes.

Besides, in ancient days, there were no weights, there was only physical movement and labor. Weights were an added bonus over time. However, be cognizant of any feelings of weakness anywhere in your body and incorporate light weights if/when necessary.

Q: And as for swimming?
A: Definitely continue with the swimming, but like he mentioned above, variety is good so I should mix things up. Use a kick-board and pull buoy. (I was so excited to tell him I just started doing that!).

Q: “I don’t take any vitamins or supplements because I feel that a balanced diet will provide me all the nutrients I need. Given the events I’m training for, would you recommend that I take any supplements?”
A: First he gave the disclaimer that he isn’t a nutritionist, but could only share what he does personally, which is to drink a protein shake after a game or hard workout, primarily for muscle recovery.

Then he told me that through this coaching program I have free access to a nutritionist! I was so excited to hear this! I have not been very happy with my scale (actually I’ve been flat out angry with it) lately and I know for a fact its definitely not for a lack of working out. I mean I am either running, swimming or working out at the gym for 10-12 hours a week, with two-a-days on Mondays, Wednesdays and sometimes Thursdays and/or Fridays. So I know the increasing scale is due to diet, and probably stress too.

So I made an appointment to see the nutritionist next week! Needless to say, I can’t wait!

The last thing he left me with was this information on Sports Nutrition for Athletes. These are just basic nutritional rules that I’m sure many of us already know, but its always nice to be reminded of them:

The Basics of Good Nutrition:
* Less than 30% of calories consumed daily should come from from fat.
* Less than 10% of the fat calories consumed daily should come from saturated fat.
* Drink a minimum of 8 to 10 glasses of water per day.
* Never skip breakfast!
* Eat when you feel hungry, not when the clock says it is time to eat.
* To make sure you are getting enough of all the vitamins and minerals you need, make sure your meals have a variety of colors. The more colors of foods you eat, the better your chance of getting all of the nutrients you need.
* Consume a majority of carbohydrates as complex carbohydrates (potatoes, pasta, rice and bread) rather than refined carbohydrates (soft drinks, candy, cakes and sugar sweetened food).

The Basics About Carbohydrates:
* Carbohydrates should contribute 60-75% of calories every day.
* Eating a high carbohydrate diet all of the time can increase endurance.
* Eat a high carbohydrate snack or meal within two hours after exercising to help replenish glycogen stores. At least 300 calories of carbohydrates are recommended for a 150 pound person. Depending on your weight, you may need a little more or less carbohydrates to replace your glycogen stores.
* Example of a carbohydrate snack: 1 cup of orange juice plus 1 bagel or, 1 bowl of cereal with milk and 1 banana or, 1 low fat granola bar and 1 cup fruit juice.

The Basics About Protein:
* The optimal protein intake for most athletes is 15% of total calories.
* Example: An athlete requiring 2,200 calories per day needs approximately 82 grams of protein per day. Five ounces of meat and 3 cups of milk provide 59 grams of protein. The remaining 23 grams can be obtained by eating starches like rice, pasta and cereal in amounts recommended each day.
* Adequate protein must be available for muscle building.

The Basics About Fat:
* An optimal sports diet can contain up to 25% of calories from fat or about 60 grams of fat per day for an athlete consuming 2,200 calories.
* Overeating fat generally results in under eating carbohydrates. Eliminating fatty foods is best.

I’ve been using the Daily Burn for a full month now and I love seeing the breakdown of my daily diet – how much of it was Carbs, Fat and Protein. I also like being able to scan the UPC bar code of a food product and having it automatically be entered as “a food I created.” It definitely takes more effort to track my diet this closely, but for me, I’ve found that its necessary to keep my diet on track.

NOTE: One thing I don’t like on the Daily Burn is that, in my opinion, its functionality is limited when it comes to logging your workouts. So when my workouts fit within their framework, I’ll enter it, mostly so I can see my caloric balance for the day. But as for keeping a fitness journal, I use the Daily Mile.

Workout Update
Wednesday AM: Total Body Workout
Wednesday PM: Interval Run on Treadmill
Thursday AM: Swim

For the first time in weeks, I have no plans for Thursday night! I’m debating if I should do anything or just rest. I’m leaning towards resting. I once read in an article that you need to rest to “let your body absorb your training.” So that’s what I’ll probably be doing tonight – as I finally watch the season premiere of Lost! I have a love/hate relationship with that show – but I’ll leave that for another day.

Happy Thursday!