Gimme Back My Park!

Last night I could not fall asleep. I think I was up past 1:00, which is way too late for me. This morning when the alarm went off, I was about to get up and Drew said, "I think that you need your rest." I listened to the voice of reason and went back to sleep. That meant that I would need to get in my quick run this evening instead. I actually don't really like working out in the evening. I normally eat pretty well during the day, but I find when I work out in the evening, I feel a lot more pressure to watch what I eat to make sure I'm properly fueled for my evening work out.

I also tend to be starving when I get home from work, so it takes a bit more planning than usual to work out at night. Since Krista just did a post about food and was wondering what other people ate, I thought I'd run down my eats from yesterday:

Breakfast: Homemade smoothie (pineapple, pineapple juice, jackfruit, frozen blueberries, ice, protein powder) - 225 calories
Morning Snack: Grapes - 60 calories
Lunch: Homemade salad (romaine, grilled chicken breast, cucumbers, peppers, carrots, Brianna's Santa Fe dressing) - 300 calories
Orange - 107 calories
Light String Cheese - 50 calories
Afternoon Snack: Progresso Light Vegetable & Noodle Soup - 120 calories
2 of Drew's mom's cookies - 245 calories
Pre-Running Snack: 2 bites of stale Clif bar - 35 calories

So, pre-running, I had about 1,150 calories (in case you're wondering, I input this into Daily Burn and that's where I got my totals). I was originally supposed to have the soup and salad as lunch, but I ended up eating outside since the weather is so nice here (more on this later) but it's very hard to heat up soup when outside, so I ate the orange and cheese instead. I actually think it worked out pretty well, since I ate the soup around 4:00 and then wasn't starving when I got home from work.

The weather here for the past couple days has just been amazing. I wish it would just stay like this from now on and never rain again - or get cold - but that's probably all a dream. I actually got to wear shorts when running today! I wore shorts, a short-sleeved shirt and a thin long-sleeved shirt. I probably could have done without the long-sleeved shirt, but I was a bit too chicken to go without it. Plus, my run was so short, it didn't really matter. Even if I got hot, it wouldn't be for an extended period of time.

Walking home from work and then running to the park, there were tons of people out and about. It was like they all thought, "oh, it's nice outside, I should go out." Which meant that there were lots of people to dodge while I was running to the park. And I couldn't believe how many people there were when I actually got to the park. Two weeks ago when I was running on a Thursday after work, I didn't see anyone on the Reservoir Path! And now people were out in droves. I guess the good old days are over. This is probably all just reason to make sure I get to bed on time and can wake up in the morning for workouts.

Today's workout was so short and easy, I'm not really sure I even broke a sweat. I ran to the park, then ran North along the Lower Loop to the 72nd Street Transverse. Then I ran South along the Mall and got back onto the Loop and headed home. Let me tell you, there were people everywhere. I guess all it takes is the weather to warm up and then New Yorkers and tourists head to the Park!

I had a really nice time running tonight, even if I was a bit annoyed at all the people in the Park. It was nice to just get out there and not have to worry about running for a long time or hitting a certain distance. All I had to do was get out there and stretch my legs.

And in case you're curious, I picked up Chipotle for dinner. I'm lazy and it's right across the street from our apartment. My burrito bowl and chips was 1125 calories (Yes, I get the chips. I really like them and I had almost no fat earlier in the day. It's always worth it because it just tastes that much better.). That gave me a daily total of 2,275, which according to Daily Burn, is actually under my goal calories for the day (goal of 2,371 to 2,621). As a complete aside, I stopped counting calories on a daily basis a while ago. I do periodically put them in Daily Burn just to see how I'm doing. And I'm almost always right on track. Which means that I probably don't need to count them at all. Except sometimes I get curious about calories in versus calories out (from exercise), which is why I bother at all.

So, I think I might be done exercising now before the half-marathon on Sunday. I'm not entirely sure about my plans for tomorrow, but I'm thinking that the next time I run, it'll be in Atlanta. The chance of rain just keeps going up and now we're at 70%, but I'm just hoping it won't be too bad. I'm packing every available option for clothing, so at least I'll be prepared!

Running
Time: 26:48
Distance: 2.60 miles
Pace: 10:18/mile
Calories: 299
Maximum HR: 178
Average HR: 162

New Shirt, New Shoes, New Service?

This morning was a bit of a repeat of yesterday. We slept in again and then headed to the gym for another long session of working out. This probably makes up for the fact that we skipped out on the gym on both Thursday and Friday! Plus, it's just a really great way to start off the week. I know I'm going to have to get into the habit sooner than I'd like of getting in longer workouts, so I figure I might as well squeeze them in whenever I can.

I do need to back up for a minute. Yesterday afternoon Drew and I went to the NYC Marathon Expo in the hopes of scoring some free samples of energy bars, drinks, etc. However, all we did was spend money. There were hardly any free samples, which was pretty much the exact opposite of the NYC Triathlon Expo that we went to over the summer. I guess we now know not to waste our time with the Marathon. So, we left with some new socks for Drew (I got one pair too), running gloves for both of us, two new technical shirts for me, and one free coconut water each. Here's our booty:


I colored in the "M" in Mizuno on my running gloves so that we could tell them apart easily. The gloves were originally $20 and we got them for $5 each. I got both shirts for 50% off, so even though we were hoping for a bunch of free stuff, we still got great deals on the stuff that we did get. I had really been wanting some new running gloves and Drew asked if we really needed fancy ones or if we could just get by with cheap ones. However, reading Brie's blog about her recent run with the cheapie gloves, I think I'm hoping that these will be a bit more breathable and worth the extra couple of bucks.

So, long story short, of course I had to try out one of my new shirts at the gymnasium today! I chose the one on the left. I actually really liked it although the sides are completely see-through, which is sort-of funny to me. Kind of like a sexy workout top!

I also took my bike shoes to the gym with me for the first time today. Obviously the shoes aren't new, but taking them to the gym was a new thing for me. I have been wanting to see for some time if they would clip into the spin bike clips. And they do! That meant that I had to give the computerized spin bike another shot today.

For the new service, I decided to do one of the spin class programs and see how that went. I put in all the relevant data (weight, age, etc.) and started. The only thing I apparently forgot to set was the level. I realized that I was on Level 7 (out of 10). Yesterday when I was messing around I did Level 4, which I thought was a bit of a challenge, so I really wasn't sure I was going to make it through 30 minutes on Level 7.

I did the "Race Day" program, which I actually really liked. There were lots of hills to climb (some seated and some standing). I just pedaled as hard as I could. The one thing that I still don't love about this machine is that when I'm standing it will pick up my heart rate monitor but when I'm seated it must be too far from the sensor, so it doesn't. When I looked at my stats, it looked a bit like I had been shocked by a defibrulator since my heart rate was at zero for quite a while and then would jump up once I was standing.

I will say that I think the shoes actually made it more enjoyable. Wearing the cages over my feet just isn't that great once you've been wearing cycling shoes and I'd 100% recommend wearing these shoes instead. Even though I was a little nervous that I'd forget one of my pairs of shoes at the gym, it's probably worth the worrying.

After the bike, I did some stretching and foam rolling. I tried to roll out my hamstring and I'm still working on foam rolling my shins. It is interesting to me how much easier it is on my shins. It is still not comfortable, but it's not painful like it was before when it made me want to yell out curse words. Then I decided that I would do some more cardio and I hit the elliptical machine.

While I was at the gym today, I was watching the NYC Marathon, which was sort-of inspirational. I decided to do an hour on the elliptical but after about 40 minutes I had really had enough. But I figured if I could watch all of those people on TV running 26.2 miles, I could hang in there for another 20. So, I did. I'm really glad that I did. The thing about working out is that it's not always 100% enjoyable, but I'm always really happy that I got up and did it. Although I do believe in listening to my body, but sometimes when I'm still half alseep, I'm not really recognizing that I'll feel better in the end.

I finished up with some more streching before heading home to start my day. Drew and I had some errands we wanted to run and we also decided to go and get lunch downtown on our way to the errands. I decided that I wanted to wear my heart rate monitor and just see how many calories I burned while not working out. I know that this isn't a perfect test and I do plan on wearing it again on a work day where I'm mostly sitting throughout the day, but I thought this would be a good weekend estimate.

It turns out that I burned 230.4 calories per hour, which I actually think is pretty good, given that I didn't do any cardio. The spike in my heart rate came right at the end of the test period when I was carrying about 20 cans of fruit up the steps from the subway. I'm not going to lie, I definitely slowed down when I reached the top of the steps. I think my legs were a little tired from earlier today! I'm now really curious to see what a regular work day looks like in terms of calorie burning, so stay tuned for that!

Computerized Spin Bike
Time: 33:08
Distance: 11.50 miles
Pace: 20.82 MPH
Calories: 393
Maximum HR: 176
Average HR: 163

Elliptical
Time: 1:00:00
Distance: 5.50 miles
Pace: 10:54/mile
Calories: 635
Maximum HR: 170
Average HR: 155

5 Hours Non-Workout Calorie Counting
Time: 5:00:02
Calories: 1152
Average Calories: 230.4/hour
Maximum HR: 153
Average HR: 101

Calories, Calories

I ended up taking today as a rest day for the week, so I thought I'd use today to write about something that I've been doing recently ... counting calories. First, I think I need to back up and start from the beginning. I'd say that about a year ago, I wasn't 100% happy with my body. I had gained a few pounds, I wasn't really utilizing my gym membership and knew that I should do something about it. I started going to the gym maybe around 3 times a week and started to feel a little bit better.

I started out at about 149 pounds (in my mind, 150 pounds is some magic threshold that I was hoping never to cross and although I wasn't completely comfortable being so close, I was happy that I hadn't gone over). My body fat percentage (according to Drew's scale) was nearly 26%. I think that was the most shocking number. I know that women are always fattier than men, but compared to Drew's body fat percentage, I felt fat. I'm 5'8" and never looked over weight (and in fact, I wasn't). I just noticed that my pants were a little tighter than they had been before. There was even a brief consideration of buying the next size up, but I told myself that I wouldn't give in.

It wasn't until sometime in February of this year when Laura asked me if I'd want to sign up for a triathlon with her that I really felt like I got into the groove of things. I then started becoming more consistent with my workouts (like working out 6 days a week). What helped me the most in becoming more consistent was the fear factor of signing up for a triathlon as well as having a plan when I went to the gym. I knew I had to do X number of hours / workouts each week. I didn't always do exactly what the plan said to do on any given day, but I always tried to match the number of hours I spent working out.

By May of this year, I had firmly lost 5 pounds. I waited a while before I really admitted it to myself because I was afraid that it was just a fluke each time I stepped on the scale. Turns out it wasn't. I should say that this was never really my goal when I signed up for the triathlon. It was just an added benefit. In fact, I never really thought about weight loss when I was considering signing up. My body fat percentage had also gone down to somewhere around 24%. By this point, I could tell that my clothes were back to fitting they way they were when I bought them. I also kept hoping that my body fat would go down, but I wasn't going to stress out about it.

I should say that I've never really struggled with my weight. There have been several points in my life where I thought maybe I could lose five pounds and so I did. Until two years ago, I never really exercised (other than sports in high school) or belonged to a gym. I just figured that by living in New York City and walking around a lot, that counted as enough exercise.

By September, I was down to 141 pounds, which is where I currently am now. And, the last time I weighed myself (last Saturday 10/24/2009), my body fat percentage was down to 20.7%. When that number popped up on the scale I literally yelled out "Ohmygod" several times because I just couldn't believe it. I can tell, especially doing this weight lifting book, that I am getting stronger and my muscles are getting bigger. It's just nice to know that the effort I've been putting in is paying off.

Which brings me back to where this post started ... counting calories. Drew had told me that he wanted to keep track of what he was eating and so I said I'd do it too (we've done this before where we just kept spreadsheets of what we ate, but didn't count calories). This time, he signed up for the Daily Burn website, which will keep track of your workouts and food and will also count calories. So, I signed up too and said that I would do this for two weeks with him. Tomorrow will be the end of the two weeks.

When I first signed up, I put in my current weight stats, said I'd like to lose 5 pounds (mainly because it seems like you need to have goals on this website), and that I was "moderately active - doing moderate exercise 3 to 5 times per week". That calculated that I should eat somewhere between 1669 and 1919 calories. Before this, I really had no idea how many calories I was eating. I felt like I ate pretty well during the week and a little less well on the weekends. I never really felt like I denied myself anything, but I also don't splurge too often on really big calorie meals.

Turns out that the calorie range of 1669-1919 wasn't really working for me. I really felt like I had to think about everything that I ate, which I hated. I would get to the end of the day and still be hungry, but be afraid to eat because I didn't want to go over my calories. Drew told me that if I hated it and it was making me unhappy, I should just stop. But, I felt like I had told him that I would do this with him and I wasn't about to just quit.

So, after the first week, which I found miserable and actually made me feel bad about myself, I decided that I had probably cheated myself on the exercise portion of the website. I changed it to "very active - hard exercise 6-7 times per week". This was still one step below "extremely active - marathon training, etc." I felt like "very active" was more realistic for me because I do go to the gym about 6 days a week and I spend at least an hour there. I'm not really training for anything yet, so "extremely active" seemed wrong. By switching to "very active" I got a new calorie window of 2371-2621.

This is so much better! I can eat and not have to worry about going over my calories or feeling bad if I want to eat a piece of (reduced fat) cheese on my sandwich at lunch. I can even splurge and still be within the range. The website does say that if I want to lose weight, I should eat slightly under that calorie range, but for maintaining my weight, that's the correct range. I'm still undecided about whether or not I will continue this. I think it has been good for me to see what I'm eating and what it adds up to, but I'm not sure I'm cut out to do this for the long run.

So, at the end of this long post, I guess I'd just like to summarize and say that I'm pretty proud of myself for overall making good choices with food. I really don't think that I have some of the food stigmas that it seems like lot of people have. Food doesn't make me feel happy or sad. It just makes me feel not hungry. I think that this calorie counting really taught me a lot. The funny thing is that I know I'm eating more than I did a year ago, but it's actually okay now because I'm also exercising on a regular basis. Overall, I'm really happy with where I'm at right now.