Cleaner Eating and Pudge

The running and clean(er) eating are going well, I’m very happy to say.

No, I haven’t lost any weight which I have to say is a bummer, but I also wasn’t tracking my calories and I know after doing this for a long time that the only way I can lose weight is be honest with myself by tracking my calories. This cleaner way of eating has been a great change. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still eating things that contain ingredients that I don’t recognize but I believe in baby steps with some things and food is one of them. The drastic stuff doesn’t work for me. I feel better and have a feeling that besides my run streak that this better eating thing has really helped my running.

Speaking of running, I did a 5k in Maine on 7/6 and beat my PR by 2 min! Pretty awesome, right?! I came in at 38:42 and this included a few walk breaks which I always do but had a feeling this time I wasn’t going to need any because I was feeling so good. That was until I got near the ocean and all I could smell was seaweed and fish. I usually don’t mind that smell but it didn’t hit me so well during the run. I felt nauseous so I walked but I persevered and did great!

The whole eating and weight thing is still something that will always need to be addressed and I HAVE to lose some weight before I start marathon training the 2^nd week of September. I just can’t go into it with all this extra baggage or as I have nicknamed it, “pudge.” I know it’s not reasonable to think I’ll lose the last 27 or so pounds in 2 months but I’d like to put a dent in it. Well, I’m definitely on my way. I started tracking my food in MyFitnessPal again yesterday, including upping my calories (I don’t think I was eating enough after reading all sorts of stuff) so I know that will do the trick.

Next up on the agenda of my life is some upcoming traveling including the in-laws this coming weekend and NYC the following weekend to see The Screaming Orphans (the Irish band we followed in Ireland this past November) perform at a party. After that, we are going to Maine again in September for a few days.

 

Here’s to a happy, healthy summer!

What I Learned on Saturday

The June run streak is over and I did it for the whole month. I felt proud to be doing it to raise suicide awareness and proud of myself for sticking with it even on days when I really didn’t want to. Will I do it again? Yup. I think as long as the mileage isn’t high, I will probably try it again but for now I’m going to change gears and start running to enjoy it and my health. I’m also going to continue with the weight training that I started at the end of May. I feel better already doing the weights.

I have to say that even though I’ve decided to change to running just for enjoyment and my health, that is going to be a challenge for me. I have a training plan or should I say, maintenance plan all set up that I created before I ran Brooklyn that I was going to start a couple weeks after I did the race. I will need to get outside my comfort zone to not use that training plan for awhile, or at all, and just start the marathon training in Sept like I planned. I also like to track my mileage so even though I want to get out there for enjoyment, I would want to track the mileage somehow. I should go out there without wearing my Garmin and track on my iPhone instead. I don’t hold the iPhone in my hand so it’s not like I’ll be able to continuously check it like I do my Garmin.

I’m going to continue my “clean eating” lifestyle and work toward my weight loss goal which is only 26 lbs away. I put clean eating in quotes because it seems like such a fad thing and it really has so many definitions but for me, I like one of the definitions I read that basically said to eat things where you recognize most, if not all of the ingredients. I realize this is going to be a lifetime of change but I’m already in that boat with having the gastric bypass surgery and after this past Saturday, I realize more than ever how important it is that I be smart about what I put in my mouth.

This past Saturday I had a low blood sugar episode. I don’t have Diabetes (I’ve been checked) but I’m very aware of the symptoms since I’ve had them before and my mom passed away from Diabetes complications.

I started Saturday with a 1.5 mi run and then went home, showered, changed and eventually went to breakfast. I had my normal breakfast of 1 poached egg, 2 slices of bacon and 1 slice of toast. But today was a little different. I had a few bites of hubby’s pancake with syrup on it. The combination of the additional carbs, running and not having enough protein was what I’m thinking did me in 2 hours later. I felt shaky, tired, a little out of it and craved sugar. I had some lemonade and a soft pretzel and recovered but I learned a lot that day.

Apparently something called Reactive Hypoglycemia can occur in gastric bypass patients. I won’t go into the details of what this is but basically, it can cause low blood sugar issues/attacks and can be severe. I am now being much more aware of my protein/carb balance.

I will be going to my doctor to confirm my this but in the meantime, I already knew that as a gastric bypass patient that I need a lot of protein and not as much carbs. So, I learned that I need to be careful because just as a side note, now that I’m more active I get even more annoyed when a weekend day has been wrecked which is exactly what happened Saturday because after the blood sugar episode I needed to come home and sleep for hours. Not fun but a learning experience nonetheless.