Lentil Spaghetti

When I started my "physical transformation" I started two blogs. The first was called The Fleet Vegan. On it I was looking to develop alternative recipes to common favorites that could be made quickly and easily for busy people. I got rid of the blog because everyone started associating me only with vegan food (and I'm not a vegan). Plus, I wanted to be inclusive of other things besides just recipes. I was changing my exercise life and my way of thinking (I've become Mr. Life Affirming since those out of prime shape days). The Fleet Vegan format just was complementary to work out posting. It was too food concentrated.

When I started the blog, I made a few silly little cooking demonstration videos. This guy is one of them:

Old Video #1

I had a conversation on facebook with an old friend (she isn't old, we've just been friends for years) about cooking. She brought up vegan curry with tomatoes and chickpeas. I love a quick, easy chickpea curry. Here is a video I made last year of exactly that dish. Now, I wasn't in the shape I am now during this time so don't think I'm trying to pass this off as current (I'm not even sporting a beard these days).

I want to start eating more things like this. I've lost fat cutting out sugar, but I've stopped eating veggie meals like this and I need to pick that back up. It has been so easy cutting fat without the sugar that I've allowed myself to eat some bad stuff as long as it doesn't include sugar.

My First Injury

You'd have to paid a lot of attention to remember this, but I once mentioned that my hamstrings are prone to injury.  Well, my left hamstring is injured. I felt it pop as I was doing sprints (exactly what I was worried would happen if I did sprints).

Hamstring injuries are nothing new to me. In fact, that popping that I felt is a very familiar feeling. I've felt it many times before. So, where does that leave me? For the two days it will be R.I.C.E. (rest, ice, compression, elevation) and after that I'll just have to take it easy. I suppose it also means that my sprinting days really are over. As much as I'd like to do sprints I know that they end up injuring me, and I should (as an almost 40 year old man) let them slide.

In truth, I'm looking for a new method of cardio. Jumping rope, as it turns out, bores me. Running is great, but the optimal time to run is also my ideal skate session and I'd rather spend the "golden hour" skateboarding. Hmmm...should I take up "Dancing to the Oldies?" LOL

Week Four Begins.

Body Fitness:

One month of exercise and a healthy diet is just four days away. It is almost surprising to think that I haven't been through a drive thru for a meaty hamburger in nearly 4 full weeks, and that I've eaten french fries only once in all that time. I used to cruise through a drive thru at least two or three times a week before this. 

I think I'm the only person who can see the changes so far (those that say they see them? Well, they're being nice and that is just fine). I added up today's caloric intake at about 1700 calories (100 under my target). It really does seem to center around eating ingredients rather than products. Ingredients are what they are. It is face value. An apple is an apple. Celery is celery. On the other hand, products have lists of ingredients. Now, I'm not saying I don't eat anything with a list of ingredients (I'm quite the fan of sausages made from birds), but I'm centering my diet around ingredients. An apple? A little over 100 calories. A candy bar will have 2 1/2 times the calories with less health benefits and won't fill you as well. I'm sold on the apples.

I'm not even nervous about the (shirtless) picture on Friday anymore. Bring it on!

Soul Fitness:

It is also just four days away from my quest for "Soul Fitness." Now, I realize there isn't a good quantitative measure to show the fitness of a soul (and the qualitative would be pretty tough to figure out as well).  I can only say that I'm continuing to look at the theater.  I've just finished watching a biography on Spalding Gray. Spalding Gray became a hero of min the first time I accidentally came across Swimming to Cambodia. His storytelling was magical. His ability to captivate and the absolute honesty of his work was bracing.

I was a young kid (well, youngish around 1989) who wanted to be a writer, and I wanted to tell my story. Here was this guy who did just that so well that you could film it, and it was entertaining for a full hour and a half! One person sitting down and telling their story might just be THE most honest act in the world. And you find the similarities between that person and yourself. You find the commonality between us through the act of storytelling no matter where that person is from or how different their experiences might be from our own.

I'm picking up a monologue I started some time ago. Let's see where that takes me.

Sugar, Protein, Pictures, and Circuits

I've been thinking a lot about my diet and the effects of different foods on my body. After all, I am now one week away from "picture day." In one week I have to post a picture of my shirtless body (gotta keep my word). I need to make as many smart (i.e. fat-burning) decisions as possible. Not that I haven't seen some great changes over the first few weeks. I feel like I'm much more toned, and I can see improvements in my belly.  Still, I want it all and I want it now.  Yeah, that is impossible, but I don't want to sabotage getting the maximum results by eating the wrong foods.

I've been eating a lot of fruit and flavored yogurt. Fruit? Sugar. Yogurt? Sugar. One thing I've not eaten is meat. If I'm trying to cut down on carbohydrates, I should cut them out even further. I've stopped eating most breads and almost all refined sugars. So, if I cut out a large chunk of the sugars in the yogurt and limit the fruit (no, I'm not giving up something as healthy as fruit) I should be able to cut down further some of the calories.  In their place, I'm going to add some low fat meats. I went with chicken and turkey sausages. They're easy to cook, portion controlled, and darn tasty while still being super low in fat and carbohydrates. Perfect.

Chicken sausage with fresh, vine ripe tomato, kale and some herbs.

Since my rough day, things have picked up. I'm still running for distance (I haven't switched to sprints yet), but I've started hitting my body in different ways in my workouts. I've found that I really like to work out in a circuit. My first leg workout went well in a circuit routine (Wednesday is now leg day). I've changed my weights workout to be a weight/body-weight resistance circuit. I like to keep moving quickly from exercise to exercise, it makes me feel like I'm maximizing my workout time with efficiency. Plus, the addition of new body-weight work moves my muscles in a little different way. I'm also thinking about adding some isometrics and some plyometrics after week four (I'll write about those when I start them). I've read about using new and different workouts to keep stressing your muscles in new ways every so often.

So, in one week from today we'll see the results of the first month!

Water My Thinking?!

First off, I'm thinking about water. I've read a bunch about water intake, and I'm pretty sure my way too much coffee-drinking butt has been dehydrated for a long time. Not serious, health disabling dehydrated, but not properly hydrated to reap health and weight benefits. It seems, and I'm no expert on this, but drinking water actually helps you lose weight.  Even CNN ran a story on drinking water to lose weight. It helps curb appetite (feel like snacking? drink some water.), it makes a person less bloated (your body isn't holding in water in fear of not getting enough), and if you're properly hydrated you'll be able to do more reps in your workouts without feeling fatigued.

My friend Kim pointed out some great flavored waters as well. Cucumber, lime, lemon? Sounds great!

That was only part of this post, though. The truth is that today has been the hardest day I've had. Here I am, in the beginning of week three, and I'm exhausted and craving a big, greasy burger and sweets (tons of sweets).

It all started at 2:30 a.m. this morning when my neighbor woke me up coming home. Follow that up with a 4:00 a.m. alarm to be at work by 6:00 a.m. (three hours earlier than normal) and skipping breakfast only to stare at cheesy sausage and egg biscuits, fresh donuts and cookies all day. Yeah, it was a rough day to eat right. Luckily, the water kept my appetite down for the most part (I drank about 3/4 of a gallon), but I didn't really eat much of anything all day.

Ten hours or so later, I left work and headed home. So, I went for a run that was really more of a walk. Well, there were a couple minutes of running involved, but it was pretty much a 30 minute walk. I finally ate dinner and felt a little better. I kept it healthy, but probably didn't take in 1,000 calories today...way too few calories.  I have to be sure not to skip breakfast anymore.  See, until I started this quest/blog/whatever I'm doing, I hardly ever ate breakfast. Today, I felt like I never really got going because I skipped breakfast. It kickstarts the metabolism and offers the calories to give a first burst of energy. Couple that with hydration...I'm ready to sleep and try again tomorrow.

Sifting and Drama

I've been doing some research on physical fitness. Well, I started out doing some research. I ended up sifting through all the differing opinions people have about what is right or wrong in diet and physical fitness. I read  vegans who said that we eat too much protein to bodybuilders saying we don't eat enough. I read something about aerobics causing cancer. I read about how eating too much fruit is bad for you.  I read so much that I gave up reading.  It seems everyone has a million different reasons why they're right, and it was all just too much for me.

One thing that made sense: Taste the rainbow! We're talking whole food fruits and vegetables (not candy). Red peppers, pink grapefruit, purple grapes, green asparagus...basically, eat a variety of fruit and veg. Well, that makes sense.

Another thing that made sense: Figure out what you want to look like and see what people that look like that do. Well, that makes perfect sense, and it totally makes me rethink running. I don't want to look like a runner, really. Well, at least HOW I run. I'm thinking about sprints. Look at a distance runner. Look at a sprinter. I'd rather have a sprinter's body than a distance runner. Hmmm....maybe sprints tomorrow morning? Perhaps a bit of both? I'm prone to hamstring problems so sprinting might be against me.

I'm hoping I get up early tomorrow. I'd like to begin doing all my training in the early a.m. starting tomorrow.

Oh, drama. After the inspirational night at the theater Friday, I went into total theater mode. I listened to a recording of a play, watched the film adaptation of two plays, and finally watched the blockbuster film version of Les Mis. I feel like I need to continue my long forgotten theater education over the next months. Perhaps this is one of the key aspects of my mental/spiritual fitness (becoming one with too much forgotten part of myself)?