The Body Is Healing.

I woke up this morning feeling a heck of a lot better. Walking around now like it was nothing. Even jogged to the printer a few times at my job too. Speaking of which, I was pretty impressed that my director at work took notice of my improvement over last year's race. Very cool. I was explaining to him that I had a 3:40 pace going for a while there, even with the pain.

I picked up the kids tonight, and Stephanie mentioned that her music teacher, Christine Gero, ran the marathon too. I took a look at the results. Whoa! She beat my ass pretty well. 3 hours and 50 minutes and came in the top 1000 for her age group (she's 34). I took a look at year's past, and noticed that she was one a member or FRNY, or Front Runner's New York, a very well respected track and field organization in the city. Most impressive was that she too had slower times in year's past, clocking 4:20s and slower. Assuming, that I can overcome this cramp condition, I will no doubt be vying for glory in 2009.

I have not yet begun my diet. My kids are with me this weekend, and it will be too difficult to start while they are here. As it was, Bern was driving them to MeMe's since 4:30pm. It was 7pm when the exchange took place, and I knew we weren't going to get home till close to 9. We stopped at McDonald's got them Happy Meals, and got myself a Fatty Meal in the process (Angus Burger Deluxe). When I go, I go all the way. LOL.

Here's hoping that my kids eat all the bad stuff before they leave. Truthfully, I am so in need of a diet, that I am even considering bringing into the office, any leftover Halloween candy. Having no temptation is crucial.


I have hung a weight chart calendar on the bathroom wall near the scale, and I have started using http://www.calorie-counter.com/ again to keep a daily track of my diet. To keep myself earnest, I am making my diet public. This should help shame me in the early going to do the right thing.

The Fitness 19 gym in North Babylon is open for business. They will allow me to use their facility in lieu of waiting for the one that I signed up for (on Wellwood). I took a look at the distance, and it is twice as far as LA Fitness. So while I still have an active membership, I might be going to LA instead. Gym training begins on Monday. Light running begins on the following Monday.

Above you will see today's nutrional ingestion including caloric intake. Based on my caloric computations where I am Male, 43-years old, and weighing 164, I should be able to consume up to 1975 calories per day. That number is based on a sedentary lifestyle. In other words, little or no exercise at all.

Beneath that is a pie chart which breaks out the percentage of food that contains carbs, proteins, and fats. Leading nutrionalists believe in a 40% Carbs, 30% Protein, 20% Fats split, but for people with a higher fat metabolism, like perhaps me, I might want to push it a bit and go for a 40-40-20 split. Obviously, I will be saying goodbye to McDonald's for a long, long, time.

Of course, once I start my insane physical program, I will also be posting the negative calorie accruals in the "Activity" tab above. This will subtract from the number of calories ingested. On a day where I run for 2 hours, I will need to eat at least 3000 calories (based on my weight right now) for me not to lose weight. For anyone interested in figuring their BMR (Base Metabolic Rate) Caloric Requirements, to see how many calories you can consume per day, just go here - > http://my-calorie-counter.everydayhealth.com/Calorie_Calculator.asp

Three more aspects, I've learned about weight loss over the past year which has served me very well.

1) If you lose more than 3% of your entire weight over the course of a week, you're headed for trouble. Too much weight loss will signal to your brain that you are in starvation mode. The body adjusts for that, and burning calories off become much more difficult. As such, I've done this, and true to the warnings, weight stops coming off. Worse yet, I am sluggish, and cannot get good workouts. Max 3% percent of 160 pounds in a week = 5 pounds.

2) DO NOT EAT LESS THAN 3 HOURS BEFORE BED!!! I will be eating after work and before the gym in order to protect this. Anything I've eaten late at night, turns to fat. The next morning my scale has really made me sad over this. Don't do it!!!

3) Get 8 hours of sleep, Eat 5 times a day, Drink 8 glasses of water. The body can lose weight while you are sleeping, especially if the food is already partially digested (point 2 above). Eat often, to keep the stomach juices burning continuously, and not feel hungry. Drink a lot of liquids, as it helps to moderate your system, and flush out toxins. My pee should be clear.

Speaking of toxins...

I will be encouraging my children to clean up on the Oreo's, the Fig Newtons, the Halloween candy, and anything else that they crave. After that, all my shopping for ALL of us will be healthy choices and nothing but. Carrot sticks will be the typical snack around here. Ice Cream once in a blue moon. I'll just buy a teeny container, of a low-fat brand.

My only concern will be boredom of this diet. I must admit, I am not very creative when it comes to cooking, and I am afraid that I might wind up eating the same thing every day (ie. 3 egg whites with tomato) for like, ever. This could cause me to be more tempted to fall off the "wagon". If anyone out there, especially runners, have any suggestions for meals that are not to hard to prepare at any time, please let me know.

I've read a lot of suggestions in sports magazines. But some of it is downright ridiculous. If it's going to involve me living in an organic food store, buying exotic items that cost a fortune and are difficult to prepare, or menus that can only be prepared by Bobby Flay, or by someone else at the French Culinary Institution, then forget it!

My calf is feeling much better now.

Wow. It will only take a week to be almost completely healed. Compared to other years, that is an amazing record in it of itself.

Peace. Out.