Taking the plunge!

Ok! I’ve done it!  I’ve made the commitment!

No…. I’m not getting married!  I’ve committed to the Nerd Fitness 6 Week Challenge!

What this means is for the next six weeks – starting September 24th – I’ll be working towards four specific fitness and life related goals.  Three will be fitness or health related, and the fourth is a “life goal”.

For example, here’s what I wrote down for my goals (copied from my thread on Nerd Fitness):

Goal 1 – NF’s Beginner Workout x3 a week - Right now I’m sedentary, and really need to get my ass in gear. The beginner workout is probably as good a place to start as any. Hopefully I’ll be able to work myself past it? [ +3 STR, +2 STA ]

Goal 2 – Yoga x2 a week. I was doing Yoga steadily for a while, but fell out of the habit months ago. I felt really good while I was doing it, so I think it’s a practice I need to get back into. [ +2 STA, +1 CON ]

Goal 3 – Learn to eat Paleo up to 80% - That’s really what brought me here. I’m excited to change my eating habits to something that, to me, just the thought of it feels healthier. With a small vacation coming up at the end of September, this will be a difficult starting point, but I’m up for the challenge. [ +3 CON ]

Goal 4 – Life Goal - Start steps towards getting into grad school. First steps would be getting tour of the University, meet with the Advisors about my undergraduate grades (which weren’t so great :/ ) and getting my Transcripts sent. [ +2 WIS, +2 CHA ]

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention – NF treats fitness goals like a role playing game, with stats for your Strength, Charisma, Constitution, Wisdom, Stamina and Dexterity.  You can increase your stats by achieving your goals.  It sounds kinda fun, so why not try it out, right?  Anything that can make fitness that little bit more fun is all good to me.

The first steps on this Challenge are going to be hard, as I’ll be out of state next weekend, so it will be harder to control when I get to work out, or where I get to eat.  I’ll do my best to keep up with things though!  I’m an Advenurer!  GRRR!!

LTNS – and diet change!

Wow.  I can’t believe I haven’t posted for a few months – shame on me!  I don’t have a lot to report.  Life has forced my fitness to fall by the wayside.  

I do have the one bit of good news – my weight has dropped from 204 to 190.  I don’t know why, but I’m still happy about it!

EYES:

I’m getting new glasses, and they’re bifocals.  Sigh.  Must mean I’m getting old.  

DIET:

I’ve decided that maybe vegetarianism is a bit too drastic in my situation.  In a household of omnivores trying to be a sole plant based eater is pretty rough.  I’ve been researching the Paleolithic (Paleo, or Caveman) Diet for a while now, and I’m going to give it a try.

Now, basically the gist of it is this:  it’s a pre-agriculture diet.  Like our caveman predecessors used to eat.  Whatever they could hunt or gather: Meat, Vegetables, Fruit, Nuts and Seeds.  Nothing farmed.

Upon talking to Baron, he seems supportive, though he realizes he’ll have to think more about what I eat and what we buy at the store.  I was in the grocery store last night poking around, getting an idea of what I can and can’t eat.  Boy, was I surprised!  Everything has so much processed sugars, wheat products, rice products, tons of stuff that are just right out.  I know this is going to be difficult, but I’m going to try my best.

As suggested by Steve over at NerdFitness, try it for 30 days (which is what I’m doing).  If you like it, great!  If not, that’s ok too.  The point is you gave it a shot, right?

I’ll try to keep up with the updates as needed.  Thanks!

Sugar, part deux

It’s been a while since I posted, most likely because I haven’t had much to post about.  My diet has shrunk some.  Medication that I’ve recently been switched to gives me nausea and thus reduces my appetite.  I eat about half as much as I used to.  Because of this, I lost ten pounds.

However, I have been continuing with my low sugar diet.  I take truvia in my tea, and still drink artificial sweeteners in my Crystal Light.  I’ve discovered, that because of this, my body is developing some manner of intolerance for real sugar.

Full sugar sodas, sweet candies, desserts – things that have a high sugar content – are making me feel ill.  For example, I may drink an energy drink twice a month (when my gaming group meets).  As of late, I’ve been drinking the Rockstar Recovery, which is their low-calorie lemonade sweetened with sucralose.

Last night, for a change, I decided to get the fruit punch flavour, which is one of their regular, full sugar varieties.  I drank it, and shortly after, I felt ill.  Nausea, fuzziness, I thought I was going to throw up.

I feel the same way if I drink too much soda, or combine soda and a candy bar.  I recognise this feeling, and know that I shouldn’t have sugar if I feel this way.  Too much sugar, with me not having had a lot of sugar, just has a negative effect.

While this is most likely a good thing, in order to cut down on processed sweets, I do sometimes forget that it’s just a bad idea, and swamp myself with chocolate goodies and cola.  I regret it later.  My body gets it’s revenge on me.

I think, yet again, I need to be more aware of what I’m consuming, not just for my weight, but for how my body feels in general.  You need to listen to the cues that your body gives, sometimes, it knows more than you do.

Do I run? Only when chased…

Wow, it’s been a while since I updated and I apologize for that.  I haven’t had much progress fitness-wise – with my diet or with exercise.  Finally, I have something to write about.

Couch to 5K

Vague you say?  Well hear me out.  I follow a lot of blogs.  A LOT of blogs.  Most of them are either food related or fitness blogs.  A good percentage of them also happen to be owned by runners.  I couldn’t understand it.  Why were they all runners?  What was the draw?

Honestly, I have to admit that I was a bit jealous of all these runners.  I felt like they had something I was missing.  Maybe it’s the sense of community.  Maybe it’s the ecstasy of the wind through your hair and the endorphins pumping through your body.  I don’t really know, but honestly, I was taken over by the green-eyed monster.  I was just plain jealous.

Recently, however, I got to thinking.  Sure, I’ve walked a few miles here and there, and didn’t have much problem with it.  Why not add some jogging in here and there?  Why not actually try running?  What’s it going to hurt?

I do worry about a few things.  I worry about the cost, because I can’t afford running shoes, so for now I’m stuck running in skate shoes (which can cause shin splints and other unpleasantness).  I worry I’ll be bored.  I just worry – it’s in my nature.

On to Couch to 5K.

It’s a training program that claims that in nine weeks you can go from a couch potato to running a 5K run (3.1 Miles) or 30 minutes, 3 days a week.  The program has a huge following and is held in high regard, or else I wouldn’t bother trying.  Now, part of what got me thinking hard about this was the fact that my walks were already 2.5 miles, and I didn’t think it was all that far.

It starts you off with some interval running – running faster for a short period of time, then slower for a short period of time.

I think this is a really good opportunity for me to get a bit more fitness into  my life.  I need to decide when I’m going to run – mornings or evenings (the heat is a big deciding factor), and what my route will be.  The roads around my apartment complex are super busy, so I’ll try my best to find something safe.

Wish me luck!

A Message From The Gods

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about faith, particularly mine.  As a child, I was adamantly Roman Catholic.  Through High School I started questioning too much, and was told my questions were “bad”.  In college, I met my first Wiccans and was initiated into a small Coven.  Soon after, after a dogma disagreement, I left that Coven to practice as a solitary Neo-Pagan, focusing on the Egyptian Pantheon and my patrons of Isis and Osiris.  And so it was for fifteen years.  Then I started to slip away from my God and Goddess.

I felt disconnected from them, and my faith didn’t bring me the joy it once did in my life.  It felt hollow to me.  Empty, like I was just going through the motions.  Eventually, I stopped practicing altogether.

Shortly after, I stumbled onto Buddhism, and found something that brought me truth.  I was such an angry person, and Buddhism brought me peace.  The teachings were meaningful, and I fell in love with Zen.  This kept me sated for more than five years, but soon – recently – that old ache started to grow in me again.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my faith – and my crisis of faith.  I feel the calling back to my God and Goddess, and hope that they will accept me back into the fold.  It is said that Isis will always open her arms to those who call on her, in unconditional love.

So I’ve decided to reboot from the ground up.  I need to acquire all new altar tools (mine are in other states, sadly, as is my altar itself), rewrite my rituals, etc.  Part of that is facing my deities, admitting that I had slipped and tell them I am lifting myself up and bettering myself in their Name.

I spent the other night reading up on the Gods and Goddess of Egypt.  When I went to bed, as I lie there, I slowed my breathing to meditate (I do that sometimes, because I have trouble sleeping).  I thought of Isis and Osiris.  I said to them “Please accept my devotion to you.” or words to that effect.  It was more of a feeling than actual words.

Slowly, to my mind, the image came to me:  their hands spread in front of me, motioning to a massive banquet table, only the bottoms of their bodies visible.  Their upper forms and heads were cast in shadow.  I felt peaceful and welcomed.  It was as if they wished for me to sit with them and partake of their bounty.  They were happy to have me return to their table.  I ate with them, and as my meditation slowed to a close, I fell into a restful sleep.

Some might blow off the experience as a lucid dream, or fanciful thinking of a sleepy mind.  To me, it was something substantial.  Tangible.  I know now where my steps are leading.  I am not leaving my love of Zen behind, but integrating what I’ve learned there with where I am going from here.  I have reawakened to my faith, and eagerly await my future with my God and Goddess.

Namaste.

New Toys And A New Grocery Trip!

This week I got a surprise.  In an effort to help me meet my diet goals, Baron picked up a new toy.  He bought a Jack LaLanne Power Juicer Express!  Now we can buy fruits and vegetables and make fresh juice – yummy!  Also, we replaced our blender, which was leaky and dying, so yay for more smoothies!

While driving home tonight, we decided to stop by a store we’d never gone into before – The Fresh Market.  It reminds me of a Whole Foods, but a little smaller.  They had an excellent supply of produce, lots of natural fruits, nuts and candies, coffee beans, hard to find oils and vinegars, tons of cheese – it was a really nice little place!  It said on the sign out front that they sell Sushi too, but we didn’t see the sign until we were on our way out.

We picked up some great looking produce – Honeycrisp apples that are freaking HUGE, a bag of seedless red grapes and a bundle of kale.  I’ve really been wanting to try kale.  We also finally – FINALLY – found a jar of tahini!  It only took forever.  Also, we found some really tasty sodas, with sugar instead of HFCS in them.  One of them was Zevia, a soda that contains stevia instead of sugar, which I’ve been dying to try.  I picked the Ginger Root Beer flavour.  Baron picked out some of the coffee beans for himself.

I like the fact that The Fresh Market is a lot closer to my apartment than Whole Foods – a twenty minute ride instead of a forty five minute drive.  It’s smaller, with less of a selection, but I’m hoping to at least make a monthly trip out there for some staple items.  Like most specialty stores of it’s kind, the prices are higher than your average supermarket, but you can find a lot of stuff there that you can’t find anywhere else.  Looking forward to my next trip out there!

Accursed Sweet Tooth!

This week’s most-likely-far-too-long post is about Sugar and Artificial Sweeteners.  I have a bit of a sweet tooth.  I’m not usually very big into cakes and candy, but sugary drinks are pretty much my downfall.  I love sodas and juices.  I’ve been thinking a bit on this lately.

I’ve read quite a bit on ye olde innerwebs about sugar and why we consume so much of it.  A lot of it has to do with how readily available it is.  I mean, look on the label of nearly anything and you’ll find it’s probably loaded with High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).  You might be lucky enough to find something with Sugar or Cane Sugar in it, but that’s fast becoming a rarity.

It makes me think, though, are our diets training us to crave sweets?  Is it just because of the availability?  Does it have to do with our insulin production?  Are people turning to Artificial Sweeteners (aspartame, sucralose, saccharine) in an effort to shake the habit, but only making themselves worse off in the long run?

There’s a lot of research out there about the negative impact of Artificial Sweeteners on our bodies.  Drinking and eating a science experiment can’t be good for us.  Some studies claim they cause cancer.  Another claims they contribute to obesity and overeating.  All in all, if you’re eating clean, it’s definitely something you want to avoid.  For a sucker with a sweet tooth, however, it usually ends up being the lesser of two evils.  I am one of those suckers.

I started label watching a little over a year ago, after seeing all the negative press regarding HFCS.  I try my best to avoid it in food and drinks.  This week, I went to buy some 100% Whole Wheat Bread, and looking at labels, kept finding ones with HFCS in it.  In the end, the loaf I went with had plain Sugar in it instead.  Again, the lesser of two evils I suppose.  I’ve cut nearly all of the soda out of my diet, but replaced it with flavoured carbonated water or the occasional diet soda.  It’s not just the sweetness I want, but the carbonation.  I really love those bubbles!  I also make a pitcher of Crystal Light to keep in my fridge for the times where bubbles aren’t a high priority.

Here’s the breakdown of Artificial Sweeteners in my diet.  Consider it a confession at the alter of the Internets.  I’m not condoning the comsumption of Artificial Sweeteners.  I’m just saying they’re out there, and sugar junkies like me are still addicted to them.

Aspartame

I consume this more often than any other sweetener.  Crystal Light, Walmart’s Great Value Flavoured Water, Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry – all zero calorie and sweetened with Aspartame.  It took me a while to get accustomed to the aftertaste, and anyone who tells you there isn’t an aftertaste is a liar.  This one seems to be the most common Artificial Sweetener, but I think it’s fast being overtaken by other forms of sweeteners.  Not my favourite.

Sucralose

Another one popular with flavoured waters, like Fruit2O and Sparkling Ice.  At least Sparkling Ice also sweetens with fruit juice, other fruit flavours and green tea.  I prefer this to Aspartame, as it doesn’t have the nasty aftertaste.  It’s a little harder to find though.

Truvia

Not as much of an Artificial Sweetener, as a product of the Stevia plant.  It’s not pure Stevia, it’s mixed with a few other things.  I only use this in my tea.  You only need half as much Truvia as you need regular granulated Sugar.  It’s got a sweet flavour, but in my experience it has what I can only describe as a “cold” taste to it.  It’s something I got used to.

Alternative Natural Sweeteners

Most of these are non-sugarcane sweeteners.  I’ve been dying to try them, but don’t have ready access to them.  Things like Agave Syrup, Pure Maple Syrup (not the pancake kind!), and Brown Rice Sugar.  Sugars like Agave are known to have a lower glycemic index, which means they don’t cause your blood sugar to spike when you eat them.

Well, those are my experiences with Sugar and Artificial sweeteners.  I know my Sugar Tooth battle is far from over, and to reach my fitness and diet goals I’m going to eventually have to beat back this demon.  Mixing juice with water to cut the water’s blandness was one option I’ve considered.  I can’t stand water plain, so some creativity will be in order.  Crossing my fingers that I can come up with something palatable!