333 Mile-A-Days and Food Update

That number up there is a bit of serendipity.

I just felt that I needed to make a quick (maybe not so quick) update as far as what I was doing with the nutritarian/unethical-vegan thing and my running progress. Yes, it's definitely been a while.

For the last few months, I've been on the unethical vegan train. I have my rare-and-appropriate Saturdays where I do indulge a bit. Especially breakfast. Need my pancakes, bacon and eggs! But during the week, I don't do too bad. I've simplified my breakfast and lunches by buying a refurbished Vitamix on Amazon. I picked it up for $360, shipped! It's the best thing I've purchased since I purchased my 1972 VW Bug.

My breakfast smoothies consist of the following:

1/2 Quaker oatmeal (Costco size!)
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbls of raw cocao
1 tsp chia seeds
2 tbls hemp seeds
1 tbls almond butter (going to stop this item)
150 grams of frozen spinach/kale/chard
500 mls (or 2 cups) water

I make this the night before and stick it in one of those Hydro Flask 40oz tumblers and in the fridge it goes.

The lunch or dinner smoothie (depends if I'm hungry or not) can be varied. But it close to the following:

2 tbls flax seed
2 tbls almond butter
200 grams spinach/kale/chard
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp pepper
And whatever I have available. Such as:
carrots
celery
broccoli
cauliflower
onion
beets

I will tell you, this stuff cleans you OUT! It a bit TMI, but I feel so much better now than I have before. It sure made training for the Salinas Valley Half Marathon much better and comfortable. I've lost some weight without really focusing on that aspect. But that is about to change now that I no long have to worry about training. I'll still be trying to up my mileage, but main focus will be weight loss. The lighter I am, the better the run!

Training was done with the Salinas Valley Elite running group. It was headed by Coach Z of the Hartnell College track/cross country teams and Coach Rudy of SVE.

As for that 333, that is the number of days that I've continuously run or walked a least a mile a day. It got me ready for the SVHM training group when it began the last week of May. During those ten weeks, the unethical vegan changes helped fuel my training and recovery.

However . . .

I'd experiment with food the night before our Saturday long runs. I should have paid more attention. It would have helped with race day.

Thinking back on my long runs for training, the best ones had been fueled by Chipotle. Or really any vegan burrito loaded with beans, rice and veggies. But I'm blaming Chipotle for my horrible race results. I know I should feel better about it because I was able to complete the race without any nausea or soreness the day after. I was feeling the aches immediately after the race, but the 1/2 mile walk to the shuttles wasn't as excruciating as in years past. I will attribute that to both training and diet.

If I had properly fueled the night before with enough legumes and good carbs, I would not have gassed out just past mile 5. I attempted the 2 minut run, 1 minute walk. That worked for a couple of miles. then I had to go 1/1 . . . then 1/2. By the time I got o mile 11 I was just running whenever my heart would stop racing so bad. My feet were a bit sore, but again, not as bad as years past at that point. MY HIPS . . . my hips were always the worst. I've never NOT had a problem with my hips until this year! Coach Z, you really nailed that part of training. Runners lunges are a godsend!

I'm just disappointed with my nearly 3 hour finish time! IF I had fueled properly, I was expecting under a 2:45 finish. I should have finished under 2:45! But I gassed out. No juice. This truck was running on fumes the rest of the way. I would get a short burst of energy here and there, but it wouldn't last long enough. Sucks.

The race was this past Saturday (August 4th, 2018). Official finish time of 2:57:39. Placed 544th out of 772 runners. Placed 272nd out of 345 men. Placed 27th out of 33 men in my age group (40-44).

Last year, the race was completed with minimal training at 3:47:22.
The 2016 race didn't happen because of the Soberanes fire. Too much smoke.
The 2015 race was completed in 3:12:24.
The 2014 race was completed in 2:55:08.
The 2013 race was my best year when I completed it in 2:19:59. I was down to about 215 lbs that year.
The 2012 race was completed in 2:47:05.
The 2011 race was completed in 3:00:24.
And my first race ever with the training and assistance of the YMCA Salinas Valley Half Marathon training group was completed in 3:24:03. I was about to turn 38 and nearly 300 lbs. I was in excruciating pain. But the buses picked us up at the race finish. No stinking 1/2 mile walk of pain to the shuttle buses.

Ahhhh . . . memories.

GD

p.s.
keep on runnin'

5 Days as a Nutritarian . . . fail?

So . . .

I started on Sunday and everything was going well. Last night I kinda fell off the wagon . . . kinda.

I went to Chipotle.

I needed something a little more substantial than what I was planning to have that evening, which was gonna be another huge salad with a side of steamed veggies and half a cup of black beans. Yeah, the salad is humongous but it really is low in calories. I was feeling kinda foggy, which I never got when I was following the Slow Carb Diet. After doing a bit more reading, I think I need to re-plan my meals. I'll finish this week as close to what I'm supposed to be doing, but adding a bit more legumes and grains.

As for what happened yesterday with the Chipotle stop? I NEEDED food. I picked up a burrito with brown rice, black beans a double scoop of the mild salsa (love that shit) and guac. It was fantastic!

So what I need to figure out is what to do for dinner. I'm gonna stick with the oatmeal breakfast and monster salad lunch. Below is my "recipe" for breakfast and lunch.

Breakfast
1/2 cup of Quaker Oatmeal
3/4 cup of frozen berries
1 banana
1 cup of unsweetened almond milk.

Breakfast is usually no problem as far as energy. It's after lunch when I start feeling fuzzy-headed.

Lunch
1/2 pound of mixed greens (baby spinach, baby kale)
1/2 pound of mixed veggies (tomato, cucumber, bell peppers)
1/2 pound of steamed veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, carrots)
1/2 cup of black beans

Dinner is where I think I may have been missing some stuff. I was just eating the same thing I was eating at lunch. I needed a hearty meal instead of another monster salad. Though ideally that should be fine. I need to figure out what I need to make for dinner. Need to add some rice or quinoa and more legumes. I do love the Chipotle black beans. I need to look for the clone recipe for those. AND for the brown rice too!

GD

Hello World! Been a while . . . part II - PLANTS!

Whole food, plant based nutrition.

It pretty much means to eat like a real vegan. No eggs or dairy. With the added restriction of no oil, added salts or sugars or processed foods. Limit grains and starchy vegetables, nuts and avocados. I like the description of being an un-ethical vegan. I’m not doing this to sympathize with the animals slaughtered for our diet. I’m doing this for health reasons.

Saturday's will still be "cheat days". As Ray Cronise says, Rare and Appropriate.

What does that mean? Stick to the diet.

Except:

   - Ideally once a week, during a 4 hour window, the world is yours. Eat what you want.

   - Holidays aren't often. Eat, but be conscious of it.

   - Other special events, ie birthdays, weddings. Again, be smart about it.

I don't know how close I'll stick to that 4 hour window, but I probably will not. I'll take Saturday.

Why am I doing this? 

   #1 Kevin Smith. He's only three years older than I am. I don't know what his diet has been like, but I at least have been somewhat conscious of what I was taking in. It hasn't all been pretty. Like 60 percent of what I've been eating has been "okay".

   #2 Ever since I got hurt, I've been feeling my age. I'm getting aches and pains that didn't used to bug me before I got hurt. I think that all goes to diet.

   #3 I just need to change something.

Ray Cronise in one of the podcasts on The No Meat Athlete and/or Rich Roll says that when we’re younger, we can get away with eating almost anything. Evolution directed that we take in what fuel we can to make sure we’re strong enough to spread our seed. Once we get to about 40, evolution is done with us. We start breaking down. If we want to make sure we have a healthier lifestyle, we can’t get away with eating junk. We need to start taking in the right nutrients our body needs to run efficiently.

This is what I’m doing during the week for food:

  Breakfast: A cup of oatmeal with berries and/or bananas

  Lunch: 226 grams of greens (spinach, kale mix),

               226 grams of veggies (tomato, cucumber, celery, bell peppers)

               226 grams of steamed veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, squash, carrots).

  Dinner: Same as lunch.

In American numbers, that a pound and a half of food for one meal. 3 pounds a day!

And I’ll tell you, I am so friggin’ STUFFED!

AND IT TAKES SO LONG TO EAT!!!

Luckily I don’t mind bland. But I can see how this kind of diet could be difficult for someone. One of the things I do like is that fruit is encouraged. Actually, they are unlimited, but 4 pieces minimum recommended. But still need to eat the other stuff first. Damn, that’s gonna be hard.

There’s a bunch of other stuff I’m missing, but the gist of it is all here. I hope it goes well.

GD

Hello World! Been a while . . .

This whole trying to be healthy thing is hard!

I was on the wagon with the 4-Hour Body thing and that worked great. Then I fell off and gained half of what I lost! The fat I gained back was bad food choices and no running. My excuses were that I got really sick (I did, horrible month-long flu or something) and comfort food. BAD COMBO!

Then I started dragging my feet trying to get BACK on the wagon, by beginning to run at least a mile a day beginning September 10th, 2017. I've kept at it and was making big improvements up until about February when I screwed something up in my ankle and couldn't run. I could barely walk, but I continued walking at least a mile a day.

Here we are at the end of April, and I'm able to walk at least 3 miles with some discomfort. I can probably go further and I will try next weekend. As for diet . . .

As we should all know, weight loss starts in the kitchen. That was why I had been on 4HB. I re-learned about Ray Cronise again. Cronise was mentioned in the 4HB book when talking about maximizing weight loss with Cold Thermogenesis. The way it was explained, was using Michael Phelps as an example. When training, Phelps was eating 12K calories a day. There was no way he should have been as fit looking as he was eating all that. However, with some self experimentation, Cronise figured out that because Phelps was training in water that was at a lower temp than body-temp, he was expending more energy (calories) just by being in cold water for hours on end.

Juliana Hever wrote a book a while book called The Idiots Guide to The Plant Based Nutrition. She recently rewrote it with Ray Cronise under Idiots Guide: Plant Based Nutrition. The forward was written by Penn Jillette. PJ is one half the magician duo of Penn & Teller. He also dropped a crap-ton (actual unit of measure BTW) weight following a drastic diet plan by Cronise. He did it because he had a 98% occlusion of the Widow Maker artery of the heart.

And all this whole preamble started because of . . .

Kevin Smith.

On February 25th, Kevin Smith was shooting a new stand-up special for Showtime that is now set to air May 11th. He was going to do two shows. But from the story that I've now heard numerous times through the several Smodcast podcasts he has, he wasn't feeling too well. He was sweating profusely, nausea , couldn't get a full breath and it felt like something was on his chest. As the symptoms got worse (never painful, mind you), it was decided that the second show needed to be cancelled. As he's being checked out by the paramedics, they find that he's having a massive heart attack.

They get him to the ER, and Dr Daniel Eisenberg shoved a stent through his groin (femoral artery) and opened up the Left Anterior Artery with a stent. It was 100% blocked. Kevin said as soon as it opened up, it made a HUGE difference on how he felt. One thing that was kind of funny during this event was that Kevin was pretty blown (as in using the wacky tabacky, the devils lettuce . . . pot). The doctor asked him how he was so calm and Kevin pretty much told him he was high. The doctor then tells Kevin that's probably what saved him. I'm pretty much straight edge, but I have been reconsidering that lifestyle decision. My one vice is alcohol, bear and whiskey.

Kevin received the same advice all doctors give when one is overweight and nearly died of a heart attack. Lose a crap-ton of weight. I can't recall who got a hold of whom, but Penn gave Kevin Ray Cronise info. Kevin followed (is following) CrayRay's (Penn's nickname for Ray) diet plan and lost at least 30 pounds as of today.

Whole food, plant based nutrition.

 . . . to be continued . . .