The Skinny on the Skinny

the BHE just asked me, "are you gonna blog about our awesome new diet?"

well...i am going to discuss the diet, yes. would i call it awesome? let's decide.

pros: tons of energy, in a good mood, usually full after eating and satiety lasts a good while, down a few lbs.

cons: green poop, cooking/grocery shopping/cleaning kitchen roughly 2-3 hrs a night, all the recipes are unique from each other in many ways but all still retain a general flavor of 'health.' (if 'health' were a color, it would be brown death).

so it's kind of a wash right now. will stick it out. only 6 wks left. sigh.

not much to report from work. been taking a lot of call lately. also am heading up a 60+ person department-wide "biggest loser" contest. first weigh-in is tomorrow. lots of people are really excited about it and it's something unified we can all do together.

so on all fronts the focus is getting skinny and fit. i will start to share diet and exericse fallacies soon. let's start with this hilarious new hand-held battery operated weight. i can't watch this without rolling on the floor laughing.

You Have Some Dirt On Your Shoe, Were You Going to Eat That?

the half marathon is exactly 7 weeks from today. the BHE and a friend and i ran 10.4 mls this morning. i'm doing about 3-5 mls twice during the week and then a large mile number run on the weekends. and my fund raising for the leukemia and lymphoma society (as part of this race) is already all done. people have been insanely generous and supportive.

$286.74 spent so far on the new diet. this includes all the staples that we'll use in many dishes (hemp seeds, lemons, quinoa, etc) plus a fancy grater and a new blender. when we were looking for some of the wackier ingredients, we out hippie-fied even whole foods store, so i'm feeling pretty smarmy about that. :) they only had ground amaranth and we needed whole seeds, herumph herumph, herumph.

so...we'll see how it goes. so far all we've tried from the recipes in the book are "direct fuel bites" which we ate before and during running. blended dates, lemon juice, and coconut oil all chilled and cut into squares. actually quite good. and we didn't fatigue during the run, so they did their job. but the rest of the day we ate normal food (left over cheese pizza, hummus on pita, thai soup, salad) as sort of our 'last meals' before we officially jump on this vegan crazy wagon.

i'm excited, but i really cannot believe how granola we are being. on second thought, i don't even know if we can eat granola on this diet...

Oh, the Hippy in Me Seems to be Winning

so, i am running a half marathon in 8 weeks as part of a fund raiser for the leukemia and lymphoma society. 13.1 mls is a long way and involves a lot of training. the race is in florida, so will likely be in the 50's-60's when i run it, but here and now where i'm doing my training, it's in the balmy teens and twenties. running in the snow is like running in the sand- there's a whole lot of resistance dragging you down. plus, the slushy snow then freezes and becomes hazardous, foot-catching, ankle-rolling pot holes along the way. but over all, it's actually really enjoyable! the obstacles kind of make it more fun and as far as the cold, you bundle up so nothing freezes and falls off, but once you're moving, it's rather comfortable. and i guess if i have to survive winter in the midwest, i'd rather get through it at high(ish) speeds.

and with all the running we've been doing, you'd think the Christmas season lbs would just be melting off, right? wrong. i've been half-assing weight watchers for a few weeks with no results, and now i'm ready for change. the BHE has been reading a book on eating right while training for long distance races called "Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide" by Brendan Brazier, a vegan professional iron man athlete. he talks a lot about whole, simple foods. like fatty acids instead of complex fats, amino acids instead of complex proteins, simple sugars, etc. lots of sprouts and whole grains and greens and fruit and stuff. the idea is that you're giving your body only valuable energy that it can use and not store. i know this will be a challenge, but recall that we're already vegetarians, so the stretch is maybe less than it would be if we had to come off meat, too. and i'm not sure if it requires this, but i will be giving up caffeine and alcohol, too. i don't want to pollute my body while simultaneously giving it the good stuff. the book includes menus and recipes for 12 wks, so starting this coming weekend, we're going to follow it up until the race. i'm excited and nervous. excited to feel awesome and clean, nervous to feel hungry. excited to lose the weight, nervous to not eat cheese and coffee and booze for 2 months!! excited to be back in control of what goes in my body, nervous about how much is going to come out of my wallet at the health food store.

so i'll keep you posted on how it's going. should be an adventure!

I'm at 36 New Years Resolutions and Counting...Think They'll Take?

well, Christmas has come and gone. it was a sort of stressful season this year. and it's been crazy nuts busy at work. with extremely sick patients. i've been distracted by life for the last 6 months or so, but now i'm buckling down and focusing on work. i'm learning new things and trying to get really good at the things i already do. and i'm taking more call. i figured that there's a reason they pay me so much and that is that i'm willing to work some less-than-desirable hours. plus, i have big plans for loan repayment this year and a few little vacations, so the extra overtime cash will be groovy.

so...one of my resolutions is that i will post more often (i know. i'm sorry. i've been la-zy lately with my blogging) and that i'll include some interesting medical discussions. new studies, controversies and concepts. i haven't yet tackled the whole health care reform thing, but i'm working up my chi to do that one, so look for it eventually.

hope everyone had a healthy and happy new year! (and PS- if you have something you think might be interesting to discuss, let me know and i'll get right on it).

for now, so as to convince you that i'm not attempting to make this a boring, all educational and no fun reading experince, i'll leave you with this article posted on cnn today regarding the significant health benefits of having frequent sex. haza!