Fat Plat-eau

After watching my weekly weight and blood sugar levels resemble more of a roller coaster than anything else for most of the past year (especially the winter months), my blood sugar has steadied out below 100. This is great news. What I would’ve predicted a month ago, though, is that with consistently lower blood sugar, my weight would continue coming off, but, it hasn’t! My weight-loss has plateaued with weekly averages staying within a range of 236.2-234.8 for the last six weeks. So, here’s my plan…

I’m going to continue my basic diet with consists of a combination of meat, fruits, vegetables, and nuts, but, I’m going to make some adjustments. This week I’m going to:

• Try to cut back on the number of handfuls of my dried-fruit/nut mix that I snack on
• Be a little more conservative with the amount and kind of cheese I use throughout the week: mozzarella only and less of it
• Increase vegetable intake
• Increase fluid intake – hopefully this will help me depend less on the dried-fruit/nut mix mentioned above in the evenings
• Decrease the intensity and increase the duration of my workouts this week. Most of my running and strength training workouts have ranged between 25 and 35 minutes. This week I’ll maintain a 30 minute minimum and shoot more for 40-45 minutes of working out. Getting back to the pool for a mile of laps once or twice should help, too.

Hopefully when I check back in next week I’ll have some positive results to share.

2012 Angels Among Us 5K & Family Fun Walk

That's me in the green. Note the left leg and the direction of my foot.

Today marked one year since my first 5K since high school. In that year I lost 14 pounds, gained 16 back and have lost 6 of those 16 for a second time. I’ve also run over 250 miles, lifted a good deal of weights, swam many laps, and read a good deal about running. It’s that last part that I wish I did more of in the beginning: the reading. I’ve learned a lot in the last year about running from stretching to diet, but, what I didn’t know may have doomed me. Turns out that if you pile on a ton of miles instead of gradually building your weekly mileage from one week to the next (ideally by no more than 10% per week), you’re putting yourself at a high risk of injuring yourself – exactly what I did. Because of this fact, I’ve been trying to run very conservative mileage, every other day, for the past month or two in an effort to allow my body (specifically my right hip and knees) a chance to, possibly, heal up and rebuild in a manner that will allow me to maintain a regular running routine. Part of the curtailed running load caused me to make the decision not to push myself for a race-pace time in today’s 5K, but, instead, to just take it east and have a good 5K distance jog and that is just what I did. The good news is that, even while maintaining (what I now consider to be) a comfortable and easy pace, I still beat my time in the 2011 Angels Among Us 5K by 20 seconds with a 2012 time of 33:31. This is notably slower than my 5K PR established last month (30:39), but, again, today was just a jog and I’m pretty pleased with it.

What I’m not so pleased with is a photo that I came across today that a friend who was behind me took in the midst of the run. My entire left leg is turned toward the outside! This can’t be good for my muscles and joints and just may shed some light on the hip pain and knee issues I’ve been experiencing! If you, the reader that I am so humbled to have actually reading this dribble, have any experience or advice with regards to running form, the actual effect this kind of posture has on my body, and how to fix it, I’M ALL EARS! To confirm the presence of this problem I had my wife go outside with me once we got home and watch me run. She confirmed. My running for is a mess. I think it’s finally time to see a sports doctor to get some help. I don’t think I’ll ever meet my marathon goal, or even a half, if I don’t get this stuff squared away soon.

 

Moving Forward With Tentative Confidence

I’ve been running on pins and needles, so to speak, for the past couple of weeks trying to gauge the amount of discomfort I’

One of the main books that I'm learning and drawing inspiration from in my quest to continue running and, someday, hopefully, complete a marathon: MARATHONING FOR MORTALS by John "The Penguin" Bingham and Coach Jenny Hadfield.

ve felt in my knees and left hip-joint from day-to-day. In the hopes of holding off any kind of irreparable damage and delay in my running progress I ramped up the pace and depth of my research into what might be causing the pain and how to deal with it effectively. At the same time I’ve been tentatively entertaining the prospect possibly being able to attempt a half-marathon in the fall or winter of 2012-2013. Of course, getting the injury issues in order has to happen first.

The general feedback that I’ve been getting from talking to other runners and reading is that my pain is likely due to a combination of circumstances including my over-zealous mileage increases within the last year, the breakdown of my running shoes, and poorly executed stretching/icing/training routines. All of this has led me to take inventory of why I run, what I’m hoping to do, and what I need to change in order to give myself the best chance to accomplish my goals through running. The most common advice given with regards to how to prevent this problem from getting worse and, hopefully, how to help it to get better is to scale back and be patient. Run less. Use dynamic stretching after warming up before a run and static stretching at the end. Take rest days in between run days. So, that is my new plan.

This was the first week of attempting to implement my new plan and the first week went well. Running two miles, three times in a week is certainly not an achievement, but, doing so with seemingly less discomfort after each successive run was enough to give me some confidence that this plan may have a chance of working.

In the meantime, I plan to be very careful about increasing my mileage by no more than 10% each week and running no more than three or maybe four times a week. The book has stressed the importance of barely-runners, like myself (my term, not theirs), taking a day or two off between each run in order to allow our legs the time they need to heal and grow stronger in between runs. Supposedly, as time goes on they will become more and more able to handle the abusive workload that runners’ legs (particularly heavier ones like myself) experience. Only time will tell, of course, if such optimism and progress will manifest itself in my legs.

On the blood-sugar/weight front, it was a good week. I kept my blood sugar down and lost a full pound since last week. Hopefully both trends will continue to develop this week.

Stopping For Gas

After over a week of great daily blood sugar level readings in the 80’s and 90’s I spiked this morning with a 117. It blew me away until I started thinking about what I’ve eaten in the past 48 hours: lots and lots of fibrous grains/beans – trying to clear the system! I’ve got to find the ideal mix of grain-avoidance diet/just enough fiber to maintain a balance that doesn’t have me running from one extreme to the other. The approach works great for keeping my blood sugar in check and, at times, promoting my weight loss, but, otherwise, ends up causing fits at times when the traffic backs up. Anyone with advice is welcome to comment below. I’m all ears.

I did a two-mile run today at the Greenway in town. This and the last one have been particularly more difficult than they all seemed to be just 1-2 weeks ago. According to my chest strap heart-rate monitor on my Garmin, my heart rate has been higher (confirming the fact that the runs feel more difficult), but, the pace hasn’t been. They were both moderate-to-slow runs in relation to my normal pace, but, both challenging. I’m perplexed.

The left hip, also, continues to be a problem.

All in all I’m starting to wonder whether or not I should even pursue a race pace for the Angels Among Us 5K on 4/28 that family, friends, and I will be taking part in to honor my late father who died from a brain tumor this past February. My long-term goal is to complete a marathon and being able to do so will likely require that I resolve what is happening with my hip. Everything that I’m reading is advising me to err toward the conservative approach which would be to simply jog the 3.14 miles at Duke. Running puts a great deal more pressure on the legs and everything within them and, they way my hip feels right now, more pressure may not be the best choice. We’ll see. Anyone else have experience with hip-joint pain?

Cross-training-strength-cardio-ish Kind Of Thing

After struggling through a two mile run a day or two ago I went indoors at the local Y today to get some non-running in. After ten minutes walking on the treadmill I started a rotation between three different weight machines (row, pull down, incline press) in which I used relatively light weights in order to execute 15-20 reps on each machine before moving to the next in a continuous cycle for about 12 minutes. I was wearing my Garmin with chest strap and was able to see the heart rate evidence of the intensity that was going into the workout as I went. Finally, I spent the final 13 minutes on the elliptical machine before doing a five minute cool down walk on the treadmill. Afterward I felt fantastic. Much better than that last two mile run I forced myself through.

The other notable moment of the day was the trip I made to Run For Your Life – University in Charlotte pick up a new pair of running shoes: Brooks Adrenaline GTS 12’s. This is the second pair of new running shoes that I’ve purchased in about two weeks. I tried to get this pair a month ago, but, they were on back order and, with my GTS 11’s well past their prime and a nagging left hip, I grew impatient and ordered a pair of Asics Gel Kayano 18’s. I was initially somewhat disappointed in the Asics, but, in the two weeks that I’ve had them, have grown much more comfortable. That being said, I’ve done some reading on running injuries of late and it was suggested that alternating between two different pairs of running shoes could help reduce injuries since the same precise pressure points won’t be affected exactly the same way on each run as they would if I was sticking to just one pair of shoes. In addition, having two pair should extend each pair’s life span. We’ll see.

Tomorrow I’ll hopefully be able to get in a decent two mile run, unlike the last two-miler. It will be the first run of my first week of a training plan that I hope I’ll be able to maintain in order to show up at the starting line of a half-marathon in Athens, GA in October for, injury free and ready to go. It will consist of three runs per week with the third run being the “long run” of the week. The “long run” will build in distance from one week to the next by 10% for three successive weeks before being cut back by 20% and then increasing again for three more weeks by 10% each week. It’s an approach that I know isn’t going to ramp up my mileage too quickly, but, hopefully, will allow my body to adapt gradually to the condition it will need to be in to complete 13-plus miles in the fall.

We’ll see.

4/12/12 Check-In: Mickey Mouse Miles

I haven’t actually run in a week. Subsequently, I have at least one plausible excuse as to why my weigh-in this morning was 236.0 as opposed to the sub-235 weight that I maintained all last week. That being said, my body is still in the midst of recovering from four days at Disney World which took a toll on my body in terms of diet and workload.

While I had no pedometer in order to verify the legitimacy of what I’m about to say, I KNOW that my body was actively engaged with miles of movement each of the four days we were there. Between two days at the Magic Kingdom, a day at Epcot, and a day at Disney’s Hollywood studios, my legs logged many miles. What made many of them so challenging (considering the fact that I was walking instead of what usually makes miles challenging – running) was the fact that a significant percentage of those miles involved me carrying my four year old son either on my shoulders or in my arms because he, certainly, wasn’t any better prepared for the physical toll than I was. That being said, he did well for his age. Out of our three Disney trips, this was the first that didn’t involve a stroller at all.

From the intake perspective, I could’ve done better, but, I could’ve done far worse. There were a couple of meals (character sit-down buffets) where I surely went too far, but, I did so after having figured out that all of the physical activity, along with my otherwise good eating habits, had lowered my daily blood sugar readings into the mid-90’s for the first time in months. In fact, they’ve stayed in the mid-90’s for the past week. So, I am confident that the weight will follow suit since, according to the data that I’ve been keeping on my blood sugar, running, and weight over the past year, weight loss and gain follows in relation to my blood sugar levels.

Along with the miles tread around Walt Disney World came other significant factors that have interrupted the normal routine: lack of sleep and the fact that the many miles spent walking and carrying my four-year-old son. The nearly 10 hour drive down to Florida and well as the drive back were both done overnight and found us arriving at our destinations between 3 and 4 AM. Combine that fact with the fact that there wasn’t much time for sleeping in the days following those drives and you end up with somebody whose 36 year-old body is still trying to get back into a rhythm two days after getting back home.

All that being said, I think I’m ready to lace up my running shoes again! My wife has classes all day and I’ll have the kids with me, but, when she gets home at 4:30 I’m going to take off to get a couple of miles in. Better yet, I’m thinking that I should make arrangements for her to pick up the kids from the part at 4:30. That will allow us to go a bit earlier so that I can get them outside (maybe even taking them on a warm-up jog for a lap or two around the park trail!) before I put my run in.

Hopefully my next post will bring news of weight-loss-reconvened in addition to continued reports of decent blood sugar levels.

Checking In…

Taking this week conservatively in hopes of easing my hip discomfort and with the understanding that I’ll be quite busy with my wife and kids over the next few days. My goal is to get in one more run (2 miles or so) this week to give me a gentle total of about six for the week. I’ve been reading the RUNNER’S WORLD GUIDE TO INJURY PREVENTION in the hopes of becoming more proactive in managing my issue so that I can continue to run. If I can manage through the spring and summer I may take a stab at simply complete a half-marathon in October. But, that is a best-case scenario and is, by no means, a given. We’ll see how the summer goes. What I do know is that the time is now to get my body to where it needs to be health-wise and the journey to get to that point is a process that starts all over again each and every day.

No April Fool’s Shenanigans Here

Nothing fancy or tricky here. Just steady progress. I’ve been really, really bad at not reporting my daily intake here, but, the upside is that I know I’ve been really, really good on a daily basis at making responsible decisions about what I am eating. Steady, slow weight loss is continuing and I’m trying to be as careful as possible with regards to some of the aches and pains that seem to come and go with my running. My main goal is to do whatever I need to do to be able to continue running and, subsequently, continue moving in the right direction with my weight. So far, so good.

Check my data in the sidebar to note the progress. Thanks for checking in!