Technically have been on it for 2 weeks now. The first week, I stayed pretty close to what the plan for 5 of the days. Lost 2.4 lbs. Last week, ate Primally maybe a total of 2 days. Lost 0.8lbs
Both weeks' common theme: I'm allowing myself to do intermittent fasting, where I miss a meal every 3-5 meals. Not really exercising beyond normal day-to-day activities, though that has included Vball coaching and tryouts where I had to help shag balls 2 of the 3 days, so I did get my heart-rate up occasionally.

I didn't experience any wild mood swings at all. No hypoglycemic weirdness like I usually get.
It's hard choosing to deny myself sweets. I realize that this is an addiction. The first week, I was so close to being off anything that was artificially sweetened/etc. I was savoring fruit more and more because it's naturally sweet.

We had bison burgers tonight. I chose to go for the buns too. The burgers were so good and flavorful (just meat, a pinch of salt and some cracked pepper on top), I wish I'd left the buns off of it. They're just delivery trappings.

Verdict? I need to get back on this horse. I love eating meat. I love eating veggies. I love eating fruits. I really love scrambled eggs when done up in bacon grease. Especially when everything tastes better because my tastebuds aren't being deadened by corn syrup, additives, and flavor bombs.

Now that Vball tryouts are over and school's about to start, I'll have a regular schedule. Will probably be eating 2-3 meals a day at work. It should be easier to stay Primal because I won't be leaving the school to get my food. I'm currently working with our athletic director to schedule weight room time for my team, I'll work out then too. And other days while Varsity is practicing from 4-6, I can do my intervals and my walking either on the indoor track or outside depending on the heat.

Need to plan my actions and get on it. Let's do this!

Current Mood: determined

The wheels fell off!

Sunday - Panda Express, which had potential to be Primal. But I had Orange chicken and some Diet Pepsi. Ate a little rice (not a lot). For dinner, I went to the local wings place. But instead of ordering wings, I ordered chicken tenders. I did order onion rings instead of fries. And water. But more breading... and breading.

Monday - No breakfast, delayed "lunch" (like 1) - Taco Bell. With Mountain Dew 20 oz. *facepalm*
Ended up skipping dinner (was really busy with Vball stuff ALL DAMN DAY much to the husband's and my chagrin). But by the time I got to bed, stomach would not relent, so I got up and scarfed some chicken bits.

Today - Clif bar for breakfast. 2 Tuna salad sandwiches for lunch. 2 chicken and cheese sandwiches for dinner. Doesn't take long to revert.

And why write this? Why tell you about my failure? Because 1) it's the right thing to do. 2) I feel like utter shit. Physically. I'm not beating myself up too much mentally about it. A lifetime of eating sandwiches as my go-to really can't be unlearned in 6 days. I feel listless and tired. Overly overly tired. Last night, my muscles ached, despite not having done anything physical for several days. It makes me start to realize that I might be on the right path with this. That processed carbs really make me feel like poop.

Renewed resolve. Will eat and move Primally tomorrow. Then we get to see the week 1 stats. And I still have faith they'll be pretty damned good, even with 3 days of returning to crap-food.

Definitely ready for the paycheck on Friday so I can get some more variety. Eggs and whatever bacon is left for b-fast. Going to defrost some beef strips... then I can have a beefy salad with my chicken ragout for lunch tomorrow. Then maybe have the rest of the ragout veggies with fish tomorrow night. Sounds like the ticket.

On Thursday I know I'm going to have dinner with my BFF at Carrabba's (she gets a 50% discount, too). So I'm looking at menu choices. Probably will get the Calamari or Shrimp Scampi appetizer and then one of their steaks with whatever the veggie of the day is. No pasta! NO PASTA! Just have to keep on telling myself that.

Current Mood: abashed

Ended up breaking my fast earlier than planned. The words: "Hey coach, there's breakfast for you at this table back there." may or may not have been involved. Carby carbs. Like cookies, donuts, honeybuns. Oh, and those bottled Frappucino things. And soda. I consider myself proud that I walked away with only a pack of "blueberry muffins" (more like fake blueberry sugar bomb cakes) and nothing else. I ate them (they were sickly sweet, but I finished them anyway), then about five minutes later regretted it. I had this nasty coating in my mouth. It was that really heavy sweet flavor of the fake blueberries and boy was it gross! Downed a whole bottle of water before our first warm up and learned my lesson.

Lunch also was provided (Subway trays, fruit, chips, cookies from the tourney organizers, cornucopia of bread, cookies, Goldfish, pretzels, etc from team moms). I ate my planned lunch. (Well, some of it). Ate all of the turkey and bacon I packed and one of my apples. Then I also ate some grapes and strawberries from the complimentary table... the comped kiwi wasn't too hot though.

Came home and set about the last bits of work on my chicken ragout. Set the veggie/mushroom combo to boil away on the stove while I picked the chicken apart into pieces. Chicken meat was flavorful and once I reduced the soup to closer to a sauce, I enjoyed it too. Yum yum!

Very very tired due to the long (emotional) day. 5:20 was really early when I've been used to waking up no earlier than 8ish (preferably more like 10ish!). Food seems to be fueling me well. Really really looking forward to eggs and bacon tomorrow when I wake up. Mmm mm mm!

Current Mood: tired

So we're two days in. Unfortunately, day 1 wasn't OMG amazing like it was supposed to be. I'd eaten a heavier dinner Wednesday night, so when I woke up, I didn't eat breakfast. (This concept, called Intermittent Fasting, is a take-or-leave concept with Primal... I chose to stay fasting because I wasn't hungry).
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Current Mood: accomplished

Going to try Primal eating for 30 days starting tomorrow. Basically meats, fruits, veggies, minimal dairy, minimal grains. Going to journal how I feel, for better or for worse. No doubt the initial reduction in sugars, etc will be "for worse" but I'm hoping that after that initial hurting, I'll be better for it all. On August 22, I'll re-evaluate and see what might need changing.

Aside from the general content of said "diet" (most general sense of the term meaning way of eating), one of the things that's encouraged is following the 80/20 rule - basically do your best to eat Primal 80 percent of the time and you'll be there.

If you want more info than you could ever imagine on Primal eating you should check out Mark Sisson's site: Daily Apple.
A couple of articles in particular:
Meet Grok
Act As If (Basically what I'm doing)

So hopefully some detailed entries to come.

Out of town til Friday AM. Beach baby! Yeah!

That means running in the am. Swimming in the ocean. And good yummy seafood.

Currently 252.2 as of this am.

Current Mood: stoked

The girls ended up going 7-3 in our tournament this week. Very very good, all 3 losses were to the same JV team from North Cobb. The same North Cobb JV team handed our Varsity girls a loss as well. I'm proud! Just imagine how good we'll be when we're actually a cohesive, practiced team!

This weekend:

Saturday: Braves vs. Red Sox with my BFF, my mom's husband and his 15 year old son.
Sunday: Hopefully getting to spend some time with Mom.
Monday: Mom, her husband, his son, and I head for the beach, to come back Friday AM. Heck yes!

Coaching life is active life. The gym is like a sauna because the air is off for the summer... I'm moving around with the girls - tossing, demonstrating, and participating.

This morning I didn't run because my hip flexors were tighter than guitar strings.
By the time I realized that running wouldn't work, I ended up just trying to stretch out.

Tomorrow and Thursday, I have to leave the house no later than 6 am so I can swing by school to pick up players and get to the tourney on the other side of the county. I'm realistically not expecting to make the gym either of those days, because I expect I will be wiped out by the time I get home around 7:30pm.

So what do you do? You adjust. I'm not going to sweat it - next week is going to be really active when I'm at the beach - running every morning, swimming and walking every day. As long as I eat reasonably healthy now and next week, I will be fine. And then we move on. Because this journey is an average of my actions... and the more days I do generally right, the closer I'll be to the goal I will eventually reach. It would be nice to reach a milestone weight by the end of the summer, but as long as I'm making adequate progress, I'm doing it right.


As for coaching the tournament tomorrow - I'm trying not to psych myself up so much that I'm out of it. I was talking with Mom earlier today and said that I need to channel Bill (her husband). When it comes to his sons' athletics, he is a very quiet parent. Apparently when he coached, he was also very inward-focused. He didn't yell. He didn't really raise his voice. He would only occasionally throw his hat to the ground when a bad call was made. Then he addressed the weaknesses in the next practice.

I'm thankful that this tourney is for fun... no rankings, nothing like that. Just go out and play and get back into our skills.

Several things I did right this week. Not the least was having a general plan of attack each day. I know that as long as I make exercise the priority first thing in the day, I will get it done. And if I exercise first thing, I tend to have a more mellow demeanor for the rest of the day.

Week accomplishments:
- Exercised as planned every day excepting the one planned rest day.
- Finished week 2 of couch to 5k and started week 3.
- Felt really good.


I've decided to take a more statistical approach to my weight loss after reading a post somewhere explaining it. I'm going to report my lowest weight I've recorded each week. And if that number continues to go down, then I'm losing like I want.

This week's lowest weight: 253.0

I usually dislike the idea of having a weight goal attached to time, but I'm going to try it for this summer... I want to be in the 230's by the time school starts back. That's a loss of 13 lbs. And that's doable in 60 days.

Saturday was more or less good -

Exercise: AM: Week 2, day 3 of Couch to 5k - 20 min run/walk. Felt really good and ready to graduate to the next week of the program. Even ran without my knee brace and it held together (though I think my biomechanics are better when I use the brace)
PM: 25 minute walk with the dogs

Food: Tried something a bit different once Jay left for work - just ate when I thought I was hungry. It resulted in me eating "dinner" around 4pm (kind of similar to last school year when I'd just go ahead and eat when I got home). Then a little bit here and there (I made strawberry muffins that are somewhere between okay and good). Then before bed, I had a half-sandwich because I didn't want to deal with stomach growling overnight.

Mental: Bored bored bored. I know a couple of the feedings were related to boredom. Then again, the walking the dogs was also related to boredom.

Overall - I think I want to try the eating when hungry model this summer, though if it works, it's going to be difficult to reconcile with my school schedule next year. But hey, if it works and I'm dropping weight, then I'll find a way for it to reconcile with my schedule.

As for now? I need to go do weights. Later days.

Weights this morning. Woo... 3 days of what I'm supposed to do. Yay!

Exercise: Week 2 day 2 of couch to 5k (20 minutes of walk/run)

Food: Not high quality. But okay in portions, I think.

Water: At best, I drank a liter. :-(

Mental: Good day spent with husband. Proud of his accomplishments so far - he's losing about a pound a week. And he started strength training this morning! We had a good day of gaming and chilling at home.

Overall: I ran. At least I ran. Even though I didn't "want" to because it was: hot, there was a natural gas leak next to the trail, achilles hurt, knee was weakish, any other potential crappy excuse for an excuse.

Positive thoughts:
- Days with the husband are always good days.
- I ran.
- I have an organized workspace now
- And a to do list for tomorrow.

Exercise: Weights this morning, 30 minute walk with the dogs in the evening

Food: Started out good with Raisin bran and a peach after workout this morning. Then whilst running errands the wheels fell off. Ate a lot for the rest of the day.

Water: Had 2.25 L.

Mental: Was an incredibly productive day. After getting all of the bajillion errands run, I ended up chilling on the bed and reading with the possibility of napping if it came up. Looking over some of the productivity blogs I like, I found someone who did a 30 day "No Complaining" challenge. It sounds intriguing... I think I may do it.

Overall: Need to get eating timing down while trying to keep with the eat only when hungry thing. Hindsight, should have had something when I was on the way to Marietta for the appointment.

Positive thoughts:
- It feels really good to get stuff done.
- Morning workout means more energy for the day.
- Sultry summer evenings with fireflies while walking the dogs - stuff life is made of!
- I did get a few minutes with the husband before he had to go to work. :-)
- Mmm fresh fruit!

Current Mood: sleepy

Today, I'm done with the school year.
68 days from now, we start the 09-10 school year.
I intend to look as amazing as possible by then.

It may or may not involve a calendar with stickers to make me happy about success.

Tomorrow: Interval weight training in the morning. Lots of errands. Eating healthy. Drinking lots and lots of water. Will report back.

Current Mood: Ready!

Out for summer as of today (well... 2 days post-planning next week)
Coaching JV Volleyball this fall.
Desperately DO NOT want to be the fat coach on the sidelines.

Therefore, time to start busting ass on that.
Runs start tomorrow morning.

Too many blogs for the time I have! Argh! Sorry to neglect you, fitness peeps!

Work has been crazy busy, but for the most part, I have been exercising. Mostly after work with a couple of friends - running when I can. Walking more often than not. All on an indoor track, so I feel safe to do barefoot. Feels like it's improving my tendonitis too, which is beastly!

In today's news, I'm going to be an assistant coach of a sport I've never played! Woo! (Volleyball). I am excited! And now that gives me more impetus to get off my rear and into gear before the season starts.

Oh Onion! You are so evil.
Causing my eyes to fill
with sulfuric acid.
It is no surprise that your
onerous odor attracts
the attention of the dog that I call
Stinkpup.
Tala ate
the pieces I dropped carelessly on
the floor. Who wants puppy
kissies?
Why do I endure you, Oh Onion?
Because you make my
chili whole.




Yes. That was rather silly.

Current Mood: silly

Sorry for the double post, but here are updated progress pics...

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Current Mood: sleepy

Do all planned workouts (CHECK)
Eat on plan (Not so check)

Got up and went to the gym. Didn't want to (Tired, thunderstorm of doom raged outside). But I had a dream where I ran into Steve Nash being a beast on the basketball court(you know, his usual). While he was talking to me, he was still intensely training and concentrating. At the end of the conversation, he stopped, underhand tossed the ball to me and said: "Hey. If you want it bad enough, you'll make it happen." and then he walked away.

But Dream-Nash's wise advice carried me through today. Weights and running in the AM (Ran for 12 minutes at 4.0, still easy on the achilles). Then after work, I hit the pool.

Eating? Well, it was going well til I got home. I decided that I didn't want the over-marinated chicken and tomato soup for dinner. I'd killed it on calorie burning today, so I adjusted my exercise settings and found out how much I was allowed to eat. The hotdog and potato salad were satisfying. I regret NOTHING!

And now, I'm ready for bed. So going to sleep like a log!

Tomorrow:
AM: "Long run" - depending on how my heel feels, this may be a long walk instead
PM: Bike ride

Current Mood: sleepy

This week's goals (Monday through next Sunday):
- Do all planned workouts
- Plan day's food ahead of time and eat on plan

Tomorrow's workouts:
AM: Weights day A, Run 30
PM: Swim (0-1650 week 3 plan)

Tomorrow's nutrition is already logged on SP.

Will update with how I do. Love.