Whenever I mention anything about running on facebook or even in real life I always get the “I only run when someone is chasing me” joke. The think that they don’t get is that someone is chasing me. Rather something is chasing me:
Results from the 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), released last month, indicate that an estimated 32.7 percent of U.S. adults 20 years and older are overweight, 34.3 percent are obese and 5.9 percent are extremely obese. (source: livescience.com)
Let’s calculate that out…
32.7 + 34.3 + 5.9 = 72.9% of American adults are overweight or obese!
*for truthful disclosure I found another article that quoted it at 69%
Did you catch that?
Nearly 3/4 of American adults are overweight or obese!
Who is chasing me? The overweight, middle aged, soccer mom that I was well on my way to becoming before I decided to get serious about my health.
I remember the day that I realized my weight was a problem. I jumped off the front porch and although I landed without a problem, it jarred me. I started noticing that it was more difficult to move around. I realized that my migraines were keeping me from living and even from enjoying my baby.
If you don’t want to run, don’t run. I’m actually 100% for the “I only run if someone is chasing me” idea, unless you are crazy like me and enjoy running. In the mean time, just do something to avoid becoming a part of the majority. I am ready to be in the bottom 25% of the class in this case.
It takes a special kind of crazy to want to run a marathon. After training for 3 months, through the darkest part of winter, running on ice, through cold, before the whole rest of the world is even awake, it is hard to say, “I just can’t do this. Not yet.”
I worked my way up to 12 miles on my long walk/run, but after I hit 8 miles or so, each longer distance was more painful than the last. My recovery time is longer than before. I’m hoping to avoid injury by cutting back.
Cutting back is hard to do when you want to finish just to prove to yourself that you can. Cutting back is not quitting. I will run a marathon some day. When that time comes, I will be faster than I am now. I will be more experienced as a runner. I will be ready for that marathon. Today, I am not ready for the challenge. Today I’ll just go out and run to feel the sun on my face and the wind in my hair. Today I will go out because I can. Today I will run because there is a trail in front of me. Today I will…
The first step in getting serious was cleaning out the pantry. Let’s be honest, it’s hard to say “no” when the cookies are calling you from all the way across the house. I did this step for the first time back in October, but I had gotten a bit sloppy with my grocery buying habits and had to go back to spruce things up a bit.
Basically, I got rid of the nasty food additives and started eating healthy, whole foods with ingredients I recognized and could pronounce. My diet plan comes from Jillian Michaels book Master Your Metabolism
Without giving away the whole book, here is the basic list:
- Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated fats
- Refined grains
- High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)
- Artificial sweetners
- Artificial colors & preservatives
- Glutamates (e.g. MSG)
There is a lot of information in the book about hidden sources of these nasty things in our foods. The most interesting side effect of cutting these things out is that my taste buds have changed. After about a month of eating this way, I made a dessert with a lemon cake mix. I had to throw it out because I could taste the chemical colors and preservatives in the mix. I cannot drink Cokes anymore because they are disgusting. At Christmas I bought some cranberry Sierra Mist. I kept pouring myself a glass with all the anticipation of yummy bubbly goodness. I would drink about 3 sips and then leave the rest. The Coke went flat after about a week and a half so we threw it out. Flavored yogurts are out. They give me a sugar rush while still in my mouth! I can’t believe I ever thought that much sweetness was good!
Now I eat plain yogurt flavored with frozen berries. Sometimes I add my own sweetner (Blue Agave Nectar is my sweetner of choice these days). I have cut the amount of sugar in my coffee by half and have switched from using half-and-half to using whole milk as creamer. When I used half-and-half after about a week of not using it, I could feel my mouth coated with the fat–yuck! Fruit tastes sweeter than it did before cutting out HFCS.
I am convinced that having sugar added to everything has made our tastebuds insensitive to the sugar. I didn’t decide to stop eating flavored yogurt. After about a month of avoiding HFCS I tried some yogurt. I had gotten my wisdom teeth removed so I was on a soft-foods diet. I ate two bites and couldn’t handle the yogurt anymore. With the coffee, I just sort of realized one day, “this is way too sweet,” so I cut back on the sweetener.
I cleaned out the pantry and discovered that real food tastes amazing and fake food tastes, well, fake.
Other Fitness February Posts:
