You may recall that for the first quarter of the year (by 3/31/13), I am hoping to run a 5K in 26:00 or under and to get my weight to 140lb or less. To reach this first goal, I said that I would do the following in February:
- No Coca Cola until after achieving Goal Weight #1 (140lb)
- When eating dinner in, drink choices limited to water, milk or crystal light
- No more than 24oz diet mountain dew at work
- Freezer cooking with 1 diet meal (out of 10 total recipes)
- Serve a green vegetable with EVERY meal
- Run 4 times per week, starting with a total of 13 miles per week and building up to 18 miles per week
- Continue to do “One-A-Day” pushups and situps challenge and add squats
As I mentioned in my 2013 Healthy Living post (http://www.quiltedaffair.com/1/post/2013/01/healthy-living.html), in addition to breaking my weight and running goals up by quarter, I am also going to re-evaluate my strategies at the end of each month to see where I am doing well and what needs improvement. In February, I did VERY badly. I had about 3 servings of Coca Cola (which isn’t horrible over the course of a month but I said I would drink NONE). At dinner, I would still drink lemonade, sweet tea, or other high-sugar beverages instead of sticking to just milk, water or crystal light. My diet mountain dew consumption has been between 20oz – 30oz per day so it’s still a little higher than what I was hoping. We did do freezer cooking and made one of the meals a diet meal – but a few of the recipes didn’t turn out very well so instead of eating a healthy freezer meal we ended up with pizza or McDonald’s. We started off serving a green vegetable with every meal but that only lasted about a week before we returned to eating just the main course only.
Working out wasn’t any better than eating either…I averaged MAYBE twice a week for running and we stopped doing the One-A-Day challenge after the first week. So it should come as no surprise that I’ve made absolutely ZERO progress on my weight or run time. It’s frustrating but I obviously haven’t really done anything to change it. I make these great plans and then don’t stick to them. I miss the days where I could do as badly as I wanted during spring and summer because come fall, cross country would whip my butt back into shape.
Regardless of last month, it’s still not too late to try to reach my Q1 goals or get as close as possible (hard to say whether it’s possible to make the running time but the weight is still feasible). So here’s the plan: I’m going to participate in a Bootcamp at my gym. It costs extra (which is a bummer) but after this month, I’m going to cancel the membership at my current gym because I can now use the Health First gyms for free. I might get a Planet Fitness membership (only $10/mo) so that I can continue to run before work with my colleague and still have somewhere to shower. The bootcamp will meet Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings for four weeks, starting on March 11th. However, I still need to do some running so here is the plan:
Mon 3/11: Bootcamp
Tues 3/12: Bootcamp
Weds 3/13: 5k run to see what’s the fastest I can do right now
Thurs 3/14: I’ll miss bootcamp because I’ll be in Lakeland at a sewing conference so I’ll plan to do a 30min HIIT run on the treadmill
Fri 3/15: 5k run, easy pace
Sat 3/16: 45min run, easy pace
Sun 3/17: 20min walk with the dog
The following three weeks will have this structure:
Mon: Bootcamp
Tues: Bootcamp
Weds: 5k run, race pace for time
Thurs: Bootcamp
Fri: 5k run, easy pace
Sat: 50min run, easy pace
Sun: 20min walk with the dog
The Melbourne Art Fest 5k is on Saturday 3/30 so I will use that race to officially gauge my first quarter progress. If I don’t complete it under 26mins, I will continue to do a 5k race every two weeks (if possible) until I meet that goal.
We are also going to go back to the Beachbody Diet for the 3 remaining weeks in March. This is a strict diet that will keep the calories and content of my meals in check. If I meet my first quarter weight goal by the end of the three weeks, then I will try again to do a “healthy” freezer cooking. The biggest challenge of the Beachbody Diet is the time commitment – I know we won’t be able to sustain that diet for more than three weeks. To try to combat that, I’m going to plan for all three weeks’ worth of meals this week and make the shopping lists so that we are less likely to skip the diet because of not having the necessary groceries. If I have not met my first quarter weight goal by the end of the three weeks then we will continue on the Beachbody diet as required and possibly decrease the calorie content. I’ll post more on the Beachbody diet later in case any of you want to do it with me. For drinks, it’s clear I’m still struggling so for the next three weeks my choices will be limited to water or Crystal Light only – and no more than 1/3 of my fluid consumption can be Crystal light (IE if I want to make a Nalgene full of crystal light, I have to have two Nalgene’s of water first).
I’m really going to need your guys’ help with this since I’ve been doing so badly – so feel free to ask me how it’s going or if I’ve done my workout for the day, etc. I’ve been trying to think of some kind of reward for myself for making this goal but I’ve been struggling – anyone got any good ideas? It should not be food based or workout based. Maybe something like a pedicure at the spa? Or a new running outfit? Or maybe when I meet this goal, Ryan has to help me paint/decorate one room of the house? Ooh I like that one…not sure if he’ll agree to it though.
