Ahhhhhhh!!!!! Hello!!!!! Blog silence broken finally! I’ve been trying to instagram my meals and workouts as much as possible as a substitute! Couple more weeks then I’ll have my life back…. okay let’s be real …probably more like 6 weeks! Okay let’s really lay it on the table and be super realistic, I was in Grad School for the last two years… I never had a life… I’ll be building a new life though with my soon to be hubby 🙂

Good news folks, it’s getting cooler EVEN in Arizona! This mornings run started out at 6am and it was like 70 outside! Can’t really ask for more right? More good news- I made it the 9 miles I planned! Bad news, I had to take walking breaks. Since my hip has been giving me issues right at 4.5 miles every long run I tried a new strategy this week. Every mile I took a one minute walking break to give my hip a chance to recover and not receive constant stress. This strategy worked really well, I didn’t stiffen up till around the 7th mile. However, it felt a bit like a treadmill workout in the sense that instead of just enjoying the long run I was always waiting for the next mile to break.

Mile 1- 11:28

Mile 2- 10:52

Mile 3- 11:18

Mile 4- 11:17

Mile 5- 10:30

Mile 6- 11:09

At this point the first part of my loop was done and I stopped by the house for some water and fuel.

The sports gel was… interesting. I liked that it was all natural, had 700mg of potassium and tasted like dates, but it was like a sugar bomb going off in my mouth in the middle of a workout which I’m definitely not use too. I am also not to sure if it really helped me pull through the last three miles or not because my hip stiffened up at mile number 7. I think this may have to do with the fact that I sat down for a couple minutes. I probably should have grabbed the gel and kept walking to keep the muscles warm. I was REALLY hoping that my walking strategy would work so well that I would get to run the last three miles non stop, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. I’m thankful that I was able to build distance though and if I have to do the walking strategy during the actual half marathon then thats what I’ll do as long as I get to do it!

Mile 7- 11:22

Mile 8- 13:41 –>forgot to pause workout while I stretched out hip, plus walked one minute

Mile 9- 12:42–> walked almost a third of a mile

After I got home I spent some time with the foam roller, showered, and then dug into a jar of overnight oats that I had been thinking about all week!

Recipe: 3/4cups oats, 1 tbsp sun butter, 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk, 1/2 scoop chocolate protein powder, 1 tsp chia seeds, 1/2 cup sliced strawberries, sprinkle of cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice (which I think is good in anything with or without pumpkin) mixed together and let sit overnight. Topped with a tbsp of sliced almonds and tbsp of raisins. Obviously a super big serving for a post workout refuel. (I also had a pre workout half a banana and finished the other half of banana a couple hours after breakfast.)

After studying a bit I headed out to get my hair done and I have to say I LOVE my new colorist. She did an awesome job, so glad to find someone I liked so much right before the wedding. She even helped me find someone for hair and make up the big day. While my hair was “processing” I awkwardly walked out foils and all to grab some lunch at a cafe right across from the salon in the mall. The BBQ chicken, avocado, sweet cherry combo was one I was nervous about, but it was so good! My only complain was the tortilla chips were soggy so I didn’t eat those, but as Paul would say “thats what you get when you let someone else make your food.”

Refeeding

This week I have been thinking about the concept of “refueling” a lot. I recently saw on Instagram someone had tagged their meal “refeed”, I wondered what they meant so I looked it up. I saw a lot of articles on body building and the “refeed” concept. Most sites explain it as a day or set period (6 to 12 hours) of increased carbohydrate intake and decreased fat intake, while holding protein intake steady. They suggest a slightly increased calorie intake depending on what your goals are. This is really only intended for those who are already at a very low body fat and have reached a plataeu. It tries to pull the body out of the constant starvation mode and reset its set point so that hormone levels can be balanced. In technical terms, replenishing your glycogen and fat stores with carbohydrates will support a more normal hormonal balance and pull the body out of starvation mode. A new set point is created and the person can then resume their reduced calorie diet and exercise as before, but they will start seeing results again. I saw it described as taking one step back in order to take two steps forward. I kind of tried it on Monday by eating a little extra carbohydrate and less fat, but wasn’t really that into it. I eat when I’m hungry, what I’m craving or comfortable with, until I’m comfortably full and thats the way I like it. On running days more carbohydrates and on strength training more protein but I don’t get crazy about it. However, I do think this is a really good concept to remember because we all have cheat days. For dinner I had turkey lentil loaf and carrots, some of Paul’s animal fries and a rather large cup of FROYO and my toppings did not include fruit. I don’t care how many calories I burned this morning that meal probably wipes them out for sure. So I could beat myself up about it and say how I wasted everything I did OR I can use the “refeeding” concept to jump back on the workout train. I think it is kind of like how after a long weekend when you start working out again you can drop weight really fast and see amazing results. The body has been well fed and ready to perform at its best again. However, I don’t think the excuse works if you keep eating like crap either, its really only good for one day because anymore than that and you’ve built too high of a calorie surplus to burn off easily. So, for one day of crap eating like a holiday or froyo night or whatever you have a motivator to jump back on the clean eating and workout train quickly, instead of beating yourself up and using it as an excuse to blow the whole weekend or even week!

Question of the day:

Do you plan refeed days or cheat days?