Week 6, Day 2

Calories eaten yesterday: 1430
Fat: 39g (26%)
Carbs: 95g (28%)
Protein: 123g (36%)

Weight this morning: 143.8 (One week ago: 145.8)
Calories burned in exercise today: 89

Ran into the City today (no, not literally, lol!. First I stopped at Macy's and had them put a link back into my watch. It has two extender clasps, and one was quite loose and kept coming undone. I had them remove that and put in one of the links that had been removed last year. Now my watch still fits and doesn't keep coming undone.

Checked the mail, and my Flowbar had arrived! Yippee. I can't wait to start using it. I also got another check from the property Dad gave me, and deposited that.

Went to GNC for the Power Gel carbohydrate packets for the race and found that their Gold Card discount extends to today, so I bought some BCAA powder as well. This is what I got. Of course, it's instantized because it uses maltodextrin to make it into a powder - maltodextrin is a sugar and therefore a carb, so I have a feeling this thing does have a few carbs, albeit not many.

Then back on BART and walked the last 30 minutes to work.

Tomorrow I'm having my taxes done in the morning and have to be up early. :-p Maybe after that I can get some sleep.

Got up my photos from Easter. I visited St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Oakland. I'll share a few of the best photos here. Click any of them to enlarge.

Easter sunshine


cross with holes for flowers before Easter services


inside of St. Paul's before Easter services


outside of St. Paul's after Easter services

More NutriSystem food reviews:
Chicken and Pasta in Cacciatore Sauce lunch - Kind of bland. I didn't care for it.

Technorati tagged: diet, low fat, weight loss, health, exercise, obese, overweight, NutriSystem

Baby got shoes

Calories eaten yesterday: 1956
Fat: 89g (43%)
Carbs: 55g (12%)
Protein: 169g (36%)

Calories burned in exercise today: 0

No exercise at all today. Bleh. I'll have a hard time making my step goal. I went grocery shopping, then spent all my "free" time at home washing the veggies I bought and cooking the rest of the meat I bought last week.

Then Eleanor came over, took back the "owl" b-day present that I had no use for, and gave me a new gift - a nice wallet. I moved all the stuff over from my other wallet so I could start using it right away. Then she drove me to work.

We were a little early so I asked her to stop at Payless Shoes. My feet have started to hurt wearing my old shoes (a familiar pain), so putting off a new pair was no longer an option, even though I don't really have the money. I found a decent pair of running shoes. They said it was "buy one get one half off" so I had to get two pair. :) Total came to about $40. That's $20 a pair - sweet! I'll break in one pair tomorrow when I go to the gym. :)

Now all I need for Bay To Breakers is some carbohydrate gel packs to keep me energized during the race. These carb gels actually taste decent, unlike that horrible orange stuff I used two years ago. :-p I can get them at GNC. This is the one time a year I eat pure carbohydrate. What can I say? While low-carb is fine for everyday life, I can't run a 12k (7.5 mile) race on it.

Still a bit sore today from two days of hard weight workouts. Hopefully I can hit the weights hard again tomorrow. Work it, baby! Supersmurf on the bodybuilding board said I might be undoing a lot of the good from the weight lifting by doing cardio after, so I'm thinking of cutting out the 20 minutes of walking and just doing a half hour of cardio. The best would be to do weights and cardio on different days, but I can't get to the gym often enough to do that. For example, I'm only going to make it to the gym once next week. I'm busy every other day.

I could also do the cardio before the weights, though I am loathe to because it really detracts from my performance on the weights.

I'm closing in on 2 million steps on Walker Tracker! It's so close I can taste it!

Technorati tagged: atkins, diet, atkins diet, low carb, weight loss, obesity, obese, overweight, fat, health

Heading into a long weekend

Weight was 147.2 this morning, down from 148 yesterday, but still 5.2 over my goal. Calories eaten yesterday - 1797 (basically 1800), and burned - 2063. Not bad. Today isn't nearly so good due to the lack of exercise (less calories burned) and the eating out (more calories taken in). Accounting for how horribly I eat on Saturdays, and Friday and Saturday last weekend, I am taking in more than I'm burning. That means FAT gain. :( My jeans do seem tighter when I first put them on. Next Friday is the moment of truth!

Saw the doctor today. They kept me waiting 45 minutes - my appointment was at 11:30 and I saw the doctor at 12:15! He said Celexa can cause kidney and liver issues (news to me!) and ordered a comprehensive metabolic panel for me - okay, whatever - and I asked for another cholesterol test. I don't have to go back until fall and it hasn't been a year since my last tests, so I don't plan to do this for a couple months. I just wanted the paperwork in hand since I don't plan on seeing him again in the next two months. :)

I thought I wasn't going to make it to Denny's, but I made some good bus connections so I got my free entree and drink. :) I had the grilled chicken salad (would you believe they made it with iceberg lettuce? - how horrible!) with blue cheese dressing and a Diet Coke. It didn't fill me up at all so when I went to Subway to get my tuna salad for dinner, I just ate it as kind of a second lunch. Ouch!

The weather forecast for the race this weekend is rain!!! It just rained four years ago on race day; please dear God, don't let it rain this year. It's only supposed to happen about once every ten years. It takes all the fun out of the race when you are battling rain along with fatigue. I think I'll take a garbage bag with me, just in case.

Picked up the carbohydrate gel packets today. I got PowerBar brand PowerGel. Roughly 26 carbs with only 6g sugar. That should give me pretty sustained energy. I got one vanilla flavor and two strawberry banana. I hope they taste better than the horrible orange flavor I had to choke down last year - "choke" being the operative word. :-p

Alright, let's go out there and RUN! And THINK KENYAN! (That's kind of an inside joke. If you knew anything about the race's history, you'd understand.)

I'll see you all on the other side of this long (for me) weekend. Expect lots of long posts about everything when I get back to my work computer on Monday, and I'll let you know when I get back online from home.

Technorati tagged: atkins, diet, atkins diet, low carb, weight loss, health, health and wellness, obesity, obese, overweight, fat, exercise, fitness

Victory!

Ok, I have good news and bad news about the race I ran today. Which would you like first? Ok, the bad news it is then.

I had my ID card (I don't have a driver's liscense), my credit card (already cancelled it), and my bus and BART passes either lost or (more likely) stolen. I'm mostly upset about the BART pass. There was $55 of train fare on it. I'm soooo not happy about this.

Now for the good news.

I made my goals! I ran all the way to the bottom of the Hayes Street Hill - just over 2 miles in - before slowing to a walk. My other goal was to beat my previous time of about 1:37 to finish and I did come in at about 1:37:05. Well, my actual time. My real time was much more because it took me 10 minutes to get across the start line. Whoever was planning this event did it rotten.

At any rate, I made both my goals. I think I ran MOST of the 7.5 miles (12k). :) Don't know how I can improve on that.

The carb loading yesterday (and carbohydrate gel packs today) REALLY helped. I could feel a big difference over last year. I had sooo much energy. I binged on pizza yesterday. This morning I had a slice of leftover pizza for breakfast with my coffee. I took some off brand Gatorade to the race with me for the carbs, then had a carb gel pack a 1/2 hour before the race, like the pack said to do. I had the second one around mile 3. I could have used a third, lol.

At Footstock a dairy was giving away single servings of chocolate milk, so I had that. Then I got my t-shirt and headed to a bus to start home.

So I'm upset about the lost passes that were worth so much. A new ID card will cost $20. But I am pleased about how well I did. I didn't think I had it in me. :-)