June 27th, 2010

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-27

( See all Tweets entries here)
  • Thanks guys! @devkl @TheRightFitBlog #
  • @mindflux Lots of fun tonight! Hope you don't get cooked overnight! in reply to mindflux #
  • As of tonight my total miles ran for the year is 666.6. Kind of freaky! #
  • Ran 3.02 miles in 24 mins and felt good. Just another easy run in preparation of tomorrow's speed day. I only ran 3 … http://bit.ly/an5rCX #
  • Ran 6.03 miles in 47 mins and felt good. Today’s my wife’s birthday so instead of doing my track workout after w… http://bit.ly/ciaH7I #
  • @katdoesdiets I'm all about running fashion and gadgets! Whatever gets you out the door is fine! in reply to katdoesdiets #
  • I eat it for an afternoon or evening snack myself. RT @katdoesdiets : am I the only one in love with oatmeal for lunch? #
  • Mile 3.7 at the first exchange during the SARR Carrabba's Classic Half Marathon & Relay. Sporting my @RoadID http://bit.ly/bhMbhL #
  • Ran 3.02 miles in 24 mins and felt good. Just a really easy recovery run this morning after yesterday's speed workou… http://bit.ly/a3Uw58 #
  • Ran 4.41 miles in 30 mins and felt good. Today's tempo was uneventful and a bit tiring. I started out easy as always… http://bit.ly/bDtAC9 #
  • @RoadID customer service rocks! Thank you guys! Everyone active should get one of their IDs! #
  • Today is rest day, no running for me. I kind of enjoyed sleeping in for a change. #
  • Ran 8.08 miles in 1 hour and 4 mins and 2 secs and felt great. Today was another group run with the Fort Worth Runni… http://bit.ly/cCiJpJ #

Tags: Tweets, twitter

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June 24th, 2010

Why The Last 10 lbs Is Always The Toughest

( See all Nutrition,Rants entries here)

I’ve been losing weight, mostly fat, for the last 7+ months and I feel like I’m in the home stretch. I have lost 70+ lbs and I think I only have another 10 lbs to go. But this last 10lbs seems to be the toughest to lose. Why’s that?

I see a lot of people are fighting to lose that “last 5-10 lbs” and quite honestly most people could probably stand to lose that last 5-10lbs whether they admit to it or not. Even at my half marathon race most guys I have talked to said “If I could only lose that 10 lbs my time would improve so much!”. Yet, for some reason, they’re stuck at their weight. They run a lot of miles I presume, it’s tough to run a half marathon without running a lot of miles and they still can’t shake that last 10 lbs. I think I know why it is so difficult to drop that final 10 lbs and to be able to tighten the belt one more notch.

  1. Weight loss fatigue.
    I’ve been losing weight for over 7 months. It is a very tiring process even in light of all the progress I have made. Counting calories for days on, writing down every single item I consume, worry every time the family goes out for dinner what I would eat and wondering just how many days having a slice of birthday cake and a beer with the friends would set me back can be a full time job. And after a while you reach a point in your weight loss where you get tired of it and you say “screw it, I deserve that piece of cake” or “I’m not going to count calories today”. I know that I’m pretty tired of it all myself, I even quit calorie counting completely a week ago. But with getting more and more relaxed with the diet comes the other problem.
  2. Diet Complacency
    When you do something long enough you begin to master it. When you’ve been dieting for so long you start to learn how many calories are in a large egg (70) how much calorie is in a cup of rice (about 200-220) and how big is a 4oz portion of chicken (about the size of a deck of cards). These things start to become second nature. You feel like you’re in the groove and you’re in full control. But then you start to justify some not so perfect choices and you start to eat some things you know you shouldn’t. You would know that eating that third tortilla (140 calories) is probably not a good idea and it does not really fit into your caloric budget but you do it anyway because “I’ve already ran 4 miles this morning and that burned 400 calories”. You will look at the loaf of bread at the Italian restaurant on a Saturday night and you will think “I’m going to run my 10 mile long run burning 1,000 calories, what’s the harm in eating 300 extra calories tonight? I’m just carb loading for tomorrow”. You start justifying diet choices and rationalizing excess calories that you wouldn’t eat had you still been calorie counting. Combined with the weight loss fatigue you feel downright entitled to that piece of brownie “I’ve been dieting this long, I deserve that brownie!”. So you end up eating a 100 calories here another 100 calories there and before you know it you just ate an extra 200-300 calories on top of your daily budget. And that is a big issue when you combine it with the third issue.
  3. Change in Basal Metabolic Rate
    It is no secret that the bigger is someone the more calories it takes to support that body. There are equations that can estimate your basal metabolic rate (BMR) or resting metabolic rate (RMR). In the different calculators weight is one of the determining factors for BMR/RMR and it takes around 5 calories per lbs of body weight to maintain such weight. There are other factors involved, such as sex, age, height and how active a person is but weight is has an effect of about 5 calories per lbs of body weight. So if someone loses 10 lbs their basal metabolic rate would drop by 50 calories. Now 50 calories a day is not much. But I lost 70+ lbs which means my basal metabolic rate has dropped by over 350 calories. So if I started with a basal metabolic rate of 2,400 calories at 237 lbs now, at 165 lbs, my basal metabolic rate is down to almost 2,000 calories. So if I keep staying on my 1,800 calorie diet instead of generating a 600 calorie daily deficit, which would produce a nice 1.5 lbs weekly weight loss, I’m only generating a 200 calorie daily deficit even though I’m not doing anything different than I did at the beginning of my diet. If I would want to maintain the same rate of weight loss that I had at the beginning I would have to reduce my calories to about 1,400 calories a day. That is a huge difference!

So if you combine the fact that you’re only generating a 200 calorie deficit with an 1,800 calorie diet and that you’re complacency eating an excess 200 calories daily you can see how you can end up just maintaining your current weight and not losing any more even though, with the exception of the small indulgences, you are eating the same thing that you have been eating for the past 7 months. This can be a very depressing situation where you feel like you will never reach your goal and as if someone just keeps moving the finish line further and further. So what am I doing to make sure I don’t hit this plateau?

Nothing. I’m actually so close to my goal that I don’t care that I’m not getting there within the next two weeks. I’m taking a conscious break from my weight loss and I’m concentrating on other things. I’m focusing on my running goals and training while still eating healthy foods and making healthy choices. I’m paying attention to what I eat and I’m trying to maintain my weight without the daily drag of calorie counting. I’m hoping to be able to maintain my current weight and current physique without worrying about food. I’m trying to enjoy myself without getting fat again. And once I succeed in that I might concentrate on losing that last 10 lbs.

Tags: Basal Metabolic Rate, BMR, Calorie Counting, Calorie Tracking, Calories, Complacency, Diet, Diet Failure, last 10 lbs, weight loss

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June 23rd, 2010

My First Half Marathon; Another Race Report

( See all Running entries here)

I’ve been doing a lot of 5K and 10K races during the spring and I finally got up to where I felt confident trying something longer. So last Saturday I went to San Antonio, TX to run the 10th Annual SARR Carrabba’s Classic Half Marathon. Since it was my first it was naturally a personal record (PR) for me. I’m a bit disappointed with my time and it definitely humbled me even more about my BQ goal in October. My personal goal was 1:27, realistic goal was to break 1:30. Neither of them happened. I came in with 1:31:20.3 which is 6:58/mile pace. Not exactly what I was hoping for or what my 10K and 5K times indicated but it is what it is. This is what I can bring up as explanation to the poor performance:

1) Course was on a narrow asphalt trail in a city park with public walking their dogs against race traffic all day long.

2) Race was on a looped course, 3.7, 3.1, 3.1, and 3.2 for the last leg. It would mean lapping slower people in a regular marathon by the second lap. But this was even worse.

3) It was also a 4 men relay race with 2,000 people competing which meant a bunch of fast guys going out like crazy at the start, essentially running 5Ks while a whole bunch of 35+ minute 5K people grouping together and taking water from front of you at the water station. It also meant a whole lot of stupid surging with relay runners passing you at the exchange then you having to pass them at the 2 mile mark once they ran out of steam.

4) Water stations sucked. They had them at the exchange, 1 mile and 2 mile points on the main loop but the stations were short and I never had a chance to double up on the water which felt really needed considering the heat. And some of the volunteers, bless their heart, were holding onto the cups with their death grip where by the time I freed the cup half of the half filled cup’s content spilled which left very little water. One time I accidentally picked up Gatorade instead of water out of desperation as there was no water left on my side.

5) Speaking of the heat, the race started promptly at 8:00AM in 77 degrees with 89% humidity. By the time I finished it was 80 at 81% humidity. Not running friendly weather and it definitely made it into a novelty race instead of a PR course.

So these were the issues that I really had no control over and I can blame. Here are the issues that I had control over but still managed to screw up:

1) Going out too fast. My Polar footpod was 1.1% off meaning the pace it indicated was actually 1.1% slower than reality. It meant that my 6:40 splits were really 6:36 splits. But considering the weather even the 6:40 pace was way too ambitious of me. I really should have paced myself better.

My first 5 mile splits were: 6:27, 6:35, 6:34, 6:32, 6:38. They were all way too fast and I should have slowed it down more but it felt easy at first and I felt good.

Mile 6 and 7 were 6:40 and 6:42. It was mile 8 where the wheels really started to come off the bus and my splits got progressively worse and worse throughout the remainder of the run.

Mile 8-13:
06:52
07:07
07:09
07:36
07:47
07:59

The last 0.1 was a 7:27 pace which was my feeble attempt of a final kick. I knew that the goals were gone and I knew that I was done. I just wanted to finish and sit down.

2) Relying on my watch instead of feel. At 7.8 miles it was the 1 mile marker from the exchange into my 3rd lap. I looked down on m watch and I saw 6:46 for the lap timer for the last mile which was off my pace but not entirely bad. But 20 seconds later when I looked down I saw that my pace was 7:06 so I tried to pick it up. Then another 20 seconds later I saw my pace dropping to 7:26 so I tried to push even harder. Then a minute later I was down to 8:26 pace yet I was passing a whole lot of people and I felt completely exhausted. by the time I felt completely wasted my watch indicated a 9:00 pace. Or so I thought. You see, I never switched back from the lap timer to instant pace display and what I thought was instant pace was just the time elapsed since the lap started. So naturally the time kept going up and my pace was not really slowing down I just thought it did. So I was running 6:35s while I was thinking it was 8:30 and my heart rate was climbing at a steady rate into the stratosphere. I’m sure I have built up some solid amount of lactate during this stint which ended up hurting me in the long run. Sure, I was already down to 7:00 pace on my own but after this little stunt I dropped to 7:30+ and I just never recovered.

If you think I didn’t like the race or the organization, it’s not true!

1) The entry fee is $25 for both relay and individual races. This is probably the cheapest half marathon out there and in terms of bang to buck it’s impossible to beat. You get a t-shirt, a finisher’s certificate and a catered Italian pasta with chicken meal which looked really yummy! I gave up my meal ticket as I had my family with me and we had to go to Seaworld and I had no time to get in line and enjoy the meal.

2) The race was very well organized, the exchange area was perfect the way they called out the teams ahead of time via radio sure seemed to work for the relay runners. The course was perfectly marked and there were marshals at every corner where you could have had any doubt about which way to go.

3) They had age group awards in all combination of the relays (all men, all women, 3+1, 2+2, 1+3). They also had calligraphy on site to do the half marathoner’s name and time on the certificate.

4) Post race refreshments were plenty, from banana to beer. To have beer you needed an ID, it would have been nice to include that tidbit on the FAQ on the website, just like the fact that bag check was available. Both were mentioned in the race packet but for out of town runners who picked up their race packet on race day and walked up to the start with nothing on them in case there was no bag check it was a bit too little too late.

5) Crowd support was great. Even though most of it really came at the exchange it was very strong there and made you feel pretty good about the run. I had one guy who cheered me with a “Go Greg!” every single lap. It was awesome.

6) Water stations were at every mile, my problem was with their length not their spacing. If you were running a sub 7 pace there was no way to grab a water at the beginning and another one at the end. If you were running a slower pace and didn’t mind to stop at the water station then yeah, there was plenty of water. I must also mention that I have heard several times the volunteers yelling out to the slower runners to let the faster runners grab their water first so they tried their best.

7) There were door prizes. I won a bag and another t-shirt! Free stuff is always good.

So if I sounded disappointed with the race, I really wasn’t. It was actually a lot better organized and a lot smoother operation that I expected it to be. The only thing that I think they should have changed was to lengthen up the water stations to twice their length so you get a chance to double dip. Would I run it again as a half? Probably not. Would I run it as a relay? Absolutely yes!

So there you have it, my first half marathon with a not so stellar debut but I think I did OK all things considered.I finished 6th overall and since they only had a 0-39 and a 40+ AG I placed 6th in my AG as well. I think I have learned a bit from the race, mostly that a half marathon is not a 10K and I should certainly respect the distance. Running 26.2 at 7:15 seems even more daunting now than ever before.

Tags: 13.1 miles, half marathon, personal record, Race Report, relay race, water stations

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June 20th, 2010

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-20

( See all Tweets entries here)

Tags: Tweets, twitter

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June 17th, 2010

Flying Solo

( See all Nutrition,Stats entries here)

This week I’m flying solo. I have been tracking my calories for over 230 days. I wrote down every single food item I have consumed and every single calorie that made it into my mouth. This is a very tedious process and aggravates the hell out of my wife when I get up from the dinner table to rush to the computer to enter the grams of rice I spooned over to my plate and the amount of vegetables that I placed next to it. But I have been doing it because it worked.

If I look at my progress for the past 7 months I can safely say that a large portion of my success can be attributed to my very diligent calorie tracking and sticking with the plan without deviation. Every week my weight loss matched my expected loss based on the amount of calories I took in and the amount of calories I burned via exercise. Everything worked like clockwork. But I had to ask myself this question: “Do I want to count every single calorie for the rest of my life to maintain my healthy physique?” And the andwer to this question is “No, I don’t!”

So this week I have decided to ditch the kitchen scale and Cron-o-Meter and start winging it. I can’t be sure just yet how well this new approach is going to work for me but I sure hope it’ll be a success as I want to live my life as a normal person not someone with a severe OCD who needs to write down every single calorie. This week might not have been the perfect week to go without my trusty measuring system as my mileage will be pretty low this week due to taking two rest days for pre-race taper but if I can’t do it now then I need to go back to the drawing board and reevaluate just what it is that I’m doing wrong.

So far I have confidence in myself, I’m not doing anything unusual or out of the ordinary and I’m still counting calories in my mind and I’m still trying to maintain my 2,300 calorie diet in my head. Whether I’m succeeding or failing at it will be revealed in a couple of weeks.

Tags: Calorie Counting, Calorie Tracking, CRON-o-Meter, Diet, Nutrition

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June 16th, 2010

My Secret (Running) Past

( See all Kitchen sink,Running,Stats entries here)

I’ve been writing a lot about my current and future plans and my transformation but what I haven’t shared much of is the past. My story to obesity is not the usual one, or at least not in the sense what I would consider usual. It certainly isn’t the standard “I’ve been overweight/obese all my life and finally I had this big revelation and decided to turn my life around at age 33″.

My mom and sister

Growing up I was never fat. I was actually downright skinny when I was a young boy. My sister on the other hand was always the “chubby one”. I grew up in a very nice family with loving parents and a great younger sister. We sure had our fights and I was usually the one who got punished for them as I was the older one, but all in all I had a really nice childhood. My sister wasn’t the only one who suffered with their weight in my family. My mom has always been on the heavy side and she blamed it on her upbringing. Her grandmother and single parent mom always kept encouraging her to be plump “just in case you catch a disease you’ll have plenty of reserves”. This was their mentality and it certainly had shown on my mom. She definitely had been obese for as long as I could remember.

Me and my sister

As I was growing up I have witnessed my mom’s struggle with weight and her constant goal of trying to get slimmer and lose it all. She even went to “fat camp” where they put her on a zero calorie diet for several weeks to try to get her to lose her weight. And she did lose some, as to be expected, but she gained it all back once she came back home. It was a constant, never ending battle for her. I have also witnessed my sister’s struggles with her weight and the constant nagging and denial of sweets and snacks from my parents that came with her being overweight. I was clearly the lucky one. I inherited my dad’s “skinny genes” while my poor sister was stuck with my mom’s “fat genes”. But not only I inherited the “skinny genes” I also got a good dose of my dad’s running genes.

My dad was a runner. He went to college to earn his degree in cartography and civil engineering which naturally lent itself to be on the college team of foot orienteering. If you don’t know what foot orienteering is, don’t worry, I actually had to look up the English term myself as me being born and raised in Hungary it’s not a term I have actually learned or used in English, ever. Think of it as cross country running and map reading at the same time. You have to navigate and visit several points through terrain with nothing but a topography map and a compass. First to visit all points wins the race. The sport started in Norway and it is apparently a lot more popular in Europe than in the US but I just checked and there are several local orienteering events even where I live. Having said all this, my dad did compete at college level and he did OK.

Mom pinning the bib on my friend

For me, running started when I was 10 years old. I had a friend who was training at a sport school three times a week. I was never really good at any of the team sports at school and I thought I would go with him to training and see how I liked running. It turned out that I actually enjoyed running very much. I liked it enough that what started out as a Monday, Wednesday, Friday activity in the afternoons has turned into a five times a week training within a year.

On my way to victory

By the third year into my running career I was one of the top runners in the group and I have moved from my regular junior high school to a special magnet school for athletic talent. I was swimming three times a week before school and ran on the track four to five times while ran cross country in the woods once a week. I was clearly on my way to becoming an elite athlete. I won numerous track meets and cross country events on the regional level and I was national age group champion in 4,500 meter cross country amongst 13-14 year old boys in Hungary. I have clocked 9:26 on track for 3,000 meters (5:04/mile pace for 1.86 miles) and my personal best in 10,000 meter road racing was 35:14 at age 13.

So what happened? I got tired. I burned out. By the time I entered high school I felt like I was done with running. School was taking a toll on me, I went to another magnet school, a bilingual high school where I had to learn English and my classes were taught in both English and Hungarian. I just couldn’t take running any more so I quit. And I never ran another mile unless my life depended on it for almost 20 years. The one thing that I never changed though were my eating habits.

I thought I was still growing and burning calories just like I did when I was running. I was going through chocolate and pizza like it was nobody’s business. I slowly but surely started to gain weight. Before I knew it I was getting chubby. My classmates started to make fun of me even though I wasn’t that fat. I was overweight from my lean mean running machine look but by today’s standards I was barely overweight on the BMI scale. But when you come from 140 lbs, 175 lbs starts to look pretty hefty. The last time I wore size 31″ waist pants, the size I’m currently wearing, were freshman year of high school.

If I was on The Biggest Loser Jillian would have a field day with the fact that my mom passed away when I turned 15. She would blame my obesity and overeating on the fact that my mom died. Mom mom had breast cancer and she passed away at age 39. I really don’t think her passing had anything to do with my obesity. I simply stopped exercising and kept eating the same way I used to. But my mom’s death had a lot to do with the fact that I finally turned my life around. The closer I was getting to age 39 the more I started thinking about how short life is and how much more I wanted to do in life and how living the unhealthy way in an obese body would not let it happen. So while I wouldn’t attribute my obesity to “fat genes” inherited from my mom I certainly credit her death as partially the reason why I started my transformation. As for my sister, she has turned her life around about 14 years ago when she finally became fit and she has been the skinny one ever since while I became the family fatty.

But things are turning around once again. I’m on my way to regaining, hopefully, most of my genetic given speed and running ability while losing all the excess weight while my sister is getting bigger and bigger by the minute. I expect that by the time I visit her in August she’ll be bigger than me. You might wonder why would anyone say such a cruel thing about their sister. But this time it’s a good thing as she’s pregnant and expecting a baby at the end of September :-D .

So there you have it, my secret running past. While I certainly have lived the life of a couch potato for the past 19 years I certainly was blessed with some great running genes that are hopefully helping my new, leaner, fitter me to try to achieve my goal of running a Boston Qualifying marathon time in October.

Tags: Childhood, Elite Athlete, Fat, fat camp, Mom, Obesity, Overweight, Sister, transformation, upbringing

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June 13th, 2010

Weekly Status, Week 33

( See all Stats entries here)

This is probably the last installment of my weekly updates. My weight has not moved much this week at all, I’m really coming in for a smooth landing at around 166 lbs for now. I lost 0.2 lbs this week which is practically nothing, but considering the amount of food that I had been eating I think it’s reasonable. As you can see I didn’t log Friday’s diet. I went to a farewell party for a co-worker who relocated to another city and there was a lot of festive eating involved. They served chili, which my itself is actually a great meal but I ate a couple too many lemon squares and brownies that night. So I just said, screw it, I’m not even going to try to estimate the damage. It’s a good thing that the next morning I went and ran 10.6 miles and burned 1,300 calories in the process.

I did manage to lift weights twice this week which is a first in a really long time. I felt fine with the weights but I definitely need to get back into the rhythm and keep going on a regular basis.

My running was great this week. I clocked 34.6 miles (55.6 km) this week which is not as much as I have been running lately but it was the first week of my marathon training plan so it was supposed to be easy. I’m actually looking forward ramping up the mileage a bit, the week just seemed pretty easy.

All in all it was a solid week with a bit of wondering off the right path in the eating department but it wasn’t anything that I can’t fix.

Tags: Weight Loss Stats

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-13

( See all Tweets entries here)
  • @reconstruct30 I can lose 2 lbs just by going for a run. Yesterday I went from 166.2 to 164.7 in 1.5 hr even though I drank 100 oz of water. in reply to reconstruct30 #
  • RT @DaveZinczenko: EAT THE BACON: Fat doesn't make you fat. Too many calories does. Fat is good. Just not too much. #
  • @DaveTweets I'm having grilled chicken, brown rice and steamed veggies for lunch… in reply to DaveTweets #
  • Mile 4 in my last 10K. http://bit.ly/aiyysc #
  • Ran 5.03 miles in 40 mins and felt alright. http://is.gd/cFht8 Today the plan called for a 3 miler but I did 5 as I … http://bit.ly/93xcp9 #
  • Woo hoo! My last run just put me over 600 miles for the year and produced the most distance, 45 miles, within a single week! #
  • Ran 5.56 miles in 44 mins. http://is.gd/cFULI Speed day. I had 3x hill repeats of about 0.2 miles at 3% with 2 mile … http://bit.ly/90WWsM #
  • Just dropped my son off at soccer camp. $110 for 4 half days seem excessive but I still think it's worth it as long has he likes it. #
  • Yogurt with granola or rolled oats depending on the day. RT @reconstruct30: What are your favorite healthy breakfasts? #
  • Since when did Mcdonald's start charging $0.25 for water? #
  • I just watched a lady order three McDouble Sandwiches and a large sweet tea. 1400 calories, 24g saturated fat, 80g sugars. Didn't even blink #
  • I just ordered a pair of these. We shall see how they work in my upcoming half marathon. I should be able to put som… http://bit.ly/cm7kNJ #
  • Ran 5.04 miles in 38 mins and felt good. http://is.gd/cHiVo Just another easy run this morning. I did the exact same… http://bit.ly/anAAMi #
  • Local Running Scene Blog (Cline's Running corner) picked up my transformation story and published it! http://is.gd/cHpaE #
  • Took my son to Thai today for the first time ever. He's loving the chicken pad thai. It's a joy to watch him eat. My curry was awesome a … #
  • Here is my son eating pad thai http://twitpic.com/1v31id #
  • @keeponrunning This is the very reason why I try to put all my miles in in the morning. getting up at 6:00 vs. dying in the heat… in reply to keeponrunning #
  • Simple running strategy for the track 200m-10K events: run fast, turn right. For the 100m: run fast. #
  • That's the idea! RT @devkl: the best part about running more than 5 miles is that running 2 miles starts to sound easy. #
  • @keeponrunning You're running a marathon this coming weekend? Where? Goals? 89 sounds brutal… in reply to keeponrunning #
  • Ran 4.55 miles in 31 mins and felt good. http://is.gd/cIR4O Second speedwork day of the week. I managed to get under… http://bit.ly/c3MzaG #
  • This morning I ran into (no pun) 3 runners and 3 walkers on my morning neighborhood run. It's very unusual for me to… http://bit.ly/ckrA6n #
  • Look what the dog just dragged in! They look and feel nice! Can't wait to try them out! http://bit.ly/cKhG4e #
  • Today's lunch: Chipotle http://twitpic.com/1vbdki #
  • And a barbacoa bowl for me http://twitpic.com/1vbe0m #
  • Did you see my bib# from my last race? http://is.gd/cJoz7 RT @devkl: it's 6/9. don't let it go by without celebrating. #
  • @virtual4now Oh no, not another social run tracking site! #
  • @virtual4now Thanks! I'll check it out. I'm on way too many social sites now. I have a life, you know! in reply to virtual4now #
  • Ran 1 mile in 8 mins and 13 secs and felt great. I took the new puppies, the Karhu Racers, for a test run on the tr… http://bit.ly/9edDKX #
  • Did a weights workout for 30 mins and felt good. Finally got to the gym again after work.
    Lat pull, bench press, row and fly 3×10 each. #
  • @keeponrunning It doesn't get better it just gets different… I have two but I'm most definitely done! in reply to keeponrunning #
  • RT @iamconrad: awesome drummer, wrong gig. http://alturl.com/8k9y stole from @operationjack. follow his running journey! #
  • Strands Review – Win A Pair Of Shoes! – http://bit.ly/trystrands (26.2 Quest) #
  • I have just tried Strands.com myself. I think I'm sticking with @dailymile for now… #
  • Rest day. No running today. It's a weird feeling getting up at 7AM and not going for a run… #
  • Last night I was showing old photos of me to my 2yo daughter. She didn't recognize me and kept calling the old me a "man" instead of "daddy" #
  • @chrispolarusa Precor machine at work http://twitpic.com/1vllme #
  • @reconstruct30 I have Panang curry every week. But steamed instead of fried rice and spring roll instead of egg roll to keep calories down. in reply to reconstruct30 #
  • I love Thai food! Actually I love all of Asian cuisine. I eat Korean,Thai,Vietnamese at least 2-3 times a week. It's pretty healthy stuff! #
  • @ChickfilA Hidden Calories At Chick-fil-A (Or Anywhere Else) http://www.gregstransformation.com/hidden-calories-chickfila/ #
  • @keeponrunning Good luck and drive safe! in reply to keeponrunning #
  • RT @devkl: RT @kevinknebl: Tried to start an anti-social network, but nobody joined. #
  • Ran 3.02 miles in 20 mins. http://is.gd/cLsmL My first pace run for the marathon training. I definitely went a bit f… http://bit.ly/cwaLeq #
  • Did a weights workout for 30 mins and felt good. Another strength training day. Lat pull, incline press, seated row,… http://bit.ly/bgXkf6 #
  • For me it's all about getting and staying fit. Plus I want to BQ RT @ChrisPolarUSA: Why do you train? To get fast? Lose weight? Get big? #
  • Ran 10.61 miles in 1 hour and 24 mins and felt good. http://is.gd/cMNOr Today was my second group run with the Fort … http://bit.ly/cT2EvQ #
  • @virtual4now Congrats on the PR and 1st place! Great run! Can't wait to read your race report! in reply to virtual4now #

Tags: Tweets, twitter

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June 10th, 2010

Hidden Calories At Chick-fil-A (Or Anywhere Else)

( See all Nutrition,Rants,Reviews entries here)

Today was the last day of my son’s soccer camp and for the past four days I’ve been eating lunch with him at various places. Monday we went to McDonald’s, a place where he’s only been about 3 times in his entire life. Tuesday I took him to my favorite lunch spot, a Thai restaurant where he had his very first Pad Thai and he liked it a lot. Wednesday we went to another favorite of mine, Chipotle, and he got a taste of their chicken quesadillas. For some reason today he said he wanted to eat Chick-fil-A. It was a really odd request as he’s only been to Chick-fil-A about as many times as he’s been to McDonald’s which is not many. I wasn’t even sure if he knew what Chick-fil-A was serving.

Since he told me about his lunch plan in the morning I had plenty of time to look up their nutrition information and calorie counts on the Chick-fil-A website. Since their menu is rather simple it was very easy to make my choices. I knew that i would not eat anything that was fried so that left me with their grilled chicken options which were two sandwiches, one with cheese and bacon and one without and two salads, one with fruits and one without.

I carefully weighed the calorie count and decided that I would have a salad for good filler and good volume and I would also eat a chicken sandwich for taste and some more carbs. The two salad options were Chargrilled & Fruit Salad or the Chargrilled Chicken Garden Salad. If you look on the nutrition page the fruit salad is 230 calories and boasts 17 grams of sugar while the plain chicken salad is a mere 180 calories and only 6 grams of sugar. So you would naturally say that the fruit salad is the worse choice and you would opt for the regular salad. But those extra 9 grams of sugar all come from healthy fruits such as strawberries, apple, grapes and mandarin oranges. So it’s a bunch of healthy stuff. And the story doesn’t end here.

What Chick-fil-A doesn’t make apparent at this point is that this calorie count does not include the dressing, croutons, sunflower seeds, granola or whatever else you might end up putting on the salad. The fruit salad comes with Harvest Nut Granola (60 calories per serving, 2 grams of fiber) while the garden salad comes with Butter Garlic Croutons (60 calories, no fiber) and Honey Roasted Sunflower Seeds (90 calories). So once you put all the add-ons onto the salads the fruit salad is sitting at 270 calories while the garden salad is up to 330 calories. So at this point the Fruit salad certainly looks like a better choice in terms of calories. but the story doesn’t end here.

We still have to add salad dressing to the equation. If you go with Ranch or Caesar dressing you just added another 160 calories to either of these two salads. If you opt for the Light Italian dressing you’re only adding 15 calories to your salad. The fruit salad comes with the Reduced Fat Berry Balsamic Vinaigrette which clocks in at 70 calories per serving, but you can certainly opt for something else. So if you get the Fruit salad as listed, with the balsamic viegarette,  it would be a total of 340 calories for the salad. If you ordered the garden salad with ranch it would be 490 calories while if you opt for the light Italian you’d be at 345 calories. At this point I have decided to go with the fruit salad and the balsamic vinaigrette for a total of 340 calories. But the story doesn’t end here.

For the sandwich I chose the Chargrilled Chicken Club, with bacon and cheese for 410 calories. But it’s only 410 calories if you skip the Honey Roasted BBQ Sauce packet that comes with it whether you want it or not. That small packet of BBQ sauce adds 60 calories to the sandwich if you choose to squeeze it on there. I decided ahead of time that I would not use the packet and only eat the sandwich. So I was ready to go in and eat 750 calories for my lunch which is not a terrible amount of calories if you’re eating 2,300 calories a day. It’s actually quite a healthy amount of calorie with decent macronutrient breakdown. But the story doesn’t end here.

Once I ordered my salad and sandwich, to my surprise, they not only gave me the salad, the sandwich, the BBQ packet, the salad dressing and the granola packet but they also threw in the sunflower seeds, which were clearly not listed as an ingredient on their website. They have clearly just “supersized” my lunch by adding another 90 calories to it with a mere 0.5 oz of sunflower seeds that most people would not even notice whether they ate it or not. But that wasn’t even the biggest surprise. The biggest surprise was the salad dressing. The size of the packet was something that could serve a family of four and the label clearly mentioned it. Serving size: 2 tbsp (37g), Servings Per Container: about 2.0. So Chick-fil-A just gave me an extra 70 calories worth of salad dressing which would be invisible to the casual observer. Had I opted for the 160 calories per serving (a serving of Ranch is only 30 grams vs. the 37 grams of the vinaigrette) Ranch Dressing I’d be in the hole for another 160 calories. So that 180 calorie garden salad can end up being a 650 calorie meal once you factor in the croutons, sunflower seeds and the two servings of Ranch dressing that you’ll receive whether you want it or not.

Don’t misunderstand me, I really like the fact that every addition is clearly labeled with calorie content and that Chick-fil-A lists all this on their website and the separate packets give you the option to have a 180 calorie salad or a 650 calorie salad but it’s a minefield and a danger zone for the casual observer. I’d also mention that they list no sandwich on their menu that would beat the 650 calorie salad monstrosity in calories, not even their most calorie dense Spicy Chicken Deluxe Sandwich can top that with its measly 580 calories. And let’s not forget that while the Spicy Chicken Deluxe Sandwich contains an impressive 27 grams of fat, 8 of which are saturated and 9 grams of sugar that dream garden salad with double ranch (who could stop at half a packet I mean one packet is one serving, right?) dwarfs those numbers with a whopping 49 grams of fat, 9.5 of which are saturated, and 10 grams of sugar. And if you’d think that at least you’re getting some fiber if you go with the salad, think again as it’s only 1 gram more fiber vs. the Spicy Deluxe Sandwich with 5 grams vs. 4 grams.

I have enjoyed my lunch at Chick-fil-A today despite all the horrors that I have witnessed, but it just shows that if you’re serious about controlling your weight you have to be on the absolute lookout for yourself as everywhere you go things will try to sabotage your every move towards healthier eating.

Just for the record, I actually ended up eating the Fruit Salad with only 14 grams (less than half a serving) of the Berry Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing, I didn’t eat the granola nor the sunflower seeds and I had the Chargrilled Chicken Club Sandwich sans BBQ sauce for a total of 664 calories. As for my son? He was very happy with his two strips of fried chicken, waffle potato fries and Milk for a total of 650 calories. It’s kind of shocking to see that he ate as much as I did and this is the very reason why he’s only been there 3-4 times in his lifetime which is not much fewer than the times I happened to end up there.

Tags: Calories, Chick-fil-A, Fast Food, Nutrition, Salad Dressing

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June 8th, 2010

Change Of Plans

( See all Running,Stats entries here)

I’ve been writing about my goals and how I’m still not quite there yet but I haven’t really written much about my long term goals or where I’m going with this running thing. Sure, I have logged some decent mileage since I have started running in January and sure, I have improved my running greatly over the last 5 months. But how did I do it and more importantly why did I do it and even more importantly, what’s next?

My first and original goal, in terms of running, was to finish a 10K race. But I didn’t just want to finish it, I wanted to be in the best possible shape I possibly could by then. Considering how difficult it felt to even run three two plus one miles on my first run the best possible shape wasn’t going to be something all that stellar. But I set out to run the Cowtown Marathon’s 10K race. I made that goal so it would give me a reason to run and a reason to train. This goal also required me to follow a plan.

Thanks to my co-worker, an avid runer, marathoner and fellow weight loser, I found Hal Higdon’s website. Hal’s an older guy in his late 70s who has completed over 110 marathons in his lifetime and authored several books on the subject of running and marathons. His website provides an abundance of information and a multitude of free training plans from 5K races all the way to marathons for runners at all abilities and fitness levels. I decided to go with his Intermediate 10K training plan and started it on Week 2.

By Week 4 I ran my very first race, a 5K that the plan has called for. Shortly after the race I got injured due to a bum knee that I should have let to heal but I overcompensated and developed tendinitis of my right foot instead. It forced me to quit running for a week and only left me with two more weeks before the big 10K race.

8 Week 10K Intermediate + 12 Week Spring Advanced weekly summary

After my first 10K race I needed a new goal and a new plan. I needed a goal to keep me motivated and I need a new plan to keep me on track. So I have decided that I will run a marathon. Running a marathon and finishing a marathon are two different things. Some people just want to finish one, get across the finish line, get the beer and the finisher’s medal so they can say they have done it. If you have been following me for a while you would know that this is not me. I don’t like to do things half assed. I like to do them right. This meant I couldn’t just point at the calendar and pick a marathon in the next couple of weeks and make a run for it. No sir! I knew that I would have to train and be in top shape to be able to run it in a way that I would want to run it.

Most marathon plans are 16-20 weeks long. So it’s not only the 26.2 miles that’s a marathon, the length of training that gets you to the start line is a marathon of a training session itself. You can’t just wake up one morning, roll out of bed and walk up to the start line and expect to perform well. Sure, some might pride themselves in doing a “no training marathon” but I wanted to do it the right way. It meant that I would have to look at marathons in the June/July time frame. Let me remind you that I live in Texas. There just aren’t a whole lot of races let alone marathons in June/July in Texas. And while I was committed to the plan of running a marathon I was not committed enough to travel out of state for one. So that left me with no option but to look for a fall marathon.

I found one in Tyler, Texas, the Tyler Rose Marathon on 10/10/10, the same day there is a small race in Chicago known as the Bank Of America Chicago Marathon. So I have decided that while I would not travel to Chicago, I would most certainly drive 3 hours to get to Tyler Texas for a small and cozy inaugural marathon. But since the Tyler marathon is not until October it left me with 30 weeks of training left. What was I supposed to do with all that time, the marathon training was only going to take 18 weeks?

Lucky for me, Hal Higdon also has a 12 week plan that he calls the 12 week advanced spring training plan. This plan called for numerous 5K and 10K races along the way and this is what I had been following for the past 12 weeks more or less. I have ran three 5K and three 10K races that were on the plan and I have reported from every single one of them. The end of the plan got kind of messed up for me due to race scheduling and timing so i kind of finished the plan a week early which left me with nothing but relaxing easy runs for the last week. Ironically I have logged the most miles in a week last week on this easy week.

So now that I have finished my spring training, I have started working on my marathon plan this week. I will be following Hal Higdon’s Advanced II marathon plan for the next 18 weeks and I should be in top shape by the time I’m going to toe the line in Tyler, Texas on a hopefully cold fall morning in October.

If you have read this far I will also tell you that my goal is not only to run a marathon. My goal is to run a marathon and finish it with a Boston Qualifying time of 3:10:59 or less. So there you have it. My new plan is to follow the 18 week marathon plan and finish with a sub 3 hour 10 minute marathon in October. I have started my fat to fit transformation on 10/25/09 and I’m planning to BQ (Boston Qualify) on 10/10/10. I call this my C2BQ plan. Why C2BQ? There is a plan called C25K which means “Couch to 5K” and it’s supposed to help people to get up and start running and it gets them from being a couch potato to running a 5K in 9 weeks. My plan is the Couch to Boston Qualify in a year plan. I’m 7 months into it and I have another 18 weeks to go.

Since I will be concentrating on my running throughout the summer and my weight is sitting at a comfortable 165 lbs I will probably not worry so much about shedding the last few pounds but I’m sure losing them will be a side effect of my vigorous running regime.

Tags: C2BQ, Marathon Training, Running, Running Plan, Training Plans, Tyler Rose Marathon

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