Greg's Weight Loss Blog

I ran a 10K race last Saturday. Well I actually ran an almost 10K. The course was supposed to be 6.214 miles but it ended up being only 6.05 miles. That is what the measurement was on my Polar RS800cx with the calibrated footpod and it is the same measurement that I got once I uploaded my logged GPS data to mapmyrun.com. It’s also the same distance the winner of the race measured with his Garmin 310XT.

When I manually mapped the course on mapmyrun.com it became clear where the discrepancy came from. Whoever mapped the course mapped it on-line and got 6.19 miles for the distance which is a lot closer to the 10k than the actual distance we ran. The problem is that auto routing when it’s set to follow roads will pick the middle of the road for the distance. If a race is mostly runs on long segments of straight roads it is not a big problem. But this particular run ran through some winding and turning residential roads that were long stretches of curved roads. On these sections the distance ran was significantly lower than the distance estimated as we all ran on the shortest line at the inside edge of the turns. This is why you have to actually ride the course with a calibrated bicycle on the shortest path to get it certified. This course was not certified so I can’t really say much about it, it was close enough.

The race was the 29th Azle Lake Run 10K. It’s a small race with few participants, this year just shy of 50 runners in the 10K, 11 runners in the half marathon (new event) and a bit over 100 in the 5K (new event).

I had several goals for the race:

1. Finish in the top three for my age group. Considering that last year there were only 39 finishers I figured it would be an attainable goal.
2. Finish under 40 minutes. I ran 40:55 a month ago on a much hillier course so I thought I had a pretty good chance at breaking 40:00 this time. It would have been a first.
3. Run downhill smart and fast. I’ve been struggling with the downhill segments before by not letting loose and losing a lot of energy. I really wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to make that mistake this time.
4. Don’t go out too fast, shoot for even splits. So far on every single race I have ran I ended up with positive splits. I fade towards the end and I have a hard time keeping my pace up.

Weather was pretty good for the day, considering it’s May in Texas. It was around 60 degrees, full overcast with a pretty good amount of humidity but luckily no wind.

Start was pretty uneventful; there is really not a huge crowd when you only have about 60 runners starting at the same time. The Half Marathon and the 10K started together while the 5K started 15 minutes later. There were some pretty solid half marathon runners and some pretty fast paced 10K runners at the beginning. Start was also downhill for the most part so pace was pretty fast.

First mile was 5:58.

By the second mile I finally slowed down and got into a groove where I could run my own pace. There was one guy breathing down my neck that was a bit annoying and eventually he passed me by which I didn’t mind as I finally got to run my own pace. My chaser just became my rabbit.

Second mile was 6:13.

During the third mile I started seeing several younger guys in front of me who clearly went out too fast early on as they were fading pretty badly. I started to reel them in slowly but surely. It was actually a lot of fun to pick them off one by one as me and my rabbit passed them by.

Third mile was 6:23.

At mile 4 the half marathon and the 10K split up. My sole rabbit, “Mr. wheezing guy”, went towards the half and I took the right turn onto some crappier quality residential road. All of a sudden I found myself alone with no one in sight. It was a long stretch of road with a pretty good climb and not one person in front of me. This is where I really started to feel the pain and the difficulty of running by myself.

Mile 4 was 6:24.

Up until this point my pace was all alive and well and I felt pretty good about my run. I was a bit concerned that I might have gone out a bit too fast early on and I was wondering what kind of toll it would take on me. I had two more steeper climbs ahead of me and my pace showed it. Running with no other runners in front of me I took a quick glance back and there was only one guy in my vicinity but he was a good 45 seconds back. He was one of the guys I already passed so I knew that there was no way I was going to give 45 seconds back on the last mile and a half. I also asked one of the marshals at the turn how many were in front of me and she said there were 3. I was bummed out that I was going to miss the podium finish in the overall. None of the 3 was in sight, I wasn’t even close.

Mile 5 was 6:29, the first split above my target pace.

During the last mile we ran into the 25 minute finishers of the 5K race. Their race started 15 minutes after ours but ended at the same finish. It was a bit difficult to pass them at times and I really don’t think it has helped my pace to be surrounded with all these “slow runners”. A girl in front of me was asking someone how much further the finish was. I glanced at my watch and I saw we had 0.4 miles to go. As I passed her I told her that it’s 0.4 miles to go. I wasn’t ready to start my final kick at this point I thought I’d wait until the 0.2 mark to really go for it.

Mile 6 was 6:30.

We took our final turn towards the high school track where, based on the map, I assumed we’d have a half a lap around the track to the finish. I started picking up my pace and as I looked up there it was; the finish line that is. I was a bit confused as I didn’t realize it was going to be this close. There was no track in sight and the finish was right there in front of me. I did a 5:00/mile sprint at the end until the finish and stopped my watch.

After talking with the other guys we concluded that the course was short and I probably didn’t do as well as I thought. My monitor indicated an average pace of 6:25 but that included 30 or so seconds of rest after the finish so I had to wait for the official time. I knew I beat 40 minutes just simply based on pace but I didn’t know by how much.

Official finish time was 38:08, a new PR. If I extrapolate it up to the correct distance it would be 39:11 6:18/mile pace which is still a new PR and under 40 minutes. Actually I think I could have kept up the 5:00-5:30 pace for the missing 0.15 miles so it would have been probably a tiny bit better than that.

As they told me on the course, I finished 4th overall and I got 2nd in my age group, there was a 32 year old guy who finished 3rd with 35:31. He was over 2.5 minutes faster than me, there was no way I could have beat him. Not this time at least.

So how did I do in terms of goals? I did finish in the top three for my age group which I’m pretty happy about. I love to leave the races with some hardware.

I also beat my goal of 40 minutes. If you look at the pure time I beat it by a long shot. If you consider that the course was short I still beat it by a decent amount and I totally killed my 40:55 from a month ago.

If you look at my pace graph I almost recovered all the speed lost on the inclines on the declines. I felt really good and really fast on the down slopes. Every single one of them were under 6:00 pace. I feel a lot more confident on the downhill now than ever before.

As for my last goal of getting to negative splits, well that didn’t happen. I went out a bit too fast, the second half had some climbs, there was a lot of lonely running and finishing with the 7:30/mile 5K crowd did not help much. But it is what it is and that elusive negative split is still out there. One of these days I’ll reel it in!

Well, here goes another week. The name of the game this week was getting back to a slow weight loss after last week’s horrendous weekend cake gluttony. I think I have succeeded in my goal.

I have eaten significantly more this week than any other week before, not counting last week’s 3 day weekend binge. But overall my days have been hovering around the 2,400 calorie mark instead of the 2,300 calorie mark where I would have liked them to be. I had some hard running days and I just felt the urge to eat more and more. Remember, 2,400 calories a day is still under maintenance for me with all the running I’m doing. I have averaged 2,467 calories a day thanks to the 1,500 calorie dinner on Saturday at Macaroni Grill that contained my all time favorites; Penne Rusctica and their rosemary peasant bread. Those 1,500 calories made me clock in at over 3,00 calories for the day. But quite honestly, I didn’t care. I knew that I have burned close to 900 calories that morning while running a 10K and I was going to burn another 1,000 calories the next day running a 7+ mile long run. So even at 3,000 calories for that day I was still in caloric deficit overall.

I seem to be only hitting the gym once a week now, I really need to get better about making it in there twice. the problem is clearly that I prefer to play spades or go out for lunch on my lunch break and when 5 o’clock hits I just want to get the hell out and come home instead of sticking around for another 30 minutes to put my strength training in. Something will have to change. I either have to give up the social aspect of my lunch breaks or just tough it out after work and do my strength training then.

Running was fine this week. It was a race week with a 10K race on Saturday so the mileage was lower than last week’s training, but I still put in 30.9 miles (just shy of 50 km). I had a solid interval session on Tuesday, a good tempo run on Thursday, a 10K race on Saturday and a 7.6 mile run on Sunday. I also ran 3-3 miles of recovery on Monday and Wednesday. I have burned a total of 3,629 calories this week for a daily average of 518 calories.

Since my Intake was 2,467 and I have burned 518 calories with exercise my average net caloric intake for the week was 1,949 calories. Based on the rolling average of my weight I have lost exactly 1 lbs this week which is 500 calories a day. So my BMR is right around 2,449 calories which is still in the reasonable ballpark. I guess I’m doing what I set out to do which is eating my maintenance calories on average and only lose weight based on calories lost due to running.

All in all, I am very pleased with the week and my weight loss. I certainly need to keep a check on my food intake, I’m eating more and more and I need to know when to stop. I can’t eat 3,000 calories a day just yet.

• Ran 16x200m intervals today. Averaged 37 seconds on them for a pace of 4:57.7/mile. It felt pretty good, let's do it again sometime! #
• @ChrisPolarUSA Did you guys lower the MAP on your stuff? The RS800cx seems a lot cheaper than it was 3 months ago. in reply to ChrisPolarUSA #
• I'm finally down to 168.4 again. After all the weekend cake eating it feels good to be below 170 again! #
• Had some Quaker Instant Oatmeal,Peaches&Creme, for breakfast. I can't believe how sweet that stuff is. I'll stick with rolled oats instead. #
• Ran a 30 minute tempo run this morning. 4.1 miles @7:13/mile. I really like running in the morning. Gives you a boost for the day. #
• I just had a perfect pear. It seems like the window of opportunity for a perfect pear is about a minute. It's either too green or too mushy. #
• I have calculated my BMI today. I came in at 24.8! I'm finally normal! Makes me feel pretty awesome! #
• @265andfalling I hate the "dreadmill". I only use it if the weather is absolutely terrible. Good job on the 4.2 miles! in reply to 265andfalling #
• @ChrisPolarUSA I just made three of my co-workers buy HRMs. My old S210 is used as a loaner more than a dirty whore. Do I get anything? #
• Had some Stonyfield Oikos Greek Yogurt for breakfast. This stuff is good! 22 grams of protein per serving. I think I'm hooked! #
• Polar USA customer support rocks @ChrisPolarUSA is the man! They're truly amazing, up to the 21st century standard. HRM = Polar, no less. #

I run races. And I’m kind of an extrovert, in case you haven’t noticed. I also enjoy the crowd support at the races where they can yell at you all kinds of things. But i prefer when they cheer for me personally. One way to achieve that is by having your name on your shirt. It is not uncommon for runners to race in a custom shirt with their name printed on the front so the crowd can read it and yell out their names. So I have decided to have a custom shirt made with my name printed on it. I have found Running Banana, a company that sells customized shirts for runners and walkers, or pretty much anyone who’s willing to pay for them.

Their store has several designs to choose from and they have designs that you can customize with your own name. Or they offer you the option to send in your own design and they’ll print it on the shirt of your choice. The nice thing about Running Banana shirts is that they’re all made from technical sweat wicking fabric and the printing process actually dyes the white shirt in its material, the image is not screen printed onto it which means that the shirt retains the fabric’s feel and sweat wicking capability. Since I’m kind of technically inclined and dabble with photo editing I have decided to make my own shirt design. It turned out to be a mullet shirt.

So how is my shirt a “mullet shirt”? Well it’s business in the front and party in the back. In the front I knew I wanted my name to be clearly visible and legible so people could cheer me on. This was the primary goal. But since Running Banana gives you a large area to play with it would have been a waste to leave the rest of the shirt’s front empty. So I also put the US flag and the Hungarian flag on the front along with my website address for a bit of self promotion.

For the rear I had no idea what I wanted to do until I have chatted with a friend who said I should put something funny. So I did. I designed the rear design from scratch and I think it turned out pretty good. I’m also thinking about making a second design with a different caution logo along the lines of “CAUTION: This Runner Makes Frequent Stops”.

I took the shirt on two test runs so far and while I’m extremely happy with the design and the quality of the shirt, unfortunately it chafes me in the armpits. the first time I took it on an interval run and I got minor discomfort in the armpits. The second time I took it out for an easy run and it chafed me again. Tomorrow’s the first race that I’ll be wearing it at, a 10K, and I’ll apply liberal amounts of Body Glide under my arms to see how it works. I figure if it gets bad I’ll have to figure something else out for longer races and maybe buy a different size or different style. At any rate, here is the shirt design:

As you probably know by now I had taken a photo session of my progress every four days for 6 straight months. These updates have gotten a bit tiring and I have decided to change over to a weekly progress update instead. Well guess what? I don’t think I’ll be doing that either. I just skipped last weekend, I did not really have time nor did I feel like taking pictures while I was stuffing my face with cake growing my gut. So I have decided that there will be no scheduled photo updates any more, I look pretty good as it is and the last 8 lbs will probably come off at a pretty slow pace so even a weekly update would make no sense. But I didn’t want to leave you without photos of me for too long of a time so here are some photos.

Me and my wife attended my boss’ daughter’s wedding this past weekend and for the occasion I had to get a new suit. I didn’t actually have a suit before, I had a jacket and some slacks but that was about it. I did have a tux from my wedding but for reasons that will became obvious in a moment I could not have worn that to the wedding. So we went to Banana Republic’s outlet store and got me a new suit, tie and shirts. I had to buy an entire new wardrobe pretty much in the past month and I’m very happy with it but it sure cost a pretty penny. The suit is the crown jewel of my new wardrobe and this is what I look like in it. I think I look pretty sharp if I say so myself.

I have tried to look for some recent photos of me in the monkey suit for comparison but I have failed. I could not find photos of me from recent years because I never wore one. I didn’t have one and I remember that I could not even wear the slacks that I had because they were so tight. So for the last couple of years I was wearing jeans even on holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving. I had to go all the way back to 2000 to find photos of me in a suit and even then it wasn’t trivial.

Here is me in my wedding tux from August, 2000. What a disgusting fat blob I was! I can’t even believe that my wife actually married me looking like that. She keeps telling me that she loves me fat or skinny but I’m still shocked that I looked like that on my wedding day. I distinctly remember that day. It was in the middle of August in the heat of the summer, temperature was over 95 degrees (35 C) and I was sweating my balls off in the heat. I felt very uncomfortable and unpleasant in the suit on my wedding day. I still have  the tux and the shirt I wore that day. The shirt looks like a circus tent on me and even if I would take the waist of the pants in they would still look like pants McHammer would wear, the legs are so wide and the bottom is so huge.

And if you thought I could not have looked any worse, here is a photo of me in slacks and a shirt with a tie around my neck from Christmas, 2000. My gut is huge and it’s rolling over my pants. I seriously have no idea how I could live like that. These photos just really hit home now. Looking at them makes me feel like I have wasted 10 years of my life being big. Who knows what kind of permanent damage I have caused with being this big for this long? Hopefully I still have managed to reverse most of it with my transformation and I can go on and live a happy and healthy life from now on.

So there you have it. A photo update of me in some pretty dapper suit and a walk down history lane just to compare how disgusting I had been looking for the past 10 years.

I might be a bit belated on the update but I’m still keeping track of everything. Or should I say sadly I’m still keeping track of everything. This week was OK but it certainly could have been better and there was a lot of cake involved in this week’s nutritional saga.

As you can see in the chart my diet was flawless for the first four days, maybe a bit excessive on Thursday, but it is to be explained with the 3 slices of cheese pizza I ate at my son’s end of the season soccer party. And even with all that pizza I came in at a respectable caloric intake and if I account for my cardio for the day I was still in deficit. But for Friday, Saturday and Sunday I just have no excuses. I actually do, so let’s take it day by day.

I have already blogged about Friday. It was a day that started out good, even dinner was OK but I should not have let myself eat the two slices of cake (technically one was a piece of pie) and the cheese and chips that night. Saturday looks almost as bad as Friday, it is certainly over 3,000 calories for the day. So what happened?

It was my daughter’s birthday and we got her some awesome chocolate mousse cake that’s what happened. One slice of that stuff is a whopping 430 calories. But given that it was a family event I could not say no to the cake plus I quite honestly didn’t feel like saying no to it either. It was delicious and I felt it was so worth the calories. But how did I end up eating 3,000 calories when all I had was 430 calories worth of cake? Well Saturday we also happened to attend a wedding. My boss’ daughter was getting married and my wife and I were invited. So we went to the wedding and it was great. I’ve been to a couple of weddings and as far as weddings go this one was up at the top of the list of weddings I enjoyed.

It was a very casual atmosphere, the ceremony was outside and the weather could not have been any more perfect. It was a breezy low 70s (22 Celsius) day. The reception was also very casual and the food was pretty darn good. I stacked my plate high with veggies and roasted beef and turkey. So far so good. But I also ate a good amount of stuffed mushrooms which, I think were the highlights of the culinary experience at the wedding. They were splendid. I had some fruit as dessert but I also had to have some of the grooms’ cake, I kind of felt obligated to have a piece. So I did. So not only I had two pieces of cake on Friday, I did a repeat and had two pieces of cake on Saturday. The two slices of cake were over 660 calories so it’s safe to say had I not had them I would have been more than OK for the day.

Sunday I was certainly trying to maintain a more reasonable diet and I kind of did but we had friends visit us and we made some fantastic filet mignon for them with some shrimp on the grill to go with it. I used to enjoy going to steak houses but now I much rather make my own surf and turf. It was a very nice dinner with some quinoa, steamed zucchini and squash, and fennel puree as sides. And for dessert, you guessed it, I had another slice of the leftover chocolate mousse birthday cake. So even with the extra 430 calories that came in with the cake I still managed to eat a somewhat more reasonable 2,600 calories on Sunday.

So with all the “festive eating” , that is properly justified as you can see, you might wonder what my weight had been doing. Well, if I look at my rolling average I have lost 0.9 lbs. If I look at the scale on Sunday morning from a week prior I have gained 0.5 lbs. So the truth probably lies somewhere in between those two numbers. Even on the rolling average my weigh has been climbing for the past 3 days which was a first. So far every single weigh in was below my rolling average but this time the numbers have been constantly higher than my rolling average indicating that my rolling average was going in the wrong direction. I’m still happy with where I’m at, I know that this week was an unusual week with a trifecta of heavy days but the chances of such alignment of events and gatherings in the near future are slim. So eating was not the best, how about strength training?

Well I did go my lifts on Wednesday but I skipped Friday. I had to leave early from work for the company event so I couldn’t stay and put in my workout. I did do some push-ups, 25 of them, on Saturday morning but I would not consider it a workout. But if there is anything this week that I’m particularly proud of, it has to be my running.

I have logged 37.8 miles (60.8 km) with an average pace of 7:57 minute/miles. This is the most miles I had run in a week so far. I am extremely happy with my running. I had a solid 10x400m interval repeat on Tuesday that almost killed me in the 90+ (30+ C) weather. I also had a great 10.8 mile long run with my co-worker again on the same route we did last time and burned over 1,100 calories in the process. This is why I don’t feel all that bad about the cakes. All in all I have burned 4,194 calories with running this week.

Based on the average caloric intake of 2,654 calories and the average daily caloric expenditure of 599 calories my net daily calories were 2,055 calories. Combined that with the estimated weight loss of about 0.7 lbs and you get about 2,400 calories as my BMR. Certainly within the ballpark that I have been calculating all along.

So while the week was nowhere near perfect I still managed to generate a caloric deficit and lose weight even if it was at a slower pace than ever before. Had I not exercised at all this week I would have gained about 0.5 lbs this week instead.

• This morning I weighed in at 169.8 lbs! First time to break 170! Woo Hoo! That's 77kg for the metric guys. I'm super excited! #
• Ran another 10×400 interval training last night. It felt really good. Averaged 1:22.6 for the splits 0.4 better than the last set. #
• I think I'm coming down with a cold or something. My throat is sore and I can feel the drainage…. I hope it passes quickly and painlessly. #
• @ChrisPolarUSA Is there a way for me to get a third S3 footpod fork? I rotate 3 shoes it'd be nice to have a separate fork for each. #
• Got up bright and early to do my 45 minute fartlek. Throat is sore as hell but I gotta go run. #
• Woot! 45 minutes, 6.3 miles, 7:07 pace, 82% HRRAvg. Best fartlek ever! #
• @TheRightFitBlog Good job Carla! Just make sure you keep your food down . J/K! in reply to TheRightFitBlog #
• @devkl Too much $$$ for what you get. That is unless you just have to have that one neat new feature they pack in every update. in reply to devkl #
• A neighbor I don't like drove up to me and said "You know what would be a good jog? If you jogged to city hall and voted for me" Jog my ass! #
• Ran (not jogged!) a 30 minute tempo run this morning. 4.2 miles@7:13 pace. I'll take it! #

If I were an alcoholic I’d tell you I had been sober for 194 days and you’d pat me on the back. Since I’m not an alcoholic, I don’t even like alcohol, I won’t say that. But since I had been a food addict and a terrible eater I can tell you that I had been eating clean foods and below my caloric expenditure level for 194 days. That is until today.

Today I had my first official cheat day. A day when I just said “screw it” and I ate whatever I felt like eating. I haven’t been completely depriving myself for the past 6+ months but I have certainly not been eating everything that I had ever craved. I’ve been very cautious about my food intake and I have results to show for it. So after 194 days I think I deserve a bit of a slack for my falter and going weak and having a cheat day. So what happened? Why the cheat day on an uneventful Friday in early May?

The day started out as usual. I had my morning breakfast which included my usual 3/4 cup of organic yogurt and a serving of Wheaties Fuel. I mix rolled oats, granola or Wheaties into the yogurt so my breakfast was nothing out of the ordinary. I followed up with 2.5 oz (70 grams) of raspberries and headed out to work. 372 calories, 10 grams of protein. So far so good.

At work I had a mid morning snack which was an energy bar. Again, this is what I usually do, nothing special. 170 calories, 9 grams of protein.

For lunch I have grabbed Chipotle. Chipotle is one of my frequent lunch places. They provide great food and very reasonable calories with awesome macronutrient content as long as you forego the cheese, sour cream, guacamole and the burrito and opt for a plain bowl with cilantro rice, black beans, fajita veggies, barbacoa, tomato and corn salsa. A really great lunch for 540 calories with a whopping 38 grams of protein. 38 grams of protein is not that much but it’s a lot when you compare it to other fast food alternatives and the amount of calories it comes out of. Again, I was doing pretty good so far.

My afternoon snacking went a bit out of hand. I was craving fruits as well as something salty. I went to the grocery store right after lunch and bought bananas. But once I was already there I bought some beef jerky, beef sticks, wheat thins and Triscuits as well as some other stuff. And since I had all this stuff in my office at work I could not resist and ate a large banana, a beef stick and one serving of wheat thins throughout the afternoon. 416 calories and 12 grams of protein.

If you had kept count I was up to 1498 calories for the day with 69 grams of protein so far. Not a bad position to be in. I still had 800 calories left over for dinner and I only needed about 50 grams of protein to go with it to meet my goal of 120 grams of protein for the day. Easily doable, I’ve done it many many times before. So what happened after I got off from work? Well, my wife had a corporate event…

My wife’s company throws some pretty nice parties for their employees and this time they invited their employees and their spouses to a nice suite at the Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie, a horse track. Me and my wife hardly get away from the kids so it was a special occasion for us that does not come around often. So we hired a sitter and we went to the race track. Once we got there and walked in the suite there were sandwiches, chips with dips and salsa, cheese platter with grapes and shrimp cocktails everywhere. They also had a full open bar which I did not utilize other than asking for club sodas at a steady pace. I chose not to eat any of these snack foods and waited as long as I could before I got in line at the buffet.

They had a really nice create your own pasta stir-fry station going where I asked the attendant to pour all the oil she just put in the skillet out and make mine with very little oil, if any, and go easy on the pasta and heavy on the veggies. I asked her to put every possible vegetable in there which consisted of broccoli, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, bell peppers, artichoke hearts, onions and garlic. I also opted for the marinara sauce instead of the Alfredo which is the one I would have opted for 6 months ago. After I ate my fantastic stir-fry I went back for more. This time I got a large plate and piled half of it with steamed squash and zucchini while loaded the other half with two slices of roasted turkey breast and two slices of prime rib. Again, I think I did pretty good and avoided the chicken covered in buttery and creamy sauces, the potatoes Au Gratin and the dinner rolls. This little dinner outing comes in at a respectable 926 calories with 69 grams of protein based on my calculations. The only bad part was the 47 grams of fats almost half of which was saturated. So if you add up all my calories so far for the day I’d be at 2,425 calories and 139 grams of protein which is actually a pretty good day. And this is where I should have stopped and called it quits. But I didn’t.

Instead I went back for dessert and ended up eating a slice of chocolate pie and a slice of Italian Cream cake. Yup, you’ve read it right. I actually had two pieces of cake for dessert. It was insane! I don’t know what had gotten into me but I just had to have it. And if this wasn’t enough I kept munching on potato chips and pieces of cheese throughout the rest of the evening while I kept betting on the wrong horses. All in all I estimate I had eaten close to 900 calories of dessert and junk throughout the evening and 60% of the calories came from the 56 grams of fat that I managed to stuff my face with. So my overall total calories for the day were estimated around 3,300 calories. Not exactly my maintenance intake of 2,300 calories. My overall game winnings were a net loss of $9 which is not too bad when you consider the entertainment value I had received for it.

If I could have a do-over I’d probably stop after dinner and maybe have a single piece of cake as an indulgence but I would certainly not gorge on the dessert and snacks like I did. I feel a bit bad about it but I do know that I haven’t had pie or cake for 6 months and I haven’t eaten this much food in one day for a really really long time and I certainly won’t repeat today’s actions any time soon. But on the other hand this experiment just showed me how easy it is to eat a ton of calories without even noticing it. I ate perfect, or close to it, throughout the entire day and I only blew it after dinner yet I still managed to eat 1,000 calories over my maintenance level. And believe me, I wasn’t even the biggest eater at this event. The only difference was that while 7 months ago I would not have thought for a second about all the food choices I made and I probably would have eaten potatoes and dinner rolls with butter bathed chicken instead of the steamed vegetables and roasted meat. This time every single choice was a conscious one even if it was a bad one. I knew full well what I was doing and what it would cost me in terms of calories even before I took the piece of cake and placed it on my plate. I was fully aware of the damage each potato chip was making in my diet and goal.

While I’m not entirely proud of or happy with the choices I had made tonight I’m still feeling pretty good. I also know that I’ll be running a 10 mile long run on Sunday which will burn more calories in an hour and a half than what I ate in excess the entire evening. So I’m still kind of glad that I had my first official cheat day, at least I know what it feels like. It’s not all that what it’s cracked up to be but I’m sure I’ll have a couple more of these in the coming years.

As I get leaner and more and more fit I get a lot of comments from people. People who know me, people who haven’t seen me in a long time and from folks that see me every day. These comments are mostly positive but as Carla showed today on her blog they can be rather negative at times too. Sunday I heard one that I just have to share because it totally made my day.

Sundays are my long run days. These are the days when I actually get in my car and drive 25 minutes to a trail instead of just walking out the front door and hitting the road. On shorter runs I tend to stick with the neighborhood streets but when the running plan calls for a 10 mile run I just can’t imagine running that on streets with no sidewalks in boring suburbia. So I drive down to the Trinity Trail, an awesome trail system in Fort  Worth, TX and go for it. Last Sunday’s recipe called for a 10 mile run. I got there bright and early and hit the trail by 7:30. I was done with my run before 9:00 and since I was already in town I figured I’d go to Central Market, an awesome grocery store with really good stuff, and buy some stuff.

I love Central Market. They have bulk cereal, granola and oatmeal that I like, they have a fantastic selection of breads including 100% whole wheat, a cheese selection that is unmatched around here, deli meats that are to die for and fresh produce and a butcher that are all hard to resist. It’s impossible to get out of the place for less than $100 and I usually have less than two bags to show for it. It’s a completely different shopping experience than Walmart.

So I went to Central Market right after my long run in my 2.5″ inseam split running shorts and technical t-shirt with sodium deposits sparkling all over my body and smelling pretty nasty probably, although I can’t really tell but my wife makes me take off my running clothes in the garage when I come home from an easy 3 mile run. I got the usual stuff, pears, some energy bars, some rolled oats for myself, fennel bulbs, bread, farmers cheese and salami and bologna for the family.

As I was waiting for the salami in the deli, an older guy asked me if I had been running this morning. I was contemplating telling him that I don’t run and what I was wearing was actually my grocery shopping outfit but instead I fessed up and told him that I ran 10 miles at 8:08 minute/mile pace. He said that sounds pretty good and he remembers those days when he could run that fast. Then I told him about my running aspirations and my goals and he looked me up and down and said “well, you’ve got the physique for it”.

That comment just totally made my day. Apparently I have the physique of an endurance athlete now at least according to an old runner at Central Market. I’ll take that opinion any day! I told him while laughing that he should have checked me out last October when I was closer to 240 lbs.

Another week went by and I’m still chugging along. I’m chugging at a slower pace but it’s still in the right direction. And slow, as many other things, is a relative thing.

My diet is looking solid. I’m transitioning into maintenance mode so I’m trying to eat as much food as I would need to maintain a sedentary lifestyle without any running or exercise. This means I should be eating around 2,200 calories a day. My weekly average came in at 2,257 calories which is very close. I’m definitely happy with the number. Protein wise I have averaged 138 grams of protein a day which is another very good number that I’m pleased with. I will stay at this number until I drop the last 6-8 lbs which means I won’t deviate much from it for the next 6-8 weeks probably. Eating 2,300 calories vs. eating 1,800 calories is a big difference. It’s 500 extra calories a day. It means i can be a bit more lenient and have some fruit when I want one or the occasional 100 calories of popcorn or not the healthiest chocolate covered pretzel snacks. It is definitely a diet that is very easy to maintain. It gives me opportunities and possibilities that were very seldom on the tighter 1,800 calorie diet.

Strength training was non-existent again. Since I had my medical procedure done I have taken it easy for a couple of days and on Friday my son had soccer again and I had to bolt. But the real reason is that I’m simply getting a bit lazy with my lunches and instead of going to the gym at work on my lunch break and eating my prepared lunch that I bag from home I tend to go out and have fun with the guys instead. I really need to kick the habit and get back into brown bagging my lunch more often again.

Running was a ton better than I originally anticipated. I was planning on taking the entire week off due to the surgery and maybe run a 3 mile recovery run on Saturday and run a 6 mile longish run on Sunday. Instead I started running Wednesday with an easy 3 miler then did a solid fartlek run on Thursday, another easy 3 miler on Friday, a 30 minute tempo run on Saturday and a fantastic 10 mile long run on Sunday. The 10 mile run was great! I ran it in 1:21:20 which is an 8:08 minute/mile pace which is very good for long runs. It also felt really good and my sensitive knee was gone and the only thing that bothered me was the blister I ended up with on my right foot. I’ve had the mirror image of the blister on my left foot a couple of weeks ago so I’m not entirely surprised. I was running in my new Brooks Ghost 2 which only had about 25 miles on it and I had yet to run more than 6 miles in them before. So the blister was kind of par for the course. All in all I have clocked 27.3 miles (44 km) for the week and burned 3129 calories in the process.

Given my ever climbing caloric intake and my reduced weekly mileage I have only lost 0.9 lbs (0.5 kg) this week which corresponds to a 3,150 weekly calorie deficit. Based on the fact that I burned almost that very amount of calories with my running my BMR is right around the 2,257 calories that I ate. So my goal of eating at maintenance and lose weight through running is working out awesome. I can’t even imagine what I will do in terms of food intake once I hit my target weight and I will have to start maintaining it with 50 miles a week of running. I still have yet to have an above average weight measurement which means I’m still constantly dropping the weight even if the slope of the rate is getting smaller and smaller. I am extremely pleased with this week and I’m hoping for a week just this good for the next one.