futurebird’s BodyBlog

I signed up to be a tester for "Speed V2: Caffeine Free" its a diet pill that has a lot of ingredients that are supposed to suppress the appetite.  Well, I got the pills in the mail this weekend and so my test begins!

Here are my first impressions:  On an empty tummy it seems to have a some mild appetite suppressing effects, but you won’t notice it if you take it with food.  My energy level is steady and I don’t feel jittery. I not seeing some kind of huge effect, but we’ll see how this works with my diet plan and exercise for the month.

Should I buy the hi-res version of any of these photos from my recent race?

Brooklyn Half 2009.

Which one do you think is best?

For a long time I would try to do a diet that was so hard that I could NEVER keep up with it. Extreme stuff like a raw food diet with no honey. I think that I did that because I didn’t really WANT to succeed at some level. By picking an impossible goal I knew I could get out easily since the goal was so hard. It really takes courage for me to set more modest goals. At some level I resented being on a diet. I felt like nothing would ever be "good enough" –I think it was a mixture of the feeling of constantly being judged for something that was beyond my control and the general sense that I was living in a state of deprivation and still feeling "below average."

So, I would be on this angry "Fine I’m doing everything I can! Is this thin enough for you?!" diet and I would either cheat on the diet and fail– or I’d lose some weight but pretty much look the same since the point I was starting from was not one where there is room for dramatic change… I mean unless we’re talking becoming emaciated.

So, my new philosophy is "slow modest effort for slow modest results" –I don’t want to have that feeling where I resent how hard I work to count calories and excercise. Well, I’m at the point where I enjoy the excercise for it’s own sake… and I’m almost at the point where I think my goals are more realistic. I missed the mark on May I wanted to drop 5 lbs– but I think that goal was too ambitious. Taking finals AND training for a half-marathon  and losing 5 lbs. was too much. I should have just set out to maintain that month. My long term goal is "At least stay the same or maybe get a tiny bit leaner, have stronger arms. Find  a way to be less stressed about weight."

Today I did 20 push-up with ease! So, I’m getting there.

My goal for the week is to log everything I eat to fitday. That’s it. Just keep up with my normal running and log what I eat. I will decide if I will do that for the whole month at the end of the week.

There are a lot of helpful people in the forums here! I think my diet is starting to make sense. I got some whey protein today and I learned a new way to cook chicken breast. I also ran 7 miles. My legs are still recovering from the half-marathon.  But, I think I’ll be good to go after an easy day tomorrow.

I can see now with fewer carbs I will need to eat my fruit right before I run to get enough sugar for energy.

When I was a teen I really wanted to be skinny, like a fashion model. People would tell me it could "never happen, you’re just not built like that" and I would cry for hours. From my teens through my 20s I wasted a lot of time wasting away. I tried everything to get my ideal body. Part of the problem is I was trying to look like a 6′0" woman and I’m only 5′0" –the other part of the problem is I’m of a more mesomorphic build and my body just won’t do that.

(”If I diet enough maybe I’ll look like this some day.” <–how I used to think!)

I think I have come a long way, since I no longer hate my muscles. I think I am more realistic about what my body can do and I’m not trying to use a diet to change my body in to something else entirely, I’m trying to refine what I have. But it leaves the question: Refine to what? Not having a clear goal makes it hard for me to stay committed. I wish I could find someone like me who had taken it to the next level. What kind of “after” pictures go with my “before?”

(I’m inspired by female body builders these days, like Tracy   Gamelin  in this photo  I don’t know about having body fat that low… but maybe I should try to be leaner.)

I think this is why I keep moving my focus back to running. At least I know when I’m making progress with running. I guess I have a better sense of what my goal would feel like than what it looks like. Right now my legs feel heavy when I walk or when I run. I want them to feel lighter, possibly becuase I’m stronger (big legs could feel light) or becuase I have a little less body fat. I also want to feel like I have good diet habits that I can live with for the rest of my life. I want smart eating to be 2nd nature to me.

Do you know what you goal looks like… what it feels like… ever feel like you’re chasing something that isn’t there?

Here is a link to it. I’m going to start tracking what I eat carefully. My goal is to stay under 1900 calories and to eat less than 50% carbs.  Also, I want to share how my race went. The report with photos can be found here.

Lastly, here is a graph that shows how my half marathon time has improved:
Futurebird’s Half Marathon Times
2:58:15  March 9, 2002
2:32:01  April 10, 2005
2:20:50  January 25, 2009
2:13:38 February 8, 2009
1:59:39 May 30, 2009

I’d like to see sub 1:56 next.  If not in August then in September.
Nothing is fixed, everything changes.  Oh, and I made a graph:

My next goal is to run it in 1:56 min. this August in the NYC Half-Marathon. I know I can do it and I know losing 5 lbs will help a LOT. So, the focus is on diet now. No way out of it. I had my post race treat of hot-wings and a beer (YUM) so now it’s time to eat clean and cuts back on carbs.
I really don’t know if I can do it or not!

 
BEFORE and AFTER (one month)
LOL. Well, I’m much FASTER in the 2nd photo. I took the 2nd photo after eating you can tell that my belly isn’t as flat.  I think that I might have a tiny bit less fat on my legs… they *feel* more firm. Could my arms be bigger? I don’t know… don’t think so. Well my weight is the same and that’s why I need to work on the diet!

NO CHANGE.

OK. I really need to take my diet more seriously.

The Brooklyn Half took me 1:59:39.

It will go down in history as: "the race where I forget my watch"  I made my goal of running it in under 2 hours  but this race just about killed me. I ran horrible GIANT positive splits (think 10:45+ for mile 10 vs. 8:50 for miles 1-7) — I mean, I just didn’t pace myself at all. But, I was so scared since I had no watch and the people around me said "we’re running a 9:50 pace" and I knew I needed to be close to 9:08. AND it was hot. AND I had serious GI issues. I started going really fast in mile 13, I knew I could still make it… It was a sprint finish. But, even after that, I had no idea if I made it or not since I had no watch. I cried all the way home on the D train. But, then I checked the web and found that I made it… if only by seconds.  I will post a full race report later in the week. I made so many mistakes in this race it’s NOT funny. Well, it’s funny that I got all mad at mile 13 and somehow met my goal anyway–  At least all of that suffering paid off.

Well, I’m glad that’s over! I just got some great diet advice from kimm4 — I’m going start planning my meals. The biggest change will be going from 60% carbs to about 40% — But I think it’s just what I need.

Today I went to the organic grocery store over on 3rd Ave. It’s pretty cool that we have one in the Bronx. I loaded up on Greek yogurt and wild rice and carrots. I’ve also planed out my running for the next few months. I need to work on my plan for my upper body… and my DIET. That is what I dread most!