Healthy Eating is Addicting

Eating healthy is as addicting as running! I crave it.

Today:
9am - 2 mile run. I haven't run in a few weeks so I expected to be a bit weak, but all this leg strength I am working on with SI6 is still helping my running! It only took me 17 minutes to do 2 miles today... VERY interesting. However, I had to walk 1/run 1. I had a stabbing pain in my chest.


Breakfast:
1/2 cup cottage cheese with cinnamon and almonds

Lunch:
Garlic stir-fry spinach with mushrooms
1/2 cup natural mac & cheese

Dinner:
tofu shish kebabs - green pep, red pep, yellow pep, firm tofu, onion, tomato, pineapple (broiled)

I'll try to fit in a snack or 2.


We recieved our Beachbody showcase package yesterday!! TONS of stuff! I'm really excited to get started today. I'll be doing YOGA X today and trying out P90X with dh later tonight. I gave Burn It Up - slim in 6 - a try yesterday and it's intense but I love it! Much faster and a little longer.

5-26-09 How it's goin' today

Yesteday was not good at all! I am still nursing our baby and she kept me up ALL night on Sunday night/Monday morning. I tried my hardest to get through Ramp It Up, even with some modified movements but I was just BEAT. So I only finished half and then took a much needed nap. I followed that up with an early bedtime and caught a lot of rest. I needed that ebcause today I kicked booty with Ramp It Up! I didn't sit or modify at all! I'm feeling the itch to run again so I have to find some time to squeeze that in.

I'm eating well today, no cravings like yesterday. Yesterday I wanted a chocolate chip cookie on top of a potato chip. LOL And I did it! I believe some days you have to just let go and give in to those weird cravings.

I am having problems with eating so much. It totally and completely makes sense to eat more to burn calories, because if we don't eat enough our bodies hold onto and store the fat for fear of starvation. However, it's hard to get out of the brainwashed idea of "eat less to lose more" anorexic-food-is-bad type stuff we're all inundated with.

Eat more calories, just less fat.

Breakfast:
3/4 cup cottage cheese
w/honeydew melon, country pumpkin granola and sesame seeds

Lunch:
Grilled cheese & tomato sandwich (whole grain wheat bread, 2 slices of white american cheese, sliced tomato)
1 golden apple w/natural peanut butter

H2O so far: 60 oz. (goal is 155 oz)

Off topic - I found a beautiful dog today running in our neighborhood! We can't keep it. We absolutely cannot handle a dog again. She's out back right now. Matt went out and bought her some dog food, a couple bones and some treats. She's going to want to stay! lol I hope we find her owner, I don't want to take her to a shelter :(

Just the jump start I needed!

WOOHOO!

Slim in 6 seriously whoops my butt and I love it so much!

START:
May 17th 2009 - 157 pounds
Measurements:
hip: 40 in
arms: 12 in
thighs: 24 in
calves: 13 in
waist: 34.5 in
chest: 38.5 in

WEEK ONE:
May 22, 2009 - 154.5 pounds (-2.5 pounds)
Measurements:
hips: 39 (-1 in)
arms: 12
thighs: 23.5 (-1/2 in)
calves: 13
waist: 33.5 (-1 in)
chest: 38 (-1/2 in)

Alright - The site's up!

Here you go!! I'm excited. Slim in 6 is going great too.

Come log in your workouts for free whether you're doing beachbody or not. You can win all kinds of fun stuff! Once you're at my site just click "connect" or "play the game".

www.milliondollarbody.com/kbeans

Interval vs. Aerobic endurance

First I read this:
https://www.enhancedfp.com/training/final-nail-cardio-coffin-rachel-cosgrove

Then I jumped over to this:
http://figureathlete.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/training/attack_the_fat_in_8_weeks_phase_one


After taking a look at her exercises and suggestions, it is very simliar to Slim in 6.

I have been struggling so much with why I can't lose weight when I'm tri-training and being more active than I have ever been in my entire life. I keep hearing the "but you're building muscle" line over and over but I'm not buying it. I buy it to a certain extent, but there's no way that I can't even get to the lower end of my high weight with all this training!

So now that I have some time off until my next race, I'm really going to stay focused on this regimine. I'm curious to see the difference in how my body reacts to SI6 compared to aerobic endurance training of biking and running. But don't get me wrong - biking and running have my heart and I'll still be doing those on the side. Like today I took a quick 30 minute ride on Cinco and then did my SI6.

I have 6 weeks until my Devil 5k run.
And my next triathlon, Stone Harbor NJ is 9.5 weeks away.

My goal is to drink only water. Which is pretty much what I do already. But I'm hitting it even harder. I will drink my weight in water everyday for at least the 6 weeks of SI6.

My next major goal is to feel comfortable in just a bathing suit for the swim at the Stone Harbor triathlon.

I will start hard tri-training again on July 1st along with whatever I choose to do after SI6.

This is difficult and frustrating at times. I know that by getting healthier and accomplishing things that not many people I know are doing is amazing in itself. But that doesn't mean that I can't strive for better and try my hardest to understand my body.

Feel It Buuuuuuurn!

WHEW!

So I moved onto the Ramp It Up like I said I would. It friggin burns! It feels so good. I haven't worked my abs like this in years. I love the few minutes of yoga finish. It's such a good practice to stretch like that after working those muscles so hard.

I won't bore you with the everyday in and outs, but I will update weekly with my measurements and a picture.

I have 'Before' and 'After' notecards up on my wall and will move each notecard over to 'After' when I'm done that week. I'll take pix of it all so you can see what I'm talking about.

I will finish my 6 weeks on June 26, 2009. Exactly one day before the Devil race. So I'm looking forward to seeing the physical difference but also the endurance!

Slim In 6 - Day One

Today I officially became a BeachBody Coach and will have my site up by wednesday hopefully! Thank you Paula :o)

Tonight I tied out Slim In 6. First of all, there are 2 DVDs. One DVD has the "Start It Up" and Ramp It Up" then the second DVD has "Burn It Up". My plan was to Start It Up for week 1 and then Ramp It Up for week 2 and 3. Then I plan on alternating Ramp It Up and Burn It Up for week 4 to ease into the last and hardest DVD. I will then stay on Burn It Up for week 4-6.

However, that plan changed a bit tonight after trying out the first DVD. I guess from all the training I've been doing, a lot of muscles are strong and the first DVD was a bit slow/easy. Tomorrow I'll try Ramp It Up, which I took a peek at and I think the tempo is a bit faster with a lot of the same moves so it seems right up my alley! For anyone just starting out, Start It Up is REALLY good though, so I really recommend it before heading into Ramp It Up.

My arms hurt like crazy because yesterday I lifted weights... I didn't think I had done much but WOW they are sore today, so I see that as a good sign that I actually did work some muscles. Then the DVD had me doing a bunch of arm movements and I was about to cry LOL

Oh... and I took my Day One photo....EEK! All I can say is that I'm the poster child for "If she can do a triathlon, ANYONE can" and I should be on the front cover of the "Slow Fat Triathlete" book LOL

BeachBody Coaching!

A friend of mine and her husband have been coaching with BeachBody for 2 years. They've gotten amazingly fit and they're getting paid like crazy to do it. So finally we sat with them last night and I learned all about how to do it too. It's really easy and basically I get to make money while doing what I'm already doing everyday - on the computer and working out.

Tomorrow I get my site and I'll post the link then, but I wanted to let you guys know that if you're going to buy anything from Turbo Jam, Hip Hop Abs, P90X, Slim in 6, ChaLean, RockinBody, or Yoga Botty Ballet then you can buy it through me. It's the same exact price but I get a kickback from the company for everything anyone buys through my site. The company sends the stuff right to you. And I get to be your coach! Having a coach is free. You can then log in your workouts online and win money every single day (like $300 or an ipod) and then there's a $1000 winner every week. Totally random winners are picked.

You can also be a coach too if you want, but that's a whole other discussion. If you want to know more about that, let me know. By being a coach you can get the entire set of Turbo Jam, P90X, Hip Hop Abs, Slim in 6 and Yoga Booty Ballet along with the bands and ball for $199 and lots of other perks. So yeah, I know so many people are interested in those programs so I'm hoping if you are going to buy it you can now buy it through me! I can't wait to get Turbo Jam and Slim in 6, and DH is going to do P90X. Most of all I just want to help people make the change I've started to make in my life and have others feel the same freedom! I'm looking forward to getting in even better shape and Coaching others to do the same!

I'm nervous about posting my day 1 photo, but I'm just going to bite it and post... It'll keep me motivated. I can't wait to post my 30, 60 and 90 day photos! And especially to see my times improve in my races as I get stronger!

It's ON!!

Stone Harbor (NJ) Triathlon - IT'S ON BABY! I just got off the phone with a bike shop down there and I've got a 24-hour road bike rental all lined up. My size and great price. I'm STOKED! Can't wait for May 22nd when the tri goes on sale.

So the new schedule looks like this:
June 6th - Rick's kid triathlon
June 27th - Running with the Devil 5k, then volunteer for 8 hours

July 19th - Stone Harbor, NJ sprint triathlon

August - ET race volunteer

September 26th- (Tentative) Kokopelli BBSC sprint triathlon, St.George Utah

October 17 - Pumpkinman (sprint) triathlon

Iron Girl Swim Map - updated

Here's what the Iron Girl swim map looks like.

Yellow: sprint course
Green: olympic course
Red Squares: what I was directed to actually swim.

Next up - Planning rest of season

So it's tradition I guess that the days after a race I get my plans ready for the next one. This time I already knew that Iron Girl would be my last triathlon until at least July. I planned on doing a tri while on vacation in NJ the end of July, but the tri I wanted to do is already sold out (NJ State Tri). I did some research and found another one, the Stone Harbor Tri... but dh thinks I should just stick to a run as it's less stressful while on vacation. I think I agree...

So I plan on doing a 10k run in Millville, NJ which is basically where we'll be already. I'm going to see if one or both of my nieces will do it with me. This will be my first 10k and my first event in NJ, my home state :D

Then I think I'm either going to do the triathlon at Bear Lake, UT by BBSC or the Santa Barbara Triathlon. The SB one is super sprint style and looks interesting! But I'm not sure I want to travel 5 hours each way with the whole fam and pay for hotel stays when it's such a short race... DH seems more down to go to UT but that's an 8 hour drive each way. However it is the week of our anniversary, it's a place we've never been and probably won't ever go to otherwise, and I know Brogg puts on an awesome tri! So I think Bear Lake it is... for now. I can then take a break in September to train for Pumpkinman and then end the season with that as far as triathlon. Run racing won't stop though!

So here's what the line up looks like for now:

June 6th - Rick's kid triathlon
June 27th - Running with the Devil 5k, then volunteer for 8 hours

July 25th - Motorsports Park 10k for Barbara Cook

August 29th - Bear Lake Classic in Utah (BBSC)

September 27- tentative: Sandstorm II Desert Dash Race series 5k

October 17 - Pumpkinman (sprint) triathlon

Iron Girl recap

I woke up around 5am. The directions said we had to park at the Montelago Hotel and walk a bit. They also said that although my swim didn't start until 7am, we had to leave transition at 6:15am and walk again to the swim start.

As I pull into Montelago, it's pretty scarce. Only one other car and I followed them then asked if we were suppose to park here. They said yes and pulled out printed directions from the IG website. So we parked and started walking... They were such nice ladies, from California. As we get closer to the race site we see a dirt parking lot... FILLED WITH CARS. WTH? Why didn't we get the friggin memo? I was just there the day before for packet pick-up, these girls were there last night.. why weren't we informed? Why weren't there signs saying "parking this way" with arrows letting us know to keep going further down the road? I thought I was following the directions and I end up getting crapped on.

We finally get to the race site and go our separate ways. My bike was fine and I was happy to see him. I ended up getting everything together pretty quickly. Having done it once now, it's really easy. Helmet, socks/shoes, glasses, water, towel, racebelt and good to go! The bike racks were different than Rage. They were wooden and had slits for the back tire with a square area next to it for your stuff. Pretty neat. I got that sweet spot on the end and had TONS of room.

SWIM:
Because we had to walk to the swim a pretty good distance away, if you didn't have a buddy (husband, friend, mom etc) then you had to walk barefoot since you couldn't leave your flip flops there. I get o the swim and meet another lady. She drives the Susan G Komen truck that visits all the races. She was also from California, but originally from North Dakota. Very very nice and I regret not going to check on her after the race :o(

The water was nice but still cold enough to be wetsuit legal. It didn't take my breath away like the Lake Mead water at Rage. However, the slushy.. mud?... was GROSS under your feet. I'm from the beach but this wasn't sand, it felt like you were standing in poop. So finally my wave lines up and gets ready. The MC says we're suppose to round the first buoy, then go to the next buoy. TWO BUOYS and then go under the bridge. Ready-set-AFLAC (roll eyes, so much commercialization) and off we go. This time I went more to the front of the pack. By staying in the back at Rage, I allowed myself to be last last. This time I at least wanted an advantage. It worked out well. So we round the first buoy, then go straight ahead with the pack to to get to the second one, when we start hearing the kayak volunteer yelling "stay to your right! round this buoy here" HUH? That doesn't make sense..but whatever. So a bunch of us start heading out to that buoys and as we get there we realize NO ONE else but a small group of us (like 10 or so) are rounding this buoy out here! Everyone else was going straight through and cutting it completely. Not coming anywhere near it! We're all upset and not really understanding wth is going on, but we're afraid if we cut it, we'll end up having to come back to it anyway if they send us away. So we just round it and all agree we're making a HUGE complaint! That was totally completely unfair because now the times and distances don't match and won't be correct. Our placing won't be correct. It just sucked big time. But at least I did it. I swam freestyle more than before and I noticed my speed picked up. I had more endurance and strength this time. I felt really good. It was awesome to be in a PACK. I was keeping up with other people, and when we finally did get to the THIRD buoy, we were in a huge crowd. We did an extra buoy and STILL got out faster than a lot of those other pink caps.

T1:
The walk from the swim to the bike, OMG! It was sooo long. T1 end up taking me 10 minutes. That's despicable and it isn't my fault.

BIKE:
Ohhhh I was so excited to get on my bike! This was all what the week's shenanigans led up to. After walking out of transition, I hopped on the bike and VROOM, I was off and fast! I changed gears correctly and efficiently. I was cruising down those hills and making it up them so quickly. Finally at one point I thought to myself "where are those massive hills that lead out of this place?" and realized as I looked up ahead that I already had done them!! I was so proud of myself and happy the "hard part" in my mind was over. The rest of the bike was smooth and uneventful. I got to pass people and kept up with people who have those cool aerobars and aerowheels. I was leapfrogging with really good bikers and it felt SO good to be apart of the competition! The correct mileage was more like 11 miles, not 10 like the website said. Not a huge deal, but worth noting.

T2:
Uneventful... racked the bike, grabbed my headband and race number belt and took off for the run.

RUN:
I honestly had no idea where the run was going to be. DH and I tried looking at the map a million times to figure it out but never had success. The run began with a big uphill to the street. Not fun after just having biked 11 miles. Then it led onto a large dirt area and we basically were running in a huge construction area of dirt hills, rocks, holes and a portion of the road that actually was a smoother dirt was slanted sideways. It was... challenging but really too much. One lady even took a fall and scraped up her face. It wasn't a turn-around loop, it went around a circle and out the way we came in. There was water at every mile and duck sponges. The water was really cold and felt great! I asked for 2 cups every time - drank one and dumped the other on my head. The IG website and the newsletters said there would be all kinds of fun surprises to keep us motivated along the run but there wasn't anything. Then we were suppose to get a playing card to use for prizes later... yet again there was no one giving them out. Finally we round it out to the street again and back HOME! There were lots of people yelling "only 200 more yards, you're almost there!" I tried with all my might to just keep pushing and get this darn thing over with! lol

POST-RACE:
It was only 9am (yup, that's right, I finished in 2 hours and with an extra swim!). We weren't allowed back into transition until 10:30. I did not like that at all. My one son's soccer game started at 10am and I would have liked to make it. They did have a breakfast area, so I headed over to see what there was to eat. I wasn't very hungry.. I get there and all I wanted to try to eat was a bagel with peanut butter... no PB in site. They had muffins, bagels, butter, flavored cream cheese spread, cereal, fruit but it was empty except for melon so I took some of that before it was gone, and egg/cheese/sausage biscuits. No bananas? No peanut butter? I thought PB was a staple for post-race food... I asked for some but was told there was none so oh well.


I have already written an email complaint to Iron Girl. I really hope they make note on the website of the swim mishap so that people realize the times aren't correct. I'm disappointed with the race. I won't do it again. I'm not sorry I did it, any experience is good experience in that I always learn something from it... and in this case I learned that IG is just not the organization for me. They are so commercialized and all about the look of everything that the small details get lost. The one lady MC even had the nerve to say "when the hand goes up the talking STOPS. That's rude." Wow... not very nice.

Official Times:

Swim- 27:08:00 (longer swim and kept about the same time!!)

T1- 5:14 (why did it say 10 minutes on the posted results at the race today?)

Bike- 44:52:00 (GREAT!!!!!! 11 miles. Rage was 12.5 and took me 1:20 hour!)

T2- 1:28

Run- 42:37:00 (still slow, but with the course, I'm ok with this time. -2 min from Rage!)

Finish Time- 2:01:19 (Amazing! I took 40 min off my time from Rage and did that long swim!)

Meet Cinco

T minus 12 hours - Iron Girl!

Iron Girl is tomorrow! In 12 hours I will be diving into Lake Las Vegas, hoping to beat my previous time or at least keep the same time as I had at Rage.

We had packet pick-up today, and we had to have our bikes in by tonight at 9pm. Honestly... I didn't like that much. I finally got a road bike!! It's a "he" and his name is Cinco. I bought him on Cinco De Mayo, so it was fitting. He is a 47cm Trek 1220 with shimano shifters. I'm not sure of the year. I got it for such a GREAT price that it didn't even matter what year. Do you know Joe the bike buy from Vegas? If not, you're missing out! He is such a marvelous help, he's taught this newbie so many tips and tricks already, and he's the one who I bought the bike from. You ever need a bike, go to Joe. Period.

So as you can imagine, having to leave my precious new baby boy all alone at transition tonight was VERY hard. It's to trust that no one will just walk out with it. Ok, so I realize my bike isn't top notch compared to some others in there, but for someone who has a mountain bike (like I just did until tuesday), ANY road bike is desired! Ok enough of that... I had to do it and so did hundreds of others... it's ok. Right?

What I think about the Iron Girl race so far:
~I didn't like that we had to set up bikes the night before
~It's all very commercialized and branded, which is a huge downer for me as I often root for the small guys.
~The free tech tee is nice. I expected cotton from the pictures I've seen, but it's much nicer.
~LOTS of freebies at the expo.
~Two day packet pick-up option was helpful eventhough I didn't need it.
~They warn you ahead of time that transition is locked down at 6:15am, but I don't swim until 7am... so that's a bit wierd.
~No body markings... disappointing, they dont' help with the race at all but they look cool
~I had to put a number sticker on my helmet. Grrr, it doesn't look like it's going to come off easily.

So far that's all I have to say, except the course looks a bit difficult for beginners. I'm not sure the course suits the target market they are going for, but I'm not a total newbie anymore, so I'll survive.

I'll be heading to bed early and have a race report later tomorrow. The weather forecast predicts that from 7am-10am the temps are between 75-82 degrees with light winds not reaching over 5 mph and some humidity starting at 17% and decreasing to around 12%.