Tuesday, December 7, 2010

OOOPS! Did we forget to factor our *holiday* into those goals, Starfire?

So I've just got back from an amazing long weekend holiday break with my husband to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary in the gorgeous Bay of Islands.

We stayed in Paihia, in a little B&B called Morepork Lodge.  And we had an AWESOME time. We saw lots, did lots, learned lots, read lots... and of course, as you do, ate lots.  It wasn't tooooo bad.  I kept my food intake reasonably semi-healthy most days (except yesterday. Yesterday, there was a sinfully rich seafood chowder that was... well, I'll start by saying that it was divine, that it came in what amounted to a buttery cob trencher, and that it basically seemed to be the bastard lovechild result of a gastronomical orgy between butter, cream, cheese, wine and fish... and then try very, very hard to just leave it there), but I decided that it was going to be too hard to track food while I was up there, so I just... didn't.  And because of that, I know that quantity-wise, I ate a lot more at each meal than I'd got into the habit of eating since I started tracking. Because the portions I tend to automatically use out of habit are NOT the portions that are assumed in "per serving" nutrient breakdowns.  Thus no tracking pretty much = more food, see?

I also tried to keep the exercising up, with various degrees of resulting success.  Our B&B host loved walking, so I got him to show me a couple of nice local walks on two of the days I was there. They weren't the kind of long walks I'm used to (one was 8km, which was OK, the other was somewhere between 3-4km), but at least they involved movement. And they were pretty, and filled with much scenic.  So that was all good. And the other two days, I managed to sneak in a little walking on top of all the incidental exercise we got through the various tours and stuff we did.  I didn't, however manage to get ANY running in while I was there. It just didn't happen. I probably could have made it happen if I'd been a bit more dedicated, but I didn't. It is what it is.

So the result of not factoring the holiday into my goals?  Well, basically, the first week of December is, I think, pretty much a write-off goalswise. I refuse to let this ruin the fact that the holiday was amazing; but at the same time, I don't do myself any favours by making excuses or trying to pretend that I did better than I did. And I did, after all, say that I was aiming to have one week with reduced mileage, back when I set my December goals.  I wasn't planning for that to be the first freakin' week of the month. But hey. Again, it is what it is.  And if I end up having two weeks of reduced mileage? So be it.

On that note, I'm not expecting anything pretty from the scales when I do my weekly weigh-in tomorrow. But, y'know what? That'll be what it'll be too.  If I've put a couple of kilos back on? Well, then, I've put a couple of kilos back on. Contrary to what my inner melodrama queen may wish to say on the matter, this will not, in fact, cause the earth to tilt on its axis, the sun to eclipse, the rocks to melt or the seas to boil. I'll just have an extra couple of kilos to take back off.

I'm just hoping I can remember this philosophical attitude tomorrow morning when I step on the damn scales...

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Goals for December in the Starfireverse

Well, since setting goals for November and holding myself accountable for them each week seemed to work out so well, it only makes sense to set myself a whole heap more for the final month of the year, right?

So, here we go: goals to take me through to the end of the 2010, and get me there in what I hope is a healthier and fitter condition than I started the year out.
  1. Keep tracking my food, and aim for a calorie intake of between 2000-2250 most days. This is slightly less than it was last month, but that's because I'm slightly lighter, and my BMR is therefore slightly lower.  I should say that on days where my calorie burn is up over the 700 or so mark, I'm perfectly OK with adding a wee bit more to my intake if I feel like I need it.  In fact, on days when that burn hits 1,000cal+ in a day (which occasionally happens), I expect to take in more, since I REALLY don't want to be exceeding a 1,000cal/day deficit.  That way lies major dumb in the Starfireverse. But the major thing is to stay aware of how much I'm putting in vs how much I'm burning. Which is where keeping up the tracking comes int.
  2. Increase my total weekly distance goal to a minimum of 50km per week EXCEPT for one week of the month, when I'll drop it to between 35-40km to give my body a rest for a bit :-)  I've exceeded 50km in at least 2 of the weeks of November, so I already know I can do it without putting too much strain on my system - I'd just like to hold myself to this level for December.
  3. Run 60+ cumulative minutes in a single interval session: As I said in my previous post, the B210k format isn't always working for me right now, and often the second and third intervals in any given session end up being broken down into lots of smaller intervals anyway.  So rather than keeping on banging my head against this wall in December, I'm going to switch focus to setting a goal around total distance run, which is really what I care about after all.  Currently, I'm usually topping out at somewhere between 40-50min of running in a session.  By the end of the year, I'd like that to be at 60min - or higher.  I'm going to work on the basis of shorter 8-10min running intervals, with 2-3min walk breaks between them, and see if that helps to get my total minutes up better than the way I'm doing it at the moment, where I seem to manage the first interval, but it exhausts my reserves too much to deal with the subsequent ones.
  4. and speaking of running... Run-walk Race 1 of the Westfield Albany Lakes 10k, ideally finishing it in under 1 hour 25.  I was initially thinking of aiming to finish it in under 1:30, which is my previous PR for walking a 10k, but based on the times I've been run-walking training sessions recently, I think 1:25 should be achievable. Although, to be honest, this race is going to be my benchmark, given that it's the first 10k I've entered as a runner, rather than as a pure walker.  The idea is that whatever I get for this one, in the end is fine, as long as I manage to run more and walk less of each subsequent race in the series thereafter
  5. Lose another kilo. Yep. Again, I'll be happy with just one over the course of the month.  To be honest, my short-term weight loss goal is just to finally break the 80kg barrier, and get into the 70s again... however much of a technicality those 70s might be. And if I can do that by the end of the year? Well, that makes a nice little timepoint to aim for, doesn't it?

And of course, as before, I'm aiming to stay  balanced while I do all of this.  Because none of these goals really mean anything if I break myself on the way to achieving them.

Any thoughts for what you want to manage by the end of 2010?

Roundup of the November Goals... and new ones for December

So back when I was setting my goals for the month of November, I settled on 6 basic ones:
  1. To track my food intake every day, and aim for between approx 2100-2300 each day
  2. To burn a minimum of 2,500 calories in exercise a week
  3. To log a minimum of 40km a week
  4. To make it past W2 of the Bridge to 10k
  5. To lose a kilo
And, of course, the most important one:
  • To stay in balance while I'm doing it all.

And y'know - I'm pretty pleased with how I went:
  1. I tracked my food all but (I think) 2 days out of the month. I stayed between 2000-2300 most days. Occasionally I actually had a little more - usually when I'd done more than 600+cal of exercise and genuinely felt like I needed more; and I'm absolutely OK with that. In fact, I'd far prefer it to sticking to a predetermined limit that ignores how much my body is telling me it needs on the day. And it apparently worked too... I've been losing weight at a rate I'm happy with on this calorie intake, while still feeling (mostly) like I had the energy I need to deal with not just my training, but everything else in my  life.  
  2. Yeah, I think I hit the calorie burn without even trying every single week. To the point where I'm considering upping this for December to actually make it challenging (but more on that in the next post).
  3. I also hit my 40km without REALLY trying all but one week of November, so I'm definitely looking at upping this in December. The one thing I'm conscious of, though, is that if I'm increasing my weekly distance like this, it's probably smart to actively plan to include a rest week in there where I deliberately aim for a lower distance. I see that in most marathon training plans, so I can't imagine it being a bad idea here. Plus, y'know, that balance thing.
  4. I did indeed make it past W2. I actually even made it to W4. But then things started going pear-shaped again, and I found myself managing the first interval of any given session, and then seeing the others just turn to custard.  I think I'm going to keep using a modified version of the programme, but not let myself be limited by it.  What I really care about with my running interval sessions, really, is total distance covered in any one session, followed by total distance run. If I manage to run 45min cumulative total in a session, I don't really care whether I'm doing it in 3 sessions or 10. As long as I'm doing it, it's all good, and all plays into how I'm planning to run-walk the races I'm now signed up for.  So yes, this goal was achieved, but the equivalent B210k goal won't be following me into December.
  5. I did indeed lose a kilo.  In fact, I *NEARLY* lost 2 this month. So I'm well pleased with this. No rapid, dramatic weightloss, which would suggest that something was seriously wrong with how I'd calculated my calorie intake and/or exercising. Just a nice, steady loss that feels like a tangible reward for the mostly-good eating and exercising behaviours I've consistently managed for the past month.

And for the main question: did I stay in balance?  I think, for the most part, the answer is "Yes".  I didn't always manage it 100% of the time, but for the most part, when I started feeling like I was getting unbalanced I noticed. Early. And I did something about it.  I didn't pretend it wasn't happening, and I didn't dive headfirst into it.  And that, I think, more than achieving any of the goals above, makes me feel like November has been a VERY successful month in the Starfireverse.

May there be many, many more like it :-)

How was your November?  Any successes or lessons you feel like sharing with the class?