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?

Comparisons, pity parties and brain squirrels

Image courtesy of the Stock Exchange

I'm usually pretty good with comparing myself to others.

By which I mean that I don't often compare myself; and when I do, I'm generally fairly easy with noticing differences, and just acknowledging them without putting a moral value on one being better than the other.

Generally.

Some days, though, my insecurities rise to the surface and I can't help a/ comparing myself; and b/ finding myself coming up short.  Especially when my brain squirrels are particularly active.

You know brain squirrels? They're those little rodent thoughts that go round and round and round in your head, chittering on and on, telling you all sorts of negative stuff you know intellectually is utter garbage, but you can't help believing because deep down, you're afraid it's probably true even if it makes no sense whatsoever when you look at it logically.  I think we probably all have infestations now and then, but when they're particuarly active, they can make us feel like we're the only ones who have this kind of crazy inside our brains. Yeah. Those are brain squirrels.

I've been experiencing a bit of a brain squirrel infestation recently around comparing myself to the fitter, more determined people in my life. My sister-in-law, for example, who was run down by a car on a pedestrian crossing back in February, was told she'd be in wheelchair for at least 3 months, and that she should say goodbye to her plans of running the New York marathon.  Two months later, she was on her feet again, a couple of weeks later she was walking with a cane, and a couple of weekends ago, she walked New York in the extremely respectable time of 6 hours & change.

Yesterday I was out on the road with one of the sports nutrition reps at work, who's a posterchild for using the products she's selling. She's training for a half-Iron Man triathlon; and is currently doing something between 2-3 hours training a day for it. She was talking to one of our customers about her training (after the customer asked, it should be acknowledged), and mentioning that when she started training, she was at 20% bodyfat. Right now, she's at 14%.  I have a "4" in my bodyfat levels too, if my scales are to be believed. But it comes at the beginning of the number, not the end.

I know we're all different, and we all have different goals and start from different places and we're all special, special snowflakes in and of ourselves :-S. I know they're them and I'm me.  But there's a part of me that was just feeling... huge and whale-like and lazy and excuse-ridden and impatient (and, let's not beat around the bush here, self-pitying) right through yesterday because I'm not where they are. It's the height of dumb, I know.  But it is what it is.  Or was, since I have to admit, I'm feeling a little less down on myself this morning after a semi-decent night's sleep than I was yesterday.

Part of the sudden onset of comparison-itis, I think is because I probably overdid my run on Tuesday a bit.  I spent most of the day afterwards with legs that were... not sore, exactly, but incredibly stiff, and almost dead-feeling - they just didn't want to move, and walking was slow, arduous and fairly limpy.  It was a little better yesterday (more sore, less dead, still a little limpy), but I took a complete rest day just in case.

I tried running this morning, but my legs told me clearly after about 2 steps that it was NOT happening, so I just ended up walking a shortened version of the route instead. And as I walked, I reminded myself over and over that my primary goal is to get to the end of the month uninjured (which I don't think I technically am YET) and that any and every other exercise-related goal is secondary. 

I also tried, while I was walking, to focus on being grateful for the knowledge that, whatever I've done, it can't be TOO serious, or I wouldn't be walking at all; and that at the end of the day, seen from the vantage of a long-term training plan, a couple of days out is far from the end of the world. And to be honest, that helped a little - plus I suspect just getting outside and doing something, even if it wasn't the run I'd planned, helped to play whack-a-mole with the brain squirrels that had survived the night.

I'm not sure whether I want to ask for support or a kick up the attitude here.  Maybe both? Intellectually, I know that comparisons between myself and others are less than useless. I know that having to take a few days out because I might have pushed things too hard is much better than having to take a few weeks (or gods help me, MONTHS) out because I didn't listen to my body when it first told me I'd pushed things too hard.  I know these things, but I'm having difficulty believing them deep down, because my brain squirrels' chitterings and chatterings keep on drowning the knowledge out.

What brain squirrels do you find yourself dealing with on a regular basis? And what do you do to quiet them down?

Running (and everything else) roundup - Week 1

Image courtesy of the Stock Exchange

My exercise goal for each week in November was 2,500cal worth of exercise burn, and I'm deliriously happy to report that I more than exceeded that this week.  I was also aiming to cover at least 40km between walking and running each week.

NOTE: when I call something a "running session" below, I'm really not running the whole way. Basically, I'm working my way through the Bridge to 10k programme, or at least a modified version thereof, so my running sessions are actually broken up into 3 sets of x-minute runs, separated out with with a 1-2 minute walk. Session times also incorporate my warmup and cooldown walking time. That said, ladies and gents, allow me to present my Week 1 in review:

• Monday 8 Nov:  morning 7.3km running session; evening Jillian Michaels cardio + yoga DVDs. Daily burn: 1,103
• Tuesday 9 Nov: 5.5km walk. Daily burn: 356
• Wednesday 10 Nov: morning 7.3km running session; evening 8.5km walk with a friend. Daily burn: 1,127
• Thursday 11 Nov: REST DAY (needed like whoah)
• Friday 12 Nov: morning 7.9km running sesssion; evening, Bob Harper strength training DVD. Daily burn: 991
• Saturday 13 Nov: 9.6km walk doing errands: Daily burn 628
• Sunday 14 Nov: 11.6km running session, incorporating Kelly's 5k challenge. Daily burn: 844

So for my overall week's exercise, I did 9 sessions, with a combined total of 4,049 calories. Yeah, I think I rocked that goal. I also covered 58km, of which distance I actually ran a little over 24km.  *blinks*  WHOAH. Seriously? That's... kinda crazy.

I think this week is going to be a bit more sedate. For a start, this weekend I have a wedding to go to in another city, so I'll probably get to exercise Saturday OR Sunday, but not both.  Also, I suspect that given that I've increased my mileage from 43km last week to 58km this week, it would behoove me to make sure I do a lower mileage week before my joints put in a complaint to their union rep.  I also expect to have more than one rest day this week, which is probably no bad thing from a balance viewpoint either.

That said, I still want to aim for somewhere around that 40km mark. There are several Daily Mile challenges I've signed myself up to - not to mention the HBBC (Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge), whose logo you'll see on the righthand panel of this blog - so while I want to reduce the total distance, I don't want to drop it tooo far unless my body starts genuinely telling me it needs me to.

So that was my week. How did everyone else go with their exercise goals?

Goals for November in the Starfireverse (dum dum dum...)

Image (as usual) courtesy of the Stock Exchange

It's been a while since I actively sat down and set goals for myself.

That's weird, because I've never disputed the value of goalsetting. After all, if you don't know where you're going, how on earth are you meant to get there, right?

I kinda sorta set a weight goal by default (by which I mean I joined up to the LJ weight_comp group and picked at target that seemed semi-reasonable to aim for by Boxing Day) But somehow, I still didn't do any conscious, mindful, what's-really-really-right-for-me-at-this-time goalsetting.  And I find myself curious as to why.

I used to really enjoy the process of setting goals, once upon a time. Thinking long and hard about what I wanted. Thinking about what I figured I could do. Thinking about how I could realistically get there. And then... that magic moment when I committed it to paper (or screen), and bang... I was on my way to either making it happen... or not.  Either way, I at least had a direction to head in, and I tended to end up achieving more than I did without the process, even if I only occasionally achieved the actual goals.

Quite a few of the blogs I've been reading this week have had posts about the author's November goals in them. And it's... y'know... got me thinking. What are my goals?  I must have them, or I wouldn't have any reason to be keeping this fitness and weightloss blog, after all.

I've been thinking about that this evening, and for what it's worth, these are what I've come up with on the eating and exercising front:

• I want to keep tracking my food every day this month. I'm actually enjoying the tracking process in and of itself, and I'm definitely finding it valuable. My goals aren't so much about what I eat, except in that:
• I want at least 80% of what I eat to be vaguely healthy stuff - y'know - for the most part, things that actually used to be alive and either grow in the earth, or run around/swim in it. I don't have to have cooked them myself (although that's good too), but I do have to be able to class it as "food".
• I want, each day, to eat approximately 100-150 calories under my maintenance level. A couple of hundred calories over or under that is fine. Blowing out once in a while is also fine, as long as I track it... and then get myself back on track afterwards without drama.
• I want to continue to burn at least 2,500 calories of exercise a week. That sounds a lot when I write it out, but y'know - it's only 5x 500 calorie sessions.  I'm actually doing a bit more than that at the moment, but I want to give myself the option of taking a second full rest day each week as the runs (and thus calorie burn) increase in time.
• I want to log a minimum of 40km each week. Much like the calorie total above, it sounds a lot, but some weeks, between the walking and running, I'm already doing it. I just want to make it a formal goal to keep up the good work over the month.
• I want to have FINALLY made it past W2 of the Bridge 2 10k programme: So far, I've spent 5 sessions in W2 of the programme, and I can't yet do 3x 15min runs in a session. In fact, I can only really do one, and then the others quickly collapse. So the past 5 sessions, I've been aiming for 3 sets of running 13 min, walking 1, running another 1, then walking one before I go onto the next set. Next week, I'm going to try running 14, and then walking 2 and see how I go. If I can manage that? Then I'll attempt the full 15. And if I can do that 3 times? Then woohoo! I'll have met my goal, and be ready to move onto W3!
• I want to lose 1 more kilo.  Yep. That's all. Just a single kilo. More's nice, but ONLY if it comes through keeping my calories up just under the maintenance level, by exercising to a level that's safe and enjoyable and fun for me, and by meeting my final, absolutely 100% non-negotiable goal, below...

 

• I want to do all this without letting myself get dramatically out of balance to meet ANY of the above goals.  I mean this. The good gods above and below, please witness - it's OK to have a week where I blow out on my food. It's OK to have a week where I take more rest days than I'd planned - or even where I don't exercise AT ALL if that's what needs to happen that week. It's OK to still not have made it past the 13 minute max runs I'm doing at the moment. It's even OK if I end up gaining weight. It's NOT NOT NOT OK to achieve ANY of the aforementioned goals by pushing myself so hard I end up injured (again) and unable to exercise the following week (again), or obsessing so much about what I'm eating that I end up heading back towards disordered-eating land (again). This journey is about loving myself, being good to myself, and being the best me I can be. It's about breaking past patterns and learning from past mistakes.  And if I meet none of my first five goals but still meet this one, then I SWEAR to you, I'll consider November a successful month worth celebrating

It seems weird to be setting goals in one breath, and in the next, acknowledging that it's perfectly OK not to meet them.  I guess that's the thing with setting short-term goals for a long-term journey. It's never going to work out 100% the way I expect it to, but if I'm flexible enough, I can keep on heading in the same overall direction, even if I end up off course for a bit every now and then.

Do you set monthly goals?  If so, what are yours (if you're comfortable sharing, of course)?  And if not... do you have a general direction you'd like to be heading in for November?

New Federal Activity Guidelines - am I being too demanding on myself if they don't feel enough?

Image courtesy of http://www.sxu.hu/photo/812863


This week has been a lot better for me exercise-wise than many over the past months: a 20km, 4,000 cal training walk in the weekend, two boxing classes, a spin class this morning, and cumulative walking to and from work and the gym that totals 13km so far.

And yet it still doesn't feel like I'm doing nearly enough.


What are the Guidelines?

The new US federal guidelines mandate a minimum of 2.5 hours a week at a level where you can talk comfortably; then state that for health benefits, you want to make that around 5 hours a week. Then then go on to say that 'fitter individuals' might want to start with 75 minutes of more vigorous exercise a week, and slowly increase that to 2.5 hours per

And I look at that and think... hang on. That just doesn't seem enough. I mean laughably not enough. Not for someone who's actually supposed to be fit (which, incidentally, I don't consider myself... I'm 5'3'' and 90kg, very little of it muscle now, for frak's sake - that doesn't argue for a high level of physical fitness). And I don't know whether I'm just being unrealistic and overly demanding here (all training for a 100km walk aside, which I realise changes what should be consiered reasonable and what shouldn't)


So What is Enough for Me?

If I'm honest with myself, 'enough' for me, outside of event training, means an absolute minimum of 5 workouts a week; and ideally 6-8, so that I'm doing more than one workout some days. It means workout lengths of at least an hour (there's your 'vigorous training') as well as getting a reasonable amount of walking (at least 45 minutes, although more is better) in each day, at least 5 days a week, on top of that.

Now that I'm walking trailwalker, 'enough' involves 34km of weekly walking (ideally excluding walking to and from work, because I'm conscious that's all flat, and yeah... it just feels like it shouldn't count - it feels like I'm cheating) at a level that gets my heart rate up well beyond conversational levels, plus at least 4-5 non-walking workouts a week because I hate letting that side of things go. And it's also supposed to involve 2 resistance workouts a week, because damn, I'm supposed to fit them in there somewhere, although gods know exactly where :-S

'Enough', when I think about it, is a variant of what I used to be doing when I was at my fittest - what I did to get there and then stay there for as long as I could. Of course, 'enough' also got me injured, and I honestly wonder if for me, 'enough' really translates as 'the absolute maximum possible I can do without seriously injuring myself'. Which is damn hard to judge until after you've actually gone and injured yourself, it should be acknowledged.


So Where Does that Leave Me? Keep Aiming High, or Get Real About it All?

Setting high standards is a good thing, but the trouble with setting them this high is that, especially with the cough I've been dealing with since January (which has seen me go whole weeks without workouts, or if I'm lucky, getting 1-2 in per week and nothing else), is that they just feel completely unrealistic. And that frustrates the hell out of me, because they were realistic once.

So, then. That's my question. Outside of Trailwalker training (for which I have a programme I'm aiming to get fit enough to follow)... should I really drop my standards about what is 'enough' to something a little more in line with what people out in the 'real world' are doing? Or should I keep chasing what I once was able to do, and aiming for the stars - on the basis that even if I don't reach them, I might still get to the moon?

What do you think?