Back to Working Out

I am re-starting my exercise program tomorrow.  Boot camp on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and Couch to 5K on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.  This is going to take a lot of self discipline.

I've looked hard at my nutrition and eating habits.  I eat fine, plenty of veggies and protein, easy on carbs.  Nothing extreme, which I think is how nutrition should be.  I should have a healthy relationship with food, not worrying about everything I ever put in my mouth.  I've eliminated sugary foods and most carbs, focusing more on fresh stuff.

Now I need to get back to exercising.  When I have lost a lot of weight before, I worked out every day, sometimes twice a day.  I'm going back to that.  Couch to 5k, developed by coolrunning.com, is designed to help a non-runner (like me) work up to running 3.1 miles a day (5k) comfortably in a 9 week program.  It's interval training, which should make my trainer, Mat, happy - he preaches intervals and tabatas. 

I've been injuring myself a lot (shoulder, hip, knees), so I will probably take longer than 9 weeks. 

One of my challenges with working out is simply that I have so much to do, I need to get up early in the morning to do my workouts, and I don't like getting up early.  However, my alarm is set, and I'm planning on a 6:30 wakeup every day to get this in. 

And, she's off.....

Protein for Alertness.

Yup, I'm going to tackle some interesting things over the next few days. 

Did you know (I didn't) that the nutrients in your food play a huge role in how well you are able to function at work?  I mean, I knew this *some*, but I just came across some information that really brought it home.

I am a night owl by nature.  My perfect workday starts at noon, with a leisurely morning.  Getting up at 8:30 is early for me.  And I tend to go to bed sometime after the wee hours of the morning.  Because of that, evidently, it is vitally important for me to have a protein rich breakfast - protein helps increase alertness.  Wow - I knew I liked my protein bar after my workout, and I prefer protein to carbs all day long (my body holds carbs right around my middle).  Morning people need their protein later in the day. 

Maybe that's why Tim can function on only 4 hours of sleep a day.  For such a calm person, he's almost frenetic with energy.  He follows a high-protein, carnivorous diet, with no potatoes (he prefers yams anyway), and very little rice or pasta. 

I need lots of sleep - 8 to 10 hours to function well - but I also tend to eat carbs if I'm not thoughtfully eating protein....