Countdown to Lean - 7!

Seven days to go! Tamsen and I went on a 9 mile run (the beginning of our taper) during which we hit 3 of the 4 monster hills the Nike Women's Marathon has to offer. It went pretty well and I feel just fine today.

I started doing some reading up on the P90x nutrition plan. Now I know I've mentioned this somewhere before, but I really don't get diets. I like to focus on healthful, balanced nutrition that's tasty without being excessive (which is why I'm working on a cookbook for athletes). But that's not really the point here: I'm supposed to give this thing an honest evaluation, and I guess I can't just evaluate the workout plan without checking out its diet plan.

Right off the bat, I can tell you what will not work for me: the first week's carb plan. JUST ONE CARB UNIT A DAY?!? Are they kidding me? OK, I know that the low carb is still (sadly) all the rage and that it's a proven (albeit perhaps unhealthy) weight loss technique. Athletes however need their carbs, or at least, that's what I firmly believe. My stomach does as well. When I'm working out regularly and don't get any carbs at all, I feel ill most of the time. My stomach has trouble digesting my meals and I'm usually low energy. Of course, that doesn't mean that just any carbs will do... I make sure to have the best possible carbs in my diet, low on the glycemic index, as whole grain as possible.

Now I know some of you out there are die-hard believers in low-carb diets, but I just don't see this working for me. I'll have to check out this plan and look into possible substitutions, because I think it's highly unlikely I'd make it through phase one otherwise.

Getting Back On Track

I've been gone for so long and completely lost my second 90 day set finale...
What can I say, despite my unwillingness to believe it, weddings really do swallow up your life. From the Sunday before our wedding (when the family members showed up) till two and a half weeks later when I got back from the wedding continuation trip (no honeymoon for us), all I did was two runs: one hard angry 30-min run on rehearsal day (can I just say I run harder and quieter when dealing with family wedding-related crazies?*) and one lovely sunny hour long run on the day of the wedding.

That's it. No strength and no cardio even once the initial wedding dust settled. OK, there was one night of regular dancing, one night of belly dancing lessons and a full night of obligatory belly dancing as part of my second wedding celebration. There was also some frisbee throwing in the sea and some recreational swimming. But that's it!

So now I'm back in town, ready to get back on track, feeling a bit heavier after 2 weeks of feasting and the lighter workout load. My main question is what do I do? For the rest of this week, I'll just ease my way back into working out with a run here and there and some visits with Maya (hopefully she'll be understanding). But then what? I dropped the ball on the Women's Health Magazine plan, but aside from the one week kick off, that workout plan didn't do much for me.

People who've noticed that I lost weight this past year keep attributing it to the fact that I was getting married, either as in "When I was a bride, I was so stressed I hardly ever ate!" or "Trying to get in shape for the wedding, eh?" Which is totally fine, if that's what my motivator was. But it wasn't. My motivation stemmed from a number of things, but primarily developing a good research foundation for the athletic cookbook I've been working on.

My goal for 2008 is to run 8 races (half marathon and up). And for that, I'd like to be in as good shape as I can be. So I will continue to ponder what my next workout plan will be...