Diet plans

I have thought long and hard about my diet and how I self destruct myself on occasion. My weaknesses would be pizza and then basically just eating too much for the amount of running I do. Meaning when I am injured and/or don't get my runs in my weight creeps up and when I do get runs in it meanders down. For the last 2 or so years, it has been floating between 210 and 220 which on my 6'1" body is about 30 pounds too much. So the long term goal is to work my weight down this year at least 20 pounds.

So, I have been reading a lot of diet books to figure out what I should do. They all pretty much agreed on a few things, eat veggies and fruits and reduce processed foods.

I have also been thinking for years about becoming a vegetarian but that seems so like it will take a lot of work. So I have pretty much been stalled out on this, the meats that I do enjoy are hot dogs, bacon and brats which probably sums up a few other issues. Beyond those three, I do eat hamburgers on occasion, chicken, tuna and turkey more often (none more than 1 or 2 a week). As to fish, I only like tuna, shrimp and lobster and I despise any visible fat on meat.

A few weeks back I was listening to the Run Vegan Run podcast (episode 9 - good discussion, take a listen) where Megan was interviewing Adam who writes the blog Lone Wolf Runner. And what did they discuss but vegetarian eating and how to get started so after the show I dropped Adam an email asking a few questions about it and he was kind enough to get back to me. His advice made a lot of sense, start by logging all food. So I did it for awhile and I ate fruit (bananas, strawberries, grapes, apples), veggies (broccoli, carrots, green beans), salads, almonds, cashews, peanuts, energy bars, instant oatmeal, string cheese, peanut butter, bread, veggie and cheese pizza. Over this period of time I didn't eat any red meat but I did eat tuna once and when I had training at work I ate a small piece of chicken. That's one of my concerns about going vegetarian, figuring out how to eat when I don't have control over anything. Since then I have eaten a little more meat but it's no more than every 2 or 3 days or longer.

If I ever do decide to formally drop all meat I think I would make the attempt to follow the Lacto-ovo vegetarianism. Which means I will eat dairy and eggs and honey as giving up cheese would be really, really difficult.

First, though I will follow Adam's advice and start keeping a log and see how I do and I will look to avoid processed foods and increase the fruits and veggies as I have some weight to lose.

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For those like me who don't know everything about different versions of vegetarianism here is the definition table from wikipedia.

Foods in the main vegetarian diets

Diet name	Meat, poultry, fish	Eggs	Dairy	Honey
Lacto-ovo vegetarianism	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Lacto vegetarianism	No	No	Yes	Yes
Ovo vegetarianism	No	Yes	No	Yes
Veganism	No	No	No	No[11][12][13]

11. Vegan Action FAQ: Is Honey Vegan?
12. Why Honey is Not Vegan
13. What is Vegan?

Lebanon Hills Center Section - BIM vs Garmin difference

When I looked at my running info from yesterday, I was puzzled by my mile 3 split time. The groin issue happened after mile 3, yet my pace had already slowed down.

I think I know the reason, this morning I uploaded my runs into Garmin Connect and noticed that my overall time and my mile splits were different and that my Garmin data matches what I remembered, I slowed a bit in mile 3 as it was more uphill and then slowed even more in mile 4 because of the injury. Here are the mile splits from Garmin:
Why the difference, well I had a rock in my shoe and during mile 3 I stopped and removed it. When I did so, I pushed the stop button on my Garmin, after I removed it, I hit the start button and was underway. So just a minor difference to note between BIM and Garmin. BIM looks like it reflects total time. In this case, I like the Garmin data as it reflects my run, yes in a race, the total clock time trumps but for training I like to see the reality of what is happening on a per mile basis.

Lebanon Hills - Center Section

I decided today to run the center section of Lebanon Hills. It is an often overlooked section (at least by me) as it's more of a pass through from the east section of the park to the west. I was planning on running 4-6 miles depending how I felt. Initially, I felt ok, I was going at an easy pace, after two miles I decided to go ahead and try and hit every trail in the center section as I was enjoying the run. I do like running in the center section, it's a bit hillier than the eastern section, most of the trails are horse trails with a couple of miles of hiking trails. Since I don't run it quite as often, some of the trails I have forgotten but as I re-discover them its like visiting an old friend you haven't seen in a while and picking up where you left off. I knew that running every spur would get me up to 6 miles or more but it seemed like a good idea and I was in kind of a cruise mode. I figured a Garmin map of the park with every spur would be kind of neat to have. My thinking was today, the center, then I would do a long run and click off every trail on the eastern side and finally run the western section. I was just plodding along kind of enjoying myself as I headed towards one of the exits when as I was slowly going up a hill, I felt a muscle pain in the groin. I kind of thought to myself I wonder if that is what a groin pull feels like. I have never had one before so it was kind of interesting, it was like I could feel it getting stretched beyond what it should. I took a few more steps and stopped. I thought to myself, just what I need. I decided to walk the rest of the hill, tried to run the downhill and I had pain. Great. I then decided the smart thing to do was just walk it out and if it eased up, resume running but if it didn't head home and ice it and hope that it's nothing serious. I wish I had been pounding up the hill and that caused the strain, I was hardly moving, oh well, it's hell getting old. The nice thing was that after it hurt I no longer worried about my ankle or my achilles, proving the hammer theory once again. I ended up walking it in and icing which left a few trails undiscovered, I guess that will get me back real soon, as of now I am sure the strain is a minor issue, just another distraction for this summer. Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 989 ft Location: Eagan, MN Elev. Gain: -3 ft Date: 07/25/09 Up/Downhill: [+649/-652] Time: 03:06 PM Difficulty: 3.7 / 5.0 Weather: Mostly Cloudy 77 F temp; 46% humidity 78 F heat index; winds NW 16 G 26 Performance Distance: 4.96 miles Time: 1:11:48 Speed: 4.1 mph Pace: 14' 29 /mi Calories: 781 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 12' 52 -1' 37 4.7 +0.5 +53 ft 2 12' 57 -1' 32 4.6 +0.5 -79 ft 3 14' 27 -0' 02 4.2 +0.0 +46 ft 4 14' 31 +0' 02 4.1 -0.0 -36 ft end 17' 41 +3' 12 3.4 -0.8 +13 ft Versus average of 14' 29 min/mile

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Lebanon Hills - Wayne & Karen

Ran with Wayne and Karen. It was interesting to run with people as I normally don't. I figured it was worth posting the info from BIM. I did struggle more with the pace than I expected which was not a complete surprise. I felt good early, just ran out of gas after a few miles maybe it was the heat or my conditioning or the pace for me with the heat and my conditioning or the fact that I knew I had to play two softball games. It was nice to see Wayne and catch up with his plans and to meet Karen and hear her plans. They both have some nice events ahead. For me it's all about the Surf the Murph. Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 931 ft Location: Rosemount, MN Elev. Gain: +10 ft Date: 07/23/09 Up/Downhill: [+554/-544] Time: 03:37 PM Difficulty: 3.7 / 5.0 Weather: Fair 83 F temp; 30% humidity 81 F heat index; winds NW 9 Performance Distance: 6.33 miles Time: 1:20:37 Speed: 4.7 mph Pace: 12' 44 /mi Calories: 1008 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 11' 15 -1' 29 5.3 +0.6 +63 ft 2 11' 25 -1' 19 5.2 +0.5 -23 ft 3 11' 33 -1' 11 5.2 +0.5 -10 ft 4 12' 52 +0' 08 4.7 -0.1 +33 ft 5 13' 16 +0' 32 4.5 -0.2 -13 ft 6 13' 53 +1' 09 4.3 -0.4 -42 ft end 19' 06 +6' 22 3.1 -1.6 +3 ft Versus average of 12' 44 min/mile

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