I was able to wrap up the longest training week I’ve had since the summer with some positive news. U finally met my weight loss goal of 180 pounds. Unfortunately I don’t think the weight loss is quite enough, so I’m going to keep it going for another 5 pounds or so. I weighed in the last 3 mornings at 180.2, 180.2 and 179.6, so it appears safe to say that I’m at around 180 pounds now, which was my goal 45 days ago.

There are two positives to this whole training thing and pushing myself the way that I do, the first being that I can make great progress on weight loss, but secondarily I’m able to relieve a lot of stress in the process. I was just in a conversation the other day about how I started working out to relieve stress and lose a couple pounds, and look where I’m at now. Things have been extremely stressful in all areas of my life right now, and my training just keeps me sane (hence the serenity).

In looking deeper at it though, I attribute most of the weight loss more to the drastic change in diet rather than the working out though. Since I cut out sugar, dairy and bad carbohydrates by going “Paleo”, that seems to have made the difference. I find now that I’m actually craving the leafy greens and mass amounts of other vegetables that I eat every day. Its funny how I watch these exercise infomercials each morning with people claiming because they “worked out”, that they lost so much weight… its really not the working out as much as the diet. I recall burning 4500+ calories during the summer, but never losing a pound. You have to keep with smart calories at the right doses in order to be successful, I’ve finally learned that.

So in total this week, I put in 10 hours and 50 minutes of training, with most of being on the bike. Unfortunately its on my trainer in the “pain cave” in the basement at this point of the year. I am pretty sure its time to replace the cheap bike tire I have on the back of the right now as its pretty well worn down to nothing. I didn’t realize the damage the trainer actually does to the tire, but it actually flattens the inner portion of the tire, which answered my question from long ago as to “what is this black stuff on the floor after I get off the trainer.” Yep, it was the tire slowly burning away. So after 5 and half hours on the trainer this week, 2 and a half in the pool and just under 3 hours running, its time for a recovery day. Thankfully tomorrow is just a short 45 minute swim.

I guess I didn’t realize that my base training plan had me going 17 days straight without a full recovery day, which means the last time I didn’t have a workout scheduled was on Christmas Day. I don’t think the base plan I built my personalized plan from had it quite that way, since I did move the Christmas week day off to be on Christmas instead of on that Friday (so I lost 3 days there). I figured it was the least I could do is to not put in 2+ hours of training in on Christmas. Regardless, it hasn’t been that bad because swimming is really a nice recovery compared to everything else, even though I work out hard in the pool, its not as bad as running or cycling.

So my hope is that when I get to the pool tomorrow morning at 5am, the recent influx of “New Years Resolutioners” will be fading from the gym. Some might know what I mean, these are the people who make a New Years resolution to “work out” and “lose weight” only to give up after the first week or two. It might be too early to have them fade off yet, but hopefully it will be soon because it takes forever to get into the gym because of the line at the door when they open.

Since I had some time today, I did some quick analysis of my running and swimming progress since I finally pulled my data off my Garmin 910xt after 5 weeks. I’ve gotten slightly faster and more efficient swimming (speed increased by .1MPH and average of 1:01 per 100m vs 1:07 per 100m back in November). As for running, my average speed has increased to an average of 8:31/mile (for an easy run). I was at 8:47/mile back in November. I actually haven’t started training hard yet though, I’m just base building, so I’m excited to see how much faster I can get when the season really starts.

Each week I try to get some new organic and natural foods into my diet, so this week I added two different items. The first being rainbow chard and the second be carob. I found out that chard (in any form) is one of the most nutritious leafy veggies available. So I’ve started adding it to just about everything including a new recipe I will try next week called “Chicken, yam and chard soup”… can’t wait. The second item is carob, which is basically a cocoa substitute that comes from a tropical plant and although it tastes like cocoa, it has no caffeine in it and is all natural (including the sugar). Its not terribly sweet, which is good. I started using it as part of my fueling strategy for the mega-weekend workouts I just finished. Here is a quick recipe for “Fuel Rollies” which I plan to use throughout training (along with Carob bars that I have to make yet):

Fuel Rollies

1 slice sprouted bread (Ezekiel)
1 tbsp raw almond butter
1 tbsp raw honey
1 tbsp carob powder (or chunk carob)

Take the bread, roll it out with a rolling pin to get it flat. cover it with the almond butter, honey and finish it off with the carob powder. Roll the flattened bread into a roll, cut into two and wrap in foil or saran wrap.

These worked real good for me this weekend as I spent 3 hours training Saturday and 2 hours on Sunday, I put one of these down each hour. I never felt “out of gas”, very good stuff and healthy.

I put together another Paleo concoction this weekend for dinner, the first being homemade “Sloppy Joes” (who needs that processed Manwich, right?):

Sloppy Joes

1.5 lbs chipped steak, cubed
16oz tomato sauce with NO SUGAR (Hunts 100% Natural works good)
1 medium red pepper
1 medium green pepper
1 medium white onion
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp group cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tbsp coconut oil
your favorite greens (spinach, arugula, collards, chard and/or kale)
(all veggies here are organic, very important!)

Heat up your pan on medium high using the coconut oil. When melted, put in your peppers and onions and cook until they get soft, then add the garlic. Add the chipped, cubed steak and brown it, then drain some of the oil (if there is any). Add the tomato sauce, cumin, chili powder and mix and allow to cook on low for 10-15 minutes stirring frequently. Meanwhile, get your greens together on a plate in a big pile and put your sloppy joe mix over the top. Pick your favorite side veggie to go with it (broccoli, green beans, brussel sprouts, carrots, etc) … Yum!

I can’t wait for next weekend when i’m going to try chicken and dumpling casserole (Paleo style)…

As I continue to prepare for the MAJOR part of building up the training for Ironman Louisville, I am starting to track 2 additional items on my training log as well as changing up the way I do sleep tracking. I added “stress” and “emotional/meditation” columns to ensure I am tracking and maintaining a balanced stress level, both personal, training-wise and professionally. I also need to ensure I keep my emotions in line by doing my daily meditations (at least 10 minutes)… this will keep me accountable for that (or at least try). Then I changed the way I track my sleep by breaking it into an average hour of sleep for the week, the quality of sleep, and then how much “sleep debt” I’ve paid. Sleep debt just means that based on 8 hours of sleep (which I found I am best at), how far off am I because believe it or not, your body will pay back the sleep debt its built up at some point, and knowing how far off I am, helps me to go to bed earlier or catch a nap.

For anyone interested, here is my training plan (note this is a read-only document and is only completed up until the end of the Base worksheets):

Well, that’s plenty for this week, it kind of sounds like I’m rambling, but its all good stuff….