MA-gnificent Time to Train for a Half-Marathon!

I'm BACK! It's been two months, but I'm with it! Now I haven't been off the diet for the whole 2 months, but it was shaky there for a while towards the end with me cheating almost every other weekend. I think my body was NONE too happy with that, but it's all over with now! I bottomed out on the Atkins diet at 226 (keeping in mind I started at 242). So the diet definitely worked in some ways, but definitely not in others. I'll get into that in a little bit.

The GREAT news!

During this time, I was able to finally finish my master's degree!! I am now Lindsay Gustafson, MA. Yayuh! I revised my paper and went in for my final oral exam on November 10 and have been stress-free ever since! Well, I say stress-free, but in reality, the truth still hasn't hit me yet, though I'm slowly discovering it with all the free-time I have. I still feel guilty doing things for fun and not staying home on weekends, but I'm sure all of that will pass!

So what did this do to my diet? Well, I will tell you that the weekend before my oral exam, all diets were out the window. I reverted back to pure study mode which called for lots of sugar/chocolate. LOTS. Like 2 bags of pumpkin-shaped reese's miniatures, combined with several other dessert items....and then dinners that had nothing to do with Atkins. It was fabulous, and very study-conducive, but unbelievably unhealthy....as was the celebratory dinner after the exam. The result: I gained 6lbs. Even worse? I gained inches. Many of the clothes I was just starting to fit back into have since gone back in the "uh-uh" pile. Though I watched what I ate, I didn't restrict myself much.


What you should understand about the Atkins Diet:

Results are there, and they're great, but this is in no way a long-term way of dieting. I never intended to stay on it forever, but just to kick start my weight-loss at a time when I couldn't commit to much exercising. And it worked well for that. The way I went about the diet wasn't the healthiest either. The basics are that in Phase 1 (the only phase I did in the program) you stay under 20 net-carbs a day (subtracting any fiber grams from the carb count). Well, most meat has NO carbs, but vegetables have a few and fruit is just plain off-limits. I'm the kind of person who eats her Lucky Charms saving the marshmallows for last. So for breakfast and lunch, I would generally eat less than 8 carbs so I can have what I wanted when I got home for dinner. But then at dinner, I didn't want to waste all my carbs on dinner food, when I could finally get some Atkins' desserts. So what resulted was a severe lack of vegetables in my diet and even with taking all my vitamins everyday (including a pill for potassium) had several ridiculous cramps in my calf a day. Not a good sign! Of course the Atkins people tell you NOT to skip out on your veggies. They really are trying to help you do the diet as healthily as possible, I just did not follow instructions, and I suspect I'm not the only one!

AND THEN.....

..there was the Turkey Trot 5K on Thanksgiving morning. How long had I known about this? A couple of months. Did I train for it? NOPE. But I finished in 49 minutes and something-something seconds (it's not important). I was only about 3 minutes behind my time for the Princess and the Frog 5K in Disney last March, but I was stopping and taking pictures that whole time, too. Point of the story...I gotta work on it!

Here's a picture of the gang:

That would be my niece, me, April, Scott, Mom, my other niece, and my sister.

Here is a picture of me finishing:


Yep, that's me finishing... right behind MY MOM!!! Nothing wrong with that...but...well...it's my mom!! She can run faster than me!!! It's the first time that I know of in my lifetime that this is the case (injury situations excluded). She was training for the run, so she's become quite sprightly in her jogging capabilities. I'm proud of her. She's even signed up for the HALF-MARATHON in Disney in February! She's going to kick some ass...just hopefully not mine! Haha. I'm kidding of course. In all honesty, if we all finish in whatever order, I'll be happy as a clam as we wallow in our physical misery in the hotel room together afterwards. It's gonna be GREAT!

And so it begins.....AGAIN.....

Thus begins my training for the Princess Half-Marathon on February 27. If you're interested in doing it, too, register HERE. It's already over 70% full, so hurry! According to their online countdown I have 85 days to train. I can do this! Last year I only trained for about 60 days and made it 10 miles. I plan to make it this year and I'm psyched about it! So here's the plan:

Between now and Christmas I'll be running 3 times a week (starting tonight - my legs are STILL sore from the 5K!), and watching what I eat, but not necessarily following a particular diet. After Christmas I'll be all in on a strict diet and (ready for this?) getting used to running outside on the cold hard pavement using the Galloway Method. OUCH! I'll be ready, then, though. I got a great deal at fleetfeet on Black Friday for a really good sports bra. The thing fits like a bullet proof vest. I'll be testing that sucker out tonight! Should be great!

Just last night I made a pumpkin Devil's Food Cake with fat free cool whip. It was excellent for lunch today! I also made a batch of Fiber One banana nut muffins for breakfast for the rest of the week. It's been a while since I've loaded up on fiber without tons of protein to back me up, so the results may be explosive. Dinners are relatively good, also, with lots of options for chicken. I'll just need to watch my carbs and not go overboard now that I can have them again. I'm a sucker for rice and noodles! (but I am using brown rice and whole wheat noodles)

Note the new starting-point picture! I think I'm starting off better than I did about a year ago.

I'm open to training and diet suggestions! Especially if you have any favorite recipes or exercises! Let me know!