Goals This Week

Last week I did ok on my Goals board. While I kept my carbs low, I did eat sugar twice in the form of 88% dark chocolate and once in hoisin sauce (I am counting it because there was so much sugar in it that it had more carbs than my chocolate).

I became a bit de-motivated to do my strength on the weekend since I wasn't running. It kind of deflated me and I just didn't care as much. I did do stregnth twice on Friday, though!

I was consistent with my HRV training and did at least 5 minutes a day, and did a 20 minute session on Saturday. I think the combination of keto, exercise, and HRV training is doing great things for my mental health, energy, and creativity.

Writing every day has been a great addition to my weekly goal board. I've produced much more blogs for our business than in the past and I love that. I also have some work projects that nrequire mostly writing to get done in the next week so I will be writing a lot. I hope the lack of running doesn't hurt my creativity too much this week.

Goal Board Daily List

Write
HRV/Meditate
Carbs Under 30
Cardio and Strength

-Switching the food one from "No Sugar and Under 30g Carbs" to just the 30g carbs. I'm not in the mood right now to go completely without sugar (my 88% dark chocolate is the only sugar I eat).

-Cardio and Strength is new this week instead of just strength. Gotta force myself to do something else in place of running until Wednesday.

Weekly Lists

Work:
Finish Spectating doc and FAQ.
One race plan per day for Chattanooga athletes
Email each client with thoughts on upcoming race and/or off-season

Household:
List 3 things for sale
Cook one thing kids can eat for breakfast (granola, muffins, something like that)
Go through Jack's clothes and get rid of small summer stuff

Family:
Go to the YMCA with Andrew and put Jack in the daycare
Send Andrew a card in the mail
Write each kid a short note for lunch box or put on their steering wheel

Long Term Progress:
Call one of the following: fencing company, insulation company, or someone with a backhoe
Begin to formulate plan to Buy Nothing New and cut expenses

Training Week Recap #12

Oh, how I hate to say this. I had to take some days off of running due to my foot problem. I saw our chiropractor on Friday and was told there is a 50-60% chance that my injury is a stress fracture. It could alternatively be soft tissue stuff, so I am supposed to do some self-ART on it every 2 hours.

Doc also told me to lay off running but that I could run if running didn't make it worse. I don't think the running is making it worse but to be safe I am taking 5 days off. I think that's all I can handle mentally right now and I am hoping (really, really hoping) that it's not a SF and that the ART is working to fix it. It hurts like heck to manipulate it and my foot is more sore now than it was before, but hopefully in a good way??

Earlier in the week my runs had been consistently going great. My times are coming down really nicely thanks to the weather and I felt strong out there.

Anyway, so that means I missed a 2 mile run and my long 6 mile run last week. And I will probably skip my long run this week as well, just to be safe. I plan on trying to run again on Wednesday and in the meantime find motivation to get on the bike, which so far is non-existent.

Not much else to report. I love both my new Merrells. I'm losing weight very, very slowly. I'm still only down about 2 pounds total as of this morning and I've been keto for a month or so. However, my brain is working really well and that is motivation enough to stay ketonic.

I'm going to make a new post for my weekly goals from now on.

Training Week Recap #11

This was not the best but not the worst week. I'll bullet point the good and bad:

• Had a great long run this week thanks to cooler weather. Ran 6 miles a full MINUTE per mile faster than the same distance last week! It was first thing in the morning after one cup of bulletproof coffee and my energy level was great.
  
• Stuck with 20 miles this week just like I was hoping too.
  
• Am seeing my pace slowly, slowly creep back down as I get more keto adapted and the weather is slightly improved.

Bad:

• My foot. My foot. My foot. Ever since I had a stress fracture in my foot back in 2008-9 (can't remember exactly), I have had trouble with foot pain when I try to start running longer distances again. When I had the initial injury, it was caused by a sharp increase in miles, running a half marathon I wasn't trained for, changing my stride, and running in Newtons. I haven't run in Newtons since then but just recently decided to give them another shot. Well, here I am about 3 weeks later with pain in my foot so they are never going on my feet ever again! Never ever! I just ordered 2 pairs of zero drop Merrells that should arrive in the mail today. One of them has a 14mm sole and the other is 6mm, I think. I also saw a woman wearing Nikes that looked like exactly what I want to replace my current 2 year old pair that is literally falling apart this past weekend. She told me she found them at the Nike outlet so I will be heading there this week.
  
• I'm still not losing weight so it's time to make some adjustments. I'm no longer nursing Jack at all so my calories need to go down and I need to be a bit more pure with the foods I choose to eat. I felt great when I was doing strict Paleo, although I wasn't weighing myself at all. I still feel good (my brain does well on keto and I tend to have more energy) but I think all the cheese and a lack of veggies weighs me down a bit. Gonna focus on eating more veggies this week. 

Since my foot was bothering me this week, I stuck with 20 miles for the third week in a row. While on my long run I had a sharp pain in my foot at mile 2 and my first thought was that I had suddenly for sure gotten a stress fracture as I had to stop running. But it quickly subsided and I was able to finish the run just fine. My best guess at this point is that I am prone to have soreness and inflammation there and I have to manage it wisely but that the pain is not necessarily from the bone. I will continue to be cautious this week and may stay at 20 miles yet again if it seems the right thing to do.

I added a page to my weight spreadsheet to log my running. One thing I decided to do was calculate my average pace for the week to help me see improvements over time rather than day to day. I was hoping to find some motivation there but it wasn't as black and white as I thought. It's got to have more to do with the weather at this point than my diet.

Goals for this week:
Stay smart with the foot and see improvement in how it feels.
Try to find new Nikes and try both Merrells.
Run first thing in the morning when possible.
Go to yoga class with my husband one time this week.

Stuff I Cooked This Week

Stuff I made this week:

Low Carb, Gluten Free, Grain Free Pizza

I've made a variation of this before from a Reddit recipe but this was by FAR easier to deal with and just as tasty. I made this in my cast iron skillet and it took maybe 10 minutes. A keeper. I didn't feed it to my kids but I shared it with Andrew and he liked it.

Chicken Strips (again). 

Split Chicken Breast and Broccoli Casserole. Nothing special here. A decent weekday meal but I'd like to experiment more with the chicken.

Ahi Tuna Steaks. Yum. As easy as it gets and done in 5 minutes.

Shrimp Scampi. I ate mine with spinach instead of pasta. This is a super-simple and quick recipe.

Alfredo Sauce. I ate mine with broccoli, bacon, spinach, and cubes, cooked chicken thigh meat. This is in regular rotation in our house (about once a month).