My International Buffet - February 1, 2008

Friday, February 1, 2008
Ran 5.5 miles in the freezing rain. Felt light and strong and had a lot of fun.
161 lbs.

I feel healthy. Taking some time off has really helped me recharge. And it hasn’t been a step back, either, because I’ve made some progress towards some lifestyle changes I’ve been intending for some while. I’ve cleaned and organized my home, which has helped my frame of mind a whole helluva lot. It feels great to sit here in the middle of an ice storm, having run earlier in the day, listening to the freezing rain spatter against the windows, with a nice warm fire crackling in the fireplace, a kitchen full of food and bread fresh out of the oven, finally getting a chance to pay attention to my glog. I’ve also adjusted my diet. My diet was pretty healthy before, but it is now much better. Eating healthily is expensive. $208! Granted, it’ll feed me for the better part of a month, but still, … damn. I’m cooking and baking a lot more, and have added a lot of fresh stuff that grows from the ground. I’ve dropped an unhealthy habit, and it has now been a month since I stopped drinking. Well, not completely, but this last Monday at darts I had exactly one beer (a Guinness, so it doubled as dessert). Granted, I don’t drink all that much while school is in session (I was hitting it pretty hard over the summer, though), but it was more than a Guinness a week. I probably weighed about 180-185 pounds at the beginning of September. I was 175 when I started training in November, and had gotten down to 165 by New Year’s. I’ve dropped about five pounds in the last two weeks, all while eating like I had my own personal nutritional chef. One who knows what I like. Jambalaya with hot Italian sausage, Irish soda bread fresh out of the oven covered with butter.
Yeah, baby! Peach jello with grapes and blueberries. Tiny lentil soup (the lentils are tiny, not the soup) with leeks and brown rice and all kinds of other yummy stuff, roasted vegetables, mashed turnips, garlic ciabatta bread with olive oil, frittatas with red, green and yellow peppers, onions and mushrooms, salmon and scalloped taters, latkes with sour cream and chunky applesauce, and some buffalo chicken wings. Yeah, I know what I like.

Yesterday in the pool and today on the road I could really feel the lack of those 20 extra pounds. I probably haven’t been under 160 lbs in ten years (with a peak of about 195 lbs!). I set some PR’s from 1992-1994 at about 155. I haven’t been under 150 since about 1984, but still have hopes to get thereabouts by November.
I hope to do a double tomorrow. Run/run or run/swim.