January 11, 2011

Kicking the week off to a great start

Today was a busy day! On the diet/exercise front, I did an awesome job. Today ended up being my first day I followed every single one of Rachel Cosgrove’s diet rules – a little silly that it’s taken me this long to get it right 🙂 For those not on the plan, the rules are:

  1. Breakfast within 15 mins of waking up
  2. Meals every 3-4 hours
  3. Different high-quality protein at every meal
  4. Fruit or veggie at every meal/snack
  5. No processed carbs
  6. Use healthy fats/oils freely
  7. Eliminate caloric beverages
  8. Drink 64 oz water/day
  9. Eat whole foods instead of bars/shakes
  10. Multivitamin and omega-3 fish oil
  11. Protein + carb right after workout

I usually end up somewhere in the 80s or 90s, but today’s the first day I ended up scoring a perfect 100% – yay! Of course I don’t need to be perfect all the time, but today’s habits were totally sustainable. Usually, the hardest ones for me are no processed carbs (really tough to do while on the road), eliminate caloric beverages (alcohol!), and eating within 15 minutes of waking up. That last one sounds really easy, and I thought it would be a quick win for me, but I’ve been surprised how much time slips by just by getting up, hitting the bathroom, and checking email – all of which are totally ingrained in my morning routine. Plus, when I’m on the road, I usually don’t get breakfast until I shower, get dressed, and get to the office – which means it’s at least an hour after I get up! That one is definitely taking a concerted effort to improve.

In addition to following the diet rules, today I got to start phase 2 of the workout – “Define Yourself.” Easiest exercise in there? Plank – three times at 60 seconds each. It feels like nothing these days! Since I was just doing this particular workout for the first time, I left the planks at that, but next time I’ll def push it to 90 seconds per rep. I think my 5 minute plank by December 31st goal is going to be more like 5 minute plank by June 30th, at this rate 🙂 Now, if only I could do as well with pullups…

But enough on the diet/workout front! The big news in my life lately centers around travel, and this week kicks off some great trips for the year. This weekend, I’m off to Nassau for the Bahamas Marathon, and next weekend I’m headed up to Killington (Vermont) to go skiing and party it up a bit with my brothers and their friends at the Mountain Dew Tour. I am so excited about these two trips, though packing for them totally sucked (winter work clothes + summer beach clothes + heavy ski clothes = tough to do in a carryon!). At least it’s done now – with no more stressing about that, all that’s left is to go have fun!

Of course, the real fun for me often comes in planning my travel. (Anyone else like that? Once a trip is booked, I tend to lose a lot of my excitement about it – I just love thinking about all the possibilities! I suppose I really am an airline nut). And the latest potential plan on my horizon is pretty outstanding. This weekend, I heard about a company called RoadMonkey,which does travel tours combined with volunteering (aka “voluntourism,” which is apparently the new hot trend). They’re offering two trips that sounds so fantastic I absolutely can’t choose.

The first is in late fall (either October or November), and has you spend 10 days cycling around the central highlands of Vietnam, then four days building an organic community garden and rice paddy. How cool is that?! But before I could dream too much about Vietnam and adventures in Asia, I looked at their expedition page and saw another one that is just perfect for me: this June, there is a Tanzania expedition. The team will spend a week summiting Mount Kilimanjaro, then head over to the island of Zanzibar to build a school library. The best part?? The whole trip finishes the day before the Mount Kilimanjaro Marathon, so I could easily stay an extra day or two and run that before heading back to the US. Right up my alley!

Now, with all those wonderful travel dreams in my head, it’s time for me to get some sleep 🙂 Where is your dream destination?

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8 thoughts on “Kicking the week off to a great start”

  1. Ok – my car looks like a pantery since I drive so much for work and eat every 2-3 hours. But congrats on following your diet! Cutting out processed foods make you feel soo good! Try some Lura bars (or make them at home). Simple and tasty! 🙂

    Dream destination? Back to Italy – specifically? Tuscany. 🙂 Sounds like you have some exciting weeks ahead!

  2. What’s the rational of breakfast within 15mins? Everything else looks awesome.

    Dream destination is a week long wandering through Europe, via rail etc. Scenery and city all at once.

  3. TriMom, the idea is to eat every 3-4 hours so that your metabolism doesn’t drop. When you sleep, you haven’t eaten in (hopefully) 8 hours, so you should be eating as soon as you wake up to get your metabolism going again.

  4. Wow! That website rules! I love the concept of voluntourism too.
    My dream vacations revolve around relaxation and racing – therefore, if Fiji had a marathon it might be ideal. I want to run the Medoc Marathon in France, you drink wine at aid stations instead of water… fun.

  5. I’m so jealous of all your traveling 🙂

    HOW did you fit all that stuff in a carry-on? You should really do a “how to pack light” post!!!

    Both of those trips sound fabulous, I can’t choose for you either! I’m going to have to check out that website!

  6. If you are interested in climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, you should read Fat Woman on the Mountain by Kara Richardson Whitely. A great read! My dream destination for running has always been (and always will be, till I do it) the London Marathon. I know, I am boring…not too tempted by exotic locales! Well, I also want to run the Midnight Sun Marathon in Norway, which is a tiny bit more exotic!

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