Good morning, Readers!
Image courtesy of myzeroone.com. It feels very Myst to me.
Happily, yesterday was quite a good day. I managed to achieve all the things I wanted. I wrote two thousand words, and they were interesting words, so I'm feeling pretty good about them. Sometimes I write a lot, and it's boring to do, but we're reaching the boss battle of the book, so I'm enjoying it more.
I also went out and (re)started a Couch to 5K training programme. I had tried a couple... a few? I'm terrible at tracking time... anyway, I tried a couple/few weeks before, but was recovering from a cold, and so the run did not go well at all. Then I got sick again, and couldn't do anything for another week and a bit. So, three weeks late, having almost fully recovered yesterday, I went out and began to train. The first week is easy, so it's not a surprise that I managed a good pace and the running felt smooth and fun. Alas, my lungs seem to be giving me some trouble. My muscles were all fine, but I had issues with my breathing. It might be that I haven't matched my breathing with my stride properly, or that I'm still not entirely recovered from the double flu/cold thing I was hit with at the beginning of the month. Still, I was frustrated by my lungs. Hopefully, as time passes, that will prove to be less of an issue. We'll see. Also, I have this weird thing where my nose runs when I run. I looked it up and I might have something called exercise rhinitis. Essentially, your mucus systems responds to exercise the same way it would to pollen if someone was allergic to pollen. It's kinda like being allergic to exercise. Yup. Hopefully exposure therapy will cure my "allergy."
I've also (re)started counting my calories, but not for the reason you think. I have, historically, a problem with eating enough, and it's screwed my metabolism over. In short, my metabolism slowed right down, and now if I eat anything, it immediately stores it in fat stores in case it starts staving again. I need to try and undo that damage. I'm counting to make sure that I'm eating enough, and also to make sure I'm getting all the vitamins, minerals and protein I need to function. I have a long-standing problem with fatigue, and part of that was that I wasn't eating enough. I was eating well (I have a pretty healthy diet, y'all), but not enough. Again. Upon checking the app (My Fitness Pal, in case you're interested), I was indeed not eating enough. Not all the time, mind, just on the days when I was training martial arts. Monday, for example, I was fine. I ate enough for the day. Yesterday, hell no. I was 1 300 calories short. So, after training, I headed out and grabbed some whole milk, cheese, eggs and almonds (I was also really short on required proteins), and had small meal before bed. It turns out, I was actually hungry, but didn't quite realise it until my first bite. I was still wildly short of the daily calorie goal, but not 1300 short, so I'm okay with it.
I won't have to eat that much today, as I'm teaching, rather than training, so I haven't as many calories to make up.
Incidentally, in case your wondering, in order to stay healthy, there are a baseline number of calories that one needs to consume just so the body can do what it does. All those processes require calories. For myself, that baseline hovers around 1 200 calories a day (slightly more, but I'm rounding down). If I want to stay healthy, I need to eat back any calories burnt that go over and above the ones required for function, or the body will steal from its baseline functions to help fuel these extra activities. Health will suffer. So I have to keep a careful eye on my food intake.
I'm trying to be healthy, everyone, but it's fucking hard!
More on health, I'm feeling a bit lost going to the gym for my strength training. I'm kinda just making up my workouts as I go with no rhyme or reason. I can't afford a personal trainer, so now I'm app hunting. If anyone out there knows a good free or relatively inexpensive strength/weight-training app (looking exclusively for that, not for yoga or cardio or anything. I have running and martial arts for my cardio), please let me know. My research to date has proven to be depressingly unfruitful.
Right, I should head off the internet now and write more.
Ciao!
I also went out and (re)started a Couch to 5K training programme. I had tried a couple... a few? I'm terrible at tracking time... anyway, I tried a couple/few weeks before, but was recovering from a cold, and so the run did not go well at all. Then I got sick again, and couldn't do anything for another week and a bit. So, three weeks late, having almost fully recovered yesterday, I went out and began to train. The first week is easy, so it's not a surprise that I managed a good pace and the running felt smooth and fun. Alas, my lungs seem to be giving me some trouble. My muscles were all fine, but I had issues with my breathing. It might be that I haven't matched my breathing with my stride properly, or that I'm still not entirely recovered from the double flu/cold thing I was hit with at the beginning of the month. Still, I was frustrated by my lungs. Hopefully, as time passes, that will prove to be less of an issue. We'll see. Also, I have this weird thing where my nose runs when I run. I looked it up and I might have something called exercise rhinitis. Essentially, your mucus systems responds to exercise the same way it would to pollen if someone was allergic to pollen. It's kinda like being allergic to exercise. Yup. Hopefully exposure therapy will cure my "allergy."
I've also (re)started counting my calories, but not for the reason you think. I have, historically, a problem with eating enough, and it's screwed my metabolism over. In short, my metabolism slowed right down, and now if I eat anything, it immediately stores it in fat stores in case it starts staving again. I need to try and undo that damage. I'm counting to make sure that I'm eating enough, and also to make sure I'm getting all the vitamins, minerals and protein I need to function. I have a long-standing problem with fatigue, and part of that was that I wasn't eating enough. I was eating well (I have a pretty healthy diet, y'all), but not enough. Again. Upon checking the app (My Fitness Pal, in case you're interested), I was indeed not eating enough. Not all the time, mind, just on the days when I was training martial arts. Monday, for example, I was fine. I ate enough for the day. Yesterday, hell no. I was 1 300 calories short. So, after training, I headed out and grabbed some whole milk, cheese, eggs and almonds (I was also really short on required proteins), and had small meal before bed. It turns out, I was actually hungry, but didn't quite realise it until my first bite. I was still wildly short of the daily calorie goal, but not 1300 short, so I'm okay with it.
I won't have to eat that much today, as I'm teaching, rather than training, so I haven't as many calories to make up.
Incidentally, in case your wondering, in order to stay healthy, there are a baseline number of calories that one needs to consume just so the body can do what it does. All those processes require calories. For myself, that baseline hovers around 1 200 calories a day (slightly more, but I'm rounding down). If I want to stay healthy, I need to eat back any calories burnt that go over and above the ones required for function, or the body will steal from its baseline functions to help fuel these extra activities. Health will suffer. So I have to keep a careful eye on my food intake.
I'm trying to be healthy, everyone, but it's fucking hard!
More on health, I'm feeling a bit lost going to the gym for my strength training. I'm kinda just making up my workouts as I go with no rhyme or reason. I can't afford a personal trainer, so now I'm app hunting. If anyone out there knows a good free or relatively inexpensive strength/weight-training app (looking exclusively for that, not for yoga or cardio or anything. I have running and martial arts for my cardio), please let me know. My research to date has proven to be depressingly unfruitful.
Right, I should head off the internet now and write more.
Ciao!
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