Do The Work

Remember back when you were in school and your parents use to tell you it pays to do your homework?  Two weeks ago my Health Coach gave me some homework and today was the test.  I’m happy to say I passed with flying colors!

Of course this is the type of homework I like….eating!  By making sure that my calorie intake was 2000 and doing at least 2 strength workouts per week my weight came back down which of course changed the fat/lean ratio too.  Wahoo!  

Daily Lesson Learned:  Under eating is not a solution to weight management for a long distance athlete.

After week 1 I dropped off a food log for his review.  I might have mentioned it before, but I use My Plate from Livestrong.com which is easy to use, contains all my favorite foods and allows you to print reports for a quick review of your daily, weekly heck even monthly intake if need be.  Coach Greg had some great comments about my food log and even pointed out that up through the marathon it would be beneficial to increase my goals to 2200 calories per day with protein at 80-100g and carbs to greater than 300g per day.  Overall, he was happy with the quality of food I was eating so that was a great boost of confidence.

Speaking of confidence….did you see the article in September’s Fitness Magazine?  If you are a runner you may like this.  In a recent study of 1000 first time marathoners the biggest payoff for women running 26.2 miles is a spike in self-esteem.  I believe this wholeheartedly.  Since I’ve been running I feel like that I not only try more new things but that I can actually accomplish them and I approach life with a more positive attitude than my non running self did.  

What I did not realize and learned from this article was that less than 1 percent of people have run a marathon.  It just seems that everyone runs now.  How many people in your circle of life run?  But if less than 1 percent has run a marathon you are definitely part of an elite club as a 26.2 mile finisher.  Now that is a confidence builder!