Running for Treats

Day 3

Dog Walk 45 min

Ran 3 miles

 

Man, that run this afternoon was rough. I think it was the sprints from yesterday. My legs felt heavy and I had to walk a couple of blocks. Oh well, I'm not training for a marathon. Running is something I had to warm up to. I hated it when I was kid in high school. Whenever we had to run the mile in gym class I just plain hated it. I was active in those days. I skateboarded and I was pretty serious about it...I had abs back then! Running, now that's a whole other animal. I would not recommend jumping into running. If you've never done it, ease into it. That goes for the gym too and in all honesty if you've never been an active person, runner, gym person, etc...you should probably go see the Dr. first and just get checked out. When I started running years ago it was a love/hate relationship. I was running a wellness program at work and so I needed to get moving personally. I started out walking every day for a week and the next week I walked a block then ran a block and slowly moved up to jogging a block to running the next block 'till within a month I was running about half a mile. It then turned into "Ok, once I get to that stop sign I'll keep going instead of stopping". Back then I had really bad lower back problems, the kind that throw you onto the floor and force you to crawl because you can't walk. It's odd but running has helped that particular issue. When I don't run the pain comes back and when I run it goes away. You wouldn't think that would be the case since it's such a high impact thing to do. I believe it's because running is excellent for your core and strengthening your core can really help your back. I'm not a Doc so take that with a grain of salt. I'm not claiming anything here. I'm telling you what's working for me. I'm trying to break the running up so I don't destroy my knees. I might ride my bike tomorrow.

 

At about 4:30pm today my brain started saying "Hey, an entire can of pringles sure would be delicious wouldn't it?" So as any cow would behave I started to graze the kitchen. I opened the "fridge" and peered into it, standing there. Nothing looked good. I considered a handful of blueberries but my brain declined. Then the food monster in my head said "Hey, check out those pringles again." Thankfully I said no and walked away.

 

Cravings, what a curse!

 

I love treats...oh my gosh I love them so much. Chocolate is my favorite and my best friend from High School likes to give me a hard time about it and tells me that only girls like chocolate as much as I do. Is that true (comment below please)?

 

One of the hardest things for me having a healthy diet is the dreaded night time sweet tooth. I cannot escape it. 8pm hits and it comes crashing into my head like a bowling ball. Where does that craving come from? It's a killer for sure but, I have found a way to quash it (sometimes, not all the time). Special K cereal makes Chocolaty Delight. It's a terrible name / branding idea but with 3/4 of a cup of it and a cup of skim milk Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it kills the beast that plagues me. The milk fills me up and I get to eat these awesome nuggets of chocolate at the bottom of the bowl. Mmmmmm so good. That said, doing Weight Watchers for as long as I have has taught me one very important thing....Moderation: I can have brownies just not 5 of them at a time. So last night we had a friend over so my wife made brownies. Not just any brownie - double chocolate & peanut butter brownies. If there is anything I love more than Chocolate it's Peanut Butter and Chocolate. I could have eaten the entire pan of them but alas I did not. I had one and it was wonderful. So, because I had earned some extra points with my exercise and had watched my points during the day I was successful. The thing is you gotta enjoy some treats like that. If you don't you will break at some point and when you do it will be very, very bad and you will hate yourself for it the next day. Also, I'm not an alcoholic but I have decided to lay off the micro-brews for the next 10 weeks. Beer dries me out and I need to be on my game especially with all the running and cardio I'm doing right now. I don't want to get dehydrated.

 

I was going to post a picture of the brownie I had last night but these were better. The sun was coming up at 6:30am and Sasha and I went on our usual morning walk. I do get to see the sun come up every morning.