Wednesday 28 March 2012

Surprises Travelling to Zurich

Travelling days are always hard, whether you are a Celiac struggling to find food you can eat or someone determined to stick to a healthy diet. I had a flight to Zurich at 11:30am yesterday, which pretty much dominated the day. Just a short hop (2 hours) to Zurich, which means they only provide “snacks” on the flight. And invariably this means no food for Celiac’s or other “special diets”.  Knowing this, I made sure to get a good snack of nuts and dried fruit (OK, and chocolate) at the airport before boarding the plane. However, I was still very annoyed when the “snack” was a sandwich – with no gluten free alternatives despite putting gluten free on my ticket when I booked it. Not only that, but the staff had not even been told!

So, a latish lunch of sushi at the airport before heading to my friends where I was staying. To my surprise, I discovered my friend had taken up the latest fad diet – the 4 hour body diet. Basically, it’s a version of the low carb, paleo diet – No wheat or grain based carbohydrates (bread, pasta, porridge, etc.), no fruit, no dairy, nothing with white sugar, and lots of meat, fish, eggs, beans, lentils and vegetables.  Like most of these diets, it’s not so much what you eat that makes you drop weight so fast, but the fact that most of these foods are MUCH lower in calories than the ones you cut out. Going from 2500 calories a day to 1200 calories a day – of course you’re going to lose weight like crazy!

Which is why I went out and bought my own milk and juice for breakfast and ended up eating a gluten free hot cross bun with a glass of milk a couple of hours after our dinner of grilled chicken and salad. I’m not a dieter, I’m a runner, so I do need the carbohydrates!

The Score:
Calories:
Protein:
Carbs:
Fat:
Alcohol:
Fibre:
2483.35
128.94g
318.38g
76.63g
0
37.64g
21%
51%
28%

Calories burned through exercise:
Rest Day


What I ate:
Time
Item
Amount
07:00
Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate
1 each
Cold water
200mL
Mattesson's Turkey rashers
3 rashers
Sainsbury's Freefrom oats
50g
with Sultanas
20g
Sainsbury's Orange, Mango and Passionfruit juice
200mL
07:30
Black Tea
500mL
10:45
Sainsbury's fruit and seed mix
40g
Brazil nuts
6g
Galaxy smooth milk chocolate
42g
Glaceau Vitamin Water, Revive
500mL
12:30
Black Tea
100mL
13:30
Maki and Nigiri sushi
10 pieces
Edamame
1/2 cup
Apfel Schorle
500mL
16:45
Fresh Strawberries
105g
Sponser Protein Snack bar
1 bar
18:30
Grilled chicken breast
about 100g
with Cattlemen's Classic Barbecue sauce
about 1 tbsp
Spinach salad
50g
with tomato
about 100g
avocado
1/2 of one
broccoli
2 florets
strawberries
50g
truffle olive oil
1 tsp
and white balsamic vinegar
1 tsp
20:00
Sainsbury's Freefrom Hot cross buns
1 bun
2% milk
about 200mL

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.

Tuesday 27 March 2012

Starting the week off Right!

I was a bit busy yesterday preparing for my trip to Zurich but I was careful to eat every 3 hours and, as I was out and about, I had little time for snacking. In many ways it was the perfect diet day – right proportions of nutrients, less than 2000 calories, high in fibre, enough fruit and veg and no junk food. Somewhat unsurprisingly avoiding the chocolates not only lowered the calories but made it much easier to balance the nutrients in my diet. This was very much a case of getting the week off to a good start!

I also had my first pyramid run of the season in the afternoon. I like to do my serious interval runs on a treadmill, so I can accurately gauge how fast I am going for how many minutes. It went OK, though I found I needed a good 5 minutes of recovery for every 5 minute pyramid, so one goal next time is to not only to up the speed a bit, but also lower the recovery time. However, I did find myself feeling a bit sick to my stomach during the most intense part of the run. I’ve felt this way before – most notably on Saturday, when I set a new Personal Best time at the Bushy park Run but then came several hard swallows away from throwing up afterwards. At the time I thought that I’d had too much protein for my breakfast, or maybe it was the intensity of the effort with no water (or electrolytes). But that’s can’t be the whole problem since I had a bottle of Nuun this time and was careful to sip it throughout my run. So I’m back to thinking the problem is eating too close to the run, and possibly eating a protein rich meal just before a run.

Guess it’s time to get serious about experimenting with race day/intense run nutrition along with my speedwork!

The Score:
Calories:
Protein:
Carbs:
Fat:
Alcohol:
Fibre:
1962.64
124.49g
254.31g
51.08g
0
32.80g
25%
52%
23%

Calories burned through exercise:
425


What I ate:
Time
Item
Amount
08:00
Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate
1 each
Cold water
200mL
Mattesson's Turkey rashers
3 rashers
Mesa Sunrise cereal
60g
Alpro Soy milk
120mL
Sainsbury's Orange, Mango and Passionfruit juice
200mL
09:00
Black Tea
500mL
11:00
Herbal fruit tea
250mL
12:30
Pork Loin
65g
Parsnips
131g
Carrots
60g
Beets
74g
all roasted and brushed with olive oil
7mL
Sainsbury's Bramley apple sauce
30g
Skim milk
200mL
Muller rice pudding original
190g
14:00
Pyramid interval run - 35 min
Citrus Nuun electrolyte tablet in water
750mL
15:30
Fresh Strawberries
105g
Sponser Protein Snack bar
1 bar
19:00
Caffeine free Black tea with milk and sugar
500mL
20:00
Baked salmon
98g
Merchant Gourmet Red and White Quinoa
100g
Kraft Light Honey Mustard dressing
10g
Frozen peas
100g
21:00
Fresh pineapple
142g
22:00
Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew
1 chew
500mg Glucosamine sulphate
1 pill

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.

Monday 26 March 2012

One good day in a week of too much Chocolate

This was one of the healthier diet days I’ve had in the past week. Actually stayed below 2000 calories, 5+ servings of fruit and veg (the bean stew has 2-3 servings of vegetables since its all vegetables and beans in a tomato base), high in fibre, and no junk food. Despite the lack of junk food (the sorbet was only 140 calories and was made with pureed fruit) it was surprisingly high in fat, though most of that was from good fats in the olive oil and avocados. However, it does mean that once again I am short on protein and higher on fats than I would like.

Overall this lack of balance, coupled with an abundance of calories from chocolate, was a major theme last week. I averaged 2325 calories a day with less than 100 calories a day burned through exercise (I only had one body balance workout and one 30 minute race), with 20% of those calories from protein, 51% from carbohydrates and 29% from fat. At the start of the month when I decided to up the amount of carbohydrates to 50% of my diet, the idea was to keep the amount of protein at 25% and drop the amount of fat from 30% to less than 25%. However last week most of my “extra” carbohydrates can from sweet treats, which are also full of fat. The worst part is this was a rest week, so the excess fats are likely to hang around because they were not used to fuel exercise, while the lack of protein may have impaired the muscle building that’s supposed to happen in a rest week.

This week I will be in Switzerland on business, so it’s going to get harder to keep my nutrients balanced. I used to live in Zurich, so I do have the advantage of knowing where to go to get gluten free food. The bad news is that I also know gluten free food is less available and less well known in Switzerland than it is in the UK. So my goals this week: Get in all my workouts and get enough to eat. Worry about calories and nutrient balance next week.

The Score:
Calories:
Protein:
Carbs:
Fat:
Alcohol:
Fibre:
1916.47
98.21g
238.90g
64.41g
0
29.0g
20.5%
50%
30%

Calories burned through exercise:
Rest Day


What I ate:
Time
Item
Amount
09:00
Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate
1 each
Cold water
200mL
Whole Scrambled egg with 2 egg whites
3 eggs
Genius brown bread toast
2 slices
with Flora Light
8g
St Dalfour Blackcurrant jam
32g
Sainsbury's Orange, Mango and Passionfruit juice
200mL
10:00
Black Tea
500mL
12:00
Raspberry and Echinacea tea
250mL
13:45
Baked chicken breast
125g
Mashed potato
200g
with butter
6g
Stir fried Kale
50g
in Olive oil
7.5mL
with Pine nuts
4g
Bisto Best Chicken Gravy
about 5g
Sainsbury's Bramley apple sauce
30g
14:30
Green Tea
250mL
17:00
Fresh Strawberries
100g
Sponser Chocolate Recovery Shake
30g
in Skim milk
225mL
20:45
Lee's Hippy Farm Beans (Leon's recipe book)
350g
Fresh avocado
60g
Alpro Soya Original
200mL
21:30
Sainsbury’s Raspberry Sorbet
132g
22:15
Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew
1 chew
500mg Glucosamine sulphate
1 pill

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.

Sunday 25 March 2012

New 5Km Personal Best!

I started off yesterday my doing another Park Run - a weekly free, timed 5Km run done in parks around the country. This time I ran the one in Bushy Park, which is a much flatter, easier course than the one I normally do in Richmond Park. And it really showed in my time – a new personal best of 30:29! This is a minute and a half faster than my last 5Km run in Richmond Park. Compared to Richmond Park there were loads more runners - 814 at the Bushy Park run yesterday versus 214 at my last Richmond Park run. Actually this had an effect on my time as I started towards the middle of the group so it took me 15-20 seconds to reach the start line once the gun went off. By my watch, I did the run in 30:15, which is even more of an accomplishment! (My husband took me out for Sweet Revenge gluten free cupcakes as a reward.)

This marks the end of the base training period and the start of the building period in my training plan. I now have two months until my first 10Km race at the end of May, which I’m hoping to do in less than an hour. I’m a bit concerned given I haven’t done a 5Km race in less than 30 minutes yet, but that’s why the focus of the build period is speedwork. My runs will focus more on intervals and tempo training and get slightly longer – 40 to 45 minutes instead of 30 minutes. I’m also going to add some plyometrics (speed specific exercises like hopping on one leg and jumping up on to boxes) to my training a bit later on to develop more explosive power. I still have to prepare for a half marathon coming up in July, so I’ll continue to add a Km a week to my weekly long run.

Fundamentally I’ve achieved my base training goals of losing weight/body fat and improving my running endurance, so now it’s time to get faster!

The Score:
Calories:
Protein:
Carbs:
Fat:
Alcohol:
Fibre:
2393.86g
126.60g
327.62g
64.18g
0
32.88g
21%
55%
24%

Calories burned through exercise:
480


What I ate:
Time
Item
Amount
07:15
Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate
1 each
Cold water
200mL
Mattesson's Turkey rashers
3 rashers
Sainsbury's Freefrom oats
50g
with Sultanas
20g
Sainsbury's Orange, Mango and Passionfruit juice
200mL
08:00
Black Tea
500mL
08:15
Walk to start of race - about 30 min.
09:00
Bushy Park Run - timed 5K run
09:45
Sponser Recovery Drink, strawberry-banana
60g
10:00
Strawberry lemonade Nuun electrolyte tablet in water
750mL
12:00
Whole Scrambled egg with 2 egg whites
3 eggs
Heinz Beanz, reduced sugar and salt
170g
Mushrooms
100g
in butter
5g
Raw Tomato
145g
Irish Yoghurts Diet Apricot and Nectarine
125g
Sainsbury's pressed apple and cherry juice
150mL
15:45
Gluten Free Red Velvet cupcake with vanilla icing
1 cake
Gluten Free Chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing
1 cake
San Pellegrino Aranciana
330mL
17:30
Lemon Tea Nuun electrolyte tablet in water
750mL
20:30
Sainsbury's Lean steak
140g
with butter
2g
Parsnips
104g
Carrots
80g
Beets
103g
all roasted and brushed with olive oil
7mL
Bisto Best beef gravy
about 5g
21:30
Lindt Excellence 70% cocoa dark chocolate
40g
22:00
Skim milk
200mL
500mg Glucosamine sulphate
1 pill

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.