The Texas “winter” has been very mild and hardly stays cold for more than 2 days; this is really confusing and makes me wonder when/if the cold will hit. I’m just fine with skipping winter and moving along to Spring, but it will probably get crappy around the same time we have the Cowtown Half Marathon at the end of February.
Speaking of the half marathon, my running has become infrequent as I am trying to focus more on gaining some strength. So, I’ll just have to depend on the few runs (one 45+ min along with some short, high intensity runs) and the base I have from running for several years now. No worries, I have no goal for this race, just finish the thing. For gaining strength, the common procedure is to consume more calories than you expend in order to provide for growing muscles. This is not easy for me as I pay attention to every food I eat, and don’t choose a lot of high calorie packaged foods that would make it easy. It is a lot of prep work, but hopefully I will report back with some gains in the near future.
My current workout routine is a 4 day Upper/Lower body split where I do upper body on Monday and Thursday, and lower body on Tuesday and Friday. Wednesday is a rest day, but this is when I usually work in a longer run. The weekends are in the air to do nothing or something that won’t hamper workouts for the following week. Now that I have a standing desk at work, lower body days can be tough, but after warming up I’m just fine.
I have been incorporating a lot of Greek yogurt and mixed nuts to help raise the calorie intake using wholesome foods, but feel I am not using enough still. I’ll keep working on this and update when I feel it is necessary.
Not much to contribute on the food front today, but I wanted to mention how funny/annoying it is to see the new year weight loss commercials mixed with fast food chains heavily promoting their “Big Boy Burgers” (see below for a funny pic I felt like sharing) at the same time. These industries are a big business and can only benefit from consumer confusion. So, try not to take information from these self-promoting businesses too seriously; even if they say it’s good for you…it’s only good for their bottom line. Anyway, pills or extreme diets are and always will be a short term solution; you have to educate yourself on a healthy lifestyle that you can enjoy to make something last.
Go read a few articles from reputable sources and find wholesome foods you can enjoy and work into your diet along with an exercise plan you can keep. Remember, just walking for 30 minutes is more than nothing; the main goal is to keep your heart elevated and working for 30+ minutes almost every day.
A healthy lifestyle is not that hard, and pays huge dividends in the years to come. Quality family time and less doctor visits come to mind.
What (if anything) are you doing or plan on doing for a healthy lifestyle?
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