October 2013 Summary

From a fitness and wellness perspective, October 2013 was a bit of a mixed bag.  I did a good job keeping up with my running routine in preparation for the marathon at the end of this year.  I didn’t keep up with my cross training at all.  That is actually a pretty bad thing.  While running does wonders for the cardiovascular system and does work some muscles, there are lots of other muscles that are important for running without injury that really should be worked out by doing other things.  I did get some cycling in, but I totally skipped out on yoga, swimming and/or strength training.  As I said this time last year when I finished my first half marathon, I’ll concentrate on that after the race.  I didn’t hold to it last year, perhaps I will this.

From a nutrition perspective it was a bit of a mixed bag as well.  I do plan to do a good deal of eating on the weekends, partly because I like eating a lot and weekends seem to be a good time to do that with friends or family and partly because that’s when I do my longest runs and I want the fuel afterward.  However I really bombed out on a couple of weekends, more than I originally planned.  There was also the week long vacation at Food and Wine that really put a dent in things.  I had planned on blowing it out at Food and Wine, so that was actually what I expected.  What I didn’t expect was my inability to control my hunger afterward.  That will end up showing up in November’s results however.  Nutrient-wise I was good on everything except Vitamin E, and even that just barely.    All the other micronutrients looked good.  I was bit carb heavy for my likings, and had a bit more average daily alcohol as well.  However that all had a lot to do with the week of binging at Food and Wine.

Although everything looked good from a numbers perspective, I’m not thrilled with the quality of food that I had over the month, food and wine excluded.  Too high a percentage of my calories were from essentially junk.  A full 7% came from beer and wine.  Another 3% each came from sushi and cheese (the sushi I don’t mind so much).  Another 2% each came from pizza crust, Nature Valley bars, my home made granola bars and ice cream and apple pie.  I wouldn’t mind if one or two of those on the list (minus the sushi) were there, but the fact that the top 25% of my calories came from junk food, and probably more that didn’t get enumerated, is not making me happy.  I know I can do better than that, and will on these food plans.