Mindlessly clicking through link after link of holiday food recipes and posts, looking over my own backlog of things to try and simultaneously noticing that my own experiment begins in a little more than two weeks I found myself with what I remembered to be the typically claustrophobic experience of dieting.  Now I remember why in the long run  it never worked for me, and why it probably never worked for anyone else either.

History is replete with examples of food science industry giving us “better than nature” products for us to eat.  I’m sure I could scour Google for a long list or the definitive very first one, but the ones that pop up in my head almost immediately are Crisco and margarine.  These wonder foods to replace old fashioned bacon, lard and tallow were going to revolutionize the food world for the better.  While it certainly made products with unimaginable shelf lives and reduced the cost of production, it also introduced our society to the incredibly unhealthy world of transfats.  Now there is a “better than egg” egg product that is popping up in the news.  Should we embrace it with the same fervor we did Crisco and margarine, or learn the lessons from the past and look at it with some caution?

Anyone that reads the past posts knows that the one thing I struggled with the most in getting ready for this experiment was getting over my diet soda obsession: Coke and Sprite Zero to be exact. Going from 8-12 cans of that stuff a day (yes, a day) to none ever just seemed so daunting.  Fortunately in August I was tripped over the solution in the form of my week long trials for each of the diets.  I have been happy to report that from August 18th until last week I didn’t have a single diet soda of any kind.  Last week that record came to an end, but at least I have some lessons learned out of that too.

As time marches towards the beginning of the diet experiment, there are a few more recipes and eating styles I need to experiment with.  Since the first phase is the JJ Virgin elimination diet plan (to see if I have any food sensitivities) I wanted to make sure that I had what was going to prove to be the most controversial part of that down: the morning shake.  Most of the Virgin Diet meal plans are simply making whole food meals that eliminate the seven most common system irritants: soy, corn, gluten, dairy, artificial sweeteners, eggs and peanuts.  However making your own health shake is a big part of the morning suggestions.  I therefore tried it for the first time this morning.  I think with some modifications I may be able to actually like it rather than just tolerate it.

Well, I now get to strike one more item off my bucket list.  For many years the idea of running a marathon has always intrigued me.  When I started running as a means of fitness a few years ago I set that as a potential end goal.  With several aborted attempts at running a marathon in my history I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it, but by breaking it up into smaller goals (first a 10K, then a half then a full) over multiple years I was actually able to finally finish my first marathon.  What can I say besides how awesome it feels?  I could talk about how my legs still aren’t working well the next day, but I think a lot of that comes down to errors in my running and training strategies.

For many years I was like most people, where Christmas would surprise me by being in December and I wouldn’t have enough saved up to buy presents for people.  So I did what any other red blooded American would do.  I whipped out my credit card, blew it up and then paid it down over the next few months.  Holidays are a lot like that too but with calories rather than dollars.  Up until a couple years ago I was in the same boat as everyone else.  I’d gorge on holidays, blow up a few pounds and then go on a diet to lose the weight.  I’m now in a different mode of operating, which means that whether it’s good for me or not I actually plan my holiday feasts and save up for the occasion.

Since my mid-teens I’ve always had a steady diet of sodas, mostly diet from the college on, all of which had healthy doses of caffeine in them.  I’ve never been much of a coffee drinker, but just by the shear volume of soda, and periodically unsweetened tea, I managed to consume a good deal of caffeine each day for a period of years.  Because I like to continuously wet my whistle I may have my last sip of caffeinated soda literally minutes before bed time.  I swore it did nothing to me, while simultaneously reaching for it for my morning jolt of course.  Once you do without it for awhile however boy can I say that it was obviously doing something to my system.

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.