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.

Last month I got to experience the Disney World Food and Wine Festival for the first time in my life.  For those not familiar with the experience, Disney World has a park called EPCOT.  EPCOT’s origins are as a model of a future community structure which then morphed into a science and history educational theme park.  While much has changed on the technology side, the World Showcase, with it’s 1.2 mile long oval track of countries has remained mostly intact.  The premise of the Food and Wine festival is simple, Disney has about 30 host countries setup stations throughout the World Showcase where they can each exhibit two to three dishes, plus a handful of adult beverages.  I went there fully intending to gorge myself on food, both at the festival and at the various restaurants for dinner.  The end results aren’t exactly surprising, but I thought it would be good to put them out there to see exactly what a week of such eating looks like.

I’ve been meaning to start doing my body measurements monthly again, but I haven’t been able to get on the band wagon.  The last set of measurements I took was at the very end of August, so that would be September 2013.  It’s important to track at one month granularity since each of the diet phases is going to be only three months.  I therefore need to get cracking with being consistent at measuring at the beginning of each month.

Although I’m banging out lots of miles training for my first marathon, I also had a series of vacations with lots of indulgences.  The upshot of all that is that I packed on several pounds over the last two months.  It shows up in my percent body fat, my weight and my various measurements.  The weight is probably a little higher than it actually is since I ate a ton of sodium yesterday, but it’s not so off that it’s in the wrong direction or indicative of a trend.  I’m not interested in cutting weight, but I will say that I’m at the upper end of the scale/percent body fat where I still feel healthy.  My peak “this feels great” for me is between 14-16% body fat and about 173-180 pounds.  Too much lower than that and I am ravenous.  Too much more than that and I start feeling more sluggish.  Since I’m training for my first marathon I’m not interested in cutting calories to reach some theoretical ideal weight.  I’ll therefore address that after that is done, if I don’t just let it fall into some equilibrium status on its own during the experiment.