GOING GREEN (AND TRYING TO LEAN)

This past week has not seen my greatest "stay in shape" performances.  In fact, I really haven't done much of anything since I pulled something in my calf on my run about a week and a half ago.  I have, however, managed to drink wayyyy too much beer and eat wayyyy too much food.  This  has led me down the path of fitness destruction.  My get up and go is getting up and going somewhere else.  It is one of those cycles that I sometimes find myself in when I get injured and life is dealing out kicks to the balls.  Injury forces me to take it easy on workouts and when life doesn't co-operate I turn into a glutton.  Not cool at all.

On the plus side, this would have put me in a complete downward spiral in the past but over the past five years I have tried to let these things become lessons.  So after only a week of living like a sloth, I am making positive decisions.  These positive decisions come in the form of rules for myself.  My wife laughed when I told her yesterday that I was done eating poorly.  I had stated that it would be my last day (for a while) of eating like crap.  I was accused of being too black and white.  BUT that's the thing about me...I am black and white about some stuff.  I can't go into fitness and health related changes in a half-assed way.  It's just not how I am built.  Despite having spent a large portion of my life in a personal battle with "rules," I find that I need to give myself rules just to give me a better chance of success sticking to new goals.

Considering it has been a busy year so far, I actually haven't been doing that badly.  My running hasn't been as regular as I like and I have not been sticking to my workout routine but I have managed to drop a couple of pounds through some decent eating and giving up beer for a bit.  I don't want that momentum to stop...and it kind of did over the past week.  My diet and slug-like activity levels have left me feeling like garbage.  So today is the day that things change.

Of course running is always at the heart of everything and as soon as my leg feels good, I will be out patrolling the streets of suburbia but I need to set some other goals for myself to ensure that I feel good all of the time.

For Easter we got a Magic Bullet for making smoothies and such.  I broke it in today.

I always hear people talking about how great smoothies are for you so I decided to join the madness.

• apple
• almond milk
• carrots
• celery
• cucumber
• chia seeds
• sprouts

I made one for now and one for tomorrow morning so I don't wake up the house with blending at 6 in the morning.  Tomorrow evening I will branch out with some kale and fresh parsley.

MMMMM...it is really good and not too chunky at all.

Also on the diet note, I am putting some certain weaknesses on the no-fly list for a while...including nachos (and I made chilli for dinner tonight so this will be put to the test.)  I need to get back to the eating basics...you know, the fruits and the vegetables and not so much processed stuff.  I really don't know how the health nuts make this lifestyle look so easy but I am determined to find out.  I am sure most of the people I know look at my running habit as an odd activity to do for fun but, hey, different strokes.

I am also starting a new and somewhat easier workout commitment.  Push ups and yoga.  Push ups are easy and really take no time to fit into a day.

And they aren't hard to fit into cleaning up the kitchen either.  Gotta keep this body in shape...bikini season will soon be upon us.

Nothing feels better than getting good stretch in.  This is something that I truly do struggle with because I find it hard to find a 20-30 minute block of time throughout the day...especially if I have already put in an hour on the run.  However, this is about body maintenance and I am getting to old to recover quickly from injury.

So this is the plan to get green and lean.  The green drinks should be a healthier alternative to beer and nachos.  The push ups never hurt and the yoga is a great way to avoid the hurt.  Let's hope that the healthy momentum is even half as easy to maintain as my lazy momentum.

And the first green drink is done....delicious (not really) and healthy.