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Time for the new challenge! Really, it’s ridiculous how excited I get about these things. I am going to start a 3-part challenge cycle, in part because I had such a good run with my “Predator” series at the beginning of the year, when I was prepping to go on my trip to the keys. It was a good mix of short- and long-term goals, and since I have three months to prep for my next big athletic event, it fits perfectly. The whole series will be organized around the concept of “taking control” of some of the areas of my life that just constantly go spinning off the rails. I need to get a firmer grip on some of the fundamentals; I sometimes agonize over stuff like should I be taking certain supplements, should I go gluten free, should I take up meditation, etc; I’m usually pondering these things while stuffing my face with nachos, so you can perhaps appreciate the irony. I need to go after the low-hanging fruit, before I stress about esoteric ingredients in my protein powder. Also I thought it would be fun to do a challenge that was filled with dominatrix memes. So for this first segment, I want to focus on my nutrition, which is the lowest-hanging fruit of all. l mean, I am terrible. I whipsaw between super-clean paleo eating and utter binge-o-rama, and it’s a testament to my love for my workout routine that I do not resemble the stay-puft marshmallow man. Which is not to say I’m not still 40 pounds overweight, but I live in a much healthier body than I did a couple of years ago. It deserves to be fed better, so I need to untangle my relationship with food. THE GUIDELINES: - Allow “natural” sweets back into my diet. This probably requires some explanation. I tend to cut ALL sweets - not just pastries and such but things like fruit and honey- out of my diet, and then I rebound by eating shit like frosting out of the can. Seriously. I wish I were making that up. So I am going to start eating more fruit, with my meals and as snacks, to see if it calms my sugar cravings down. - Unleash the carb hound. I already eat a ton of carbs, but in a very roller-coaster manner - almost no carbs some days, then way too much others. And not good ones. I’m about to start building my biking mileage up, and I need to feed the machine, so I’m setting my carb-o-meter at 200 grams a day - as in, I have to eat that much. It doesn’t all have to be from powerbars and croissants - wouldn’t that be great, though - but I have to hit that number. I may - I cannot believe I am saying this out loud - begin to eat noodles again, without guilt. I feel dirty just saying that. - No skipped meals or self-punishments with food I’ve played around with intermittent fasting, but it seems to make me more likely to binge-eat, and there’s a growing body of research that indicates women don’t respond to it as well as men, and that it can cause the body to hold on to fat, because it freaks out your hormones. I’m 47 years old and on the edge of menopause, so my hormones don’t need any help freaking out. No more skipped meals. Likewise, no sending myself to bed without dinner because I slipped up during the day. I’m not a child, refusing to eat their brussel sprouts. I’m a grown woman. Mistakes will be made. I will deal with it in an adult manner, and not cry and throw my toys. Meal Prep Standby of bodybuilders, overworked moms, and obsessive-compulsives everywhere. Just do it. THE PLAN: Set (repeated) Meals: I’m trying to eat smaller meals, more often, but the thing that always hangs me up with that is coming up with all these meals and counting the calories, macros, etc. I’m going to experiment with eating the same meal consistently for my first and second meal of the day, to see if taking the brain work out of it makes it easier. Especially for my first breakfast, I don’t care what I eat; I’m a fucking zombie in the morning and I spend the first hour stumbling around and bumping into walls, so it hardly matters what I stuff in my face as long as coffee is included. First meal: 8 AM Two hard boiled eggs, 1/4 sweet potato (roasted cubes; I do a big pan of these on Sunday). Coffee w cream. Calories: 306 (approx) Carbs: 15g Second Meal: 11 AM 3/4 cup chili (homemade; again, made on Sunday), plus fruit. Calories: about 400, depending on the fruit. Carbs: 25-ish, again depends on fruit Third Meal: 2 PM Light lunch. Chicken and vegetable combo of some sort - I cook a bunch of chicken breast or thighs for meal prep, so using that. Fruit. Calories: 400 Carbs: 25 OR A meal replacement of some sort (Kind bar, protein shake) I know that this sounds incredibly boring, and it likely will BE incredibly boring, but I’m hoping that by taking the “decision fatigue” out of the menu planning, I can be more consistently nutritious. Dinner can be free-form, as long as it’s not stuffed crust pizza or something. I’m very partial to yummy things made in the crockpot so I’ll use my culinary creativity points for that meal. Snack: 100 calories worth of protein/fat before bed. Probably a bit of ricotta cheese with fruit - I know that cottage cheese is the snack of bodybuilders everywhere, but it’s disgusting and I can’t make myself eat it. All my workouts will stay the same, except I'm starting to increase my bike mileage and I'm working up to 4 rounds of my circuit training (which I managed for the first time yesterday). Additional Challenge Thingy: I know everyone says you have to "win the morning" or "control your first 60 minutes" or whatever organizational shiz they want to phrase it as, and I just. Cannot. Do it. I am literally a mental defective until I have been awake for at least an hour. If I want to "hit the ground running" I have to get up at 4 am just to shake out the cobwebs. But it IS true that a more organized morning is better. So I am going to revive my "Evening Routine" concept that I used a few challenges back to make my morning less disastrous. All of these things need to be checked off the list before I call it a night. They don't all have to be DONE right before bed - I'm usually pretty wiped by the end of the day** - but just checked off gradually thru the afternoon. EVENING CHECKLIST: - prep coffee (I have an automatic coffeemaker that my be my most prized possesion. Getting up and the coffee is already made makes me feel like I have house elves.) - Feed birds (outdoor bird feeders) and fish (in tank) - 10-minute clean up, empty dishwasher, laundry away (I am the WORST at what a friend calls "leaving a trail"... discarded books, clothes, dishes everywhere) - put all electronics on to charge (I hate going to use my ipad and the battery's dead) - make next day's to-do list If I can do most of those things every night I can be productive much sooner the next day. (At least I think so...) GOALS: World domination. I mean, obviously. **possibly one of my future challenges should be finding out why I'm so tired all the time. Low iron? Thyroid? Rabies? Who knows. I'm kinda willing to bet it's just the 40lbs overweight thing, though.