Going into Marathon Survival Mode

I have 27 days until my marathon. Did 20 miles on Saturday (by far the furthest I’ve ever run) and got through it, so I’m feeling optimistic. I’ve been dropping excess fat a little at a time for the last few weeks and just won a competition on WeightLossWars, so that was exciting.

A lot of what prompted my current discipline was just realizing that a lot of my running injuries are probably thanks to the extra weight I’m carrying, and that ditching the baggage will make running a whole lot more fun. I still have a hard time remembering long-term goals when faced with dessert, but I’m getting better about that.

With less than four weeks to go, I’d really like to do everything I can to go into my event as lean as possible. Four weeks isn’t very long, but it’s still an opportunity, and I have a plan. I’ll go into the specifics more tomorrow and Wednesday, but it’s based on what I’m learning from Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Body. It seems doable (for a month, and probably beyond if I get the kind of results he describes) and certainly worth a shot.

Beyond that, I’m just focusing on keeping up with my training schedule and not getting hurt.

I’ve spent most of the day today looking through The Best Light Recipe and finally have a meal plan.

In general, I’m only planning dinners, because there are usually leftovers to be had for other meals. There’s also other (relatively healthful) food around the house. Here’s what’s on the menu:

• Cream of Broccoli Soup and Jalepeño Poppers (that was tonight)
• Chicken Caesar Salad
• Black Bean Soup
• White Chicken Chili
• Scalloped Potatoes
• Tortilla Soup

I also bought ingredients for these dishes, to be used as needed for fillers:

• Oven Fries
• Quinoa Pilaf
• Fettuccine Alfredo

As you can tell, most of these actually sound really good and not like diet food, but they’ve all been lightened considerably and I don’t think any of them come to more than 500 calories per (reasonably sized) serving (and most of them are significantly less). If there are any standouts (the broccoli soup was not bad but not amazing, either), I’ll post them for your enjoyment.

This is ridiculous. I’ve been hovering at 170 pounds for way too long. I want to get to 140, and I’m tired of not making steady progress in that direction. I know what I need to do, but I haven’t done it. I think my best bet now is a plan, starting with my food.

It’s late and I need to sleep (another weight loss essential!) but my goal for tomorrow will be to create a meal plan for the next seven days and go buy what I need for it. And to keep me honest, I’ll post the meal plan here. (Somebody smack me if I don’t!)

The GoWear fit website is now the BodyMedia FIT website. BodyMedia is the company behind the bodybugg and the SenseWear, as well as the GoWear fit/BodyMedia FIT, so it makes sense that they’re tightening up their branding a little.

The change won’t require you to buy any new hardware; the GoWear FIT devices will automatically start using the new website, and your existing username and password will work there.

Speaking of the new website, they’ve significantly updated the look of the interface:

From a purely visual perspective, they’ve updated the graphics to a much more “web 2.0″ look: shiny, boldly colored boxes with rounded corners. They’ve also decluttered the dashboard quite a bit and made the actual data the focus. It looks nice.

The new look makes the site easier to use, and along those lines, it’s also faster. I haven’t dug in much yet, but I think they are relying less on Java, which slows down… well, almost everything.

The improvement I’m most eager to explore is the food logging. According to the BodyMedia announcement, they’ve added foods to the built-in database, made it possible to search by brand or category as well as food name, and improved the search in general. They’re also touting “flexibility,” which I’m guessing will become apparent as I use it, but certainly sounds like a good thing.

I understand there are improvements for PC users (it sounds like faster syncing, among others) but can’t tell you much more than that since I use Mac and Linux these days. I’m curious to hear PC users’ thoughts, though!

I’m also curious if the bodybugg site is similarly upgraded, or if this is a BodyMedia-specific thing. Any bodybugg users care to report?

The main differences between the bodybugg and the GoWear fit devices have been software-only: the GoWear fit tracks sleep and the bodybugg doesn’t, and until now, the bodybugg let you log your daily food consumption, and the GoWear fit did not.

Well, if you’re trying to decide which one to buy, the choice just got easier. The GoWear fit now supports daily food logging.

The logging tool is virtually identical to the bodybugg’s interface:

GoWear fit food logging interface

Throw in the sleep tracking and a lower price to boot, and the GoWear fit is now the obvious choice!