Hold the Whipped Cream

My New Pal
As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, I am now keeping track of what I eat. I'm hoping to lose 5 pounds, which will put me at my ideal weight & help decrease the size of the muffin-top that hangs over my lower-rise jeans... aren't all jeans lower-rise, these days?

A couple of you suggested FitDay as a tool to keep track of my food and calories. I checked it out but found it to be slow and had too many ads. I did some searching around and found another free food journal site called MyFitnessPal. So far, I like it. It's easy to use and there are lots of different types and brands of food in their database.

What?! I've Already Had That Many Calories?!

One thing I've noticed with my eating habits is that I eat a lot of calories for breakfast. I love breakfast! It is my second favorite meal... dessert being my all-time favorite meal. I consume too much cereal, too much creamer with my coffee, and too much chocolate in my milk.

Today was even worse in terms of morning calorie consumption. I went to Starbucks. That was mistake number one. I ordered a mocha... mistake number two. They put whipped cream on it, even though I told them not to... mistake number three (their mistake). I was in too much of a hurry to ask the Barrista to take the whipped cream off... plus, it IS yummy! That was mistake number four (my fault).

As if that didn't give me enough of a calorie boost-- I then ate two servings of my favorite cereal, Frosted Mini-Wheats. The cereal alone was about 300 calories, add 1% milk and the mocha to the meal and that gave me about 720 calories!! Yikes!

It's a little depressing. At the same time, it's good to see that my breakfast routine can get out of control and use up a large portion of my allotted calorie intake for the day. I need to be much more aware of what I eat and drink in the morning.

I ended up trying to cut way back on calories for the rest of the day but I got hungry by the evening.

20170
No, that's not the number of calories I consumed today. Close... but no. That just so happens to be my race number for the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon. I got my confirmation packet in the mail yesterday. Woo-hoo! So, 20170 is it. It's a good number and should look nice on my shirt on race day.

Assuming I get to wear it. My knee has been bothering me a tad since my 21 miles on Saturday. Nothing horrible, but a little worrisome for me when I think about how it might respond to running 26.2 miles less than three weeks from today.

Here is an example of my constantly changing thinking process:

-"Stepping up that curb hurt! Uh-oh... maybe I won't be better by the time of the marathon. And if I am, what if the running a marathon ruins my knee forever?!"

+"Hey, my leg feels pretty good now that I iced it. Should I wear the pink shirt or the blue one for the marathon?"

- "Darn cat. I wish he wouldn't run between my legs... having to dodge around him hurts. Hmmm... maybe I ought to pull out of this race."

+ "Wow! My knee didn't hurt when I had to put all my weight on it just to get my pants on. I can't wait for the marathon!"

And so on. It seems like I am changing my mind every couple hours regarding whether or not I should do the Rock 'n' Roll. I even dreamed about the marathon the other night. I was running it. But I was lost. And my husband was running with me. Strange.

Is this normal? Am I having pre-marathon jitters?

Comments

robison52 said…
Yup, pre-marathon jitters is pretty common, did I train enough, is that twinge on my right ankle serious, will my extra weight be torture? Everything get blown up out of proportion when you're stressed. The best thing is to resign yourself that you're human and relax. You're going to do well in the marathon, confidence is the key.

I recommend eating approximately 250-300 calories every three hours as recommended in Bill Phillip's book, "Body for Life." Keeping a food journal does help you know where your errors are.
Melanie Tait said…
Calories, schmalories... aren't they the worst?

I went to see my surgeon the other day and he told me I need to be eating 1200 calories a day. Man.

And today being the first day of my "detox"? ba-pow. I think the minute restrictions are places I become a mess.

That's just me though. You sound like you've got the right mind set Sara.

I can't believe you're going in a marathon with 20,000 people in it! That is too cool :)
joyRuN said…
I was much better this time at keeping marathon jitters at bay. I was going nuts last fall though :)
RunningLaur said…
Yep, sounds like normal pre-race thoughts to me. Almost marathon time - good luck!
Glenn Jones said…
Sara - you might also take a look at Sparkpeople (www.sparkpeople.com). I found it the easiest to use with the most complete food list.
Oh Starbucks how I LOVE thee so, but my a-- doesn't so I have to let you go...

LOL...good luck with the 5 pounds, the last 5 to get to my ideal weight took me 3 months, but once it was off...the jeans were awesome!!

I think everyone has pre-race jitters, I TOTALLY am and I don't have the added stress of the knee pain. My thoughts are "What if I get up that morning and have cramps? What if I wear the wrong thing and get too hot? Should I really be taking this much time away from my kids for my hobby?" On and on.

I think you should wear pink and run/walk if you need to. If for some reason your body does not respond there is nothing wrong with taking the 1/2 Marathon route on race day :)
Patrick said…
First, thanks for the link-- it is a great website!

Next time you go to starbucks order the Skinny latte's-- they are sugar free/fat free and VERy good. They have all sorts of sugarfree flavors-- and can steam fatfree milk to make it frothy and creamy.
Regular Latte's, frappucinos are LOADED with crap.

Glad to hear you got the packet for the big race-- but rest that knee!!! You don't want to push it too much and not be able to run at all do you?? (Know I sound like your parent:)
tfh said…
Oh, you know what gives it away as pre-race jitters to me? The darn cat thought! I definitely had thoughts like that about little things that would turn out to be irrelevent to my marathon.
Unknown said…
It's crazy how little things add up to so many calories! Things that we don't even really think about- it's nuts sometimes. -e
Irene said…
I bought my Fitday, so there's no ads and comes up fast. I'll have to check out MyFitnessPal. I'm glad you've found something that will work for you. :) I try to eat about 5 or 6 small meals a day, keeping them around the 200 to 300 calorie range, that way I'm not as hungry in the evening. I also metabolize my food better. You'll figure out what works best for you after you've been tracking a while.

I always get excited when we get the race numbers in the mail. It's just like Christmas! LOL... I'm 14456! I hope we can meet, perhaps at the expo? We'll see how it goes.

Yes, pre-marathon jitters are normal. I'm having major ones right now, too. Take it easy over the next couple of weeks -- you'll be fine. Come race day, keep in mind not to go out too fast... It's really easy to do, especially with the party atmosphere. I need to remind myself to do the same.

(I'm soooo excited!)
Unknown said…
Don't be depressed about your calorie consumption the other day - be happy that you found out where you are loading up calories and didn't realize it. Easy place to fix. :-)
Aka Alice said…
I'm so excited for you...pre-marathon jitters, I'm almost jealous!...As lots others have said, they are completely normal. Getting the bib is a big deal (Isn't it the most enormous bib you've ever seen BTW?)
RunnerDude said…
Hey! Thanks for the MyFitnessPal suggestions. Good site. Yep, you've got the prerace jitters. Perfectly normal. Just breathe and trust in your training. You'll do great!!!

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