Breaking the fast with a run

This morning following a fasting day I knew I couldn't wait a long time before going for a planned morning run, and when I saw rain was predicted by TWC within 30 minutes, I took off around 6:45.  The first couple of miles were tough.  I was going to work intervals into the run, but that plan quickly passed when it took all my strength just to go for an aerobic run.

The most crazy thing happened after a few miles.  I noticed I was feeling pretty good.  I had been lost in thought (in the runner's zone) and when I came to around Jefferson Middle School, the run felt a lot better than when I first began.  It is amazing what the body can do.  Something activated in my body to make running a whole lot better, and I'm very thankful for whatever happened!

I focused on having a breakfast following the run with low Glycemic load foods.  Beans, milk, oats (medium Glycemic load), nuts and nut butters, and lots of veggies.  The ripe banana I had is a notable exception with a high Glycemic load.  I definitely feel more satisfied through the morning, and am not eating everything in the house like I do following a run normally.

Trina and I still like the alternate-day diet a great deal.  It fits our lifestyle well, and it is meeting our health goals so far.  Fasting is definitely tough, and the discipline it requires appeals to me.  Life should have hard times to help make me grateful for the good times.  

I need to make a soup this afternoon.  I will make a soup with some mackerel and lentils, and also a pure veggie soup, also.  This will provide meals for the next several fasting days, and some feasting days since it tastes good!

Glycemic Load and Glycemic Index may be important

Trina bought a book years ago on the P.A.C.E. workout.  I had skimmed it before, and never used it.  We watched a another great BBC show on exercise recently called "The Truth About Exercise".  Trina mentioned that the high intensity interval training (HIIT) concepts that researchers talked about working well in that show are similar to P.A.C.E concepts written by Dr. Sears.  I decided to get that book out and give it a browse/read yesterday.  I'm definitely convinced now that HIIT needs to be part of my fitness training.  P.A.C.E. has some great ideas on how to implement and keep fitness fresh using different intervals and calisthenics.  I think it will work nicely with the Alternate-Day Diet. 

Dr. Sears writes a chapter or two on nutrition, and likes the combination of low Glycemic Index (GI below 40) and low Glycemic Load ( GL below 10).  As Dr. Sears explains, Glycemic Index tells how fast a food will spike your blood sugar, and Glycemic Load goes a step further to say how much carbohydrate is in the food.  The book has a great table listing GI and GL values of different foods.  Foods that fall into these categories are most veggies, meat, nuts, most legumes, dairy, eggs (he calls the perfect protein source), and some fruit.

The low Glycemic Load and low Glycemic Index concept I believe complement the Alternate-Day Diet well.  I believe that I do better on fasting days when I have foods that are lower in Glycemic Load and Glycemic Index.  I will be focusing on this more in the weeks ahead to test if these ideas work as well together as I think they will.

On a separate subject, I weighed in this morning per Dr. Johnson's recommendation of the morning after a fasting day once per week, and lost a pound to 189 pounds.  I believe the body fat reading was 14.2%, which is down from 14.5%.  More importantly since weight loss is not a goal is that I feel pretty good on the diet.  My energy levels seem to be up, and some lingering aches seem to be improving.  Trina is happy, too.  We continue on with another fast day tomorrow.  

Good feast day, not much delay for breakfast

It is amazing to me how much energy was coming from my meals yesterday.  I tried waiting until lunch for my first meal on the feast day, but that wasn't happening.  After a few hours of liquids not cutting it, I decided to break my fast by going running before having breakfast.  I am wondering if my ability to fast through breakfast following a feast day is different than following a fast day?  I realized after pondering a bit that I have read that breakfast is a requirement following the 36 hour fast, so I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised by needing breakfast yesterday.  It is fun to experiment and see what works and what doesn't work.

The run was great.  I felt light and fast.  Breakfast following the run was awesome!  I tried upping my oatmeal from 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup to help fill the void, which worked well.  I used Equal to sweeten the oatmeal, and it was really good.  I had a banana in oatmeal with Splenda, and was pleasantly surprised it was really good.  I used to not like artificial sweeteners, and I'm glad to find that has changed.  Last night, I had a packet of Crystal Light Raspberry Lemonade in a bottled water that was really good.  The sugar-free sweetener substitutes are a God send on fasting days.

I ate a late lunch around 2:00 that was awesome and gave an incredible amount of energy.  I did strength training afterwards that was surprisingly good.  Our family went to an event with friends from church last night that was potluck and ate lots of good food.  Didn't even try recording food in myfitnesspal.com as it would be a large effort to record the assortment of foods I tried.  It was a great way to end a feast day.

I'm ready to begin a fast day.  More learning about myself coming up!