I'm BACK!!

I was planning on posting at least weekly once my cleanse was over. That was 6 weeks ago.

I have found that there are very few blogs of VEGAN ATHLETES, so I am going to try to commit to keeping this blog alive.

So here is a brief update of how my life has gone over the last six weeks:

On February 21st the successful Quantum Wellness cleanse officially was complete. I reintroduced alcohol (once or twice per week), caffeine (with a mix of half decaf and half caff beans in the grinder), gluten (although continue to try to keep it to a minimum) and sugar (my downfall).

I continued to keep all meat out of my diet. As far as dairy and other animal products, I am keeping them out of my diet but not being too extreme about it. I will have bread that may contain some whey products or eggs, and when out to dinner I have had to choose some things that had dairy sauces.

The more I research and experience this lifestyle, the more I believe it is the best way for me. So now I am trying to take it to the next level. Get more extreme about keeping the animal products out, but even more importantly, get the sugar out, get all processed foods out, and work at getting to be consuming as HEALTHY a vegan diet as possible.

I will never be perfect. But my motto is NOT PERFECTION, BUT PROGRESS.

I have tried to use Thrive Diet and The Kind Diet as guides to, as The Kind Diet describes, Superhero diet. Lots of greens, grains, sea vegetables and other super foods.

I will try to regularly post the new foods I am trying, along with how my workout routine is going.

A little on the training. Boston marathon is less that 3 weeks away. I have received my bib number and the packet of info (so exciting). I had a little hamstring strain a little over a week ago, but did a 7 mile tempo run yesterday and all was well.
I have 6 miles easy today, and a 20 mile bike ride tonight and then on Friday a true test --> 22 mile long run. The weather is looking beautiful, almost too hot.

After that long run I am in taper mode. After Boston, with a week or so of recovery we then go straight into half ironman training. I REALLY want to get the weights back into my routine at that time.

Day 14-2 weeks done

workout: 1 hour 20 minutes of AeroBaseBuilder Spinervals workout with Coach Troy
After doing a 14 week bike trainer plan, and working my butt off on the bike, I can say that working out with Coach Troy has become much more managable for me. I used to be DEAD by the end of the workouts, and he would say something like, "this is our easy day" I felt like I could keep up with the Cadence and the gear ratios pretty well today.

nutrition:
bf: steel cut oats and the usual with V8 and one piece of gluten free bread w/ almond butter

snack: Larabar

lunch: 1/2 cup brown rice/roasted vegetables

bike ride: 2 scoops of Accelerade in water bottle

dinner: AMAZING! I used two recipes the The Conscious Cook and they both were soooo good.
The first I was a little scared of, but it turned out great--> Celery Root Soup
and the second was a Lemon Asparagus Risotto, I am not sure if the risotto is gluten free but the recipe looked good and I couldn't resist.

My whole family enjoyed both of them and I made some chicken breast for them also. Lots of leftovers so I will be eating them as the week goes on.



I spent three hours grocery shopping today. After reading parts of the Thrive Diet I made another trip to the local health food store Mustard Seed Market. I stocked up on Hemp protein, Hemp Oil, amaranth, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, roasted carob, pumkin seeds, Quinoa, and more.

I am going to make some more energy bars tomorrow, and my lunch salads for the week. I am excited to try out for greens in the salad some beet greens and Kale along with romaine and arugula. I will top them with chickpeas, beets, red pepper, cucumber and avocado.

I started reading some of The China Study today. I have warned my family that after I read this I may not be able to with a concsious buy them any animal products to consume anymore. I was only half kidding. The book really gives all the research that animal products are cause for many diseases.

I felt like I had plenty of energy for the bike today. And one other thing I noticed today is that I had no residual soreness from my run yesterday. Even going up or down stairs my quads and hamstrings didn't feel sore.

Some Teavana tea for the evening, watching the Olympics, the All-Star game and grading some Geometry tests.