entering the ZONE!

Yesterday was Halloween. Guess what I was dressed up as. Seriously, guess! Come on. Guess! Ha ha! photos to come later. For now, let's talk business...

After a long exhaustive talk with Eric, my trainer extraordinaire, two weeks of not working out (I tried to workout in Vegas, but you had to pay for gym usage in the hotel. Boo!), and months of giving this some serious thought, I decided to zone out for the next three months. Today is my first day and I’m kind of warming up to it. Sundays are cheat days, so tomorrow is technically a cheat day, which makes me laugh. Anyway….

I went grocery shopping and have a clear idea of my menu this week. I just have to be disciplined. If you’re curious about what the zone diet is, check out the following links:

Official Zone Site
Zone for CrossFitters
(Note: You can download this to your computer!)
Zoneful Thinking (It has a calculator to help you figure out how many blocks you need given your weight, body fat percentage and activity level)
CrossFit Journal about the Zone (More stuff you can download)

This is going to be really challenging and if you’re tired of my upcoming zone blogs, apologies. This is a tough time of year for me to start a new eating program. It’s just that I really need to get serious about my health and doing this “bootcamp” of sorts is, in my book, the way to do it. I know the holidays are coming up and healthy eating isn’t easy. But balls to the wall, J-Ro! You’re gonna do it!

And what’s the game plan? To follow the zone plan as best as possible. The block calculator states that I need to eat 14-15 blocks (which is high to me, so I’m going to focus on 14 blocks) per day and eat around 6 times per day. My blocks will look like this: 4/1/4/1/3/1. But I’m thinking of making it: 3/2/3/2/3/1. I’m keeping a strict food journal where I list the time I ate, what I ate, and the number of blocks. I also get one cheat day per week, which will make holiday eating more manageable.

Because I’m zoning, CrossFitting, and am trying to manage diabetes, here are some extra things I need to do (mostly per Eric):

Oh those omega-3s: Take 10 fish pills in the morning and before I go to bed. Yeah. 20 total. This is so I can have a good amount of omega-3, which are beneficial in countless ways.

Pre-workout: Have a protein shake that has 10g of glutamine and a vitamin C supplement (my supplement of choice is Emergen-C)

Post-workout: Have a protein shake with 10g of glutamine, surge powder and protein, with a vitamin C supplement. I’m not sure about the surge powder. I know I need the carbs, but as a diabetic, I fear it may be a little high. I’m going to start off with the protein powder I have now and hold off on the surge until next month.

I need to keep tabs of the diabetes meds I have to take. I also need to cook and pack my food more diligently, which I know I can do. When I was firsts diagnosed with diabetes, I lost 20 pounds pretty quickly because I packed my food. I just need to go back to that.

Some minor changes to the blog: Since I'm trying to commit to zoning out, you might see some new zone info. I'll also be taking a lot of mundane photos of my meals and such. This isn't meant to bore you. Instead, I'm trying to be informative in case you're considering zoning out too.

Wish me luck and if any of you want to zone out with me, let me know! I’d love to play and could use a cheerleader (but leave the pom-poms at home please)!