help! my 1st masters practice

Sounds like you've got some great workouts going there. How do you journal? I don't know if you're aware of online journals, but there are a few really good ones. www.sparkpeople.com is probably the best free one. You can input your food, add custom foods, and see how you're eating (carbs/protein/fat). www.calorieking.com is a GREAT place for looking up foods that may not be on sparkpeople. They too have an awesome online journal, but you pay $12.00 a year or something. I belong to them. I also belong to www.weightwatchers.com (it worked to take it off, it's working to keep it off). www.fitday.com is really good, although slower. www.journaltosuccess.com is another good, but slow site. In all of them you can also journal your exercise so you can see input vs output. For journaling exercise and keeping an exercise blog, you can't go wrong with either: www.beginnertriathlete.com which is free and fast and has a specific swim component. or www.trainingpeaks.com which is also free, but is a little slower. (I'm all about the speed, except in my swimming. LOL) One nice thing about trainingpeaks is that if you plan a workout routine, it'll send you your next day's workout via email so you know in the evening what you're doing. I used it when training for my first marathon and first triathlon. There is a paid component to both of those. I pay for a bronze membership to beginnertriathlete, even though I don't necessarily need to. The blog is beefy as is. I just think that Ron puts so much effort into making this high quality tool available that he deserves the support. For the sweets thing...I have to have sweets. I could never eat another chip in my life and die a happy camper. But take away my sweets and you've got a raging woman on your hands! It is not pretty, trust me. I tend to do: -Quaker Chewy Granola bars (the lowfat ones) at 120 cals a pop. I do those before running because they sit well on my stomach. -Fiber muffins (I make these with 3 cups Fiber One cereal, 1 box of Krusteaz fat free muffin mix or fat free brownie mix, 2 cups water, 1 can pureed pumpkin (small can), and spices, and 1 tsp baking powder and maybe a little dried fruit...makes 24 small muffins at about 80 cals a pop). High in fiber and just enough chocolate or sweet to satisfy, but still make me feel like there isn't too much damage going on -Sugar sweetened cereal (personal pref would be Lucky Charms) in a one cup serving eaten dry as a snack. If portion control is an issue, buy the single serving boxes. -94% fat free popcorn with a packet or two of Splenda and some cinnamon sprinkled on it just out of the microwave (also great with a half packet of FF or SF hot cocoa mix, or 1/4 packet of SF cider mix and a packet or two of splenda) -All Bran Bars -1/2 cup Dreyer's Grand Light Ice Cream with fresh berries -Coffee with DaVinci sugar free syrup -FF Yogurt with 1/2 cup all bran or fiber one cereal I also try to pop a piece of gum in my mouth as soon as dinner is over so I'm not reaching for a sweet snack to get the taste of dinner out of my mouth, which is a habit of mine. Plus if it's minty gum, mint does NOT go well with so many other flavors so it's easier to get over that "want" of the sweet thing while my stomach signals my brain that I've already eaten enough. I'm not a good one to give advice on obsession because I fully recognize that I am obsessed with how I eat. I'm a numbers person. I want to know how much, what time, and what I have left. I decided right at the beginning to embrace my inner-type a statistic nut and go with it. It's working for me thus far. I just try not to obsess on my obsession so that I really only have two obsession o'du jour. Those would be what I eat, and my training.

Sounds like you've got some great workouts going there. How do you journal? I don't know if you're aware of online journals, but there are a few really good ones. www.sparkpeople.com is probably the best free one. You can input your food, add custom foods, and see how you're eating (carbs/protein/fat). www.calorieking.com is a GREAT place for looking up foods that may not be on sparkpeople. They too have an awesome online journal, but you pay $12.00 a year or something. I belong to them. I also belong to www.weightwatchers.com (it worked to take it off, it's working to keep it off). www.fitday.com is really good, although slower. www.journaltosuccess.com is another good, but slow site. In all of them you can also journal your exercise so you can see input vs output. For journaling exercise and keeping an exercise blog, you can't go wrong with either: www.beginnertriathlete.com which is free and fast and has a specific swim component. or www.trainingpeaks.com which is also free, but is a little slower. (I'm all about the speed, except in my swimming. LOL) One nice thing about trainingpeaks is that if you plan a workout routine, it'll send you your next day's workout via email so you know in the evening what you're doing. I used it when training for my first marathon and first triathlon. There is a paid component to both of those. I pay for a bronze membership to beginnertriathlete, even though I don't necessarily need to. The blog is beefy as is. I just think that Ron puts so much effort into making this high quality tool available that he deserves the support. For the sweets thing...I have to have sweets. I could never eat another chip in my life and die a happy camper. But take away my sweets and you've got a raging woman on your hands! It is not pretty, trust me. I tend to do: -Quaker Chewy Granola bars (the lowfat ones) at 120 cals a pop. I do those before running because they sit well on my stomach. -Fiber muffins (I make these with 3 cups Fiber One cereal, 1 box of Krusteaz fat free muffin mix or fat free brownie mix, 2 cups water, 1 can pureed pumpkin (small can), and spices, and 1 tsp baking powder and maybe a little dried fruit...makes 24 small muffins at about 80 cals a pop). High in fiber and just enough chocolate or sweet to satisfy, but still make me feel like there isn't too much damage going on -Sugar sweetened cereal (personal pref would be Lucky Charms) in a one cup serving eaten dry as a snack. If portion control is an issue, buy the single serving boxes. -94% fat free popcorn with a packet or two of Splenda and some cinnamon sprinkled on it just out of the microwave (also great with a half packet of FF or SF hot cocoa mix, or 1/4 packet of SF cider mix and a packet or two of splenda) -All Bran Bars -1/2 cup Dreyer's Grand Light Ice Cream with fresh berries -Coffee with DaVinci sugar free syrup -FF Yogurt with 1/2 cup all bran or fiber one cereal I also try to pop a piece of gum in my mouth as soon as dinner is over so I'm not reaching for a sweet snack to get the taste of dinner out of my mouth, which is a habit of mine. Plus if it's minty gum, mint does NOT go well with so many other flavors so it's easier to get over that "want" of the sweet thing while my stomach signals my brain that I've already eaten enough. I'm not a good one to give advice on obsession because I fully recognize that I am obsessed with how I eat. I'm a numbers person. I want to know how much, what time, and what I have left. I decided right at the beginning to embrace my inner-type a statistic nut and go with it. It's working for me thus far. I just try not to obsess on my obsession so that I really only have two obsession o'du jour. Those would be what I eat, and my training.