An Experiment

For the next month, while I'm waiting (not so patiently) for my hip to heal, I'm going to try an experiment. But first, let me explain the bigass gap in entries - I took some time off writing (and really shortened my training schedule) to finish my my masters. It needed to be done, and I'm happy because now I can focus on health, physical and spiritual. I sorely neglected these things over the past two years while I was finishing my MS.

So. The experiment. I thought of it after reading this article on obesity and my recent read of Scott Jurek's Eat and Run.  I have long thought that the popular thinking on obesity is at best flawed, and at worst a malicious form of oppression. Seriously. I know those are big words. But I digress. So some things of interest in the article that I want to experiment with include the idea of how trans-fat, alcohol and sugar affect metabolism and how controlling temperature and sleep affect the same.

For the next month, I'm going to keep my activity level about the same as it has been for past four months - three short-ish wogs each week, with a longer distance on Saturday. As I've noted here before, that didn't really affect my weight much. I'm going to tinker with what I eat.  Here's the plan for the next four weeks: no alcohol or trans fat. I will avoid as much refined sugar as I humanly can (which mostly means I'll pay attention to something I really haven't paid much attention to in the past). And I will eat vegan for two meals each day, allowing one lacto-ovo meal to appease my family. To the extent that I can control the temperature at home, I'll let it be natural. And I pledge to get at least 7 hours of sleep each night.

I will measure changes in weight, inches and blood pressure/resting pulse rate. I will also keep track of pace and how I feel when I wog towards running (that's the current focus, as much as my hip allows).

Based on what I find, I may make an appointment with the doc to do some blood work to get a more detailed read of what (if anything) changes and tack on another month.

Because why not? I'm in full-discovery mode, seeing what I can do with my body and letting curiosity drive. Whatever I discover really only applies to me, but I so want to know how much these things affect my health.

So here we go. Cheers to the next grand adventure!