First the two runs.
I ran 5K on Saturday at an even pace to complete in 28:50 min. Today (Monday) I ran 4.480 KM in 25:56 mins. Both runs were not as satisfactory. SOmehow I felt lazy to continue and kept/keep promising tomorrow will be better. Will have to guard against this tendency.
I am not a big believer in diets. I prefer the thought of a great mutton biryani motivating me than to make me feel guilty. That being said, over the past week, I have quit rice and potatoes...that staple of the Indian diet... certainly mine.
So back to the eternal debate - food as fuel or food as pleasure. I firmly place myself in the category of pleasure. The oilier the better, the more meat, the better, ....etc. I am a dedicated foodie. So, how does this diet "miracle" happen?
The month of Shravan considered one of the most auspicious in the Hindu calendar started on August 13th. Shravan is sort of like a Hindu Lent or a Ramazan where one relinquishes food/pleasures and/or fasts in hope of bettering oneself.
During this month, meat is proscribed. I have a more scientific belief: given that it rains heavily, there is a strong likelihood of meat going bad when no modern refrigeration was available. What better way to prevent upset stomachs, weakness and death than to ritualistically proscribe it?
I have never followed this removal of meat from my plate till 3 years ago when we started celebrating Ganapati at home. So strike one - no meat for a month.
While my timings have improved, I realize that I need to lose weight if I have to have any hopes at all of running a decent half marathon (time wise) in October. Something had to go.... in the spirit of self control and relinquishing, I decided it would be rice and potatoes. Strike two
The rice and potatoes experiment is only a week old. No carbs, no animal proteins....no weight loss yet. Am I grouchy yet? This is a question for the Most Wondrous.
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2 comments:
Hi Mahesh
Nice to see our running blogs - both yours and mine - are as much about food as about running!!!
But why stop rice and potatoes? I thought carbs help you run longer and better. Maybe if you want to switch from simple to complex carbs you can change to oats and nachni chapatattis and unpolished rice and sweet potatoes - they are supposed to be more efficient in their time release mechanism - i.e the rate at which they pump in glucose into your system.
But hey, I 'm an expert only in eating food, not in its nutritional content, so dont take my word for it!
Good luck with your running! Nice to read you will be here for the HDHM! If I'm still running it, maybe we can talk about food the entire way!!
The idea of stopping rice and potatoes comes from some old-wives aphorism about them being the cause of weight gain. Ergo no rice/potatoes ...no weight gain. Nothing scientific about this
We can certainly talk food all the way.
Cheers
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