Weight: 225.4 (-5.8)
Fat: 34.0% (-5.3%)
Meals: Breakfast/Lunch, Fast 1 Start 7pm
Exercise: Cardio (Treadmill 29:00 WL4 - 320 calories, 1.89 miles)
Pictures: Front/Side/Back

Today's Update

Finally a pound drop. My weekly average is still a tenth of a pound higher than last week's average. Tomorrow will almost certainly be a drop and nudge that down, but even if it doesn't, I'm still at almost 2 pounds per week of weight loss which is on the high end of the range I was shooting for. Not bad at all.

Today is the start of my new IF plan. I've yet to buy a copy of Eat Stop Eat but I don't think it's required to start out. Instead it will provide me with more information on how it works and maybe give me some tips.

My fast technically began at 7pm and as of this writing it's almost 11pm. Actually my last meal was at 4pm, so I'll have a few extra hours in there. The reason I didn't just adjust the start time is because I wanted to commit to a consistent time. Part of the reason I value this fasting plan over the others is the flexibility so it seems odd to be rigid in that regard, but I figure it's better to start out rigid and relax the rules rather than start sloppy and try to tighten up.

Additionally, I avoided stuffing myself for my last meal. I did splurge a little bit by adding fries, but I didn't stuff myself silly or sneak in a protein bar before I started the timer. I am concerned long-term with preventing myself from piling on calories to offset the fasts, so I'm making an extra effort to not change my diet. Ideally I should be eating as if I weren't fasting on non-fast days. Unfortunately the last few weeks I've restricted my intake without trying so finding this balance isn't as easy as I'd hoped.

My hunger levels thus far have been very manageable. I'm hungrier now than any other point so far and it's nothing I can't handle. The biggest issue thus far has been wanting food without really being hungry. Amazing how many times I've thought about going to the kitchen for something to snack on. I'd stop when I realized "Oh yeah, I'm fasting", and that's when it hit me that I didn't feel hungry at all, but I wanted something to nibble on while I went about my business on the computer. Fasting definitely gives you an opportunity to examine your eating habits and what really motivates you to get something to eat.

Barefoot Running

The big news today isn't my fast though, but the fact that I finally gave barefoot running a try. It's something that I read about a few years back but never quite got around to trying. My renewed interest in running has inspired my sweetheart to get more active (and make her own changes to her eating patterns), and that's consisted in part of running barefoot on the treadmill. She's had serious issues in the past with shin splints and weak ankles, as in, she developed a stress fracture in her shin that prevented her from continuing with the boot camp that we started together. I'd given up ever getting her to run with me as a result. After seeing her not only get back on the treadmill, but actually do some running (I've only ever seen her walk), I knew there was something to the barefoot thing.

So today, as I was getting ready to work out I skipped the running shoes and got on the treadmill in my socks. I have to say I'm pretty shocked at the difference. Having read about barefoot running years ago, and seen relatively little interest, I suspected that it was perhaps an improvement but subject to personal taste. Running barefoot today though, I'm wondering why people would run any other way. I realize that there are temperature and sharp object dangers, but there are shoes available that mimic the bare foot instead of the traditional thick heeled shoe.

I'll probably do a post or two in the future about barefoot running once I learn more about it, but for now, this video does a superb job explaining the rationale:

Calf Soreness

Now then, my first impressions. My biggest concern with switching to this style of running was that my calves were going to take a beating. I knew from past research that they absorb much of the impact that the super padded heels of most shoes usually do. And my calves have always been a sore spot for me; I've spent more time stretching my calves than all my other muscles combined. And the past few weeks I've definitely developed some soreness in my upper calves, where they're thickest.

Running today, I only felt soreness in my lower calves right above my achilles tendon. Figuring that I'd just shifted the pain, I was shocked when the soreness started to subside quickly after my workout. In fact, maybe five or ten minutes after I was done running, the muscles and/or tendons had mostly recovered. Whereas my upper calves would still be at 80-90% soreness my lower calves were at maybe a 30%. And an hour after the workout it had disappeared completely. I can still feel soreness in my upper calves from previous day's workouts.

Knee

The last three days I'd noticed a little... I'm not sure what in my left knee. It wasn't really a pain or soreness, but I could tell that my knee wasn't entirely happy. That's not surprising when you consider the last time I did this much running I was a full one hundred pounds lighter. Knee problems are common in runners and I'd been contemplating how badly they would hurt before I stopped running and switched exercises. After all, injuring myself is going to have far worse consequences on my exercise program than switching to something less stressful.

Today, I never once felt the same sensation in my knee. There was no pain, pressure or wobble. I can't say for certain that this wouldn't have been absent if I had worn shoes today, but it does seem to have been consistent for the past three days, growing slightly worse. Or at the very least, more noticeable. The fact that it completely vanished today was both comforting and surprising.

Minor stuff

I did notice a few other things. The pad on my left foot definitely got rubbed a lot harder than anything else. I believe this could be due to a twist in my foot as I run. This might indicate a problem in my stride that I never noticed when running with shoes. I'll have to pay more attention next workout to see if I'm doing anything odd.

Also, my stride is noticeably shorter as I run, because I'm not stretching out with my foot to land on my heel. This means that instead of walking at 4.0 mph, I have to jog a little. This isn't a big deal and may actually be the difference in my upper calf muscles as they were more sore at this brisk walking speed than slower walking or jogging.

Overall, I spent too much time today worrying about landing on my forefoot instead of running naturally and letting my body adjust. I suppose this is just natural and as I adjust I won't think much about it. I wonder if this will lead to more heel strikes in the future.

Conclusion

I'm quite pleased with my first experience and I definitely intend to keep running this way. Thinking back, my track shoes never had a great big heel in them, but they were designed more with sprinters in mind (I loved them because they had vicious looking spikes that you could screw into sockets on the sole). I'm wary of making a sweeping statement regarding how this is the way everyone should run and running shoe makers should be lined up and shot, especially on the basis of a single person's one-day anecdotal evidence. But I can't imagine going back to running shoes at this point unless I start to develop other problems. I'll report back later to give you some more long-term impressions.