A week ago, I reported that I’d finally managed to do the prescribed two rounds of jog 10/walk 5 in a row for a total of 30 minutes of activity. That was on a Wednesday. I did it again on Friday and on Monday. Not bad considering it wasn’t that long ago that I struggled to jog for 5 minutes.
But the news isn’t all good. The one thing I continue to struggle with is making sure I am sufficiently fed and hydrated before my sessions. I need to make a conscious effort to drink enough water on a daily basis. And I need to figure out if I need to eat extra carbs before going to bed (that can’t be good for my weight loss efforts), get up extra early, like 5:00 AM, to eat something (Power Bar), or just forgo food until after the run. I’m leaning toward the latter. Because both Monday and today I ended up with really bad abdominal cramps.
On a positive note… I jogged for 15 minutes straight this morning, covering just about 1.25 miles. I walked for 5 minutes like I am supposed to then started to jog again. I was only 5 minutes into the second run when the cramps hit.
They were really bad on Monday, so today I stopped jogging immediately and started walking toward home. I knew if the pain intensified like it had on Monday, I would’ve never made it home.
Once I did make it home, I recovered fairly quickly. I’m pretty sure it was eating less than an hour before the exercise that did it because my body has never handled the combination of food and heat very well. So, tomorrow, I won’t eat right before going out and will see what happens.
One thing I forgot to mention, I can’t put off training until later in the day because it gets too darn hot. When I run at 7:00, temps are at about the mid 60s. By 9:00 over the last couple of days, it’s been around 80, sunny and humid. It doesn’t cool down until well after nightfall, so doing it in the evenings isn’t an option either.
Wish me luck figuring this fuel thing out.
Good job, but not good about the cramps. Just a suggesion, maybe should post on the internet asking suggestion about the eating part what one should do. Another suggestion go to a gym where they have an inside track where it is cooler. Sounds like to me the cramps might be a heat related problem, Have you checked with your doctor about doing all this exercise.
Mom
First of all, HUGE congrats on the 15 minutes of straight jogging. That is awesome!
Now about that eating. There is one school of thought that says that you shouldn't eat before doing cardio because your body will burn fat right away (rather than the calories from that food you just ate). I would def try that if I were you, especially since you're trying to lose weight anyway. Otherwise, eat something light yet full of protein (handful of almonds, peanut butter toast, hard boiled egg, power bar) AT LEAST one hour before you train.
And now I'll stop before I go into longest-comment-ever territory :-), especially since this is just my opinion based on my experience. But we can talk more later. TTT woo!