This post is / was written throughout the day (Saturday, Feb. 26).Â
Today is Saturday…Date Night…every Saturday…for well over a decade now…14th Anniversary coming up on March 1st…so longer than that…is it still searingly romantic?…not always…sometimes though…other times, it’s just time to catch up…although we ‘see’ each other every day, and have dinner together almost every night…somehow blocking out Saturday night for a Date Night still makes it special
…so what does Saturday Date Night mean?…it means that we literally, hardly ever go out with other folks on a Saturday night…ever…the odd special occasion dictates an adjustment, but that ends up only a few times a year…so like that 🙂
So we’ll be out to a nice, but ‘normal’, non-vegan restaurant…one of our local favorite Italian restaurants…and perhaps still have my once a week martini…be interesting to see how they do with my ‘vegan’ request in the reservation.
For those just looking for the final numbers, in a PDF format:
click here for the details of vegan day 6_110226
Exercise today continues to ramp up…about 90 minutes on the bike today, with a 75 minute main set with warmup and cool down, so I’ll have a few extra calories in the budget…about 2,900 total for today…the profile though will be a bit different today, with a carbohydrate emphasis before, during and after exercise to fuel it appropriately…with a target of 10% protein ideally…and then I’ll need to pick up the protein in a mid-afternoon snack before dinner out.
…this week total exercise time will be just over 8 hours, so not wimpy for the Out Season…although that would be a ‘recovery’ week in season…just not the intensity that I would be at if I didn’t get side-tracked with that lingering sore throat/cold/cough thing…I still don’t think I’m 100%, so staying conservative.
This week, as I’ve felt better, back on my original exercise schedule…following the guidelines that I’d noted in an earlier post…I’m doing the time, just not the intensity:
https://irondaughterirondad.com/what-happens-if-a-planned-workout-isnt-happening/
This past week, re-testing on the bike and run were on the schedule, so I skipped that…too intense for a come back week…bit of a bummer…my goal is to catch up to my original schedule over the next 4 weeks by doing the original time in each posted workout, and have the intensity back to where it should be by the last week in March…I’ll bring the bike intensity up more rapidly over the next 2 weeks..and then the run…and get in some swimming over the next few weeks…I have a week of vacation planned the 3rd week in March that will be run and swim centric.
https://irondaughterirondad.com/2011-season-outline/
So still on track for the season, although I haven’t gotten in the amount of speed work that I would have liked during the past 4 weeks, and definitely not the amount of exercise in the past 2 weeks since the convention, so probably won’t get to the gains that I would have liked in the Out Season…although pushing the bike a bit 2 days ago was very promising…my heart rate was close to where it was a month ago with 200+ watts (Zone 3) of power in the 2 x 15 minute intervals…promising…although the muscles need to be brought back without tweaking something…bike will be about 70 miles for the week, so not too bad.
My biggest unknown now is the hamstring issue…I’m _really_ hoping that it doesn’t act up again, so find myself really babying the run workouts…so I’ll need to bring the speed back online to see how things are…I’ll be at about 11 miles running plus a few miles walking for this week, so distance a bit light, but not bad.
Remaining intact, I’ll re-test the bike and run the week of April 4th, and then switch to my training focus for the Vancouver Half Iron on July 3rd…onward ho!
Turns out the bike ride was very good…indoor trainer on the tri bike…warmup, 3×3 minutes Zone 3, 2×12 minutes Zone 3, 1×6 minutes Zone 4…yeah!, 1×10 minutes Zone 3, 1×10 minutes Zone 2, cool down…good!…95 minutes total, 948 calories on the Powertap…numbers all looked good…inadvertent non-vegan element however due to dairy ingredient down the list: PowerBar brand bar…the brand supplied on the Ironman course…who knew…it appears that the PowerBar gel is vegan, although “made on equipment that also processes milk and soy”…so much for vegan perfection.
…with my after exercise meal, sitting at 1,435 calories and 39.5 grams of protein (10%) at 1pm…good…I’ll have an afternoon snack to kick up the protein before dinner…in very good shape on the calories now for the day.
…added the seitan snack with a couple of pieces of Ezekiel bread…a few nuts and dried fruit mix in there as well, for a snack total of 410 calorie and 28 grams of protein (28%)…the seitan is a BIG protein hit…110 calories, 19 grams of protein…could have skipped the mix thing…140 calories, 3 grams of protein.
so by 4pm, and the same heading out for dinner at 5:45pm:
- 1,845 calories, 67.5 grams of protein (14%) Vegan Day 6
- 1,456 calories, 55.8 grams of protein (15%) Vegan Day 5
- 1,412 calories, 58.3 grams of protein (16%) Vegan Day 4
- 1,290 calories, 54.9 grams of protein (16%) Vegan Day 3
- 1,168 calories, 42.4 grams of protein (14%) Vegan Day 2
- 1,272 calories, 38.3 grams of protein (11%) Vegan Day 1
…the protein percentage is likely to go down from here, so we’ll see how it shakes out…as I noted yesterday, unless the restaurant has seitan, tofu or tempeh…not likely…the _maximum_ that the ‘elements’ will have will be 15%…probably closer to 10%
Mainstream Restaurant Update…great dinner…here’s what they did for our vegan request:
- white italian bread with white beans in olive oil
- Appetizer: fried ravioli stuffed with seasonal vegetables
- Salad: organic greens with roasted pears, walnuts…oriignally came out with crispy pancetta (Italian bacon)…but quickly adjusted when the server saw it…looked good though for that brief moment
- Dinner: linguine with a tomato sauce
- Vodka martini with olives, and a couple of glasses of wine
…felt good at the end, not stuffed…best estimate for dinner and drinks is 1,110 calories…328 from alcohol…always a diet killer…if I was on a ‘diet’ …and 28.5 grams of protein (10%)…so right where I thought that it would be.
Total for the day:
- 2,955 calories and 96 grams of protein (13%)…good news that I got in 948 exercise calories
- total fat for the day also ended up low at 15% overall…should be closer to 20%…should have more olive oil, but didn’t want to run over on calories
The one thing that has jumped out this week is the lack of dessert…we would ‘normally’ share a dessert…or more…but since ‘fun’Â vegan desserts don’t exist in restaurants…other than a sorbet, or equivalent…we’ve saved a lot of calories there…and since I’ve been topped out in calories in the quest for protein each day, the Amy’s vegan chocolate cake that we’ve had in the fridge has gone untouched all week.
Thoughts for the day
By Day 6 now, I feel that I have a pretty good handle on a vegan diet, and what it takes to get to the nutritional numbers in line…and do see that it takes specific planning during the day, and anticipation…like the seitan protein hit that I worked in before going out for dinner, knowing that the protein for dinner was going to be on the low side.
I’ve looked at, but not posted yet on some of the more micro elements, of amino acids, and other ‘stuff’, but I’ll leave that more for summary…getting the broad picture of fat/carbs/protein in line first, then fine tuning the more detailed nutrient elements.
With more experience, some of the things that I’m thinking about every day, would presumably just become eating habits…although like all diets…nothing like logging ‘everything’ every day to take a hard look at your diet elements…whenever I do it, it’s always an eye-opener and reminder of where things have gone off track.
Aside from the vegan elements, just by tracking my diet this week, I’m reminded of a couple of things:
- desserts should be eliminated on most dinners…particularly at home, and definitely on low exercise days
- alcohol is empty calories…since I was logging it all this week, I was _really_ watching it…a few extra glasses of wine in there would have really kicked up the calories…note to self
and Saturday Night Dates…always a good idea 🙂