[Occasionally6]

Originally Posted by Xist

Woah! Hey now! I said:

I ate enough to feel sick, but most of it was still left, and then I ran and threw up. That was five years ago. I hardly ever eat stuff like that and I try to keep the portions small.

Fair enough then, although we might have to define 'small'.

As for Gatorade and Kool-Aid, as I mentioned before, I was reserving that conversation for a trained medical professional who will actually listen to me.

But what in them are you not getting in your (sensible) diet? If you are really working hard, a properly formulated sports drink might be absorbed faster than water.

I am preparing for a PT test where I will be prohibited from utilizing an iPod.

But you can train with one. If you do so often enough the tracks will play in your head without the actual iPod.

I have considered that, but it is usually too warm when I run the first time.

So do what you can. Very few people will overtrain so do so as hard as you can manage.

My knees!

OK, so go slowly.

I live five blocks from the building where I have most of my classes. It is five stories and one of the highest in the area.

So, you'll have to climb up and down it a couple of times. To give you a target/benchmark, one of my recent climbs was: 37 flights of steps at 3.5m per flight, 82kg, 283 seconds, 368w. That's nothing special so you should be able to beat it.

As a Soldier, I can walk into the aid station, tell them that I have difficulty sleeping, and they will throw sleep aids at me. A friend started taking those years ago and she told me to absolutely not ever take them, but supposedly Zzzquil is magical and stuff. If I do not take it, I toss and turn all night. When I fall asleep, I wake up a short time afterward, and I am a wreck the next day. Instead, I use Zzzquil and my life is a wreck.

The thing is, you can be unconscious for the recommended 7-8 hours but what is the quality of your sleep like?

If you've been taking meds or had a disrupted body clock (maybe even PTSD?) it can take some time to reset into a proper rhythm when you come off it or go back to a proper routine. I worked shift work for a while and found it really did mess with my efficiency and clarity of thought. It took months to get back to normal when I stopped doing it.

If you don't want to cook breakfast (that's understandable) after a run, muesli (a good one, natural, without the usual sugar and flavouring or make it in bulk yourself and store it in a plastic container) and milk can't be any harder than opening bottle/packet of Slim Fast. It will be less expensive and better for you. Why not a piece of fruit like an apple or banana instead? Mix it up from day to day.

I find a log/diary of food intake, mood - including stress, motivation, run times - elapsed and time of day you ran, #'s of PU's, SU's etc. helps. Make it as detailed as you want. Maybe for you, include hours slept and sleep and wake times. Look for patterns in what happened when you exercised well or felt motivated.

Arragonis: There is sex and there is sex. Intimate contact and connection with another human being is good. Simple orgasm maybe less so. (The diary/log will help here too.)