Getting Healthy During COVID

I among many, many others, find myself out of work during this unprecedented time. Prior to COVID, I had spent the past year in a new position. A promotion that I had been wanting for a very long time. An opportunity to do things the way I wanted when it came to team building and creating a culture of trust and collaboration.

However, I was not very healthy emotionally, and I had been drinking fairly heavily so that when the duties of this new role came into play, I had just one more reason to spiral deeper down that rabbit hole of negative, unhealthy reward.

Being furloughed by COVID after working 14+ hours days leading up to that confidence crushing event had me doubling down on my efforts to dull the depression.

I knew I needed a reboot, and I tried a few diets like low carb/keto to try and get me jump started. But to be honest, all of the cheese and very few of the vegetables that I normally ate (spinach, broccoli, mushrooms, etc) had me not feeling great and the results were non-existent.

Then I listed to "Finding Ultra" on Audible. It was one of the free downloads, otherwise I would not have listed to it. Audible starting offering all of their originals for free during COVID, and I had been taking advantage since I had so much time on my hands.

Rich Roll takes you through his struggles with alcohol, embrace of a vegan diet and ultimately to today where he is an ultra athlete. As I had already stopped eating red meat along time ago, ate very little chicken, I figured I could try and cut out the fish in my diet, replacing it with things I had dropped like nuts and carbs like brown rice and whole wheat pasta.

I had always been an on again off again runner, but I struggled to run in the heat. In "Finding ultra" Rich mentioned that when he first started training with his coach, he had to drop down to a very slow pace (heart rate below 140), and this struck a chord with me - go slow to go fast/far.  I began to enjoy the run (really at my pace slow jog) because I was not gaping for air. I started adding miles even during the oppressive Middle TN May/ June heat.

I am officially on day 12 of what I call vegetarian with no dairy. I do not eat meat,poultry or fish, but I do eat eggs. I do not eat any dairy of any kind. I feel really energized. I have been embracing whole foods and hings like kombucha, which I have never had. I document at the end what I ate the day before.

• PS - this is not a diet plan, and this is more a reflection of what I like to eat/the fact tat it is too hot to cook anything elaborate.
• PPS - I plan to weigh in at two weeks,

Meals June 6, 2020:

• Green smoothie with: avocado, NUTZZ mixed nuts nut butter, chia and hemp seeds, spinach, almond milk
• Two egg omelette, spinach, avocado, salsa
• Sprouted brown rice, red bell pepper, spinach, hemp seeds, walnuts, kimchi