Here I am, already three weeks into Tri and Tri.  I should mention that this doesn’t imply that I have been training for only three weeks.  I have been trying to keep decently active for the past three years; doing anything I could to stay moving.  I've played on multiple soccer leagues, both social and competitive, flag football teams and lots of time spent in the gym.  I have been specifically Tri training for about four months now with the past two being much more intensive.  If I have learned anything, there is something completely different between playing sports like soccer and training to go in a relatively straight line for very long distances.  I don’t want this to sound like I am down playing triathlon; in fact it is the complete opposite.

Lunch is another one of those pivotal meals in the day.  It is important to eat right in order to keep yourself on track in your nutritional goals.  Personally, this is meal is one that gives me the most difficulties.  Typically I am at work, in a high-stress environment which is bad in-and-of itself.  Furthermore, because time is so pressed, a lot of my lunch is spent in meetings that have "catered" food service.  Not good... Restaurants have a great way of making things sound healthy, even though they are comprised of 80% of your daily caloric intake.  Yes, even salads!  Below is one of my favorite "salads" for that lunch hour or minute.

The leaves are changing and the workouts are slowly moving inside. There is something about fall in the Northeast that just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.  The crisp and clean air, the light jackets, the falling leaves, football... I just can't help but smile.  A ritual that my family shared when we were growing up was football Sunday and Chili.  My mother is an avid football fan and it definitely trickled down to us.  So, as you can imagine, a nice chili is the best way I can welcome the fall.  That being said, I am pretty useless in the kitchen.  I am incredibly lucky because I have a fiancée who I know loves me because she allows me to eat her delicious chili.  Below is the recipe straight from her:

Breakfast. In my personal opinion, it's incredibly important, not to mention delicious!  You will read this everywhere.  Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  It is important to break the "fasting" that you have been putting your body through all night while sleeping.  This fasting puts your body into an elevated state of stress saying"hang on to all the calories we got because we may starve at some point in the future!"  This response was incredibly important evolutionarily.  When you think of our ancient ancestors, it wasn't absurd to think that they would go into long periods of starvation between hearty meals. 

Let me set the stage for you here... A crisp fall morning in mid-October.  The sun has yet to rise over the beautiful Manhattan skyline.  The night is dark, the streets gently lit by the slight orange tinge of street lamps and the odd passing taxi cab.  One of the few moments the city that never sleeps quiets to a dull roar.  Cut to my apartment, where I am swearing profusely at my alarm clock (in my head of course) while my dog and fiancée pretend to still be asleep.  This morning is another round of the dreaded interval sprints before I head off to work.  My fiancée has opted for a more reasonable later morning workout that she will likely curse between meetings.